28 October 2004 @ 8:37PM >> To all the Red Sox fans, congratulations. I remember how good the Yankees victory felt in 1996 after being deprived since I started watching religiously in 1981. I can only imagine this is even sweeter for you given the history of the Sox. Enjoy.

(Although, as a Yanks fan, I’m not so sure how I feel about the Red Sox winning the World Series on my birthday. I’ll try not to take it personally.)

28 October 2004 >> The choice we have on election day is between the worldview of September 10th—embodied by John Kerry—and President Bush’s September 12th worldview. More >>

26 October 2004 @ 3:26PM >> On election night, I will be appearing as a panelist on “It’s Your Call with Lynn Doyle,” a political talk show carried on all Comcast cable networks throughout the northeast. The show runs on Comcast’s CN8 network (Channel 8), available on the East Coast from Maine to Maryland.

I’ve appeared on the show twice before (to discuss Bill Clinton’s book and Fahrenheit 9/11) and it was a lot of fun both times. Here’s hoping the news on Election Night leaves me in a jovial mood for my third appearance.

22 October 2004 @ 4:23AM >> As a Yankees fan, few things provide greater satisfaction than beating the Boston Red Sox in the playoffs. There is simply no greater rivalry in sports, period. And when the Yanks won the first three games against the Red Sox, another trip to the World Series seemed inevitable. Never in the history of baseball had a team bounced back from a 3-0 deficit in the playoffs. The Red Sox making a comeback like that—especially against the Yankees—is precisely the sort of thing that the Curse of the Bambino is meant to prevent.

The last time the Boston Red Sox won the World Series was 1918. Back then, the Yankees hadn’t even won one. The Red Sox were the Yankees of that era... until, that is, they traded Babe Ruth—the Bambino—to New York. This set up the fabled Curse, and during the 86 years since the last Red Sox championship, the Yankees have won 26.

If you know any Red Sox fans, you probably recognize that their whole identity stems from the continual pain and misfortune of their chosen team. It’s what binds them together. It’s the source of their pride as a beaten-down people who never give up hope. Bad luck has plagued them on the brink of victory so many times that it seems cliche to recount them: Bucky Dent’s home run in 1978; Bill Buckner’s biffed ball in 1986; Aaron Boone’s game-ending home run last year.

All these incidents prove The Curse: the Boston Red Sox are not meant to win the World Series.

But this year, maybe The Curse is dead. All the momentum is with the Red Sox. Anything less than a World Series victory—after such a stunning comeback—would be a great disappointment. But what if the Sox win? What if the constant denial of their ultimate victory—the very thing that gives those fans their exalted status as a persecuted minority—suddenly wasn’t there? What if, five years from now, the Red Sox were just another team that recently won a World Series, like the Florida Marlins or the Arizona Diamondbacks?

There would be nothing that makes the Sox special anymore. Might as well tear down Fenway Park, move to the ‘burbs and play in some modern megadome stadium with astroturf.

The Curse may still play itself out. Historically, the Gods of Baseball seem intent on slapping down the Red Sox only after their hopes have been raised to the highest possible level. But if there’s any year that the Sox will win the World Series, this is it. And if they do, Boston fans will have earned their party. But when they wake up, and the hangovers loosen their grip, will Red Sox fans rub their eyes and realize the mystique that’s defined them for nearly a century is gone? Will victory eventually leave them feeling emptier than defeat?

Maybe they finally did reverse the curse. Then again, shattering the identity of Red Sox fans everywhere might be a curse of its own.

21 October 2004 @ 11:09PM >> Think Saddam Hussein had no connections to terror? Think again. Syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock created the website HusseinAndTerror.com as a one-stop shop for evidence of Saddam’s support for terrorists.

It’s required reading for anyone who finds themselves arguing with members of the Bush lied crowd.

20 October 2004 @ 5:20PM >> The Club for Growth released a hilarious new ad directed by David Zucker, the director of comedies like Airplane! and the Police Squad / Naked Gun series.

Zucker is a former Democrat who considers himself a “September 12th Republican.” (That’s how he characterized himself in a discussion panel at the Liberty Film Festival earlier this month.)

After watching his ad, I’m damn glad he’s on my side.

(Note: The ad is currently posted on the front page of the site, but for posterity the ad—entitled Indecision—can also be found here. The title of the ad is not yet listed on that page, however.)

20 October 2004 @ 4:58PM >> From London’s Sunday Times: “Sarah Baxter is a life-long Labour voter in Britain and a registered Democrat in the United States. So how come she wants George W Bush to remain president?”

The answer is quite illuminating and well argued.

19 October 2004 @ 10:10PM >> The latest issue of The Weekly Standard has an article from columnist Andrew Leigh covering the recent Liberty Film Festival in Los Angeles.

The article included some nice words from Hollywood producer Douglas Urbanski—Michael Moore’s former agent (Douglas fired Moore as a client in 2000; Moore was apparently too difficult to work with)—and radio talk show host (and movie maven) Michael Medved:

Both Urbanski and Medved singled out videographer Evan Maloney as one who displayed real potential. For more than a year, Maloney has been posting his popular digital-video shorts on his website Brain-Terminal.com. He specializes in exposing the inanities of the antiwar left, especially at “peace” rallies. The results are alternately hilarious and frightening. Maloney is presently making Brainwashing 101, a feature-length documentary about political correctness and speech codes at college campuses around the country. He previewed the half-completed work-in-progress at the festival, and even in this rough state it proved compelling.

In addition to being available online, the article appears in the October 25th issue of The Weekly Standard.

19 October 2004 @ 2:55PM >> No vote fraud to complain about? Complain anyway! That’s the strategy outlined by a recently discovered memo issued by Democrats to local party operatives. Rather than criticizing their opponents, Democrats are now seeking to undermine confidence in our democratic processes. That way, if they don’t like the outcome of an election, they can repeat the 2000 playbook and drag the election into the courts.

Sad to say, but this may be the future of our nation: the ritual of voting won’t bring an end to the campaign season, it’ll just kick off the next phase, where lawyers and judges decide who represents us.

19 October 2004 @ 4:04AM >> It’s a damn shame that private citizens need to buy ads on TV to tell a side of the story that the traditional media is ignoring in its news coverage. But that’s exactly what the folks at TheTruthAboutIraq.org are doing, only because the media seems uninterested in reporting the full story about Iraq.

You only see Iraq in the news when a bomb goes off or a soldier is killed. You probably haven’t heard much about our military successes, such as our recent one in Samarra, for example. You probably never hear about the rebuilding of Iraq or the routine discovery of yet another one of Saddam’s mass graves. If you want a full picture of what’s happening in Iraq, you’re not going to get it from the traditional press.

Several months ago, I remember listening to a radio show when a serviceman who spent some time in Iraq called in to chastise the press. He said—and I’m paraprasing—that “the media only wants to talk about soldiers when we die. But you never hear what we’re doing every day of our lives. You get the impression that we’re not worth talking about unless we’re dead.”

Unfortunately, that’s exactly how the news media is covering Iraq. Maybe TheTruthAboutIraq.org will help bring some attention to the things that are getting ignored.

14 October 2004 @ 9:25AM >> I won’t be scoring this debate on the merits of the points made by each candidate, because in both cases, their message was reflected in—and sometimes hindered by—their presentation. Because there was nothing terribly new or controversial said, people will mostly remember their visceral reactions to each candidate’s style.

How you felt about tonight’s debate probably depends on how much of it you watched. The earlier you turned it off, the more likely you are to feel that Kerry won.

Although President Bush had some good moments in the first half of the debate, his disjointed diction sometimes made him seem distracted. Kerry seemed more morbid than usual, and I’m not sure if that had to do with his appearance or his delivery; both conspired against him. But Kerry seemed confident in the first half of the debate, and there were times that it contrasted favorably with the answers where Bush fumbled verbally. Still, Kerry’s dour pessimism drips from his face as he rattles off everything wrong with the world today and how it’s all President Bush’s fault. I think that works against him. I’d score the first half of the debate a small Kerry win.

Somewhere right around the 45 minute mark, the momentum shifted. Bush seemed more comfortable. He got engaged, he got fired up, and all of a sudden there was a stark contrast with Kerry. As the debate wore on, Kerry’s dry delivery of complaint-laden answers that invariably ended with focus-grouped, committee-written soundbites just seemed phony. He didn’t sound genuine. President Bush did.

President Bush’s statements were backed by passion. Kerry seemed like he treats every moment in life with the same amount of energy as when reading a budget reconciliation memorandum. When you’re a politician who’s viewed by many to be a flip-flopping political opportunist, you damn well better be able to muster up a little passion to spackle over it. President Clinton could do it. Senator Kerry, you’re no Bill Clinton.

So, if you tuned out at the halfway point, you might say Kerry prevailed. But when President Bush came on strong, Kerry seemed to lose confidence. The longer you watched, the worse Kerry looked by comparison. Maybe if Kerry had the stage to himself, his performance would have been fine. But he sounded like a prototypical political issuing slogans and he shared the stage with a man who said what he believed and spoke from the heart. (The best example of this contrast was the last question of the night.) President Bush sounded genuine. That contrast was not helpful to Senator Kerry.

12 October 2004 @ 4:34PM >> ...I thought Iraq had no nuclear program?

12 October 2004 @ 6:38AM >> A new video is making the rounds that gives a rather exhaustive account of President Clinton’s statements on Saddam Hussein’s WMD program and the threat posed by Iraq. Check out The Terror War: Chapter 3, especially if you’re one of the Bush Lied!!! folks.

It remains to be seen whether our intelligence was faulty, as it now appears. Then again, given September 11th, nobody should have been under the impression that our intelligence operation was perfect. The fact remains that every major intelligence service in the world—including those of France, Germany and Russia—believed Saddam Hussein had WMD. Saddam’s own military believed they had WMD.

So when you hear Clinton sounding like George W. Bush, it’s hard to take seriously the conspiracy theorists who talk of oil, Halliburton or “the president’s daddy”. Not that it was easy to take them seriously before.

12 October 2004 @ 4:17AM >> I’ve heard what was billed as “the ultimate John Kerry ad” on the radio several times. I just found out it is now available in easy-to-swallow Web form.

Kind of takes the wind out of the sails of John Kerry’s claim that he’s had “one consistent position” on Iraq.

Credit for this piece goes to Mark Simone, a local radio show host on WABC 770AM here in New York City.

9 October 2004 @ 3:22PM >> Last night, President Bush displayed the plain-spoken resolve reminiscent of the days after September 11th. He was able to forcefully defend his decision to invade Iraq, and he tied that decision to the bigger picture of the post-September 11th world. He also explained that he’s not afraid to make such decisions even though it might not win him any popularity contests in the halls of European capitols. Sometimes doing the right thing is neither popular nor easy, but leadership isn’t defined by how many people love you after you take action.

John Kerry, on the other hand, seemed a little distracted, shaken almost, perhaps by witnessing President Bush’s performance. Kerry moved around the stage like a robot with a dying battery, and he ended every statement with phony sounding slogans that reeked of politician. Every single Kerry answer seemed to be a litany of criticisms of the president followed by a list of people who agree with Kerry. By the end of the debate, I wished someone had asked Kerry if there was one thing he could name about President Bush that wasn’t a complete disaster.

For all of Kerry’s much-vaunted intellect, I can’t understand how he doesn’t see that we’re living in a different world than the Cold War. All of Kerry’s foreign policy vision is predicated on the institutions and doctrines of the past. But the way you defeat an enemy state in a decades-long standoff where mutually assured destruction brings its own form of stability is not the same way you defeat terrorists who pledge no allegiance to any particular nation and who aren’t afraid to die.

I’ve always thought that if Kerry’s reflexive opposition to everything Bush were demonstrated to the voters, they’d reject him. A presidential candidate needs to stand for something more than merely the opposite of whatever the other guy says. But last night, there seemed to be nothing to John Kerry’s message beyond what a lousy president he thinks Bush is.

Bush won because his passion came across. You may not always like it, but you always know where the guy stands. I think that’s remarkably reassuring in a dangerous, uncertain world. Kerry looked like a petty politician pre-programmed to fire off a few slogans and important-sounding names. But in the end, I think voters want more from a president than lists of things he dislikes about his opponent and names of people who support him. People want to see vision. That’s where Bush shined, and that’s were Kerry lost this debate.

8 October 2004 @ 5:09PM >> Ain’t It Cool News, the irreverent movie industry discussion site, has posted a review of last weekend’s Liberty Film Festival in Los Angeles.

The review included some nice words about Brainwashing 101:

If any of the films shown at this festival are going to breakout and become huge mainstream hits, it’s either going to be Michael Moore Hates America or [Brainwashing 101]. Directed by new, sharp-witted, gonzo-journalist Evan Maloney, 101 is an unbiased look at censorship and P.C. run amuck on college campuses. This is one of the most horrifying and hysterical documentaries I have ever seen.

There was plenty more coverage of Brainwashing 101 and the festival in general. Check it out if you have a minute.

5 October 2004 @ 11:33PM >> It looks like CBS News won’t release the results of its inquiry into the forged documents it recently aired until after the election. Why? According to CBS president Les Moonves, “it should be done probably after the election is over so that it doesn’t affect what’s going on.”

So, let’s see: CBS airs phony documents intended to damage the Bush campaign. They don’t care whether that affects the election. But, because the investigation will undoubtedly discuss collaboration between CBS News staffers and the Kerry campaign, well, that bad news can wait until after the election. It could be damaging to Kerry.

As Dan Rather used to say inexplicably: Courage!

5 October 2004 @ 1:51AM >> I spent the weekend in Los Angeles attending the Liberty Film Festival, which featured two short videos from this website (The Clinton Legacy and Peace Out, a special 16-minute compilation of protest interviews available only on the Brain Terminal DVD) as well as Brainwashing 101, my recent film on campus political correctness.

Despite being held in the heart of liberal Hollywood, the self-described conservative film festival was remarkably well-attended. The Sunday showing of Brainwashing 101 played to a packed house and elicited a standing ovation, which was very gratifying. (Unfortunately, I missed the screenings of my other two entrants.)

On Saturday and Sunday afternoons, I talked for several hours with the folks who came out for the festival. A number of readers of this site stopped by to say hi, which was quite nice. I was glad to be able to (finally!) put faces with some of the names and e-mail addresses I’ve gotten to know over the last few years.

Jason Apuzzo and Govindini Murty, the organizers of the event, deserve a lot of credit for putting together such a successful festival. As with the recent American Film Renaissance festival in Dallas, I left with the feeling that there’s a movement starting in conservative film. I suspect that both of these festivals will be far bigger next year, and that in a decade, we’ll look back on these events as a turning point.

There is a huge market that’s been ignored by the film industry for years, and it has left opening for relative amateurs like me to build our own audiences. Rather than be upset by the liberal bent of Hollywood, we should be thanking them for providing us with such a big, gaping opportunity!

1 October 2004 @ 6:12AM >> Well, it looks like neither candidate landed a body blow during the big debate.

Kerry came across better than I expected. He wasn’t the droning, passionless blowhard that he so often is on the campaign trail, and he didn’t come across as a member of the Angry Left. People who were already leaning towards Kerry were probably reassured by his performance, but I don’t think he sealed the deal with anyone else.

Bush had a few verbal gaffes, but to voters, he’s already a known quantity. The quality of his public speaking is already factored into the equation, so I don’t think it does him any harm. He succeeded in staying on message and reinforced the notion that he’s decisive and resolute, and he hit Kerry’s inconsistencies enough to keep people wondering about him. However, I think the president missed a few opportunities to hit a home run.

John Kerry missed a big opportunity, too. After the debate was over, I didn’t understand Kerry’s foggy position on Iraq any more than I did going in. I don’t think I’m alone.

I call it a draw, which works to Bush’s advantage because he seems to be leading. The campaign dynamic going out of this debate is little changed from that going in.

Ultimately, if I worked on the Bush campaign, I’d make hay out of the fact that despite all the explanations from Kerry, you still can’t figure out where the guy stands on Iraq. If voters can’t understand Kerry’s Iraq position on November 2nd, he’s not likely to have a happy evening.