Politics Blog

Check out Patrick J. Kennedy’s creative explanation for his now-famous “I have never worked a (bleepin) day in my life” comment:

“In terms of my choice of words, I believe and always believe that it is not work to represent the people of Rhode Island,” Kennedy said in a written statement.

Wow! That’s almost as good as quibbling about the definition of “is.”

You know the Democrats are in trouble when the reliably liberal Chris Weyant has this to say.

The national telemarketing Do Not Call list begins registrations today. It’s a very simple process; so go register.

Beginning last December, I wondered why we spend billions of dollars and risk the lives of our young men and women to defend allies that repay us with scorn and treachery. I called repeatedly for a pullout of our troops from places like South Korea and Germany.

Little did I know that the Pentagon would begin to do just that a few months later. Most US troops in Germany are being pulled out of the country. Troops in South Korea are being moved well south of the DMZ and the South Koreans are being asked to pay for an increasing share of their defense.

Victor Davis Hanson captures the national mood and describes how I and millions of others feel:

The American Street is in a strangely revolutionary - read “fed-up” - mood. It is growing distant from Europe. It is angry with the Arab world especially, and it is tired with South Korea - and most whiny nations that either take billions of dollars in direct American aid or ankle-bite under the aegis of American arms.

The result is while hothouse analysts in Paris and spoiled teenagers in Seoul with Reeboks and football jerseys damn America the imperialist, the United States they knew is changing right before their eyes in ways that they might not like in the next decade - but that will in fact relieve most Americans.

…

What is going on? After the defeat of the Axis and the long containment of the Soviet Union, the beneficiaries of past American sacrifices find their new identities in part by mouthing cheap anti-Americanism without cost. Fine; it’s a free world. But they forget that the Middle East, the DMZ, Cyprus, the Balkans, the former provinces of the Soviet Union, the world’s oil lanes, the shrines and icons of the West in Europe, all that and more thousands of miles from our own coasts can all blow up in their faces - and that we no longer can, or should, alone guarantee that they won’t.

Our concern instead is to clean up Afghanistan and Iraq, warn Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia to change - or else - and then hunt down every last al Qaedist. And for now our own war against terror is plenty enough to worry about - especially when it is being won on the battlefield without a great deal of help from our bases in Turkey and Saudi Arabia and with a lot of criticism from allied hosts from Germany and Greece to Okinawa and South Korea.

So what accounts for this sudden paradox of independent action abroad while becoming ever more skeptical of traditional alliances?

The general public at last understands this post-Cold War teenager syndrome - that perpetual dependency creates envy and jealousy. After all, we would find it strange if our own American teenagers were to wear German T-shirts, play French music, and watch Belgian videos as they painted anti-European graffiti on our walls and their parents in New York sued Chirac or Kohl for European criminal neglect in the Balkans. Our own senators and representatives do not engage in German bashing while the Luftwaffe has 100 jets parked outside of Washington protecting our eastern seaboard. It all reminds me of a Greek hotelier - replete with American Ray-bans and Eminem blaring in his portable CD player - this week who snapped at me that Americans were all over the globe sticking their noses in the business of innocent others like poor Mr. Milosevic - but lamentably not as tourists coming to Greece as in the past.

There is common ground between liberals and conservatives to start downsizing from places like Saudi Arabia, Germany, South Korea, Turkey, and as much of Western Europe as possible. The former either fear the label of imperialism or, as in the case of the Gulf, don’t like us propping up corrupt governments. The latter are more hard-headed, and see only increasing costs - political, monetary, psychological - with decreasing benefits.

The real global story is not “anti-Americanism,” but perhaps a growing American weariness with strident allies and the braggadocio of pathetic Middle Eastern despotisms. If I were a functionary of the European Union, I would either have an emergencymeeting right now to explore ways of stemming a rising, grassroots tide of Middle America’s anger against Europe or alternatively allot 400 or 500 billion Euros per annum for its own unilateral and collective defense. We in America are waiting for sober Europeans to question their current frightening leadership that came of age in 1968, but now shrug that the Schroeders, Fischers, and Villepins may not be so aberrant after all. The EU, remember, is now being asked by Mr. Abbas on the West Bank to stop subsidizing Hamas.

Albert Eisele surprisingly noted in May that Tom Daschle may retire, rather than face a tough re-election challenge in 2004.

Now Democrats seem to be taking that possibility increasingly seriously, to the point that some of them are proposing that Hillary could be the new Senate Democratic leader.

My full 2004 Senate analysis is here.

Jay Bryant thinks Howard Dean has peaked (I certainly hope not):

You know the famous Cover of Sports Illustrated Jinx? It’s not really a jinx, it’s a testimony to the talent of the SI editors, who pick the peak moment to put a given athlete or team on the cover. And you know what happens after the peak, of course. If Sports Illustrated did politics, Howard Dean would be on the cover this week.

Larray Sabato has one of his characteristically insightful updates on the 2004 elections. This time he looks at the electoral college picture if, for some unforeseen reason, the president’s favorability ratings fall back to where they were in 2000.

(link via Political Wire)

I’ve been saying for a couple of weeks now that the president needs to raise $200 million for his re-election campaign in order to overcome the lying socialist treasonous liberal media. Karl Rove is now saying the same thing, albeit more politely:

Even with the president’s popularity, Mr. Rove said, the race will be tough. Early surveys indicate Mr. Bush getting support from less than 50 percent of the public in a matchup with a generic Democratic nominee.

For starters, Mr. Rove said, the Democratic nominee would become a media darling with “The Washington Post, New York Times” and political writers.

“He will be a hero on the evening newscasts,” Mr. Rove said. “He will be at or ahead of us in the polls.”

Liberal Dean backer Jerome Armstrong asks, “Can anyone imagine Bush even being able to answer hardball questions for an hour?”

Don’t misunderestimate Bush. He performs very well under pressure. Weren’t there three presidential debates where the ultra-smart Al Gore got his clock cleaned by whatshisname?

When watching the 2000 presidential debates, I imagined an undecided voter asking himself, “Which of these guys do I want as president?” The answer was obvious.

Here’s another bit of unconventional wisdom: Gore is an excellent public speaker! His speech at the Democratic National Convention single-handedly erased Bush’s lead. Most viewers probably disagreed with the content of that speech, but Gore looked and sounded presidential.

When trying to understand voters’ reaction to a presidential candidate, it helps to turn off the rational part of your brain and focus on the visceral. Ford stumbling. Carter in his sweater. Dukakis in his tank. Bush Pere looking at his watch. Dole in the third person. Gore and his sighing.

That’s why I think John Kerry is the biggest threat to Bush - he just looks and sounds presidential. Howard Dean, on the other hand, would be crushed in the general election in a landslide. I’m desperately hoping Democrats choose Dean as their nominee.

George Will is merciless in his dissection of the Supreme Court’s mythical “Right to Privacy.”