Politics Blog

Reader tomj writes in a comment below:

i figure i have one way certain to respond to the bias ofthe aforementioned liberal liars. i have cancelled my subscripions and get my news articles free via polipundit and realclearpolitics….

Many more people than you may realize are reacting similarly.

In fact the New York Times lost 5.3 percent of its readership in the last six-month survey, the largest loss among the top newspapers. The LA Times, Chicago Tribune and Washington Post all lost readers. Meanwhile the New York Post’s readership jumped 10 percent. The Wall Street Journal and USA Today also gained readers. After the LA Times’ carefully-scheduled last-minute hit piece on Arnold Schwarzenegger, it lost at least 10,000 subscribers according to its managing editor.

Fox News is soaring and has more viewers than all the other cable news networks combined. And Fox News’ ratings are already comparable to the broadcast network newscasts, which are in ratings freefall. And keep in mind that Fox News is on 24 hours; so it has many more viewers who tune in for a specific program every day. In fact, 22 percent of Americans already cite Fox News as their primary news source and it wouldn’t surprise me if Fox News ratings were to surpass network newscasts in a few years.

Conservatives today dominate the Internet, with sites like TownHall.com and right-leaning blogs like InstaPundit.com getting far more clicks than their liberal competitors.

Slowly but surely we’re tearing down the left’s Orwellian propaganda machine.

– PoliPundit

“And we are especially thankful this year for Astrid Oviedo Clark, our wonderful daughter-in-law, who is expecting our first grandchild.”

– The third sentence from Weasel Clark’s Thanksgiving greeting. (Astrid “Oviedo” Clark usually calls herself Astrid Clark.)

It’s hard to think of a more condescending way to pander to Hispanics. Imagine if President Bush’s Thanksgiving greeting read, “And I’m especially thankful this year for Columba Garnica Gallo Bush, my sister-in-law.”

— PoliPundit

I know I’ve been on a bit of a Weasel Clark bender lately (in fact, since the day he got into the race.) But it’s a slow news period and Clark is such an inviting target, with his lying, his flip-flops, his pandering, his incoherence, his opportunism, his megalomania…. well, you get the idea.

And, besides, I’m not the only one who hates the guy. His former bosses detested him so much that “one of the Joint Chiefs still groans at the memory of [Defense Secretary William] Cohen

As an experiment, I wondered how the lying liberal media would have reacted if Republicans were to use their opponents’ rhetoric against them.

Actual Quote from Ted Kennedy: “This [Iraq war] was a fraud.”
Hypothetical Quote from, say, Senator Mitch McConnell: “Ted Kennedy is a fraud.”

Actual Quote from Howard Dean: “John Ashcroft is not a patriot.”
Hypothetical Quote from John Ashcroft: “Howard Dean is not a patriot.”

Actual Quote from John Kerry: “We have a fraudulent coalition, and I use the word fraud.”
Hypothetical Quote from GWB: “John Kerry’s vote authorizing the Iraq war was a fraud, and I use the word fraud.”

Actual Quote from Weasel Clark: “In 2000 the Repubs stole the election - now they’re trying to steal Patriotism.”
Hypothetical Quote from GWB: “In 1975 the Dems cut and ran from Vietnam - now they’re trying to cut and run from Iraq.”

Actual Quote from Dick Gephardt: “[Bush has] declared war on the American people.”
Hypothetical Quote from GWB: “Gephardt has declared war on the American people.”

Can you can imagine the outraged shrieks from the lying liberal media if Republicans had said those things? When Democrats say them, there isn’t even a whimper.

— PoliPundit

“This personal attack, especially on a day like today for Governor Dean, is disturbingly ruthless.”

– Howard Dean spokesperson Tricia Enright, after Weasel Clark’s despicable attack on Dean’s patriotism.

Clark had said, “[Dean] was out there skiing when I was recovering from my wounds in Vietnam,” on the same day that Dean had to undergo the painful ordeal of receiving the long-lost body of his brother, who was murdered by Laotian Communists.

— PoliPundit

Guess who dropped in at Baghdad for a surprise Thanksgiving visit with the troops. No, not Hillary. Think “Senior Administration Official.”

— PoliPundit

When Weasel Clark got into the presidential race, I noted some of his bizarre statements and wondered if he was dealing from a full deck.

Now Matt Taibbi, writing for the hard-left Nation magazine, spent some time undercover with the Clark campaign and says there’s something distinctly off-kilter about Clark and his campaign. The piece is long; so here are some excerpts:

You can see something in the eyes of most all the Democratic candidates: the pugnacity of Howard Dean, the idealism of Dennis Kucinich, even (surprisingly) the elaborate sense of humor just under the surface of Joe Lieberman.

Not Wesley Clark. His eyes are blank. Like a turtle resting on a rock in the middle of a pond, he simply seems never to move, no matter how long you stare. But then, just as you’re about to pack up your picnic basket and go home, you catch him: His head pops out, and he slides off into the water…

…

At a Nashua bakery called Patisserie Bleu later that day, owner Jacqui Pressinger went through the motions of Clark’s appearance, walking from the door to the counter. “He came in, stood right here, and ordered an ‘Everything’ bar,” she said. “But then–he was whispering–he leaned over and told me and the girls that actually, his favorite dessert was a napoleon.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“Yup,” she said. “Then he started talking about West Point. He said something about eating a lot of napoleons at West Point.”

…

For the two weeks or so that I had been a volunteer [undercover with the campaign], I had tried, unsuccessfully, to get a rise out of my fellow Clark supporters. Just to see how they would react, I had introduced myself at the first meet-up as an adult-film director named Rondell Abrams. Massachusetts campaign staff member Dave Rubin, a skittish young Brandeis grad, gritted his teeth when I told him I’d just finished making Asian Ass Vixens 6.

“I also did the East St. Louis Street Hookers series,” I said.

He nodded. “Well, uh, we’re glad to have you.”

For this second meet-up, I’d upped the ante, showing up with a friend: She and I were both wearing cervical collars and walking with the stiff posture of personal-injury plaintiffs. I explained to Rubin that I’d been kicked by a donkey, while “Anne” had been thrown off by one. “Wow, that’s tough,” he said. “But thanks for coming, in that condition.”

…

The meeting wore on. It was an amazing experience. Here, ostensibly, were two porn-industry professionals, dressed in identically preposterous cervical collars, attending an organizational meeting for a straitlaced four-star general–and no one so much as blinked.

This is not so surprising, however, because paying close attention is not really what the Clark campaign is about. In fact, it’s very much about the opposite: squinting your eyes, blurring out the margins and focusing on the one main goal on the horizon–beating George Bush.

…

At a Clark press conference in Concord a few weeks ago, AP writer Ron Fournier literally threw up his hands when Clark, under repeated questioning, gave a two-faced answer to a question about why he had called the Bush Administration a “great team.” “Well,” Clark said, “like most Americans, I wanted them to succeed.”

(Did they, by the way? I didn’t.)

“Yeah, but why call them a ‘great team’ if you disagreed with them on Iraq?” Fournier asked.

“Because they were making the wrong decisions then,” Clark answered nonsensically.

A murmur shot through the crowd. “What the hell does that mean?” I heard someone say behind me.

– PoliPundit

“I think the Democrats will look back at 2003 and feel very much like they did in 1971. They could have won the election this year, but not next year.”

– Dick Morris, on how the soaring economy and passage of the prescription drug bill have deprived Democrats of virtually all their issues.

I’ve been saying the same thing for several months. The election is not being held today. It’s in 2004.

— PoliPundit

I stopped watching the Democrat presidential “debates” a couple of months ago. No one was paying me to endure the torture of sitting through them for more than 30 minutes; so I decided to let the professionals, who get compensated for their suffering, watch the darn things.

Apparently the professionals have had enough too, as Opinion Journal’s James Taranto illustrates:

Forgive us, but we’re not sure we can take any more of these Democratic debates. We started watching yesterday’s eight-man show (sans Lieberman) in Iowa (with Johns Kerry and Edwards checking in via satellite from Washington) but just got exhausted. For about an hour our TiVo has been paused 34 minutes into the two-hour event; John Edwards is frozen on the screen in a goofy pose with his tongue hanging halfway out of his mouth. It’s not exactly an inspiring sight, but we just can’t go on. Maybe later.

BTW, if you don’t have TiVo, you’re still living in the 20th century. I’m a huge TiVo fan. I even performed brain surgery on mine to increase its recording time.

— PoliPundit

Around this time next year, you could be sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner while President-elect Weasel Clark goes on a grovelling tour of Europe.

That’s right, folks. If elected, the major Democrat presidential candidates - Dean, Clark and Kerry - are all considering bowing and scraping before Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder and Kofi Annan before they’re even sworn in. America 2004 - The World Apology Tour! Where the future US president humbly disavows all that makes this country great and unique and promises to leave our security to the tender mercies of Jacques Chirac. 9/11? What 9/11?

Unless you want to see that spectacle next year, you have to do your part to ensure that George W. Bush gets re-elected by a crushing margin.

Today is Wictory Wednesday. Every Wednesday, I ask my readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush 2004 campaign.

If you’ve already donated and volunteered for the Bush campaign, then talk to your friends and enlist them in this battle for America’s very soul.

If you’re a blogger, you can join Wictory Wednesdays simply by putting up a post like this one every Wednesday, asking your readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush campaign. And do e-mail me at wictory@blogsforbush.com so that I can add you to the Wictory Wednesday blogroll, which will be part of the Wictory Wednesday post on all participating blogs:

– PoliPundit