Politics Blog

Completely off-topic. But, if you’re an Iron Chef fan like me, this news has got to warm the cockles.

And there was also news this month that a Firefly movie has been greenlighted. March has been a very satisfying month for fans of quality TV.

-- PoliPundit

Remember my suggestion that negative ads feature an Average Joe making the case against Kerry? Well, check out the new Bush radio ad released today.

It’s not as well-produced as I’d like; but it’s a start. I wish the campaign would run ads that each focus laserlike on just one egregious Kerry vote/factoid. And feature a sympathetic victim, preferably female and preferably very young or very old.

-- PoliPundit

Readers are complaining that 60 Minutes was much tougher on Condi Rice than they were on Richard Clarke. I wouldn’t know, since I stopped watching 60 Minutes a long time ago.

Liberal bias on 60 Minutes, and on all of CBS, is nothing new. Dan Rather’s notorious 1988 interview with Bush Sr. is a classic example of CBS bias. But, more recently, the 60 Minutes show on the Sunday before the 2002 elections was a revelation. It featured only two pieces, both carefully calculated to drive up Democrat turnout. First was a piece on how South African white supremacists had supposedly used bio warfare against blacks during the Apartheid era. Second was a flattering puff piece on Ron Kirk, a black Democrat running for a Texas Senate seat. The piece featured supposedly objective commentary by Molly Ivins. ‘Nuff said.

-- PoliPundit

“Never in the course of human events have so many been so libelled by so few.”

– John O’Neill, John Kerry’s debating opponent on a 1971 episode of the Dick Cavett show (Kerry stuck firmly to his contention that virtually every GI in Vietnam was a war criminal.)

C-SPAN’s Road to the White House broadcast this episode yesterday. I hope the RNC and Bush campaign recorded it (although it’ll probably also be available on C-SPAN’s web site shortly.) Kerry made some questionable statements, like saying that he quit the navy because he was opposed to the war.

Kerry 30 years ago was very much like the Kerry of today, a “nuanced” slimeball who threw away someone else’s medals. However, his say-anything style allowed him to eventually win the debate against the passionate, but unfortunately honest O’Neill, whose attacks against Kerry were deftly deflected. The Bush debate prep team would do well to watch this debate.

-- PoliPundit

Be sure to TiVo/tape today’s episode of C-SPAN’s Road to the White House. It features an anti-war appearance by John Kerry on the Dick Cavett show in 1971 and should be quite interesting.

-- PoliPundit

Be sure to TiVo/tape today’s episode of C-SPAN’s Road to the White House. It features an anti-war appearance by John Kerry on the Dick Cavett show in 1971 and should be quite interesting.

-- PoliPundit

Slate’s David Greenberg notes a surprising fact about war presidencies:

Lincoln and FDR, who led the nation through cataclysmic wars, were indeed re-elected, but not without difficulty. Presidents who waged more remote and less popular wars, such as Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson, found incumbency a liability.

He goes on to note how past war presidents ran for re-election. Personally, I think the 2004 campaign most resembles 1948. Just as Harry Truman had begun to wage the Cold War and formulated the Truman Doctrine, President Bush is waging the War on Terror with the Bush Doctrine. As Truman engaged in nation-building in Europe, Bush is engaged in nation building in the Middle-East. As in 1948, The domestic political opposition is supposedly “energized” and all the talk is about how the president could be defeated. However, the president isn’t afraid to point out his opponent’s flaws (”Give ‘em hell, Harry!“) and wins because people see him as a simple man, but a well-intentioned, trustworthy leader in a historic time.

-- PoliPundit

There was this documentary on the Discovery-Times channel about streets named after Martin Luther King. The filmmaker, an African-American, bemoaned the fact that the streets tend to be in poverty-stricken black neighborhoods. Sprinkled between liberal shibboleths on “fighting” for “civil rights” were images of the American flag upside-down.

And that’s when it struck me just how low the “civil rights” movement has sunk.

A hundred and fifty years ago, this filmmaker could have written a book opposing slavery. Fifty years ago, he could have made a documentary attacking racial segregation. Now all he can “fight” for is renaming a street? The great civil rights battle of the 21st century is changing street signs?

Call me crazy, but I think America is already living MLK’s dream. Sure, there are the occasional racist bozos; but they’re the exceptions to the rule. I’m what used to be called a “colored” person. But I have never, not once, been discriminated against because of the color of my skin. (Well, I take that back. I was discriminated against in college admissions because I’m not black.)

The great “civil rights” issue for African-Americans today is not renaming streets. It’s not “affirmative action.” It’s school vouchers.

The remedy for black poverty isn’t unconstitutional, divisive, unfair racial quotas. It’s a return to the traditional family structure, along with private competition for education dollars.

Who stands on the right side of these issues, Republicans or Democrats? The Party of Lincoln is the party of civil rights in the 21st century.

-- PoliPundit

John Kerry was forced to vote against a bill to protect unborn children. Look for Senate Republicans to schedule more votes on such issues throughout the year.

-- PoliPundit

Two new Bush ads focus on taxes and are probably the most effective yet.

-- PoliPundit