Politics, Government & Public Policy: July 2004 Archives

President Bush delivered a speech to the 2004 National Urban League Conference that could have been delivered to the NAACP, if that organization weren't so thoroughly owned by the Democrats. The whole thing is worth reading, but the President's final appeal to the black leaders at the conference is especially well crafted.

Ours is a solid record of accomplishment. And that's why I've come to talk about compassionate conservatism and what I envision for the future. I'm here for another reason. I'm here to ask for your vote. (Applause.)

No, I know, I know, I know. The Republican party has got a lot of work to do. I understand that. (Laughter and applause.) You didn't need to nod your head that hard, Jesse. (Laughter.)

Do you remember a guy named Charlie Gaines? Somebody gave me a quote he said, which I think kind of describes the environment we're in today. I think he's a friend of Jesse's. He said, "Blacks are gagging on the donkey but not yet ready to swallow the elephant." (Laughter and applause.)

Now that was said a while ago. (Laughter.) I believe you've got to earn the vote and seek it. I think you've got to go to people and say, this is my heart, this is what I believe, and I'd like your help. And as I do, I'm going to ask African American voters to consider some questions.

Does the Democrat party take African American voters for granted? (Applause.) It's a fair question. I know plenty of politicians assume they have your vote. But do they earn it and do they deserve it? (Applause.) Is it a good thing for the African American community to be represented mainly by one political party? That's a legitimate question. (Applause.) How is it possible to gain political leverage if the party is never forced to compete? (Applause.) Have the traditional solutions of the Democrat party truly served the African American community?

That's what I hope people ask when they go to the community centers and places, as we all should do our duty and vote. People need to be asking these very serious questions.

There's more, and I'm excited to see the Republicans taking the issues to the black community like this. There are "(Applause.)" indications in the transcript, but I'm still looking for more coverage to get a sense of how enthusiastic the listeners were.

(I think my earlier post(s) on this topic were lost in the server crash a few weeks ago.)

Steven Den Beste explains why I'm very confident in a Bush landslide in November. Barring external catastrophes, President Bush will win re-election by a wide margin.

Winning an election is like preparing a multicourse meal. There's skill involved, but there's also timing. You not only have to prepare all the dishes correctly, you need to make sure they are finished at just the right time. I see undercurrents of a lot of preparations which will bear fruit in the October time frame.

Just about every human endeavor comes down to timing. Time is the essential fiber of existence. Managing your time is managing your destiny.

I wish SDB hadn't given away all the secrets behind my own conclusions, though.

I'm not keen on adding a new cabinet position to oversee all national intelligence. I can understand the incentives, but I just don't like the idea of having a single (more political) focal point for all our intelligence efforts.

The commission investigating the Sept. 11 (search) attacks will recommend a new Cabinet-level post to oversee the nation's 15 intelligence agencies and control their budgets, say two people familiar with the panel's final report. ...

The CIA director now has loose authority over those agencies. But the commission in a preliminary report found that the director did not hold enough power, because the Pentagon controls more than 80 percent of the nation's intelligence budget. As a result, CIA requests to other agencies are often ignored.

Of course, this makes the DoD totally resistant to the idea -- spending authority is the lifeblood of bureaucracy, and no bureaucrat wants to lose his budget to someone else.

Pros:
1. More centralized control over assets and budget.
2. Less inter-agency bickering.
3. Elimination of redundant offices.

Cons:
1. More centralized control over assets and budget.
2. Position becomes more politically-charged.
3. Gives intelligence higher public visibility.
4. Redundant offices may not actually be eliminated.
5. New layer of bureaucracy added.
6. Cost more money.

I doubt the change will help or hurt our intelligence capabilities, so I don't have a very strong opinion either way. Based on the points I've listed above I'm inclined not to support the idea.

In an article about the political leanings of late-night talk shows, political commentator Adam Clymer (a "major league asshole" according to President Bush) makes an interesting assertion:

During his years as a political reporter, Clymer's overall observation was that rather than persuading audiences one way or the other, comedians encouraged political apathy.

"The message of late-night TV always seemed very cynical about politicians, doubting their motives, although not in a partisan way," he said. "I'm not saying it isn't good comedy, but ... treating [politicians] as hypocrites and buffoons has an unhealthy impact."

I think this is true. Unfortunately, some politicians are hypocrites and buffoons, and we all like laughing at people who tend to take themselves very seriously.

One of the best ways to know you've won a battle is that your opponents start arguing that you aren't fighting fair. It may be true, but it's an indication that the battle is over. For instance, California Democrats are complaining that Arnold's characterization of them as "girlie-men" is sexist and homophobic, when it's obvious that his main point is that they're wimps. Rather than respond by saying (or demonstrating) that they aren't wimps,

Democrats said Schwarzenegger's remarks were insulting to women and gays and distracted from budget negotiations. State Sen. Sheila Kuehl said the governor had resorted to "blatant homophobia."

"It uses an image that is associated with gay men in an insulting way, and it was supposed to be an insult. That's very troubling that he would use such a homophobic way of trying to put down legislative leadership," said Kuehl, one of five members of the Legislature's five-member Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus.

Boo. Hoo. Arnold's spokesman responded well:

"It's a forceful way of making the point to regular Californians that legislators are wimps when they let special interests push them around," Stutzman said. "If they complain too much about this, I guess they're making the governor's point."

Quite right.

Cathy Seipp, visiting at the VC, echos my position in an argument discussion I had a few days ago. Encouraging lazy and ignorant people to vote is not a good idea.

It's bad enough MTV's Rock-the-Vote campaign frantically urges 18-to-30-year-olds, no matter how ignorant, to get to the polls.

Look, voting is a privilege as well as a right and if you don't vote, you should be ashamed of yourself. But the reason you should be ashamed of yourself is that not voting is lazy and idiotic. Should the lazy idiot constituency be encouraged to influence society even more than it already does? ...

Many things in life are hard; voting is not one of them, and parents promising to vote the way their children want in return for finished homework sends a message about as useful as school principals who eat worms if a class improves its grades. In the eternal words of Marge on "The Simpsons," "One person can make a difference, but most of the time they probably shouldn't."

I've always despised "Rock the Vote", and not merely because of its leftist political agenda. I'm mostly satisfied with our current system of universal suffrage, but one of the main reasons it works is that stupid, lazy people don't vote. Thank God.

Jim Rutenberg at the New York Times has a great article about President Bush's campaign war room that contains this example of its effectiveness:

After sitting impatiently through what seemed to be a typical stump speech, they found one: Mr. Kerry said he was "proud" of votes by him and his running mate, Senator John Edwards, last fall against the president's requested $87 billion appropriation for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a vote that Republicans have used to make a case that Mr. Kerry has been failing to support the troops after voting to authorize the war.

Within an hour or so, Mr. Bush's team, at the campaign's headquarters in a corporate office building in suburban Virginia, across the Potomac River from the White House, had sent a release via e-mail to hundreds of journalists, supporters and campaign surrogates. The e-mail message included the new quote and one from September, when Mr. Kerry implied it would be "irresponsible'' to vote against such spending. The quotation, along with the idea that Mr. Kerry's position on the money had evolved, found its way onto Fox News and into articles in The Washington Post, USA Today, The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Associated Press.

And this was a relatively slow day in Mr. Bush's war room.

Several journalists who cover Mr. Kerry later said they were too embarrassed to say publicly that it took the Bush operatives to spot what was notable in Mr. Kerry's remarks.

I'm sure the Senators who muddled the Vietnam War were proud of their votes, too, but John Kerry may have had a different opinion.

The George W Bush campaign blog has more from the media, but doesn't mention the NYT piece.

I really, really, don't like the idea of postponing the presidential election under any circumstances, even a serious terrorist attack. What's the alternative? Whichever area is affected to the extent that popular voting is impossible should have its electoral ballots allocated by its state legislature.

It looks like the Federal Marriage Amendment isn't just for extremists anymore.

President Bush says legalizing gay marriage (search) would redefine the most fundamental institution of civilization and that a constitutional amendment is needed to protect it. ...

The president urged the House and Senate to send to the states for ratification an amendment that defines marriage in the United States as a union of a man and woman as husband and wife.

Senate Democrats signaled they will not throw barriers in front of the resolution, paving the way for a vote on the amendment as early as next Wednesday. ...

The Human Rights Campaign (search), the nation's largest gay political organization, said the president and congressional allies "should focus on the priorities of the American people, not the agenda of their extremist base."

Hm, if the Democrats aren't going to oppose it doesn't that mean there's pretty broad support? Of course, it may not get enough votes to pass, but I'm still very curious to see what happens. Rather than constantly label their opponents as "extremists", why doesn't the gay lobby make a case for extending to same-sex couples the benefits mixed-sex couples enjoy through marriage? The "it's not fair" argument doesn't seem to be winning many converts, so why not try a different tack?

Jacob Levy sure is a smart guy, but I just don't think he gets it when it comes to this upcoming presidential election. He plans to vote for John Kerry because he thinks it's time for a less militaristic administration that will focus on rebuilding rather than warmaking.

Even though rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan is important it's not yet time to focus all our energies on reconstruction. Ultimately we will need to remake Arab society, and we can start now, but the main job isn't done yet and it won't be until North Korea and Iran are overthrown. If President Bush wins re-election both those governments will be gone in four years. If not, they'll both still be hanging around and causing trouble. It's as simple as that.

Regarding this morning's terror warnings, while I was on the way to work I heard Rush say that the Bush Administration offered to brief the Kerry campaign on the threats over a week ago and that the Kerry campaign refused. I can't find that information anywhere online. Has anyone seen anything about it?

Update:
Drudge has more (perishable link).

KERRY PASSES UP TERROR BRIEFING: 'I JUST HAVEN'T HAD TIME'
Fri Jul 09 2004 09:23:56 ET

Just hours before attending an all-star celebrity fundraising concert in New York, Dem presidential candidate John Kerry revealed how he has been too busy for a real-time national security briefing.

"I just haven't had time," Kerry explained in an interview.

Kerry made the startling comments on CNN's LARRY KING LIVE Thursday night.

KING: News of the day, Tom Ridge warned today about al Qaeda plans of a large-scale attack on the United States. Didn't increase the -- you see any politics in this? What's your reaction?

KERRY: Well, I haven't been briefed yet, Larry. They have offered to brief me. I just haven't had time.

Developing...

Did I totally call this or what?

Hugs, kisses to the cheek, affectionate touching of the face, caressing of the back, grabbing of the arm, fingers to the neck, rubbing of the knees...

John Kerry and John Edwards can't keep their hands off each other!

Clayton Cramer gives a detailed history of the separation of church and state.

Anyone in the world is welcome to observe American elections, including the UN. Maybe they'll learn something, considering that the majority of UN members don't have elections at all. The only problem I have with this news item is that the American politicians who think we need UN help to ensure fair elections are missing something obvious: if our past elections haven't been fair, the first honest thing for the concerned politicians to do is to resign from their potentially-unfairly-obtained offices. Until they do, I'm not going to take their worries very seriously.

The 2004 Democratic National Convention is in Boston, which means it'll be impossible to escape the Kennedy clan. I doubt I'm the first to point this out, but the convention dates overlap the anniversary of Ted Kennedy's despicable manslaughter (if not murder) of Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick on July 19th, 1969. I've heard rumors that the Convention will include a tribute to Ted Kennedy.

If you're not familiar with Chappaquiddick, this should whet your appetite.

- See Police diver John Farrar's testimony suggesting that Mary Jo Kopechne survived for as long as two hours in the submerged automobile by breathing a pocket of trapped air.

- Learn how Senator Kennedy spent the nine hours after the accident attempting to cover-up his involvement, while Mary Jo Kopechne was left to die in his submerged automobile.

- Read the scenario developed by Detective Bernie Flynn, one of the officers who investigated the accident

- View Senator Kennedy's history of traffic violations.

- Learn why George Killen , the State Police Detective-Lieutenant who investigated the accident, said that Senator Kennedy "killed that girl the same as if he put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger."

Update:
Viking Pundit was on this two weeks ago, as was Eric Fettmann at the New York Post.