For me, Christmas (after its religious implications, of course) is all about movies. One of the best is A Christmas Story. The movie is not to everybody's taste: It's episodic, more a series of unrelated vignettes than a cohesive movie, and Jean Shepard's tart take on the holiday is not exactly the kind of sugary-sweet tale many folks like for the holiday. But I love it; it's real, unvarnished Americana and, well, the dad reminds me a bit of my dad, so there's that too.
Another one that resonates for me is White Christmas, largely because it was a traditional view in my house as a kid. We used to watch it every year, and after VCRs arrived, we watched my copy of it annually, to the point where the whole family had it memorized. It's a permanent part of my mental furniture. Having learned about a decade ago that Danny Kaye was gay only adds to the amusement of the thing--note how his shoes match his suit in EVERY scene--especially the scene in which the lucious Vera Ellen throws herself at Danny and he cringes away in terror. In those days, you said: "Oh, those incorrigible bachelors!" The undertones of the scene today are much funnier.
The various versions of A Christmas Carol also deserve inspection. The 1951Alistair Sim version is, to me, the Gold Standard by which all other straight versions must needs be judged. The 1938 Reginald Owen version runs a close second, suffering mostly from that 1930s stink almost every movie from that era bears. Beyond that, the rest of pack files in behind. Captain Picard did a memorable turn in 1999, so did George C. Scott, in 1984.
For the non-straight versions, the winner, hands-down is Bill Murray's inspired turn from 1988--mainly because it's the only version the Dickens classic I know of that features large amounts of gunplay (and it's also pretty much the last great role for Karen Allen, who I think is beautiful).
Then of course, there's the separate category of the animated Scrooges. The portrayals run the gamut. In my opinion the superlative performance is by that noted thespian Mister Magoo. The Magoovian treatment is rich and deep and heartfelt--oh, and if you think Frasier starred in the first musical version, think again: Magoo was warbling about Christmas four decades ago. Much of the credit for the charm of the Magoo version goes to composer-lyricist Jule Styne (who wrote "Gypsy" the same year), who provided incredibly memorable music for Jim Bacchus to croak out. Other noted cartoon performances include the bombastic Flintstonian portrayal and the pedestrian typecasting of Scrooge McDuck (who else?) in Disney's attempt. The less said about the awful Yosemite Sam outing the better.

Philadelphia morning talk guy Michael Smerconish has put together 15 points in what he describes as “The World According to Me.” He says he’s “doing a personal, political sanity check in the aftermath of the 2006 Midterm Election, trying to determine whether I'm registered in the party that best reflects my views. I have doubts. And I see a battle coming for the direction of the party of Lincoln. Will we become a party epitomized by individuals with names like Giuliani, Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg or Frist, Coulter and Dobson?”

Well, obviously this is brilliant pot-stirring, largely aimed at goosing his audience, but I’ll take the bait anyway.

1. Bin Laden. I want a continuous commitment of manpower directed toward finding and killing Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri. It matters not to me whether they are isolated, neutered, and disengaged, nor whether they are in Pakistan. I want them hunted, found and caused to suffer a heinous death. The full court press should never end.

Agree. When we look back on the Bush presidency, the failure at Tora Bora must now be placed near the top of the list of its more significant missteps, and it cost him votes. There was much jesting talk (and serious talk in the fever swamp left) that Bush actually had Bin Laden, but was waiting for the exact critical political moment to unveil his capture. Well, I assume the events of the last week have put an end to this theory. Surely this disclosure was due about the middle of the day last Thursday. This pretty much sums up the ridiculous nature of the angry left’s hyper-paranoia. Bush (or Rove) was never quite as Machiavellian as was believed in some quarters. Some will question whether there is any point to capturing an isolated, no-longer-in-command Bin Laden. Yes there is: his capture would reverberate across the region.

2. Profiling. Let's look for terrorists who look like terrorists. Those who threaten us have similarities. In virtually every instance, they have race, gender, ethnicity, religion and appearance in common. Those characteristics should be considered as we seek to prevent terrorist strikes against the United States. Everyone needs to be screened, but some more than others. When the terrorists start looking like Thurston Howell, III, we will change accordingly.

Agree. This is the direct result of Bush’s insane choice to allow Norman Maneta, a Clinton Administration holdover and an adamant opponent of sensible profiling, to remain at Transportation, and it cost him votes. You can’t hide the failure of airport security: Millions travel, and witness it firsthand. The Israeli model must be explicitly adopted, and until it is, DOT and TSA are doing nothing to make us safer. The only thing that is preventing another terrorist attack via plane is the recognition that the average passengers will have no qualms about laying their lives on the line to stop any attempt. That’s something the terrorists understand.

3. Torture. Once we identify the bad guys, we need to glean from them information of impending attacks by any means necessary, and that includes torture. If you believe it NOT to be efficacious, tell me why our best, brightest and most experienced interrogators continually seek to use it as a technique? Answer: it works.

Agree. There are essentially two arguments against this view. One is a classic case of liberal magical thinking—torture is beneath us. Call it the Andrew Sullivan stance. It’s nonsense. The other argument is legal—that there is no point to torture because the info you get would be inadmissible/unconstitutional. This is the Clinton Era strategy against terror in nutshell. The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and it doesn’t MATTER if the info you get via torture is admissible if you are never going to place it before a judge! The info you would get via torture is the kind of info you hand over to Jack Bauer so he can go kill bad guys. It has nothing to do with the courts. (This is also the reason why we don’t need warrants for “eavesdropping.”)

4. Preventing Terror. We need to implement all the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, those who were entrusted to study what went wrong pre-9/11 and recommend how to prevent its recurrence.
 

Disagree. Smerconish is in love with the fargin’ 9-11 commission. It served a fine purpose in setting forth an accurate record as to what happened. But its policy recommendations are hopelessly flawed. Let me put it like this, before I will take seriously liberal calls to implement the 9-11 commission's recommendations, I demand that every person making such calls stipulate that 9-11 happened the way the commission says it happened, and publicly repudiate the conspiracy theories.

5. Iraq. We need an end game. And don't call it "cut and run". As a matter of fact, if anything is unpatriotic, it's not affording our soldiers an explanation of how their mission will end. It's time to articulate an exit strategy so as to light a fire under Iraqis and let them know they need to stand on their own two feet sooner than later.

Disagree. But only because this is worded the way it is. As I’ve been saying, we need to begin building a massive permanent DEFENSIBLE base, with its own airfield, out in the empty desert between the Syrian border and Baghdad. As soon as possible, we need to place about 25,000 active duty soldiers (no Reserves or Guardsmen) in the barracks there. Send the Reservists and Guardsmen home. In that base, training of the Iraqi military will continue. From that base, platoons largely consisting of Iraqi soldiers, but led by Americans, will issue on special missions as needed. The rest of it—the traffic directing and curfew enforcement and all the other duties that are making our troops targets, should immediately be up to the Iraqis, effective immediately. As for an "exit strategy," there should be no timetables, but clear and specific benchmarks.

6. Immigration. Our borders are porous. They need to be closed. Only when they are closed should we make decisions as to what to do with the millions who are already here illegally. It is impractical to believe we will ship them back to wherever they came from. But through attrition, and by ensuring no more of their friends and relatives join them, we will probably diminish the herd.

Agree. And Mickey Kaus has noted in the last few days that he may have been wrong in believing the conventional wisdom that a Democrat Congress will give Bush the “comprehensive” :::coughAMNESTYcough::: immigration bill he wants. Many observers are beginning to recognize that every candidate that campaigned on "comprehensive" reforml lost, and those that campaigned on the “border security first, then we’ll talk about the rest” approach—including Democrats like Jim Webb—won. 700 miles of fence wasn’t enough to keep the party in power.

7. Gays. Homosexuals do not threaten my marriage. Heterosexual marriages have their own troubles, but the fate of conventional marriages has nothing to do with whether same sex couples can marry one another or partake in a civil union. No guy now married to a woman is waiting in the wings for a court decision trying to decide whether to ditch his spouse and hook up with a man. As we seek to find some accommodation for same sex couples, we need to end that false argument.

Disagree. This is a straw man, and one that betrays Michael’s brain-dead thought process on this issue. He should sit down with his pal and co-religionist Rick Santorum and actually LISTEN when Rick explains why he (Smerconish) is so confused on this. I probably can’t do it as clearly and succinctly as Rick would, but here goes. When somebody like Dobson says that gay marriage threatens traditional marriage, he’s not talking about a secret army of hubbies who have quietly been dreaming of walking down the aisle with their fishing buddies. What he means is that marriage is supposed to MEAN something. And when you dilute what something means, the point of near-meaninglessness, everybody involved in that something is affected by that. Example: Remember the TV show MASH? In one episode, for wacky reasons that escape me, Hawkeye pins his captain’s bars on Radar in order to get him into an officer’s club. When questioned, Hawkeye says the army is experimenting: “You’ve heard of a lieutenant major? Well this is a corporal captain!” Enlisted man Radar is abashed, and the querulous officer is offended. The reason—both know that becoming an officer is something that takes time and effort. It’s not a right, it’s a reward. So is (or should be) marriage. When you make it meaningless (or nearly so) that involves everybody whose ever taken the vows. Where I break company with many on the anti-gay-marriage side is when their legislative bans include civil unions as well. I support civil unions, and I believe they should confer on citizens most (but not all!) of the priviledges afforded to married couples (inherence, visitation and insurance rights, even tax breaks). But DON’T call it marriage.

8. Abortion. I want to be registered in a party that has room in its tent for pro-life and pro-choice views. And Plan B should be sold over the counter to individuals 18 and over. And I surely don't want politicians determining my end of life plan.

Agree. But, again, only because he put it in exactly this way. I would favor outlawing abortions after the first trimester, except in cases of rape, incest and where the life of the mother (not the HEALTH of the mother) is threatened. But I’ve always been of the view that viability outside the womb, not an ideology that says a zygote is the same as a fetus, should determine the point when abortions should and should not be allowed. Outlawing abortion in the first trimester, and especially abortifactants like “Plan B,” seems to me to unreasonable. To be very blunt, anybody who favors this stance should also be required to explain how the state and federal governments plan to deal with the sea of unwanted babies that will wash up on firehouse and police department steps. Our inner cities (and suburbs!) are full of young girls making mistakes. Their young lives should not be destroyed because of one stupid moment of weakness (or ineptitude). As for the first sentence of this one, I don’t know that either party is fully welcoming in that way, but I think the GOP does better in this regard—or at least, as a Guiliani booster, I hope so.

9. Embryonic Stem Cells Research. Do it. Fund it. Pardon my callous nature, but that which exists in a Petri dish is undeserving of the full rights that are afforded a viable fetus.

Disagree. I’m not opposed to embryonic stem cell research. I’m opposed to government funding for an unproven idea that has shown ZERO results in the lab. Do it privately, and when you have some concrete success to show for it, THEN ask for government funding. I agree with the second part of the statement. And frankly this sounds to me like a great, constructive way to use the thousands, maybe millions, of fertilized eggs currently sitting in freezers at fertility clinics, that will otherwise be thrown out. Allowing people to donate them should be legal. As for the moral issues, I don’t see it. I am seldom persuaded by slippery slope arguments. I do not foresee warehouses full of clones hanging from hooks, even if some important breakthrough was found using this technique.

10. Term Limits. We need citizen politicians, not professionals. Two terms in the Senate and six in the House seems like plenty to ensure we get grounded folks who are capable of earning a living when not serving us.

Disagree. This sounds reasonable, but it simply doesn’t work in practice. Let the people decide. Every example of excesses by superannuated legislators can be countered by examples of veteran lawmakers with seniority doing the kind of deft parliamentary work that no novice would manage.

11. Campaign Finance. Let's stop trying to regulate campaign donations. Someone will always find a loophole. Let anyone spend whatever they are willing to affect the outcome of a race, so long as there is full and immediate disclosure, so voters can react accordingly.
 

Agree. And so do most Republicans. It’s one of the reasons the John McCain will NEVER EVER get the GOP nomination.

12. Entitlements. Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements make up more than half of our federal spending. The number of people on Social Security and Medicare will double in the next 15 years, and life expectancy continues to grow. We cannot afford to continue the status quo. Time to confront AARP: the retirement age in this country needs to be raised from 65 to 70. Balanced Budget should not be two dirty words. I do not want my children and grandchildren saddled with paying for our wasteful spending.
 

Agree. And I’m one of the people who will have to wait longer to get on board the government gravy train. But if 50 is the new 40, then 70 is the new 65.

13. Death Taxes. We all work so hard just trying to lead a comfortable life in the hopes of leaving nest eggs for our children. It's un-American that when we check out, Uncle Sam will be standing there with his hand out to tax our earnings for the second time. The estate tax must end.

Agree. Let’s do everything we can to put more wealth in the hands of more people. Families can do that better than bureaucrats.

14. Global Warming. Beats the hell out of me. But given the apparent stakes if the concerns are valid, I think we should err on the side of taking precaution.

Disagree. As George Carlin says: “The Earth is fine.”

15. Guns. A symptom, not cause of our problems. Single parent households pose more of a threat to safety than firearms. Let's address that issue.

Agree. I don’t own one, but guns are one of the tools that built this country. But I also agree with the current restrictions, such as waiting periods and background checks.

First off: This says it all for me.

Lessons from Election Day 2006:

1. There were any number of chances over the last two years to declare victory in Iraq, draw our forces down and move remaining troops to permanent bases out of the line of fire (but still close enough to be of use), as I've been calling for for a while. How that would have affected things on the ground is debatable. But it might have avoided this day.

2. Apparently Rove's confidence going into the election was just him putting up a brave front. He did NOT know something we didn't. So much for Rove being an evil genius. Another lefty myth exploded.

3. Speaking of lefty myths, the media was saturated all day yesterday with the idiotic "voting irregularities" stories. But the Dems still won. So much for the Diebold family's iron-fisted control over the electoral system. The first big problem with elections in this country (aside from the wholly American practice of every dang county doing it a little differently) is the fact that elections only happen a couple times a year. If we voted once a week, we'd have this sorted out by Christmas. It takes you two weeks to do your taxes because you only have to do it once a year. It takes your accountant 20 minutes because he does 15 returns a day. And lets not forget that elections are run, in almost every precinct in this nation, by lazy, stupid and/or venal local officials (of both parties), overseeing a largely volunteer workforce who, at the least, are not the sharpest knives in the drawer and, at the worst, are openly conniving for one party.
The electronic voting machines are not the problem. The problem are these officials who can't or won't train people properly on how they work, and forthrightly order workers to behave themselves. But this will get better eventually. Prediction: We're going to have similar, but slightly less, chaos in '08, slightly less in '10, slightly less in '12...by '20 things may be running pretty smoothly and only a tiny handful of nutball luddite types will be bleating about paper trails.

4. For all the growing power of the much-vaunted alternative media, and for all the waning power of the MSM, when the MSM completely abandons any shred of objectivity--as they did this year--and works steadily to get one political party elected, they can still do it.

5. To every Michael Savage conservative who stayed home or voted for a Democrat to "punish" Republicans over immigration: When the Democrats give Bush the amnesty bill he wants, you will be responsible. Live with it.

6. To every hardcore right-winger who delighted in Bush-bashing over Harriet Meiers, and the ports deal and half-dozen other little kerfuffles that helped you claim you weren't "a cheerleader for the administration" (and that includes a lot of pundits and radio talk hosts who are upset this morning) you need to live with the way your glib shortsightedness helped damage the President, opened the door to 60 percent disapproval ratings, and helped bring about this kettle of fish in which we find ourselves this morning.

7. Some consolation: This was not a victory for the left--just ask Ned Lamont. Most of the victorious Democrats are gun-owning, anti-partial-birth-abortion, pro-victory mushy middle types who are not going to see eye-to-eye with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Pro-victory Democrat Lieberman won, weak-kneed Republican Chafee lost.

8. Looking ahead: Hastert will not last the week as minority leader. Likewise Frist in the Senate, whether or not Conrad Burns hands him a majority, is finished. Boehner, though a newcomer, may be in trouble too. Quite a few Democratic governors, including Rendell of Pennsylvania, Richardson of New Mexico, woke up this morning, looked in the mirror and thought they saw at very least, a contender for VP. On the other hand, George Allen, even if he manages to litigate a win, is finished as presidential timber. Hillary did the two things she needed to do: win handily and stay below the radar nationally; she is now fully positioned. The GOP race seems to have narrowed to Rudi and Mit and maybe a few dark horses. (I'll say it again: the GOP will NEVER nominate John McCain.) I still say we are looking at a Rudi-Hillary face off in '08.

9. A perverse, dark benefit: Before today, if there had been another terrorist attack on American soil, Bush and Bush alone would have been blamed. A lot of people said another attack would have been a boon for the Republicans; I completely disagreed--Democrats would have been pointing fingers at Bush before the smoke cleared. But all that has changed. From today forward, if there is a terrorist attack on American soil, it will be entirely plausible to say "See? The terrorists sensed weakness." A dark and ugly thought, yes. But I never promised you a rose garden.

See Hewitt for more lessons. And Medved for still more.

If Karl Rove's confidence isn't enough, here are six reasons to vote GOP:
6. John Kerry. No, he' s not running for anything, and yes, he has apologized and that's the end of it, as far as I'm concerned. But Kerry's entire demenor during the kerfuffle is a preview of the attitude we're going to get from a Democratic congress for two years. Pelosi is Kerry in drag.
5. Vex an Idiot. A GOP victory will mightily vex a number of people whose stupidity and mendacity in the last couple of years have earned them a serious vexing. It will be a well-deserved and sorely needed splash in the face with cold water to see the Americans reject the negativity, conniving and deceit that has been the hallmark of this campaign.
Here's a partial list of people who need vexing, in no particular order. These are people who, as Glenn says, aren't just anti-war, they on the other side: Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Nearly everyone at The New York Times, Eric Alterman, Kos, Jimmy Carter, Dan Rather, Barbara Streisand, Susan Sarandon, Natalie Maines, Tim Robbins, Janeane Garofalo, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, Ed Asner, Danny Glover, Chrissie Hynde, Madonna, Woody Harrelson, George Carlin, Richard Gere, Garrison Keillor, Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, Ted Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Dennis Kucinich, most French people, Peter Arnett, Tina Brown, Scott Ritter, Gore Vidal, Al Franken, ANSWER, Mike Farrell, George Clooney, Keith Olberman, Bill Maher and many many more.
4. The Democrats will raise your taxes.
3. The Democrats, if they gain control of either house, will paralyze the country with BDS-based investigations and indictments.
2. There's the little matter of the survival of our civilization. The Democrats have harped on so many perceived failings of the Bush Administration and the GOP congress, from Abrahmoff to Foley, from pay raises to the minimum wage. My reaction to all of these issues is the same: I wish, I really do, that these were the most important things we had to worry about. I with these were the things that captivated our attention. But there's the little matter of the survival of our civilization to consider. And until I am convinced that we have dealt with that threat, nothing else matters. Nothing. And until that changes, I cannot willingly vote for Democrats.
1. I know that a lot of people on the right--especially on the far right--want to "punish the Republicans." It's a stupid argument and any conservative who votes Democrat tomorrow for that reason is, quite simply, an idiot.
If you're leaning that way, and looking to "punish" somebody, try to look at it this way: vote for Republicans to "punish" the Democrats for not presenting a viable alternative, for fielding a raft of empty suits, for having no discernable agenda except Bush hatred, for having this great, great chance for victory, and squandering it with the slimiest, most substance-free campaign ever.
Hold your nose if you must, but vote Republican.

1. Part of the reason is discussed here and here. I'm in the Republican closet in real life, and blogging politics is no longer satisfying--it's nerve-wracking. But I will try to get back on track.

2. Everybody always says whatever I think of to say, better and first. For example, the great, inestimable VDH pretty much demolishes the Kerry excuses, bringing up pretty much everything I would have thought of, a few points I never would have thought of.

Except:

A. "This is how they talk to each other." It's a phrase blogger Betsy Newmark noted a year ago, when a noted Democrat was caught saying foolish things. It's a phrase that has stuck with me. Once again we have a case of a liberal making a joke that he assumes everybody will get, because he assumes everybody thinks the same way he does. Their stunned surprise when they discover that not everybody does, is invariably much funnier. Even if we take him at his word that he was making a joke at Bush's expense (and I don't), the only thing this incident shows is that Kerry is so surrounded by yes-men, laughing at his "Bush is a dimwit" jokes, that he really believes the world all thinks the way he does. These kinds of things keep getting liberals in trouble, and at the root of it is a cocoon/echo-chamber lifestyle that always comes back to bite them. Remember this bit of left-wing bigotry? Or this charming comment? And let's not forget this knee-slapper. As I've said before, it's also another sign of the creeping Daily Show/Colbert Report-ization of Democratic rhetoric. All too often of late, progressives have gotten themselves in trouble trying to be "funny." The desire to get that laugh has overwhelmed any notion of being responsible.

And;

B. Bush may be "stuck in Iraq" but Kerry and Hillary and too many other prominent Democrats are still stuck in the '60s, and in Vietnam. If we DON'T take him at his word and assume he WAS, once again, expressing his haughty contempt for the great unwashed in America's military, it's because he still believes the talking point he was taught in 1967: that the military scoops up the bottom rung of the society and turns them into cannon fodder. That was, to an extent, true in the 1960s (though it was less true than many people think!). To the extent that it was true, it was one of the arguments for an all-volunteer military. Which we now have. And as a result, the statement is no longer substantially true, and to the extent that under-educated, underclass people DO get scooped into the military, the result is the betterment of their lives, not death in a rice paddy--or even by an roadside IED.
But that doesn't penetrate the cocoon/echo-chamber of people like Kerry. For him, nothing has changed, and a hoarde of underclass drafted Americans are still being fed into a meatgrinder. And that he would express that idea, with the assumption that nobody would challenge the
point, just demonstrates how out of touch he is.

And...

C. His "meltdown" of a response to the critics is a PRISTINE example of what I have called the "How dare you! Defense." It's the number one example of the laziness and intellectual bankruptcy of the progressive moment. About a decade ago they discovered that, rather than actually mount a convinving argument for your point, it's easier to simply declare yourself to be beyond criticism. The most recent inductee into the "How dare you?" Hall of Fame, apparently, is Michael J. Fox, so he was rhetorically trotted out during Kerry's tirade for good measure. The only surprise was that Kerry didn't bring up that other poster child for "moral authority," that poor Communist dupe Cindy Sheehan.
They believe in the HDYD, which also explains why THEY are always complaining that the RIGHT is trying silence THEM (funny how every single time they've wanted to complain about being silenced, they've been able to). It's because they can't conceive of any other tactic, and can't conceive of any other motive for criticizing somebody. The desperate and illogical "chickenhawk" argument (also trotted out by Kerry) is yet another variation of the HDYD, and taking the easy, lazy way out of an argument.
You could also see it in the code word "electability" that was slapped onto Kerry in 2004. The left mistakenly glommed onto him (though they secretly detested him) because they believed that, any time Bush challenged him, they would be able to gin up their best phony dudgeon and say, "GASP!! HOW DARE YOU QUESTION A VIETNAM VETERAN WOUNDED IN ACTION!!" and all opposition would drop away before them.
It didn't work (enough) with Kerry, and only the same people who were gulled into buying Kerry's moral authority are buying into Sheehan's. Why? Because people know that moral authority without maturity, consistency, wisdom--and self-awareness--is like a suit of armor with nothing inside it.

Mikey Kaus--doing what he does best--gently prods uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan: 

As the prof would say: Heh.
As good enough an excuse as any to talk about Sullivan:
For those coming to the game late, I first encountered Andrew not long after 9/11. They say a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, and in those early days after the attack Andrew was one of a group of liberals who freely admitted they'd "mugged" by 9/11. I have to say that much of what he said was instrumental in convincing me, at the time, of the rightness of the War and its justifications. Here's a taste:
In the Journal on Oct. 4, 2001:

One of the overlooked aspects of the war we are now fighting is the awakening it has spawned on the left. One atrocity, Osama bin Laden may have accomplished what a generation of conservative writers have failed to do: convince mainstream liberals of the illogic and nihilism of the powerful postmodern left. For the first time in a very long while, many liberals are reassessing--quietly for the most part--their alliance with the anti-American, anticapitalist forces they have long appeased, ignored or supported.

But Sullivan admitted, scarcely six months later that he was wrong:

Some Democrats are simply uncomfortable about America having a strong and unapologetic role in the world. This isn't treason; it's weakness. And weakness in the dangerous world we face is an invitation for more terror. Be warned.

In March, 2003, Andrew was still singing the President's praises:

Rather than simply forestall crises, postpone them, avoid them or fob them off onto others, Bush is actually doing the hard thing. He's calling for real democracy in the Middle East. He's aiming to make the long-standing U.S. policy of regime change in Iraq a reality. He actually wants to defeat Islamist terrorism, rather than make excuses for tolerating its cancerous growth.

Also in March 2003:

I respect a good opposition raising important, concrete questions about tactics and strategy in a war. But I suspect whiners who are angling for political advantage at the possible expense of this country's security, and our troops' safety.

In July 2003, Andrew detected

... an under-current of complete gloom in news reports that seems to me to be more fueled by ideological fervor than sober analysis. Given the magnitude and complexity of the task of rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, it seems to me we're making slow but decent progress. The lack of a complete social implosion or exploding civil war is itself a huge achievement. And no one said the post-war reconstruction was going to be easy.
So what's behind this drumbeat of apocalypse? I think it's a good rule among boomer journalists that every story they ever edit or write or film about warfare will at some point be squeezed into a Vietnam prism.

But long about the late summer of 2004 (I'd actually noticed him "going wobbly" way back in the Spring of that year, but it became much more noticable at this point), something happened to Andrew. It was almost as though, like in a bad Star Trek episode, some alien had taken over his brain. Many who'd been reading him daily noted that the real change took place after he went away on vacation. The speculation was that during his annual retreat to "the hammock" with "the boyfriend," he got a rather stern talking to (read: a thorough programming--or deprogramming, depending on your point of view) by any number of his peers. Finding a Log Cabin Republican in the Hamptons in July must be quite a chore.

By the time of the presidential debates of that year, Andrew had become a reliable Kerry apologist, even defending the reprehensible use of Cheney's lesbian daughter as a debate point. These days Sullivan, apparently still guilt-wracked over his support of the war, bashes the Bush adminstration as hard as he wants supported them. Abu Grahib was particularly rough for Andrew, and I suspect there was some unpleasant truth in the comments of detractors who suggested that Andrew was dealing with some conflicting feelings about the images that caused the scandal. Nuff said.

The result is that only recent arrivals to Sullivan's site (all Bush-haters) enjoy him. Longtime readers of all stripes despise him: Longtime war opponents cannot forgive his early support, longtime war supports cannot forgive his more recent transformation into useful idiot.

Update: Andrew has once again embarrassed himself in the Foley matter, demonstrating, again, what a one-issue pundit he has become. To Andrew, the Foley mess is all about the closet.
James Taranto sagely notes:

It seems to us that someone who is sexually interested in children had ... better stay in the closet, and if he can't, he should be put in one with a thick metal door that locks from the outside. It is astonishing, and more than a little disturbing, that Sullivan would seek to make Foley a poster child for gay liberation.

Further, has it occurred to Sullivan that his response to the Foley scandal undermines his own credibility as an advocate of same-sex marriage? Sullivan has long claimed to be advancing traditional values. All he wants, he says, is for society to recognize that gay couples are no less capable of serious, loving, lifelong commitments than ordinary couples are.

But if a middle-aged congressman were caught sending lewd messages to 16-year-old girls, what adherent to traditional values would claim that the congressman's real problem is that he is insufficiently open about his sexuality?

One of the most popular labor-saving devices of the MSM is the enlistment of those amorphous, anonymous but oh-so-cantakerous "critics." Example: "President Bush says his tax cut proposal will jump-start the economy, BUT CRITICS SAY it will starve orphans and widows and make most of the nation homeless."
Whenever you hear or see a news report that presents an opposing point of view as one held by unnamed "critics," you're experiencing the work of a lazy reporter. Of course if the report goes on to PRESENT an ACTUAL CRITIC, that's different. If the next sentence in the above example is: "One such critic is Professor I.M.A. Blowhard, of the Blowhard School of Economics, who says...blah blah blah..." then, the reporter is doing his job. He has told you that critics of a point of view exist, and he has PRESENTED you with one.
But all too often, the observation that critics disagree with a particular policy or point of view is the end of the story, and is never backed up. When you see an unsupported "but critics say...," you can usually substitute the phrase "but we in the newsroom think..." because that's what's really going on.

This is the first in an ongoing series on how you can spot bias in MSM stories based on interesting word usages. Today's lesson is about "some, many and most," three of the most inaccurate, often bias-filled words used.
The seemingly innocuous terms reporters use to describe aggrigations of people can turn out to be very tricky. "Some" should be used to describe an aggrigate of people larger than two and smaller than a plurality, based on the best available data: i.e. some people own HDTV sets. A reasonable person should not be surprised to learn that he or she is not included in a "some" comment.
"Many" should be used to describe an aggrigate of people that is approaching or just over a pluarality, but not an overwhelming majority, based on hard observable data, i.e. "Many people own computers." The reasonable person, finding themselves left out of a "many" statement, should nonetheless be willing to acknowledge that the group described is a notable and discerable subset of the population.
"Most" should be reserved for overwhelming, indesputable majorities, i.e. "Most people own television sets." The reasonable person, finding himself left out of a "most" comment should, again, be willing to acknowledge that he is in the vast minority.
The key here is that each of these three phrases should depend on observable, reputable information. It should never be based on a sense one gets within the newsroom, or at a cocktail party, or after circulating at a self-selecting public event. All too often, that is exactly what occurs.
In practice in an MSM article, "some" refers to the subset of the population that disagrees with or opposes things the MSM reporter favors ("some Americans think Bush is telling the truth"), "many" refers the subset of the population that agrees with and supports whatever position the MSM reporter favors ("many Americans think Bush is a liar") and "most" refers to the set of people who strongly disapprove of whatever position or cause the LNO reporter disapproves ("most Americans disapprove of Bush's foreign policy").
Some reporters are unbiased enough to use these terms correctly. Many reporters deliberately misuse them in order to insert their personal bias into news stories. Most think that when they do, they are doing nothing wrong. 

While it may anger some people, to me it's oddly refreshing to hear somebody come right out and say, "I DON'T support the troops." The canard that leftists DO support them is most often deployed as a head-fake, a phrase intended to be followed by, as Pee-Wee Herman would say, "a big, giant 'but'."
Leftists deeply resent the need to say it, and when they do it, it's because they (correctly) recognize that they will simply lose all credibility with center-right audiences if they do not. They know they cannot say what they really believe, which is that all military activity is immoral, that violence can never be justified, that pacifism and negotiation, even in the face of brutal tyranny, is always the only correct course, and that this would be a better, more moral nation if the military were completely disbanded and the Pentagon turned into a giant meditation center.
Many people on right do not, I think, fully comprehend the extent to which many on the left believe that the American nation has been irretrievably corrupted and is no longer (if it ever was) something worth defending. And if you think that way, after all, why WOULD you support the troops? If you believe the U.S. capitalist, free-market, popular-rule system has created a hopelessly backward, repressive state where dimwitted masses live deluded, empty lives manipulated by a fascist imperial elite, then why would you "support" the paid, volunteer storm troopers who are doing the Empire's bidding and "following orders" that assist in the prosecution of an illegal and immoral war?
I was listening to somebody who held such a view on the radio, not long ago. (I forget his name, and who cares anyway?) His view, essentially, is that patriotism is a mental disorder. He said (more or less), "If an individual said that about him or herself--that he or she was better than everybody else--we would think that person ought to seek psychological help. But when the idea is expanded to encompass an entire nation, it somehow becomes this admirable trait."
"But," I yelled at the radio, "What about Muhammad Ali?"
See, that's where the argument falls down. It sounds good, very egalitarian, and it's designed to play on your "everybody should be treated equally" programming that's been drilled into you since childhood. But as much as it may pain these leftists, the truth is that some people are better than others. Ali could shout "I am the greatest!" and who could argue? As the saying goes, it ain't braggin' if it's true.
That, in an ultra-simplified nutshell, is the argument for a concept known as "American exceptionalism." It's the answer to the question you often hear: "Why should America be the 'world's policeman'? Why is America justified in unilaterally changing regimes in other countries that U.S. leaders deem tyrannical?"
To a percentage of people in this country, the answer to those questions is, quite simply, "it shouldn't and it isn't. The U.S. is an equal partner in the community of nations no better or worse than other nation, and it has no justification for taking a lead role in world events. All actions it takes should be approved by the United Nations."
Fortunately, most people think that's ridiculous.
Why is America better? Because we are the only nation in the world founded on an IDEA. Germany is Germany because that's the place Germans have always been. France is France because that's the place the French have always been. But America is different. Americans came here and built something new and different and unique on the planet, and it's a country that will never be just another nation. Sure, we're not perfect, and American exceptionalism isn't a claim of infallibility. We're not proud of the subjugation of Indians or of legal slavery. But we ARE proud of overcoming the mistakes of our past, of learning from them, of taking our experience and incorporating it into our future.

I have come to believe that this issue is the real divide in this country--and of a growing divide within the Democrat party. You can be a Democrat and be an American exceptionalist. You can be an American exceptionalist and disagree with the President. You can say: "This is the greatest nation in the world, and we should, and have a right to, take a leading role in world events--but the policies of President Bush are not the wisest course and this or that policy would make us an even stronger nation, one better able to accept its place in the world."
But the other half of the Democrats think America does not deserve a place of honor, do not think America deserves to shape world events, thinks (quietly) that 9/11 was (even though one may deplore the loss of life) an unavoidable result of the misguided American path. These are the people that deplore patriotism.
Let me make it clear: I'm not saying such views shouldn't be allowed. Part of the Idea America was founded on was tolerance of unpopular ideas. But I wouldn't want to be in the same political party with such a person, and I suspect there are a lot of Democrats who wouldn't want to be either.
In the next Presidential election cycle, I plan to push for an open declaration of American exceptionalism from both candidates. I have little doubt you could get it from any Republican. On the Democrat side, I think such a call will have the salutary effect of identifying the Democrat candidates who are not worthy of the office.
It's possible that such a call might splinter off a percentage of Republicans as well. But I believe a sensible 75 percent of America believes in American exceptionalism and is willing to stand up and say so. And those who feel differently, from academia to Hollywood to major urban centers, need to understand that they stand in fundamental disagreement with most of their countrymen.

Why is the mainstream media failing so spectacularly, right before our eyes? Well, the easy answer is that "they've stopped being objective." The problem there is that lefties say that too.
The truth is that there's more to it than that, and the issues are many and interconnected, and they beg the usual chicken/egg questions. Let's look at the major ones.
One problem is that most journalists, other than the glitterati top tier, are paid terribly, are managed incompetently by harried and unqualified supervisors, and quickly learn that they get paid the same for slipshod, careless and even biased reporting and writing as they do for performing their duties in an exacting, thoughtful way. Indeed they find, over time, that making the effort to be fair and unbiased is penalized, and that they move up within the newspaper clique by parroting the cynical tone that surrounds them.
Most people have noticed that the problem has gotten much worse in recent years, and that, while it existed before, it was not nearly the pandemic it now is. Why? Simply put, young, poorly trained, careless reporters have gotten older, and have become middle-aged careless editors and managers, who have no interest in fairness and honesty in what they produce, a message that has been conveyed loud and clear to subordinates.
Combine that with external factors: As the already-frenetic pace of journalism has continued to accelerate, due to the arrival of 24-hours news networks and then the internet, there's less and less time to tell a young reporter that his copy stinks and is full of personal bias--especially when, the next day, the bias-filled reports get an "atta-boy" email from the managing editor.
And, as news audiences splinter into thousands of segments, the competition for eyeballs becomes so fierce that accuracy takes a back seat to "attitude." When the goal of every journalist is to reach that highly-paid top tier, presenting every story with a unique slant, rather than simply getting the facts right, becomes the priority.
And then there's, quite simply, the erosion of the meaning of concepts like "facts" and "truth." In a world where one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, where concepts like "political correctness" are openly imposed by those with an agenda of moral equivalency, where high-level government officials, in sworn testimony, question the meaning of the word "is," it becomes almost quaint to suggest that reporting a story one way is right, and reporting it another way is wrong.
The worst part is that all these factors, unlike their temporary bias against the President, cannot be easily reversed, rethought or undone.
And it means that this problem is only going to get worse.

Inside the newsrooms themselves, they don't see all this. But they're scared. They're scared because the dirty little secret of professional journalism is becoming known to the public at large--the secret is that journalism is like juggling: with varying success, anybody can do it.
At best, it's a craft, a skill the basics of which nearly anybody can master with a little practice. The more I've been a working journalist, the more strongly I've felt that four-year journalism schools (like the one I came from) are a massive waste of time. As a profession, it's more akin to plumbing or carpentry, something where you can absorb the basics in the classroom, but only time on the job will make you proficient. Prospective journalists should get two-year degrees at most, and then enter something like an apprenticeship, where they would gain the working experience they'd need to do the job right. A journalism degree no more prepares you for a job as a journalist than reading the "The Joy of Sex" prepares you to be a high-class call girl; but conversely, as with prostitution, you are born with all the skills and tools you need to become a professional journalist--you only lack the on-the-job experience, and the willingness to do the work that needs to be done.
This terrible secret, the fact that 90 percent of the inhabitants of most newsrooms are no more (or less) qualified to be there than you or I, is now being exposed, as the blogosphere slowly supplants the MSM, and people make the stunning discovery that they are getting their news faster, and with approximately the same level of basic mistakes, as they had been from the MSM.
I mean, ever read a newspaper article about some issue or person that you are very close to, that you are intimately familiar with? I'm sure you have. And I'm sure you noticed the errors in the article--most of the time just trivial stuff, but still, errors. You may have wondered: "Gee, I only noticed those errors because I'm so familiar with the subject--I wonder if all the other articles in the paper are that error-ridden, and I just don't see them because I'm not as close to the issue?"
The answer is yes, they are. And all those scared newsroom denizens know THAT too. And they are worried that it's another little secret that is slowly leaking out. But instead of fixing it, they're like the employees in a buggy-whip factory who try to convince anybody who'll listen (including themselves) these new-fangled machines are a fad, unreliable, unproven, that the public will never stop needing their services.
Typically you'll hear them gripe about how there "no checks and balances, no fact-checkers, no code of ethics, no professional associations or peer review."
This complaint, which reveals more about the ignorance (and elitism!--one of the unspoken messages of this complaint is "it might not occur to those conservative dimwits to be skeptical of what people say in blogs") of the speaker, has been answered many times. 
The mistake is in conflating one element with the whole. I would never suggest that this blog or any one blog be one's sole source of news. No blogger worth his/her salt would. They would tell you to get out there and read a bunch of blogs, follow links from one to another, see how (or if) information is being gathered first hand, how information is being shaped--then make up your own mind, rather than letting somebody else make your mind up for you.
The blogosphere doesn't need formalized checks and balances, fact-checkers, codes of ethics, professional associations or peer review, because the blogosphere itself is a self-correcting organism with checks and balances and fact-checkers built in. It is peer review personified. It's the marketplace at work: Do a good job, post accurate, interesting stuff, demonstrate ethical behavior and your audience will (eventually) find you. Post inaccurate stuff, be unreliable, get proven wrong again and again, and your audience will ebb away--or if they visit your site, it won't be for information, it will be to gawk (case in point, the 2004 crash-and-burn of Andrew Sullivan).
You know all that, of course. But in many newsrooms they still don't.
The people you'll hear yelling this stuff the loudest are the people at the bottom of the the ladder in newsrooms, the people just out of journalism school. I do feel sorry for these kids. They've borrowed money, spent years in college, they want to go out there and make a difference, be a real star in the buggy whip industry--and now the profession they've prepared to enter is withering away in front of them. 
But the profession should blame at the institutional flaws that caused this failure, not the institutions that sprung up to fill the vacuum those failures created.

One of the Democratic memes that gets repeated ad nauseum is that our presence in Iraq is supposedly good for terrorist "recruiting." The problem, like so many brain-dead remarks from the left, is that it assumes that middle-eastern terrorists operate their organizations in the same manner that they operate their little lefty clubs and organizations. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is, quite simply, no such thing as "terrorist recruitment."
The terrorist "recruitment" meme is a classic example of leftist projection. It's true for them. Leftists operate in little clubs, and our presence in Iraq IS good for THEIR recruitment.
And the argument seems to make sense to Western ears. We all know about recruitment.
Everybody from chruches to, of course, the military recruits. Recruitment is even a word that has been co-opted (as everything eventually is) by big business. Most companies have their own "recruiter" or hire an outside "recruiting" firm. And, of course, individuals recruit, in their own way--singles (and unhappy marrieds) are constantly sifting through their acquaintences for possible relationship partners, a brand of "recruiting" we all engage in at one time or another.
So recruitment is something we are familiar with in all aspects of our lives. It's that familiarity that leads terrorist apologists to make their mistake. What they fail to understand is that "recruitment" is a foreign concept in the Middle-east and in the Arab world. From marriage to business to politics, groups in the Arab world form not by attempting to attract random strangers, but by longstanding familial and traditional bonds.
And even if some Arab societies are westernizing, and learning the concept of recruiting in some areas of their world, the concept has not penetrated Arab life deeply enough to affect the most secretive Arab organizations of all--terrorist groups.
Ask the CIA and the FBI! They'll say: If only terrorist groups DID recruit! If so, we'd already have operatives deep inside the Al-Quida in Iraq and the resurgent Taliban. We'd have already captured Bin-Laden. Indeed these groups are impenetrable for one reason and one reason only--the do NOT recruit. They are formed entirely by people who have spent decades with one another, who know each other intimately. They form small cells and never permit outsiders to enter. Recruiting is anathema to everything Arab terrorists groups stand for.
So the next time a Bush-hater tries to tell you that the Iraq War is good for recruitment, ask him to prove it. He won't be able to. Because terrorist recruitment is a myth.

It began a month ago in Collierville, Tenn. Then it spread to Bullhead City, Ariz. It was the beginning an onslaught that would last several weeks, as innocent, unsuspecting low-man-in-the-newsroom reporters were forced to do...THE DREADED 'SLOW DOWN IN SCHOOL ZONES BECAUSE SCHOOLS ARE STARTING AGAIN" STORY!
Usually the writer, like this one in Orlando, or this one in Knoxville, or this one in Wichita Falls, Texas, is too embarrassed to use a byline. But Chloe White, also in Knoxville, drew the short straw and had to put her name on it. So did Janet Jacobs in Corsicana, Texas. Likewise Jim Tiffin in Gallup, N.M, while Cara Sinclair got stuck in Hagerstown, Md.
Some poor shmoe in in Lafayette, La., had to write one...but then again, so did his boss!
Perky Christine Nelson of Tyler, Texas, was probably less perky when she found out she had to do one--that had her picture on it!--especially when she found out that over at the town newspaper, the writer got to take his or her name off it. Lacie Morrison of Mineral Wells, Texas, was probably unstrung, but the story gave Ryan Wolf of Harlingen, Texas, a chance to howl.
Not every editor is so cruel: In Denison, Texas, they just ran the state police news release verbatim. Looks like they did in Waco, too. In Salinas, Calif., they just stuck it in the police blotter, but in Oakland they have a policeman-columnist, so naturally HE wrote it!
But whether you're in Mishawaka, Ind., or Purcell, Okla. or Horseheads, N.Y., or Moses Lake, Wash., or Golden, British Columbia (where one mardy "lower case" bacigalupo got the call), or Woburn, Mass. (where Megg "two gs" Crook cranked it out) the slow down story has to get written!
Excelsior!!

One of the issues that I want to address in this blog is the odd politically correct idea that, as a consequence of barring "discrimination," we must not allow any recognition that anything is different from anything else. It's the notion I call "Everything's the same."

Academia is infested with such thinking, and here's particularly noxious example, noted by both Volokh and Fire.org. It involves a piece in the journal Nature by Stanford neurobiology professor Ben Barres', discussing the field of study known as "gender cognative differences."  

It's an entirely respectable field of study, but it can be misinterpreted by the hair-trigger victim-mongers in academia. This is of course what happened to former Harvard president, Larry Summers, who made the mistake of worrying aloud about a very real issue: the dearth of women in the math and science fields. For demonstrating his concern on this issue, he was hounded out of office by Harvard faculty, who insisted he had suggested that women were incapable of competing in these fields. He said or implied nothing of the sort, but that didn't stop the victim-mongering. Barres apparently recognizes this, and so he takes great pains to establish his bona fides with those who are ready to misconstrue the issue:

…I welcome any future studies that will provide a better understanding of why women and minorities are not advancing at the expected rate in science and so many other professions.

 

But…it is incumbent upon those proclaiming gender differences in abilities to rigorously address whether suspected differences are real before suggesting that a whole group of people is innately wired to fail....In my view, when faculty tell their students that they are innately inferior based on race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, they are crossing a line that should not be crossed — the line that divides free speech from verbal violence — and it should not be tolerated at Harvard or anywhere else.

The problem here is that a logical leap is being made, the same silly leap that was made in the Summers case. To discuss scientific data on gender cognative differences is NOT the same as suggesting or declaring that women are innately inferior. Summers did not do that, though some (perhaps willfully) misunderstood to have said that. That someone might mistakenly conflate the two concepts is no reason to declare them identical.

Volokh carefully notes that there is genuine and justifiable concern about the consequences of discussion of innate gender differences:



Or, as Greg Lukianoff at Fire.org put it: "Apparently, we can now add 'verbal violence' to a list previously comprised of just sticks and stones. Students beware. Meet the new scientific method, which champions ideological conformity over observation, hypothesis and experimentation."

But there is another issue here, that both Volokh and Lukianoff missed: The stunning egotism reflected in Barres' comments. I find it hard to believe that there are very many college students out there who are accepting everything a college professor says at face value. Barres essentially implies that if he or some other academic declares from the podium that women are "innately inferior," that his female students will simply wilt and drop all their math classes. Did this happen with Summers? Or instead was Summers virtually tarred and feathered and ridden out of town? The colossal self-importance inherant in the statement is apalling! But, then again, suggesting that when a faculty member "tells their students" something, they might think for themselves about, well, that's out of the question, right?

Is it my imagination, or is bigotry, real and imagined, genuine and drummed up for political purposes, the theme for the week? Let's run down the list.

Of course, there's the very real anti-jew bigotry of Hezbollah, in the form of an unprovoked military attack on a sovereign nation. But at least it's open, and unapologetic. Along with the ongoing genocidal rhetoric coming out of Iran (rhetoric which, by the way, is, in and of itself, a U.N. violation) I admit that such undisguised bigotry is perversely bracing in its honesty. They at least avoid the deadly progressive sin of hypocrisy.

Then there's anti-jew bigotry that if bubbling up in Europe. This is one of those "far ends of the ideological spectrum bend around and meet each other" situations that happens more often in Europe than it does here in the U.S. There's a hard left and a hard right in this country, and they both mistrust jews, and suspect that American jews work concert with one another to accomplish an agreed-upon agenda. But this suspicion largely centers on controlling the entertainment world/the popular culture/the news media. A few even more extreme types imagine a jewish hegemony on the world economic system. But all this is more of a paranoid suspicion, and even among the most vile bigots there is a sort of "ya gotta give 'em credit for being so industrious" undertone to it all.
In Europe, which has had longer to develop hardcore strains of virulent anti-semitic radicalism,  jew-hating hard-left anarchists and jew-hating hard-right neo-fascists have no kind illusions, and if pressed, will grudgingly admit that Hitler had his reasons. All this gets a further boost by the presence of millions of openly and unapologetically anti-semitic muslim immigrants. When push comes to shove, in what I believe is a fast-approaching World War, it will be interesting to see how long the EU can hold together as openly anti-semitic voting blocs make their presence known to politicians eager to hang on to power.

Then there's appalling bigotry of the mainstream media, which now treats wars like football games: Both sides have their equally justifiable motivations so coverage must be "even-handed," and is largely limited to "who's winning, "personal stories," and process. The notion that one side might be more "justified" in its aggression than the other is unthinkable...but at the same time, any side that allies itself with the hated Americans must be immediately suspect. 
The root of the press coverage issue goes back to my post about pacifism. The plague of pacifism has so deeply infected the press that, as Dennis Prager put it this week, it is now virtually impossible for a civilized nation to wage war. Some might respond with "good." That is suicide-pact talk. Believe me, those who wish to place us under Sharia law and abolish the Constitution have no qualms about inflicting casualties on "innocent civilians." If the Western press cannot perceive a greater good in western democracies prevailing over Islamofascism, if it cannot let go of its desire to hold western forces to a higher standard than our enemies, when push comes to shove in what I believe is a fast-approaching World War, they will soon find themselves irrelevant and unheeded.

Then there is the explicit bigotry of walking into the office of a charity organization, saying "I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel," and firing your weapon at anything that moves. In the days since the incident, it has become quite clear that the assailant was mentally disturbed. Nonetheless, I believe it's fair to ask to what extent has the relentlessly anti-Israeli news coverage contributed to the tragedy.

Of a far less serious nature (though the media and progressives have been playing it up like a major crime) is the recent Mel Gibson affair. I frankly found "The Passion" excessive, weird and off-putting, so don't mistake me for the Gibson fan-boys and fan-girls who can see no evil when it comes to Mel. If his comments at the scene of his arrest are accurately reported (and while I have heard no attempt to refute them, I would not at all be surprised to learn otherwise) he sounds like he has absorbed much more of his father's kooky talk than is good for him. But anti-religious bigots are having far too much fun with his comeuppance and would do well to inject a little human compassion into their comments on the issue.
This morning I heard a marvelous rant by comedian Jackie Mason who essentially dismissed Gibson's actions with "He was drunk." That's about right. He's apologized, he's getting treatment, major Jewish organizations have accepted his apology. Barring new news, it's over.

Balancing that right-wing bigotry is the sort of left-wing bigotry that bubbles up when "progressives" think they're being funny, when they think nobody else is watching.
"This is how they talk to each other," blogger Betsy Newmark noted a year ago, when a noted Democrat was caught saying foolish things. It's a phrase that has stuck with me.
It IS how they talk to each other: the hate, the bile, the venom...the misinformed fantasy accepted as obvious truth. Howard Dean says ridiculous things like "Republicans are rich white Christians" because he thinks he's safely ensconced in the echo-chamber, preaching to the choir. Comments like this. Here's a more recent example. Of course he apologized, but of course you know he meant it.
It's also another sign of the creeping "Daily Show"/"Colbert Report"-ization of Democratic rhetoric. All too often of late, progressives have gotten themselves in trouble trying to be "funny." I suspect that graphic in question was a similar ill-considered attempt at humor. The desire to get that laugh has overwhelmed any notion of being responsible. And candidates with irresponsible supporters lose elections.
This story also underlines the difficulties faced by a candidate who finds himself suddenly embraced by the lefty blogosphere. The "netroots" crowd has a history of keying each other up, like a gang of seven-year-olds who got into the candy bars, until one of them giddily steps over the line and the candidate is forced to repudiate the whole mess. Which can lead to many in the hard-core faction to walk away, feeling betrayed by the candidate. Which can lead to the beginning of the end for a candidacy. Only time will tell if that's what's happening here.

Last AND least are examples of pretend bigotry, drummed up for partisan purposes. One is this week's tempest in a teapot about Massachusetts Gov. Mit Romney. In comments about the latest headache involving "The Big Dig" in Boston, Romney made the mistake of making a literary reference that has been disapproved by the arbiters of acceptable speech. Speaking in Iowa Saturday, the would-be presidential candidate said he was taking a risk by assuming responsibility for the troubled tunnel project. "The best thing politically would be to stay as far away from that tar baby as I can," Romney said.  Condemnation followed. "He thinks he's presidential timber," Larry Jones, a black Republican and civil rights activist, told the Associated Press. "But all he's shown us is arrogance."
I was sorry to see Romney apologize the next day. He has NOTHING to apologize for. He did not use the phrase in a racial context, he used it to describe an intractible situation. It was an entirely innocent comment, and the condemnation is clearly being lodged for partisan purpos