Month: January 2006

What is it about people named Barbara and Dean?

John Fund has a note on Barbara Boxer’s Bush obsession in today’s Political Diary.

Some Democrats have become so obsessed with President Bush’s National Security Agency surveillance activities that they are putting the most rabid of the anti-Clinton Republicans of the 1990s to shame. Take Senator Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who serves as her party’s Chief Deputy Whip. Last month, during the holiday season, she sent a letter to legal scholars asking their opinions as to whether the Bush NSA program should compel Congress to start impeachment hearings.
With the 2006 midterm elections now upon us, if the Democrats want the American public to take them seriously on matters of national security, perhaps they should quietly decide to make someone else the Chief Deputy Whip.
Ms. Boxer’s letter had been prompted by a December 16 appearance she made at Temple Emanuel in Los Angeles with former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean, who has since become a sort of understudy to former Attorney General Ramsey Clark in his willingness to ascribe all manner of evil intent to conservative presidents. Mr. Dean, who declared the Bush record on civil liberties “worse than Watergate,” told the Temple Emanuel audience that Mr. Bush is “the first president to admit to an impeachable offense.” Ms. Boxer called that “a startling assertion” worthy of Congressional attention. During her duet with Mr. Dean, she made her own startling statement, blurting out that she feared Mr. Bush “would prefer to do away with Congress,” calling for the House and Senate to be disbanded during wartime.
The “worse than Watergate” assertion would be one of the funniest things I’ve read today if it weren’t for Boxer’s own comment about Bush wanting to disband Congress. One has to wonder if she’s truly serious when she utters such nonsense, or is she simply playing to the anti-war radical left? Either way, I think it shows that Boxer isn’t fit for such a high position in one of this country’s two major political parties.
Democrats such as Ms. Boxer are in danger of being viewed as overheated and irrational in their reaction to the NSA story.
Ya think? I think we’re well past the “in danger of” stage.
A new Rasmussen poll finds that 32% of voters think our legal system worries too much about individual rights at the expense of national security. Another 27% say the current balance is about right. Only 29% say there is too much concern for national security at the expense of individual liberties and only one-third of Americans believe that Mr. Bush broke the law by authorizing the NSA to monitor phone calls between terrorist suspects. Only 26% believe that President Bush is the first to authorize a program allowing the NSA to intercept such calls.

If Ms. Boxer and Mr. Dean continue to urge Democrats down the impeachment route, they should recall how much the issue flopped for Republicans in the 1998 mid-term elections. Mr. Clinton became the first president since FDR to see his party gain seats during a mid-term election, in part because voters felt Republicans were spending too much time attacking him rather than addressing other issues.

I thought we were painting our faces for the Tiger game

Have you seen the McDonald’s commercial with the face-painting football fans? I just about lost it when Tiger Face licks the back of his hand at the end.

Letterman’s swing to the left

This morning, while dropping the little phisch off at school and running an errand, I caught a bit of Laura Ingraham. She was discussing and taking calls about David Letterman’s treatment of Bill O’Reilly when the latter appeared on the former’s show earlier this week.
I’m not an O’Reilly fan in the least, and I am an infrequent watcher of Letterman, but when I have tuned in, I too have noticed the late night host’s slide toward the radical left.
The late night shows, Leno and Letterman, have always poked fun at whomever is the current President, and the Congress. That’s not the issue here. Carson did the same, and it’s to be expected. They are public figures, and one of the great things about our country, as opposed to, say, the workers’ paradise ninety miles off the coast of Florida, is that we can poke fun at our leaders without fear of reprisal. We have come to accept, and expect, such fun-poking from the late-night hosts.
Within the past couple of years, however, both Leno and Letterman have increasingly been slinging barbs, instead of zingers, with regard to the President in particular, and conservatives in general. Leno, at least, remains funny and charming about it, and tries to be balanced. Letterman, however, appears bitter, his comments aren’t funny, and he certainly isn’t interested in trying to be fair.
From the clips I heard, O’Reilly was trying to keep things light, quipping that Dave should tune in to O’Reilly’s show, and maybe they would “send him a hat.” Letterman’s response was something along the lines of, “So long as it’s a Cindy Sheehan hat.” Cindy Sheehan, Dave? She’s so last year. No one even showed up for her book signing.
Letterman’s strength has always been his and his staff’s writing. Among the reasons I’ve tuned in less and less to Letterman is that strength is waning, and he’s allowing too much of his political beliefs come through in what is supposed to be an entertainment show. No one tunes in to Letterman or Leno to listen to political rants, from either perspective, or to discuss world events. People tune in to get the latest entertainment gossip, watch the “interviews,” and get a good laugh. Letterman has become fallow ground for the latter.

Socialism: never a good idea

Mary Katherine Ham:

Socialism is a nice idea, in theory, they tell me. I won’t be conceding that point anymore. Too many have conceded it for too long, and too many have been fooled into thinking it can work — again. And, the costs of that particular thought are just too high.

Calendar fun

In my pursuit to not renew my .Mac subscription this year, I decided to install PHP iCalendar. Since we use only SFTP on our box, and none of the the iCal FTP apps out there support that protocol, I was left with publishing from iCal via WebDav.
After I confirmed with him that WebDav was available on our box’s installation, Jim, our sysamdmin, walked me through setting up authentication for publishing and viewing. This was not without its little hiccups.

Not the answer I'm looking for

Being the brilliant guy he is, Jim soon figured out the issue, and now I am happily publishing my calendar to the web. A quick bookmark, named oh so originally “Cal”, in Safari’s Bookmark Bar, and I’m set.

On those Wikipedia ills

Given Ellyn’s column this month on Wikipedia, I thought this Penny Arcade was apropos.
[Wave of the phin to Dan.]

So much fun

100 lashes for bragging about FiOS

Documenting bad grammar

Lee and I share a pet peeve relating to grammar, and he has chosen to begin documenting finds in meatspace.
One reason I don’t slog through comments on most blogs is because the respondents apparently didn’t learn anything in third grade, or since. “It’s” means “it is,” and “Its” denotes the possessive case. “There” denotes a place, while “Their” denotes a plural possessive. Those are the two major mistakes I see, which irk me to no end.

If Karl Rove Leaked the NSA Story, He’d Be a Media Hero

John Fund:

[T]he establishment media clearly leans toward the view that the NSA leak was in the public interest. Unlike the Plame probe, the Justice Department career employees trying to investigate the NSA case can expect no laudatory editorials urging them to pursue their job relentlessly and, above all, no media bloodhounds conducting their own parallel investigations.

The old adage that politics should stop at the water’s edge was abandoned long ago. Now the idea that all of us, regardless of political stripe, have a stake in preventing harm to national security from unauthorized intelligence leaks seems to have similarly entered the dustbin of history.

Another reason to love the Scots

The Scottish accent–when it is comprehensible–is better for business than a regional English accent.

If you want to get ahead in business and don’t speak the Queen’s English, it is better to sound as if you are from Scotland, or indeed from America, Europe or India, than from any English region.
Those Brits sure can be a wee odd at times.
[Via AWAD.]