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June 17, 2005 - June 10, 2005

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

DUBYA'S SALVATION. Sometimes men really are as stupid as women tend to think they are. This is especially true when men try to understand things that are principally intended for women. I've spent most of the day reviewing blog reactions to last night's convention speakers, something I normally don't do. What got me started was the (to me) puzzling reaction of Brit Hume's panel to the performances of the Twins and the First Lady. Fred Barnes, Mort Kondracke, and Mara Liason were mostly faint in their praise of Laura Bush and from mildly to severely critical of the girls. Only Chris Wallace -- memorable for his immediate pan of Teresa Heinz-Kerry's speech -- continued to bolster my respect for his acumen by praising both. I was curious to see what the rest of the geniuses out there had to say, hence the hours of blogging.

Mostly, the bloggers and columnists agree with Fred and Mort. The Twins were terrible, an embarrasment, "cringe-inducing," a Republican mistake. Laura Bush was solid and likable but a letdown after Arnold and far from a homerun. These views are represented to one degree or another by such normally acute observers as Jonah Goldberg, Roger L. Simon, Glenn Reynolds, and many many more bloggers and blog-responders.

Mostly men, of course. And there's the rub. They weren't the target audience and they're not quite imaginative enough (at least today) to understand what they witnessed. Bush's weakest major demographic is women. All of the months of Democrat demonizing of Bush have taken their toll with women, who may be great at trusting their own instincts but are also prone to believing gossip, especially oft-repeated gossip. What have they been hearing from the malicious Democrat grapevine? That Bush lied. That he recklessly went to war and continues to seek out opportunities to put the lives of American youngsters at risk on the battlefield. That he's a spoiled power-elite rich kid with an irresponsible past and a tendency to let others do the hard work for him. That he's a whacked-out fundamentalist Christian. That the "compassionate conservative" of the first campaign was a sham and a disguise for the rabid right-wing ideologue underneath. That he is somehow sinister, conspiratorial, and not to be trusted.

Last night, the Twins and Laura Bush blew all of that claptrap out of the water for millions of American women who aren't going to be persuaded by the logic or factual arguments of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. The Twins are clearly not the spawn of some dynastic clan which sits at table with the Illuminati. They are just like millions of other American girls their age -- awkward, corny, goofy, a bit lascivious, intentionally disrespectful, and full-time flirtatious. But they also evidently love their parents, both of them, and their performance was not the one we would have expected if they had a cold and distant father for whom they were doing a public family duty. Who would make sex jokes at a party convention if you had the kind of dad who was going to land on you like a ton of bricks afterwards? The Twins were a HUGE plus for George W.

As to the First Lady, I can't even begin to understand how so much pundit brainpower could fail to perceive the immense impact of her speech. She was, by her mere presence, an eloquent and elegant takedown of the pretensions of Teresa Heinz-Kerry. Mrs. Bush is mannerly, intelligent, warm, and modest, yet confident and beautifully clear eyed. Her smile is the kind that delights both the spouse and the children. She is the kind of woman that women like (unlike Heinz-Kerry), which is far less common than most men understand. Women who look at her know that she is good and strong, and they know that she really does love and admire her husband. Therefore, they know that he must possess sufficient virtue to have earned that love and admiration. Her low-key descriptions of her husband walking in the garden, wrestling with issues of war and terror, cannot be contrived. A false word would cloud such pure eyes and diminish the beautiful smile. She is a completely genuine person, and by her association with George W. Bush, she washes away from him much of the dung that has been slopped on him. Her speech may be the single most important one of the convention. It was a grand-slam homerun -- with her two daughters and husband on base..

To those who think it presumptuous for a man to speak so confidently on such matters I will say only that I have made a determined effort, over many years, to understand the deep differences between men and women. I have done so during an epoch when such differences have been dismissed as politically incorrect nonsense or twisted into pro-feminist propaganda (the only permitted sex differences are those which favor women; e.g., the nicer, more perceptive, more cooperative spiel). I have used my conclusions many times to make fun of feminism, female mental processes, and women generally. Now there is a positive use for what I've learned, and I offer it in all humility. But if you suspect that I am wrong, search the Internet for reviews of the Twins and their Mother by female pundits. If you read carefully past the partisan posturing, you will discover that I am right about this. Even fanatical Democratic women are going to have a hard time criticizing Laura Bush, and if they seem to underrate her impact on voters, look for the fear behind the words.

George W. Bush's wife is the most potent weapon in his arsenal.

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

RETURN OF THE IDEALISTS. Sure, we could talk about important things, such as the big speeches by John McCain (good) and Rudy Giuliani (better), but USA Today has hired Michael Moore to analyze those for us, so why engage in superfluous chit-chat? Besides, it looks like the real action at the Republican Convention is happening outside Madison Square Garden, where a hundred thousand (give or take a few) mostly unwashed and unkempt young deadbeats are acting out their hatred of George W. Bush in a kind of mass tantrum. Absolutely nothing they do or say is important unless a handful of anarchists succeeds in committing an act of real violence, like the burning of a float that reportedly occurred yesterday. Otherwise, they couldn't be any more dreary to look at -- in person or in photos -- a near exact reproduction of the loutish hippie-radicals of John Kerry's salad days. The attire is a throwback to the sixties, as are the signs and slogans, many of which are frankly plagiarized from the decades-old signage of SDS. Their demeanour is equally derivative, hostile to clean-looking strangers, loud and laden with obscenities. An old, tired, drab and humorless imitation of the drab and humorless original.

But there are exceptions, which we note with pleasure. At least three smallish groups we know of have dared to inject the exhausted protest tradition with a sense of fun and satire. All three are present for the festivities in New York. All three have websites. They are the Billionaires for Bush (BFB), Communists for Kerry (CFK), and the Protest Warriors (PW), a right-wing group with ties to CFK. In the website competition, the right-wing groups appear to have less funding but funnier art, comedy bits, signs, and products for sale. The BFB site is slicker, better written (spelling counts, boys, even on the righthand side of the aisle), but its attempts at spoofing the news are burdened with too much detail, as if the liberal mentality can't resist trying to instruct its readers even if humor escapes in the process.

Yet if press accounts are to be trusted (I know, I know), when it comes to live demonstrations, BFB has crafted a witty and highly entertaining approach to conveying its ideas to the public. A writer named Emma Chastain observed a confrontation between BFB and CFK in New York the other day and offered a kind of review in the New Republic (username igotalotta, password billions.)

As Sunday's protest march approached the Flatiron Building, right-wingers dressed as left-wingers screamed at left-wingers dressed as right-wingers--while staying in character--to the delight of the marchers passing by. As a billionaire might say, "It was too meta, darling!"

Billionaires for Bush, a merry band of pranksters, aims to undermine the right wing by impersonating its cruelest and greediest members. Communists for Kerry, which hopes to be the Billionaires' bęte noir, satirizes the left by advocating a ban of the GOP and Christianity. Both groups trade in irony. But only one has been to charm school.

According to Ms. Chastain, the BFB crew stayed superbly in character, with light-hearted and spontaneous responses to their environs:


The CFK contingent, on the other hand, did not rise to the occasion of encountering the BFBs.


Still, Ms. Chastain acknowledged that the CFKs had the tougher role to play:


Another problem for the CFKs is that their true mission is to serve as an unsettling mirror for more traditional leftist protesters. In future, the organization might benefit from carrying a few signs and wisecracks aimed directly at the billionaires. "Greetings from the politburo to our generous comrade Ms. Heinz-Kerry." "Please convey our socialist good wishes to our ally George Soros." "Where is our great partner in revolution Marc Rich?" And even neo-communists should be able to remember that icons like Fidel love to rub shoulders with rich and famous Americans who come to bow and scrape before him. Fidel should be delighted to see a whole troupe of leftist billionaires. Good manners need never be dispensed with. The Kremlin in the glory days of Soviet communism was fully capable of high hospitality and politesse when entertaining American politicians, diplomats, and, yes, billionaires (See the career of Armand Hammer.)

Practice makes perfect. No doubt the CFKs will do better in their next encounter. Revolutions aren't won overnight, you know.

Friday, August 27, 2004

LAWYERS. Another charge against William Kennedy Smith. What would it be? Rape. Surprised? How about bored? How tired are we of hearing about the antics of America's "royal" family? Oh. You're not tired? Sorry. We forgot how cool it is that these offspring of multi-millionaire, Germanophile bootleggers get to do whatever they want, whenever, just because they're adequately equipped with cash, thick black Irish hair, millions of idolatrous Democrat apologists, and the moral sophistication of a gang of acquitted sociopaths. The current mess can't help but remind us of this pair of entries from Who's Who in Shuteye Nation (where all the names are changed just because) four years ago:


It's funny how quickly Greta leaped onto this story in her Fox News Channel show. She didn't quite know how how to play it. She kept referring to the sordid past of the accused. She made no mention of the fact that her own television career dates to the commentary she gave in support of a Kennedy acquittal in the old rape case. Does 'objective' mean never having to acknowledge the personal benefit you've received from a story you once covered as a journalist°? Guess so.

Thursday, August 26, 2004

A GREAT BIG MESS. It seems as if the world has narrowed down to just two topics: swift boat vets and the Olympics. There have been some nice moments in the latter, but not very many in the former. So as to be on the record, InstaPunk has a few observations to make about the unseemly Kerry circus. First, we think Kerry has brought this controversy on himself in several ways. He thought he could play both ends against the middle, which is always a dicey proposition but almost suicidal in a case like this one. He believed he could appeal to defense-minded patriots with his combat record in Vietnam while retaining the support of the peaceniks with his anti-war activism in the 1970s. The divide between these two groups is not a fuzzy gray area but a cultural cleavage that has festered in this country for 30 years. When you play such ends against such a middle, the natural result is that you fall into a very deep chasm. That's where he is now. He has also, over the years, seemingly gone out of his way to make his vulnerabilities in the current controversy worse. Unlike every other combat veteran we've met, Kerry has not been modestly taciturn about his wartime exploits. Instead, it appears that he has been continuously garrulous about his heroism in every mass medium he has access to: speeches on the floor of Congress, television and radio shows, books, and even 8 mm film (directed by himself). Before the current blow-up, we had already formed a picture of Kerry as a man who would buttonhole strangers at parties, on airliners, and in doctor's waiting rooms to tell them about his service in Vietnam. Now he seems befuddled that the whole case being made against him rests on his own abundant written and recorded verbiage on the subject. He reminds us of the hopeless bore who is suddenly dismayed that anyone has ever listened to him long enough to take issue with what he says. Well, it can happen, particularly when a big bore runs for the Presidency.

We are also struck by the Democrats' reaction to the swift boat vets. Yes, they have to defend their candidate, but their strategy looks silly on two counts. Trying to smear 250 combat vets because they are (perhaps) smearing one combat vet seems a bit elitist, recalling the anecdote from Kerry's Massachusetts critics which depicts him as constantly asking inconvenient others, "Do you know who I am?" It turns out that smearing a combat vet is unacceptable only when the vet is named John Kerry. The simultaneous effort to pin the whole affair on the Bush administration seems equally arrogant. At the Democratic convention, John Edwards essentially dared the world to seek out Kerry's wartime compatriots to find out who Kerry is. When a bunch of them step forward with a less than pretty picture of who Kerry is, why are the Republicans expressly at fault? If we're to accept the whole mythic ethos of "band of brothers," how are we supposed to believe that any of the brothers would betray one of their own at the behest of a presidential campaign operative? Unless Kerry actually regards the whole "band of brothers" thing as a useful fiction. Even so, accusations of partisan dirty tricks can do nothing whatsoever to conceal the one fact that is clear in this whole mess: most of the men who served with Kerry in Vietnam do not like or respect him. Karl Rove and George W. Bush did not create that fact, and they cannot make it go away.

Kerry's whining demand that Bush make the swift boat vets shut up would have more resonance if he had forthrightly condemned the endless Democrat bashing of Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard (ANG). He didn't. He was -- and still is -- fully prepared to accept the benefits of lefty smearing of Bush. He didn't object when Moveon.org compared Bush to Hitler, and his objection to the renewed smearing of Bush's ANG service is a transparent ruse. Make sure that the ad runs and then condemn it as if the same charges hadn't already been made and refuted over and over and over again.

Finally, we can't forget that the Democrats launched the first official party attack in the arena of military service. It was Bill Clinton whose convention speech lumped George W. Bush in with himself and Dick Cheney as men who sought to avoid service in Vietnam. Since Clinton is a confessed draft dodger, it's a mite much for him to claim President Bush as a comrade-in-non-arms. This kind of loose talk makes us want to revisit Bush's military service in the context of the swift boat controversy.

Some of us are old enough to remember the Vietnam War era. We knew people who tried to avoid service in Vietnam. Whatever other motives they had, number one on the list was this: they did not want to get killed. One of the worst ways we can think of to avoid getting killed is volunteering to fly fighter jets. Yet how often has this point been made by any commentator on either side? Even Republicans act as if Bush's ANG service were somehow less than brave and honorable and needs to be excused in some way. InstaPunk knows something of fighter pilots. We reject the notion that a fighter pilot needs to be excused for anything, regardless of whether he served in a zone of war or peace. If you have participated in any of this derision yourself, then provide an honest answer to this question: what would it take for you to strap yourself all alone into a 600-mph chunk of metal, sit on a couple thousand gallons of explosive jet fuel, and fly by instruments at night with another piece of equipment just like yours hurtling along beside you, no more than a few feet away? Would you feel safe doing that, as if you had somehow outsmarted the military's great big death machine? Not sure? Here's what WorldNet Daily reported way back in February 2004, when the lefties were doing their best to bring down George W on the basis of his shameful ANG service:

Flying the F-102, a one-seater jet, was no cakewalk. In fact, it was downright dangerous.

"I was glad to serve, but I just carried a clipboard around; and I tell you, George had a much riskier occupation there in the Guard than I did," said David Perry, who played junior-high school football with Bush at a private academy in Houston.

He says the F-102, weighing in at more than 15 tons at takeoff, was a "flying rock." And it carried just two hour's worth of fuel, with no chance for midair refueling, which meant pilots had to get up and back down relatively quickly or risk running out of fuel.

"That's a risk-taker right there, just going up in that flying rock all the time," said Perry, a staff sergeant who served from 1968 to 1974. "I admire him just for that."

Roome agreed.

"You risked your life going on any mission in that airplane," he said. "It had some engine problems. It had a gear, called a bull gear, that came apart, and that happened a couple of times to our unit. You lose your fuel control, your hydraulics, your electronics, and it flames out and you're basically a glider, because you can't restart it."

Liles, who worked on the flight line, says he had to ground Bush one night after discovering hydraulic fluid leaking from his plane.

There was also a malfunction in the F-102's ejection system that could cause a pilot's chest to be crushed when the seat and parachute were deployed, noted Roome.

The supersonic Convair F-102 Delta Dagger

The gentleman named Roome quoted above flew with Bush. He didn't join an organization called 'F-102 Pilots for Truth' and appear in a TV ad excoriating Bush's qualifications to be commander-in-chief. He did have this to say, though, in the understated tone we have learned to expect from Chuck Yeager and professional military pilots trained in the U.S.:

"We flew a lot of night missions. We flew in weather together," he said. "Our stock-and-trade was formation (flying). We deployed in elements of two, and we'd have to target in the stratosphere, where we had to snap up to (the target) up above 40,000 feet, or we might have one in the weeds, where we'd have to go down and shadow (it)."

As a wingman, Bush tucked in closely and flew smoothly, he says.

"He was one of my favorite people to ride formation with, because he was smooth. He was a very competent pilot," Roome said. "You sort of bet your life on each other in some of those formation missions, and to me it was always a pleasure to fly with George. He was good."

Bush, who logged more than 625 hours in the cockpit, ranked in the top 10 percent of his squadron, according to his performance evaluations.

There's more information here than meets the eye. Now we know that the F-102 carries two hours worth of fuel (apparently, the F-102 was the Harley Sportster of fighter jets). If Bush flew 625 hours, that's more than 300 takeoffs and landings. Compressed into, say, a one-year tour, that would be six flights a week. Even without an enemy shooting at you, that's more risk than most of us would accept. It takes guts to be a fighter pilot. Imagine your first solo in an F-102. You're all alone in a plane you have never flown before. If you screw up, you may very well die. But there's no other way to learn, which is unlike virtually every other form of transportation anyone learns to operate: cars, boats, tanks, helicopters, and most other kinds of planes. Think about it. It beats the first release of the clutch on a motorcycle by about a hundred miles. Put yourself in that moment, then stand up and declare that your president is a cowardly draft dodger for whom you can summon no respect. With the sole exception of his father, George W. Bush is the closest we have ever had in reality to the president fantasized in "Independence Day; The Fourth of July," the movie that drew standing ovations as it earned Hollywood (those guys) a $100 million payday. Is Bush justified in wearing that flight suit on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln? You bet he is. And shame on those who sneer at any fighter pilot ever.

There's more in the original article, which wades through all the various allegations about Bush's service record and disposes of them pretty convincingly. A few highlights: he was generally liked, by both officers and enlisted men. He sought admission to an ANG program that would have sent him to Vietnam but his application was turned down.

This is the last time -- barring some outrageous legal brouhaha -- that we'll comment on the swift boat thing. There's enough information out there for people to make up their own minds what they think. That's as it should be. But we hope that with the arrival of the Republican Convention, the press and the public can get back to the real issues that should dominate the campaign. To help this prospect along, we offer a link to a very lengthy essay by Norman Podhoretz which takes us all the way back to the Nixon administration and then through every subsequent administration to the present for the purpose of helping us understand the nature of the conflict we are now engaged in -- you know, the one that's happening now, not 30 years ago, and represents the reason commander-in-chief has become such an important job title. As we said, the article is long, but it's worth reading every word. Honestly. (For a capsule characterization of the Podhoretz essay and another endorsement for reading all of it, look at this.)

And now for a footnote. The pundits keep clamoring about the irony of a 2004 election campaign that is somehow obsessed with the 30 year old war in Vietnam. It may be unfortunate, but it is not ironic. Vietnam is the beginning of the schism in our culture that has torn this country into bitterly hostile camps. It ended but it was never resolved in the nation's mind. For the first time in its history, the United States chose to be defeated, to give up, to abandon an ally in extremis. Giving up is one of those things that can get to be a habit. Oh, it's too hard... we've given up before... let's just forget about it. It's also easy to come up with a million good reasons for giving up... why the objective might not be worthwhile... why our cause might not be spotlessly pure... why the enemy might not be wrong... why there might be an easier, less costly, more popular way to achieve approximately (or sort of, kind of) the same objective. As you read Podhoretz's essay, count the number of times our country has given up or failed to act vigorously in our own interest since we walked away from Vietnam a generation ago. And think of the interesting identities of the two men who are now competing to be commander-in-chief -- the decorated combat veteran who became a champion of defeat and the non-combat vet who didn't fight then but is determined to fight now. Don't these two reflect us in illuminating ways? Yes, maybe we didn't fight hard enough or for exactly the right things back then, but we still must decide for certain whether that failure should prevent us from ever fighting hard and unflinchingly again. Both candidates face this decision -- if and how to put Vietnam behind us as a relict of history. We all face exactly the same challenge. Which candidate we pick will say a great deal about how willing we are to be controlled by the past.

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