I admit it — "Same Auld Lang Syne" always made me cry….
Actually, "Leader Of The Band", too…
Come to think of it, you really should download "The Innocent Age" (it’s not an entire downer)….
UPDATE: His website, announcing the news…..
The Huckabee Backlash
MONDAY MORNING UPDATE: Typepad seems to be on the fritz. I’m still posting, but nothing is showing. I guess they’re working on it….
It’s kind of amusing to watch the GOP punditry lash out against Huckabee. For years, they have courted the Christian conservative vote if only to get people like Bush in office. People like Bush make a lot of promises about stopping abortion, keeping gays from getting married, and so on, but nothing happens. You know why? It’s a ruse to get the Christian conservative vote.
Now, along comes Huckabee, a TRUE Christian conservative himself, and all of a sudden you have GOP pundits screaming for the hills and even threatening to vote Democratic if Huckabee wins the GOP nomination.
Here is Dan Riehl on the prospect of a Huckabee nomination:
That Presidential “R” in 2008 will stand for nothing I believe in. The guy is slick but doesn’t even look competent. And if Republican primary voters are that stupid, they deserve to lose next Fall. To pass over McCain, Thompson, Romney and Giuliani ONLY because someone’s slick and a Jesus Freak, which makes him your average televangelist – forget it.
Regular readers of Dan Riehl will blanche at the phrase "Jesus Freak" to describe a Christian conservative. He was quite happy with the rhetoric of christian conservatism, up until Huckabee of course.
Conservative writers are even exuding that kind of elitism that they usually claim belongs to liberals, as in this "Go Back To Dogpatch"-like advice to Huckabee from the conservative Corner:
That bait shop on the lake — it’s looking good. You’ll be surrounded by nice neighbors, real Christians, and you can be the smartest guy in the room. You can go out running every morning. Remember Huck — Jesus wouldn’t be dumb enough to go into politics.You were right on that one. Maybe it’s not what he wants from you either.
Then there is columnist Peggy Noonan who, although critical of Huckabee, makes an interesting (and true) observation about his impact on the GOP:
I wonder if our old friend Ronald Reagan could rise in this party, this environment. Not a regular churchgoer, said he experienced God riding his horse at the ranch, divorced, relaxed about the faiths of his friends and aides, or about its absence. He was a believing Christian, but he spent his adulthood in relativist Hollywood, and had a father who belonged to what some saw, and even see, as the Catholic cult. I’m just not sure he’d be pure enough to make it in this party. I’m not sure he’d be considered good enough.
Every complacent secular Republican who has scorned those of us worried about the fundie right is beginning to squirm in the face of Huckabee’s surge.
So is Sadly No:
In this light, the horror at Huck’s rise is completely understandable. The GOP simply loved having the “idiot” vote as long as the idiots kept supporting tax-cuttin’ anti-gubmint candidates. When they start switching their support to someone who hasn’t been as faithful a supply-sider, then the economic elite will well and fully freak out.
As a Democrat, I am of course salivating at the prospect of a Huckabee nomination.
Sadly, even a win in Iowa (a distinct possibility) won’t be enough to sustain him.
But it’s nice to dream.
UPDATE: The email letter to conservative pundit Rich Lowry gets to the heart of the schism that the GOP now finds itself in:
Rich, I think what a lot of evangelicals may be missing here is that many non-evangelical conservatives are completely baffled, and frustrated, by the amount of support for the non-conservative Bush-channeling Huckabee. When we sit back and look at the amount of frustration and consternation that Bush has caused among conservatives, and then see Huckabee (who represents everything bad about Bush, with few of his positive characteristics) gaining the support of a fourth of our party, we have to ask ourselves why. The most obvious answer seems to be that he is attracting so much support because he is the only evangelical candidate in the race. To many conservatives, well at least to me, this idea that we should betray conservative principles in order to support a candidate with the right religious credentials is more than shocking, it is abhorrent, and the result is an anti-evangelical backlash. I consider myself a social conservative, and share so much common ground with evangelicals that it truly hurts me to see the strain being placed on our relationship. But as long as their power is used to push a statist non-conservative candidate on our party, we will not be seeing eye-to-eye.
Riiiiip
Well, well, well….
Look how much the Bush Administration has spent for paper-shredding over the past few years.
Each bar off the vertical axis represents $500,000 dollars.
In 2000, the feds spent $452,807 to make unpleasant truths go away; by 2006, the "Cheney Effect" had bumped that number up to $2.9 million. And by halfway through 2007, the feds almost matched that number, with $2.7 million and counting. Pretty much says it all.
Creation Museum Documentary
A few months old, but I missed it:
Not a bad YouTube mini-documentary for a trio of high-schoolers….
Class Warfare
Bush wonders why he’s not getting credit for the increase in wealth because if his tax plan.
Thanks to Krugman and Yglesius, we can see why — graphically. The reason people don’t tout the benefir it because from Bush’s tax plans hits strongers for less the 10% of Americans. And that 10%? The uber-rich:
The Mitchell Report
I wasn’t going to address this, but I had the same thoughts as Volokh conspiracy blogger Ilya Somin (also a Bosox fan), so I might as well dive in:
Unfortunately, the prominence of Yankees stars in the Report and the near-absence of Red Sox stars raises the question of whether Senator George Mitchell, the Report’s primary author, was compromised by his status as a Boston Red Sox director. Was he deliberately targeting Yankees players and/or purposely overlooking offenses by Red Sox?
Somin goes on to answer his own question with a "no". Mitchell, he argues, has "made a career of serving as an elder statesman/conflict mediator from Northern Ireland to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict", and is unlikely to risk that reputation because of his connection to the Red Sox.
Okay, I’ll buy that.
By the way, former Red Sox on "the list" include [Eric] Gagne, [Mo] Vaughn, [Roger] Clemens, Mike Stanton, Mike Lansing, Manny Alexander, Jose Manzanillo, Jeremy Giambi, [Brendan] Donnelly, Kent Mercker, Chris Donnels.
Glad to see Jason Varitek, Trot Nixon, and Nomar Garciaperra — rumored to be on the list — are in fact not listed.
I have little else to say about The Mitchell Report (full report — 409 pages in pdf format) other than what everybody else is saying (including the report itself). The use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs is casting a pall on the enjoyability of the game, and it’s high time (past time, in fact) that baseball does something about it. The report is a launching-off point for serious revisions to the rules, and hopefully everybody — owners, managers, and (most crucially) the baseball unions — will get behind it.
Obama Edges Ahead In New Hampshire
Sen. Barack Obama "has come from behind to turn the Democratic presidential race in New Hampshire into a toss-up," according to a new Concord Monitor poll. Obama leads with 32%, followed by Sen. Hillary Clinton at 31%, John Edwards at 18% and Gov. Bill Richardson at 8%.
Key finding:
"The poll suggests that the Democratic race could hinge on the turnout of undeclared voters, who aren’t registered with either political party. Much of Obama’s backing comes from undeclared voters, while registered Democrats make up the bulk of Clinton’s support. In New Hampshire, undeclared voters can vote in either party primary, giving them sway in both contests."
Makris V. O’Reilly: The Opera
Someone took the sexual harassment allegations against Bill O’Reilly — including the taped phone call in which he described how he would seduce Ms. Makris — and set them to an operatic area.
Here is the result, performed live:
Maybe They Weren’t Terrorists?
The Miami "Seas of David" terror bust was such an important blow in the War on Terror that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales himself gave a press conference in July of 2006. Federal agents had stopped a plot to blow up the Sears Tower, he said. The group had planned to "accomplish attacks against America," the FBI’s deputy director said at Gonzales side. "We pre-empted their plot."
At the time, many — including myself — felt that it was a lot of hype. A bunch of Muslims with tough talk amongst themselves, and absolutely no means to carry out such an attack. It was unclear whether the group really had any plans themselves, or whether they got all their ideas from the FBI informant. When the FBI raided the Temple, FBI agents found only one knife and a blackjack. The group trained by shooting paintball guns in the woods.
Apparently, your peers in the jury agreed. The government’s case ended yesterday with one exoneration and six mistrials.
Bush Will Veto Ban On Waterboarding
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a ban on torture. Actually, per The Gavel, the House adopted the Army’s rules prohibiting torture for other agencies. Seems the Army doesn’t want to condone a practice that could be used on our soldiers. Not Bush, though. He will veto that ban:
The White House vowed to veto the measure. Limiting the CIA to interrogation techniques authorized by the Army Field Manual "would prevent the United States from conducting lawful interrogations of senior al Qaeda terrorists to obtain intelligence needed to protect Americans from attack," the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.
Scared Of Santa
The South Florida Sun-Sentinal has an ever-increasing selection of photos in their "Scared of Santa" photo gallery.
Casualties Of War
More than 100,000 of the 750,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have sought treatment for mental problems from the Department of Veterans Affairs, an official said during a hearing on suicides.
Dr. Ira Katz, the VA’s deputy chief of patient care, told members of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee that the department’s suicide hotline has received more than 6,000 calls from veterans or their families since it was established in July.
I Don’t Think You Know What That Word Means
From the Christian news Wbsite, WorldNetDaily:
Satan has reared his ugly head in the 2008 presidential campaign – literally.
Emphasis mine.
The article then describes the recent dust-up between Huckabee and Romney over Romney’s Mormon faith.
Nothing about Satan’s head.
Patriots Proud Of Defeating Whoever That Last Team Was
From The Onion:
FOXBOROUGH, MA—Patriots quarterback Tom Brady diplomatically emphasized that defeating whoever it was they had just played gave him and his teammates a great sense of accomplishment during his post-game press conference Sunday. "It’s always very satisfying to got out there and get a win against…against those guys," Brady said, adding that it was a mistake to take those other guys for granted as they were capable of making a few plays. "They definitely had some sort of game plan, and they were running around fairly fast out there. We overcame a lot to triumph over, uh, you know, them." According to Brady, the Patriots still need to correct a number of mistakes during the week’s practices, execute better, and prepare for that one team they have to defeat next.