Month: September 2006

Ann Richards: ‘How To Be a Good Republican’

Jon Ponder

Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards died yesterday after being diagnosed with cancer six month ago. She was Texas’ last Democratic governor, and was replaced after one successful term by George W. Bush.

Richards was a master of memorable rhetoric. At the Democratic Convention in 1988, she famously said of the first Pres. Bush, “Poor George. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” She could have said the same thing about the current Pres. Bush.

Here are Ann’s rules for How to Be a Good Republican. Written late in the Clinton presidency, in 1999 or 2000, they are still true today:

1. You have to believe that the nation’s current 8-year prosperity was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but yesterday’s gasoline prices are all Clinton’s fault.
2. You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.
3. You have to be against all government programs, but expect Social Security checks on time.
4. You have to believe that AIDS victims deserve their disease, but smokers with lung cancer and overweight individuals with heart disease don’t deserve theirs.
5. You have to appreciate the power rush that comes with sporting a gun.
6. You have to believe…everything Rush Limbaugh says.
7. You have to believe that the agricultural, restaurant, housing and hotel industries can survive without immigrant labor.
8. You have to believe God hates homosexuality, but loves the death penalty.
9. You have to believe society is color-blind and growing up black in America doesn’t diminish your opportunities, but you still won’t vote for Alan Keyes.
10. You have to believe that pollution is OK as long as it makes a profit.
11. You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don’t pray to Allah or Buddha.
12. You have to believe Newt Gingrich and Henry Hyde were really faithful husbands.
13. You have to believe speaking a few Spanish phrases makes you instantly popular in the barrio.
14. You have to believe that only your own teenagers are still virgins.
15. You have to be against government interference in business, until your oil company, corporation or Savings and Loan is about to go broke and you beg for a government bail out.
16. You love Jesus and Jesus loves you and, by the way, Jesus shares your hatred for AIDS victims, homosexuals, and President Clinton.
17. You have to believe government has nothing to do with providing police protection, national defense, and building roads.
18. You have to believe a poor, minority student with a disciplinary history and failing grades will be admitted into an elite private school with a $1,000 voucher.

Bush Says America Is Experiencing a Christian ‘Awakening’ as Part of Coming War of ‘Good and Evil’

Jon Ponder

President Bush believes we are in the midst of a religious revival that was triggered by terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists:

“A lot of people in America see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me,” Bush said during a 1 1/2 -hour Oval Office conversation on cultural changes and a battle with terrorists that he sees lasting decades. “There was a stark change between the culture of the ’50s and the ’60s — boom — and I think there’s change happening here,” he added. “It seems to me that there’s a Third Awakening.”

The president appeared to be conflating the “confrontation between good and evil” with the War on Terror — a fact his aides rushed to deny:

In his comments yesterday, aides said Bush was not casting the war as a religious struggle but was describing American cultural changes in a time of war.

“He’s drawing a parallel in terms of a resurgence, in dangerous times, of people going back to their religion,” said one aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was not open to other journalists. “This is not ‘God is on our side’ or anything like that.”

The White House did not release a transcript of Bush’s remarks…

This sounded a bit scary so I looked up Awakenings:

[…]

Republicans Set to Outspend Dems $60 Mil to $12 Mil in Six Weeks

Jon Ponder
It is an open question whether the deal between the DNC and DCCC will be enough to offset the financial advantage that the RNC cash will give Republican candidates this fall.

The Bush presidency is at stake. If the Republicans lose their majority in Congress, the new Democratic majority will actually investigate the president’s incompetence and malfeasance — and the White House political team simply cannot let that happen. The Republican National Committee will even risk bankrupting itself to keep the Congress under President Bush’s control:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) will spend its entire bank account, $60 million or more, helping Republicans try to retain control of Congress in the midterm elections.

The looming spending spree appears to have spurred Democratic House leaders to reach agreement over how much the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will help counter this onslaught.

The relationship between the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and DNC has been rocky. There is dispute over whether it took House Democratic Caucus Chairman James Clyburn’s (S.C.) intervention to broker the deal announced yesterday under which part of the DNC’s $12 million will be funneled to 40 House races. Targeted House Democratic candidates will receive about $60,000 from the party committee.

One Democratic official said Clyburn had to bring the sides together, but another official denied it.

The DNC money will also be spent on Senate and gubernatorial races, and voter turnout activities in battleground states.

It is an open question whether the deal between the DNC and DCCC will be enough to offset the financial advantage that the RNC cash will give Republican candidates this fall.

Reviews Are In: Barbra Streisand Recommends Us; Another Reader Compares Pensito Review to the BBC

Jon Ponder

First, I was poking around on the Internets yesterday and happened upon a link back to an article from Pensito Review on the website for Barbra Streisand. I am one of two gay men over 50 in the United States who is not gaga over Streisand’s music (and, perhaps not coincidentally, I have lived with the other one in unmarried bliss for 27 years). However, Barbra and I are pretty well simpatico when it comes to politics so it is a high honor — right up there the time an angry troll called us “liberal extremists” — to be included on Barbra Streisand’s “must read” articles list.

Second — okay, the comparison of Pensito Review to the BBC by reader Machupicchu on his Live Journal page was unfavorable, but what the heck. The reference is in a journal listing that is too long to quote in its entirety, so we’ll just jump in here:
[…]

Burns & Allen: Unfunny Comedy Duo Is Emblematic of GOP Senate in Disarray

Jon Ponder

Sen. Conrad Burns (l) and Sen. George Allen

Burns’ Nixonian protestation that he is not crook drew boos and cries of “psycho” from the audience.

Good night, Gracie: The national media is stuck on the meme of “Democrats in disarray” fed to them by the White House political office, even though any dispassionate observer would have to admit that the Democrats in Congress are keeping themselves remarkably gaffe-free and under control this year — especially for Democrats.

Meanwhile, GOP members in Congress, particularly in the Senate, have been acting like a bus load of rodeo clowns, starting with its top two buffoons, senators Burns and Allen.

At a debate last Sunday, Sept. 9, 2006, with his Democratic opponent, Jon Tester, Montana Sen. Conrad Burns told the audience:

“I believe in light bulbs and sunshine,” Burns said. “You know everything about me because it’s all out there on the Web site.”

What Burns meant by this bizarre formulation was that his record is an open book — that he is not a crook. Tester disagreed and “…chuckled, then defended himself by citing a lengthy, rapid-fire list of out-of-state and out-of-country trips taken by Burns, and the multinational corporations from which Burns has taken money.”

Burns’ Nixonian protestation that he is not crook drew boos and cries of “psycho” from the audience.

[…]

Don’t Trust Political Analysts Under 40

Buck Banks

Kids are all wrong: National Journal’s Charlie Cook thinks he’s on to something in the analysis of the upcoming midterm elections — younger political analysts take a much more conservative view of how many House and Senate seats the GOP stands to lose in November. He says it’s because the older guys have seen many more election cycles as well as more eeker and squeaker races. It’s an interesting notion:

One aspect of this election cycle that has fascinated me for months is the generation gap that has developed among experienced political operatives and professional election analysts.

Observers over age 40 think that the GOP could well lose more than 20 House seats and more than five Senate seats.

As a general rule, election-watchers under the age of 40, regardless of their party or ideology, see the contest for control of the House as fairly close. They foresee Republicans’ losing at least 10 seats, but certainly no more than 20, and they put the odds of a Democratic takeover at 50-50, give or take 10 percentage points.

As for the Senate, these observers tend to expect Republicans to lose three or four seats, but probably not five and certainly not the six required for Democrats to take charge.

Observers over age 40, meanwhile, tend to see a greater likelihood of sizable Republican losses. They think that the GOP could well lose more than 20 House seats and more than five Senate seats.

Most of the professionals toiling in the vineyards of the party campaign committees and watching individual races most closely are in the under-40 cohort. They tend to see control of the House as a close call and tend to be most conservative on their House seat counts. They’re also the least likely to think the Senate will change hands.
[…]

Gay Israelis Demand Pride March

Buck Banks

Gay holy days: The Israeli Supreme Court is considering a case where a gay group is demanding a permit to hold its pride march on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Sept. 23, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency. Apparently, the recent dust-up in Lebanon led to cancellation of the originally scheduled parade.

Officials with Jerusalem Open House said they submitted the petition Monday in conjunction with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel after a proposed parade date was refused and police didn’t respond to requests for several alternate dates.

Police officials have said the initial proposed date in September was too close to the holidays.

“We are demanding that the police protect our freedom of speech and right of assembly, and not submit to violent threats,” said Noa Sattath, incoming executive director of Jerusalem Open House, a center for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people that is trying to organize the march.

Organizers said they postponed the parade in August due to Israel’s war with Hezbollah and following police warnings that they might not be able to ensure safety at the march.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

People fight for luxuries, for power, or for ideas with just as much passion as they fight for money. Interests may be reconciled, but not philosophies. The desire for power is no less basic than the desire for wealth.

— Raymond Aron (1905-1983), French political philosopher, journalist

Pentagon Lowers Iraqi Civilian Death Count by Excluding People Killed by Bombs

Jon Ponder

The Vietnamization of U.S. involvement in Iraq’s religious civil war is now complete:

The U.S. military did not count people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks when it reported a dramatic drop in the number of murders in the Baghdad area last month, the U.S. command said Monday.

The decision to include only victims of drive-by shootings and those killed by torture and execution, usually at the hands of death squads, allowed U.S. officials to argue that a security crackdown that began in the capital August 7 had more than halved the city’s murder rate.

But the types of slayings, including suicide bombings, that the U.S. excluded from the category of “murder” were not made explicit at the time. That led to confusion after Iraqi Health Ministry figures showed that 1,536 people died violently in and around Baghdad in August, nearly the same number as in July.

The figures raise serious questions about the success of the security operation launched by the U.S.-led coalition. When they released the murder rate figures, U.S. officials and their Iraqi counterparts were eager to show progress in restoring security in Baghdad at a time when Iraq appeared on the verge of civil war.