Bob's Place

His dour demeanor on “Meet the Press” and in another interview Sunday contrasted sharply with images coming from Iraq, and his comments sounded small and petty. You would expect something more from a man who, less than three months ago, lost a race for the Presidency of the United States. It was a despicable performance. So now it’s time for me to get this off my chest.

Mr. Kerry, you are a jerk.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 11:17 AM |

Despite reporters' hopes that a well-orchestrated barrage of mortar attacks and suicide bombings would put down the so-called 'freedom insurgency', hastily-formed battalions of rebels swarmed polling places to cast their ballots -- shattering the status quo and striking fear into the hearts of the leaders of the existing terror regime.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 7:31 AM |

On this crucial day in Iraq, we must also remember two sets of non-Iraqis. The first set, we must apologize for, and nobody represents them better than Sen. Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. The man has gone from being a killer, to a buffoon, and now to criminally irresponsible. Next July, Mary Jo Kopechne would have celebrated her 65th birthday; she probably would have grown children and be a grandmother. She, however, will always be 28 years old, thanks to Ted Kennedy -- the man who killed her in 1969 just days before her 29th birthday, tried to cover it up, and then lied and used his family's considerable political power to evade punishment. From killer he went on to buffoon: Who can forget his absurd run for the Democratic nomination of 1980? Or, his pontificating about women's rights during the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings? As he has aged, he apparently has begun experiencing a second adolescence, in other words, he's returning to his 1969 persona, to wit, he wants people, American people to die or, at best, doesn't care if they do as a consequence of his actions. How else can one explain his comments about pulling out of Iraq -- gleefully replayed by Al Jazeera?For a Kennedy to compare Iraq and Vietnam is doubly obscene: not only are the facts on the ground completely different, but it was JFK -- Teddy's elder brother -- who got us into Vietnam with no exit plan.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 11:31 PM |

The second part of the good news is their acknowledgement that America has the resolve to face down the terrorists. Iraqis like Jbouri and Khazaal know that Zarqawi's method only results in dead Iraqis and tougher security measures, not any sign of American retreat. In fact, that acknowledgement shows that despite the best efforts of idiots like Ted Kennedy, our tenacity gets better communication than any signs of surrender from the defeatist Left.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 9:49 PM |

......including some of the party's most brittle icons, spent their days putting a face on the party that could take decades to erase: a gnarled old Ku Klux Klansman stumbling through a litany of lamentation for a day dead and gone, a puffy cut-and-run lady killer (so to speak) drowning (you might say) in nostalgia for what might have been, and the long-in-the-tooth prom queen, green eyes flashing with envy and rage, throwing tomatoes and eggs at Condi Rice and managing only to leave themselves exposed as pathetic jokes smeared with rotten yolks. .........

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 9:40 AM |

“The U.S. military presence [in Iraq] has become part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

– Senator “Whiskey” Ted Kennedy, January 2005.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 8:04 PM |

Although Rice was assured of confirmation, she got the most “no” votes since World War II. Seven senators voted against Henry Kissinger and six each against Dean Acheson and Alexander Haig.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 1:17 PM |

What I find most fascinating is the terrorist reliance on the media and their confidence in manipulating journalists to the terrorist ends. They know from previous experience that the mainstream media salivates over reporting a story of failure in the Iraqi elections, especially at the hands of the insurgency. The sophistication of the planning shows that they have thought this through carefully, and I suspect they've talked with reporters to find out what exactly they need to "prove" the elections have failed.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 9:50 PM |

As Pfc. Francis Obaji, oldest son of an immigrant Nigerian family, is zipped into a body bag for the sad journey home, Laura Bush zips up her Oscar de la Renta gown.

It reads like that throughout; I can almost see the pursed-lipped, eyebrows-raised-in-disapproval expression on Ms. Lenfestey's face as she contemplates the idea that someone, somewhere, might be having fun while The! Children! Suffer! Two can play at that game:

As Susan Lenfestey stirred Splenda into her soy milk Grande Latte at the Starbucks counter, an African child in a refugee camp drank the last drops of muddy water from the puddle outside his family's ragged tent.

As Susan Lenfestey drove her Prius to the dry-cleaner's and dropped off her Authentic Peruvian Alpaca Wool poncho that she bought from that shop in downtown Minneapolis, an American soldier sat in his tent outside Najaf, scraping mud off his boots with an expired debit card.

As Susan Lenfestey perched her granola-padded butt on her Ikea beechwood desk chair and turned on her Mac G4 in her heated apartment, an Indonesian former mother of four waited outside a morgue in Banda Aceh for a chance to find her children among the swollen corpses of the dead.

And so on. See how easy it is?

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 1:37 PM |

......./snip/Whatever the reason, the sight of an old Klansman blocking a little colored girl from Birmingham from getting into her office contributed to the general retro vibe that hangs around the Democratic Party these days. Even "Eve Of Destruction," one notes, is a 40-year-old hippie dirge........./snip/

There's a big lesson for the Democrats there that goes way beyond the merits of abortion or gay marriage. On Sept. 11, the world came unspun: There's no shame in acknowledging, as Condi Rice did last week, that previous policy -- Republican and Democrat -- toward the Middle East is wrong. But there's something silly and immature about a party that, from Kerry to Boxer to Byrd, can't get beyond spin, grandstanding and debater's points: Joyce Smith sees through it, even if David von Drehle thinks it's ingenious. If the president's speech yoked idealism and realism, that doesn't leave much for dissenting Dems except their own peculiar combination of cynicism and delusion.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 7:33 AM |

1) [Wicked schadenfreuede] Interesting, isn't it, how many of the liberals proclaiming that it's utterly ridiculous to think that a department running 95% leftists might be, consciously or unconsciously, discriminating against those of a more right wing persuasion, find it completely obvious that if a physics department is 80% male, that must be because they're discriminating.[/wicked schadenfreude]

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 7:05 AM |

One would suspect — based on circulation figures and ratings, as well as voting trends — that the right-of-center alternative media has some room to grow, while the left-of-center audience has more media options than it can support indefinitely.

The mainstream media could attempt to expand its audience by reaching out to conservatives. But if you're sending a veteran political correspondent to Nebraska and Texas to cover the natives as if they were a bizarre and mysterious foreign culture like the Washington Post just did, then you have essentially written them off as potential readers.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 9:50 AM |

The Washington Post reports, based on an interview with the president, that Mr. Bush believes, as The Post put it that there’s no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgment in prewar planning in Iraq (search), or managing the violent aftermath there. But according to the transcript Mr. Bush said no such thing.

The Post did ask him why he held no one accountable for what some considered mistakes in Iraq. Mr. Bush did not answer, saying only, "We had an accountability moment and that’s called the 2004 election. And the American people listened to assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me, for which I am grateful."

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 1:39 PM |

That is true in part because the population of the Bible Belt is younger and more likely to marry; if no one but lesbians lived in Massachusetts, the divorce rate would be zero. Nonetheless it is true that Massachusetts liberals display less hypocrisy than Bible Belt Christians, who preach better than they practice. Liberals admit no constraints to pleasure-seeking. They are not hypocritical, but merely disgusting.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 11:54 AM |

WASHINGTON (AP) The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has quietly concluded without any evidence of the banned weapons that President Bush cited as justification for going to war, the White House said Wednesday

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 1:01 PM |

In traveling through Pakistan, one thing became unmistakable: the least-corrupt institution was the military. The military government attempting to rescue Pakistan is the country's last hope. The alternatives are chaos and terror. We may wish it were otherwise: Military government is repugnant. But the world is more complex than we try to make it. Perverted democracy brought ruin upon more than 100 million Pakistani Muslims. We all are paying the price.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 11:30 AM |

• A few Democrats in the House and Senate are challenging the results in Ohio. All that means is that both chambers will have to debate the issues for a couple of hours. Bush will still win.
• What I find funny is that one of the challengers is none other than John Conyers. His office has recently been implicated in stealing turkeys from the hungry:

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 3:34 PM |

One of the ships helping is the U.S.S. Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault vessel carrying U.S. Marines. This is the same ship that [critical phrase deleted] Navy Petty Officer Third Class and darling of the anti-war left, Pablo Paredes, refused to board back in Decemeber because his ship was aiding in the "illegal" war in Irag. This sailor went AWOL back in December and staged a little media party in San Diego back in December. This is a wonderful irony.

# posted by Bob Taylor @ 6:49 PM |