Seven Hundred and Seventy-Six

Spams so far since last Tuesday.

Down from last week's Eight Hundred and Fifty-Eight.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/05/04 09:33:27 PM
Categorized as Other.

Al From Where?

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode XCI

Harley Sorensen, who often writes really wacko stuff, actually has a pretty -sometimes- good analysis here today, but when he tries to pull it all together, he goes really wacko again (ellipses in original).

I'll bet not one American in 200 knows, or cares, who Al From is. And (let's go double or nothing) I'll bet not one in 20 knows, or cares, what the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) is.

I know ... now ... because I looked it up last week. And both From and his council are powerful influences in this year's presidential campaigns.

Mr. From would argue with my description of him, but I'd describe him as a kind of agent provocateur, a plant inserted by the Republicans into the leadership of the Democrat Party. His goal: Wreck the party, turn it into the Republican Lite Party.

If that's his goal, he's doing a fine, fine job. And he's using the DLC to do it. He founded the DLC, a collection of Democrat politicians, in 1985, apparently out of fear that the Democrats were done as a political party. After all, they had not had a president for five full years.

In Al From's world, any Democrat who thinks like a Democrat is an extremist. A Democrat who thinks like a Republican is a centrist.

Mr. From buys into the myth that George McGovern in 1972 and Walter Mondale in 1984 were demolished by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan respectively because they were too liberal.

Apparently, he never heard of Watergate, "dirty tricks," the plumbers and Nixon's CREEP (Committee to Re-elect the President). McGovern was about as liberal as Barry Goldwater, but he was honest (for a politician), and that was a fatal disadvantage in a contest against "Tricky Dicky" Nixon.

McGovern also hurt himself when he named Thomas Eagleton, a senator from Missouri, as his running mate. What McGovern didn't know at the time was that Eagleton had been treated for depression with electroshock treatments. In the eyes of many Americans, that meant Eagleton was not fit to be president. McGovern stood behind Eagleton -- "1000 percent," he said -- and then, a few days later, asked him to resign.

Mondale, on the other hand, didn't like political campaigning and was inept at it. He lacked experience. Until he ran for president, he had run for reelection a few times but had never advanced to political office on his own. He was appointed to his first two political jobs -- Minnesota attorney general in 1960 and U.S. senator in 1964 -- and he rode Jimmy Carter's coattails to the vice presidency in 1976.

Mondale demonstrated his lack of political moxie when, in his acceptance speech at San Francisco's Moscone Center, he said he planned to raise taxes if elected. Shortly after that, he named discredited Carter administration appointee Bert Lance to head the Democratic National Committee. That poorly thought-out appointment created such a furor that Mondale was forced to withdraw it a few days later.

Mondale also had to run against Ronald Reagan, who was wildly popular at the time. Then, as now, the government was pumping a lot of money into the economy to make it look good.

The DLC's big success, From's "proof" that the DLC works, is Bill Clinton.

While it's true that Clinton, a onetime chairman of the DCL, was a lukewarm Democrat, his success can be attributed to his campaigning skills, which are tremendous, and his luck in having Ross Perot siphon votes from his 1992 opponent, George Bush. Bush's famous broken promise of his first and only term ("Read my lips: no new taxes") was another stroke of good luck for Clinton.

Mr. From's DLC, it seems, is a party within a party, somewhat like the Christian Coalition was for the Republicans until recently. And, like the Christian Coalition, the DLC is trying to pull America further to the right.

Because of that, the DLC is at odds now with Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and apparent front-runner for this year's Democrat nomination. The DLC considers Dean too far to the left.

Dean's vow that all Americans will have some kind of health coverage is seen by the DLC as ultra-leftist, even though universal health care is the norm now in every industrial country that can afford it. Keeping citizens healthy is not exactly a radical idea. Or a new one.

And the DLC sees Dean's opposition to the war in Iraq as some sort of whacked-out far-left concept, which, if you think about it, is an insult to all the thinking conservatives who oppose a preemptive war not declared by Congress.

So the DLC, which Dean has taken to calling "the Republican wing of the Democratic Party," is doing what it can to detour Dean's march to the White House.

The DLC has annual meetings, and at least twice has issued lofty "declarations"; in New Orleans in 1990 and in Hyde Park, N.Y., in 2000. The declarations read like party platforms and are full of high-sounding rhetoric. And, like party platforms, they seem to be full of code words and phrases, such as, "We believe the promise of America is equal opportunity, not equal outcomes."

Now, I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean you and I should have the opportunities provided by John F. Kennedy's or George W. Bush's fortunes, their Ivy League educations or their family connections, so what does it mean?

Classic Republican-speak is what it is, and it means you and I shouldn't complain about rich people, or, more important, shouldn't tax them more than they care to be taxed.

Most of the declarations, it seems to me, seek a world in which American businessmen can make a killing.

And that fits with Al From. His biography on the New Democrats On-Line Web site says he is a "member of the Board of Directors for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce National Chamber Foundation."

Trust me on this, folks: Anybody who claims to be a Democrat and is cozy with the Chamber of Commerce is not a Democrat; he's a Republican in drag.

To win in November, it appears, the Democrats will have to defeat not only the Republican candidate but also the saboteurs in their own party, the Democratic Leadership Council.

Harley Sorensen is a longtime journalist. His column appears Mondays. E-mail him at harleysorensen@yahoo.com.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

The most he has to say about any of the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates is that none of them is Mondale or McGovern (who was, by the way, about the political equivalent of Goldwater). And the Democrats who are trying (ostensibly, at the least) to steer away from the left-wing shoals are the ones ruining the Democratic Party.

Well. That is a viewpoint. From the left. And he is writing, after all, to a San Francisco audience.

Keeping citizens healthy is not exactly a radical idea. Or a new one. No, it's not. But having government control health care, and tax everybody to pay for everybody's health care, isn't the same as keeping citizens healthy.

I'm sick (no pun intended) of being told that health care everywhere in the civilized world is somehow better than it is in the USA just because Democrats say so. When we start seeing reports of Americans seeking better health care in other countries — rather than the other way around — I might be willing to consider that it's something more than an old, tired Socialistic canard.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/05/04 08:38:22 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

Papers of Abraham Lincoln

Vide. :-)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/05/04 08:18:25 PM
Categorized as Historical & Literary.

When You Use the Last Resort, First, What Does That Say About You?

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode XC

It's my pleasure to call to your attention that Rerum Novarum answers that significant question today:

.... I have long had a theory in political discourse that the other side of a dispute has run out of viable arguments when they resort to not only improper ad hominems but when they take it to the stage of what I call reductio ad hitlerum where they equate their opponents to the late Nazi spawn of satan himself. And in the election for 2004 — not even with one single primary being run yet — the kooks and whackjobs at moveon.org have done just that....

Read it all, Faithful Reader, and make sure you don't miss the conclusion.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/05/04 08:08:39 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

Clark Won't Be Vice-President Either

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode LXXXIX

While Wesley Clark is on our minds, allow me to pull this out of the backlog (ellipsis in original).

Democratic front-runner Howard Dean tried to head off a challenge from retired Gen. Wesley Clark by offering to name the former military man as his running mate, Clark said yesterday.

The deal was discussed in September, before Clark threw his hat into the ring, and was dismissed outright, according to Clark.

Dean "did offer me the vice presidency. And what I told him was, that's not the issue," Clark said on ABC's This Week. The veep slot "was sort of discussed . . . and dangled before I made the decision to run."

But Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, went on the same show to claim the offer never happened.

On another front, Dean, the former governor of Vermont, will release his confidential records from his administration when a judge approves it, Trippi said yesterday.

His opponents, including Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), have complained that Dean could immediately make the records public if he wanted.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/05/04 06:59:18 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

Apparently, Wesley Clark Doesn't Know Kentucky Is In the South

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode LXXXVIII

One supposes he doesn't know the rest of the South is in the South, either.

General Wesley Clark wants to enforce share his values with the rest of us, according to this AP article at The Manchester Union-Leader, today (ellipses in original).

The head of the federal Commission on Civil Rights and several other prominent women endorsed retired general and presidential hopeful Wesley Clark on Sunday as he restated his support for affirmative action and women's rights.

"Our current incumbent, George W. Bush, doesn't share my values," Clark told a standing-room-only crowd of more than 200 people, many of them women. "He has worked unrelentingly for three years to try to take away women's reproductive rights."

"As president of the United States, I'm going to stand up for choice, and I'm going to make sure we protect women's reproductive rights," he said to enthusiastic applause.

Clark also touched on affirmative action as he spoke to the campaign appearance organized by "Women for Clark."

"Not everybody's born on a level playing field. You've got to help lift people up and give them a chance, and that's what affirmative action does. And it's not just about race; it's also about sex," he said.

"I fought very hard so that women had an equal opportunity, or as equal as we could make it, in the United States armed forces... . We needed these women leaders in the army because we needed their talent, and America needs the talent of all Americans today - not just white males... .That's why I feel so strongly about inclusiveness and affirmative action."

Clark said he planned to make a statement next week on Martin Luther King Jr. Day about states that have failed to fully implement new voting standards.

"We still haven't solved the voting problem in America because there are no telling how many tens of thousands of Americans who have been systematically disenfranchised through various techniques at the polling places," Clark said.

Mary Frances Berry, head of the federal Commission on Civil Rights, got a standing ovation from the crowd after she made a brief speech in support of Clark.

"I've dealt with presidents all the way back to Tricky Dick," she said, referring to former president Richard Nixon. "When I talk to (Clark) and when I listen to him, I can see him as a president for all Americans."

Wisconsin's Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton also gave her endorsement to Clark, saying she didn't want to be part of electing "one more arrogant, defensive male." Clark, she said, "values women and the contributions they make."

Clark pledged if elected to have a cabinet that includes "well qualified women of every race, creed and color" to advise him.

Asked by one person if his position on abortion rights would make it difficult to win in the South, Clark said his themes of patriotism, family, faith and inclusiveness would play well everywhere.

"It will carry the south, it will carry America because these aren't southern values; they're American values," he said.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Clark needs to read LAT while it is busy scaring Hollywood Vacuumheads with news that Kentucky is going Republican because the Democratic Party promotes Clark's values.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/05/04 06:49:13 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

Topple Bush!

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode LXXXVII

A fabulously astounding cornucopia:

THIS WEB SITE is dedicated to one primary purpose: To help raise money for the candidates now running against Bush to topple him and his administration in 2004. We plan on accomplishing this by raising the level of awareness nationwide through our unique combination of humor, commentary, and collection of well-written articles, exposing the lies, cover-ups, secret dealings, and outright fraud in this administration--an administration that uses the powers of government primarily to benefit itself and its large corporate donors....

They sure do have a sense of humor: as I write, several articles by Molly Ivins and many articles by Paul Krugman are featured on the main page.

I busted out laughing. :-)

This site, more than any other, brings to my mind a fascinating question: if George Walker Bush is really, really, this so, so, very, very bad — how come the left has to work itself into such a frenzied lather just to defeat him?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/05/04 03:45:57 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

Two Old Guys Who Desperately Want to Become Relevant Again Support Wesley Clark

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode LXXXVI

(Accent on Desperately.)

Well, that's what I get out of this.

The struggle for the hearts, minds and votes of South Carolina's black voters intensified Sunday when Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark rolled out his brand-name minority endorsers.

Two civil rights pioneers, former United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young of Atlanta and New York Rep. Charles Rangel, the senior Democrat on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, threw their support to the retired four-star Army general on a chilly afternoon outside state party headquarters.

Rangel, in his raspy smoker's voice and New York accent, told the approximately 150 people that they are part of a movement to "restore the integrity of a presidency that (Republicans) stole from America."

Young said Clark is "capable of making a dangerous world safer for everybody" and of dealing with the problems of race, poverty and education.

Clark was in Columbia to file as a candidate in the state's Feb. 3 primary. He was the first to file in person. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry's campaign filed Friday.

Instead of the $2,500 filing fee, Clark offered a petition with the signatures of 4,000 registered voters, 1,000 more than required.

As president, Clark said he would provide preschool programs for all children, $6,000 per student for vocational training, eliminate Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation and "make the polluters pay."

Meeting later with reporters, he refused to bite when asked if he agreed with Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman that the front-runner, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, is a potentially "divisive leader."

Clark said he isn't talking about his primary opponents "to any great extent" but preferred to concentrate on "where the country needs to go and what the vision is I'm offering."

He also sought to shut off speculation that he would accept a vice presidential nod.

"I'm running to be commander-in-chief, president of the United States, and that's the position for which I think I'm the best qualified person," Clark said, his back to the campaign's motor home.

Former Gov. Jim Hodges, Clark's major in-state backer, was introduced by the Rev. Charles Hudson as "John Hodges."

Hodges quipped, "That's my evil twin. Republicans talk about him all the time."

The crowd stood in front of a gray two-story converted Victorian home on a tree-lined street just a half-block from the historic Robert Mills House.

Some wore "Join the Wes Wing" sweatshirts. Others waved hand-lettered signs or munched on Clark candy bars handed out by the campaign staff, and one man brought his black-and-white dog wearing a "Bark for Clark" sign.

Most of them were from Columbia, but there were Clark supporters from North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama in the crowd.

Candidate shopping

Some were candidate shopping.

Erica Carter, 33, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of South Carolina, wanted to hear Clark.

"January is when you get down to the meat of the candidates," she said, but described Clark as "probably the most genuine and sincere" of the nine contenders.

The presence of Young and Rangel, plus the minorities who formed a major portion of the crowd, underscored the campaign within the campaign because the candidate who can score the most with black voters — potentially 50 percent of the turnout — will have the inside track in the state primary.

The major candidates in the Feb. 3 primary, the South's first of the 2004 cycle, have sought to show support from black leaders.

Danielle Vinson, a professor of political communication at Furman University, said Sunday that endorsements can be important, but not through transferring one figure's popularity to another.

"It is more the idea that voters see a politician or group they trust or with whom they share common political views saying that one candidate also shares those views and is competent to represent them. That can be especially helpful in a primary where party can't be used as a shortcut to figuring out what a candidate's positions are."

Two weeks ago, Howard Dean, an infrequent campaigner in the state, held a rally in Columbia in which U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., endorsed his candidacy. Jackson, a Greenville native, is the son of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson Sr.

Two days later, former Vice President Al Gore, a popular figure among black voters, threw his support to Dean.

That triggered an endorsement of Gephardt by U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state's most influential black politician.

Scott Huffmon, a Winthrop University political scientist, said most of the endorsements pale in comparison to Clyburn's.

"They matter less," he said, "because in South Carolina the African-American endorsement that matters is Clyburn."

Huffman said Clyburn brings with him a strong network of supporters, "many of them ministers and business people, savvy in turning out voters."

Today, Clark has scheduled appearances at Manna House in Florence, a facility that provides meals and groceries to the unemployed, and a closed meeting with black journalists and publishers in Columbia before addressing the Young Democrats.

Democratic triangle

Democrats have generally worked a Columbia-Florence-Charleston triangle, an area that encompasses much of the state's black population, including its intellectual heart, Orangeburg's South Carolina State University.

Their visits to the heavily Republican Upstate, especially Greenville, have been limited.

In Charleston, six of the nine candidates have made the pilgrimage to the Rev. Joseph Darby's huge Morris Brown AME Church, at 3,000 members the largest of its denomination in the state.

Despite a spate of endorsements by black elected officials, Darby said black voters are "probably just as much up in the air the rest of South Carolina."

But their eventual decisions will determine the race, he said.

"When you look at the Democratic Party here, I'd be surprised if the candidate with the most African-American votes didn't carry the state," he said.

Nonwhite, the category used by the state Election Commission, now numbers 576,918 registered voters. Most are black, and blacks have tended to vote 90 to 95 percent Democratic.

Dan Hoover covers politics and can be reached at 298-4883.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

How about that John Jim Whatever Hodges Whocares? He's a Democrat, and another Democrat goofs up introducing him — and he turns it into a joke on... Republicans! That's mighty clever, Tom Dick Harry Jim. And it's veritably a miniature re-enactment of the entire Democratic presidential campaign so far.

It's almost poetic, if you think about it.

And I've been looking for some hint of outrage that Democratic politicians in South Carolina spend so much darned time campaigning in churches for the vote of a particular race. Have you seen it anywhere, Faithful Reader?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/05/04 07:47:40 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

Religion, Government, and Holidays

Thanks to Margaret for calling David Warren's latest column, yesterday, to my attention:

.... There is no religion without holidays, but more to the point, vice versa: there are no holidays which do not establish a public religion (as we were all reminded by the French Revolution). To those who "believe" in the total separation of Church and State, let me just say that you will never achieve it. For the moment you have made every holiday strictly "secular", and muffled every bell that would peal on Christmas morning, you have created a state religion. A vacuous religion, an ugly religion, a viciously intolerant religion, to be sure -- but nevertheless, a religion.

The great majority of Canadians are, as we have been since Cartier first landed, professing Christians of one kind or another. That those who profess, for the purpose of a survey, do not necessarily practise what they profess, is an observation neither new nor surprising. For as I've written myself, we are far gone in our national apostasy. It is hard to make people today care -- care to the point where they will act -- about the stripping away of everything that confers meaning and nobility upon our public life. But that is hardly a reason to give up on them.

On the contrary, it is a reason to try harder to re-establish what is good. And good not only in my own dim sight, but in at least the subliminal understanding of the great majority. They need awakening to the fact that there is no neutrality -- that there can be no public government that is strictly indifferent between one cause and another. A society is not either Christian or neutral; it is Christian, or it becomes something else.

Nor is this distinction casual. For in the whole history of the world, over the last twenty centuries, it should be clear enough, that it is the rare non-Christian society or state in which Christians are not actively persecuted. If we fail to assert ourselves, we are asking for what we get....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/05/04 07:23:14 AM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.

The Year of the Crazy Leftoid

2003? Heck, you ain't seen nothin' yet!

The Blogosphere's Tim Blair writes in The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, Jan. 2:

.... 2003 was the year of the Crazy Leftoid, of people who seriously believed they could influence global events by taking off their clothes, painting the Opera House, or hosting The 7.30 Report.

The good news is, for those of us who enjoy watching these groups disintegrate, that 2004 promises total, China Syndrome-level meltdown. You thought the left went berko last year, what with the liberation of Iraq, the capture of Saddam, and the sudden friendly co-operation of Libya's Gaddafi? Just wait for this years entertainment.

We've got two elections to look forward to, here and in the US (with the additional possibility of an election in Britain in 2005). George W. Bush and John Howard – those evil, life-hating monsters who somehow conspired to bring freedom to millions of oppressed, tortured Iraqis – are likely to be re-elected. Put yourself in the mindset of a typical anti-war, anti-liberty, anti-reason leftist howler monkey.

These elections aren't exactly going to make you happy, are they?...

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/05/04 06:47:58 AM
Categorized as International.