| Core: noun, the most important part of a thing, the essence; from the Latin cor, meaning heart. |
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| Needless Commentary from Small-Town America |
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The Weblog at The View from the Core - Thursday, March 25, 2004
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"To the Mother of Christ the Son of Man" A poem by Alice Meynell. To the Mother of Christ the Son of Man
We too (one cried), we too, Alice Meynell (1847-1922) See also "The Annunciation". Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/25/04 08:54:12 PM |
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"How the Intellectuals Took Over" A very worthwhile essay by David Gerlernter at Commentary, Mar. 1997: ... Let us say there was a coup at the top: that, after the war, intellectuals took the helm at the prestige colleges; that a new breed of intellectualized graduates duly emerged to claim (as these graduates always had) a large share of the nation's elite positions; that the character of the elite changed radically in consequence. Today's elite is intellectualized, the old elite was not. Why should that matter? What differences does it make? The difference is this: the old elite used to get on fairly well with the country it was set over. Members of the old social upper-crust elite were richer and better educated than the public at large, but approached life on basically the same terms. The public went to church and so did they. The public went into the army and so did they. The public staged simpler weddings and the elite put on fancier ones, but they mostly all used the same dignified words and no one self-expressed. They agreed (this being America) that art was a waste, scientists were questionable, engineering and machines and progress and nature were good. Some of the old-time attitudes made sense, some did not; but the staff and their bosses basically concurred. (George Bush was elected in part, Brookhiser suggests, because of public interest in restoring these arrangements.) Relations between the elite and the nation are very different today. The enmity between Intellectual and Bourgeois is sheepman against cattleman, farm against city, Army versus Navy: a cliche but real. Ever since there was a middle class, intellectuals have despised it. When intellectuals were outsiders, their loves and hates never mattered much. Today they are the bosses and their tastes matter greatly. The essay in The New Class? that went deepest into basic cultural questions was Norman Podhoretz's; he expanded on Lionel Trilling's idea of the intellectuals as an "adversary culture." During the 1960's and early 70's, the intelligentsia's hatred for middle-class society was something fierce. The ferocity could partly be explained, Podhoretz wrote, by the fact that "despite all the concessions" the middle class had made, "it still refused to be ruled by the intellectuals." Today the intelligentsia runs the show, and its hatred for class enemies has been toned down — exactly as Podhoretz would have predicted. But the hatred is still there, and comes through loud and clear on special occasions. Moreover, it has undergone a portentous change of focus. It used to be aimed at least partly upward, at the "establishment." Now that intellectuals are the establishment, it is aimed entirely downward, at the public at large. Today's elite loathes the nation it rules. Nothing personal, just a fundamental difference in world view, but the feeling is unmistakable. Occasionally it escapes in a scorching geyser. Michael Lewis reports in the New Republic on the fall '96 Dole presidential campaign: "The crowds flip the finger at the busloads of journalists and chant rude things at them as they enter each arena. The journalists, for their part, wear buttons that say 'Yeah, I'm the Media. Screw You.'" The crowd hates the reporters, the reporters hate the crowd — an even match-up, except that the reporters wield power and the crowd (in effect) wields none. ... (Thanks, John.) Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/25/04 08:42:32 PM |
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Dick Morris Adopts the Diction of The Blog from the Core Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCXL You know they'll all catch up with us eventually. He writes at NYP yesterday. Emphasis added. + + + + + The Bush ads are working: Two weeks ago, the Washington Post poll showed Sen. John Kerry ahead of President Bush by 11 points, and the Gallup Poll had him up by 8, while more recent polls reflect a dead heat between the two. Zogby (March 21) has Kerry up by only 48-46, and Rasmussen (March 20) has it Bush 46, Kerry 45. Interestingly, the new surveys don't show Bush gain ing so much as they show Kerry dropping. In the odd configurations of political strategy, that is good news for the Republicans. If Bush were simply gaining because of good news or a bump from the recent focus on terrorism, he could go down as easily as he went up. Let the news turn bad, and Bush would go back to the low ratings of a few weeks ago. But with the gap closing because of Kerry's drop, the impact is likely to last a lot longer. The fact is that 6 to 9 percent of Americans were voting for the Democrat two weeks ago and now are undecided. The doubts that Bush's ads are raising about Kerry are not going to go away; they will grow as the ads continue and the facts pile up. The polls are starting to reflect the effectiveness of Bush's ads, which depict Kerry explaining his ultra-liberal record to the voters. This Democrat, who escaped scrutiny by posing as the un-Dean in the primary, is now being revealed as the leftist he is. Having defeated the three candidates of his party who might have beaten Bush — Wesley Clark, Joe Lieberman and John Edwards — Kerry is finding out that America is a centrist nation. I have doubted the conventional wisdom that this election would be close. If Bush continues to stay on the offensive and Kerry's responses remain as inept as they've been, the Massachusetts Democrat will go downhill faster than he is now doing on his skiing vacation. Bush's attacks have focused on the issues of terrorism and taxes. Kerry has not even answered the first charge and has given only a ritualistic denial of the second. Instead of answering Bush's charges in detail, he piously asks, in his ads, if the president has anything more to offer America than negative ads. But Americans don't see the Bush ads as below the belt, but as welcome information about a man they don't know who is running for president. Indeed, the latest New York Times/CBS survey indicates that 60 percent of the voters feel Kerry is telling them what they want to hear, not what he really believes. Bush is opening a credibility gap which is only widened by Kerry's ridiculous statement that he voted for the $87 billion appropriation for the war effort before he voted against it. In the next round of attack ads, Bush should focus on Kerry's previous support for a 50 cent increase in the gasoline tax. Remember, it was the gas tax, more than any other issue, that cost the Democrats control of Congress in 1994. With pump prices closing in on $2 a gallon, Americans will not look kindly on someone who proposes to add another half-dollar per gallon. Kerry's two gaffes — on foreign leaders with whom he allegedly spoke and on his flip-flop on the money for the war — were not unforced errors: They were fumbles caused by the aggressive pressure of the Bush campaign. This Democrat is not ready to run for president, and the more the Republicans press him, the more he will self-destruct. His campaign advisers are hoping that a few hours extra sleep on his ski trip will restore his political judgment, but they ignore the fact that he never had a lot to begin with. The fact is that Massachusetts liberal Democrats don't spend a lot of time learning how to appeal to middle America. Kerry only won the nomination because Dean lost it and Edwards was hobbled by Clark so he could not get the momentum he needed to mount a real challenge. With the front-loaded process, decreed by financial-wizard-but-political-amateur Terry McAuliffe, the party is united but saddled with a nominee who can't handle prime time. Bush needs to keep up the pressure and watch Kerry's ratings drop. In a few months, we may be wondering why the conventional wisdom ever thought this race would be so close. + + + + + The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes. Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/25/04 08:22:30 PM |
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He Should Have Stuck With Music. Or Whatever. Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCXXXIX This is what happens when you ignore one of the Basic Laws of life in 21st-century America. Dick Clarke, attempting to exonerate the Clinton administration for 9/11 and blame the Bush administration, has already imploded beyond remedy. FNC published yesterday the transcript of a background briefing by Richard Clarke, dated vaguely "early August 2002", which refutes pretty much everything he has been saying this week: .... Actually, I've got about seven points, let me just go through them quickly. Um, the first point, I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration. Second point is that the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office — issues like aiding the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, changing our Pakistan policy — uh, changing our policy toward Uzbekistan. And in January 2001, the incoming Bush administration was briefed on the existing strategy. They were also briefed on these series of issues that had not been decided on in a couple of years. And the third point is the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent. And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided. So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda. The sixth point, the newly-appointed deputies — and you had to remember, the deputies didn't get into office until late March, early April. The deputies then tasked the development of the implementation details, uh, of these new decisions that they were endorsing, and sending out to the principals. Over the course of the summer — last point — they developed implementation details, the principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold, changing the policy on Pakistan, changing the policy on Uzbekistan, changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance. And then changed the strategy from one of rollback with Al Qaeda over the course of five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of Al Qaeda. That is in fact the timeline.... An NYP editorial today sums it up (emphasis in original): "You've got a real credibility problem," former Navy Secretary John Lehman, a member of the federal 9/11 commission, told one-time White House official — now full-time fabulist — Richard Clarke yesterday. And Clarke did virtually nothing to resolve that problem during his hours of testimony.... As several commissioners noted, the book's accusations — which he repeated under oath yesterday — are totally at odds with the 15 hours of closed-door testimony Clarke delivered earlier to the 9/11 commission. And they are dramatically contradicted by a press backgrounder Clarke himself conducted in August 2002. Fox News made an audiotape of that briefing public yesterday; in it, Clarke confirms much of what Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld testified to on Tuesday. "I've seen your book, and I've seen the text of your press briefing," said former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson. "Which one is true?" This helps explains why Lehman was befuddled by Clarke's latest testimony — to say nothing of the book. Lehman, remember, had heard Clarke's in camera testimony to the commission. "This can't be the same Dick Clarke I heard behind closed doors," the former secretary said. "There is a tremendous difference, not just in nuance but in what you choose [now] to tell. It is so different from the thrust of your [earlier] testimony." So, what changed?... Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor, took part in three interviews yesterday, responding to Clarke's
Now, Glenn Reynolds is somewhat puzzled by Richard Clarke's performance: .... This guy's working for Rove. By the time he's done imploding, Bush will have discredited the media and all his critics. It's the only thing that makes sense. The other possibility is that Clarke held an important national security job for years while being dumb as a post, so dumb that he would write a book making explosive accusations against the White House while knowing — or forgetting? — that all sorts of contradictory evidence was on the record and bound to come out. Otherwise, wouldn't he at least have tried to explain this stuff up front?... Ah. There's only one explanation, Faithful Reader, for Clarke's incoherent behavior and the professor's puzzlement: they are both forgetting........ Core's Law of New Media! There Is No Such Thing As Local News Anymore: In the Internet Age, anything anybody has said anywhere, anytime, can sooner or later become known everywhere else. Had a situation like this occurred ten years ago — and maybe even five years ago — a far, far smaller percentage of the public would have ever become aware of such enormous contradictions. Why? Because Clarke would have been able to count on his fellow travellers in mainstream media — you know: the media branch of the Democratic Establishment — keeping it all quiet. Like, what are the chances that CBS and/or CNN would have published that August 2002 transcript? (Please, wait until you've stopped belly laughing before continuing to read.) Sure, somebody would have tried to get the word out, somehow — but who would have heard about it? Nowadays, millions of people can find out about Clarke's earlier "pre-emptive" refutation of his current claims at the very same time he's making them. Because his public-relations mentality is stuck in the 20th century. Neato, keeno, huh? :-) P.S. See also "Losing bin Laden". Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/25/04 06:24:48 PM |
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"The Truth About 3/11" Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar writes at OpinionJournal, yesterday: On March 11, Spain suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history and one of the bloodiest the world has ever known. Terrorists planned their cowardly acts with the express purpose of killing as many people as possible, in order to sow terror and strike a mortal blow against our freedoms and rights. It was a day we felt an immense pain, pain we will never forget. But it was also a pain we must all learn from. Its lessons are simple. If we want to stop terrorists from murdering us and from dictating how we lead our lives, we must confront them. Some think the solution is to sue for peace, to negotiate with terrorists so that they might go and kill elsewhere. But that way is unacceptable to me and to millions of Spaniards. Terrorism deserves only to be defeated. This is the debt we owe to the victims of the attacks, and to the society that mourns them.... Up until the attacks of September 11, Spain took great pains to demonstrate to the outside world that terrorism was not an isolated phenomenon, that it shouldn't be fought by its immediate victims alone. Following the collapse of the Twin Towers, a new consciousness about the world-wide reach of terrorism finally emerged. ETA or al Qaeda — the difference is important, to be sure, but the response to what has happened should be the same: firmness, political unity and international cooperation. Each and every democrat in the world was on those trains in Madrid. It has been an attack against all of us, against everything we believe in, and against everything we have built. It is precisely for this reason that we must not send out confusing messages, messages that induce people to believe that we have to make concessions to those demanding that we kneel before bombs. This is not the moment to think about withdrawals of troops. And much less when the terrorists, with their message of death and destruction, have demanded that we surrender. To yield now would set a dangerous precedent that would allow our attackers to believe that they have imposed their conditions on us. It would allow our attackers to believe that they have won. (Thanks, Charles.) Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/25/04 05:43:57 PM |
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"Turning the Tide"? America's beloved defender, Noam Chomsky, now has a weblog. Turning the tide. Turning the tide? What does that remind me of? Ah, yes. See John Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony: .... Finally, this administration has done us the ultimate dishonor. They have attempted to disown us and the sacrifice we made for this country. In their blindness and fear they have tried to deny that we are veterans or that we served in Nam. We do not need their testimony. Our own scars and stumps of limbs are witnesses enough for others and for ourselves. We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission, to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and the fear that have driven this country these last 10 years and more, and so when, in 30 years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say “Vietnam” and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory but mean instead the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.... See also Noam Hypocrisky: "The hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky": .... Chomsky has been a celebrity radical since the mid-1960s when he made his name as an anti-Vietnam War activist. Although he lost some of his appeal in the late-1970s and 1980s by his defense of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, he has used September 11 to restore his reputation, indeed to surpass his former influence and stature.... (Thanks, Charles.) Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/25/04 05:24:56 PM |
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"The Annunciation" A poem by Joyce Kilmer.
"Hail Mary, full of grace," the Angel saith. Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) See also Virgin Annunciate by Antonello da Messina and "The Mother of God". Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/25/04 07:36:59 AM |
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"Reckless, Irresponsible, and Tantamount to Abandoning U.S. Troops" Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCXXXVIII An ABC News report by Jake Tapper, Mar. 19 (brackets in original). + + + + + In an interview several weeks before he voted against $87 billion in funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., seemed to argue that such a vote would be reckless, irresponsible, and tantamount to abandoning U.S. troops. On the Sept. 14, 2003, edition of CBS's Face the Nation, Kerry spoke at length about an amendment he and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., were offering which would have paid for the $87 billion by delaying some of the recent tax cuts. Asked if he would vote against the $87 billion if his amendment did not pass, Kerry said, "I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running. That's irresponsible." Kerry argued that his amendment offered a way to do it properly, "but I don't think anyone in the Congress is going to not give our troops ammunition, not give our troops the ability to be able to defend themselves. We're not going to cut and run and not do the job." Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said her boss' vote against the funding was a "protest vote." At the time of the October 2003 vote, "The nation had four months before funds were needed but Republicans were hell-bent on moving this bill through as quickly as possible, before the tough questions could be asked and the president's failures would be discovered," Cutter said. Cutter went on to say the Bush White House had threatened to veto the entire $87 billion supplemental bill if the Kerry-Biden amendment had passed. Political observers wondered, however, how effective Kerry's explanation would be. "John Kerry has years and years of public statements — including recent ones — that the Republicans seem to have more thoroughly catalogued and at-the-ready than the Kerry campaign does," observed ABC News political director Mark Halperin. The $87 Billion Issue At the time of the CBS interview, Kerry was facing a strong challenge in the Democratic presidential contest at the time from former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean — who rose in polls partly because of his strong stance against the Iraq war. When the matter finally came up for a vote on October 17, it passed the House by a vote of 303-125, and the Senate by 87 to 12. Kerry was one of the 12 who voted against the funding. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., also voted against the funding. Dean at the time seemed to support the Kerry approach, saying "if the president doesn't have a sufficient commitment to this operation to get rid of the $87 billion in tax cuts then we should vote no." But Senate Democrats overwhelmingly took the other side of the issue. Biden, the co-sponsor of Kerry's amendment and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, voted for the funding, saying, "the cost of failure in Iraq would far exceed the price of peace." In a Democratic presidential debate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who also voted for the funding, said, "I don't know how John Kerry and John Edwards can say they supported the war but then opposed the funding for the troops who went to fight the war that the resolution that they supported authorized." In the last few days, as the presidential race has heated up, President George W. Bush's re-election campaign has put Kerry on the defensive over the issue of the $87 billion, running a TV ad in West Virginia saying that "few votes in Congress are as important as funding our troops at war" and while Kerry voted to authorize war against Iraq, he "voted against funding our soldiers" as well as "body armor for troops in combat," "higher combat pay," and "better health care for reservists and their families." When Kerry was asked about the ad, he sought to explain his amendment and uttered a line Republican strategists believe sums up what they see as Kerry's propensity to flip-flop and straddle: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it," Kerry said on Tuesday. The TV ad was re-cut with the Kerry line inserted, and released nationally. Republican strategists said that the Face the Nation clip from last September may similarly end up being used to benefit the Bush campaign. Not surprisingly, Republicans expressed shock at the Face the Nation transcript; Bush-Cheney campaign spokesperson Terry Holt called the quote "stunning." "'I don't think any United States senator should abandon the troops'?" Holt asked, quoting Kerry. "That is exactly what he voted to do." He called the quote "another example of John Kerry living in a parallel universe where he thinks he can take two mutually exclusive positions on one issue. I would love for these two Kerrys to meet some day." "John Kerry's own words seem to be making the most powerful case about his own vote against funding our troops," said Jim Dyke, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, which is exploring ways to get the Face the Nation clip out to the public. Stephanie Cutter says John Kerry has, "fought in a war and understands the importance of shared sacrifices when our troops are risking their lives overseas." She says that's why Kerry "has tried to repeal the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans to pay for the supplemental funds." The Kerry spokeswoman went on to say, "If the president and his Republican attack machine were serious about protecting our troops they wouldn't have invaded Iraq under false pretenses without our allies or without a plan to win the peace. And they wouldn't have sent the troops into battle without the equipment they needed in the first place." ‘That’s Irresponsible’ In the interview, Kerry never clearly stated whether he would or would not vote for the $87 billion funding bill, a fact that may offer him some sort of exculpation. But one of the few press outlets to cover his remarks on the subject, the Washington Times, wrote the next day that "Mr. Kerry said he would still vote to authorize the $87 billion. Not doing so, he said, would be 'irresponsible.'" Conducting the interview on CBS, Los Angeles Times D.C. bureau chief Doyle McManus asked Kerry, if his amendment "does not pass, will you then vote against the $87 billion?" Kerry's full response is as follows: "I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to — to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running," he says. "That's irresponsible. What is responsible is for the administration to do this properly now." Kerry says he is "laying out the way in which the administration could unite the American people, could bring other countries to the table, and I think could give the American people a sense that they're on the right track. There's a way to do this properly." "But I don't think anyone in the Congress is going to not give our troops ammunition, not give our troops the ability to be able to defend themselves," he says. "We're not going to cut and run and not do the job." "Look, we could — we could do this job over a period of time at greater loss, at greater risk, and with much loss around the world with respect to the United States," Kerry concludes. "The question is will we do this the best way possible so that we do the best to protect our troops and the best to advance the safety and security of the United States?" Vacationing in Idaho today, Kerry issued a statement commemorating the one-year anniversary of the war in Iraq. "Before the war started, I repeatedly called on the President to build a genuine coalition to reduce the military and financial burden on the United States, to go to war only as a last resort, and to have a plan to win the peace," he said. "I voted to give him the authority to go to war only when he promised me and other members in Congress that he would do these things. He broke those promises." He criticized the president, saying it was time for Mr. Bush "to take the target's [sic] off the backs of U.S. soldiers, reduce the burden on America's taxpayers, and finish the job in Iraq." + + + + + The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes. Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 03/25/04 06:56:24 AM |
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