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The Weblog at The View from the Core - Wednesday, September 01, 2004
   
   

"Late Summer Morning"

One of my poems has a birthday today.

Late Summer Morning

(September 1, 1990)

Pale
blue sky
flecked with fleece;
beneath, green green grass
sparkles under the slanting sunlight
and, through sneakers' guard, chills toes;
while frail and strong, fourteen inches across,
spun, strung, stretched, between the swing and its support,
a spider's web swing-sways, billowing great on the breeze
that carries, faint, unmistakable, undeniable, faint, the odor of decay.
Around, unknown unseen insects whirr and trill, mono-tonously, unceasingly,
(not, as in high summer, only during darktime),
punctuated by grating outbursts from the locusts.
Tall snapdragons fall, heavy with blooms;
purple grapes drop from vines;
wild sunflowers gather behind:
rejuvenating morning beginning
bright splendid
day.

E. L. Core

to Michelle

© 1990 ELC

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/01/04 10:39:38 PM
Categorized as Literary.


   
   

I'm Watching Zell Miller

Cooking John Kerry's goose.

With a generous application of hot sauce.

One can easily imagine the good folks at ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC — all of whom are broadcasting the speech — feeling as if somebody is kicking them in the stomach.

See also these:

P.S. Zell's speech is here:

.... Now, while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief.
What has happened to the party I've spent my life working in?
I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.
It was Democratic President Harry Truman who pushed the Red Army out of Iran, who came to the aid of Greece when Communists threatened to overthrow it, who stared down the Soviet blockade of West Berlin by flying in supplies and saving the city.
Time after time in our history, in the face of great danger, Democrats and Republicans worked together to ensure that freedom would not falter. But not today.
Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.
And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.
Tell that to the one-half of Europe that was freed because Franklin Roosevelt led an army of liberators, not occupiers.
Tell that to the lower half of the Korean Peninsula that is free because Dwight Eisenhower commanded an army of liberators, not occupiers.
Tell that to the half a billion men, women and children who are free today from the Baltics to the Crimea, from Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers.
Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home....

P.P.S. Lege.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/01/04 10:11:28 PM
Categorized as Political.


   
   

Esquire Skewers Kerry

If we elect this guy, we are going to be swapping cows for magic beans every day of the week with our European allies, much less with our enemies who cut their teeth in a culture where if you can't lie with impunity you get killed.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/01/04 08:12:12 PM
Categorized as Political.


   
   

"Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics"

Lege.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/01/04 07:56:04 PM
Categorized as Religious.


   
   

"The Liberal Assault on Freedom of Speech"

Nope, it's not just "campaign" "finance" "reform".

A worthy essay by Thomas West at The Claremont Institute, Feb. 4 (brackets in original):

America has less freedom of speech today than it has ever had in its history. Yet it is widely believed that it has more. Liberal law professor Archibald Cox has written: "The body of law presently defining First Amendment liberties" grew out of a "continual expansion of individual freedom of expression." Conservative constitutional scholar Walter Berns agrees: "Legally we enjoy a greater liberty [of speech] than ever before in our history." Both are wrong.
Liberals and libertarians applaud what Cox, Berns, and others perceive as an expansion of free speech. Conservatives sometimes deplore it, rightly assuming that the expansion in question leads to greater scope for nude dancers, pornographers and flag burners. But from the point of view of the original meaning of free speech, our speech today is much less free than it was in the early republic....
But the Founders knew very well that allowing government to punish abuses of speech is potentially dangerous to legitimate free speech. So they relied on three pillars to secure this right of free speech while setting limits on injurious speech.
First, no speech could be prohibited by government except that which is clearly injurious. Today, as we have seen, noninjurious political and religious speech is routinely prohibited and punished through campaign finance and other laws.
Second, there could be no prior restraint of speech. Government was not permitted to withhold permission to publish if it disapproved of a publisher or his views. Today, the media from which most Americans get their news is subject to a government licensing scheme that is strikingly similar to the system by which England's kings kept the press in line in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Third, injurious speech had to be defined in law, and punishment of it could only be accomplished by due process of law. Guilt or liability could be established only by juries — that is, by people who are not government officials. Today, clear legal standards, formal prosecutions and juries are mostly avoided in the convoluted censorship schemes employed by government in broadcasting law, campaign finance law, harassment law and the like....

(Thanks, Bruce.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/01/04 07:25:45 PM
Categorized as Political.


   
   

Wedding Anniversary Congratulations

To Linda and Steve Riddle.

Ad multos annos!

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/01/04 05:41:33 PM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff.


   
   

"Furious Kerry Orders Shakeup"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCCLXIV

The man who doesn't fall doesn't like what's happening now.

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Sen. John Kerry is angry at the way his campaign has botched the attacks from the Swift boat veterans and has ordered a staff shakeup that will put former Clinton aides in top positions.

"The candidate is furious," a longtime senior Kerry adviser told the Daily News. "He knows the campaign was wrong. He wanted to go after the Swift boat attacks, but his top aides said no."

Campaign sources stressed that no one is losing a job at this point, but instead "proven winners" like former Clinton aides Joe Lockhart and Joel Johnson are being brought in to try to regain momentum for Team Kerry.

Many Democrats have suggested that an overhaul of the Kerry "message machine" is seriously overdue.

Johnson is now running Kerry's war room, and Lockhart will be both a spokesman and strategist.

"Nobody is going over the side, but some people's stock has gone through the floor," a source said.

Democratic insiders have been saying for weeks that communications director Stephanie Cutter and media consultant and strategist Bob Shrum are two top aides who need to be replaced.

But a second Democratic source noted, "The question is, Is it too late? Has too much blood spilled?"

The Swift boat vets have questioned Kerry's heroic service in the Vietnam War, poking a hole in one of the campaign's cornerstone selling points.

One source pointed out that shakeups aren't always signs a campaign is in terminal trouble. Last summer, Kerry replaced his campaign manager and went on to win the nomination.

The Kerry campaign previewed its fall strategy yesterday, saying it will buy $45 million worth of commercial time in 20 states through Election Day.

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

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/01/04 05:36:44 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.


   
   

St.Blog's Parish Hall

And, a milestone.

The forum is here now.

P.S. This is the 3,500th entry at The Blog from the Core.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/01/04 07:20:40 AM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff & Most Notable.


   
   

Gaffe? Gaffe? What Gaffe?

"Freedom is going to have a powerful influence to make sure your kids can grow up in a peaceful world."

I'm having trouble figuring out why anybody thinks George W. Bush goofed yesterday (brackets and quoted ellipses in original):

.... Lauer: “You said to me a second ago, one of the things you'll lay out in your vision for the next four years is how to go about winning the war on terror. That phrase strikes me a little bit. Do you really think we can win this war on terror in the next four years?”
President Bush: “I have never said we can win it in four years.”
Lauer: “So I’m just saying can we win it? Do you see that?”
President Bush: “I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world — let's put it that way. I have a two pronged strategy. On the one hand is to find them before they hurt us, and that's necessary. I’m telling you it's necessary. The country must never yield, must never show weakness [and] must continue to lead. To find al-Qaida affiliates who are hiding around the world and … harm us and bring ‘em to justice — we're doing a good job of it. I mean we are dismantling the al-Qaida as we knew it. The long-term strategy is to spread freedom and liberty, and that's really kind of an interesting debate. You know there's some who say well, ‘You know certain people can't self govern and accept, you know, a former democracy.’ I just strongly disagree with that. I believe that democracy can take hold in parts of the world that are now non-democratic and I think it's necessary in order to defeat the ideologies of hate. History has shown that it can work, that spreading liberty does work. After all, Japan is our close ally and my dad fought against the Japanese. Prime Minister Koizumi, is one of the closest collaborators I have in working to make the world a more peaceful place.”
Lauer: “Your daughters are how old now?”
President Bush: “Twenty-two.”
Lauer: “Twenty-two years old. They’re approaching the age, President Bush, [when] they're going to have their own children. And when their kids are teenagers are they going to those kids – your grandchildren – be reading about al-Qaida in the newspaper every day?”
President Bush: “I know if steadfast, strong and resolute — and I say those words very seriously — it's less likely that your kids are going to live under the threat of al-Qaida for a long period of time. I can't tell you. I don't have any … definite end. But I tell you this, when we succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's the beginning of the end for these extremists. Because freedom is going to have a powerful influence to make sure your kids can grow up in a peaceful world. If we believe, for example, that you can't win, and the alternative is to retreat … I think that would be a disaster for your children. I'll tell you why. If al-Qaida and their ideologues were able to secure a nuclear arsenal, then your children would grow up under the threat of nuclear blackmail. I think you would look back and say, ‘Why did George Bush not hold the line?’ We cannot show weakness in this world today, because the enemy will exploit that weakness. It will embolden them and make the world a more dangerous place.” ....

I think about it this way: Will the war against Communism ever end? Probably not. There may always be countries here and there ruled by Communist despots (whom the Democratic leadership in this country will love and support). There will probably always be flaming-hypocrite Marxoids on college teaching staffs and Hollywood movie sets. But there will never again be a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics sponsoring subversive infiltration and agitprop and military aid to further Communistic expansion around the world. Defeating the USSR was a gigantic & necessary first step in ridding the world of Communism — a goal which might never be reached, but which can be approached closer & closer.

Similarly, there will always be terrorists in the world, even specifically Islamofascist terrorists plotting to strike at our country. Ridding the world of states that sponsor and aid and encourage and protect them is a gigantic & necessary first step in ridding the world of aggressive, imperialistic Islamofascism — a goal which might never be reached, but which can be approached closer & closer.

Instead of debating whether we can win, or quibbling about what winning might mean, perhaps it is more important to remember that we could lose.

(Thanks, Michelle.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/01/04 07:17:11 AM
Categorized as George W. Bush & Political.


   
   

"Listless Kerry"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCCLXIII

From The Prowler yesterday.

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On a Sunday [Aug. 29] when most national news was focused on New York and the Republican Convention, it could not have been a more perfect day in Massachusetts. There, standing by the shore, about a quarter mile from Sen. John Kerry's Nantucket estate, reporters watched as the Democratic presidential candidate attempted to hit the water and windsurf.

But wouldn't you know it, there was no wind. So Kerry just stumbled about, attempting to keep his board and sail up and afloat. What better metaphor for a candidate and a campaign that only two weeks ago appeared poised in the polls to defeat an incumbent president?

In mid-August, with the exception of the Gallup poll, there was not a national poll that did not have John Kerry leading George W. Bush. But about as fast as you can say Swift Boat Veterans for Transforming a Presidential Election, Kerry and his crew find themselves in disarray.

On Monday in Washington meetings were being held behind closed doors at the Kerry campaign, looking for ways to get its candidate and operation back on message. There were rumors circulating mid-day Monday of "major shakeups" in the campaign, according to a Kerry adviser.

"It's not as dramatic as Al Gore moving his campaign headquarters out of Washington, D.C.," says the adviser in Washington. "But I would bet that in a week, there are a few people here who aren't going to be here or with the campaign."

Candidate Kerry, who after flailing about in the tides of Nantucket on Sunday quickly returned to his home, was on the phone for much of Monday attempting to shore up support and encourage surrogate attacks against his opponent on a day that showed support for him crumbling around the edges in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and Ohio, all states that Kerry led in by as many as seven percentage points just two weeks ago.

"This has been just a brutal two weeks for him," says another Kerry adviser. "He had people telling him the Swift Boat ads weren't going to take because the media was going to ignore them. There are senior people around Kerry who were buying into all the press clippings that this was our campaign to lose. Well those people aren't going to be around after Labor Day. Heads have to roll over what has happened. Kerry has not been well served. And Kerry has not served the Democratic Party well, either. This has to be hugely disappointing."

The advisers pointed to further evidence that the campaign was losing focus last week. On Friday and Saturday, considered the last official days of campaigning before the Kerry campaign slowed down for the GOP convention week, Kerry had events in Washington state.

During what was supposed to be a public forum in Everett, Kerry spoke for almost an hour before the audience could participate.

"He lost the audience a half hour into the event," says a Democratic National Committee staffer who observed it. "It was miserable. Like the old Kerry we saw as a loser during the primary season."

A similar scene played out the next day in Tacoma, where it appeared Kerry was attempting to kill his audience. Literally. At least five attendees to the rally required medical attention during Kerry's 45-minute speech. Sound [sic] like Kerry was hot....

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

In mid-August, with the exception of the Gallup poll, there was not a national poll that did not have John Kerry leading George W. Bush. Ha.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 09/01/04 06:54:03 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.


   

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