The Dating Game (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

The stigma associated with gays in the Republican Party becomes particularly problematic when it comes to relationships with gay Democrats. The vemon is pervasive on Internet dating sites, such as www.friendster.com and www.myspace.com, where gay profiles are laced with acidic afronts to Republicans, from the guy who dislikes "red states," to the guy who clarifies in his "Who I Want to Meet" section that he is "not a Republican." I've been stung by that vemon as well, in a more overt manner, by a guy who stood me up after perusing my website, www.doriandavis.com, and who left me waiting at the subway station at Broadway and Houston Street.

I've visited a few right-wing dating sites since then and discovered that--unfortunately--the sites labeling themselves as "conservative," such as www.conservativematch.com and www.conservativematchmaker.com, are exclusive of gay Republicans in a different way: they make no accommodation for same-sex searches on their personals pages, nor do they include specifics about a user's sexual orientation. There is an underlying assumption that conservative men want to be matched with conservative women, and that conservative women want to be matched with conservative men. The creators of those websites--intentionally or unintentionally--are imposing their viewpoints on appropriate sexuality, and they are excluding the gay Republican.

That oversight is corrected by another popular site, www.republicansingles.com, that provides a space in its search engine in which a user can indicate a preference for same-sex partners. The seemingly-unimportant difference between www.conservativematch.com and www.republicansingles.com is signal of a major differentiation between two branches of the Republican Party, but it's also signal of a major differentiation between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party: no where else--not on liberal dating sites, nor on conservative dating sites--can a gay Republican find, nor even search for, his appropriate match. In the end, it's here--at www.republicansingles.com--that gays can finally "come out" of the intellectual--and the virtual--closet.

It's all Bush's fault

Ex-Mayor of New Orleans right before implying Bush puts Iraq ahead of Louisiana:
"We really need the president of the United States to make this a priority. We have to stop the breaches in the levee."

Ken Wheaton:
Like what? Put on his Super W cape and fly around the world backwards really, really fast? Or should W and hop in his Magic Flying Cement Truck?

Easy

Matt Taibbi, formerly of the NY Press and now of Rolling Stone has this amazing ability to be a total moron and yet sometimes get the story that no one else is getting. His crashing a Wesley Clark meetup back in December '03 was just such a story. Now, Tim Blair quotes him on a trip to Crawford:

The movement likes to think of itself as open and inclusive, but in practice it often comes off like a bunch of nerds whose favored recreation is coming up with clever passwords for their secret treehouse. The ostensible political purpose may be ending the war, but the immediate occupation for a sizable percentage of these people always seemed to be a kind of rolling adult tourist attraction called Hating George Bush ...

At one point at Camp Casey, an informal poll taken around a campfire revealed that six out of a group of ten protesters, selected at random, believed that the United States government was directly involved in planning the 9/11 bombings. Flabbergasted, I tried to press the issue.

"Do you know how many people would have to be involved in that conspiracy?” I said. “I mean, start with the pilots . . ."

"The planes were flown by remote control,” a girl sitting across from me snapped.

I have really seen this 'argument' pick up steam lately. I've been seeing 9/11 conspiracy stickers around NYC. A commenter on a liberal site wrote, in relation to a different conversation, 'That’s so off the wall it’s gotta be true. Since 9/11, I mean.' It goes back to that step into crazy that hardcore leftists can't help but take. The fact that people in the world irrationally hate you and would kill you without thinking twice about it is a hard reality to accept. For a liberal, who thinks that two people can understand and accept each other if they just talk out their differences, it's near impossible. And for a true leftist, who believes that America is always bad and wrong, and that everyone else, particularly brown people, are usually right, the concept that Mohammad Atta would kill you the same way he'd kill George W. Bush, well, it's just too much. So, it has to be a conspiracy. It can't possibly be that 19 Muslim men killed 3000 people who were on airplanes and in their offices or having breakfast in a restaurant. Because if that's true, then they could be dead just the same. And all of their proper, correct opinions about the evil of America and the goodness of everyone else will mean nothing. The plane will fly into their office without ever once considering their politics.

Conspiracies make people feel smart, certainly smarter than the rubes who believe the official story, and if there's one thing leftists enjoy it's feeling smarter than everyone else. They let them hold on to prejudices (George W. Bush is the evilest man to ever live. He must've had a hand in killing his own citizens, I just know it!). Most of all, they stop them from wanting a real solution to our very real terrorist problem. If Atta and 18 other Middle Eastern men didn't do it, then there's no reason to need to change the Middle East, there's no reason to highten security, the only solution is getting rid of that madman George W. Bush. And, as we all know, it's much easier to get rid of a democratically elected president whose term ends in 3 years than of a vast network of terrorists who want us all dead. Conspiracy nuts will have their victory in 3 years, even if another Republican is elected. The rest of us will have to wait a lot longer for ours.

He's lucky it was just in the leg

Page Six:

Suge Knight, who was shot in the leg at Kanye West's party at the Shore Club, snatched a bottle of Hennessey from a fellow partygoer before he took the bullet. Knight was making himself a drink at someone else's table when a woman told him to stop. The hip-hop thug responded, "Oh, yeah?" and walked off with the bottle.

Today, 4pm EST.

(Click this graphic to listen)

Our guest today is Greg Gutfeld of Maxim UK and the Huffington Post. I discovered him pretty late (even got a wiseass Ken Wheaton comment for being behind the times) but Ace has been his biggest fan for awhile now. Should be a good show.

Call in with questions: 1-866-884-TALK (8255)

Update: Toby is live-blogging. Dawn Summers is on something resembling a vacation.

Another Update: Commenter Von Bek (!) is live-blogging this too!

For sale

I've got another Yuri Dvornik painting for sale on ebay. He's this amazing Russian-American painter who does mostly street scenes. This painting is of a street in SoHo, before 9/11 with the Twin Towers in the background. It's really beautiful. I have a similar one by him on my wall.

The best things in life are free.....

....so, obviously the Kerry campaign had to pay for Al Sharpton's campaigning.

Here we go

Headline: Netanyahu launches bid to oust Sharon

The best part about this is that all those people that despise Sharon and think he's such a hardliner will suddenly see him as the compromiser that he is.

Who are you people?

I thought the flasher story I posted yesterday was a bi-partisan, 'you go, girl' kind of situation, where we can all agree that flashing is bad. Reading through the comments the picture-taker is getting, I can see I was wrong. My personal favorites are the 'you stupid Americans, we Europeans frequently grope ourselves on the metro' comments:

*Why are you trying to prosecute him? Did he violate your rights in any way? Do you have a right to avoid seeing things that you don't like? Do you hate human sexuality? Are you a repressed Christian, is that why you're doing this? I don't know why you feel violated, and why you want to "protect" other women from your experience. He was a man doing what all men do. There's nothing wrong with that. You and the police that are the only ones here violating rights.

*Not that what this guy did was not distasteful, but really, are you hurt? Were you raped? Hit? Cut? Exposed to disease? "Violated" is terribly strong language for what in the grand scheme of things is nothing at all.

*Why would anyone be thinking about this for a whole week? It's not traumatising to see a penis, what is she, twelve? has she never seen one before? yeah the guy was beating off at her but you wouldn't be pissed off and thinking about it for a whole week. If anything you would be telling it to your friends and joking about it.

*So friendly_chic407, when did you realize you were a lesbian?

*My parents were burned at the stake for their non-puritan beliefs. Seriously, until every dog shits in it's own home then I will proudly condone masturbating in public.

*All this fuss about a man showing his ----?? America is not the world. It happens worldwide with females being the biggest culprits of exhibitionism. Only in America. :-)

*Although I definately agree that what the guy did is unacceptable behavior, I have to say I think this is going a bit overboard. With this being picked up by the media, the guy will be made into a social outcast. That is definitely more damaging than what he did. I'm personally sick of the attitude that it is wrong for someone to do anything you don't like. Again, I agree that it is innappropriate to do this, but the guy might need a bit of help or counseling, not a cruxifiction. Your actions (posting this on flickr) are, in my opinion, are as reprehensible as his. I'm sure you've caused him much more damage than your discomfort. Congratulations....

*ok, see no one would care over here in europe!
so what, he is not hurting anyone, you all need to take the stick outta your asses and stop being so prude!
if you dont like it, GET UP AND MOVE THE FUCK ON, god 40 years ago it would be a picture of a black man on a train, 30 years ago a homosexual, and today a "pervert" give it up....hes just an exibitionist, thats been goin on for years...

*OH MY GOD! THAT GUY HAS A PENIS! WHAT A SENSATION! HE MUST BE JAILED OR - BETTER - HANGED! You, americans, are so fun - "Oh, i was so traumatised, oh i want him to pay my valium bills, oh i can't ride a subway for 10 years since". When some of you, fat girls, going around with barenaked bellybuttons (fat) with pubic hair sticking over the pants - THAT is traumatic!

Ok, let's discuss Entourage

I miss writing about Six Feet Under on Mondays so let's try something different:

Any woman, even Mandy Moore, who would pick a guy over a besotted Vincent Chase is out of her mind. Discuss.

And the Ari Maguire storyline was cute, right?

The long-awaited, often-postponed blogger party

Every time I've tried to set the date, I got sad emails from people asking me to pretty please change it. So, September 20th. That's the date. Please don't make me change it again.

"Gay High" (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

This academic year marks the third anniversary of New York City’s disastrous appropriation of $3.2 million dollars for Harvey Milk High School—-an educational facility for gay and lesbian students--at the corner of Broadway and Astor Place. It's a small, homosexual academy that Mayor Mike Bloomberg has commended, along with its parent organization the Hetrick-Martin Institute, as a safe-haven for gays and lesbians who "have been constantly harassed and beaten in other schools," but Harvey Milk High School is a colossal failure in American education; it is an intellectual gulag that separates the gay and the "straight" worlds, and eliminates the opportunity for mutual understanding between them.

It is forgivable that gay students are given a certain amount of deference considering the inevitable struggle associated with the “coming out” process, but it’s not forgivable that transgender students are given the free reign to live through a sexual identity crisis that constitutes mental illness during their high school careers, without the guidance from faculty and staff that they ought to seek professional help. (A guy wants wants to cut his arm off, we put him in a sanitarium; a guy wants to cut his penis off, we say, "That's okay--he's gay!")

How can we argue that homosexuals are capable of the same intellectual prowess and mental lucidity as their heterosexual counterparts, if they can’t succeed in the same schools? The most important step toward a broader social acceptance of homosexuality is a normalizing of homosexuality, and caging that sexual deviation within its own private school—as if it were contagious—is the exact opposite of a winning strategy to normalize homosexuality.

I’m not dismissing the putative damage that results from teasing and hazing in public schools, but the remedy to that damage is decisive action on the part of faculty and staff, not the lazy, impractical solution of building separate schools for the students whom the faculty and staff are failing to protect. These students “require” a special learning environment not because they are gay or lesbian, but because they practice anti-social behavior--from excessive piercings to inappropriate clothing--that has self-segregated them from the rest of their peers in public school, and that has made them perfect candidates for a zoo of deranged species, such as Harvey Milk High School. If we allocate money for separate schools based on individual patterns of behavior, New York City will be rich on appropriations, and poor on cash-flow.

They'll stop killing their own children just as soon as they get all their land back....

....won't they?

This just in: Palestinians said committed to cease-fire

What's the future of rap?

If you only read one post today on gangsta rap by a Republican pundit, make sure it's this one by Robert George.

Even if that was so last week.

People are still linking to my 'The GOP's '08 nominee won't be a moderate' post, so do go over and continue the argument over there.

It's hard to be a flasher these days

As most of you fellow web junkies may have heard already, a woman in NY had a man expose himself to her on the train and she snapped his photo with her camera phone and posted it on the internet. It looks like the suspect has been identified and it's the co-owner of a vegetarian raw foods restaurant mini-chain in NY. I had been wanting to try the place but because of my all-meat-eating-all-the-time boyfriend, had not. So, thanks for that, Peter.

Me, me, me

I've made a couple of small changes to my 'About Me' post (though I really hated changing the age on the seldomly updated page). If you've ever wondered whether I've lived on a commune, when 'Hoist the Black Flag' airs (we're having Greg Gutfeld on this week so do find out) or what I actually do for a living, something resembling answers can be found on that page.

Abortion should be rare. Can we agree on that?

Commenter Jay sent me a link a few days ago about the staggering number of abortions in Russia. How staggering? They now have more abortions than births. Ivan quotes the article's explanation as partly financial: 'Careers traditionally favored by Russian women, such as in education and medicine, no longer pay a decent salary.' No longer? C'mon. My mother was teacher and my father was a doctor in Russia, I know that these professions never paid a decent salary.

Ambivablog has a corresponding post about how lightly some women in America take abortion. I think attitude goes a long way to explain what's going on in Russia. Sure, there are circumstances, such as financial or emotional considerations, that may lead so many Russian women to have abortions but I wonder what role plain acceptance plays in that culture.

True story: I was 17 and over my friend's place. Her mom was hanging out with us as we discussed another girl we knew having a child. Her mom said 'why didn't she have an abortion? What is it with girls these days that they think their child is the special child that should be born when they themselves are so young? There will be other pregnancies, why can't they just wait? I had 5 abortions before having _____, and she's had two already.' ('She' being her daughter, my 17-year old friend).

Whoa dude. TMI.

Since then, I've heard open, frank abortion discussion from Russian women I barely know: 'Yeah, I had one and then I got pregnant again right after that so I had another one.' 'No, she decided to get an abortion and wait until after he gets the promotion.' 'If we stay in NY I'll keep it, but I'm not moving to Miami and having a baby in the next year.' Russians are the only people I've heard actually be pro-abortion and unapologetically so.

So that's my take. A culture where abortion is totally ok and not at all stigmatized is a culture that will end up encouraging abortion. Maybe there are people who don't think that's so bad, but even at my most militantly pro-choice, I couldn't imagine that perspective.

Genius

John Hawkins interviewed Mark Steyn back in June but I somehow missed it and was directed to it by NY Girl. Here's his thoughts on Israel and 'the wall':

I haven’t spent a lot of time in “Palestine,” but, when I have, I’ve never seen any sign anywhere in Gaza or the West Bank of anything remotely resembling a "nationalist" movement. There’s plenty of evidence of widespread Jew-hatred and the veneration of death-cult "martyrdom," but not that anybody’s seriously interested in building a nation for the “Palestinian people.” So if you leave it to the Palestinians there's never going to be a state, only decade after decade of suicide bombings. One can advance reasons for this - it's no coincidence that the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth are the ones who have been wholly entrusted to the formal care of the UN for three generations now. But the fact is what Israel is doing is the only thing that will force the Palestinians to get up off their allegedly occupied butts and run a state: the Israelis are walling off what they feel they need, or what they can get away with, and it will be up to the gangsters of Arafatistan to see if they now feel like dropping the jihad and getting on with less glamorous activities like running highway departments and schools.

The problem with the Protest Warriors

Sometimes it's over people's heads:

There also were some heated moments at the pro-Bush rally when Bush supporters mistakenly identified two people as war protesters. The two walked in with a sign that read "Say No to War - Unless a Democrat is President.''

Many Bush supporters only saw the top of the sign and believed the men were war protesters, so they began shouting and chasing the pair out. One man tore up their signs.

Jess and I hung out with the Communists for Kerry last summer in Union Square and we saw that happen several times (minus any violence or even anger from our Commies.)

Grasping

Huffington Post is all over Ann Coulter saying that NY'ers would surrender if attacked. I've heard it said better.

Song of the Day

'Bad Diary Days' by Pedro the Lion.

I might need something more upbeat later this afternoon but I just had my first +5 hours of sleep in about a week and this fits perfectly.

Can you smear someone just by quoting them? (Part II)

'And I can just hear him saying "George Bush you are really an idiot".'
-Cindy Sheehan channeling her son Casey.

(See Part I here)

Elephant vs. RINO (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

The platonic rivalry between the two most visible factions of the Republican Party--Elephants (conservative Republicans) and RINOs (liberal Republicans, or "Republicans-in-Name-Only")--has been a constant source of amusement for the politicians, journalists, and policy-makers of the American Left.

Democrats refer to RINOs such as Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chaffee as "mavericks" for their "courageous" breaks with the rest of the Party on issues from Terri Schiavo to John Bolton. They hunt down RINOs to denounce George W. Bush's prosecution of the Iraq War, and they splash the quotes of those "maverick" RINOs on the front pages of The New York Times.

Democrats relish the internal strife within the Republican Party. They perceive this intellectual debate--which is absent in their Party--as a political crack-up at the most fundamental levels of the Republican Party. They see the Elephant and the RINO as two fumbling, primitive beasts fighting to the finish, like the monsters in Freddie vs. Jason and Alien vs. Predator.

But debate only enhances the intellectual strength of a political party, and it has only enhanced the intellectual strength of the Republican Party. After all, that is the essence of being a Republican: engaging in intelligent, informed, and persuasive debate with fellow Republicans and--regardless of whether we are Elephants or RINOs--having a thick skin.

Dorian's Book Club (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

excerpt from chapter five of Anti-Americanism
by Jean-Francois Revel

Hatred for America is sometimes pushed to the point where it transmutes into hatred for ourselves. This is what we saw when the Disneyland near Paris opened in 1992. This event was denounced by our intellectuals as a "cultural Chernobyl." But you will notice, even without exceptional erudition, that a large part of Walt Disney's themes, especially in his feature movies, is drawn from European sources. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, the musical scores in Fantasia, the reconstruction of the pirate ship from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island--all are borrowings from, and homages to, European creativity.

That these popular stories, the flowers of the imagination of so many different peoples over so many centuries, orally transmitted from generation to generation, then collected and fixed in written form, should finally appear in a completely new medium thanks to the unique talent of a California artist--isn't this an example of the unforeseeable paths and crossroads of cultures? Their dynamic motifs travel by varied routes and vehicles, ancient and modern, regardless of the prudish chauvinism of narrow-minded protectionists.

Read chapter six for Saturday.

I felt that there was a clown missing from the circus

And here he is now!

Rev. Al Sharpton Plans to Join 'Peace Mom'...

More proof that government officials don't have enough to do

Tennessee's Attorney General wants country singer Gretchen Wilson to stop using smokeless tobacco onstage. I'm unclear whether he also objects to her singing about Skoal, apparently her favorite brand.

Just wondering

If you have $15,000 for your ticket to a conference , what the hell can you possibly know about poverty?

Urban Elephants (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a Republican, is popular in New York City. He won 744,757 votes on November 6, 2001. He won 179,797 votes in Manhattan. But the fascinating statistic about that election which is never trotted out is the fact that there were only 99,000 Republicans in Manhattan. Who voted for him? Democrats.

Why did Democrats support Mike Bloomberg? Maybe they supported him because he'd been a life-long Democrat prior to assuming the Republican nomination for Mayor. Maybe they supported him because he'd brilliantly announced prior to Election Day, 2001, "I am a liberal."

But, regardless of their reason for supporting him in 2001, Democrats have ample reason for supporting him in 2005: In his first term, he has advocated a twenty-five percent hike in the property tax, amnesty for illegal aliens, a smoking ban in bars and restaurants, and a position on gay marriage that is so incoherent it literally allows "anybody" to marry "anybody."

That's good news for Democrats. That's a rude awakening, though, for conservatives who voted Republican because we believed in low taxes and individual freedom, or because we believed in the Republican Party. Earth to the GOP: He is not a Republican!

I'm not surprised that conservatives regret allowing Mayor Bloomberg to climb onto the back of the Republican Party, and to ride this Party into Gracie Mansion, during the campaign of 2001. For now, at least, we can empathize with our mascot--the elephants that Hannibal rode over the Alps during the campaign of 218 B.C.: sure, they won the Punic War, but they got peanuts.

Do to your children as your parents did to you

Soleil Moon Frye, who played Punky Brewster and inspired children everywhere to dress like little punks, has given birth to a daughter: Poet Sienna Rose Goldberg.

If you can't win, bitch.

The French are dying to discredit Lance Armstrong. It's really ugly.

This is probably frowned upon in the Kingdom of Saud

I got all excited when I saw on my sitecounter that someone in Saudi Arabia was reading me but then I saw they weren't here for the politics but for the old comment spam.

Like I was saying....

John Hawkins at Right Wing News has 8 reasons why Condi is a no go for 2008.

Dorian's Book Club (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

excerpt from chapter four of Anti-Americanism
by Jean-Francois Revel

Parental irresponsibility, which allows youth to spend their time haunting the streets in gangs, is the principal cause of neighborhood degradation, the spread of violent disorder and the inevitable slide of young people--even children--into delinquency and crime. Municipal authorities have tried to do something about parental dereliction of duty, proposing either to reduce the state-paid benefits to parents guilty of neglect, or to impose a curfew that would make children under twelve or thirteen years of age return home before midnight. And for this they have been called fascists and racists by the parties, officials and journalists of the Left, which has been hard at work destroying one of the necessary conditions for assimilation [into our society].

Read chapter five for Friday.

Oh, thanks (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

Florida State Can Keep Its Seminoles

The [Seminole Tribe of Florida] helped university boosters create the costume for the Chief Osceola mascot, approving the face paint, flaming spear and Appaloosa horse that have no connection to Seminole history.

Yesterday, the National Collegiate Athletic Association agreed with the 3,100-member tribe and the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, which had also endorsed the nickname.

The N.C.A.A. removed Florida State from the list of universities banned from using what it called "hostile and abusive" mascots and nicknames during postseason play.

"It's not about an effort to be politically correct," Myles Brand, the president of the N.C.A.A., said in a statement when the ban was announced. "It is about doing the right thing."

Read the whole wretched thing.

UPDATE: The part of this debacle that I find most outrageous is the elitist attitude in Myles Brand at the N.C.A.A., who actually thinks that he knows what's best for F.S.U., and for the Seminole Tribe, when both of those entities disagree with him.

And one more

The recent special election in Ohio, between Republican Jean Schmidt and Democrat Paul Hackett, was close. Schmidt got only 52% of the vote in a typically Republican district. Liberals, like Daily Kos, called Hackett's defeat, what else, a victory, because it was so close. They saw this as proof that Republicans were going down. They chalked it up to Hackett being an Iraq war veteran and as evidence that Red America no longer supports the war in Iraq.

But, actually, as I learned by reading National Review (on dead tree, as they like to call it) this morning, there's at least one major reason that Schmidt might have done as badly as she did: she's one of them moderates that can barely win elections. Hackett attacked Schmidt for supporting tax increases. Let me rephrase: the Democrat attacked the Republican for supporting tax increases. I'm sorry, but if the Democrat is in a position to be chastising the Republican for raising taxes, that Democrat deserves to win. The only reason Schmidt won the primary is that conservatives split their vote in an 11 candidate field. I guess self-proclaimed RINOs could hope for the same thing in '08 but that's just unlikely to happen.

I wouldn't want his vacation

Drudge reports that Bush was in Idaho speaking to 'hundreds of Idaho National Guardsmen'. Meanwhile, AOL is running a poll about whether Bush should be on vacation. I know liberals get all riled up that Bush dare leave DC in August but isn't it clear yet that the man is not on 'vacation', that he hasn't had a day of 'vacation' since he took office?

Continuing on a theme

McCain endorses teaching Intelligent Design in schools. RINOs everywhere suddenly confused: 'But, but we thought he was a maverick.' Yeah, a maverick with one eye on the poll numbers of primary voting Republicans.

I hate to be the one to say it (ok, no I don't)

I love blogs. I love blogging. I love the whole community and I love the fact that there is now this real alternative to the mainstream media. But, if anyone is under the impression that the rest of America is anything like the blog-world, they've got another thing coming.

For one thing, most people are not nearly as politics-obsessed. They've just got other things to worry about. I often hear from my smart, educated friends that they have no idea what I'm talking about my blog. I take for granted that blog readers know certain things already. An example can be my Pat Robertson post of yesterday. I mention that Roberts is dumb for making certain comments but never say what those comments were. Sure, you can click the link but the truth is that most people reading that post knew about the comments already. Here are some phrases that will probably not be recognizable to most of your friends who don't read blogs: 'Able Danger', Meme, Plamegate, Idiotarian, Daily Kos. We communicate in a very insulated world online. We survive in extremes. It's the way to get attention but it's no way to win an election.

For another thing, the blogosphere is also much more libertarian that the general population. If libertarianism existed to such an extent in the 'real world', we'd have a Libertarian party that recruited people who don't dye their skin blue or have wacky characters based on them on tv shows. They'd be viable. And even if the Libertarian party couldn't get it together, both Republicans and Democrats would see the importance of limited government, lower spending, greater rights for the states and support for any social activity as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else. Anyone see anything resembling that from our two political parties?

I note all this because of the straw polls going around. Daily Kos and MYDD, two huge liberal blogs, both had Wesley Clark as the winner of their polls. If you think Wes Clark has even the remotest chance of coming anywhere near the nomination in '08, I want to be smoking what you're smoking. As uber-liberal Dawn Summers said when she saw the poll results 'what has gone so wrong with my people that Wesley Clark is leading in this poll?' Of all the 10 candidates that ran for the nomination in '04, Wesley Clark outcrazied all but two of them (Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton are tough to beat). He has said some of the dumbest things during his run and, in case people forget, he was brought in because Kerry seemed weak and Dean was a sure loss in the general. In other words, the Democrats felt they needed another candidate because the nine they had weren't going anywhere. The fact that he was a Republican 5 minutes before was neither here nor there. He could win! Except, of course, he couldn't.

It's not just the left that's in lalaland. The blogosphere right wants Condi or Rudy, or oooh maybe a ticket with both of them! Stop it. Condi and Rudy are amazing people. Rudy rocked my world as mayor of NYC. He made me interested in politics. I saw that it can matter who is in charge. I saw that NYC didn't have to be a cesspool of danger. And Condi, well, there's nothing I love more than brilliant women with a badass gaze. She hangs with the boys and has the president's ear in a way that very few do. I have such respect for her. But neither Rudy nor Condi has anything resembling a prayer to win. Rudy is on his third marriage. He supports gay marriage (an 80-20 issue nationally, with the 80 being against) and third trimester abortions. I just want all the Rudy for president people to understand that he will have to get out of a Republican primary before taking on the Democratic challenger. Primary voters are the most conservative voters. Primary voters are not voting for a pro-choice New Yorker who supports gay marriage.

As for Condi, put aside that no woman, much less a black one, has come anywhere near winning. The Condi problem is three-fold. First, she has never run for anything before. Wesley Clark was such a candidate. Please see above for more on that. Second, she's single. Oh Ken Wheaton doesn't mind? Well, that's terrific, she's in. Unfortunately for Ken, most Americans aren't atheist writers with a smart mouth living in New York City. Does no one remember the drubbing Howard Dean got for his wife not joining him on the campaign trail? Here's a story I've told before so bear with me: the last question of the last debate between Kerry and Bush asked them to say something nice about their wives. Bush gave his usual heartfelt Laura adoration talk. Kerry said 'I married up' and then launched into a story about his mom telling him to have integrity. I was in Colorado working for Bush. I was in a pretty liberal place, Durango, and the next morning all anyone was talking about was that Kerry didn't say he loved his wife. It was huge, literally the talk of the town. This isn't deep in Mississippi, this is a kind of hippie town in Colorado. Spouses matter. Condi needs to get one, and quick, or the rest of you need to surrender the fantasy that she is a possible candidate. Third, she has expressed pro-choice positions. Fine, there is a sizable pro-choice blogger community. But, again, she will have to get out of a Republican primary and she already has two previously mentioned strikes against her. It's just not happening. In fact, I don't think most of the people on Ruffini's list will be on the ballot in '08. You know how most bloggers know that Senators have a much harder time than governors and are much less likely to win? Yeah, the party has noticed that too. Look for the nominee to be a popular governor of a medium sized state. It'll be someone we're not thinking of right now and he (yes, he, people) will be happily married, likely to his first wife. He will have had plenty of experience campaigning, will be pro-life and unequivocally against gay marriage. Most of his secrets have already come out during his previous campaign. He will not have a New York accent.

I have to say, though, that at least the right side of the blogosphere is going for candidates that have no chance because they like and support them and their positions. The left seems to have chosen Clark for the same 'winnable' reasons they chose Kerry the last time around. Will they learn? The blogosphere might not, I have a feeling Democratic primary voters will.

No RoveHive?

Lileks mentions Kudzu in a typically excellent take-down of some of the arguments offered by the left.

Quote of the Day

My own sense is that this stuff isn't as important as we like to make it. Americans are unusually legalistic and unusually focused on constitutions. But plenty of constitutions have wonderful language on paper (the old Soviet constitution was great that way) and plenty of countries (Britain, for example) manage to get by without written constitutions at all. What matters more is political culture. If the Iraqi people want a free, prosperous country and are willing to work for it, they'll get that. If they don't, or aren't, then they won't.

-Glenn Reynolds

C'mon now

Headline: Woman Offended by Doc's Obesity Advice

First of all, why is this a Yahoo top headline? And, second of all, if PCness reaches our medical offices, we're all in big, big trouble. My doctor has told me I need to lose weight to have a healthier back. That's life. That's health. Deal.

Dorian's Book Club (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

excerpt from chapter three of Anti-Americanism
by Jean-Francois Revel

Although [September 11] was the most spectacular, it was far from being the only example of a clear-sighted American analysis that foresaw the emergence of a new kind of terrorist warfare on home territory. The fact that defenders of human rights wouldn't take into account the right to national defense, which goes in tandem with the defense of liberty, and that they managed to dismiss these sensible warnings as the racist ravings of defense-obsessed fanatics only goes to show once again the naive blindness of democratic regimes. As long as calamity isn't actually crashing down on them, democracies are careful to maintain their vulnerabilities. But in no way does this ingenius propensity for suicide entitle Europeans to brandish slogans denouncing a supposed erosion of American liberties--as if the danger of "fascism" were particularly severe in the U.S.A., a land that in over two hundred years has never known a dictator, while Europe has been busy making troops of them.

Read chapter four for Thursday.

Go now.

Juan Cole has baselessly babbled that Steven Vincent, the reporter recently killed in Iraq, and his interpreter were having an affair. Ken Wheaton alerts us to the response from Vincent's wife. A must-read.

He's had a long 5 years

Stupid is as stupid does

Pat Robertson's comments were beyond dumb. But, earth to Venezuela, America has freedom of speech where you can say dumb things just like that:

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said Venezuela was studying its legal options, adding that how Washington responds to Robertson's comments would put its anti-terrorism policy to the test.

''The ball is in the U.S. court, after this criminal statement by a citizen of that country,'' Rangel told reporters. ''It's huge hypocrisy to maintain this discourse against terrorism and at the same time, in the heart of that country, there are entirely terrorist statements like those.''

I'd love to hear an administration official condemn Robertson's statement while defending his right to say it. And while we may give Robertson a collective 'duuuuuuude', he isn't going to jail or being fined for speaking his mind. That's called Freedom. In about 50 years when they're starving like Cubans and North Koreans and all their smartest people have been killed for speaking out against the state, I hope Venezuela will get to experience some of it.