Lock Up the Silverware!

When I lived in Arizona, both parties had a "stable" of big donors who would run in any race that was a sure loss. It was considered a perk -- run around the state, make speeches, get on TV, and so forth. Worked fine until one of the won.

Well, Illinois has that problem now. Barack Obama looks like a shoo- in for Senator, and the Republicans can't find anybody to run against him. Jack Ryan (the primary winner) is Out because of sex-club allegations and Peter Fitzgerald (the incumbent) and Mike Ditka aren't running because they aren't idiots. Best Line award to Fitzgerald: "I need that like I need a cancer transplant".

So it looks like they're turning to Maryland's own perennial Senate candidate and all- round fruitbat Alan Keyes. A bit of friendly advice for the Illinois Republicans -- lock up the silverware.

In 1992, when Keyes ran against pitbull Barbara Mikulski, the national party wouldn't give his campaign any money. No need to throw money at a sure loser. His campaign was seriously strapped for cash; they needed every nickel to just get out posters and flyers. So what did Keyes do? He paid himself $90,000 for "salary" from campaign funds.

Keyes' motto is "I'm smarter than you are". Expect to be presented with the bill for all sorts of "necessities", like a new house. (Illinois law says a candidate has to live in the state on Election Day.) And he will be very persuasive. Once you've locked in on him, you'll do things his way or else -- and that means taking a really big turn to the Right. I've seen his TV show -- think of Rush Limbaugh without the charm.

Amusingly enough, Keyes went after Hillary Clinton as a "carpetbagger" for her run for the Senate from New York in 2000:

I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton’s willingness go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there, so I certainly wouldn't imitate it.

— Alan Keyes, 2000 (via Archpundit)

Don't you Republicans in Illinois have a nice Republican used- car dealer who'd like to travel around the state and make speeches?

Later

Keyes gets his first real endorsement:

"I spent five weeks trying to find good people," said Mr. Hastert, who said he approached state legislators and the former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka and Gary Fencik, an Ivy Leaguer who was a hard-hitting safety.

"I got down into last week interviewing a 70-year-old guy who was a great farm broadcaster in Illinois," Mr. Hastert said. "He decided because of his health problems he couldn't do it. You know, we were down — we needed to find somebody to run, somebody who wanted to run. And, you know, Alan Keyes wants to run, and I hope he's a good candidate."

...

"I tell you what," Mr. Hastert. "I was out of town when it happened."

Some really wild enthusiasm there. (Via twistedchick)

"We have turned a corner, and we are not turning back!"

Georgie's new slogan. Sounds like a music cue to me:

Prosperity is Just Around Which Corner?

from 1932

[This song involves two people, the first is a loud-mouthed politician, the the other is supposed to be a man on the street.]

Everywhere you go, everyone you meet, All they talk about is this depression. They blame it on the war, they blame it on Wall Street, On politics and this administration. For two years now we've been assured good times are on the way, I wonder how much longer we must hear them talk this way?

Prosperity is just around the corner! What we'd like to know is which corner? We've turned so many corners now we're dizzy. But still I'm positive we'll soon be busy!

Why I read in Monday's paper that 10,000 men were hired! Yes, but Tuesday they forgot to say 12,000 more were fired. Well, I insist that this land of ours is stable! Stable? sounds like horses to me!

Prosperity is just around the corner! Did you say corner or coroner? Our credit is still strong, no one can doubt it! I guess my landlord don't know about it.

I see the market is going up, now you can't call that a joke! I recollect one time before it went clear up in smoke. This slump is just mostly imagination! Yeah, well you just try to pay your grocery bill with that!

Now everyone is sure that they could find the cure, If they could be the one to run this nation. They'd put a bill right through, and show us what to do, To get the money back in circulation. They say if we would spend our dough bad business soon will end But they forgot to tell us where to get the dough to spend.

Propserity is just around the corner. Around the same corner with prohibition, I reckon. Why, can't you understand why I'm so cheery? Yes, just like I understand the Einstein theory. But look at all the bumper crops the farmers have to sell, And every time they get a crop the price goes plumb to ****. [They couldn't record "hell" in 1932 for morality reasons] Well, every cloud still has a silver lining. But that don't line the pockets of your pants.

Still, prosperity is just around the corner. And we still would like to know which corner. Our nation will go down in history's pages. We're going down all right, especially wages. Why our banks are full of money, now you have to say I'm right. Then we can get all we want if we just use dynamite. You should fill your mind with optimism.

(Original here. I copied it because this link doesn't seem to be working.)

Rattlesnakes

Continuing with the RedState fluff piece, the "folksiness" secion (as opposed to the "character" section, which is actually most of the post) goes off into fearmongering:

Out here we have rattlers, big ones, that if you approach will sink their venomous teeth into your leg without hesitation.

Rattlesnakes are generally pretty harmless. Leave them alone and they'll leave you alone. Normally, on the desert, you'll never see one. They can sense you long before you see them -- and they want nothing to do with you. (You're too big to eat.) The urban equivalent is broken bottles-- nasty if you tangle with them, but easy to avoid.

The traditional Republican approach to issues is based on fear. Fear of terrorists, fear of crime, fear of drugs, fear of foreigners. Most of the Republicans' bogeymen are like rattlesnakes -- dangerous, but much less dangerous than presented. You'd never know from watching TV, for example, that violent crime has been going down lately. Read James Lileks for an example of somebody who is pants- pissing terrified by the Republican bogeymen.

Now, one of the oddities of "the fear card" is that politicians never seem to get called on it. "We elected you. We don't feel safer. Goodbye" just doesn't seem to happen. Reminds me of old- time medicine -- if you're sick, attach leeches. If you don't get better, you need more leeches.

When Democrats try to play the fear card, they generally sound whiny instead of scary. I don't know if this is an advantage or a disadvantage.

Top Down

(To the tune of Streets of Laredo:)
I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy,
You see by my outfit I am a cowboy too.
We see by our outfits that we are both cowboys.
Get yourself a cowboy suit and be a cowboy too!

— The Smothers Brothers

TBogg dredges up this rather remarkable bit of fluff at Redstate.com.

The thrust of this piece is character. Georgie Bush has it; nobody else does. It's impossible to define, but he has it.

The introductory rhetoric is simply silly:

I like George W. Bush. He's a good guy. In a world where most folks wear grey hats or black hats -- he's wearing a white one.

Thereupon follows some corny pseudo- western folksiness:

Out here in the rugged desert, where I live, one develops an ability to judge a man or a woman and their character rather quickly. I can spot a less than sterling character in a few moments. I can tell a genuinely kind woman from a fake smile and countenance at thirty yards.

"Out here in the rugged desert"? "Fake smile and countenance"? Look. I grew up in a teeny- tiny town in western Kansas and lived in Arizona for many years. Nobody talks like that. (Except, possibly, Hollywood screenwriters brought up on Gene Autry movies.) Also, show me somebody who claims to be able to size up somebody at a glance like that and I'll show you somebody who has nothing left to steal. Con men of all persuasions just love that mindset.

This shows one of the main problems with the Republicans' top- down political organization. Their successes are due to their relentless hammering at a common set of points; you do not want to be a dissenter in the Republican party. However, this is not the image they'd like to project -- they'd like to show themselves as being receptive to people's concerns. ("Screw the electorate" attitudes don't win elections.) So you have the problem of trying to appear "folksy" through messages written by political writers who, seemingly, never step outside of their gated communities in Connecticut. As a Republican advocacy site, RedState runs head- on into this. They're trying to be both "grass roots" and "Party talking points" at the same time. I bet if they got off- message, they'd get their noses whapped in short order.

So the message is "character". Of course, after three and a half years in the White House, we might expect some accomplishments to go with all that character. It's impossible to hide the fact that Georgie Bush has been an utter disaster in every area. Hence the "character" business.

Your assignment for today is to find a picture of Georgie Bush on a horse. Extra credit if it's white.

Request for Info

Once Upon A Time, there was a columnist named Jack Anderson, who wrote a column called The Washington Merry-go- Round. He was a muckraker in the finest sense of the word -- while he dredged up a lot of stuff that the Powers that Be wanded to keep hidden at the bottom of the swamp, he was very careful in checking his facts.

Now, sometime in the early 1970s, (or maybe very late 1960s) he wrote a series of columns on hijinks at an Air National Guard unit. I believe it was the Texas Air National Guard. I think it'd be very interesting to dig this up and see if there's any mention of a Lieutenant Bush.

The incidents I remember (keep in mind that I read this when it came out and only remember it because I have a trick memory, which sometimes gets, um, creative.)

"Dead Bug"

The officers played a game called "dead bug". At the Officer's Club, somebody would yell "Dead Bug" and everybody would lie down on their backs on the floor and wave their arms and legs in the air. Last one down and waving had to buy a round of drinks. It stopped being funny when somebody yelled "Dead Bug" at a staff meeting -- with somebody from the Pentagon attending.

Target Practice

For target practice, the pilots dropped "marker bombs", which were basically flour. Harmless, dirt cheap, and highly visible. Unfortunately, the pilots took to dropping the marker bombs on road crews. Supposedly, there were a number of very nasty memos from the highway department to the ANG.

Anyway, I've dredged up these from some very old memories, and I could easily be wrong on details. For example, I remember it being the Texas ANG, but it might have been Mississippi. Anderson's old columns don't seem to be on the Web, and I'm not really in a position to go downtown to the Washington Post and spend a week looking through old microfilm.

Anybody have any real info? It'd be a fun question to ask Georgie Bush at a press conference (assuming he allows "uncleared" questions). We have heard all along that his first four years in the TANG were boring, boring, boring. Maybe not.

White Socks

Way back when, when I was just out of college and fighting with the local draft board, I lived in a sort of "off-campus dorm" arrangement. One fine day (actually, since this was Phoenix at the height of summer, "fine" probably isn't the right word), the elevator door opened and out came two guys. One was wearing an immaculate gray suit, and the other was a cartoon "hippie" -- ratty fatigues, anomyous t-shirt, long hair with headband, beads. And sandals. With white socks. I immediately put out the word -- "Narcs! With FBI!" Turns out I wasn't the only one to spot them -- the word had gone out as soon as they walked onto the grounds.

What brings up this bit of early 1970s nostalgia? Well, there was a bit of a kerfluffle a few days ago that started with a writer named Annie Jacobsen, who writes for a Website called Women's Wall Street.com. She had a scary (to her) experience on a flight with a group of obviously Arabic men. Now, the story is a nice little piece of paranoia, ending with a call to keep obviously Arabic men off of airplanes. However, it has a number of obvious holes. (World o' Crap has been following the story, here, here, here, here, here, and here. To cut to the chase, they were a Syrian band going to a gig at a casino.

Anyway, one of the things that caught my eye was that a stewardess told Ms Jacobsen that there were numerous Air Marshals on the plane, and that they were watching things. Now, I'd think that telling a passenger that there were Air Marshals on board would be a firing offense -- the whole idea is to keep things like that quiet. Since there are far too few Air Marshals to put them on every flight, they need to be as inconspicuous as possible. Hopefully, potential terrorists won't be able to tell if there is a marshal on board or not. ("Do you feel lucky, punk?")

Now, this all depends on the marshals being inconspicuous. If potential terrorists could spot a marshal, they could overpower the marshals first, or just wait for a flight that didn't have any marshals. So how do the marshals remain inconspicuous? Well, a lot of people have had dark suspicions, but proof has finally surfaced: The Air Marshal's Dress Code. Yep. Sport jacket, shirt with collar, nice slacks with crease, no athletic shoes, no facial hair, no jeans.

Now, if you fly anywhere nowdays, you will see people either dressed very casually or businessmen in full wool-armor regalia. The outfit you won't see at all is sport coat and slacks, except possibly among the Sun City set. It's not comfortable on the plane, and it's not formal enough for business. Mark this one down as another example of Terror Theater -- keep people nervous, let people see that you're Doing Something, and ignore whether it really does any good or not.

Doesn't help that cops, as a class, seem to have a fashion sense somewhere between computer hackers and construction workers.

I'm Not Worried (too much) ...

... about the election being postponed due to a terrorist attack. The idea has been floated out there, everybody knows about it, and everybody thinks it's a bad idea.

However, I am seriously worried about a terrorist attack. Al Qaeda favors Bush, for the obvious reason that Bush's policies have been totally ineffectual against Al Qaeda, and Kerry might actually do something effective, like find a way to put a decent number of troops into Afghanistan and lean on Pakistan to clean up their act in the "tribal" areas.

So how could Al Qaeda campaign most effectively for Bush? A nice big, messy terrorist attack, no more than a couple of days before the election would be ideal. The ideal date, IMHO, would be 31 October. Long enough for the fact of the attack to sink in and for people to get good and scared, but not long enough for rational thought to return. People will rally behind the President in times of high stress, despite the fact that Georgie failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks and will have just failed to prevent another attack.

Another scenario is that Kerry is ahead in October and Bush appears to be catching up. A postponement would then give Bush more catch-up time. Theoretically, it wouldn't even need a real attack; just a warning that an attack is imminent, coupled with raising the Terror Alert Level to Red. However, the Administration has cried "wolf" like this 'way too often for it to be effective.

The most worrisome scenario would be if Kerry has a huge lead, is pulling further ahead, and looks to have long enough coattails for the Democrats to take over at least one branch of Congress. The Republicans, with actions that range from thoughtless (NAACP, gutting environmental regulations, tax cuts for the rich) to out- and- out criminal (The Valerie Plame affair; "no bid" contracts for Halliburton), have made it very clear that they never expect to be out of power ....

Doesn't help that, from what I've seen, the "increased precautions" against terrorism that we've put in place seem to be pretty pathetic. Most of them seem to be press releases, bureaucratic shuffling (the "Department of Homeland Security"), and "terror theater" (airport search silliness).

Warning sign -- any significant diversion of effort from border security and "watch list" monitoring to "wild goose" chases like porn, pot, or protesters.

If I were a terrorist, I'd have had the explosives/ poison gas/ germs/ whatever stashed well in advance (months ago) -- putting up checkpoints now would be a waste of effort. All it'd need would be a phone call -- or just a wait for the timer ....

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the stablishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
• For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
• For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and onditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these surpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

New Hampshire:

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:

John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:

Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:

William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:

Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:

Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:

Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:

George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:

William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:

Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:

Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

We all need to reread this occasionally -- and not just the first and last paragraphs.

For extra credit -- explain why this was posted on 3 July.

Old Joke

Originally from somewhere in Eastern Europe, as the Soviet Union was crumbling:

An elderly man has been waiting for hours outside the meat store when the clerk announces that there is no meat today

He loses it. "I worked hard all my life. I fought in the Great Patriotic War. And now I can't even get a piece of meat? This whole system stinks!"

A large, thuggish man steps up next to him. "Comrade, comrade, think of what you are saying! In the old days, you know what would happen to you." He mimics shooting the old man in the head.

When he got home, his wife greeted him. "So they're out of meat again?"

"It's worse than that. They're out of bullets."

So how do we know we're in Real Trouble in Iraq? We're running out of bullets.

Why I Love the Internet, part 247

Searchable database of lies, half-truths, innuendos, etc, from the Bush administration.

Someone with more time and energy than me could put together a drinking game from this. "If <administration official> says "Saddam" and "Osama" in the same sentence, take a drink".