Goldberg and Guthrie

Before you decree that he's a bust, keep in mind that for the third week in a row, the Bengals will be facing the number one defense in the country. And check out the other defenses he's had to play against. Just saying.

The only game they've really looked bad in was, unfortunately, against the Browns.

Bill O'Reilly is supporting two projects this holiday season. One of them is not like the other.

Also -- and this isn't ridiculous -- more than a million people have gone so far to the Wounded Warrior Project for information. You remember last week I told you and then Tony Snow told you on Friday that this is the most worthy of causes, helping soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan readjust to civilian life here in America.

We have two projects this holiday season: helping the Wounded Warriors and getting "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids" to as many children as we can because it will help them immediately. Parents and grandparents, please take note. So you can get information about both the Wounded Warrior Project and "The Kids" book on billoreilly.com.

So one of his projects is to help soldiers. The other is to sell as many copies of his book as possible. Awesome.

(FYI, Goldberg, December 25th is a reference to the Christian holiday of "Christmas", which traditionally involves an exchange of gifts.)

(Read a hilarious review of The O'Reilly Factor for Kids here.)

I want to make a change to my list of basic Democratic principles from the other day. I want to change "keep abortion safe, legal and rare" to "the Democratic party opposes any effort by the government to force women to give birth."

Why do we let the other side define the abortion debate? (Pro-life vs. Pro-choice.) I think this hides the real issue, and lures many "pro-choice" voters into a false sense of security about what it is that George Bush actually wants to do. The Republican platform quite explicitly favors a Constitutional amendment that extends the rights of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to unborn children. More realistically and more immediately, the Republicans will soon appoint Supreme Court justices who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, and hand the issue of abortion over to the states.

Take a moment to envision the type of world your friends who are Republican have just voted in favor of. What will happen to pregnant woman? If the authorities learn that a woman in her first trimester is thinking of having an abortion, will she be put in jail until she gives birth? Will women be handcuffed to hospital beds for months so that they cannot harm the fetus inside their body? Will they have to be fed through an IV so that their hands are never free to touch their stomach?

How exactly will this work? Why did so many women vote to grant this authority over their own bodies to George Bush? Why do Republicans want women to endure forced pregnancy?

And if the GOP sees its platform enacted, and a fetus is granted the same rights as a person, what is the justification for a rape or incest exception? And will the morning after pill be similarly illegal? What if a rape victim goes to the police and indicates that she is thinking of taking the morning after pill? Will she have to be detained until it is known for sure that is she is not pregnant? If she is pregnant, and the police still suspect that she may have an abortion, how will the rights of these two equal individuals be protected? Will two lawyers be brought in - one for the woman and one for the fetus? What standard will the male prosecutor have to meet so that the male police officers can detain the female until she gives birth?

I don't know if abortion is right or wrong; I suspect it may be wrong. (Actually, Instapundit has a fascinating post on the moral issue; and I don't know why it is that I support abortion rights yet become so angry at a mother when I see a child with fetal alcohol syndrome.) I am glad that pro-life people provide information about the consequences of and the alternatives to abortion. But I am not so presumptuous nor so confidence in my own standards of right and wrong so as to force this choice on others; especially when it is a choice that I will never have to make.

Nothing I have said above is crazy; it seems to me to flow as a natural consequence from granting a fetus Constitutional rights. If Roe is overturned - and if enough justices retire then that is a very real possibility - abortion will be illegal in many states.

The above seems like a horrifying world to me; I wonder how many people actually want it. I wonder how many so-called "pro life" people have actually thought about it. I wonder why it is that so many "pro choice" people feel that electing Bush is worth the price of forced pregnancy. Perhaps it is because Democrats have not stated their case strongly enough. We think the choice belongs to a woman; Republicans support forced pregnancy.



(One thing about the above: we made need a better term than "forced pregnancy", only because this is a term used by human rights organizations to define incidents of systematic rape and subsequent pregnancy. It's really not fair, and would be counterproductive, to use the same term to define the Republican party's position on abortion - although making abortion illegal even in cases of rape comes pretty close.)

To paraphrase an colleague of mine - Newt Minnow - what a vast wasteland of idiocy cable television news is.

I am sitting on the couch flipping channels and saw two things:

(1) On Keith Olbermann's show, he apparently has a weekly segment wherein he interviews Nick and Amy about last week's The Apprentice. I'm all for entertainment news to take our minds off our troubles, but are you telling me that with, you know, a war going on the best use MSNBC has for this prime time segment is a ten minute ad for a reality show? What a fucking joke.

(2) Can someone explain to me how it is that we live in a country where Mark Fuhrman gets to be some kind of expert on stuff? I saw him - where else? - on Fox News and I've seen him before. The man's claim to fame is (1) fucking up a murder investigation so that a guilty man was allowed to go free and (2) being racist. Is he some sort of a folk hero or something?

I am dumber for having spent 2 minutes watching cable news tonight.

Chat away.

Here is what the Democratic party should stand for:

(1) Old people shouldn't live in poverty, so we should make sure Social Security is strong.

(2) Everyone should have access to some sort of health care in America.

(3) We need to take care of the environment so we don't die and so we have woods to hike and hunt in.

(4) Abortion should be safe, legal and rare.

(5) We shouldn't go to war unless the goals are clear and we can win OR we are under a direct and imminent threat.

(6) We shouldn't make other countries angry at us unless it's absolutely necessary to protect our own interests.

(7) The government shouldn't spend money it doesn't have.

(8) Rich people should pay more taxes than poor people.

(9) The government should leave guns in the country alone, because they are good and are used for hunting.

(10) The government should regulate gun ownership in big cities, because they are bad and are used to kill cops.

(11) Gay people are not a threat to anyone; if a state wants to let them have civil unions we should let them.

(12) Big corporations should not get special tax breaks.

(13) Congress should not listen to corporate lobbyists more than it listens to average Americans.

(14) The government needs to make sure that the Homeland is secure.

In general, the government should make sure we're respected and feared abroad, should enforce reasonable laws that make sure we all get along, should make sure our constitutional rights are protected, should makes sure nobody is starving to death or dying when they shouldn't be, should provide the same basic services it's provided for years, and should otherwise leave us the hell alone.

Put more simply:

(1) Protect the Homeland.

(2) Protect the environment.

(3) Go to war as a last resort.

(4) Protect Social Security.

(5) Support better Health Care.

(6) Keep abortion safe, legal and rare.

(7) Gun rights are for hunters, not for killers.

(8) The rich should pay their fair share.

(9) Working people deserve an equal voice in government

(10) Balance the budget.

This is my first attempt at crafting a simple message that could win. Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Good work, Republicans. The party of small government and personal responsibility now prevents Americans from watching Saving Private Ryan on Veterans' Day. That's right - some ABC stations are refusing to air the movie tonight for fear that the violence and profanity could lead to FCC fines.

Now, if ever there was a movie that deserved to be censored it's Saving Private Ryan - not because it's violent and profane but because it's stupid and boring. Of course, no movie deserves to be censored, because some of us respect people enough to make up their own minds about things.

But seriously, if you voted for George Bush because you think the government should interfere with peoples' affairs as little as possible, well, you made a serious error in judgment.

GOLDBERG UPDATE: And also be aware that Tom Coburn, the new Senator from Oklahoma who thinks we should have the death penalty for abortionists, said this in 1997:

Coburn said NBC had taken network television "to an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity" by airing the movie. He said the broadcast should outrage parents and "decent-minded individuals everywhere."

What prompted this? NBC's showing of Schindler's List.

Just for the record, I think this Howard Dean for DNC chair talk is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Nothing would convince voters that Democrats are out of touch Northeastern liberals more than appointing a man most of them think is an out of touch Northeastern liberal as head of the Democratic party. Also, they think he's fucking crazy. This isn't fair, and I think Dean can repair his image and be, once again, the most qualified nominee in 2008, but he cannot repair his own image and lead the party at the same time (especially when much of the damage to his image was caused by members of that same party).

I do think Howard Dean will play an important role for the Democrats and this country in the future. But this is not the time nor the place.

I don't think who the leader of either the RNC or the DNC is at a given time changes the minds of many voters. But can you name a single group of voters who might be more likely to consider the Democrats because Howard Dean is put in charge? Because I could name about ten groups of voters who would take us less seriously.

I talked to my mom today, and learned that at least one good thing came out of this election. My hometown of Cincinnati is usually, how shall I say, not on the cutting edge of social issues. (Mark Twain said that if the world ever ended he would want to be Cincinnati, because it would happen ten years later.)

Several years ago Cincinnatians approved a horrible ballot measure known as Issue 3, which basically prevented the government from explicitly protecting homosexuals from discrimination. (Basically, "sexual orientation" could not be included on the list of categories that a person could not be rejected for public housing because of.) Well, the voters of Cincinnati finally overturned it - and it seems that the results came as somewhat of a surprise. (Note that this time a vote for Issue 3 meant overturning the previous one.)

Equally surprising was Issue 3's passage, political observers agreed. Opponents spent at least $535,000 on TV commercials urging its defeat, and tried to connect the repeal with the passage of a popular Ohio amendment banning gay marriage.

Issue 3's victory occurred despite an attempt by opponents to galvanize the African-American community against the repeal.

Council Member David Crowley was impressed that door-to-door canvassing by hundreds of volunteers was able to sway the result.

"It's like pulling an abscessed tooth off of the city," Crowley said.

Good for Cincinnati. Good for the African American community of Cincinnati for not responding to the horrible discrimination it faces every day by engaging in discrimination of its own. I haven't felt this proud to be from Cincinnati for a long time.

Sully's going on about how Bush didn't win by pandering to anti-gay ignorance after all. Well, I guess it was nice to have him on our side when it actually mattered. Now he can go back to supporting Bush for three years and then feign shock when Bush does something to prove that perhaps he does not value the homosexual vote so much after all.

Drudge posts a link to this as if it is a hilarious story, but it turns out that a voting machine gave Bush close to 4,000 extra votes. It turns out that in Gahanna, a suburb of Columbus (that has a high school that produced some damn fine theatre majors at Otterbein), Bush received five times more votes than there are voters in the precinct.

Now, I'm 98% sure that the Republicans did not commit open election fraud in order to win this election, but I sure would like to live in a country where I was 100% sure. After Florida, this isn't funny at all.

He refuses to congratulate Obama. God I needed to find something to laugh at.

Keyes also said he did not congratulate Obama after the race was called, a tradition among politicians, because doing so would have been a "false gesture" because he believes Obama's views on issues like abortion are wicked.

"I'm supposed to make a call that represents the congratulations toward the triumph of that which I believe ultimately stands for and will stand for a culture evil enough to destroy the very soul and heart of my country," Keyes said. "I can't do this, and I will not make a false gesture."

On a serious note, if you believe abortion is murder, don't his comments make perfect sense? And yet, they sound insane.

Below, I quote this Newsweek press release and conclude that Kerry is a man that we should admire. Read that post, and the article.

On the other hand, the article also paints a picture of a man who completely lost control of his campaign early on, and gained control back too late.

And then there's this... I admit I ignored this terrible idea when it was being discussed. Apparently, Kerry was actual considering this. Had this happened, I certainly would have voted for Nader (or perhaps written in Dean). Why? Because I'm a Democrat - I don't vote for fucking Republicans who don't share my values.

The "Outlandish" McCain Offer. Kerry's courtship of Senator John McCain to be his running mate was longer-standing and more intense than previously reported. As far back as August 2003, Kerry had taken McCain to breakfast to sound him out to run on a unity ticket. McCain batted away the idea as not serious, but Kerry, after he wrapped up the nomination in March, went back after McCain a half-dozen more times. "To show just how sincere he was, he made an outlandish offer," Newsweek's Thomas reports. "If McCain said yes he would expand the role of vice president to include secretary of Defense and the overall control of foreign policy. McCain exclaimed, 'You're out of your mind. I don't even know if it's constitutional, and it certainly wouldn't sell.'" Kerry was thwarted and furious. "Why the f--- didn't he take it? After what the Bush people did to him...'"

Of course, this might not be true. But I'd just like to emphasize again what a stupid idea this was if is true. And, honestly, I seriously question the judgment of someone who would consider such an idea - to the point where I wonder if he was qualified to be President after all.

Readers of this blog - or, rather, personal acquaintances who are sometimes forced to listen to me rant - know that I have a love-hate relationship with Bill Clinton. I will never really understand why Democrats regard his Presidency as a success, given that he did in two years what Ronald Reagan and George Bush could not do in twelve - namely, break four decades of Democratic control of the Senate.

Clinton is a political genius, but I'm not sure that he's a man with strong principles. Kerry, on the other hand, appears to be a man for whom some things actually are more important than being elected. Does anything capture the differences between these two men more than this story?

Clinton Advice Spurned. Looking for a way to pick up swing voters in the Red States, former President Bill Clinton, in a phone call with Kerry, urged the Senator to back local bans on gay marriage. Kerry respectfully listened, then told his aides, "I'm not going to ever do that."

It appears that Clinton was right politically. The inevitable march of history and progress will one day prove him to be wrong. Perhaps America isn't yet good enough for John Kerry.

Read the whole article. It's very interesting.

Dr. Vegas has been cancelled.

I'm not sure, but I think that in this post John Derbyshire argues that the Bin Laden tape could hurt Bush, because in the tape Bin Laden appears so beaten that Americans will think the war on terror is over and will not feel the need to vote for Bush. That's right, even though the worst mass murderer in American history is still alive and free, Derbyshire thinks Bush's problem is that the war on terror has been too effective.

I think The Corner has gone collectively insane.

Although, there is a good chance that the next election could be even more important. As you know, Goldberg is in Wisconsin, where by all accounts he is now a major player in Wisconsin Democratic Politics. I have been out of town doing my part for democracy as well, if you define "doing my part for democracy" as reviewing documents for a large corporate client, which is how I define it.

(1) While I was out of town, I had dinner with a friend who is one of the smartest people I know (although she tends to vote Republican). She is genuinely undecided about who to vote for. That made me think about the way people talk about undecided voters; calling them stupid, etc. In fact, I believe I saw one of the network news anchors (not Dan Rather, because I never watch him) openly mock them after one of the debates. Well, there are plenty of good reasons not to support either one of these candidates; especially if you are a principled conservative who does not agree with the Republican party's stance on social issues and yet believe that the Democrat's approach to government is fundamentally misguided. For that matter, if you are committed anti-war activist who truly believes that war should only be a last resort and that we should pull out of Iraq immediately, there is not a candidate for you. This isn't necessarily bad; we do have a two-party system. But I could see how a person could be undecided, and the media shouldn't be mocking those people. In fact, anyone who is undecided is a shitload smarter than someone who has decided to vote for Bush.

(2) I just voted in-person absentee in Chicago. It took about 5 minutes. I talked briefly with one of the poll workers, who indicated that she had worked there for many years and had never seen in-house absentee turnout anywhere close to this. The election in Illinois was decided months ago. I don't know what this means, but we could be looking at amazingly high turnout in this election.

(3) I know we've said this many times before, but I just went through the training last night to be a poll watcher in Wisconsin. One party is mobilizing thousands of volunteers to assure that everyone who wants to vote is allowed to. One party is mobilizing thousands of volunteers in order prevent people from voting. That's just a fact, do with the information what you will.

(4) Prediction: I know I shouldn't say this, but given that nobody reads this blog it shouldn't depress turnout too much. It will all come down to Ohio, and Bush will win Ohio. Final electoral tally: 286-252; Bush. More people will break for the incumbent than usual, because we are at war and people will be more scared of change than anything else. Having said that, this could very well be even closer than 2000. So if for some odd reason you're reading this and haven't decided to vote, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GO VOTE, and vote for Kerry, Edwards and a straight Democratic ticket. (Also, note that every prediction I've made about politics this year has been wrong. If we really see unprecedented turnout, who knows what could happen?)