Considerettes

Why do I not trust polling? Because pollsters have reduced the science of polling to no more than a gut feeling. Read this posting on Redstate.org about how Zogby thought one of his polls was wrong so he changed the assumptions.

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Via a Redstate.org diary entry for “jmikec” comes information about where much of the explosives cache at Al QaQaa went. Looks like the 101st Airborne was tasked with destroying weapons there, and they took out quite a bit. Further information here.

There’s still a lot of conflicting stories going around on this, but the biggest issue I see is that CBS had hoped to bring this up on the Sunday before Election Day. It’s taken us 5 days to get to this point, but CBS seems to have wanted to ensure the truth wouldn’t have time to come out before Nov. 2. Thank goodness for competition, although even still it appears that the NY Times really stepped in the Al QaQaa here.

Also note McQ’s analysis over at Q&O as to the charges being levelled and the perspective he lends to them.

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One of the funniest Shockwave presentations of the season is here. It’s a bipartisan knock on both their houses, and totally hilarious. If you’re old enough to remember “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, you’ll understand it better, but it’s funny anyway.

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An article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (free registration required) sheds some light on how homosexuals really view the difference between ‘gay marriage” and “civil unions”.

Another group, Straights in Solidarity with Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, held a rally Wednesday afternoon on the steps of the state Capitol to get out their message on Amendment One. Organizer Avrum Geurin Weiss said he sees the battle as a civil rights issue.

Anthony Ricciardi, 36, of Atlanta was one of about 200 people who attended the rally. “I think the amendment is shameful because it’s taking away my right to marry who I choose,” Ricciardi said. “It’s also very deceptive. You can be against gay marriage and still be for civil unions.”

First of all, the proposed constitutional amendment doesn’t change anything with regards to Georgia law; “gay marriage” is already against the law in the state. Carping about having something taken away is intellectually dishonest. So this will not change anything, unless, of course, Mr. Ricciardi was really hoping the Georgia state courts would pull a rabbit out of the hat like the Massachusetts Supreme Court did.

Which brings me to point number two. That is the whole purpose of the proposed amendment; to prevent the courts from doing an end-run around the legislature. Folks like Mr. Ricciardi apparently believe that this sort of judicial legislation is a good thing. I happen to think that the will of the people is best represented by those they elect to office.

And this statement appears to really connect marriage with civil unions, thus showing that homosexuals believe that civil unions will give them everything marriage would, just under another name. One more reason to vote for the amendment if you’re against “gay marriage”. Civil unions will just continue to be defined up until it’s no different from marriage, so while you could be against “gay marriage” and still be for civil unions, that position too is intellectually dishonest.

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John Kerry: He’s on your side, whatever side that may be.

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My blog buddy Marc made the big time; the Detroit Free Press.

Meanwhile, in another corner of the Internet, Marc Vander Maas, who lives just outside of Grand Rapids, has a similar opinion of the Net, even though he comes from the opposite end of the political spectrum.

“I think it’s the great leveler for information,” said Vander Maas, 28. “You can find whatever perspective you want on an issue. And the more you read the different sites with their different views, the more it sharpens you and clarifies the issues.”

Vander Maas, who is married and a new father, writes a conservative pro-Bush blog (www.marcnet.org/marcland) that pokes fun at Kerry. “I do this as a hobby,” he says. “What surprises me is that I have attracted a small little cadre of regulars who actually pay attention.”

Congratulations, guy!

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Bryan Preston has been working for months on a post about John Kerry’s book The New Soldier, written after he returned from Vietnam. It’s well worth the read. From the middle of the post, here’s the main reason to understand the book.

When we are young, most of us hold to ideals that do not stand up well to our first contact with adult reality. The key to dealing with that is to learn, to grow, and to discard those silly notions and adopt better ones. In The New Soldier, one could see in the young John Kerry merely a misguided young man who did not mind meeting with representatives of the Communist factions in North and South Vietnam and using their talking points, and who did not mind marching with others who flew the flag of the enemy on the National Mall, because his ideals had not yet slammed against the bloody Khmer Rouge and his worldview had not yet been shaped by the realities of Communism or the fall of the Berlin Wall. But a problem remains, and that is that the young Kerry of 1971 is still very much in evidence in Candidate Kerry of 2004.

And that is why The New Soldier is so fascinating. Through it we see that John Forbes Kerry has changed very little since 1971. His default position then, and through his Senate career and now, has been to mistrust American power and resist its use in the world, no matter the cause. Young John Kerry opposed Vietnam; Senator John Kerry opposed the first Gulf War and the Reagan approach that won the Cold War; Candidate John Kerry first voted for the current Iraq war, then denounced it, then voted for funding it before voting against the same. He has said at various times that it was the right thing to do and that it was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time, mostly because the United Nations did not sanction it. In that, we can hear the echo of a young John Kerry who wanted to put the US military under permanent UN dictate. That same John Kerry showed up in the presidential debates this year, advocating some kind of “global test” that must be passed before the US should engage in any military action.

Read it. The whole thing. Read it. Now.

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Brent Bozell hit the nail on the head yesterday. He summed up one of the big lessons of this particular political season.

If anyone is still being sold the civics-book baloney that our national press corps is just the referee of our democracy, the disinterested moderator of our national debate, the media’s performance in this election year has just blown that concept to smithereens in their collective and transparent desire to deny George W. Bush another four years.

To the uncommitted voter, let us state directly: The media are partisan players. They see their role as journalists as not to inform, but to persuade. They aim to make society better, and believe the great society is a society drained of its poisonous vestiges of conservatism. They aim to elect liberal Democrats to office, pretending all the while that these liberals are really moderates, and even – don’t laugh – fierce warriors for our national defense.

Further protestations from the MSM should really just be met with rolled eyes. Yes, there are still stories that liberals think the press should have pressed harder on, but it’s not like they really have much to complain about. Bozell shows the stats as well as the anecdotals.

The national media aim to set the agenda, and set it in a way that perpetually puts right-leaning, wrong-thinking Republicans at a disadvantage. Just look at the network story counts.

This year, ABC, CBS, and NBC have combined for more than 75 stories on George W. Bush’s National Guard Service, with virtually nothing to say about Kerry’s scandalous anti-war behavior. They’ve done more than 50 stories on “skyrocketing” or “record high” gasoline prices, rarely admitting prices are lower today than they were under St. Jimmy Carter. They’ve aired hundreds on prison abuse at Abu Ghraib, while the mass graves of Saddam are a yawner.

Do some authors have an anti-Bush agenda? If so, the networks welcome them in. Bush-hating Kitty Kelley just makes stuff up about the Bushes, and she gets three days in a row on NBC. Bush-hating Seymour Hersh and Al Franken were all over NBC, as well as the other networks. Bush-despising Michael Moore is everywhere. “60 Minutes” spotlighted a pile of anti-Bush authors: Paul O’Neill, Richard Clarke, Bob Woodward, Anthony Zinni. Liberals at the top of the best-seller list? The networks deserve a thank-you card.

Stories that might embarrass John Kerry? Never mind. The U.N. Oil for Food scandal certainly would hurt Kerry, since he wants the U.N. to run Iraq, and he wants France to be a major partner. Arms inspector Charles Duelfer found the U.N. Oil for Food czar was taking oil-voucher bribes from Saddam Hussein, as were officials close to French President Jacques Chirac. How many stories did the networks do? Four. NBC was the best – with a piddly three. ABC aired one. CBS, working on a perfect record of partisanship, aired nothing.

Teresa Heinz Kerry, after six months of delay, released a tiny fraction of her tax return covering her huge estate. No one at these networks cared to ask about them during the entire delay. They yawned when the returns, which showed Mrs. Heinz Kerry paying less as a percentage of taxes than the usual middle-class family, were released. Kerry’s been railing all year about the tax advantages of the rich, but CBS and NBC had nothing on this whopping hypocrisy. An ABC anchorman made a joke about it.

What’s truly comical is that, after all this obviously partisan behavior, media types will wrinkle their collective noses at the likes of Fox News and tut-tut them for covering stories the liberal media won’t touch for fear of hurting their candidates.

CBS was so eager to nail Dubya that they refused to listen to any exculpatory evidence. Bloggers the world over did the fact checking that CBS “News” should have done. The New York Times just couldn’t wait to blame Bush for missing munitions that they stepped in a load of Al QaQaa. Newly obtained docs from the UN’s IAEA suggest that only 3 (not 377) tons are missing, and there’s evidence that it was the Russians who, in attempting to cover up their involvement with Saddam, got the stuff out of there. But like CBS, the Gray Lady just couldn’t wait for the truth to come out, and while they blasted the initial charges on the front page, further developments wind up buried.

Pay attention, folks. The mainstream media is not objective. I have a feeling that they haven’t been for a very long time. It’s just that there are so many more sources of information these days that they can’t get away with it as well anymore. And that’s a good thing.

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Got the green light for the vote on Georgia’s same-sex marriage amendment to proceed..

ATLANTA (BP)–Georgia’s Supreme Court refused Oct. 26 to take a constitutional marriage amendment off the ballot, giving pro-family groups in that state a significant victory in the debate over same-sex “marriage.”

In a 5-2 ruling the justices said they lacked the authority to interfere with the process until the amendment passes. Court action, therefore, is still possible, but only after the Nov. 2 election.

“The sole question raised by this case is whether the judiciary is authorized to interfere in the constitutional amendment process, and prevent the voters from expressing their approval or disapproval of the proposal which their elected representatives, by a two-thirds vote of each house of the General Assembly, have determined should be submitted to them,” the majority opinion read.

As would be expected, it ain’t over.

In a statement Lambda Legal indicated it would file suit after the election — assuming the amendment passes.

“Today’s ruling doesn’t say whether the proposed amendment is constitutional. We believe the amendment clearly violates the Constitution, and the court did not disagree. All the court said today is that this should stay on the ballot and face a constitutional test if it passes,” Jack Senterfitt, senior staff attorney with Lambda Legal’s southern regional office, said in a statement.

(Cross-posted at Redstate.org. Comments welcome.)

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Who are the terrorists rooting for? Let them tell you.

BAGHDAD — Leaders and supporters of the anti-U.S. insurgency say their attacks in recent weeks have a clear objective: The greater the violence, the greater the chances that President Bush will be defeated on Tuesday and the Americans will go home.

If the U.S. Army suffered numerous humiliating losses, [Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John] Kerry would emerge as the superman of the American people,” said Mohammad Amin Bashar, a leader of the Muslim Scholars Association, a hard-line clerical group that vocally supports the resistance.

Anyone who thinks that Bush has been playing into the terrorists hands have only this to read. They’d love a global test rather than pre-emption. That way, they just have to bribe a few key countries and stymie the whole world. Bush wouldn’t put up with it and he wouldn’t be bribed and he won’t allow the bribing of other countries to stop him; that’s the kind of American leader they fear.

Mowafaq Al-Tai, a London-educated architect and intellectual, said different types of resistance fighters have different views of the U.S. election.

The most pro-Kerry, he said, are the former Saddam Hussein loyalists — Ba’ath Party members and others who think Washington might scale back its ambitions for Iraq if Mr. Kerry wins, allowing them to re-enter civic life.

The most pro-Bush, he said, are the foreign extremists. “They prefer Bush, because he’s a provocative figure, and the more they can push people to the extreme, the better for their case.”

Truly instructive. Saddam loyalists see Kerry on their side (which, based on his record of Senate votes, he pretty much was). The “foreign extremists” want Bush mostly because Bush’s attacks on terrorists give them something to grasp onto when trying to whip people into a frenzy. Fine. I prefer that to terrorists who feel they can attack America with impunity because the American President is weak. A strong President, while it might be a good emotional recruiting tool, is also their worst nightmare, but they won’t admit that in their recruitment talks.

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According to Drudge, CBS and the NY Times were just beside themselves trying to get out the latest anti-Bush story. CBS wanted to schedule a surprise attack 2 nights before the election, but the NY Times just couldn’t wait that long.

News of missing explosives in Iraq — first reported in April 2003 — was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crises mode.

Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of 60 MINUTES, said in a statement that “our plan was to run the story on October 31, but it became clear that it wouldn’t hold…”

Elizabeth Jensen at the LOS ANGELES TIMES details on Tuesday how CBS NEWS and 60 MINUTES lost the story [which repackaged previously reported information on a large cache of explosives missing in Iraq, first published and broadcast in 2003].

The story instead debuted in the NYT. The paper slugged the story about missing explosives from April 2003 as “exclusive.”

NBC, however, had an embedded reporter on the scene when the coalition showed up initially, so they couldn’t participate in the feeding frenzy.

An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq.

According to NBCNEWS, the explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.

Good for them for the willingness to point this out, although, from a competitive standpoint, it makes good business sense, too.

The big question will be this: Who was trying to launch this?

It is not clear who exactly shopped an election eve repackaging of the missing explosives story.

The LA TIMES claims: The source on the story first went to 60 MINUTES but also expressed interest in working with the NY TIMES… “The tip was received last Wednesday.”

The Kerry campaign was certainly quick on the draw to blame this on Bush. It’s rather funny how quick that came. Or not.

CBSNEWS’ plan to unleash the story just 24 hours before election day had one senior Bush official outraged.

“Darn, I wanted to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up,” the Bush source, who asked not to be named, mocked, recalling last months CBS airing of fraudulent Bush national guard letters.

Too funny, except for the fact that CBS was fully intending to hold the news until the worst possible moment. Is Dan Rather really that desperate to give the gift of an election to John Kerry?

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If implementing a particular program in the public schools brought the graduation rate from 36 percent to 64 percent, would you want it implemented in your district? Then get ready for school vouchers. And if you’re still unsure about them, ask Milwaukee.

When Milwaukee’s voucher program began, opponents prophesied disaster for the district. But it seems in fact to be doing better, according to a report last year from the American Education Reform Council. Though 12,900 students used vouchers last year (the program is capped at 15 percent of district enrollment) total enrollment increased 5.7 percent from 1990 to 2003. Test results improved. The dropout rate _ the official dropout rate, that is _ fell from 16 percent to 9 percent. And real spending per student, adjusted for inflation, rose from $8,520 to $11,772.

Two years ago, Andrekopoulos wrote to U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige, “I think you will find Milwaukee Public Schools an especially interesting urban school district because our highly competitive market for school enrollment has made us very eager to give parents and children information and options in the neighborhoods where they live.”

Vouchers created the competition. They work.

I wrote an essay a few years ago knocking the Clinton administration’s view of school vouchers, that comes to precisely the same conclusion for precisely the same reason. What would be even better, instead of filtering school money through the federal system–where bureaucrats still skim their portion off and where religious schools give “separation of church and state” folks heartburn–would be to just let me keep my own money to pay for the school of my choice.

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This appears to be the breaking news I mentioned over the weekend. John Kerry, on numerous occasions dating back to at least October 2002, and as recent as the second Presidential debate, has defended his “record” on national security by noting that he met with all the members of the UN Security Council prior to his vote on the Iraq war, to find out how seriously they took their commitment to remove enforce the UN resolutions. He did this so that when it came time to vote to authorize force against Hussein, he’d carefully considered how serious the UN was. He said he “valued” his vote and wanted to understand the willingness of the world to take on Saddam Hussein.

Except that he didn’t.

The article linked above starts out this way:

U.N. ambassadors from several nations are disputing assertions by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council just a week before voting in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

An investigation by The Washington Times reveals that while the candidate did talk for an unspecified period to at least a few members of the panel, no such meeting, as described by Mr. Kerry on a number of occasions over the past year, ever occurred.

He used this ficticious meeting to try to show that he could do what he accused he Bush administration of not doing; bringing world leaders to his side (never mind the approximately 30 nations involved in the Iraq war). Kerry has said over and over that he would have prosecuted the war “better” than Bush, and this story is what he’s used, in part, to buttress that claim.

The walls have come tumblin’ down. The global test is just a smoke screen. Kerry wants to cede responsibility for our security to the UN so he doesn’t have to take the political fall. Is this the guy you want as a war president? I certainly hope not.

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Right Wing News asked a bunch of conservative bloggers, including me, 4 questions over the weekend, and the results are on his site this morning. Here were my answers:

1. Who will win the election? In a big show of confidence, the conservative bloggers picked Bush by a margin of 93% to 7%. I said Bush would win, but in a squeaker. I know a lot of other conservative pundits are predicting a bigger margin (Hugh Hewitt says, for instance, that the President will win 40 states), but as far as I can see, Kerry still has room to keep it close. If the historical rule about undecided voters breaking for the challenger is still true, Kerry could even win this. However, historical rules have been thrown out the window lately.

2. Do you think we’ll know who the winner is by the end of the day on November 3rd? Yes or no? That was a tough one to answer, and only 72% of the bloggers could say Yes. That’s still a clear majority, but it shows that the pre-emption that the DNC has advocated is causing uncertainty on this question. I said we would know, aside from the usual after-election legal wrangling that happens after every election. I don’t think that wrangling will rise to the level of 2000.

3 & 4. Will the GOP retain control of the House? Will the GOP retain control of the Senate? With a vote of 98% and 93% respectively, the conservative bloggers said the Republicans would hold both sides of Congress. I haven’t seen anything to make me think that control will change.

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Don’t know what this is, but according to Mike Krempasky at Redstate.org, something’s brewing, to be released on Monday, and the Kerry campaign will have to respond to it. Apparently, the Daily Kos folks already have some ideas of what this might be. Though to quote ‘trevino’, “And what does it tell us that even the man’s partisans are so well versed in the catalog of malfeasances?” Good point.

Stay tuned.

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