Michael Moore’s Truth Problem

The Democratic Leadership Council has an excellent review on its website of Michael Moore’s overheated, paranoid rambings: Clearly, the author’s imaginative powers far outstrip his reporting or analytical skills. Consider, for example, his riff that bounds from showing a Bush family business connection with the bin Laden family (true) to the suggestion that 9/11 was … Continue reading “Michael Moore’s Truth Problem”

The Democratic Leadership Council has an excellent review on its website of Michael Moore’s overheated, paranoid rambings:

Clearly, the author’s imaginative powers far outstrip his reporting or analytical skills. Consider, for example, his riff that bounds from showing a Bush family business connection with the bin Laden family (true) to the suggestion that 9/11 was not merely the work of 15 Saudi Arabian terrorists and four others, but the work of the Saudi Arabian Air Force (not true). Moore asks Bush:

“Who attacked the United States on September 11 — a guy on dialysis from a cave in Afghanistan, or your friends, Saudi Arabia? … You do not get this skilled at learning how to fly jumbo jets by being taught on a video game machine at some dipshit flight training school in Arizona. You learn to do this in the air force. Someone’s air force. The Saudi Air Force? What if these weren’t wacko terrorists, but military pilots who signed on to a suicide mission? What if they were doing this at the behest of either the Saudi government or certain disgruntled members of the Saudi royal family? … Why do you refuse to say, ‘Saudi Arabia attacked the United States!’?”

When Moore has his facts right — on, say, the troubled state of U.S. public education — he still undermines his message by presenting it in a shock-jock tone, like the Howard Stern of print. “A nation that not only churns out illiterate students BUT GOES OUT OF ITS WAY TO REMAIN IGNORANT AND STUPID should not be running the world …,” shouts Moore in Stupid White Men.

Via Mr. Reynolds.

Moore was on Bill Maher’s show on HBO tonight, along with a woman who used to be Prime Minister of Canada and California congressman David Dreier, the chairman of the Schwarzenegger campaign and one of the most decent people in the entire political system. Maher, Moore, and the Canadian spent nearly the entire show taking cheap shots at Dreier by way of showing their seething hate for President Bush, and wouldn’t let him get a word in, even to answer their loaded questions. Maher is no great piece of work himself, but I’ve never seen him sink so low in his entire career (and I’ve been watching him since he was on Comedy Central) so I have to put a large part of the blame on Moore.

The half-truths, untruths, conspiracy theories, personal attacks and cheap shots Moore peddles are having a corrosive effect on our entire political dialog in this country, and somebody needs to put this sadistic bastard in his place, so I applaud the DLC for taking the first step with this review. Their interest in taking Moore down a notch is clear — if he has his way, the Democrats will be the party of Carter instead of the party of Clinton, an irrelevency at the fringes of politics incapable of winning an election for dog-catcher.

More tepid reactions to Kerry

Some more reactions to the Kerry speech from the left: Marc Cooper loved it because it humanized him, but he also notes the lack of substance: On substance: While there were SOME good pushbacks at Bush on several subjects, including the war, and while I liked very much that Kerry said he deals in ?complexities,? … Continue reading “More tepid reactions to Kerry”

Some more reactions to the Kerry speech from the left: Marc Cooper loved it because it humanized him, but he also notes the lack of substance:

On substance: While there were SOME good pushbacks at Bush on several subjects, including the war, and while I liked very much that Kerry said he deals in ?complexities,? he certainly offered no nuance, no detail and no satisfactory explanation of what he would do in Iraq. Or what?s wrong with the current course. I personally do NOT support an immediate withdrawal of troops and I wouldn?t want or expect Kerry to make that call. But he should have clearly said the war was bollixed up, that its $300 billion price tag is unacceptable, that it is creating a backlash that will haunt us for decades to come and that he was going to at least ? shift? if not change course. More on that in the days to come.

Kerry supporters Matt Welch, Mickey Kaus, Jeff Jarvis, Michael Totten, Ken Layne and Kevin Drum were also disappointed by it, or at least underwhelmed.

Kerry’s blandness, his lack of principle and conviction, and his tendency to hide behind platitudes will probably translate into low voter turnout for his side in November.

In the interest of fairness, I should point out that most Kerry-backers loved the speech, but some were paid to love it so you know how that goes.

UPDATE: Michael Totten says in the cmments that’s he an undecided at this point; I was confused by his profession of support for Edwards during the primary season.

John Kerry’s alienation of the American voter begins

Loyal Democrat Matt Yglesias was not impressed by the Kerry acceptance speech: To put it politely, I thought that was crap. …Not every speech needs specifics and not every speech needs to be short, but if your speech is going to be long, then it really ought to have some specifics. Otherwise it’s just bloated. … Continue reading “John Kerry’s alienation of the American voter begins”

Loyal Democrat Matt Yglesias was not impressed by the Kerry acceptance speech:

To put it politely, I thought that was crap.

…Not every speech needs specifics and not every speech needs to be short, but if your speech is going to be long, then it really ought to have some specifics. Otherwise it’s just bloated. Mainly, I’m pissed about Iraq. How to handle Iraq is the most important question facing the president and he just punted. On other looming foreign policy issues (Iran, North Korea, Sudan) where, again, the president can pretty much do whatever he wants we are left with no idea of what a President Kerry would want to do. Nor do we even have a particularly smart backward-looking critique of the Iraq War. It’s bad, of course, that the president wasn’t straight with the American people about the case for war. Nevertheless, if the deception had been in service of a wildly successful policy, this would be the kind of thing one could more-or-less shrug off. Similarly, contrary to Kerry’s accusation Bush didn’t go into Iraq without a plan, he went in with a bad plan. But Kerry doesn’t get into any of this. Nor did he so much as mention our general strategic situation in the Middle East, offering an opinion one way or the other about the alliances with Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

I agree with Yglesias. Fifty minutes with a mike and every news camera in the national media on him and all Kerry has to say is “I served in Vietnam” about 18 times and “I’ll be a good president.”

Kerry needs to explain why he voted for the Iraq War and then against the funding, when the latter vote was “reckless and irresponsible” by his own declaration. He needs to lay out the specifics of a plan to combat terrorism, and just blinding assuming that the French, Germans, Russians, Chinese, and Saudis are on-board with whatever Kerry wants to do, when and if he makes up his mind, isn’t going to cut it.

We’re all for jobs, free drugs, good schools, and Helping The Children, but we need to know how any politician who wants our vote intends to accomplish those things, and there was no meat in the Kerry speech on any subject other than his four months of heroic Vietnam service.

Democrats do like to honor the military for a couple of days every four years, but nobody in this country with a two-digit IQ or higher really believes they have any commitment to a strong national defense, so we’re left with a great, large load of steaming rhetorical gas that amounts to exactly nothing.

Watching the speech I had the feeling that Kerry was running for King of some European country, not for president of the USA. Note to Kerry:

It’s not really just a ceremonial position unless you have a VP like Cheney, and if you’re so godawful intellectually curious, worldly, and down-right-fucking-smart, you should be able to show us how all of that brain power translates into policy and action in the 21st century. Do you have a professional campaign staff, or just a bunch of volunteer envelope-stuffers?

H/T Blair-Welch Project.

Democrats of the Future

I’ve been TiVo-ing the Democrats’ convention speeches and scanning them for content. It’s been an unrewarding exercise, as the speeches have obviously been so heavily censored they put you to sleep. The Obama speech has so far been the only exception, apart from Teddy Kennedy’s claim that Republicans are a greater danger to America than … Continue reading “Democrats of the Future”

I’ve been TiVo-ing the Democrats’ convention speeches and scanning them for content. It’s been an unrewarding exercise, as the speeches have obviously been so heavily censored they put you to sleep. The Obama speech has so far been the only exception, apart from Teddy Kennedy’s claim that Republicans are a greater danger to America than Al Qaida and Al Sharpton’s appeal to the lynch mob.

Obama knows the score:

Now let me be clear. We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued and they must be defeated.

And he knows that we’re all in this together. Republicans appreciate this kind of talk; Rich Lowry praised it as did Jonah Goldberg, who summed-up the Obama Monologue for USA Today:

…it was Obama’s speech that captured the imagination. But what was great about his speech would have been more appropriate at a Republican convention. He spoke of the debt we owe to the nation’s founders and to the documents they left us. He spoke of “E Pluribus Unum” and didn’t make nakedly racial appeals.

If Obama ? son of an African immigrant and a white woman from Kansas, raised in Hawaii ? were a Republican and talked this way, he’d be called an “Uncle Tom.” Nonetheless, it’s certainly progress when liberal “rising stars” reject the poisonous identity politics of past Democratic conventions.

Let’s discount for a moment the notion that Obama was pandering to centrist voters yearning for a reason to vote against Bush and assume that he’s making a serious attempt to move the Democrats beyond the fracturous mix of identity-based victimhood and special interest service that’s made prison guards and trial lawyers wealthy and two generations of school children illiterate; what’s he up against?

Contrasting audience reactions to Obama’s speech, stressing patriotism and national unity and downplaying diversity and internationalism, with Al Sharpton’s traditional whining and complaining tells us a lot. The Democrats were respectful and attentive to Obama, but not excited; but Sharpton had the crowd roaring on its feet, foaming at the mouth, ready to lynch the first Republican they could find. Obama stressed family, faith, and responsiblity, and drew polite applause, but Sharpton demanded reparations for slavery and got a standing ovation. Obama is a novelty, an articulate Democrat with a serious nature, a keen intellect, and a sense of grace, but Sharpton is the kind of crude thug who really appeals, in an emotional way, the party elite, the people who come to conventions, work precincts, and carry people to the polls. There are thousand Sharptons for every Obama in the party today.

Men like Obama are the future of the Democratic Party, if it is to have one, but I rather suspect that his time is 20 years away, if not 50. In order to ascend to the top of the party he has to placate or neutralize the unions, the trial lawyers, and the identity groups, and he has to have somebody on his side with money and power. Clinton won over the Gods of Wall St., so that might be a good place to start. And even if he makes no mistakes, it’s going to be a hard slog.

Obama would do better as a Republican, and that’s one party that can get excited about the things he says in his speeches. Somebody should fill the dude in about his real political home, and the Illinois Republicans should give him their US Senate nomination.

This should be fun

Police prepare for rowdy protests on convention’s last day: Protesters on bicycles snaked through the city Thursday as police braced for a surge in street demonstrations for the windup of the Democratic National Convention. After four, largely problem-free days, police were expecting a “big day” of protests, since demonstrators typically look for the largest possible … Continue reading “This should be fun”

Police prepare for rowdy protests on convention’s last day:

Protesters on bicycles snaked through the city Thursday as police braced for a surge in street demonstrations for the windup of the Democratic National Convention.

After four, largely problem-free days, police were expecting a “big day” of protests, since demonstrators typically look for the largest possible audience, said Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole. Police tactical teams were out in force, she added, as they have been throughout the week.

With protesters largely confined to the Freedom Cage, I doubt much is going to happen.

Kerry’s home movies

Some Democratic Party hacks have claimed that the story about John Kerry’s staged Vietnam movies is staged itself. Here’s the original 1996 story, from that right-wing propaganda organ, The Boston Globe (my copy): At 2:45 a.m. yesterday, the men were gathering in the den and watching a series of 8mm films that Kerry had taken … Continue reading “Kerry’s home movies”

Some Democratic Party hacks have claimed that the story about John Kerry’s staged Vietnam movies is staged itself. Here’s the original 1996 story, from that right-wing propaganda organ, The Boston Globe (my copy):

At 2:45 a.m. yesterday, the men were gathering in the den and watching a series of 8mm films that Kerry had taken of the war experience they shared. He even pulled out a B-40 rocket that he captured in the Feb. 28 battle that earned him the Silver Star for bravery.

All of the men recalled, second by second, the series of fire fights on the river that day in which Kerry, they agreed, bravely led a mission that earned the entire boat a presidential citation. All were infuriated by a Globe business column published nine days before the election that raised doubts about whether Kerry’s actions were heroic.

Kerry used a clicker to freeze-frame the footage on the members of his crew. They were young then, and tan and strong. There were jibes about how much hair Del Sandusky, now a salesman in Illinois, had back then. The screen flashed a shot of Michael Medeiros, looking like a high school kid, smiling in sunshine that glinted off the waters of the delta.

Vallely teased Kerry about the films, which some have felt revealed that even as a young lieutenant, Kerry was so intent on his future political ambitions that he made sure he had his heroics captured on film. Kerry looked at Vallely over his bifocals and smirked.

Any questions?

Pay raises for CS grads

Benedict Arnold CEO’s who ship “American” jobs overseas aren’t hurting recent grads, according to a survey published by CNN Financial: Those graduating with a degree in computer science are seeing heartier increases. According to NACE, information sciences and systems graduates earn $43,053 a year, up 8.2 percent from a year earlier, while computer science graduates … Continue reading “Pay raises for CS grads”

Benedict Arnold CEO’s who ship “American” jobs overseas aren’t hurting recent grads, according to a survey published by CNN Financial:

Those graduating with a degree in computer science are seeing heartier increases. According to NACE, information sciences and systems graduates earn $43,053 a year, up 8.2 percent from a year earlier, while computer science graduates make $49,691 a year, up 4.8 percent.

Just further evidence that the US economy is strong and getting stronger.

Staged heroics

This is some truly sick shit: While a swift-boat commander in Vietnam, Sen. John Kerry filmed re-enactments of combat which Democrats plan to use in the official video introducing their presidential nominee tomorrow night in Boston. During the Vietnam War, Sen. John Kerry filmed re-enactments of combat scenes with a home camera. A new book, … Continue reading “Staged heroics”

This is some truly sick shit:

While a swift-boat commander in Vietnam, Sen. John Kerry filmed re-enactments of combat which Democrats plan to use in the official video introducing their presidential nominee tomorrow night in Boston.

During the Vietnam War, Sen. John Kerry filmed re-enactments of combat scenes with a home camera.

A new book, “Unfit for Command,” written by John O’Neill, who took over Kerry’s swift boat, PCF-94, charges the Massachusetts senator carried a home movie camera to “record his exploits,” according to the Drudge Report

The convention video is directed by James Smoll, who works with Steven Spielberg…

O’Neill’s book says Kerry “would revisit ambush locations for re-enacting combat scenes where he would portray the hero, catching it all on film. Kerry would take movies of himself walking around in combat gear, sometimes dressed as an infantryman walking resolutely through the terrain. He even filmed mock interviews of himself narrating his exploits. A joke circulated among Swiftees was that Kerry left Vietnam early not because he received three Purple Hearts, but because he had recorded enough film of himself to take home for his planned political campaigns.”

I mean, really.

H/T Ken Layne.

Atrios is a Saudi agent (and so is Willis)

Now that we know that Atrios is a fellow named Duncan Black who works for the George Soros-funded Media Matters organization, we can apply some Michael Moore logic and uncover his motivation. Soros is a major investor in the Carlyle Group, which Moore has explained is a vehicle through which the Saudis control American politics … Continue reading “Atrios is a Saudi agent (and so is Willis)”

Now that we know that Atrios is a fellow named Duncan Black who works for the George Soros-funded Media Matters organization, we can apply some Michael Moore logic and uncover his motivation. Soros is a major investor in the Carlyle Group, which Moore has explained is a vehicle through which the Saudis control American politics and media. (According to Moore, President Bush flew Saudis out of the country after Sept. 11 as a favor to the Saudis, who had paid him $1.4 billion.) Soros has $100 million invested in Carlyle, so he’s clearly 100 times more a tool of the Saudis than the entire bin Laden family, who only had $1 million at their peak (they’ve since dis-invested.)

So here’s the way it works: the Saudis want to keep Iraqi oil off the market, to maintain high prices for their own crude, so they support an anti-war movement in the US through Soros’ funding of Moveon.org, Media Matters, Atrios, and Oliver Willis. They can’t get what they want from Bush, so they try and replace him with Kerry. Atrios wants to keep his Saudi connection hidden, so he blogs anonymously. Now that the Saudis have their boy Kerry in the race, he can safely unmask.

This is a completely insane theory, of course, as anyone on his right mind can see; but it’s no more insane than the crap that readers of Atrios and viewers of Michael Moore swallow every day.

Atrios is a Saudi agent – pass it on.

H/T Jarvis.