Richard Bennett

Fortney (“Pete”) Stark, Congressman from Fremont in the East Frisco Bay, threw a bodacious tantrum during the debate over the Iraq resolution yesterday, calling the President a liar, a sweater-wearer, and a draft-dodger, and even going so low as to invoke the name of Molly Ivins, the Barbra Streisand of Texas journalism. It was such an embarassing display of stupidity (Fortney said that the rich pay no taxes at all) that he was admonished by the chair as soon as he shut up. But to read the Bay Area papers, you’d hardly know that the dapper Fortney was even there. Only the Chronicle referred to his remarks at all, and they were very selective about them:

Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont: “The bitter truth is I don’t believe the president and his advisers.

“Let us not forget that our president – our commander in chief — has no experience with, or knowledge of, war. In fact, he admits that he was at best ambivalent about the Vietnam War. He skirted his own military service and then failed to serve out his time in the National Guard.

“The president thinks that foreign territory is the other team’s dugout and that Kashmir is a sweater.” .

Stark is the fellow who tried to start a fist-fight with J. C. Watts last year, calling him a deadbeat with several out-of-wedlock kids. Given that Fortney is a feeble septegenarian who wasn’t much more than a dandy in his prime, and Watts is a former OU Wishbone quarterback, Stark isn’t just a venal liar, he’s stupid.

Now that the charge of Gray Davis taking a big check in the Capitol has been shown to be false, COPS has apologized (Contra Costa Times | 10/10/2002 | No apology, more charges from Simon):

Late Wednesday, COPS rescinded its charges. The group announced it was withdrawing its Monday complaint to the Fair Political Practices Commission, apologized to Angele and expressed regret for “the impact this erroneous information had in the Simon campaign and on the distraction of their message to the voters of California.”

…but Simon hasn’t. The man isn’t really aware of how serious his gaffe really was. Davis is dirty enough, but making phony charges tends to cover it all up.

The California governor debate in LA today was depressing. Anyone who reads this blog knows that I don’t like Gray Davis, for a vast array of reasons I don’t need to recount here since they’re all the commonplace ones, except that I have an extra-special dislike for the dude because of his uniquely troubled relationship with his deceased father and his childless status. So it won’t take a whole lot to make me vote for Simon, and I tuned in to the debate today hoping I’d find it.

But I didn’t. Simon stuck to his script, displayed little or no grasp of the issues, had no specifics, and wasted too much of his time attacking Davis when he should have been outlining the vision and new ideas he kept talking about, and did it all with the same goofy, robotic smile on his face. Davis was composed, direct, confident, and showed a grasp of the issues and the stubborness that a governor needs in California to keep from being run over by John Burton and the other radical lefties in the legislature.

Davis made a real blunder by limiting the debates to this one hour session at noon; the more Californians get to see Bill Simon, the more they’ll be able to hold their noses and vote for Davis.

The Volokh Conspiracy and all the other blogs in the world have already weighed in on the Jersey switcheroo, but it seems to me that they’ve all fairly well missed the point by focusing on the election law instead of the other legal and political tactics that Forrester would employ if he were worthy of serving in the United States Senate. For openers, let’s try and bear in mind that the Jersey law says that a party can play switcheroo 51 days before the election, but it never says it can’t also play switcheroo less than 51 days before the election; the first case is a conclusive presumption, and the latter is rebuttable. Forrester didn’t rebut.

Now if he had half a brain, he would have pointed out that the Democratic bait-and-switch cost him money and time, because he bought campaign ads and made campaign stops based on the good-faith assumption that the Torch was the candidate he had to beat. If he’d known all along that he was running against Lautenberg, he would have run a very different campaign, so at a minimum, the Torch needs to compensate him for the money he spent on his campaign. Torch has $5M in the bank, so this shouldn’t be too hard.

Finally, he should put some killer ads together where Torch plays Dr. Frankenstein, taking Lautenberg out of cryogenic suspension, laying him out on a table, and transfusing Torch blood into him by way of re-animating him. He can back that up with some don’t-look-at-that-man-behind-the-curtain ads where a robot Lautenberg is controlled by a demonic Torch at the controls.

The main thing is to relentlessly remind the voters that Jersey Democrats are sleaze-merchants who aren’t to be trusted. Maybe a Tony Soprano endorsement would help, too. But asking the Supreme Court to stick their necks out for him is a little bit much, and I’d have a hard time voting for him myself if that’s all he can come up with. The example of Ted Kennedy notwithstanding, a Senator should have some modicum of brain power, and Forrester’s not showing any.

I wish there were more Democrats like Zell Miller. This Op-Ed in OpinionJournal is brilliant. He compares the Democrats who nominated George McGovern in 1972 to those of today and finds eerie parallels, then concludes:

So, what, if anything, does this tale of 30 years ago teach us today? First, I think it serves as a reminder just how difficult it is for any senator, no matter how well qualified, to go directly to the presidency. Only two, Warren Harding and John F. Kennedy, have done it since the beginning of this republic. More importantly, though, I believe this tale demonstrates that no matter how it is articulated, no matter how laudable or well intended, the antiwar, peace-at-almost-any price position is a loser for Democrats.

Oh, it will stimulate the extreme left, no doubt about that. And they are the key to the primaries. They will put their money, their emotions, their make-believe president Martin Sheen and even Ms. Streisand’s vocal cords behind it.

But before we suffer, as Yogi Berra said, d?j? vu all over again, let’s rewrite the ending of this movie. Let’s send the message that our party realizes the country faces a threat far different and far more deadly than it did in 1972. Today’s war is on our own soil with terrorist cells lurking perhaps even in our own states and neighborhoods. Let’s respond with strength and boldness, not with the same old failed script that doomed us 30 years ago.

Living in California, a one-party state, I have to root for sanity in that party on a national level, in hopes that some of it might trickle down, but it’s a long journey.

Link courtesy Ben Domenech, who also has some good stuff about the conservative values of today’s young people. No, I’m not kidding.

Davis vetoes tests to ID dads

Despite a last-minute lobbying effort by South Bay and statewide supporters, Gov. Gray Davis on Friday vetoed a bill that would have allowed some men to dispute paternity with a DNA test after they are ordered to pay child support.

That’s right – men falsely named as fathers and hit with child support orders have no way out, thanks to Gray Davis’ pandering to whatever lobby is for injustice.

This is outrageous.