South Dakota Politics

The Argus and BRAC

I thought this would be interesting to note.  The Argus Leader.com is asking the poll question "Who will suffer the most political fallout from the inclusion of Ellsworth Air Force Base on the list of military bases to be closed: Rep. Stephanie Herseth, Sen. Tim Johnson or Sen. John Thune?"  As of 11:04 pm CST, after 7,068 votes, the breakdown looks like this:

Stephanie Herseth: 6.0%
John Thune: 22.9%
Tim Johnson: 71.1%

Dem Leadership

John Hinderacker:

Will Terrible Leadership Hurt the Dems?

Is the current leadership of the Democratic Party an embarrassment, or what? There's Howard Dean, who "hates Republicans and everything they stand for," imitates Rush Limbaugh snorting drugs, and vows to "use Terry Schiavo." And there's the increasingly out-of-control Harry Reid, who, just days after calling President Bush a "loser" in front of a group of students, did the previously unthinkable: he slandered a judicial nominee by referring to a "problem" disclosed in the nominee's confidential FBI file--without, of course, referring to what the "problem" might be. This is really breathtaking; did Joe McCarthy ever stray this far over the line? Not that I can recall.

Dean and Reid, with their increasingly thuggish conduct, are making Nancy Pelosi look like Winston Churchill. But that's mostly because she's been keeping her mouth shut lately. The Democrats generally don't pay a price for ths kind of misconduct, mainly because the press covers for them. They are also helped, obviously, by the fact that not many people are paying attention to politics at the moment.

But it can't be a good thing for a party to be led by men who have so little judgment or self-control. We said not long ago that Howard Dean is a ticking time-bomb for the Democrats. It looks now as though Harry Reid is in the same category.

BRAC

From the October 2004 edition of the Rapid City Journal:

Finally, we don't believe that Sen. Daschle can use his minority leader position to fix the nonpartisan base closure commission. Ellsworth Air Force Base will remain open or will close based on national defense needs and regardless of who is senator.

One keyword is "nonpartisan."  The BRAC Commission was specifically designed to be insulated from political interference.  In a post-9/11 world there is no need for the scatter of bases across the nation and change must happen; like it or not, war is evolving, and we must follow the flow of that evolution.  Secretary Rumsfeld takes his duties seriously and understands we need an armed force that can respond quickly and effectively, and this is the premise behind BRAC. 

The accusation of political motives determining the closure of bases is foolish.  If that's so, the logic should follow that Republicans and Republican states that took hits really shouldn't have considering we have a Republcian president and Republican Congress.  Plenty of conservative states were hit, just as much as any other state.  It's clear that Daschle, like Thune, could not have done anything to keep the base off the list.  If one must be critical and blame must be administered, one should examine who voted for the creation of this BRAC round and how Ellsworth's mission has steadily dwindled over the past 20 years.  Additionally, the analysis of Ellsworth has been going on for several years and some publications have indicated that Ellsworth was on the list last year (long before our new Senator was sworn in).

To argue that there are political motives at work is foolish and intellectually dishonest.  What we need now is bipartisanship to convince our leaders that this base is still important to national defense; keep petty partisan rhetoric out of this, united together, and let's demonstrate what this base means not just to South Dakota, but to the United States as well.

The Dangers of Abortion

Drudge links to a story about the connection between having an abortion and subsequent premature births:

A French study of 2,837 births - the first to investigate the link between terminations and extremely premature births - found that mothers who had previously had an abortion were 1.7 times more likely to give birth to a baby at less than 28 weeks' gestation. Many babies born this early die soon after birth, and a large number who survive suffer serious disability.

The research leader, Dr Caroline Moreau, an epidemiologist at the Hôpital de Bicêtre in Paris, said the results of the study, which appear in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, provided conclusive evidence of a link between induced abortion and subsequent pre-term births.

I have always found it an odd argument to say that it is essential to the rights of women that they be liberated from the thing that is most distinctly feminine, namely bearing children.  Henry Higgins would be proud of the abortion culture. 

Spoof of the day

One of our more comedic readers sent along this photo:

This is a spoof of the "South Dakota Grassroots Democrats" billboard.

Thune and Rounds

Senator Thune and Governer Rounds were on Big Story with John Gibson:

GIBSON: one of the biggers closures is South Dakota's Ellsworth, the second largest employer in the state. joining me, senator Thune and mike rounds. why shouldn't else worth air force base be closed?

ROUNDS where would you like to begin?

GIBSON: your number one reason.

ROUNDS ok. first of all, b1b proved to be the platform to be used during the most recent wars. i don't know why they would ever want to put all of our eggs in one basket. the last time we did something like this was before pearl harbor. they are looking at moving all the b11b's into one military base. right now they have them in two military bases. at least there is some difers if i indication right now. at this stage of the game to place them all at one location we don't believe is the right military move to make. second of all -- this is the part we are talking about is the fact that part of the discussion has to be the economic impact, state by state. and south dakota right now, as you said, this is the elimination of our second largest employer, along with that, these jobs in a rural state are a lot tougher to replace than what they are in other areas, as well.

GIBSON: senator, you're a republican senator. you're sitting next to a republican governor. there is a republican president in the white house. there is a republican senate, a republican house. are you getting jobbed by your republicans?

THUNE: well, obviously, john, this is a decision that as governor rounds noted, we disagree with. It was -- the pentagon is dead wrong. We think they made a grave error in judgment with respect to the military value criteria that is supposed to be looked at when they examine bases. Also the economic impact. The governor mentioned this is the second largest employer. And frankly, at some -- some team of analysts in the pentagon, they went through this process concluded that Ellsworth should be on this list. We happen to disagree. there are a number of reasons. As the governor mentioned, we don't think at a time when we are at war we should put all our eggs in one basket. We put all our bombers at one base that puts news a vulnerable position. Couple that with the recent release of the BRAC, overseas BRAC report which suggested that we need to move slowly, because we don't really know what we are going to do in terms of our overall military strategy. There is a QDR, quadrennial defense review coming out in February which will lay out the military's long-term strategy. those are three things, right there, that we think point to the need to slow this process down, and frankly, we just absolutely believe that our base here in South Dakota fits in with the criteria that military uses to gauge military value.

GIBSON: before i go back to the governor it's $49 billion. republicans are always concerned with saving money. we have a big war bill going on right now. as a senator, don't you want to save this money?

THUNE: You know, john, we're very concerned about the federal budget. But frankly the federal government on defense spends $440 billion annually. You’re talking about $2 billion annual savings for all these bases. And in my argument, the pentagon spills that much money every day. I mean, frankly, we need to be looking at what's going to keep this country safe and secure, when we're fighting a war on terror. We are in a war. We have people who have said the overseas BRAC commission report, slow this down. We are concerned we are not going -- that we are going to weaken our global posture if we move too quickly on base closing. We are looking at overseas bases right now. We shouldn't close one base in this country until the overseas base decisions have been made. And furthermore, until we know what that overall military strategy is, going forward.

GIBSON: governor, you know, the base closings happen every so often. and it causes a lot of pain and states recover. today, republican governor arnold schwarzenegger said this is not so bad. the country has to consolidate these bases and so forth. is this just a parochial local issue to your state that really people in other states probably shouldn't care about?

ROUNDS: well, it's interesting that you would even suggest it in that light. Because what we want to talk about first of all is the military preparedness of this country and the military objectives which should be met with the proposals made by the pentagon. We don't think that they are being met in this particular case. We don't think it's right to put all the b1b's at one base. But why Ellsworth in particular? We have wide open airspaces all around us. Expansion is capable here. They are supposed to be making choices that will last us the next 25 years. Think about the rest of the country and the number of different bases that have encroachment on them right now. Ellsworth does not have that problem. in fact the community of rapids city and the region around Ellsworth has done everything they could to allow Ellsworth to expand. along with that, right now in terms of our economic issues here, we are not alone. We have three other states, just going to name them off. North Dakota, our state of South Dakota, Alaska and Maine, together, those three of the total net number of jobs, that are impacted, we make up 68% of the total net number of jobs lost in four rural states. I wonder if that's objective determination or if it's just by accident.

GIBSON: governor mike rounds of South Dakota and the republican senator of that state, John Thune, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

ROUNDS: thanks, john.

Back to BRAC

As my colleagues have noted, our esteemed fellows on the left of the regional blogosphere are having a field day over the inclusion of Ellsworth on the BRAC list of bases to be closed.  Unlike some of my colleagues, I hardly think this is unfair.  John Thune promised to defend Ellsworth as did Tom Daschle, and if Daschle had won and the outcome been the same, we'd be posting the same kind of stuff that the Clean Cut Kid is posting. 

I think the CCK is being a little harsh to call Thune's pledge a lie or delusion.  He may well have believed that he had enough influence to protect Ellsworth or, equally embarrassing to Republicans, he may have been misled by the White House.  But its still Thune's ball.  Winning means having to take responsibility.

But I am doubtful that either would have been able to alter the outcome.  Virginia was hit rather harder than South Dakota, in spite of the fact that John Warner is the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.  A committee chair has about as much power as any human being, including the President, in influencing this kind of decision.  It seems very unlikely that the Senate minority leader would have done better.

Bush at Riga

For a brief break in the Ellsworth coverage, check out this photo of Bush delivering his speech at Riga, Latvia.

The Bush speech has drawn a lot of criticism, but I believe it was right on the money.  It is in any case a very powerful piece of rhetoric.  Consider these paragraphs:

As we mark a victory of six days ago -- six decades ago, we are mindful of a paradox. For much of Germany, defeat led to freedom. For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. V-E Day marked the end of fascism, but it did not end oppression. The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history.

The end of World War II raised unavoidable questions for my country: Had we fought and sacrificed only to achieve the permanent division of Europe into armed camps? Or did the cause of freedom and the rights of nations require more of us? Eventually, America and our strong allies made a decision: We would not be content with the liberation of half of Europe -- and we would not forget our friends behind an Iron Curtain. We defended the freedom of Greece and Turkey, and airlifted supplies to Berlin, and broadcast the message of liberty by radio. We spoke up for dissenters, and challenged an empire to tear down a hated wall.  Eventually, communism began to collapse under external pressure, and under the weight of its own contradictions. And we set the vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace -- so dictators could no longer rise up and feed ancient grievances, and conflict would not be repeated again and again.

Read the whole speech, at the White House website.  I have posted on the controversey arising from these two paragraphs here. 

Hildebrand, the DSCC, and Ellsworth

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) sent out a mass e-mail this morning trying to score political points against John Thune regarding the bad news about Ellsworth Air Force Base.  Meanwhile, Mt. Blogmore has posted information that Steve Hildebrand, Senator Daschle's campaign manager, has sent "about 10" e-mail messages to the Rapid City Journal's political reporter this morning regarding John Thune and Ellsworth. 

It seems that, rather than try to unite in a bipartisan way to keep Ellsworth open, as the entire congressional delegation and the governor have pledged to do, all some Democrats want to do is revel in the bad news and engage in an unseemly effort to score cheap political points.  It's hard to imagine how that advances the prospects of saving Ellsworth.

Incidentally, Senator Daschle said today he wants to help keep Ellsworth open.  He could start by telling his campaign manager Steve Hildebrand to cease his gleeful anti-Thune e-mails and transparent attempts at anonymous anti-Thune blogging that do nothing to help keep Ellsworth open.  Someone needs to tell Hildebrand the war's over.  I'm reminded of the Japanese holdouts who lived in the jungles of the Phillipines for years after World War II ended, still believing a war was on.  Hildebrand's efforts, as well as those of the blogger he employs, are similarly pointless and silly.

I Know You Are, But What Am I?

I have been reading Walker Percy's 1987 novel Thanatos Syndrome.  This passage caught my eye.  It is the reflections of the main character (humorously named Thomas More) who is a renound psychiatrist who has just gotten out of prison for prescribing drugs to people who he ought not have given prescriptions.  He discusses one quirk of life in minimum security federal prison:

For two years I was caught between passionate liberals and conservatives among my fellow inmates at Fort Pelham.  Most prisoners are ideologues.  There is nothing else to do.  Both sides had compelling arguments.  Each could argue plausibly for and against religion, God, Israel, blacks, affirmative action, Nicaragua.

It was more natural to me, less boring, to listen than to argue.  I was more interested in the rage than the arguments.  After two years no one had convinced anyone else. Each side made the same points, the same rebuttals.  Neither party listened to the other.  They would come close as lovers, eyes glistening, shake fingers at each other, actually take hold of the other's clothes.  There were even fist fights.

It crossed my mind that people at war have the same need of each other.  What would a passionate liberal or conservative do without the other? 

Sainthood for JPII

In less ominous news, Pope Benedict XVI has started the sainthood process for John Paul II.   Also, President Bush will attend the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast next week.  That's it for Catholic news today.  Now back to our regular scheduled programming. 

Thoughts on BRAC II

The Leftist South Dakota Blogosphere is beside themselves in elation over Ellsworth's inclusion on the BRAC list released this morning.  Any faux disappointment is plainly transparent as the left's rule since becoming the minority party is to hope for news that is potentially damaging to the right (see Afghanistan, Iraq, "jobless recovery" myth", etc).  What has transpired today is no different.  While Sen. Thune campaigned that he would have the President as an audience when it comes to base closure, he did not go so far as to promise Ellsworth's future.  Although what he did claim may have been exaggerated in its own right, it was a no more obnoxious claim than Daschle's dubious claim that he single handedly had Ellsworth removed during the last round of closures.  The Left's claims that the Congressional leadership's districts where spared cuts because the of their appointments to the BRAC commission shows either a knowing disregard for the truth or an unfamiliarity with the BRAC procedure.  The list released today was compiled by the Pentagon, not the BRAC commission.  The list is now in the hands of the BRAC commission for determination of its fate.  The commission may add or subtract bases from the list.  To do so requires 7 of 9 commissioners to agree to the change, no small feat with substantial military rationale given for the change.  To wit, the BRAC Commission had nothing to do with the formation of the closure and realignment list released today.  It is unfortunate the left would play politics with what is supposed to be an apolitical issue, but given their desire for electoral success in the name of setbacks for state and country, it is not surprising.

Thoughts on BRAC

Northern Base History

It comes as no great surprise that Ellsworth AFB is on the base closure list.  During the Cold War, a string of bases stretched across the northern latitudes of the US to intercept Soviet bombers and to send our own bombers and missiles across the polar cap to deliver their devastating payloads.  Additionally, we maintained many scattered bases so as to prevent a large percentage of our forces from being eliminated in one fell swoop.  With the fall of the iron curtain, and the diminished need for a large nuclear deterrent, our country no longer requires a base and force structure of Cold War 1960.  Instead, our military, according to Rumsfield, needs to be lighter, quicker, and pack a bigger punch, or "surge" force, in his words, to meet emerging threats in the Middle East and Asia and against enemies who know no borders.  It is little comfort to the folks in Rapid City, I'm sure, that their sacrifice is in the name of national security. 

What Now?

Although it is not a foregone conclusion that Ellsworth is finished, it is difficult to have the base removed.  Either 7 of the 9 BRAC commissioners must agree to remove it, the President must scratch it off the list, or Congress must reject the list in total.   The South Dakota Left will make much of Senator Thune's campaign claims that he will have the President's ear when it comes to base closure and rightly so.  To insinuate that political favors should pre-empt national security is as ridiculous as the notion that a Senator Tom Daschle could have prevented Ellsworth's demise.  The process has been fairly apolitical, with many Red States taking major blows in this BRAC round and the process should remain apolitical.  What needs to be done is concerted action by our delegation, our state leaders, and Rapid City officials to convince the BRAC Commission that Ellsworth is vital to our national security. 

Lest We Forget

One hopes that our military planners have made the right decisions.  However, our planners are human.  A thought that comes to mind is how unprepared we have been for major wars of the past and how we have downsized our military and been caught off guard.

It appears that Middle America base missions are being sent to more forward positions on the coasts as well as to warmer climates.  Although not specified, one assumes Ellsworth's B-1 bombers are headed towards Dyess AFB in Abilene, TX, home to the other half of our nations B-1 fleet.  Dyess is losing roughly 1,500 service personal and gaining approximately 2,000 more.  One would guess Dyess' air lift wing is moving and making room for 29 B-1's from South Dakota. 

We are apparently putting all our eggs in one basket, and making them susceptible to one fell swoop.  I hope we are taking account of unlikely, yet possible scenarios with this round of closure and realignment.  I shutter to think of the recent events in Asia, with a growing imperialistic Red China with nuclear and intercontinental missile capabilities as well as the advancing technologies of Communist, and irrational, North Korea, supposedly able to lob missiles to our west coast.  And we ought not to forget Russia, a democracy in process, yet leaning towards totalitarianism as of late, still with a large arsenal of nuclear weapons of Soviet vintage just the other side of the polar cap. 

Hopefully great consideration was put into this and if not, lets hope something can be done to save Ellsworth.

East Coast Reprise

After browsing the closure and realignment list, it appeared to me that the congested areas on the Atlantic Coast came off fairly well considering the base closure criteria.  I can't imagine bases in the DC and Virginia areas having less encroachment and more free air space than Ellsworth.  If there is any fishy smell to the BRAC process, its that one can help but wonder the preference for guys with stars and leaves on their shoulders to live in elitist centers and warmer climes, but I hope I'm just being reactionary on this point.

Grand Forks AFB v. Ellsworth

Minot AFB, home to B-52 bombers and 150 Minuteman Missiles survived the cut.  Cavalier Air Station did likewise.  Grand Forks AFB, home to KC-135 refueling tankers is slated for realignment.  Although the base will remain open, it will lose approximately 2,200 personal as the tankers will be distributed to four different locations.  In their stead, it appears some sort of unmanned aerial mission will move to the base.  Grand Forks, like Ellsworth, was once one of the jewels of Strategic Air Command.  In addition to the tankers, G.F. was home to B-52 bombers and Minuteman Missiles.  With the end of the Cold War, the "jewels", Grand Forks and Ellsworth, are no longer are necessary.  So what makes Grand Forks preferable to Ellsworth when it comes to the unmanned program or realignment in general?  Why Grand Forks AFB but not Ellsworth for this program?  One hates to leech off of our neighbors or undermine their own well being, but our delegation needs to find a way, if not to keep Ellsworth's current mission, at least to mitigate the loss by snagging a mission such as the unmanned aerial program from Grand Forks AFB. 

A Proposal For Saving Ellsworth

When the Air Force was proposing northern bases at the start of the Cold War, cities and communities sprung into action in efforts to lure bases to their locals.  Minot, ND collectively purchased the land that is now Minot AFB in efforts to lure the base there.  I have no idea if such a plan is legal, but perhaps something can be done on the state level to save Ellsworth.  Perhaps an emergency session of the legislature should be called and measures taken to convince the BRAC commission to save Ellsworth.  Perhaps a small sales tax increase, whether local to Pennington County, West River, or statewide for a duration to offset costs of expansion, retrofitting, improvements, or what have you at Ellsworth.  Although modernization of our military is thrown about as a reason for BRAC, it is apparent that money is also a major emphasis, and perhaps money would talk.  At the very least, if it wouldn't save the B-1's, perhaps it could lure another mission, such as the unmanned aerial mission.  If the best interests of our national security forbid Ellsworth's future and such a plan is unsuccessful, nothing is lost. 

Our prayers are with our friends West River and the state as we deal with this devastating loss.

The Party that Claims to Have God on its Side is . . .

Drum roll please. 

South Dakota Democrats!

The Argus Leader's David Kranz  has the story.  Tip of the hat to Daily Kos.

That's a great sign by the way. 

Ding Dong, The Recall's Dead

Two big news stories in Aberdeen this week. First, it's been raining all week, which is great news.  Second, efforts to recall Mayor Levsen have failed. 

United Airlines

Two local blogs (see here and here) note the ruling that allows United Airlines to default on four pension programs.  The New York Times sums it up thusly:

The ruling releases United, a unit of the UAL Corporation, from $3.2 billion in pension obligations over the next five years. The federal agency that guarantees pensions, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation,  will assume responsibility for the plans, which cover about 134,000 people.

It's easy to engage in class warfare here and paint this as another "greedy company screws the working man" story, but I suspect things are far more complex.  First, everyone knows that the airline industry has been devastated over the last decade or so.  Just try reserving a seat on Eastern, TWA or Pan Am airlines.  United Airlines is itself in bankruptcy, and Delta is close.  So obviously there is something systematically wrong in the airline industry.  Also, the airlines are suffering in the way the American automobile industry is.  I read recently (and now can't find it) that GM pays as much to its pensioners as it does to current employees (see this story here for frightening prospects for GMs pension fund).  What has happened to these large old companies is what has happened to the governments of Western Europe.  They made over generous benefit proposals to their workers and now that they can't afford them, the employees, quite reasonably, don't want to give them up.  I would ask those bashing "big business" here, what else do you propose?  Where is United to get this money to pay pensions at current full benefits?  Considering the billions of dollars at question, just cutting salaries of fat cat CEOs won't get you there (and yes, I do think CEO compensation packages are too often too large).  Would you prefer doing nothing, and having United go under?  Where is the working man now that his company no longer exists? You can say that reducing the pension benefits of the worker injures that worker, but would you prefer his company go out of business and the worker lose his job?  That is the likely result if this ruling did not occur. The Enron debacle taught us many things.  One of them is that when a major corporation goes under, it's the little guy who pays the price, not the executives.  By the way, the judge in this case opposed the Bankruptcy bill that the liberals were also opposed to.  So much for being a shill for big business. 

Roll Call on Regional Blogging

A reflection on the importance of SDPolitics, from Roll Call:

Many state and local blogs find themselves focusing on races that just aren’t competitive. These blogs “become very enamored with certain candidates, and while they may be very well intentioned those candidates are often running in districts that are unfavorable,” said Greg Speed, former spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  But Speed added that in battleground areas, keeping an eye on what the blogging community is saying can be an important part of running a campaign.

Speed pointed to South Dakota and Sen. John Thune’s (R) 2004 battle against then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D) as an election where bloggers showed just how much of a force they can be. In that election, South Dakota Republicans orchestrated a highly effective blog-based campaign against Daschle and one of the state’s largest newspapers, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. During the campaign, bloggers hammered away at the paper’s coverage of Daschle and raised questions about certain writers’ objectivity.

“You had right-wing bloggers start a blog essentially claiming the Argus Leader was treating Daschle with kid gloves,” Speed said. “And what you had was other mainstream media in the state seeing these things and thinking they were real stories.”

Social Security

A press release by the Cato Institute shows that over four hundred-and-fifty top economists are supporting the privatization plan.  From the Cato Institute:

More than four hundred-and-fifty of America's top economists, including Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, Robert Lucas, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott and Vernon Smith, are calling for the nation's troubled Social Security system to be reformed by giving workers the option of shifting all or part of their payroll taxes into privately invested accounts.

In ads sponsored by the Cato Institute in tomorrow's Roll Call newspaper and The Washington Times, the economists argue that America's Social Security system is facing a financial crisis because of its flawed pay-as-you-go structure. They say that any solution "must uphold the time-honored principles of ownership, inheritability and choice."

Ellsworth

The liberal bloggers are aghast that someone would point out Senator Daschle's and Senator Johnson's role in the creation of the 2005 round of military base closures (Known as Base Realignment and Closure or BRAC).  All of their foul-mouthed vitriol is much sound and fury; signifying nothing.  The 2005 BRAC round did not just magically spring into existence.  It took an act of Congress.  That act of Congress occurred during the Daschle-led Senate's debate in September, 2001, over the fiscal year 2002 defense authorization bill.  The bill contained a provision authorizing another BRAC round in 2003 (in conference negotiations, the year was changed to 2005).  The House DID NOT HAVE a BRAC provision in their version of the authorization bill, and in fact was adamantly opposed to the idea.  When a group of senators tried to introduce an amendment to take the BRAC provision out of the defense authorization bill, Daschle marshalled the votes to defeat the amendment, and explicitly voted to defeat it, as did Senator Johnson.  At every point where the 2005 BRAC round could easily have been prevented, Senate MAJORITY Leader Daschle did all he could to push it forward.  He explicitly voted for a new BRAC round, and appointed Senate conferees who refused to back down from keeping the provision authorizing the 2005 BRAC round, despite heavy opposition to it from the House conferees.

The liberal bloggers have drawn our attention to the fact that Senator Daschle voted twice see here and here to repeal the 2005 BRAC round he had fought so hard to successfully implement in 2001.  In essence, the argument seems to be that Daschle voted for the 2005 BRAC round before he voted against it.  It was admirable of Senator Daschle, once he realized he was mistaken in working as Majority Leader to implement a 2005 BRAC round, to try to undo his mistake.  But this vote was akin to trying to close the door long after the horse had gotten out of the barn. 

Plagiarism in the Star Tribune Op-Ed?

That or something pretty close.  Recently I posted concerning Bush's Yalta comments.  I included this passage from the British Guardian:

The ordinary Soviet people were not only numberless victims of war, but they failed to achieve any political reform as a result of their triumph. Yet it is their exceptional sacrifice that we should remember as we look back over 60 years. And in the end the peoples of eastern Europe were unquestionably better off under the new communist regimes than under German imperial domination. German plans by the middle of the war foresaw the deliberate starvation of at least 35 million people in the east as "useless eaters", and the genocidal destruction of the Jewish and Gypsy populations. The eastern peoples were described in German documents as the "helots" of the new empire. This grotesque imperial fantasy was won or lost on the eastern front, and who can regret its defeat?

The passage is by Richard Overy, author of The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. 

Today I read this in the Star Tribune:

[I]t was the Russians (and the Chinese, who tied down most of the Japanese Army) who paid most of the price in human lives for defeating the Axis.  That deserves respect, as does the fact that the Red Army actually did liberate Eastern Europe from something far worse than Communism. By mid-war, the Nazi regime planned not only to exterminate the Jews and the Gypsies, but to starve 35 million "useless eaters" in Eastern Europe to make room for German settlers.

This is by Gwynne Dyer, author of forthcoming Future Tense: The Coming World Order.  That's awfully close to be an accident.  I'm skeptical that it amounts to plagiarism, and I have no way of knowing which piece was filed when, but someone saved themselves some effort without giving proper credit. 

 

 

Rosen Trial and the MSM

I haven't seen one MSM source following the trial of David Rosen today (but Tom Delay is still under scrutiny).

This post is a brief for everybody on what's being said in the media and around the blogosphere.  For those that don't know, Hillary's 2000 campaign finance director, David Rosen, faces three felony counts for filing false campaign finance reports in connection with a Hollywood fundraiser and concert that was in August of 2000.  The celebrity-studded fundraiser was held at a radio executive's estate in the Brentwood hills above Los Angeles.  Prosecutors are asserting that the true cost of the affair was over $1 million, but it seems that Mr. Rosen reported costs of just $400,000.  This would allow increased funds that Hillary Clinton had to spend on her Senate bid.

Later on it was discovered that Senator Kennedy's brother-in-law, Raymond Reggie, was the informant who told the news of the Clinton fundraising case.  Power Line:

Reggie was charged with bank fraud in February (click here for access to the press release on the indictment). It appears, however, that the case had been brewing since 2002, leading to the possibility that Reggie may have been cooperating with the government since then. 

One of the readers advises that, according to published reports available via Lexis-Nexis, Reggie is a prominent fundraiser for Democrats, including participation in organizing a Hollywood fundraiser in August 2000 for Hillary Clinton. According to another report, he stayed over at the White House in the waning days of the Clinton administration. He is included on a list of overnight guests of the Clintons between July 1999 and August 2000 that is accessible here.

Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun, who had originally broke the story, followed up on the Reggie development:

The disclosure that Reggie was surreptitiously recording conversations for the FBI may have caused some heartburn yesterday for Democrats who have had contact with him since 2002.

Reggie was a regular presence at Mr. Clinton's side when he visited New Orleans during his presidency and thereafter. Just last September, Mr. Clinton had lunch in that city with Reggie, as the former president swung through town to sign his autobiography and attend a $10,000-a-head Democratic Party fund-raiser, the Times-Picayune newspaper reported. A former congresswoman and ambassador to the Vatican, Lindy Boggs, joined Reggie and Mr. Clinton at the lunch, as did two federal judges whom Mr. Clinton appointed.

When Mrs. Clinton traveled to New Orleans in May 2000 to raise $100,000 for her Senate campaign, Reggie was on the host committee.

An attorney for the Clintons, David Kendall, had no immediate response yesterday to questions about Reggie's role in Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign or about the possibility that Reggie might have taped one or both of the Clintons.

Writes John Hinderacker:

The transcript [of the audio recording] is damning, in that it appears to support the government's claim that Rosen knowingly mis-accounted for the event's expenses, so as to maximize "hard money" raised via the event, and minimize "soft money."  But the conversation between Rosen and Reggie ranged into topics far more entertaining than campaign finance:

The chitchat ranges from speculation that a wealthy Clinton donor was using cocaine to lusty remarks by Rosen about the donor's young daughter. Rosen does not hesitate to disparage President Clinton, noting that he began calling regularly -- once a week -- after Rosen went to work for Hillary Clinton. "Go screw yourself , Mr. President," Rosen says, pretending to pick up one such call.

The salaciousness reaches its pinnacle with Rosen's rambling anecdote about a fat cat Clinton donor who said after a night of partying that he sent prostitutes to the hotel rooms of two top Clinton loyalists.

"So the next day, (one of the loyalists) calls (the donor) from the golf course with Clinton," Rosen told Reggie. "Clinton gets on the phone, he goes, I just wanna tell you something. . . . The day I'm outta office, I'm going out with you."

And I thought this anecdote about Al Gore was revealing:

Rosen added that he'll never work for Gore again. The former vice president, whom he thought he knew well, failed to recognize him at an event.

"I won't cross the street for that guy," he said. "I was willing to get talked back into another round with his ass. And I went to an event, and he was there. And I'm with him one-on-one a hundred times. At least. And he thought I was the valet parker."

Writes Michelle Malkin:

Meanwhile, convicted Dem operative and Hillary fund-raiser Aaron Tonken says from jail that Hillary should be fined by the FEC.

John McCaslin adds:

However, the event's co-organizer, Aaron Tonken, says Rosen shouldn't go to prison.

"David, I don't think, deserves to go to jail," Tonken told the Associated Press from his own prison cell, wouldn't you know. Tonken was sentenced to 63 months on unrelated charges of defrauding charities of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Instead, Tonken - who was in charge of corralling celebrities for the fundraiser - says Mrs. Clinton's campaign should be fined.

I noted that the media is still scrutinizing Tom Delay, but what has he done to deserve it?  As one wrote, "what laws has DeLay broken?  And what laws has he been accused of breaking?  While it's not possible to answer the former with any degree of certainty, the answer to the latter is:  none."  Yet Rosen, as I just pointed out, is on trial for the filing of false campaign finance reports.  The FBI says he deliberately undercut the cost of the Hollywood fundraiser by two-thirds to "increase the amount of funds available" for Clinton's Senate run in 2000.

On the lack of media reporting, that same reporter wrote:

It's not that the media are ignoring the trial altogether. They're simply not putting as much effort into it as they are in their attempt to smear Republican DeLay. ...

The media elite would no doubt pay more attention if Clinton herself were on trial. She's not, and neither has she been accused of breaking the law.

But wouldn't the public like to know if she has? Aren't there some journalists out there who want to find out if the senator was aware of the misreporting and therefore complicit in a crime?

That doesn't seem to be the case. But imagine the journalistic enterprise on display if the proceedings involved the former staffer of a GOP senator.

In contrast to the meager coverage accorded Rosen, consider the attention given to DeLay. Between May 5 and Sunday, The New York Times had three stories on DeLay's troubles and a national brief that mentioned "the ethics questions Mr. DeLay is facing." These followed a consistent run of stories on DeLay's problem that goes back weeks.

The L.A. Times had two stories on DeLay late last week, one of them on A1. Meanwhile, the Post has kept the waters around DeLay churning on a regular basis for weeks, often using front-page articles to make the point that he's "embattled."

Maybe the explanation is simple: The media will have plenty of time to see what Clinton's been up to once they've run DeLay out of town. We wouldn't bet on it, though.

By the way, as Sibby points out, the Argus Leader is awefully quiet on this issue.

Ya-Ya Yalta

Some sober comments by Anne Applebaum on Bush's Yalta comments and other presidential apologies. 

Reid

Las Vegas Review Journal:

Reid doesn't back down from Friday remark about Bush

Senator says administration has done 'very, very bad job for this nation and the world'

WASHINGTON -- If Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada still feels remorse for calling President Bush a loser, he didn't show it on Tuesday.

In a news conference, Reid was asked if his comment about Bush would make it more difficult to negotiate with Republicans.

"I tell people how I feel about things. I don't try to hide how I feel," Reid said.

"Maybe my choice of words was improper, and I have indicated that maybe they were, but I want everyone here, I repeat, to know I'm going to continue to call things the way that I see them, and I think this administration has done a very, very bad job for this nation and the world."

Asked for a comment, the White House referred a call to the Republican National Committee.

"I think the Party of 'No' would be better served if it set aside its angry rhetoric and obstructionism and joined Republicans at the table to provide solutions for the issues confronting our country," said RNC spokesman Danny Diaz.

While speaking to students Friday in an American Studies class at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Reid referred to Bush and said, "I think this guy is a loser."

Later that day, Reid acknowledged his comment was inappropriate and said he called White House adviser Karl Rove to apologize.

North Dakota Quarter

Voting has begun on the North Dakota Quarter.  Please, only North Dakota residents only.  If you ask me, though, the buffalo quarter is clearly the better of the two designs.  I must say, this whole quarter idea is one of the best ideas Bill Clinton ever had.

Era of Good Feeling

Clean Cut Kid and I find something we agree on: raise the minimum wage.  Gov. Pawlenty did it in Minnesota and there is no reason why we can't do it here.  The length of time since the last increase (on the state and national level) is unconscionable.  I'm not sure I'd call it the "Christian thing to do," though, because I wouldn't want to be a theocrat and impose my religious views on people. 

Quiet as...

Bush in Georgia

This from the London Daily Telegraph:

More than 100,000 Georgians cheered President George W Bush yesterday as he issued a clarion call for the spread of democracy and freedom throughout the world.

	President Bush spoke to more than 100,000 people in Tbilisi

In stark contrast to his low-key and carefully choreographed visit to Moscow a day earlier, Mr Bush appeared ebullient, praising the Georgians for rising up against cronyism and corruption.

He told the crowd gathered in Tbilisi's Freedom Square: "You gathered here armed with nothing but roses and the power of your convictions and you claimed your liberty.

"And because you acted Georgia is today both sovereign and free and a beacon of liberty for this region and the world."

A Reply to the Clean Cut Kid

The Clean Cut Kid had this comment about the end of the SDP/NVB quarrels:

Looks like the pettiness between Blanchard, Schaff, and Newquist is officially over (though I wouldn’t hold my breath). Keep in mind all three of these gentlemen teach or taught at institutions of higher education in South Dakota.  I’m not sure what all the nonsense of the past few months says about their classrooms.

I posted this reply on Chad's blog. 

I beg your pardon. “Pettiness” and “Nonsense”? We at SDP have taken the NVB seriously, and have persistently criticized their rhetoric. There is nothing petty about that, I would suppose. As for nonsense, the two blogs represent very different thoughts about how politics should be practiced. They believe in identifying the sources of corruption and excommunicating them. Their highest purpose, frequently stated, is to somehow make John Thune pay for his crimes.

We do not believe that politics is divided into the noble and the villainous. We disagree with such bloggers as Clean Cut Kid on many things, to be sure; but we do not assume that he is our moral inferior. I think the many repartees that constitute the argument between the SDP and the NVB were instructive, and I salute David Newquist and others for taking part (however persistently they wished to deny that they were doing so). I probably enjoyed the business a lot more than Newquist did, but who can tell?

Affordable Family Formation

Why is the United States a marginally Republican nation?  The goofy left-wing (and, yes, there is a sane left-wing) thinks it's because of the conspiracy between Bush, the right-wing-media, big oil, and I think Iran-Contra has something to do with it.  Then there is the wrong, but not totally goofy, "What's the matter with Kansas" thesis that somehow low and moderate income people are being distracted from voting their economic interests (which presumably means voting Democratic) by all these meaningless social issues like abortion and gay marriage.  I try to teach my students that voters vote based on their perception of their self-interest, and that peole are pretty good at judging their own interests.  Steve Sailer has an amazing piece up suggesting that those areas that are friendly to the formation of families are Republican, and those areas hostile to family formation are Democratic.  If you trace where homes are affordable, you'll find a high correlation between low housing prices and Republican voting.  Democrats have to come to grips with why they are loosing the votes of those who are married, have children in the house, and go to church each week.  Sailer explains this.  It isn't because the Republicans are pulling the wool over their eyes; it's because the Republicans are responding to their interests.  Note: Sailer is affiliated with Pat Buchanan's American Conservative magazine.  That makes him suspect in my book, but I still think his analysis is sound.  Sailer writes:

As I first reported in VDARE.COM last December, the single best correlation with Bush's share of the vote by state that anybody has yet found is: the average years married by white women between age 18 and 44: an astonishing r-squared = 83 percent.

(This has to be one of the highest r-squareds for a single factor ever seen in political science.)

Bush carried the top 25 states ranked on "years married."

Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg confirmed the partisan power of the Marriage Gap in January, reporting:

"The marriage gap is one of the most important cleavages in electoral politics… The marriage gap is a defining dynamic in today’s politics, eclipsing the gender gap, with marital status a significant predictor of the vote, independent of the effects of age, race, income, education or gender."

According to Greenberg, the exit poll showed Bush carried merely 44% of the single white females but 61% of the married white women—a 17 point difference.

Among white men, Bush won 53% of the singles and 66% of the married—a 13 point difference.

Although there are profound cultural differences among states, the Marriage Gap among whites is driven to a striking extent by the Mortgage Gap.

 

Another Trailer

The new Batman looks really cool.  Also, to be released all the way in December, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Infantile Leftists

Thanks to the extreme generosity of a friend who is leaving academia for another vocation, I am now in possession of what might be NE South Dakota's best private library of books on the Holocaust.  Thus the appreciation of the abject stupidity of the NVB's final post, which once again compares all those to the right of socialist Howard Dean as fascists.  It reminds me of my grad school days, when we read some works of French philosopher Michel Foucault in our Contemporary Political Thought course.  In reading Foucault, we read a commentary on him by the eminent American political philosopher Michael Walzer, a man whose progressive credentials are unquestionable.  Walzer described Foucault as an "infantile leftist."  I have always appreciated that appellation.  It applies nicely to the NVB.  I hope local Republicans are keeping a file of the hate coming from the official webpage of the Brown County Democrats and will use those extremist views in upcoming elections.  Those Democrats that represent Brown County in totality or in part should be made to defend the hatred directed towards the common American by the Brown County Democrats.  Twain once said something to the effect of "It's better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."  NVB is finally shutting its mouth. I could say more, but I can't beat Prof. Blanchard's "chimpanzee throwing feces" phrase.

Who makes ridiculous arguments?

I have C-SPAN 2 on my computer right now, featuring Chuck Schumer sanctimoniously prattling on about the filibuster.  He is defending the filibustering of federal judge nominations on the grounds of "age old checks and balances."  He is arguing the Founding Fathers wanted the Senate to serve as a check on majoritarian impulses.  That's correct.  But Schumer says that sometimes the Senate has to operate by unanimous consent.  Sometimes with 67 votes. Sometimes with 60.  And sometimes that it operates by simple majority. This is how the Founders wanted it, Schumer says.  The problem with the Schumer argument is that some of those votes are dictated by the Constitution, such as super majorities for ratifying treaties, amending the Constitution, or overriding vetoes.  But the 60 vote total to break a filibuster is no where in the Constitution.  In fact the filibuster, existing because of an unintentional quirk in Senate rules, was used infrequently in the 19th Century.  The cloture procedure is less than 100 years old.  Thus there is no Constitutional significance to the 60 votes needed to end debate in the Senate.  I continue to say that I oppose the "nuclear" option, but only because I think forcing Democrats to actually continue debate on judges without allowing a vote is institutionally more sound and actually better politics for the Republicans.

Top Ten

South Dakota made Roll Call's Best 10 Senate Races list, which reviewed 50 years of Senate races:

2004 South Dakota Senate race: Tom Daschle (D) vs. John Thune (R)

In the year following his 524-vote defeat at the hands of Sen. Tim Johnson (D), Thune was hounded about whether he would challenge Daschle.

By the time he finally entered the race in January 2004, Daschle had been on statewide television for six months touting his accomplishments for the state during his 18 years in the Senate.

Thune held his fire for several more months before beginning his own advertising effort. He believed that the primary reason for his loss in 2002 was the non-stop, 18-month campaign he and Johnson waged.

As expected, the race shattered all previous fundraising records in the state. Daschle brought in $20 million; Thune raised $16 million in just 10 months. Those totals don’t include the millions spent by independent groups seeking to influence the outcome.

Daschle struggled to differentiate himself from a national party decidedly more liberal than the average South Dakota voter. He was also hurt by the fact that he had not been seriously challenged since 1986.

Thune ran an ad late in the race that featured footage of Daschle saying he was a “D.C. resident” and defending the right of women to have abortions. This seemed to crystallize the choice for many voters.

Thune won by 2,000 votes — the first candidate to oust a Senate leader since 1952.

BRAC

From the Arizona Air National Guard Headquarters Flyer:

According to a knowledgeable official who spoke to FEDweek's sister publication Armed Forces News on grounds of anonymity, as of mid-December the following bases were being considered under the Base Realignment and Closure round of 2005:

AIR FORCE -- Altus AFB, Oklahoma; Beale AFB, California; Brooks AFB, Texas; Cannon AFB, New Mexico; Columbus AFB, Mississippi; Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota; Goodfellow AFB, Texas; Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota; Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts; Kirtland AFB, New Mexico; Los Angeles AFB, California; McConnell AFB, Kansas; Nellis AFB, Nevada (to realign); Seymour Johnson AFB (to realign), North Carolina; Shaw AFB, South Carolina; and Vance AFB, Oklahoma.

This is back in December before Thune was a Senator and Daschle was still in office.  The lefty blogs all claim that Daschle had the clout to keep the base off the closure list, but it was on the list in December.  Either Daschle didn't have the clout or he just didn't bother trying.

Newquee We Hardly Knew Ye

We see the sad words today: the Northern Valley Beacon is shutting down.  No really.  This time they mean it.  No foolin.  No more second chances.  They're history.  Outta here. 

I think a serious and thoughtful obituary of the most hysterical blog I have ever read is in order, but right now I'm still grading papers.  This will have to do.

In its "Last Post" the NVB has this to say:

The Northern Valley Beacon web log became a target of a constant stream of witless scurrility. However, the blogs crossed the border from the scurrility well into the realm of fabrication. Handbooks on writing and rhetoric often liken plagiarism to robbery. It is portraying the work, thoughts, and words of others as one's own. A worse academic and journalistic crime is fabrication. It is making up information or altering information in a citation so that it appears to say something quite different from what it actually does say. It includes taking phrases from sentences out of their context and stringing them together to misrepresent the gist of quoted material and deliberately misstating what the subject is for a quoted passage. Fabrication is likened to fraud and murder because it gives a false portrayal of cited material usually for the purpose of attacking the mind and character of the authors of that material. Some blogs are so adept at fabrication that they make Joseph Goebbels look like the Flying Nun.

This is vintage Newquist style.  One slander after another hurled with all the skill of a chimpanzee throwing feces at the folk on the other side of the bars.  But to whom, precisely, are all these insults addressed?  We are never told.  You're supposed to know already.  Character assassination by nod and wink.  And of course, he never has to actually come clean on any of his  accusations. 

But I suppose that the above paragraph is more than a little directed at me.  Observant readers of the Aberdeen American News will have noticed the correction printed in the lower left hand corner of page 4A, on Sunday, May 8.  In one of my columns I quoted the NVB, but managed to get one word wrong.  The quote in the NVB post refers to John Thune.  I quoted it as an example of hate speech.

My version:

"His adds show him to be a thing-too debased to be called a man" 

In their correction, the AAN not only showed the corrected passage, but the rest of the sentence as well. 

"His adds show him to be a thing--he is too depraved to be called a man--possessed of the lowest, nastiest, and most malignant values." 

So I erred by substituting debased for depraved, and by leaving out some of the defamatory language.  This, I suppose, is what he means by "making up information or altering information in a citation."  I can only plead on my behalf that my version made him look better rather than worse.

I am honestly sad that the NVB is going away.  It's language was so extreme, its arguments so patently dishonest, that it was virtually impossible not to look good by comparison.  One should have such enemies.

Hey, movie geeks!

Here's a trailer for the Fantastic Four. 

The Dorgan, Kerry, Durbin Axis of Weasels

This is a story conservatives cannot help but love.  Byron York in The Huffington Post (yes, that's Arrianne Huffinction), on the not so infamous Barrett Report.  Barrent spent ten years and twenty-one million bucks investigating Henry Cisneros, Clinton Housing Secretary.  Much of that time was spent investigating folks he suspected of interfering with his investigation.  That's a pretty good example of what is wrong with the independent council law.

But now that his report is ready to be released, three Senators have attempted to keep it locked away.

Democratic senators John Kerry, Byron Dorgan, and Dick Durbin tried to close Barrett's office by writing an amendment that would de-fund it, and then attaching that amendment to a larger war spending bill. Had the amendment passed, it would have probably made it impossible for Barrett to publish his report.

Its hard for me to get very excited about a scandal left over from the Clinton Administration.  But scandalous behavior on the part of Kerry and Dorgan, that's interesting. 

Filibuster

Washington Post:

As the Senate returns from a week-long recess, Republicans are reminding everyone that four years ago today, President Bush nominated Priscilla R. Owen and Miguel A. Estrada to federal appellate courts. Neither received a Senate confirmation vote, Republicans note, because of Democratic filibusters.

More Public Broadcasting

Here is a piece on the attempt by the head of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting to bring some political balance to its programming.  It is a response to this overblown New York Times piece that declares (horrors!) there might be some conservative programming on PBS.  It seems a bit odd for anyone to complain about alleged political efforts to influence the content of a government owned broadcast company.  I have a great way to solve the problem of taxpayer dollars going to programming they don't support.  Privatize the CPB. 

Garrison Keillor as Simpleton

Like Jon Lauck, below, I have always enjoyed Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion.  Mr. Keillor's career has always rested on his one great invention, an imaginary Minnesota town.  He has allowed us to live with and love these characters over the years, and I am grateful for it.

But Keillor himself doesn't really love them.  There are too many Bush voters lurking among the quiet Christians living in his town. The first glimpse I got of this was in one of his routines, where a young man at the Lake Wobegon High School refuses to wear a yellow ribbon in honor of American troops fighting in Iraq (this was Bush 41's Iraq war).  For this the young man was ostracized by the community, and realized that Lake Wobegon wasn't his home anymore. 

I found that routine to be utterly unconvincing.  It is just not the way Lake Wobegoners would have behaved.  But it did shed some light on Keillor's true feelings about his fellow Americans.  His piece on talk radio in the Nation sheds more. 

The reason you find an army of right-wingers ratcheting on the radio and so few liberals is simple: Republicans are in need of affirmation, they don't feel comfortable in America and they crave listening to people who think like them. Liberals actually enjoy living in a free society; tuning in to hear an echo is not our idea of a good time. I go to church on Sunday morning to be among the like-minded, and we all say the Nicene Creed together and assume nobody has his fingers crossed, but when it comes to radio, I prefer oddity and crankiness. I don't need someone to tell me that George W. Bush is a deceitful, corrupt, clever and destructive man--that's pretty clear on the face of it. What I want is to be surprised and delighted and moved. Here at the low end of the FM dial is a show in which three college boys are sitting in a studio, whooping and laughing, sneering at singer-songwriters they despise, playing Eminem and a bunch of bands I've never heard of, and they're having so much fun they achieve weightlessness--utter unself-consciousness--and then one of them tosses out the f-word and suddenly they get scared, wondering if anybody heard. Wonderful. Or you find three women in a studio yakking rapid-fire about the Pitt-Aniston divorce and the Michael Jackson trial and the botoxing of various stars and who wore what to the Oscars. It's not my world, and I like peering into it. The sports talk station gives you a succession of men whose absorption in a fantasy world is, to me, borderline insane. You're grateful not to be related to any of them, and yet ten minutes of their ranting and wheezing is a real tonic that somehow makes this world, the world of trees and children and books and travel, positively tremble with vitality. And then you succumb to weakness and tune in to the geezer station and there's Roy Orbison singing "Dream Baby" and you join Roy on the chorus, one of the Roylettes. 

I don't worry about the right-wingers on AM radio. They are talking to an audience that is stuck in rush-hour traffic, in whom road rage is mounting, and the talk shows divert their rage from the road to the liberal conspiracy against America. Instead of ramming your rear bumper, they get mad at Harry Reid. Yes, the wingers do harm, but the worst damage is done to their own followers, who are cheated of the sort of genuine experience that enables people to grow up.

There you have it.  Democrats are just better people than Republicans: brighter, more imaginative.  They don't really like living in a free society.  These are the words of a left wing bigot.  His listeners on the right of the political dial deserve better than that.

Garrison

Took Mom to see Garrison Keillor at the Corn Palace last night--a good Mother's Day outing and GK was great (I got last minute tickets after missing the first sign-up).  Lots of corn jokes and Mother's Day songs and plenty of politics, including an interview with hometown hero George McGovern.  As some may know, GK has admittedly gone off the deep end on some of his political commentary, but hey, his music is still great, and the small town Midwest commentary never gets old, to me at least.  Here's a pic I snapped:

NVB to America: "You're idiots."

The Northern Valley Beacon has met the enemy, and it's the ignorant American people.  The NVB has diagnosed yet another  symptom of creeping fascism (there's that word again).  This time, oddly enough, the evidence of fascism is the freedom of the press.  Yeah, I thought this was an odd argument, too.  I continue to marvel at the attempt by the official web organ of the Brown County Democrats to win elections (as one supposes a political party desires) by calling the voters idiots.  Americans, we are told by NVB, are too addled to demand "real" news, and instead wallow in trivialities, such as run away brides.  They denounce "corporate media" (ominous music plays in the background):

The first is the corporate media that are looking for high viewer numbers. Those numbers determine the amount of advertising they sell and how much they can charge. They quickly abandon genuine news for the lurid because we have a population whose predilection for the inane and the mindless quest for status has been reinforced through the media's ability to exercise mass operant conditioning. The rule: do not bother the audience out there with anything that might distract them from the trivial and self-gratifying. It's bad for business.

Just like the Nazis, the Klan and the Sino-Soviet Marxists (yes, they all get a mention) contemporary American totalitarians seek to gain power by...defending a free media that caters to the desires of the people?  A strange argument, to say the least.  And notice that the NVB insults the American citizen as someone with a "predilection for the inane and the mindless quest for status."  Thanks for the flattery. (By the way, I just finished the amazing Nation of Rebels : Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture by two philosophy profs at Univeristy of Toronto.  They discuss what they might suggest is the not so inanne and mindless quest for status.  I highly recommend.)  The NVB suggests:

Honestly brokered information is almost a black market commodity in today's information society. It is all but impossible to find a newscast or a newspaper today that evaluates news on the basis of developments that are relevant to people and have an effect on them and serve the interests of government of, by, and for the people.

Let's all agree, that the American people are attracted to low-brow entertainment.  I will be the first to get on my right-wing high horse and chastise them for this.  But let's be a bit more moderate here.  The NVB seems to imagine some Golden Age of American politics where we all spent our leisure time reading policy manuals and engaging in political speech characterized by high minded oratory and directed at a highly educated and politically active people.  This Golden Age, like most Golden Ages, never existed.  The Lincoln-Douglas debates are the exception, not the rule.  True, there was a time when politics was something people did as a kind of leisure activity, but the political rhetoric was as low, or lower, and as nasty, or nastier, than today.  And does the NVB want to bring back the partisan rags that dominated most of the nation's history of newspapers?  Does the NVB imagine that the Hearst papers were models of sobriety?  No, American news and American politics have always had a fixation on the lurid and tabloid.  Our current condition is the rule, not the exception. 

Also, while there is a kind of apathy that is dangerous to democracy, and some of that apathy lingers in the American soul, the fact that Americans aren't as consumed by politics as is the NVB is  probably a good thing.  One thing that drove me from my college political organization when  I was an undergrad was the unattractiveness of people who live politics morning, noon, and night.  These were the kind of people who really believed that the fate of the nation hinged on the next election and everything in life must be interpreted through the lens of partisan politics.  The NVB reminds me of these people.  I have often said that I am glad there are people who lead political lives and find nothing more interesting than political organizing, and I am equally glad I am not one of them.  Most people have other things to do with their lives besides immerse themselves in the intricacies of, say, the Military Code of Justice.  They do things such as go to work, earn a living, raise a family, go to soccer matches, catch a movie now and then, get homework done, etc.  Nations consumed by politics are usually also consumed by anger and violence (take, for example, Iraq). 

The overblown rhetoric of the NVB is stunning.

 

Like the Nazi machine that systematically portrayed the Jews and other minorities as human vermin, like the Ku Klux Klan that portrayed blacks and other minorities as social contaminants, and like the Sino-Soviet Marxists who portrayed democrats and capitalists as insidious evils, the fascist-oriented political voices are defining, labeling, and defaming the people they have defined as the enemy.

The object of this rant?  Internet discussion groups.  One would have to be blind to think that what is going on in Internet discussion groups somehow is a window into the American political soul.  My experience with discussion boards is that they are dominated by about five nut-jobs who do nothing but hurl insults at each other.  These are not exactly a window into the soul of the American electorate.

What is at the heart of the NVB's criticism?  The American people are too stupid to demand better news.  Striking a remarkably elitist pose, the NVB lectures its more ignorant fellow citizens (that's you and me) declaring that  if only we were as concerned and informed as the NVB, then we would all be as wonderful as they are.  Once again, it is remarkable that the NVB denounces the "political voices that are defining, labeling and defaming the people they have defined as the enemy," while at the same time the NVB calls its opponents fascists and totalitarians and compares them to the Klan and Sino-Soviet Marxists.  Realize that the people the NVB continues to denounce make up a majority of the American population.  Let's be clear. Whatever it's faults, democracy tends to give people what they want.  I have my own problems with some of the ramifications of this, but that is a subject for another day.  But we do tend to get the news we want, the information we want, the entertainment we want, and (political science research tells us) the government we want.  The NVB's beef is not with totalitarian corporate media, it's with the American people. 

For all of it's overheated rhetoric about totalitarianism, I wonder where the totalitarian mindset more firmly takes root.  Is it in the corporate news office that tries to figure out what the American people would like to see?  Or is it in the minds of those who, impatient with democracy's foibles, start denouncing the people as incapable of self rule?

V-E Day

The war that lasted for 2,174 days and would claim an average of 27,600 lives every day, or 1,150 an hour, or 19 a minute, or one death every 3 seconds, came to an end today sixty years ago.   

On 7 March 1945, the Western Allies--led by cheif commanders Omar Bradley and Bernard Law Montgomery--crossed the Rhine after haivng smashed through the Siegfried Line and overran West Germany.  Meanwhile, Soviet Red Army troops were forcing their way through the rubble of Berlin under marshals Zhukov and Konev.  The unconditional surrender of Germany was signed at Rheims on 7 May and ratified at Berlin on 8 May.

UPDATE:  As is often the case with history, time doesn't heal all wounds.  See these comments by the German ambassador to London, Thomas Matussek:

"The British behave as if they had conquered Hitler's hordes single-handedly. And they continue to see us as Nazis, as if they have to refight the battles every evening. They are enchanted by this Nazi dimension," he said yesterday. "It's not anti-German sentiment precisely, but it's because we know too little about each other. Ignorance can breed xenophobia, which can breed hatred. That's what we've learnt in Germany." ...

A recent survey showed that when British 10- to 16-year olds were asked what they associated Germany with, 78 per cent said the Second World War, and 50 per cent mentioned Hitler. Youthful British ignorance of Germany and its past was demonstrated by the photographs published earlier this year, showing Prince Harry at a fancy dress party in Nazi uniform.

Mr. Matussek isn't the first to note the misunderstanding that British children have of Germany.  Former ambassador Gebhardt von Moltke complained that British schools appeared to end their history lessons at 1945.

Matussek:

He said he was surprised to hear that 80% of A-level students studying history chose to study Nazi Germany.

"It is very important that people know about it study in depth, but they also need to know that history does not stop in 1945," he said. "They need to know that the lessons drawn from this dark era of our past are being implemented and that German democracy is a success story which could also be taught."

He pointed to an attack on two teenage German exchange students in London as an example of the damage cultural ignorance can do.

In October, two boys who were staying in Mordon, South London, were attacked while playing football with local teenagers.