Don’t Do Us Any Favors

Those of you who didn’t start watching the debates at 6:30 on CSPAN missed their interview with the University of Miami president and her remarks from the lowered microphone that she’d arranged classes, other acadaemic stuff, and a voter registration drive to get students more involved in the carnival that took place at University of Miami yesterday.

Donna “I Am Not Bowzer” Shalala.

Former Secretary of Health and Human services under William J. Clinton.

Former head of University of Wisconsin (Mad).

Organizing voter registration drives.

Thanks, Shalalala.

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With So Many Words, How Could You Pick Just One?

Thomas Eagleton opines in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in a piece entitled IRAQ: One word says it all: disaster:

We do not need to recount yet again the history of the war in Iraq. It will go down as one of the most ill-conceived military undertakings in our history.

It doesn’t really get better from there. Instead, the former senator and even more former vice presidential candidate to George McGovern (for crying out loud) pontificates on how history will judge Iraq because Eagleton’s got the long range vision. Which he demonstrates by savaging George W. Bush politically and talking about the short term impact of the war.

Beg your pardon, Senator, but I disagree. I see differences between this war and the telewars of this century held up for cheap political points by forgotten (and hopefully, soon-to-be-forgotten) senators.

I expect that history will judge the Iraq war much like it judges the Spanish-American War, The Mexican-American War of 1848, the Mexican incursions in 1910, or more recently the invasion of Panama; a small war remembered by a few historians and unfortunately not many citizens. Or history will judge the Iraq war like the reckless Iwo Jima incursion: a small battle with its own costs in service of a greater war. But history will not, no matter how hard some self-appointed men of history try, judge Iraq as a carbon-copy of Viet Nam.

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Opening Fire with the Forward Moonbattery

The Bush administration, which rules the world and all of nature through Haliburton and Enron and Martha Stewart Omnipedia with the full support of the Optimists International and Boy Scouts of America, has decided to distract voters from its horrible environmental policies which are turning the northwest into desert and are strip mining all of the sanity from the northeast by temporarily closing the ozone aperature that its supporters at Coppertone paid for.

It’s the only possible explanation!!!1!!!

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Yeah, Me Too

Instapundit reports reports over 8,000,000 hits last month and predicts that he’ll see a traffic drop after the election.

Hey, this site had 3,000 hits last month, and I think it will drop after the election, too.

Actually, I think it will drop this month without an Instalanche to spur about a third of the total monthly traffic in a single day.

But I don’t write for the casual Internet readers. I toss off my insights for my own gratification and for you, the discriminating Internet reader.

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Debablogging: The Wrap

So when the pizza guy brought my pseudobachelor dinner this evening, he pointed to the Bush Cheney sign in the yard and was happy to see it (he explained in with a light Newyorican lilt in his voice). He said Bush was going to bury Kerry tonight. I’m disappointed he didn’t.

I think Bush and Kerry did about what we would have expected. Bush was on message, sometimes almost fumblingly so, Kerry was not intolerable. Kerry might have elevated his discourse from flip-flop to paradox, but he didn’t speak in French.

Kerry raised himself to nearly human, or perhaps lowered himself to nearly human, but you still get the sense that he’s not quite sincere, not quite earnest. Bush is. And I’ll still vote for Bush.

Unlike Instapundit, I don’t think Kim Jong Il will be nervous if Kerry’s elected. He’s about sanctions, resolutions, and Bush is about popping you one if you deserve it. Friends, that’s a capital fear for other nations to have, particularly those with opposing viewpoints.

This liveblogging experience brought to you without the aid of alcohol, because until I get a fridge in this office, it’s a long trip to the kitchen for a refill. This evening’s entertainment also brought to you without the skill of touch typing, which is why your content is thinner here than with the pros. But thanks for coming anyay. I should have listened to my beautiful wife and used that Mavis Beacon she bought me when I was but a young man of eight and twenty.

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Debablogging 35

Bush’s statement:

This is more than the next four years; this is the next hundred years and civilization. No draft. No vetoes over foreign policy. I believe, I believe, and then we, we, mountain metaphor and valley.

Earnest, and he ends it very presidentially. His best performance of the debate, and he trumped Kerry’s response.

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Debablogging 33

Didn’t Kerry say Saddam wasn’t a threat earlier in the debate? Now he says that Saddam was a threat, but that’s not the point.

He’s just paradoxed the whole debate. Wait, didn’t the debate start at 8 pm CDT? Why does my computer clock say 5:34? The space time continuum has ruptured!

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Debablogging 31

The Putin question:

Bush: Centralization in Russia in response to terror is bad, and I’ve said so publicly. Russia’s an ally, though, and Bush invokes Beslan. Calls Vladamir by his first names, and values his personal relationship. A good, even-tempered response. Will Kerry want preemptive invasion to save the Russians and secure the nuclear material?

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Debablogging 28

Kerry’s not going to proliferate, and he’s going to cut ours.

He didn’t say it; just that he’s not going to build nuke buster bombs, but considering he’s been in favor of nuclear disarmament, he’s going to be all over it.

Because it sends a good message.

Of weakness.

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Debablogging 24

We’re the leading donor to African/Sudan humanitarian efforts. Shouldn’t Kerry be against this by rote? Why should America bear 90% of the burden? Cut and run and let the French help…in exchange for a little oil.

Bush mentions the rainy season. Showing some familiarity with the region and considerations above and beyond the headlines.

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Debablogging 22

Kerry breaks protocol and answers the previous question, starting to deflect the Darfur question.

More sanctions, sanctions, sanctions. He’s fumbling this one.

He says we’re overextended. Weakness. Got that, America? We’re weak.

This man didn’t read his Hobbes nor Machiavelli. But they didn’t write in French.

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Debablogging 21

When Bush closes when the red light flashes, he raises his voice and makes it sound like a question.

He’s got the real story on North Korea!

So the North Koreans just magically built up their program just because Bush didn’t sign the Kyoto accords?

Does Kerry want multilateral or bilateral talks? Both.

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