Before the Fall

That is the title of this opinion piece by Pulitzer Prize winning author and Stanford University history professor David M. Kennedy.

I was lucky in that I got to read that opinion piece in today's Mercury News since I am staying in the Bay area for a few days.

At any rate, the article describes exactly why I don't want George W Bush to be re-elected as our president.

Bob likes to criticize me for being "anti-Bush" instead of "pro-Kerry" when in reality I am both. And one of the main reasons that I am "pro-Kerry" is that he has stated that he would pursue policies which are antithetical to the policies of GWB, and for that I am in 100% support. Other Democrats would have done the same thing, and I would be for them because of it if that were the case.

Prof. Kennedy's opinion piece specifies one of the main reasons that I am "anti-Bush" which is that I believe that his decisions in realm of foreign policy have been mostly wrong for this country (with the exception of attacking Afghanistan). I believe that we attacked Iraq because it was one of the goals of the administration from the very beginning, and although the world is better off without Saddam Hussein, the United States is possibly LESS safe because of that action. Prof Kennedy agrees:

The Bush administration's path to war in Iraq is but the most dramatic example of a set of policies that has put at risk the kind of international leadership that has served both America and the world so well for the past half-century. The policies of the past four years have made America and the world less safe, not more.

The entire article is worth a read. And go John Kerry, if for no reason other than he will behave different than George W. Bush (alhough that is not MY only reason).

Belmont Club on Iraq

Coffee With Rhoads readers interested in keeping up with Iraq should keep up with the posts at Belmont Club. The latest posts relate to the patterns of US troop deaths and the number and nature of Iraqi casualites. Read, scroll, and learn.

Squeeze Me

Arnold Kling linked to a Washington Post article on the so-called middle class squeeze. The data don't seem to reflect the tone of the story, though. Kling put the data from the WaPo in tabular form:

Income Distribution	Percent of Households
Range	1967	2003
$75K and up	8.2	26.1
$50K - $75K	16.7	18.0
$35K - $50K	22.3	15.0
$15K - $35K	31.1	25.0
under $15K	21.7	15.9

Kling called this squeezing up. To me it looks like if the middle class was getting a sqeeze it was more like a sqeeze from Jessica Simpson. Hence the title of this post!

[Not sure why there's a big gap above my table. Maybe BRG's CTO knows a trick for removing the space.]

Not Good

I'm hearing too many stories of destruction of Bush or Bush/Cheney signs, bumper stickers and so forth. A few representative links here, here, and the second letter down here. I'm not hearing similar stories of destruction of Kerry or Kerry/Edwards signs, bumper stickers, etc. Perhaps the former reports are more noteworthy to the sources I tend to read and listen to, and the latter reports are more common in the sources Rhoads reads and listens to. If Rhoads gets the time to let me know if he's hearing reports of abuse of Kerry/Edwards signage or people I'd appreciate it.

It looks to me people on the left in America aren't quite as tolerant of opposing political views as they should be. Considering what I've seen on college campuses (including the one down the hill from my home) for the last twenty-plus years, I must admit it doesn't surprise me that people on the evil, intolerant right appear more tolerant of opposing political speach than those on the left.

---

Rhoads' response: Well, I personally know of one person, who is a regular reader of CwR, who had his John Kerry signs vandalized in his yard. He doesn't live in the People's Republic of Boulder like Bob, though. He lives in Colorado Springs. So it probably depends on whether you are going against the prevailing winds as to whether your sign gets vandalized or not. I think that this means that there are jerks on both sides, as well. Perhaps I should get a JK sign for my front yard to see what happens.

Interesting Morning Reading

Another great day in Boulder. The Mrs and I enjoyed a little coffee (without Rhoads, unfortunately) in the backyard this morning, accompanied in my case by some intersting reading on Iraq. Specifically I printed out and read four, brief informative pieces.

First was a post from Varifrank titled "Iraq: It's not for us". Varifrank addresses four issues regarding why we're fighting in Iraq.

The second was a piece from FoxNews.com by Claudia Rossett and George Russell titled "Possible Saddam-al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program". The title pretty much describes the content of the article.

The third piece was from National Review Online by Victor Davis Hanson titled "See ya, Iraq?". The subtitle is "Leaving now would be a disaster."

Finally I read an email from a "Major in the USMC serving in the Multi-National Corps' staff in Baghdad." The title of his email is "Doom & Gloom about Iraq's future...I don't see it from where I'm sitting."

The series covers broadly why we're there, a specific element of why we needed to go, why we need to stick it out, and how things are going as of now. I recommend the whole series to CwR readers.

[Most if not all the links were initially pointed out by Glenn Reynolds I think.]

Pro Kerry Posts?

In response to Rhoads' claim that he has blogged about his reasons for voting FOR John Kerry (as opposed to "anybody but Bush"), I took a walk down Blog Memory Lane courtesy of those Archive links to the left.

Holy smokes I've posted a lot! Anyway, here are the results of my search of the archives, post by post.

Rhoads wrote nothing in support of John Kerry in February, March or April. There were a couple of noteworthy posts in April, though. First, was my link to Robert Tagorda's search for a blogger or somebody who'd written something in support of Kerry rather than "we need to get rid of Bush" or "Kerry is better than Bush". That post is here.

The next post was this one by Rhoads where he said he sent money to Kerry. His reason?

"I am so scared to have George W. Bush continue as our president that I sent money to the Kerry campaign."

Anybody but Bush.

Moving on to May, June and July I found no positive statements of why Kerry was the man from Rhoads. Rhoads was busy with baseball. On to August...

Rhoads sited General McPeak on "why we need to get rid of Bush" in this post from Monday, August 15th.

On the brink of exhaustion from my walk down Archive Lane, finally I found something from Rhoads about Kerry's positions. In a response to my question about Kerry's Iraq policy, Rhoads' linked to the Kerry web site. That came in a reply to this post of mine on August 16th. Rhoads endorsed some of the particular sections, then nearly gave us a reason to vote for Kerry (rather than against Bush):

I think John Kerry has a better chance of putting together the right team to get that job done. It will involve the cooperation of many other nations, and at this point I think that quite a number of them just don't want to work with Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.

He said Kerry "has a better chance" than the current administration. It doesn't meet the Tagorda Standard, but perhaps it qualifies as a "pro-Kerry post" on a blog where it's mostly anti-Bush from Rhoads.

That wasn't all I found in August, though. In this post Rhoads linked to a Forbes magazine story saying that we experience gretater prosperity under Democrats than Republicans. Rhoads concludes we should elect a Democrat. Then adds the Democrat is John Kerry. Close. But I can't count that one as pro-Kerry since it seems the argument is any Democrat will do.

In this post Rhoads linked to the Kerry Plan and specifically mentioned the section on restoring fiscal responsibility. I'll give you this one as a pro-Kerry position, but it seems equally plausible to me that it's a reaction to Bush's fiscal irresponsibility. I don't know how big a deficit fighter Rhoads was in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s when the deficits were much larger as a fraction of the national economy. I know John Kerry has not been a noted fiscal conservative in his twenty year career in the US Senate (where was he on Gramm Rudman, for example?). But John Kerry, fiscal conservative, got a plug from Rhoads in this post.

After all this, I guess Rhoads hasn't been completely silent on why a person should vote FOR Kerry as opposed to why a person should not vote for Bush. That last post was sort of pro-Kerry, a fiscal coservative Kerry. But pro-Kerry, I guess.

A CwR reader could certainly be excused for thinking Rhoads hasn't exactly made a strong pro-Kerry case, as opposed to the anti-Bush case. Nor has anyone else as far as I can tell, Kerry included.

Which is why the election isn't shaping up to be particularly close, and why any policy discussions should now be about how to get the second Bush Administration to do some of what you think Kerry would have done as president. Dreaming about a Kerry Administration is just that. I doubt even Kerry thinks he's going to win at this point.

Sorry if I'm unimpressed by the "we need to engage our allies" argument on Iraq. I particuarly don't like the dismissiveness toward the sacrifices made by the countries that have stepped up and joined us. Sure more cooperation from more nations would be nice. It would have been nicer if those nations had been on board from the start. Instead, some countries (France, Germany, Russia) chose continued trade with Hussein over liberating Iraq.

Real Issue #1: Iraq

OK, although I have blogged before about my reasons for voting FOR John Kerry, Bob continues to say that I don't. So I submit John Kerry's plan for Winning the Peace in Iraqas my first real issue. John Kerry is going to work with the rest of the world to get us to peace in Iraq, something that George W. Bush has steadfastly refused to do. President Bush allows other nations to send us a couple of dozen of soldiers so that they can say they are on our side, but he makes it clear that we are in charge, which I think is a bad plan.

John Kerry, on the other hand, wants to build alliances with other nations, (through the auspices of the gasp United Nations) and do this WELL. He also recognizes that our Armed Forces need to come home so that we can have them available in case we have to attack a country which is actually a threat to us. John Kerry recognizes a bad war when he sees it, and he should know because he saw a bad war 30 years ago.

That's #1. More to come.

Real Issues

Once again Rhoads fails to present a case for John Kerry as a president. In Rhoads' email to me, he asked if I was getting bored with CwR. My answer was no. After reading Rhoads' posts during my hiatus, the answer is yes. Too much argumentum ad hominem, too much faith in CBS News, and too much faith that John Kerry will win in November.

I'll give Rhoads credit for highlighting a significant difference between the people who will vote for Bush and the people who won't (including those who choose to make their non-Bush vote a Kerry vote). Rhoads says that the key difference is that people not voting for Bush don't see the war in Iraq as part of the war on terror. I think that's right. He says that people who do see the war in Iraq as part of the war on terror are under the spell of Bush marketing and propaganda (argumentum ad hominem). Even though Rhoads carves out an obvious and critical distinction between the Bush and non-Bush camps, he cannot resist the argumentum ad hominem. Disappointing.

At the risk of having my person attacked rather than the arguments I present, I'll reproduce the substance of Rhoads' post below on the Iraq-war on terror connection, or lack thereof:

I think that Novak is wrong in the first part of his statement, in that many liberals (myself included) DO want (if not like) the war on terror. That is to say, we do believe that it is the responsibility of our government to do its best to prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States. In the second part of his sentence, however, he says that we "refuse to see the vividly clear connection between the two." That is because THERE IS NONE.

I don't have time to post the hyper links, but let me summarize why I think Rhoads is wrong.

I think that we in the civilized world are under attack, a declared jihad, from radical Islamists who want to kill all infidels. These radical Islamists have killed innocent people in the name of their religious cause for roughly thirty years. The U.S. has been the target of these attacks going back to at least the 1980s. Israel has been the target of these attacks for longer than that. Murders of civilians in east Africa, Jakarta, Afghanistan, Spain, Italy, Russia, the Phillipines, and on and on have been part and parcel of a global war that as of September 11, 2001 the U.S. began to take seriously.

The first retalliatory battle waged by the U.S. and its allies in this global war (aside from missile strikes in places like Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. in years past) was in Afghanistan. The next battle was waged in Iraq. Rhoads denies a connection between the two. I'll examine his reasons below. Suffice to say that I think there is ample reason to think that the war in Iraq is part of the global war on terror, or the war against radical Islamists. Why do I say that?

Our government has said so. Absent some very broad conspiracy, I don't think that the president, the congress (including Mssrs Kerry and Edwards), and very many outside analysts would have said that ousting Saddam and attempting to establish democracy in the Middle East was part of a war on terror if that were not the case. This may be a poor strategy or a poor tactic at this time. But I don't think that all these people made false public statements to intentionally mislead us into a war. Rhoads apparently thinks that.

I think Saddam did provide safe haven for Islamist terrorists of all stripes within Iraq

I think there is reason to believe Saddam diverted Oil for Food money to terrorists

I think the fact that Saddam used WMD (specifically chemical weapons) against his own people and invaded his neighbors demonstrated that he was a threat to the world outside his borders

I think that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium from Africa, demonstrating an interest in nuclear weapons.

To me the cost of removing Saddam and the liberation of Iraq is justified by the benefits gained, specifically: removing Saddam (and Uday and Qusay) from power and permanently removing one particular threat, beginning the process of democratization in the Middle East, sending a message to other tyrants (Quaddaffi, e.g.) that there is no more free reign of terror inside "sovereign" borders, bringing the fight to the radical Islamist terrorists in a place and at a time of our choosing rather than theirs, removing one more safe-haven for training, funding and organizing for radical Islamist terrorists.

Rhoads continues:

There are no WMDs.

I agree. We and the rest of the western intelligence agencies failed in our intelligence gathering efforts regarding the development of WMD in Iraq. I think that the cost of going in and finding that their were no WMD is less than the cost of not going in and finding out the hard way (sooner or later) that there were. But I'll concede that we were wrong on WMD in Iraq, especially as to specific locations, specific weapons and so forth.

The 9/11 commission report states very clearly that there was no direct connection betweem Saddam Hussein and the events of 9/11.

Note the careful wording of Rhoads' point: "The 9/11 commission report states very clearly that there was no direct connection betweem Saddam Hussein and the events of 9/11." [bold added by Bob]. The report very clearly finds no direct (how about indirect?) connections between Saddam Hussein (any other Iraqi agents or surrogates? -- for the record I'm not convinced that Iraqis played a role in 9/11, but I'm not sure they didn't) and 9/11 (what about Iraqi involvement in other acts of terror carried out by radical Islamists?). I don't think the 9/11 commission statement is quite as emphatic on the lack of any connections between Iraq and the global war against radical Islamists as Rhoads' statement implies.

And we are no longer even fighting Saddam Hussein. And as far as I am concerned, even if Saddam were in power (and I think it is a good thing for the world that he is not) I do not think that the terroist threat against the United States would be any higher than it is now. In fact, I tend to believe folks like Richard Clarke, whom the president discounted, who say that the threat may even be higher now that we have attacked Iraq than if we had not.

Maybe. I guess we won't know that. We do know that since we attacked Afhanistan and Iraq, we have not been attacked by radical Islamist terrorists. We do know that Spain and Russia have been attacked quite recently. We probably will be attacked in the future. This war is not over.

George W. Bush misled us into a bad war. The ends do not justify the means in this case. I don't blame him entirely, though. Congress should never have handed over the authority to declare war to him in the first place.

I disagree that Bush "misled" us into anything. For what it's worth (certainly not much to Rhoads) John Edwards doesn't think so either. But just because I or Edwards or any number of people think something it doesn't make us right. Rhoads has his opinion and he's clearly not going to be swayed. Fair enough. That's why he's not voting for Bush.

I think there are reasonable disagreements to be had with Bush on the war in Iraq. I've seen plenty of pieces pro and con on whether that was the right tactic, whether it was planned well, whether the troop levels and make-up were right for the invasion and afterwards, whether the goal of democracy is realistic or not for Iraq, whether this engagement stretches us too thin, costs too much (in lives and dollars), whether things are going poorly or well over there right now, the nature and issues surrounding modern warfare, the nature and issues surrounding intelligence in this modern war, and so forth. I'm not expert in any of this, but I have been reading a lot about most of this over the last few years. I conclude that George W. Bush is committed to fighting and winning this global war against radical Islamists. I cannot conclude that about John F. Kerry. I have trouble concluding much about John Kerry, maybe that's his goal. But given what I know about the two candidates, and the presidency of one, I'm voting for Bush in November.

No, the Iowa Electronic Markets (and other vote markets) don't decide elections. Neither do opinion polls. But the markets are not jus "as good as" any other method of predicting the results ahead of time. Based upon history and research, they are better. In any case, the polls also show Bush winning. The state by state polls and markets show Bush with a lead, a growing lead, in the likely electoral college votes. New Jersey and Illinois, once considered extremely safe Kerry states (still considered pretty safe in the electronic markets) are now statistical dead heats in the polls. Iowa is very close. Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, and Arizona, at one time considered toss up states are now pretty clearly in the Bush column.

Is that because Kerry is a bad candidate? Without even going into specifics (e.g. stealing a Howard Dean line-"wrong war at the wrong time" that he had previously criticized strikes me as dumb) of Kerry's positions (can you succintly state his position on Iraq?), he is a liberal (strike one) senator (strike two) from a liberal northeastern state (strike three). That combination has proven to be electoral suicide for Democrats for a generation. That makes Kerry a bad candidate, and a bad nominee, aside from the many policy disagreements I and others may have with him. From the perspective of a party that wants desperately to win back the White House, I judge Kerry to be a poor nominee. What are your reasons for judging him not to be a bad candidate or a bad nominee?

Can Kerry rally? Anything's possible. I deal in the probable. I'm moving on to productive things like the issues, not Kerry vs. Bush. To me, the 2004 presidential campaign is now boring.

Iowa Electronic Markets

Did I miss something? Did we pass a Constitutional Amendment saying that the Iowa Electronic Markets are our avenue for the presidential elections? If not, well, I guess that's as good a predictor as any.

Bob says that John Kerry is a bad candidate. He hasn't really given any hard evidence to back that up. I say that George Bush has PROVEN himself to be a bad president. Here are my reasons:

• He has ignored the economy, other than to pass huge tax cuts for people capable of giving him large campaign contributions.


• He has ignored the fact that so many people are having a hard time getting health care in this country.


• He got us into a war in Iraq for no good reason, but he assured us that the reasons were valid.


• This war is costing both American lives and BILLIONS of dollars, and yet he cuts taxes, causing the National Debt to skyrocket out of control.


• He is just plain not smart enough to continue in this job. He just happens to have a GREAT marketing staff which manages to convince people (like Bob) that there really was a strong connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Queada.

Iowa Election Markets aside, I think America will figure it out be election day, especially if the 18-25 year olds get out and vote. George will be fired. Thank goodness.

I'm Back, sort of, part II

Rhoads emailed to see if I was still breathing. After announcing I was back from NYC, I haven't had my usual Coffee With Rhoads. I've been quite busy, but should be back to my hyper blogging by early next week.

By then I shouldn't have to respond to some of Rhoads' posts, most notably anything relating to the hoax CBS fell for. The damage from that story won't be to Bush (see graph below), it will be to Dan Rather, the reputation of CBS News and to whomever passed those documents to CBS.

When I return, I'll probably do much less purely political-type blogging, though, since the 2004 presidential race is looking like a blowout of monumental proportions:

[source: Iowa Electronic Markets]

Rhoads could get more votes than it appears Kerry is going to get. In the spirit of good sportsmanship, I'll stop beating up on John Kerry. Sure he's been a bad candidate, but as I said before, nominating this guy was silly from the get go. The Democratic Party will have to rethink its nominating process to avoid this sort of nominee in the future.

Mr. Bush's Glass House

That's the title of this OP-ED piece in the New York Times. I couldn't agree more. All of the broo ha ha about the President's National Guard service would be a big yawn if he would just own up to it and quit lying about it. In other words, he "served honorably," but only for SOME of his miltary service, and then he pulled strings to finish without completing his service. He should admit that so that we can move on. Maybe he will once he is fired in November.

Partisan Media

For those of us who are still a little skeptical about the whole "liberal media" moniker, I think that this latest issue with the President's National Guard records is a good litmus test for which media outlets are "liberal" and which are "conservative" based on whether they start with the assumption that the documents are real or forged. Fox News, for example, is showing us their colors, much of it in the name of "news."

Now I still think there is a possibility that the documents are not real, but I will fall on the side of them being real unless there is some really strong evidence to the contrary. At this point, there doesn't seem to be any strong evidence to the contrary. Of course, Rush says that there is no question that the documents are fake, but Rush also says that Global Warming is "malarky." Rush is an idiot. Too bad so many people listen to him.

You can say that CBS was being partisan when they created this story, but I would argue that the Bush Administration forced them into it. The Administration was asked why the President didn't show up for a required physical, and they refused to answer the question. The claimed to release the President's "military" records, and they didn't. So CBS went in search of them and came up with some. If they created them from whole cloth, then you will see me blast CBS in the future. At the moment, it isn't obvious to any thinking person (Rush doesn't fall into that category) that they are fake.

Media Matters has done a pretty good job of debunking the claimed reasons for knowing that the docs are forged. The best article on those lines is available here. Another good one, discrediting William Safire (whom I admire and respect) is available here.

Ah, and a good article on Rush's Global Warming lunacy is available here.

Bush's National Guard records

Well, CBS News has unearthed some old memos which they continue to stand by indicating that Goerge Bush was indeed missing during some of his service time with the Texas/Alabama Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. Of course, Fox News has probed into the memos and seems to thing that they might be forgeries. This will be interesting. Why? Well, because if the documents turn out to indeed be real, then it indicates more about the shoddy character of our President. The biggest problem as I see it is that he lied about it when asked about it a few months ago. If the documents are forgeries, then CBS should be ashamed of themselves, and they should be harshly reprimanded.

The crux of the matter per Michael Novak

Bob posted an article by Michael Novak at the National Review about Zell Miller. Ignoring the laughability of anyone trying to seriously say that Zell Miller has anything useful to say, I pick out this particular quote from the Novak article which is one of the main differences between me and Bob, and quite possibly between people who will be voting for George Bush and people who will be voting for John Kerry come November.

The left wing of the Democratic party doesn't like either the war on terror or the war in Iraq, and refuses to see the vividly clear connection between the two.

I think that Novak is wrong in the first part of his statement, in that many liberals (myself included) DO want (if not like) the war on terror. That is to say, we do believe that it is the responsibility of our government to do its best to prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States. In the second part of his sentence, however, he says that we "refuse to see the vividly clear connection between the two." That is because THERE IS NONE. There are no WMDs. The 9/11 commission report states very clearly that there was no direct connection betweem Saddam Hussein and the events of 9/11. And we are no longer even fighting Saddam Hussein. And as far as I am concerned, even if Saddam were in power (and I think it is a good thing for the world that he is not) I do not think that the terroist threat against the United States would be any higher than it is now. In fact, I tend to believe folks like Richard Clarke, whom the president discounted, who say that the threat may even be higher now that we have attacked Iraq than if we had not.

George W. Bush mislead us into a bad war. The ends do not justify the means in this case. I don't blame him entirely, though. Congress should never have handed over the authority to declare war to him in the first place.

But people like Michael Novak who say that there is a "vividly clear connection" between the War and Iraq and the War on Terror are plain wrong. They have listened too much to the Bush propaganda. It is time for this president to leave, ESPECIALLY because of this extremely aggredious error.

Zell and the Democratic Party

Michael Novak gets it.

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Rhoads' response: What's to get? An old Dixiecrat rants and raves, trashing the name of another Democrat for his own personal gain, when just a few years ago he praised that very same person, also for personal gain. Perhaps he is as pissed as the SBVAJK, and so uses similar logic - i.e. none at all. Fine. But then to challenge Chris Matthews to a duel? Come on, Bob. The guy's a total lunatic, and when Rush and Novak praise him at all, they are just tarnishing their own credibility. Well, Rush doesn't really have any credibility any more, but Novak is usually pretty level headed.

Bob's reply:
Aside from missing or ignoring the point of the Novak piece, and despite accusing Zell Miller of using "similar logic - i.e. none at all," Rhoads resorts to his own favorite logical fallacy, the argumentum ad hominem. Goodness, the above is almost a classroom example of argumentum ad hominem.

Rhoads first questions Zell Miller's character by calling him a derogatory name ("old Dixicrat"). Then Rhoads questions Miller's motives ("for his own personal gain"). Then Rhoads again questions Miller's character by calling him another name ("a total lunatic").

Rhoads continued reliance on the argumentum ad hominem is most unbecoming, especially from a Princeton educated man.

Look What's Cooking

I jus put two loaves of Rachel's famous banana bread into the oven. For those of you who may not have the recipe, here it is:
Rachel's Famous Banana Bread
1 1/2 c. flour
2/3 c. sugar
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
3-4 very ripe bananas [the blacker the better]
1/3 c. softened butter
2 T. milk
2 eggs

In large bowl, combine 1 c. flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add bananas, butter, and milk. Beat on high for 2 minutes. Add eggs and remaining 1/2 c. flour. Mix until blended. Put in greased load pan. Bake in 350 degree oven for 55 minutes.

Only 48 minutes to go...

Today it is coffee and banana bread with Rhoads.

Zell Miller: flip-flopper?

Well, Democratic Senator Zell Miller from Georgia burned a bridge or two last night at the RNC. My guess is that we won't be calling him the "Democratic" Senator from Georgia for very much longer. I doubt that the Democratic Party will be giving him a whole lot of support in the future after his attacks on their presidential nominee. I didn't actually see his speech, but I have read the text. Powerful stuff. Of course, it directly contradicts his statements from a few years ago at the Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson dinner:

Kerry An "Authentic Hero": "My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders -- and a good friend. He was once a lieutenant governor -- but he didn't stay in that office 16 years, like someone else I know. It just took two years before the people of Massachusetts moved him into the United States Senate in 1984. -- U.S. Senator Zell Miller [Remarks to the Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson Dinner 2001]

Kerry "Strengthened Our Military": "In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington. Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so. John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment."

This guy is obviously quite the politician. Welcome to the Republican Party, Senator Miller. I guess it is a good thing that you are not running for reelection. Perhaps you can retire in Minnesota, since you are such a loon.

Air America in Denver (Boulder)

It appears that Air America Radio is now available on AM 760, which used to carry Rush every so often. Apparently that station has now moved to Boulder. Now of course, the reasonible citizens of Boulder don't really need it (except maybe the Boulder staff of the BRG) but luckily the broadcast covers the suburbs as well. Go Air America!

I'm Back

The wife and I just returned from a wonderful long weekend in New York City. We were there to see some of the US Open tennis tournament, to see a Broadway show (42nd Street--very good), to have a couple of beers at my old haunts (Chumley's and McSorley's) and to eat wonderful food (the best was at Spark's). We were joined there by some friends from the Boulder area and their two sons. A great time was had by all.

Now I'll have to see what Rhoads has posted in my absence...

Niwot Soccer makes its debut on the worldwide web. Cool. Now if there were some way for players to score a bit more often.

The Princeton Tigers will be in Laramie, WY in November. Awesome! I'll be sportin' my sweet black Princeton t-shirt.

Rhoads watched High Society with Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, and Frank Sinatra. Probably my second favorite movie behind only It's A Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart.

And finally Rhoads resorts to ad hominem yet again rather than answering the Swift Boat Vets' charges. Telling. Some things never change.

Oh well. Three quality posts out of four ain't bad. Sean Ratliff-like success rate.

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Rhoads' response: Welcome back, Bob! The coffee just doesn't taste the same without you! I am not sure how catching someone red-handed in a huge lie when he is attacking someone else by accusing that other person of lying is ad hominem, but I guess that's just the way you see it.

Bob's reply: Regarding John O'Neil, Rhoads wrote: "The guy's a lying scumbag, and he is a pissed off lying scumbag." I referred to that as resorting to ad hominem. To help the readers decide if my accusation of argumentum ad hominem against Rhoads is justified, let's define the term.

Definition of argumentum ad hominem: "The person presenting an argument is attacked instead of the argument itself." [Reference source]

With that, I'll leave the verdict to CwR readers.