I watched the Democratic Debate that was held in Detroit on Sunday last night on PBS. PBS was showing it as a public service. The Democrats probably wish they hadn't. I watched to see if there was one of these people capable of leading this country. It was a sad showing. If Bush-bashing is the primary qualification for being president all of these people are highly qualified because that is about all I heard. They all were singing from the same hymnal as far as the poor job they think President Bush is doing. The Democrats called Bush nearly every name in the book -- "a miserable failure," an "abomination," a "gang leader" and a "bully." He was described as fiscally irresponsible and said to be deliberately misleading the country in the war on terror.

Dick Gephardt was pathetic. He even called the moderator by the wrong name. It looked like he was sick. Sharpton delivered all the laugh lines and got the biggest applause for his anti-Bush rants after which he smugly looked around as if to say "if all these people are cheering so hard why aren't I ahead in the polls? Note to Al: you are in Detroit and you have done some terrible things in your life that everyone knows about. Wesley Clark said some inane thing about voting for a friend instead of himself and losing a grade school election by one vote in the only election he has ever participated in as a candidate. Clark comes up with some good sound bites but really is Clinton-lite. Kerry acts like and sounds like a nutcase to me. He is trying to do what Gore was to smart not to do - ride on Clinton's coattails. Kuninch is a nutcase. I like Joe Lieberman. He comes across as a nice guy who understands the issues. He panders to his constituencies too much but he is just another politician. He is probably the one I would most likely vote for if someone were holding a gun to my head. Carol Mosely Brawn doesn't have the qualifications to be president but does a great job of articulating her positions and views. She only lied a couple of times whereas it seem that most of the others lied every time they opened their mouths. If voters do not understand the issues how can they tell when these people stretch the facts and downright lie. Edwards makes me sick. Dean is scary. He is ahead almost everywhere and looks like a smug cat that has swallowed the rat. He got very little applause from the audience. He seemed to be detached and out of touch or maybe he is always like that.

Using the well-worn Democratic tactic of creating a bogeyman, all the candidates threw out, with a sneer, the name of John Ashcroft like it was Hitler's. When the moderator pointed out the fact that the US Congress passed the Patriot Act and gave the Attorney General power in the law what did they expect him to do? They dodged the question by bashing AG Ashcroft some more. They refused to take responsibility for their votes just as they have on other issues. Leadership and integrity in action.

All of the candidates were for raising axes. The income gained from this, it seems, will be used to fund more entitlements benefiting the Democratic base.

It was a very sad showing for the Democratic Party. Watching the debate reinforces what others are saying: if a Democrat is elected president, the war on terror is over. We will pull the troops out of Iraq and Afganistan and let the Bathists and the Taliban win. We will sit back and hope no one attacks us again. If a Democrat is elected we will get a tax increase and more entitlement type programs that are almost bankrupting us now.

Dorothy Rabinowitz writes a piece called The 90-Minute Hate - Was that a Democratic debate or a Republican campaign ad? Dorothy probably can probably write 10 articles on the debate. She accurately describes Wesley Clark's performance and probably could have easily done the same with the others.

Andrew Sullivan neatly takes apart the debate here. Worth reading.

SONTAG AND THE KILLERS:

This just in from the AP:

New York-born writer and human rights activist Susan Sontag on Tuesday criticized U.S. President George W. Bush for not admitting that the U.S invasion in Iraq was wrong and that the Arab country is being driven into chaos.

"You can't expect the government of President Bush to say, 'We made a mistake by invading Iraq,'" said Sontag. "He (Bush) says they (the bombers) are just criminals, amateurs, they are enemies of the Iraqis, we (Americans) are friends of the Iraqis". "This type of propaganda is not going to change, and if they (the U.S. military) eventually leave Iraq, the message will always say: 'We've won the war.'"

I think what Sontag is saying is that the murderers of the last week are actually the true friends of the Iraqis, and that the Americans are the enemy. I think what she is saying is that Saddam Hussein and his murdering goons are preferable to a democratic and pluralist Iraq. I think what she is saying is that she wants to see the United States defeated by Baathist terrorists. If you ever had any doubts where the far left is headed, listen to Sontag. Before long they will be forced to the logical conclusion of their current hatred of the U.S.: open support for Islamist terror.

Damn, that is good. The murdering thugs in Iraq watch and listen to people like Sontag and will continue their murderous rampage as long as people like Sontag and the Democratic presidential candidates give them hope that they can use terrorists tactics to force the U.S. to abandon the Iraqi people again like we abandoned them in 1991 and the Somalians in 1993.

"What's all this fuss I hear about endangered feces? That's outrageous. Why is feces endangered? How can you possibly run out of such a thing? Just look around you--you can see it all over the place. And besides, who wants to save that anyway?"--Gilda Radner as Emily Litella, "Saturday Night Live," ca 1976

The City of Angels has a problem reports the LA Times. People are urinating and defecating on the streets. I was wondering what that smell was. Jay Leno should be able to mine this problem for a 100 jokes. I can think of 3 or 4 off the top of my head.

We have the same problem with dogs here in Phoenix. Or should I say with their owners. It looks like the LA city council has had enough and the city police now have the wonderful task of arresting those caught with their pants down and collecting the evidence. The homeless advocates in LA are up in arms about the new law saying there aren't enough public restrooms in LA and the law is unfairly directed at the homeless.

Next, the liberals figure out a way to blame Bush for this problem and it will be the lead story on ABC News.

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean. ---Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(Thanks to the WSJ's Best of the Web)

Our enemies do not suffer from the same doubts. Our enemies know what they want. Our enemies are not tortured by moral relativism. Our enemies cut the throats of flight attendants, and drive planes full of screaming people (just like you and me) into the skyscrapers we built (with sweat and blood and inspiration and vision), calling out the name of their false god. Our enemy boards a bus in Tel Aviv. Our enemy drives a truck loaded with explosives into an embassy in Kenya, or a nightclub in Bali, or a hotel in Jakarta. General Boykin is not our enemy. Never forget 9/11.

My morning blog wanderings turns up this little gem of a slip-up on Electrolite, an extremist lefty blog.

As we Lefties obviously always do when we gather, we plotted the furthering of the Liberal Media’s anti-American agenda, including, but not limited to, cheering on the prospects of greater quagmire in Iraq and another million lost jobs; we also ate, drank and generally made much merry.

Electrolite comes out for election fraud. They charge that the Louisville Republican Party's decision (full Louisville Courier-Journal story here) to send poll watchers to polls in precincts where there are not Republican judges is nothing more than racism. The NAACP in Kentucky is complaining too, calling it blatant intimidation. How it can be intimidation for someone to make sure those coming to vote are qualified in the absence of local qualified members from the other party? Did the NAACP complain about intimidation when poll watchers from other countries were sent to Third World countries to keep and eye on things? If they did I never heard a word about it.

What the Republicans are doing is legal under Kentucky law. Both Republicans and Democrats (and any other parties) are allowed to appoint challengers who can question voters they have "a reason to believe" aren't qualified to cast ballots. Poll watchers receive the same training as poll workers. The precincts in question have had voting irregularities in the past. Kentucky has had poll watchers in the past to mainly check to see who has or has not voted and get their supporters to the polls. The voters can't be indiscriminately challenged and the challengers must have a valid reason to believe that a voter's qualifications are questionable. Challenged voters must sign an oath swearing they are bona fide before they will receive a ballot. Those who refuse won't be allowed to vote unless an election officer verifies that they meet voting requirements or that the challenge is unwarranted.

If there are no irregularities the Democrats have nothing to fear from some folks acting as poll watchers. Why would someone be afraid of someone asking them for a picture ID? That doesn't make sense. This is not keeping anyone down. Of course, there are those who never shrink from the opportunity to yell "racism".

One of the comments on Electrolite (by the wife of the blogs owner) says in a rant about how the Republicans stole the 2000 Presidential election:

There are only two ways to guarantee you're not going to lose an election. One is to not have an election. The other is to rig the elections. It's just a question of mechanisms. If people don't start making noise now, not just reporting and deploring, it's going to work.

She evidently overlooked another way to lose an election: have an idiot or criminal for a candidate. Although that is not always a sure thing.

Then in another post on Electrolite the blog owner posts this:

The thing is, that's not the problem. The actual problem--the actual task at hand--is maintaining an open and accountable democracy which provides as few opportunities to cheat as possible.

In other words only the Democrats can take actions to insure that elections aren't rigged or denying people the opportunity to cheat. If Republicans do it, it is racism.

This is a great post. Why? I don't know. Maybe because I don't like cats very much.

John Scalzi is a favorite blogger of mine. He blogs professionally for AOL and has his own Whatever blog. Stop in for some good, interesting and entertaining writing. He is a liberal/moderate type of guy but not one of those Bush-bashing, foaming at the mouth kind you find on tasteless, shrill, and extremist liberal blogs like Electrolite. I really admire the way Scalzi writes. If I could figure out how he does it I would write that way.

My spousal unit makes quilts for a hobby. Her latest project involves making an embroidered "square" (actually a hexagon in this case) for each state with the state name,state Flower, state Bird, state outline, with a star to show the location of the state capital, the date and order of each state's admission to the Union. The birds and flowers are just not outlines but are filled with the true colors of each bird and flower. My wife had to print out pictures of each to get just the right colors.

The squares will all be pieced together around an embroidered outline of the United States. The outside border will be red, white, and blue. The quilt's pattern came from her mother who ordered it from a catalog some time ago, but it appears to be still available. The pattern, the 50-State Americana Hexagon Quilt, Design 533 was probably printed after 1976.

Each square took 10 hours to embroider. She did these during her daily commute to work in downtown Phoenix. She estimates that she has spent at least 550 hours working on the quilt over past 2 years. At her normal rate of pay that makes the quilt worth over $10,000.

This case is beginning to shape up as slamdunk not guilty verdict. Roger Simon comments on it here better than I can. A doctor made an interesting comment on a Roger Simon's post:

As a physician, I see many "date rape" cases. I often advise the women to report the cases, but not to prosecute because (1) the evidence won't hold up and (2) it is a "he said she said" and she will be trashed. The evidence of vaginal trauma usually suggests rape, but if she has evidence of sex with two men, the implication is not that she is a slut, but legally that there is no way to prove which of the men caused the trauma.

Before I knew of any of the facts other than that the girl went to his room, I thought that Bryant was going to be a free man. Without evidence of being forcibly raped not many juries would convict a man and send him to jail when the woman willingly went to the man's hotel room late at night. We now know more about what actually happened that night and it is apparent from what has been revealed so far that the young lady more than willingly went to Bryant's room.

The Viking Pundit goes after Senator Kerry for over-use of the phrase "he needed no lessons".

Unfair? ........ Nah.

The Massachusetts based Viking Pundit is a good source for funny stuff about the oh-so-serious Senator John Kerry, the French-looking presidential candidate who, by the way, served in Vietnam.

The Democrats must be reeling from a visious one-two to the head from a couple of their own. Liberal New York Times writer Nicholas Kristoff unloads the first blow with an unusual story about Valerie Plame. It must have been a shock because liberal bloggers like Mark Kleiman who usually immediately jumps all over Valerie Plame reports and blogs and joyfully points out how this will lead to arrests and firings. Now it has been 6 days and it is obvious Kleiman is in hiding on the Plame affair and has been reduced to shilling for Wes Clark. The Just One Minute blog covers it. Kristoff writes:

All in all, I think the Democrats are engaging in hyperbole when they describe the White House as having put Mrs. Wilson's life in danger and destroyed her career; her days skulking along the back alleys of cities like Beirut and Algiers were already mostly over. Moreover, the Democrats cheapen the debate with calls, at the very beginning of the process, for a special counsel to investigate the White House. Hillary Rodham Clinton knows better than anyone how destructive and distracting a special counsel investigation can be, interfering with the basic task of governing, and it's sad to see her display the same pusillanimous partisanship that Republicans showed just a few years ago.

More on the Plame kerfuffle: The Boston Globe does some research on Plame's cover. It comes up with this:

That's a good thing, considering how little work seems to have gone in to establishing the company's presence in Boston, intelligence observers said. While the renovated building houses legal and investment firms, current and former building managers said they've never heard of Brewster Jennings. Nor did the firm file the state and local records expected of most businesses. Both factors would have aroused the suspicions of anyone who tried to check up on Brewster Jennings, said David Armstrong, an Andover researcher for the Public Education Center, a liberal Washington think tank. At the least, a dummy company ought to create the appearance of activity, with an office and a valid mailing address, he said. ''A cover that falls apart on first inspection isn't very good. What you want is a cover that actually holds up . . . and this one certainly doesn't.''

The shadowy Plame story started out so promisingly for the Democrats and now is to beginning to unravel. Then Andrew Cuomo follows Kristoff with a quick jab by praising President Bush for his leadership and then faults the Democrats for their lack of leadership after 9-11. He is not the first Democrat to see the handwriting on the wall. Some Democrats, of course, aren't happy with Cuomo and have publicly bitten back.

"Cuomo said that one reason the Democrats lost in 2002 is that "we fumbled the seminal moment of our lives - the terrorist attacks of 9-11." While President Bush "exemplified leadership at a time when America was desperate for a leader ... on the Democratic side there was chaos," Cuomo wrote. "We handled 9-11 like it was a debate over a highway bill instead of a matter of people's lives," he added. "People wanted leadership and they didn't get it from the Democrats," Cuomo told the AP."

Hypocrisy is a favorite word of liberals. They look for evidence of hypocrisy everywhere. It is their passion it seems. When they find it, out comes mock outrage language and loud persistent cries of "hypocrisy". Rush Limbaugh's recent problems with drugs are a good example of the liberal hypocrisy police in action.

Now it is my turn. From this website.

This represents hypocrisy at its best because if a white media outlet had published this cartoon there would have been a huge hue and cry for someone to be fired. If the goal of some people is to stamp out stereotypes and racism then cartoons like this one would be a likely target. But it is not. Since the cartoon pokes fun at black Republicans it is okay. Substitute Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Maxine Waters, and any other black "leader" in the picture and there would real hell to pay. Is this a good example of hypocrisy at its best?

General Clark is catching on to this political thing. He is morphing from a supposedly tough, hard hitting Army general into a political hack right before our eyes.

In an excerpt from a WSJ op-ed piece which deals with taxes and the budget, General Clark says, among other things,:

"We will recapture $1 trillion in revenue by adjusting the tax cuts which affect the wealthiest families, those earning more than $200,000 annually."

He throws in a trillion dollars in revenue into his budget plan by using a lovely euphemism for raising taxes, "adjusting the tax cuts", on 3% of the population that is already paying 47% of the taxes. He is simply bribing the lower/middle classes with someone else's money.

The tax cuts, if General Clark hasn't noticed, are helping getting the economy moving again.

Soon General Clark will be indistinguishable from the 8 other political hacks that are running for the Democratic nomination.

The Terri Schiavo case shows the best and the worst in people. There are people that have never known her and the ones that have known her all of her life are desperately trying to keep this young woman alive despite the efforts of her husband, his lawyers and the courts to kill her by removing her feeding and hydration tubes.

The chilling, ghoulish rhetoric used by George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney, to describe the intervention of the Florida legislature and Governor Bush to save Schiavo's life is indicative of a world gone mad:

"George Felos, an attorney for husband Michael Schiavo, said Florida's Republican governor and GOP-controlled Legislature had flouted the "fundamental right to make our own medical treatment choices." He also said there was no hope for the woman's recovery."

Make our own medical treatment choices? Terri Schiavo cannot make her own medical treatment choices. A surrogate has to do that for her. Her surrogate at the moment is Michael Schiavo. Michael is, at the moment, living with another woman with whom he has fathered a child or two. Michael stands to gain one million dollars in untaxed insurance proceeds when Terri is killed. Michael is the one who occasionally comes to the hospital to visit his formerly beloved wife and asks the nurses "Is the bitch still alive?" It is fairly obvious that Terri Schiavo is an inconvenient burden to her husband Michael. A new surrogate needs to be appointed by the court.

Those favoring killing Terri Schiavo include people like Jeffrey Spike, an associate professor of medical humanities who make statements to the effect although Terri makes sounds and appears to be conscious she is not. I'd be willing to bet Dr. Spike's eyes move and he appears to be conscious too.

Then there are those who are trying to paint this as a Republican-Democrat issue. If the Democrats jump on the Let's Kill Terri Sciavo bandwagon I seriously doubt that there will be wide spread support for their stand from any reasonable person.

I was reading the Monkey Media Report for fun and amusement this afternoon when I ran across what must be the new list of excuses the Democrats have come up with for Gray Davis's early retirement and Arnold's overwhelming victory.

Monkey Media sets me laughing with this: "Because Davis represents the Republican wing of the Democratic Party". So their excuse is that Davis was a Republican in disguise!!!

Then he accuses Arnold of being a political coward: "Which makes Arnold something of a political coward, of course - a guy who chose his moment carefully to minimize the amount of time he had to spend campaigning on the issues, and maximize his artifically inflated name recognition. Real macho stuff. It worked, though, didn't it?" If Arnold is a political coward what does that make the Democratic choice, Bustamante? Give me a break.

Of course Monkey Media includes some outright lies like this: "Hell, Republicans didn't even have to wait that long, thanks to California's unusually easy recall law, which is among the loosest of laws in the 18 states that allow recalls." and gives an authorative looking reference to back up this stupid statement. If he had taken the time to read down the page in the reference he would have seen this: "Recall attempts at the state level have been singularly unsuccessful. The only successful recall of a governor to date took place in North Dakota in 1921, when voters removed from office not only Governor Lynn J. Frazier, but also the attorney general and the commissioner of agriculture. California voters have initiated 32 gubernatorial recall attempts since 1911, but the 2003 recall of Governor Gray Davis in 2003 is the first to ever reach the ballot. " If it were easy maybe more than 1 out of 32 would have been successful.

I won't have to read Dave Barry this week for a good laugh or two.