posted June 28, 2005 05:44 PM            

When you read the actual, full text of Rove's speech June 22 to the New York Conservative Party it's easy to see why Democratic Party leaders are in such a tizzy.

Rove's speech is one of the most-cogent, heartening political documents to come along in a long, long while. It is required reading to comprehending the import of the president's televised address to the nation Tuesday evening.

Conservative Mainstream

One line in it says it all, and explains why liberals, who usually shrink at being called that (they prefer Democrats or progressives), are trying so hard to have bad things happen to Rove.

Here's that line, and stick a magnet atop it on the refrigerator door: "… conservatism is the dominant political creed in America … ."

If you don't have children or grandchildren who draw pictures there'll be room to add this elaboration from Rove:

"Think for a moment how much has been accomplished by conservatives in the last 40 years. The conservative movement has gone from a small, principled opposition to a broad, inclusive movement that is self-assured, optimistic, forward-leaning, and dominant. …

"President Bush received more votes [in 2004] than any other candidate in American history. He's the first president since 1988 [his father] to win a majority of the popular vote. He increased his popular vote total by 11.6 million votes since 2000 – more than four-and-a-half times President Clinton's increase from 1992 to 1996.

And This Is Losing?

"President Bush increased his percentage in all but three states. He improved his vote in 87 percent of all counties and carried more than 80 percent of the counties – and he won in 97 of the 100 fastest-growing counties… .

"George W. Bush is also the first president since FDR to be reelected while his party gained seats in the House and Senate – and the first Republican president since 1924 [Coolidge] to get reelected while reelecting Republican House and Senate majorities.

"And he won with a higher percentage than any Democratic presidential candidate has received since 1964 [LBJ]."

That's worth papering the refrigerator, for you'll not be hearing those facts very often in the leftist masscomm.

What's News, What's Not

It is this new political reality that assorted leftists and left-over Marxists, who are perishing to regain their glory years, are going bonkers over – not so much what Rove said about post-9/11 liberalism, contrasted with post-9/11 conservatism.

In a minor portion of his speech, Rove made the news only when he said:

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war, liberals saw the savagery of 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

What has rarely been quoted are the following words by Rove that came immediately afterward:

"In the wake if 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to submit a petition.

"I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what Moveon.org did. It was a petition imploring "the powers that be" to "use moderation and restraint in responding to the … terrorist attacks against the United States."

‘Creeping Appeasement'

What Rove described as happening is precisely what did happen, and also precisely what the noted British historian Paul Johnson warned about so presciently only a month after 9/11.

At that time, Johnson observed in the National Review: "Bold and uncompromising words were spoken by American (and British) leaders in the immediate response to the Manhattan Massacre."

Then he warned against just exactly what Rove was describing: "But they may be succeeded by creeping appeasement unless public opinion insists that these leaders stick to their initial resolve to destroy international terrorism completely.

Why It's a Global War

"One central reason why appeasement is so tempting to Western governments is that attacking terrorism at its roots necessarily involves conflict with the second-largest religious community in the world… ."

"It is vitally important that America stick to the essentials of its military response and carry it through relentlessly and thoroughly.

"… it is better in the long run for America to act without many allies, or even alone, than to engage in a messy compromise dictated by nervousness and cowardice.

"That would be the worst of all solutions and would be certain to lead to more terrorism, in more places, and on an ever-increasing scale."

The Creeps Are Creeping

Murmurs of nervousness and cowardice of creeping appeasement about which Paul Johnson warned are now being heard openly in the land, from the halls of Capitol Hill to the shores of Chappaquiddick. Their origins were as Karl Rove described.

When George W. Bush talks with the American people Tuesday evening he will have the opportunity to make clear – one more time – that this country is staying the course, no matter the cost.

This is no more, no less, than the Americans who elected him president expect of him. It is no more, no less, than they, themselves, now owe to their commander in chief.

True Then, True Now

The alarum raised by Thomas Paine, 229 years ago during the American Revolution, is as pertinent today, as is his eloquence:

"These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

posted June 28, 2005 06:48 PM            

For instance, Kerry ALSO received more votes in 2004 than any other presidential contender in history save his opponent.

posted June 28, 2005 07:53 PM            

The increased numbers of Republican House and Senate seats is an indication of the strength of the President. Usually midterm elections see a loss of seats for the party which occupies the White House.

Lastly, Reagan didn't face an all out effort to defeat him including lying press reports designed to scuttle his reelection and election results polls broadcast nationwide that Kerry was the winner. Let me say, the entire intent of the media was to keep Republicans from going to vote in the late afternoon and evening by fixing the early exit polling results. That's a theory but it's backed up by fact that the exit pollers who interviewed and asked voters who they voted for over-sampled likely Kerry voters, mainly women. They skewed the early vote sampling results and the media broadcast those results all over the country.

We will never know how many Republican voters didn't bother going to vote thinking the election was already decided. The media broadcast and called the election for Gore while voters in western states were still voting in 2000. They faced a Senate investigation, apologized and said it wouldn't happen again...but it did.

As for who is dividing America, you need to look to the loony leftists in Congress, in the press and in leftist organizations. Cooperation is a two way street. There hasn't been any from the left. Something the left needs to come to grips with. You lost the damned election, you are not in power, not in the White House, not in the House and not in the Senate. If you don't want to be part of the solution for problems in America then get the hell out of the way and stop obstructing those who are trying to get the job done.

My guess is that the left is going to pay a huge price for their constant sniping and obstructionism in the next election. I don't think you understand how fed up with the left most people who are in the middle of the road politically really are, especially Independents.

posted June 28, 2005 09:17 PM              

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Lastly, Reagan didn't face an all out effort to defeat him including lying press reports designed to scuttle his reelection and election results polls broadcast nationwide that Kerry was the winner. Let me say, the entire intent of the media was to keep Republicans from going to vote in the late afternoon and evening by fixing the early exit polling results. That's a theory but it's backed up by fact that the exit pollers who interviewed and asked voters who they voted for over-sampled likely Kerry voters, mainly women. They skewed the early vote sampling results and the media broadcast those results all over the country.

We will never know how many Republican voters didn't bother going to vote thinking the election was already decided. The media broadcast and called the election for Gore while voters in western states were still voting in 2000.

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posted June 28, 2005 10:11 PM            

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Numbers aren't taken out of context. Numbers are just numbers and they mean what they indicate. Clinton never had a clear majority of the vote.

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The numbers are just numbers, that's true, but despite Clinton never having a clear majority of the vote, he still won by wider margins (percentage-wise) than Bush.

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Lastly, Reagan didn't face an all out effort to defeat him including lying press reports designed to scuttle his reelection

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Regarding exit polling, I watched CNN, and they refused to call the election for either candidate, and made it very clear that they would not call it until the real results were in. Considering the record turnout on both sides I think your claim is simply one of your manufactured dreams of what went down. Kerry got more votes than any presidential contender in history [prior to 2004], and still lost, which indicates a record turnout (in terms of the actual number of people who showed up to vote). It doesn't indicate that Republicans went home discouraged by the news.

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As for who is dividing America, you need to look to the loony leftists in Congress, in the press and in leftist organizations. Cooperation is a two way street. There hasn't been any from the left. Something the left needs to come to grips with. You lost the damned election, you are not in power, not in the White House, not in the House and not in the Senate. If you don't want to be part of the solution for problems in America then get the hell out of the way and stop obstructing those who are trying to get the job done.

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This is BS, and I think you know it. When Bush first ran for president part of what he touted was his bi-partisan work in Texas. He assured everyone we would reach out to the other side to work together to accomplish the goals of the nation. Instead we have the tightest lipped White House in memory, a White House that is only speaking tonight out of political pressure.

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I don't think you understand how fed up with the left most people who are in the middle of the road politically really are, especially Independents.

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We'll see, but I disagree that you have any idea of what's on Independent's minds.

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Time will tell but blaming Kerry's loss and the loss of House and Senate seats on the supposed stupidity of voters is not exactly a winning strategy. If they were only as smart, as superior as we are, Kerry would be President. Right. lol

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No one's saying that's a winning strategy. In fact, I would say that in any election won by either side that there are in fact lots of uninformed voters who vote more based on the environment they are exposed to than their own gathering of the facts available. There are plenty of people who aren't into politics.

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My guess is that the left is going to pay a huge price for their constant sniping and obstructionism in the next election. I don't think you understand how fed up with the left most people who are in the middle of the road politically really are, especially Independents.

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It will all be a matter of spin and personalities. The Left will say look at what the Right has done on it's own, implying that Republicans haven't actually been serving the good of the people. The Right will say, as you are, that the Left are obstructionists.

posted June 29, 2005 03:06 PM            

OK, I'll split the Democrats and Republicans who didn't vote because the press announced election results prematurely issue with you.

posted June 29, 2005 04:15 PM            

Clinton would never have been president if Ross Perot had not taken 17% of the vote in the 1992 election. The only way he could have won.

You may have been watching the Clinton News Network Acoustic but early exit polling results were going out all over America from ABC, NBC and CBS. Those exit poll results were skewed and there is absolutely no way around that.

The President doesn't stick his finger in the air to decide what to say today Acoustic. That's Bill and Hillary's thing.

There doesn't need to be any spin...the Bush record is very clear and it's the record I pointed out to Bill Kristol...after you posted his article. The rest of the record is that Bush inherited a recession from Clinton..a recession going back to early 2000. Bush produced a booming economy from the wreckage and I might add...over the objections of all the radical leftists...including democrats in the House and Senate....which along with stalling important judicial appointments, wasting the time of the Congress with lamebrained amendments and filibustering nominees which IS and will be seen to be obstructionism. It takes 2 to tango Acoustic and the left wants to *iss and moan but they don't want to dance....because they can't lead.

Thanks for making the very same point the press and other leftists have been making. The electorate is uninformed....if they were informed, they wouldn't have less respect for the press than used car salespersons and Kerry would be President...that's the same old loser and also losing line the left has been trotting out since Algore lost in 2000. Do keep using it

posted June 29, 2005 06:47 PM            

But I would suggest the American voter heard every word Kerry said...and rejected his mixed signals {flip-flopping}, understood his lack of any effective service in the US Senate, rejected his leftist policies of disarming America, rejected his leftist activist past and didn't buy his lying self congratulatory hero status as an American Military hero.

Kerry Loves the Mainstream Media
From the March 21, 2005 issue: . . . And has contempt for the American people.
by P.J. O'Rourke
03/21/2005, Volume 010, Issue 25

JOHN KERRY EFFECTIVELY ENDED
HIS political career on February 28, 2005, during a little-noticed event at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. Senator Kerry was being presented with the library's "Distinguished American Award"--a bust of John Kennedy. The artist had portrayed JFK with head slightly tilted. The bust looked puzzled. The award was presented by Senator Ted Kennedy, who phoned it in. Supposedly Kennedy was rushing to catch the "last plane out of Logan" to get to Washington for a vital debate on bankruptcy reform legislation. Why the other senator from Massachusetts wasn't vital was not explained. Nor was it explained why any Democrat was vital to a debate on legislation that was simply to be passed by the Republican majority and signed by the Republican president.

Paul Kirk, chairman of the Kennedy library, former Ted Kennedy staffer, and head of the DNC back when Kennedys mattered, introduced Kennedy's disembodied voice. Kennedy praised Kerry's "passion for the value of politics" and "practice of the politics of values." (Where is Ted Sorenson when you need him?) Kennedy did his best to laud Kerry's thin legislative record: "a key voice on arms control." He added, "I can't wait for Kerry in oh-eight" and suggested this as a bumpersticker.

The rest of the evening was devoted to "A Conversation with Senator John F. Kerry." Acting as interlocutor was Boston Globe columnist Thomas Oliphant, who simpered and fidgeted and compared Kerry to Adlai Stevenson.

Addressing the audience of tame Democrats, Kerry explained his defeat. "There has

been," he said, "a profound and negative change in the relationship of America's media with the American people. . . . If 77 percent of the people who voted for George Bush on Election Day believed weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq--as they did--and 77 percent of the people who voted for him believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11--as they did--then something has happened in the way in which we are talking to each other and who is arbitrating the truth in American politics. . . . When fear is dominating the discussion and when there are false choices presented and there is no arbitrator, we have a problem."

America is not doctrinaire. It's hard for an American politician to come up with an ideological position that is permanently unforgivable. Henry Wallace never quite managed, or George Wallace either. But Kerry's done it. American free speech needs to be submitted to arbitration because Americans aren't smart enough to have a First Amendment, and you can tell this is so, because Americans weren't smart enough to vote for John Kerry.

"We learned," Kerry continued, "that the mainstream media, over the course of the last year, did a pretty good job of discerning. But there's a subculture and a sub-media that talks and keeps things going for entertainment purposes rather than for the flow of information. And that has a profound impact and undermines what we call the mainstream media of the country. And so the decision-making ability of the American electorate has been profoundly impacted as a consequence of that. The question is, what are we going to do about it?"

Kerry is hilariously bad as a demagogue. A low subculture and its inferior sub-media are thwarting the will of the sacred mainstream? His small sparks of malice were blurred by vast, damp clouds of Kerry-fog--murky budget critiques, hazy pronouncements on Social Security and health care, foreign policy vaporings, leaden anecdotes, and an obscure protest that 45 percent of West Virginians lack sewer hook-ups. Kerry was led back to the main point by a question from the audience: "How [do we] stop the media from creating and perpetuating the divisive red state/blue state situation?"

Kerry looked sympathetically at Oliphant--a representative of the mainstream media--and answered as if Oliphant himself had asked the question. "Tom, I swear I don't have the answer to that. And I'm looking for it just like everybody else is. . . . I think part of what we have to do is have an impact on the economics. The corporatization of the media in America has taken away some of the willingness of the media to do the great muckraking they used to do and to be the accountability folks they used to be. And so you have so many different media outlets that are just bottom-line, and they go where the ratings tell them to go. And there's a top-down hierarchical administration of what they'll go after and what they'll do, and it's driven by the economics more than anything. I think if we were to change the economics a little bit through grassroots effort, then you might begin

to see a shift." Kerry did not elaborate on the nature of this grassroots effort. Do we smash the windows of Rupert Murdoch's headquarters? Do we nationalize the Drudge Report? "Now, beyond that," Kerry said, shrugging and pausing, "an epiphany of some kind?" Or do we just get in touch with our inner mainstream?

Kerry smirked at Oliphant. Oliphant smirked back. Kerry went on: "A lot of the mainstream media were very responsible during the campaign. They tried to put out a balanced view, and they did show what they thought to be the truth in certain situations of attack. . . . But it never penetrated. And when you look at the statistics and understand that about 80 percent of America gets 100 percent of its news from television, and a great deal of that news comes from either MTV, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Jay Leno, David Letterman, you begin to see the size of the challenge." (Those were all Kerry supporters or, at any rate, Bush opponents, but this thought--if any thinking occurred--didn't slow Kerry.) "And so I don't have the total answer. I just know it's something that we've really got to grapple with."

Oliphant responded, in a responsible mainstream media way, saying, "Going back to the economics of it, though, isn't this why God created the Sherman and Clayton acts?"

You never know what's going to set someone off. Maybe the mention of antitrust legislation evoked subliminal images of unfair competition, tipping the balance of Kerry's mind and causing miswired synapses to fire. Suddenly he went from having some wrong opinions and even a few wicked thoughts to having--how does one put this in the mainstream media?--special needs.

"That's something," Kerry said, "that a president with a veto pen and with the right of proposal can achieve. But in this particular dynamic don't hold your breath. There ain't going to be no effort to change that or restore the Fairness Doctrine. This all began, incidentally, when the Fairness Doctrine ended. You would have had a dramatic change in the discussion in this country had we still had a Fairness Doctrine in the course of the last campaign. But the absence of a Fairness Doctrine and the corporatization of the media has changed dramatically the ability of and the filter through which certain kinds of information get to the American people . . . "

posted June 29, 2005 08:25 PM              

No other elections have had this problem. that should tell you something right there.

Fox news were the first to announce the winner. Then everyone went by what they said.

Funny how the man who accounced the winner is related to him.

posted June 29, 2005 09:07 PM            

Whoooops.

You're right though, something sure was going on with the vote...well not the vote actually, but the reporting on the results of the vote.

posted June 29, 2005 10:07 PM              

Fox news were the first to announce the winner. Then everyone went by what they said.

Funny how the man who accounced the winner is related to him.

posted June 30, 2005 12:57 AM            

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Clinton would never have been president if Ross Perot had not taken 17% of the vote in the 1992 election. The only way he could have won.

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And yet Clinton still won by more than 3% even in three party elections. Also, Clinton won his last election with 33 states, and 49% of the total vote (8% above Dole). Perot was in his second election as well, and drew 8% of the vote, so much for that theory.

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I love how you claim everyone is completely informed, and then bring out slogans and catch-phrases straight from Carl Rove. You can go to Factcheck.org to find out all the falsehoods put out by both campaigns during the election. For you to accept without question your own party's assertations is pretty ridiculous. I especially like the Zell Miller-ish assault of Kerry's record on defense when Kerry was supporting then Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney's, recommendations. Do a search on, "Kerry, Cheney, defense," and see for yourself. You're always accusing others of getting their opinions from their party, when you are, in fact, the worst offender in this respect that I've ever seen on a political forum.

posted June 30, 2005 01:55 AM              

Lawmaker's Wayward E-Mail Refers To Constituents As 'Idiots'

POSTED: 10:28 am EDT June 29, 2005
UPDATED: 10:50 am EDT June 29, 2005

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. -- A New York state lawmaker says he's embarrassed, after he mistakenly sent out an e-mail message that referred to his constituents as "idiots."

Assemblyman Willis Stephens says he thought he was sending the e-mail to an aide. Instead, he sent the note to nearly 300 people on an online discussion group that focuses on the community of Brewster.

The message included the comment that he was "just watching the idiots pontificate."

Within an hour of sending the message Monday morning, Stephens sent another e-mail apologizing for the slip-up.

Stephens, a Republican, represents an area north of New York City.