I don’t have the technical know-how of some in the blogosphere, or I would have this cartoon displayed every day on the site, but you really should be visiting Day by Day by Chris Muir every day.
Archives for May 2003
The Groucho Marx Party
Sen. Robert Byrd, in the well (not the sewer well, which would have been fitting for the former Klansmen) of the Senate, on 6 May:
“To me, it is an affront to the Americans killed or injured in Iraq for the President to exploit the trappings of war for the momentary spectacle of a speech.”
and
“I believe that our military forces deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and not used as stage props to embellish a presidential speech.”
Have the Democrats become the Grouch Marx Party? Who are we to believe? The left-wing, or our lying eyes?
The faces of sheer exploitation. It makes me want to cry, they look so abused. How dare Bush?
Big Money Democrats
Now I know why Democrats were in favor of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation- it was just like any other law they write- it was for other people to follow. Clearly, they have no intention of adhering to the letter or the spirit of the McCain-Feingold bill:
Democrats are kicking off a backdoor way of financing their 2004 congressional campaigns today with the very type of unlimited donations from corporations, unions, and individuals that many party leaders had vowed to flush from the political system.
The strategy involves setting up two new groups unmistakably aligned with the Democratic Party’s longstanding campaign organizations for the House and Senate. Technically, the two groups are not arms of the Democratic Party, a key distinction, because the nation’s new campaign finance law bars lawmakers from soliciting ”soft money,” the unlimited money that politicians still crave.
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and minority whip Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, will headline a fund-raising event tonight at the Hotel George for a new group called the New House PAC.
Tonight, the group will raise ”hard money,” a limited, regulated type of donation that lawmakers can legally solicit. But the group plans to ask donors for soft money later this year and to serve as a sort of shadow campaign committee for the Democratic Party, according to sources familiar with the effort.
The overt blessing of Pelosi, Hoyer, and other party leaders is crucial to the group, which hopes to convince potential donors that it is the new surrogate for the Democratic committees no longer allowed to take soft money.
A Reasonable Compromise?
All economic sanctions against the former Hussein regime should be lifted, period. Punishing the people of Iraq simply makes no sense. With that in mind, and knowing that we are going to have to do something to appease the treacherous French, this seems to be a reasonable compromise:
The resolution would allow for a partial payout of the existing $10 billion in approved contracts for food, medicine and industrial goods authorized by the United Nations before the war. It also would allow for a United Nations special representative who would act as a nominal partner in the political reconstruction of Iraq, Security Council diplomats said today.
The two moves seem designed to solicit Russian and French support
The Sensible Left
The sensible left is finally starting to get it- but hey- I told you this months ago when you guys handed the reins to the likes of Pelosi and company. At any rate, here is Matthew Miller’s take:
Every so often you come across evidence that a political party is losing its mind. Something like that is happening to Democrats over President Bush’s fabulous “top gun” photo-op aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. It’s a case study in how Bush and Karl Rove have left so many Democrats undone.
Rep. Henry Waxman of California has asked the General Accounting Office to provide a full accounting of the landing’s costs, since the event had “clear political overtones.” Sen. Robert Byrd, who, as longtime appropriations czar, is in no position to throw stones over dubious uses of taxpayer money, lashed out at Bush instead for “flamboyant showmanship,” saying the White House had no business using the carrier “as an advertising backdrop” for the president’s speech. Democratic staffers are working overtime to gin up media interest in the “scandal.”
Go read the whole thing.
*** Update ***
Richard Cohen says Jeanne Kirpatrick was right (via BOTW).
Democrat Hypocrisy
I wonder what Robert Byrd and the DNC had to say about this photo. Of course, Clinton could never use this photo in a campaign ad- that would drive away the anti-war loony left that serves as the Democrat base.
BTW- The best thing about this whole flap is that the Democrats really think this is an issue. Meanwhile, in Congress, both parties are debating what type and what size of tax cuts to pass.
(Via Henry Hanks who saw this on Neal Boortz’s site)
The Drama, in a Nutshell
What the Democrats really hate about the President visiting the Lincoln is the footage. They hate those photographs, and they are terrified they are going to be used in the 2004 campaign. They will be- anbd they should. But to the idiots who think that the President in a flight suit is ramped up militarism, check out this exchange with Ari Flesicher and a reporter:
Question: And just one on the visit to the Abraham Lincoln. There are some people who have raised a question about the appearance, that the President arrived on deck in a very dramatic, spectacular fashion, on board a military aircraft wearing full flight suit. And there were some people who were concerned that that might have dissolved or weakened the distinction between civilian control of the military and adopt the civilian — the President adopting military regalia at the end of a war. Is the President concerned at all about that?
MR. FLEISCHER: Heavens no, that’s a non-issue. If you noticed, everybody who came off the Viking wore a flight suit, as you were required to wear a flight suit if you were going to participate in a flight on the Viking. That is what you wear if you’re on a Viking.
What bothers them is that Bush looks comfortable and natural. Of course, you all remember this: