Sep 25, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Mark Steyn on John Kerry:
What a small, graceless man Kerry is. The nature of adversarial politics in a democratic society makes George W. Bush his opponent. But it was entirely Kerry's choice to expand the field, to put himself on the other side of Allawi and the Iraqi people. Given his frequent boasts that he knows how to reach out to America's allies, it's remarkable how often he feels the need to insult them: Britain, Australia, and now free Iraq. But, because this pampered cipher has floundered for 18 months to find any rationale for his candidacy other than his indestructible belief in his own indispensability, Kerry finds himself a month before the election with no platform to run on other than American defeat. He has decided to co-opt the jihadist death-cult, the Baathist dead-enders, the suicide bombers and other misfits and run as the candidate of American failure. This would be shameful if he weren't so laughably inept at it. ["Kerry's looking for American failure -- and he's it",Sun Times]
Sep 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From the Ayn Rand Institute:
The failure of Dan Rather and CBS News to properly check their sources is not merely an isolated incident of partisan politics, says Dr. Andrew Bernstein, senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. It is representative of a widespread rejection of objectivity within the news media.
"No serious thinker any longer believes in a verifiable, objective reality," said one newsman. An article in the Atlantic Monthly concluded that it is "better to admit from the start the inevitable subjectivity of journalism, and then to treat it as a necessary condition." Such mainstream advocates of what is known as the "new journalism" explicitly devalue, even outright repudiate, a rigorous commitment to facts and truth in the news. As a Washington Post editor put it: "The old objectivity really wasn't the way to report."
Given such an approach, Bernstein asks, why should reporters bother to verify facts as long as a story is congruent with their political agenda? For example, CBS News still stands by its 1988 story of "combat veterans" confessing to heinous actions in Vietnam even though careful research by an independent writer later demonstrated the utterly fabricated nature of the claims. Why should they bow before the facts? Or why should the New York Times bother to check the truth of the claims made by Jayson Blair? After all, "objectivity really isn't the way to report."
The shocking truth, Bernstein concludes, of why major news organizations often do not perform the most elementary tasks of fact checking is that facts are a decidedly secondary consideration to them. Promoting their own subjective view is all that matters.
Sep 20, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Listening to last night's McLaughlin Group I thought I had just stepped off the spaceship into some sort of bizarro universe. I half expected the bizarro Superman to walk in saying "goodbye," wreck the place, and then leave saying "hello." Pat Buchanan, Lawrence O'Donnell, Tony Blankley, and Eleanor Clift all agreed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was a great Russian patriot whose authoritarian reforms were needed. I wonder if there was a similar group of dupes back in 1933 who thought Adolf Hitler was a great German patriot initiating hard and necessary reforms. Of course there were, they worked in FDR's administration, or were truly misguided dolts like Henry Ford.
Vladimir Putin has been putting Russia on the road to total despotism since he became President. He's spent his time, not fighting terrorism, as he now portrays himself to the rest of the world, but assaulting free enterprise and the free press in order to solidify his own cult of personality. He's been installing his old KGB colleagues in posts all over the government and has just recently, in a supposed response to terrorism, suspended all the regional governor elections.
If the Russian people really care about terrorism, or about their own freedom, they need to unseat Putin immediately, by another revolution if need be or else their freedom, new found and imperfect as it is and was, will disappear as quickly as it arrived.
Recommended reading:
The "Crony" in Russian "Capitalism" is Socialism by Richard Salsman, CFA
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 did not usher in capitalism. It merely replaced communism with socialism.
Sep 20, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
On Thursday, September 23, 2004, Yaron Brook, President and Executive Director of Ayn Rand Institute will present a talk on "The Morality of War", at the Boulder Campus of the University of Colorado. At 7:30 P.M. This talk will explain why Washington is fighting the war in the manner it is, why that effort is doomed to fail and that the war is being sabotaged by the moral code of altruism embodied in the "just-war" theory. Moreover, you will also learn how the war should be fought and how we could have an unequivocal and decisive victory, a solution that is both practical and reasonable. This event is co-sponsored by the Boulder Campus Objectivist Club.
Event: "The Morality of War"
When: 7:30 pm, Thursday, September 23
Where: University of Colorado in Boulder
Room UMC 235 (University Memorial Center)
Boulder, CO
Admission: Free
Sep 20, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From FoxNews: Bush Blasts Kerry for Iraq Waffling.President Bush accused his Democratic rival Monday of a pattern of waffling and leaving behind a trail of contradictory of positions on the war in Iraq. "Today my opponent continued his pattern of twisting in the wind," Bush said at a rally in New Hampshire "He apparently woke up this morning and has now decided, no, we should not have invaded Iraq, after just last month saying he would have voted for force even knowing everything we know today." John Kerry, a four-term Massachusetts senator, voted to give Bush authority to wage the war; the presidential hopeful said in August he would have voted that way even had he known there were no banned weapons in Iraq. "Incredibly, he now believes our national security would be stronger with Saddam Hussein in power and not in prison," Bush said. "He's saying he prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy.
"I couldn't disagree more, and not so long ago, so did my opponent," Bush added, quoting Kerry as saying recently, "Those who believe we are not safer with his capture don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president."
Sep 19, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Days before blasting President Bush for allowing the unconstitutional 1994 "assault weapons" ban to expire on September 13th, presidential candidate John Kerry marched through West Virginia proudly brandishing a Remington 11-87 shotgun.
"He can't be against our guns, or want to take mine, if he's got one of his own," concluded painfully gullible West Virginian gun owner Paul Cooper.
Yes, Paul, he can. And does: earlier this year, Kerry sponsored a bill (S-1431) that would have made it a felony to possess the very gun that he was holding: the Remington 11-87.
Remember, kids: hypocrisy isn't a disqualification for leftists; it's a requirement.
