The Liberal Mind

Since childhood I have loved the detective story. From the Hardy Boys to Ellery Queen to Dashiell Hammett to Nero Wolfe to Spenser.

I discovered Robert B. Parker’s books over twenty years ago and have been a regular reader since.

While the books have gotten shorter and more trite over time, Spenser and now Jesse Stone have become old friends of a sort and I always enjoy checking in on their latest exploits.

Of late I have fallen a bit behind and thus I just finished last year’s new Jesse Stone book Sea Change. It is a book positively drenched in sex. The plot revolves around a couple of yacht owning playboys who have no morals and no interests beyond their next conquest.

An early clue is gleaned when a video tape is found showing the murdered woman involved in activities not properly done before an audience.

A subplot is the revulsion Chief Jesse Stone feels when he views the video tape and a dozen or so others that he finds on one of the yachts. This revulsion is central to the plot, and to the continuing storyline that follows from one Stone book to the next. In short, Stone and his ex-wife are trying to put their relationship back together but he has a hard time accepting and dealing with her, ah, former slut-hood.

Robert B. Parker is a liberal. Any sentient human being would need to read only one of his books to make that deduction. True, he is not an especially annoying liberal and one can imagine that he is a liberal more due to peer pressure and inertia than out of a great dedication to the cause, but a liberal he is.

Over the years a few of the Spenser books have featured a homosexual cop as an occasional character. Then in 2000’s Hugger Mugger he introduced Teddy Sapp, a homosexual bartender/tough guy who lives in Georgia of all places.

I had assumed this “inclusiveness” was all just part of the liberal mind at work, but when I recently learned that BOTH of Parker’s two sons are homosexuals, it suggested to me that perhaps more was involved.

Parker is a guy who clearly has based Spenser largely on what he (Parker) is or wants to be. Until recently as age has made it rather more difficult to pull off, the cover photos of Parker had gotten progressively more Spenser-like over the years.

While he is tough, clever, resourceful, and very much a heterosexual, Spenser is also “tolerant” toward homosexuals in the best liberal party-line sense. He may not “understand” male to male attraction, but by golly he tolerates it and would never let another guy’s homosexuality come between them. So to speak.

Chief Jesse Stone is much like Spenser in his broad-minded approach to life, which brings us back to Sea Change.

The most interesting and the most ridiculous line in the entire book is this one on page 56:

“Jesse had always thought that heterosexual anal sex verged on gross”.

This whole situation is unremarkable when viewed as just a piece of fiction, but becomes vastly amusing when considered in a political context.

Parker has painted Stone and himself into an impossible corner. Putting aside anyone’s opinion of anal sex of any variety, is it likely that there is a straight man alive in the entire World who would classify heterosexual anal sex as “gross” or “verging on gross" while at the same time considering homosexual anal sex as “non-gross” ?

This scenario is so absurd that I have to wonder how it ever got by the editors not to mention Parker's own common sense.

To make it clearer for anyone who has not read the book, the line quoted above is a 100% throw-away. It did not have to be there. It serves no greater purpose. There were plenty of other aspects of the case for Stone to be repelled by (underage girls being preyed on by old men for instance).

While I have to view the line as a Freudian slip of the first order, it is more than that. It is a damning indictment of liberal "thinking” in general. Parker would never have DARED to suggest that homosexual anal sex “verged on gross” but it is fine to say heterosexual anal sex does. The former would be terribly intolerant while the latter is just, well, an opinion.

Sigmund Freud himself would have probably enjoyed dissecting Parker’s apparent need to say somewhere, in some fashion, that anal sex is gross. Since his sons are homosexuals, and since Parker is a good liberal, it would NEVER do to utter a negative directed toward the sacred cow of glorious homosexual sex. So Parker lamely has a character take a dim view of “heterosexual anal sex”.

I could go on but frankly I tire of this nonsense rather quickly. You either get it or you don’t and if you don’t then 10,000 more words of explanation would not assist you.

Seeds of the coming conservative implosion

I have long thought, deep in my realistic core, that the "conservative movement" would eventually fall apart along the faultline running between cultural/religeous conservatives and fiscal/foreign policy conservatives.

While I am firmly in both camps, it is clear after a moments thought that at some near or distant point the two groups will no longer be able to paper over their differences.

Nothing better illustrates this than this post this morning from Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics.

Sadly, Mr. Bevan is as arrogant and dismissive of Christian beliefs as Teddy Kennedy or John Kerry could ever be.

His final line makes it starkly clear:

"Nevertheless, for Ms. David to arrogantly assert "there is no opposing view to science" when she knows there is legitimate disagreement about the science behind the claim of global warming itself is nearly as bad as the guy who claims the world is only 14,000 years old."

So an arrogant liberal lying about the science behind global warming is not quite so bad as a Christian parent concerned about what his children are taught and stating his beliefs. Thanks Tom. With friends like you.......

Brit Wit

Gerard Baker is one of my favoirite writers who can generally be counted on for well written prose and logical thinking.

In today's London Times he has an hilarious end of year piece on the state of the U.S.

While I think he is overly pessimestic about where the country is at the moment, his tongue in cheek approach is deadly.

Have Gerald Ford and James Brown EVER shared a column before?

Gore

Salena Zito has a well argued article today on Al Gore and his prospects. I think the folks who are buzzing around flapping their wings about Barack Obama would do well to calm down and take a deep breath.

Gore is THE 600 pound gorilla in the Democratic Party and I have thought since just about exactly six years ago, that we would see him again in 2008.

Al Gore is on the same track that Richard Nixon trod forty years ago. Count him out or take him lightly at your peril.

Rudy's the One

Great piece by Richard Brookhiser about Rudy Giuliani in today's NY Post. He makes a very good case that echos some of the comments I made here a while back.

Interesting sidebar: Brookhiser mentions Romney, McCain, and George Allen, lumped together in such a way as though Allen is still a candidate.

I suspect that was a loyal gesture from one conservative to another and one meant to signal that George Allen WILL or at least SHOULD be back on the national scene.

The Powerless Party

There is an amusing article at The American Prospect by Robert B. Reich today that is easier than a standard pane of glass to see through.

Reich breathlessly informs us that the Democrats have power but are powerless. He gets down to business in the opening paragraph:

"Democrats won control of Congress on two big issues -- the war in Iraq and the economy. Yet both issues will remain almost completely out of their control, at least for the next two years. "

Mmm, yes. The majority party in Congress is now powerless. So I guess the Republians have been "powerless" the past twelve years. But wait! If the majority party is powerless, who has the power?

Apparently after much thought and a consultation with Woody Harrelson and the Dixie Chicks, Reich has decided it is George W. Bush and Ben Bernanke.

Clearly this presages what I suspect will be the Democrats central message for 2008. "It not us its still them. Those nasty Republicans are still ruining everything!"

If in 2008 the Dems hold onto Congress AND win the Presidency, then I imagine the bad stuff that happens the next several years will all be the Supreme Court's fault.

Sawed off sack of crap

The talentless runt who somehow has buffooned his way to what apparently passes for a career in Hollywood these days, completely showed his fat ass on the nauseating The View a few days ago.

One really has to wonder if the "major" news/entertainment outlets like ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN et al, have just completely lost all intention of being (forget unbiased) civilized in their standards.

I think Danny DeVito is a jerk, a putz, a disgusting ass, and a pissant. He should have his career ruined for this "performance" but instead I imagine he'll become the Toast of Tinsel Town.

Iraq

I have been advocating for two years now that American troops be pulled back outside of the population centers such as Baghdad. The vast majority of American deaths are occuring in and near the cities.

It is my contention that we can be as effective patroling the country from bases out in the desert where it will be far more difficult for "insurgents" to sneak up and surprise our boys.

Let the cities go to hell and ruination. Make the Iraqi governement and people patrol their streets and re-assert civilization in their metropolitan areas

Virginia Creep

It is becoming clearer every time Jim webb opens his mouth that he is a creep. His recent dissing of the President is just the latest clue.

It is a shame that the great State of Virginia will be "represented" by this idiot for the next six years.

Credit where credit is due

I took John McEntyre at RealClearPolitics to task the other day and now I'll balance the scales.

McEntyre has a first rate column this morning about a way Republicans can gain some traction in the 2008 Election and beyond.

This type of forward thinking is what will lead the GOP back to power in Washington.

Hand wringing and wailing at the Moon will only prolong the agony of defeat.

Land of the Fake? Or should that be "Flake" ?

Will Rogers once observed that there there types of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.

Had Mr. Rogers lived to experience our brave new world he might have added that there are three kinds of fools: Fools, Damned Fools, and Media Fools.

I channeled Will Rogers as I read this article by Dick Meyer. I've never liked Myers in part because I'm always getting him confused with Dick Morris. On top of that he works for CBS.

Here Meyer (no he's NOT the one of the famous toe incident) bemoans how "fake" everything and everyone is in tacky old worn out America. Nothing is real, everything is scripted blah blah blah.

He actually briefly grasps a good point or two when he properly castigates the shallowness of most of our entertainment and political discourse. But then he takes a head first dive into the stupidity barrier with this humdinger:

"An important quality public people who garner our confidence seem to share is an ability to be genuine and b.s.-free. It's hard to come up with a long list, but a short list might include John McCain, pre-Bush Colin Powell, Don Imus, Jon Stewart and Oprah Winfrey."

Good grief. Putting aside McCain, Powell and Imus for the moment, this turkey actually holds up Jon Stewart and Oprah Winfrey as role models of authenticity? What an unmitigated idiot.

Jon Stewart is a comedian who makes his living exaggerating real events and inventing imagined ones. Oprah is a less violent but much tearier version of Jerry Springer. No matter how much one may admire Oprah the person, her show is a celebration of all things gooey and glitzy.

In this context John McCain, Colin Powell, and Don Imus are also jokes as far as I'm concerned. Whatever their talents, and they are considerable, if they represent the best in authenticity that this country has to offer we are in worst shape than Dick Meyer imagines.

And by the way, if Powell was "genuine" how did George W. Bush change him? Does W have a anti-genuinizer that he runs people through?

Gee Wally, if Colin changed due to Evil George doesn't mean he wasn't "genuine" to begin with?

I have no idea what Meyer was trying to accomplish with this garbage, but he has made a Media Fool of himself with the effort.

"Mess in Iraq" ?

This piece at RealClearPolitics about Jon Tester and Jim Webb bothers me for several reasons but primarily because of the line "Tester's populism (if he doesn't stray too far to the redistributionist left) will sell well in a libertarian-leaning West that is fed up with out of control federal spending and the mess in Iraq".

What "mess in Iraq"?

Since the election I have heard a number of conservative pundits/commentators speak about Iraq as though it is agreed by all parties to be a disaster.

If by "mess" John McIntyre means to imply that the American effort there is a mess, I disagree strongly.

Criminals make things messy and to that extent Iraq is indeed a mess. However the combined opinion of the Mainstream Media notwithstanding, Iraq is far from being an unmitigated disaster.

First, there is no "war" in Iraq. There was a war. It started in March of 2003 and ended for all practical purposes within a few weeks. It ended absolutely when Saddam Hussein was pulled out of a hole in the ground in late 2003.

The war was short and very well fought on the American side, and it has been over for at least
three years.

The "mess" in Iraq is called law enforcement stateside. Consider these facts from THE NATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS MEMORIAL FUND website.

*Since the first recorded police death in 1792, there have been more than 17,000 law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. Currently, there are 17,535 names engraved on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.

*A total of 1,635 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty during the past 10 years, an average of one death every 53 hours or 164 per year. There were 155 law enforcement officers killed in 2005.

*On average, more than 56,000 law enforcement officers are assaulted each year, resulting in over 16,000 injuries.

*The 1970s were the deadliest decade in law enforcement history, when a total of 2,260 officers died, or an average of 226 each year.

*The deadliest year in law enforcement history was 1974, when 275 officers were killed. That figure dropped dramatically in the 1990s, to an average of 159 per year.

*The deadliest day in law enforcement history was September 11, 2001, when 72 officers were killed while responding to the terrorist attacks on America.

Think about it. 72 of our finest killed on one day, September 11, 2001. And that was just police officers. In fact all of those figures cited above were "just police officers". They don't include fire and EMS deaths due to stupid and criminal activity of others. They don't include private security guards. They don't include private citizens defending themselves and loved ones.

As horrific as the American deaths are in Iraq, they are the price we are paying to stabilize that country and allow it time to stand and walk on its own. A free and democratic Iraq will make for a safer and more secure America.

The "mess" in Iraq is the price we are paying to protect America from another 9-11. That even many conservatives have lost sight of this basic fact is frightening.

Why and What Now - Part 2

As stated two weeks ago, my hypothesis on why 2006 was a good year for Democrats is based on a theory of the segmentation of the American voting public. I theorized that the voting public falls roughly into the following seven segments:

A. Republicans
B. Republican Leaning Independents
C. Right of Center Independents
D. Independents
E. Left of Center Independents
F. Democrat Leaning Independents
G. Democrats

Segments A & G stick with their party through thick and thin and each group constitutes about 35% of all voters. These two segments also tend to vote in fairly high and consistent numbers. They are true believers and take ever opportunity to vote their beliefs.

Segments B & F don't consider themselves as members of either party but effectively they function as such. They also tend to be regular voters but tend to vote in higher number when their side seems to be on the upswing. They only vote for the other side in extreme cases such as McGovern or Goldwater. I assign them each roughly 5% of the voting public.

Segments C & E are much different animals. Their natural tendencies are toward the Right or Left but they are not wedded to partisan ideals to enough of an extent that it outweighs other considerations. Issues such as a war going badly, corruption, or incompetence can cause these two segments to swing over and vote for the "other" party.

Segments C & E tend to vote much heavier when their side is doing well. They get discouraged easily and just throw in the towel and don't bother voting. Dukakis largely lost the E's. Bush 41 lost the C's in 1992. Kerry lost the E's. Gore and Bush probably came out about even. Perot got a bunch of both of them in 1992, not nearly as many in 1996. These two segments each represent about 5% of all voters.

Our last segment is D and these are the true independents. Accounting for about 10% of the voting population they generally have no use for either party. They are largely upper middle class and above in income and education. They are not interested in "family values" as such. Economics, social justice, the environment, and libertarian principles tend to drive various sub-groups of this segment.

This segment is highly volatile and swings heavily from one election cycle to the next. They vote sporadically depending on how bummed out they are by things in general. Various sub-groups of this Segment loved Ross Perot and/or Ralph Nader. The last president they really got behind was Reagan although Clinton did fairly well with them. "Doing well" with independents entails not just winning their favor but actually energizing them enough to come out and vote.

In Part 3 I'll apply my Segmentation Template onto the 2006 Elections.

Pundits make me tired.

Among the head banging pain that follows from "losing" an election is having to read and listen to pundits who frankly don't know James Buchanan from Pat.

This column from National Review Online is a wondrous example. Jonathan Martin's premise is that the Republican Party has "lost the burbs" so bar the door because the heathens tramp without.

Citing results from Missouri and Virginia, Martin paints a bleak picture for the GOP's future in the large suburban areas of Fairfax County and St. Louis County.

He ends with this brilliant conclusion: "Statewide Republican candidates may not be able to win the mega-suburbs because of demographic shifts, but Davis and Oliver, two individuals who have a sure grip on politics local and national, agree that they must remain at least competitive to win.That much was proven in spades last week. "

Um yes....let me make a note "Must remain at least competitive to win". Wow, why didn't I think of that? This is utter nonsense. Allen and Talent lost because they got fewer votes than their opponents did.

However Allen lost by less that one half of one percent and Talent lost by about two percent. Point being? Well for starters a close race is a close race. The fact that you lost big in one area is something that absolutely should be looked at and studied to keep it from happening again. But....IF you lose narrowly and IF you lost some areas by large margins, that MUST mean you also WON some areas by large margins. Right? The key is getting 50% plus 1, not even vote distribution or "winning the burbs".

The over absorption by writers and pundits with one of the elephant's toes drives me up any and all walls, especially when it comes from a publication like NR. Don't misunderstand, both Allen and Talent failed to win enough votes in those two counties. Period. But there is no reason to feel that that in and of itself is cause for unprecedented heartburn.

As more urbanites move into suburban areas, those suburban areas will more closely resemble urban areas in their voting paterns. No surprise there. However the red voters HAVE to be somewhere. You know, the ones who voted 51% for GWB two years ago?

And that brings me to the follow up to my post of last week. Tomorrow "Why and What Now Part 2"

You're stuck with her now

A good column today from Robert Novak about Nancy Pelosi and her "leadership" since the election.

Novak has been around so long he is one of the few pundits left who can speak first hand about the Sherman Adams scandal. He sometimes ah....overstates things a bit, however in this piece he makes some interesting and highly plausible assertions.

The money paragraphs are these two:

"Pelosi's mistake confirms longstanding, privately held Democratic apprehension about her abilities. Their concerns do not reflect the Republican indictment of her as a reflexive San Francisco liberal. Some of her most trenchant congressional critics are on the left wing of the party. These colleagues worry that her decision-making may be distorted by personal considerations.

Hoyer is the most accomplished Democratic legislator in the House, widely respected on both sides of the aisle. He, not Pelosi, would be preparing to be speaker had he not lost to her in a 2001 contest for minority whip, thanks to nearly complete support from her huge California delegation. That put Pelosi ahead of Hoyer on the leadership escalator. While Hoyer would win a secret poll of the Democratic caucus as more qualified, Democrats cannot turn aside the first female speaker."

If Novak is close to the truth, the next couple of years will be highly interesting. Watching the Democrats live with the stench from their own finely hewn political correctness petard shall be great fun.

Good news!

I am pleased that the Democrats did the right thing and selected Steny Hoyer instead of Crooked Jack Murtha as their Majority Leader. The 149 to 86 vote is a major embarrassment to Nancy Pelosi and is a sign that the Dems may really want to move their party in a constructive direction.

Next we will see what happens with the Alcee Hastings mess. After this black eye Pelosi may well trim her sails a bit.

Best of all it is a major league smackdown of Crooked Jack Murtha. We need more such comeuppances in our political world.

Speaking of the American Spectator...

While checking out the Crooked Jack Murtha link this morning I noticed this outstanding piece by Philip Klein . In it he makes a very persuasive case for Rudy Giuliani's chances for the '08 Republican nomination.

Despite Giuliani's much more liberal stances on several issues, I have felt myself drifting more and more toward him as the best choice in two years. I simply don't like or trust John McCain. I believe McCain-Feingold was bad law and is contrary to freedom of speech.

While I greatly admire his war service and am deeply in his dept (as are all Americans) for his defense of this country, I do not believe he is the man to put in the White House. Furthermore I have grave concerns about his ultimate ability to win.

McCain as electoral juggernaut is almost entirely a result of the media's love for him because he was not and is not George W. Bush. Dubya is now a lame duck and the media will slowly but surely decide that mouse is dead (how is that for a tortured metaphor?) and start looking for a new toy.

McCain has some moderating tendencies but as far as I know he is still Pro-Life and Pro-Iraq War. Those two stances will quickly make him a marked man as we get closer to 2008. Point being that he won't long remain the media darling he currently is and when they turn on him will conservatives really care enough to come to his aid?

Far from being The Man Who Can Beat Hillary, I think he may turn out to be The Man Who Will Lose To Hillary.

Mitt Romney does nothing for me. Nothing. He is little more than a cipher at this point but any man who could get elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002 has some tough questions to answer as far as I'm concerned.

More and more I'm thinking Rudy's the one.

Media Bias - Big Surprise

I can't see this piece by Ruth Marcus in today's Washington Post as anything other than absolute proof of the kind of media bias we supposedly wild eyed Conservatives have been complaining about for 30 years.

Marcus excoriates Nancy Pelosi for even considering aligning herself with a crook like Jack Murth. She even helpfully provides a link to the video from the ABScam investigation currently on the American Spectator web site.

Might not that be a first? The WaPo linking to the American Spectator? ;-)

You may wonder why I consider this media bias. It is very simple. Where was Ruth Marcus two weeks ago? Before election day? Before Crooked Jack Murtha was re-elected? Before Nancy Pelosi was officially Speaker-In-Waiting?

It is obvious that EVERYTHING that has Marcus in an uproar was known pre-election.

It was known that Murtha was and is a crook and that he desired to be Majority Leader and that he was tight as tick with Nancy Pelosi.

And Marcus' opening line removes any ambiguity: "The videotape is grainy, dark and devastating."

"Devastating" but not newsworthy until now and only golden silence on this topic from the likes of Ruth Marcus....until after the election.

The Libertarian Effect? Please spare me.

This post over at the usually reliable RealClearPolitics makes my head swim.

The Libertarian Party itself is a joke and Mr. Kaminsky seems to realize that by pointing out that "for the rest of this article, please recognize that I am speaking of the small-"l" libertarian, and not the Libertarian Party of the candidates mentioned above". But uh...your whole point started out being that the Libertarian PARTY got enough votes to tilt the Montana and Missouri Senate races. This is not profound nor of particular interest to someone looking for clues as to why Republicans lost both houses of Congress.

In Virginia the Third Party candidate was in fact from the ultra liberal side. Yes, a Green Party candidate ALMOST cost James Webb his win. Webb finished a little over 9000 votes ahead of George Allen while GG Parker the "Independent Green" garnered over 26,000 votes. Using Kaminsky's logic the Democrats need to assiduously court "Green" voters to maintain their majorities.

Third Parties almost always serve as a vent for the chronically grouchy and forever loopy among us. It never has and never well make sense to waste your time supporting lost causes. I'd love a viable third party to appear but until some huge status quo altering event takes place it won't happen.

I told you so

A couple of years ago I posted two entries regarding in part Andrew Sullivan. They are here and here.

I mention this now because of Sullivan's new book and the review of it written by Jonah Goldberg for National Review.

I said it before and I'll state it again: This will be THE defining issue for the Republican Party over the next decade.