The Church Of The Left, Part 7857

Cherney gets it. But "Mission Impossible" would be an understatement.

Read them. They're short. And very important. I'll wait...

Did I mention that if you're a Dem and don't read them you deserve to suffer the consequences?

Here's the net: Somewhere north of 30% of the Dems are now fundamentalist church goers. But it's not a church in any conventional sense. It's a "reality based" church. It's the church of the left.

And if the rest of the Dems try to get serious about addressing the issues of the "Red" heartland, they will find themselves immediately in a Democratic civil war accused of heresy. And if they still persevere then the Demo Party will fracture -- ensuring Republican dominance for as far as the eye can see...

Did I forget to mention that if they don't choose fracture then they'll just continue to slowly fade into the sunset of irrelevancy?

I'm satisfied with either result. Thanks for asking.

Projection 103: It's Not Cool To Be Smart

Brooks has projection nailed:

But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?

What we are seeing is a diverse but stable Republican coalition gradually eclipsing a diverse and stable Democratic coalition. Social issues are important, but they don't come close to telling the whole story. Some of the liberal reaction reminds me of a phrase I came across recently: The rage of the drowning man.

I am endlessly fascinated by this torrent of liberal projection. No sooner do they get done saying the problem was all about Republicans as being simple-minded illegitimate brutal killers of Iraqi babies since there were no WMD [Saddam? Who's that? -ed. I thought there was something about someone "reporting for duty"?.] but we learn that it was actually all about gay marriage! Forget what we said about WMD!

It's spelled P-R-O-J-E-C-T-I-O-N.

I was quite comfortable with the Iraq war resolution listing *over 20* reasons for toppling Saddam. In fact, I thought the list was too short. It's the libs who insisted on one!

And who still insist on one. Just not the same one this week. Maybe it'll be back in style next week.

It's not cool to be smart.

(Hat tip Glenn)

What part of this don't you understand?

Goodnight Herbert.

Great Jumping "Reality-Based" Butterballs!

Glenn points out that ERIC SCHEIE of Classical Values has some choice comments about the "reality-based" community. But you rarely see a consecutive string of quality comments like this on a blog. Jaw gaping kudos to Eric's readers! Check this out:

My sister considers herself to be in the "Reality Based Community." I consider her delusional. I present as evidence the following exchange. My sister has refered to Bush as Hitler. In a series of e-mails I patiently explained that Bush couldn't be Hitler since Hitler was dead. He also couldn't be a "new Hitler" since the two men have policies almost diametrically opposed. Most significantly, Bush is attempting to replace genocidal dictatorships with secular democracies. Hitler did everything he could do to destroy democracies and replace them with genocidal dictators. I thought my sister might understand the difference. I also pointed out that Hitler was a starving artist who joined the National Socialist Party, supported gun control, abortion, government control of corporations, was an athiest with an affinity for paganism, hated Jews and allied himself with radical Muslims. I then noted that the Democratic Party, not the Republicans, had a platform which came closest to Hitler's. In other words, using objective reality, not delustional rantings, Hitler is closer politically to the Democrats than to Bush. My sister sent me this in response:

"Bush is backed by goups I wouldn't affiliate myself with because they are not conservatives...they are radicals with a philosophy similar to fanatics worldwide. That is, intolerence for all things different then themselves. Wow, sounds like similiar behavior...don't we hear about all the radical muslims that are fighting a holy war killing everyone that is different. Holy shmoly...I think we are doing the same thing. You're either with us or against us. No room for differences and we'll just kill all those that don't agree or put you in jail or deny you your civil rights or make it very difficult to live a good life. Sounds like a return to the dark ages just disguised as "good for us" and a little more high tech than the radical islamists that are throwing bombs and rocks in the desert. Like here in the US...yelling GOD at the top of our lungs.

I thought here in the US we took the constitution seriously and did not willfully choose to violate it's tenents. There is movement alive that has been working on it since before our constitution was written. [I can't quite figure this one out. I think she means that a secret cabal has been working to undermine the constituion, even before it was written, but I'm not sure. - David] Because this current administration and those "behind the scenes" neo conservatives and theocrats are working towards eroding what I believe is a profound document I cannot in good faith and conscience vote for or support them. I find The Bush/Cheney ticket hard to swallow and huge portions of the GOP population as fanatical. I am saddened to find so many references to Kerry and the democratic party as Nazis, even from you. It is apparent that historically the GOP much closer resembles the Movement leading up to and including the Nazis."

I'll let you decide who is a member of the Reality Based Community.

posted by: David on 11.05.04 at 08:31 PM [permalink]

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I had no idea!

This is the hep way to say what was in 1990s jargon "politically correct" or in the Soviet Union was termed "the sole progressive world view".

posted by: Harry Forbes on 11.05.04 at 08:36 PM [permalink]

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"Faith" in the context of having a vision of what the would could and should be is critical to achieving anything.

Consider Europe in the late 1930s. Chamberlain, member of the "reality-based community" opted to appease Germany, while Churchill (with a vision of Hitler's Germany defeated and his nearby neighbors freed) recognized the need to confront and defeat tyranny to make England safe.

Ditto for Reagan vs. Carter. One saw the "reality" of malaise, the other had a vision of greatness. One thought the US had to live with Soviet domination in the world, the other defeated Communist tyranny across the globe. I'll take a positive vision of economic and political liberty over "realistic" status-quo tyranny in the Middle East. We've seen the fruits of the Scowcroft / Kissinger approach the past 25 years.

posted by: Matthew Cromer on 11.05.04 at 08:42 PM [permalink]

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So you're telling me the people who, not more than two months ago, were saying that a man in Texas - a man who didn't know how to type, mind - acquired and used a *four thousand dollar* typesetting machine to compose terse, secret memos to himself; that this man made a dozen or so highly technical adjustments to that machine, all of which *just happened* to line up perfectly with the default settings on Microsoft Word, a program which didn't even exist until several years after his death; and that these memos, which contained the bombshell revelation that Bush missed his mo-fo-ing PHYSICAL thirty years ago, yes, these highly charged *dynamite* memos would grip the electorate with such fiery passion that it would rush to the polls like an hoard of keening devils and swing the entire election out of pure vengeance; you're telling me that the very people who believed EVERY WORD of this utterly ridiculous narrative and who tried to convince others of its truth, ignoring raised eyebrows and helpless laughter; these very same people are now calling themselves the farking "REALITY-BASED community"?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Great jumping butterballs!

It IS to laugh.

I was feeling a bit let down by Eric's denouement. Then I realized that the commenters provided just the completion Eric needed -- and then some!

Ann Provides Conclusive Proof

of how smart and evil Karl Rove really is:

Seventy percent to 80 percent of Americans oppose gay marriage and partial-birth abortion. Far from appealing exclusively to a narrow Republican base, opposition to gay marriage is strongest among the Democratic base: blacks, Hispanics, blue-collar workers and the elderly. There were marriage amendments on the ballot in Michigan and Ohio. Bush won Ohio narrowly and lost Michigan by only 2 points. How different might that have been if Bush hadn't run from the issue.

But Rove concluded Bush should stay mum on gay marriage and partial-birth abortion – contravening the politicians' rule of thumb: Talk about your positions that are wildly popular with voters. "Boy Genius" Rove decided Bush shouldn't even run radio ads on gay marriage, and at the last minute, Bush started claiming he was in favor of civil unions, just like John Kerry.

Amazingly, it was the Democrats – the ones who support gay marriage – who used the gay issue for political advantage, most famously when Kerry gay-baited Mary Cheney during the third debate.

Ya sure, you betcha...

Lies -- Just For Old Times Sake...

President Clinton does not exist and never lied!

Forged Documents, Forged Exit Polls, Etc, Etc

Republicans remember history even under pressure. Can you say "no more Panhandle 2000s?"

I thought you could...

Where people can fly in freedom, but not into buildings...

Kerry Concedes!

Kerry concedes and Rodger Morrow has it right:

"First President Bush was misunderestimated. Now he has been unredefeated."

(IL)LEGAL HUMOR

What do you call 1000 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean?

A GOOD START.

But then there's Scrappleface!

The Tinfoil Apocalypse Prelude: And Who Do You Think You Are? Einstein?

Remember "The Greatest Intelligence Failure In History"?

The core is as follows:

First let's look at a description of one of the universally acclaimed great Presidents. We'll call him X:

X was also an outstanding example of a leader who, although not in any full sense an intellectual (he was a book collector rather than a book reader, and his Harvard grades were of a mediocrity that suggest that today he might have had difficulty in gaining entry to that august institution), ...

Sounds a lot like W's story at Yale, no? So he was easily duped by someone of clearly superior intelligence -- call him Y -- into spending massively to counter a threat that turned out to be nearly non-existant. X was duped so badly that he spent somewhere north of $25 billion on the fiasco.Folks, this is easy for anyone who has even basic Google skills and understands the rudiments of inflation adjustment.

Can you tell me who X and Y were?

Can you tell me what he (and his successor) did that was the direct result of what was actually the greatest intelligence failure of all time?

And for another hint as well as extra bonus points: Was there a genzai bakudan? Or not? Was that an intelligence failure too? Do you think we'll ever know for sure?

As you've certainly figured out by now, X was Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Y was Albert Einstein.But Einstein "mislead" FDR:

With the 1938 discovery of nuclear fission, Germany had a two-year head start on developing nuclear energy; the Americans' fear was that the Nazis would shape it into a weapon of mass destruction. Germany also had in its grasp two materials critical to its development -- heavy water and uranium. They were available in abundance only in Norway and Czechoslovakia, both under Nazi control.

In August 1939, Leo Szilard and fellow Hungarian physicists Eugene Wigner and Edward Teller urged Albert Einstein to sign a letter they had drafted for President Roosevelt. Einstein's letter noted that the work of Fermi and Szilard "leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the near future." President Roosevelt responded by appointing an Advisory Committee on Uranium. The Office of Scientific Research and Development was established on June 28, 1941, under the direction of Vannevar Bush, to develop atomic energy.

But in the end, the Alsos project determined that they might have spent more looking for German nukes than Hitler had spent on developing them:

In the end, ALSOS concluded that the Allies had surpassed the German atomic bomb effort monumentally by 1942. Compared to the Manhattan Project, one of the largest scientific endeavors of all time, the German project was considerably underfunded and understaffed, and it is questionable whether Germany would have had the resources or isolation which were required for the Allies to produce such a weapon. Goudsmit, in a monograph published two years after the end of the war, further concluded that a principal reason for the failure of the German project was that science could not flourish under totalitarianism -- an argument seemingly rebutted by the Soviet Union's development of a nuclear weapon by 1949. The Soviets, however, benefited from Stalin's extensive spy network, which included many top scientists in Los Alamos working to prevent the United States from holding a nuclear monopoly over the world.

And this provides our initial insight into intelligence failure.

And the genzai bakudan? It's possible that the Japanese may have been closer to nuclear weapons than the Germans were! In fact there's a report of unclear reliability that they actually exploded a bomb -- just a little too late...

So was Roosevelt a dimwit like W who screwed up royally and should have focused the war effort on Japan? Or one of the great Presidents?

Everything you know may well be wrong.

The Stakes Are High

VERY, VERY HIGH.

W For President -- Of The Miners

Yes of course! I voted for W last Friday! Surely you don't think I'd take my chances with tomorrow's blockade of Democratic lawyers do you?

If you haven't voted Bush yet, please get out there and do so as if your life depended on it -- because it does.

And please forget the ludicrous arguments about how Bush is a recruiting tool for terrorists. By that argument Hiroshima was a really bad idea because it made the Japanese really, really, really mad.

Yes it did. But they were too shocked with too many dead to do anything about it. Ruthless barbarians will only surrender when they are confronted with the only language they understand. And that language by definition -- and sadly -- is utter devastation.

The other argument that I have been warming up to put to rest is the loony left myth that if only we will surrender Israel to them then the Islamists will leave us alone.

This is utter and complete garbage. As I recently posted, there is a single word reply to this: Bamiyan. Not to mention Beslan and a host of others...

The Jews are the canaries in the coal mine.

And the miners ignore the canaries at their own peril...


(Yes, the suspense is nearly unbearable on the $25 billion failure -- and I dropped another hint too...)

Will Lincoln be repudiated tomorrow?

Kerry's Legal Memory Hole Leaks Some More...

As Beldar notes that we may have found the real reason that Kerry could only get into Boston College Law School. And it may not be stupidity after all. Though that may still be determined to be the root cause that got him into this pickle of course...

Glenn on the REAL threat to Al Qaeda.And Afghanistan a disaster? Brother...

Memory Hole Redux 2: In Case You're Tempted By Hudna

Just in case you're tempted by Osama's nuanced hudna offer with your state, here's how it works in Spain:

MADRID (Reuters) - Police arrested seven suspected Islamic militants in raids across Spain on Monday to foil a planned bomb attack on the High Court, judicial sources said.

The arrests came seven months after train bombs killed 191 people in Madrid.

The seven suspects, including four Algerians and one Moroccan, were arrested in the southern region of Andalusia, the Mediterranean city of Valencia and Madrid.

Further arrests could be made in the coming hours as part of the operation against a radical and violent Muslim network, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Crusading Judge Baltasar Garzon ordered the arrests as part of his inquiry into Islamic militant cells in Spain.

The suspects had been in contact with other individuals in Europe, the United States and Australia, the statement said.

So feel free to call for negotiations. Sounds like a good plan to me. Surely his latest tape is evidence that Osama has given up on Andalusia...

MSMemory Hole Watch

HOLE SPOTTED. Not to worry. I'm sure they go around re-editing their site all the time in favor of W...

ALREADY UPDATED: MUST. PLACE. THIS. DOWN. HOLE. ALSO. ALONG. WITH. BAMIYAN. W. IS. ROOT. OF. ALL. WORLD'S. PROBLEMS. NO. FLOOD. OF. DISPROOF. ALLOWED. TO. RE-EDUCATION. CAMPS. WITH. DISSENTERS.

I can only repeat the painfully great Soviet dissident joke yet again: "The future is known, it's the past that keeps changing."

ANOTHER UPDATE BEFORE THEY THROW ME DOWN THE HOLE: Did I mention that the left suffers no cognitive dissonance whatsoever from their simultaneous assertions that W is in bed with both Israel and the Saudis? Of course, I would suggest that the left suffers from something else but what do I know with my wee tiny brain?

MILITARY IN THE HOLE UPDATE: And you wonder why the majority of the military are hopping mad! If John Neville Kerry wins, the MSM is going to be tarred and feathered by the public when this finally comes out. They have no idea what they've done.

Just remember when you vote: General Giap and Madame Bihn love him -- but 2/3+ of the military and 90% of Vietnamese Americans will be voting against him. But they're just a bunch of baby killers and lackeys so what do they know???

Case Summation -- Straight To The Point

DAVID WARREN: "To replace Mr. Bush with Mr. Kerry in the present circumstances, would be like replacing Mr. Churchill with Mr. Chamberlain while Britain was at war. It is hard to believe that it could happen. I pray very earnestly that it won't."

NEWSFLASH: Tad Devine and Joe Lockhart are NOT -- REPEAT NOT -- part of the Kerry campaign!

So when you see them shilling for Kerry just turn off the TV. K?

Veritas Koppelgate Redux

It turns out that any criticism of Koppelgate may possibly be an exercise in bad faith. So I gladly spew forth some more from the Captain:

Nor does ABC's embarassment stop there, although failing to even interview American veterans and witnesses in discussing a military engagement and favoring villagers whose only qualification is a self-identification that they were there for this one battle, 35 years ago. Bandit notes that staunch Kerry supporter and defender Doug Reese, who was on Bill Rood's boat during the engagement, also disputes everything ABC reported:

Army advisor, Doug Reese, who was on Bill Rood's boat and just happens to be a staunch Kerry supporter and defender has publicly spoken in detail of what he had witnessed of the dead VC guerrilla minutes after he had been shot by Kerry. It should be noted that Mr. Reese works in Vietnamese Tourism out of the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington D.C.
Mr. Reese was kind enough to document the following with Swift Vets for Truth:

"Anyway, we'll never know much about him [VC killed by Kerry], as he wasn't local like the other guys, who lived right there. The survivors -- local guys -- weren't in a good position to see what was going on with the B-40 guy. For that matter, they don't even know his name."

Mr. Reese's statement says it all about the facts surrounding the dead VC, and he should know since was standing over the dead VC along with Sen. Kerry within 5-8 minutes of the shooting. Unfortunately, ABC was not interested in the facts, just any interview they could use to distort the truth to their viewers.

ABC News makes one thing abundantly clear: despite taking the lead on covering Rathergate, they've apparently learned absolutely nothing from it. Their badly-misfired attack piece should embarass everyone who works in their news division.

And check out Beldar as well...

When I played hockey, I never considered it smart to play with a broken stick...

And You Thought There Was Already A Red And Blue Divide

Looks like Osama may have lost something in the initial translation (Hat Tip INDC):

The tape of Osama bin Laden that was aired on al-Jazeera on Friday, October 29 included a specific threat to "each U.S. state," designed to influence the outcome of the upcoming election against George W. Bush. The U.S. media in general mistranslated the words "ay wilaya" (which means "each U.S. state") to mean a "country" or "nation" other than the U.S., while in fact the threat was directed specifically at each individual U.S. state. This suggests some knowledge by bin Laden of the U.S. electoral-college system. In a section of his speech in which he harshly criticized George W. Bush, bin Laden stated: "Any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security."

This has an interesting relationship to my last post to say the least! If Osama can finally muster a serious attack and it's in RED STATES then he will truly get his wish for the clash of civilizations. And what if Kerry is Prez and is perceived by red governors as having an ineffectual response?

I continue to be truly astounded with the left's racist condescension toward the Arabs and Muslims as being only a "nuisance" that can be licked by "law enforcement". But then why should I be astounded by the truth?

Binny Censored By al-Jazeera???

Roger has the scoop once more:

Officials said that in the 18-minute long tape - of which only six minutes were aired on the al-Jazeera Arab television network in the Middle East on Friday - bin Laden bemoans the recent democratic elections in Afghanistan and the lack of violence involved with it.

On the tape, bin Laden also says his terror organization has been hurt by the U.S. military's unrelenting manhunt for him and his cohorts on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

So it includes both the Dems talking points AND underpinnings for the general tone of requesting a hudna. But somehow the underpinnings get edited out of the original story.

And if you really want an eye opener check out this comment on the post:

It's less than 48 hours to election day. If the terrorists are going to lauch an attack, if they can, they'd better do it soon.

And when they do, the East Coast Democracts will cower at home while the rest of the country votes George Bush into office. I doubt the terrorists understand that even yet.

So if there's no attack on the election then Bush has made us safer and the folks may notice that when they dimple their chads. And if there is an attack on the election then that would facilitate a Bush victory too.

Keep watching F-911 and playing checkers guys...

Blameless and confused. MUST. READ. NOW. (Hat Tip Michelle)

The insanity of the Arabs illustrated in the post is what moderate Dems don't understand. But worse, it is the very definition of their lunatic brethren...