Politics

Apparently some sparks flew during a House debate on Friday about inviting UN Election Monitors to observe the fall Presidential Elections:

Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., and several other House Democrats have made that suggestion. They argue that some black voters were disenfranchised in 2000 and problems could occur again this fall.

“We welcome America to observe the integrity of our electoral process and we do not ask, though, for the United Nations to come as monitors at our polling stations,” Buyer said.

“I come from Florida, where you and others participated in what I call the United States coup d’etat. We need to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Brown said. “Over and over again after the election when you stole the election, you came back here and said, ‘Get over it.’ No, we’re not going to get over it. And we want verification from the world.”

At that point, Buyer demanded that Brown’s words be “taken down,” or removed the debate’s permanent record.

The House’s presiding officer, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, ruled that Brown’s words violated a House rule.

“Members should not accuse other members of committing a crime such as, quote, stealing, end quote, an election,” Thornberry said.

When Brown objected to his ruling, the House voted 219-187 to strike her words.

I’m not sure what is scarier…

The fact that some members of Congress actually want the UN to monitor our elections…

Or that 187 agreed to keep her comments in the record.

A coup d’etat? Come on.

And someone elected that woman into the House. Unbelievable.

Once again, James Lilek writes a winner in yesterday’s Bleat:

It makes me wonder why any sane man would run for president in 2004, given what he might face. “Mr. President, New York has suffered an atomic attack.”

“Call the Security Council, and tell them – oh. Right. Is there still a UN?”

“It’s sideways in the river.”

“Hmm. Well. Is the League of Nations still answering the phone? I seem to remember they kept on a skeleton staff. Mostly janitorial. But we’ll have to make do.”

What then? The presidency is not the sort of job for which you volunteer unless you’re willing to do everything that’s necessary. If we lose a city (and what a mild, offhand term for such a horror) there isn’t going to be any debate about getting UN resolutions. At least I hope not. And what do you do then? Attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, hope you can flatten North Korea before they decide the game is up and it’s time to go first, oh, and incidentally the new missiles can hit LA – surprise! Do you pave Syria if they don’t roll over on day two? Damned if I know. I don’t have to know what to do. Not my job. But if you want the job, you have to be willing to open the tubes and order Slim Pickens to the cockpit. It’s always been that way, sure – yet these things have had an odd distant theoretical flavor predicated on an unpredictable escalation. That enemy would nuke us as a last resort, because that meant the end of everything – power, caviar, liquor, nice cars, good dentists, dames, those nice little cigarettes with the gold bands around the filters? The ones that burn evenly, and you can smoke a dozen in an hour without getting tongue fur? Heaven on earth.

Our present enemy will nuke us as soon as they can, because it means heaven, period.

I hate this; God I hate this. But I don’t have any longing for normalcy, as Noonan put it the other day, because normalcy was a delusion, a diaphanous curtain draped over the statue of Mars. Nor do I want a time out, a breather, an operational pause. I want to cut to the chase. I want Iran in the hands of its people and leaning to the West again, I want Lebanon independent of Syrian rule, I want Syria isolated and cowed, Arafat dead and buried in the land of his birth – or Paris, symbolically – and the Saudi Civil War done and over with pragmatists in power. I’d like this all tomorrow please.

Noon is fine, if it works for everyone else.

So I read this, and I sat back, and thought to myself.. if this fictional event does happen.. who do I want hearing those words? Kerry or Bush.

Easy Decision.

Hat Tip (once again): Neptunus Lex

I was going to write something about all of this paranoia about the elections and the possibility of a postponement, but SMASH has already said everything that I wanted to say:

EARLIER THIS WEEK, rumors of a plan to postpone elections in the event of a major terrorist attack set off a flurry of op-eds and conspiracy theories about nefarious plans to “steal” the election.

This is silly.

I expect our government to be working to ensure that we have fair, secure, and on-time elections. I certainly hope that they are thinking about what to do in the event that a major terrorist attack, natural disaster, or other calamity results in thousands of people being unable to vote.

I read alot of weblogs and news sources each day, and I’ve seen a huge slew of people who believe that this is nothing short of an attempt by Bush and his team to steal the election.

And, undoubtedly, these are the same people who would be complaining if Bush won because thousands of Democrats in New York and/or California couldn’t get to the polls because of a terrorist attack.

Calm down people.

Lex writes today of Joe Wilson, but more importantly, about the fight we’re in….

I understand those who’d like to go back to September 10th, I really do. I’d like it myself, we’re all getting war weary. I’d rather be debating the role of the federal government in the medical sector at leisure than wondering when or where the next blow is going to fall, or how many American lives is this all going to cost at the end of the day. But I was already worried about the next blow before 9/11, and now I’m doubly concerned because one of the damnable things about terrorism is its relentless one-upmanship. If they want to make a mark, they’re going to have to raise the bar – and that’s where the WMD issue comes back around again: Three thousand lives is a pretty good day, and it’s going to be hard to beat that just by hijacking airliners. That’s why it was worth going in, just to find out for sure. Just to make sure it wouldn’t come from the one Arab government that had the motive, means and intent to hurt us. Just to try a radical experiment, and see if planting the seed of democracy can bear fruit in an area that needs it more than any other. Because what’s the alternative?

The facts on the table in front of us is that we are in a fight with a radical Islamist militarism that is fundamentally opposed to the way of life that we take for granted, in a world where borders have for all intentions vanished. We can’t wish it away, even while wishing it wasn’t so. This isn’t going to only happen in some quasi-theoretical “over there,” that we tut-tut about while reading the front pages of our morning newspapers, and then go back to the sports section to memorize the box scores, or the style section to read about who J-Lo is marrying this week.

And if we were serious about it, as serious as the subject matter (our survival) deserves, I think we’d try to eschew trying out each new revelation to see whether it would be a useful tool to bash in the heads of the other party’s faithful.

There’s two things currently that worry my own little mind..

First, I worry that we’re forgetting about the fight that we’re in. Some of us surely aren’t, because it directly affects what we do. Those in the military, active and reserve, aren’t forgetting about the fight we’re in because it’s in front of them every day. Those in my line of work can’t forget the fight we’re in because I’m sitting about helping to prepare my company – and more importantly, our people – to survive the next blow. But I fear, at times, we are forgetting what happened to us on September 11th.. and what might have been had we not taken the steps that we have taken.

Second, I’m worried about the next blow. As I sit today, less than two weeks from the start of the Democratic National Convention, and I watch and read about the screwing down of manhole covers, the clearing of sight lines around the Fleet Center, the removal of mail boxes and newspaper vending machines, and the array of police gathering in downtown Boston, I wonder if it will be enough. I know that my employer is as prepared as we can be – and our own exposure is small compared to those who are based near the Fleet Center.

But I know, at some point, there’s going to be another blow. And then what? Will we remember?

And I pray that we won’t be like Spain.

For his July 8th “Bleat”, James Lileks drops a load of dung on Michael Moore:

Again, the high-school-level thinking: “the rest of the world.” It’s simplistic to identify Iran, Iraq and North Korea as evil. It’s simplistic to state in the immediate wake of 9/11 that nations are either with the terrorists, or the United States. But it’s a sign of complex nuanced thinking to say that “the rest of the world . . . looks at us with disdain and disgust.” Yes, the world poured out its heart; it cost them nothing. Hearts are easily tipped and just as easily refilled. When the French newspaper said “We are all Americans now” it sounded nice, and I suppose it was, but in retrospect it looks as if there was an undercurrent of appeasement and surrender: we are all Americans because we are all victims in a sense, non? We ceased to earn the precious coin of French approval when we fired the chief procurer for their favorite customer, Iraq. C’est dommage. We can live with it.

Wait until France gets a hard shot in the nose. Wait until France reacts with some nasty work. They’ll get a golf-clap from the chattering class over here and a you-go-girl from Red America. France could nuke an Algerian terrorist camp and the rest of the world would tut-tut for a day, then ask if the missiles France used were for sale. And of course the answer would be oui.

[…]

There you have it. He wants the flag to stand for clean water. This from a man who waddles up to the deep well of American freedom, fumbles with his zipper, and pisses in it.

Read the rest, it’s well worth the time.

Over the past several weeks, SMASH has been out protesting the protestors – which has provided for many great reads in recent days.

Last night, I finally had some time to visit the headquarters (well, online anyways) of the Protestwarriors to learn more. Not only did I get quite a kick out of what they’re doing, I signed up for the Boston chapter. More fun and games in my future, I’m sure.

Two of my favorite poster designs from their gallery of protest signs are:

In addition to great signs, t-shirts, and bumper stickers, there are also a slew of great videos of their actions in places like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.

The Boston Globe is reporting this portion of the story of Kerry choosing Edwards:

Kerry placed a phone call at 7:30 a.m. to Edwards from the suburban Pittsburgh estate of wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. His request was simple enough: “John, Teresa and I would like to ask you and Elizabeth to join us on our ticket to take back our country.

I mean, hey, the guy’s entitled to say what he wants…

But I’m trying to figure out who took our country away? Was that not really our flag that was on my house this morning when I left home at 5:00am?