A whiner, or a winner?

Time to Move On 527 groups?

Posted August 23, 2004 6:15AM PDT

Where was the outrage from the Kerry campaign when, financed by millions from billionaire George Soros, the Type 527 political advocacy group MoveOn.org repeatedly attacked President Bush with on‑line ads that, among other things, compared the president to Hitler?

The 527 groups have served as clearing houses for disseminating hundreds of lies about the Bush Administration. And while John Kerry benefited from their libelous attacks, the Bush Administration sought clarification from the FEC:

"Look at the blatant anti‑President Bush and pro‑Kerry activity by MoveOn.org, The Media Fund, ACT and others. Add in their uninhibited coordination with agents of the Kerry campaign and the Democratic Party at the national and state levels. Remember that all of this information was known to the FEC during its "527" rulemaking deliberations.

"By today's action, the FEC has sanctioned the activities of these groups. Its decision sends a very clear signal to the political community—let the "527" battle begin. — Joint Statement by Bush‑Cheney Campaign Chairman Marc Racicot and RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie on Today's FEC Ruling on 527 Groups, Bush-‑Cheney '04, Inc., May 13, 2004

Then came the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and all of a sudden it's not fair:

A front group for the Bush campaign called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" is continuing to spread their lies about John Kerry's military record. Their statements have been contradicted by official Navy records, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and every man who served under John Kerry—yet George Bush refuses to condemn their tactics. Through his silence, George Bush is approving their action. And Bush campaign officials in Florida are even promoting events for this front group. — Tell George Bush: Stop the Smear—Get Back to the Issues, Kerry‑Edwards 2004, Inc.

The Kerry campaign lies, and they know it:

We condemn all of these 527 ads and we have from the beginning. — Ken Mehlman, Campaign Manager, Bush‑Cheney '04, NBC News Meet the Press with Tim Russert, August 22, 2004

What this demonstrates is that John Kerry is willing to look the other way when individuals and organizations lie on his behalf, but when a group opposes him—whether they tell the truth or not—he accuses the president of foul play.

What's more, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an organization comprised of hundreds of Vietnam veterans who served with distinction, make a very compelling case against John Kerry. An honest man with nothing to hide would confront them directly, or ignore them. Kerry does neither.

From the beginning, Kerry pinned most of his campaign on his service in Vietnam. While his website addresses the issues and his Plan for America, in public he has largely avoided addressing the issues

Kerry knows he can't win on the issues, he hoped to win on his service in Vietnam, and now that's called into question, all he can do is whine and complain about it.

The question Americans need to answer is, do we want a whiner for president, or a winner?

No way out?

Kerry both for and against an exit strategy?

Posted August 19, 2004 6AM PDT

Led by Democrats, many people in the know have harshly criticized the Bush Administration's apparent lack of a clear exit strategy for Iraq:

Senator Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who has long opposed the war, called for a "road map out of Iraq" and alluded to "echoes of Vietnam." … "The harsh reality is this: One year after the fall of Baghdad, the United States should not be casting about for a formula to bring additional US troops to Iraq. We should instead be working toward an exit strategy," Byrd said. — Democrats draw a Vietnam parallel in denouncing US strategy, by Farah Stockman, Boston Globe, April 8, 2004

Senator Kerry agrees:

Democracy "shouldn't be the measurement of when you leave," Kerry said. "You leave with stability. You hope you can continue the process of democratization—obviously, that's our goal. But with respect to getting our troops out, the measurement is the stability of Iraq." — Kerry knocks Bush's Iraq focus, by Dan Balz, Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, April 15, 2004

While the need for an effective exit strategy from Iraq is real, with all the wailing and chest‑beating you'd think everybody would welcome the president's announcement of an exit strategy. But when Bush announced that, after almost 60 years of maintaining a huge military presence in post‑World War II Europe, and post‑Korean war Korea, he planned to pull troops out of these and other parts of the world, Kerry said it's not time for that, yet:

CINCINNATI — Sen. John Kerry yesterday called President Bush's plan to withdraw 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia vague and said it raises more questions than it answers. … "Nobody wants to bring troops home more than those of us who have fought in foreign wars," Kerry said. "But it needs to be done at the right time and in a sensible way. This is not that time or that way." — Kerry criticizes Bush's plan to realign troops , Knight Ridder Newspapers and the Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times, August 19, 2004

Saddam Hussein started the Persian Gulf war in 1990, when he invaded Kuwait. The U.S.‑led International Coalition responded to defend Kuwait. After Desert Storm, Hussein violated the U.N. resolution repeatedly. In March 2003, America launched the first air strikes on Baghdad. Almost immediately, Democrats began demanding an exit strategy. Less than a year‑and‑a‑half later, it's a bigger issue than ever.

Yet, after more than half a century, we are still in Europe and Asia. An exit strategy for these nations is long overdue. But leaving those countries is not politically expedient to Kerry and the Democrats, so they oppose it.

It's the economy, again, stupid?

Is Bush to blame for a slow recovery?

Posted August 18, 2004 5:30AM PDT

Bush has done a bad job on jobs:

Bush's performance is the worst for job creation in the first two years of an economic recovery and second from last in gross domestic product (GDP) growth, as compared with the eight earlier postwar recoveries from recession. — Bush's tax-cut policies put economy in the tank, by Walter Williams, The Seattle Times, August 17, 2004

Yes, this is true. The economic recovery is slow, and Bush's policies are to blame.

In assessing Bush's performance, deleterious consequences clearly resulting from the three tax cuts also need to be taken into account. Most important was the swing from a budget surplus in 2000 of $236 billion, or 2.4 percent of GDP, to a Congressional Budget Office-projected deficit of $477 billion, or 4.2 percent of GDP, in 2004. — Bush's tax-cut policies put economy in the tank, by Walter Williams, The Seattle Times, August 17, 2004

Bush is bad! But before we join the torch and pitchfork brigade to burn him in effigy, in all fairness we should note that Clinton got a lot of criticism—from the left!—for his performance on jobs, too:

Under (Clinton's) policies, 100 million Americans, mostly working families and individuals—blue-collar, white-collar and professional—are being treated as though they were expendable. What was once the world's largest, expanding middle class is now shrinking. — America: Who Stole the Dream, by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Philadelphia Inquirer, 1996

And that was at a time when Clinton reaped a tax windfall from the tech bubble. Since then, exportation of jobs—more specifically, our response to it—has the potential to turn into a crisis:

The sheer size of (India and China)—together nearly 2.5 billion people—means that even if outsourcing is limited to the relatively elite, educated class, there are more people willing to work hard and compete than there are jobs in the United States. The city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay)…is more populous than the combined states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho. — Outsourcing: the strains of global capitalism, by Floyd J. McKay, The Seattle Times, August 18, 2004

Plenty of experts foresaw a crisis in the American economy and American jobs at the very height of the tech bubble during the Clinton Administration. Absent President Bush's tax policies, our economy would be much worse off than it is. What the Democrats offer is reactionary:

As president, John Kerry will cut taxes for businesses that create jobs here in America instead of moving them overseas. John Kerry and John Edwards will also stand up for workers by enforcing our trade agreements. — A Stronger Economy, Kerry‑Edwards 2004, Inc.

What President Bush is doing is proactive:

The President will not allow the United States to retreat into economic isolationism. American workers and American products are the best in the world, and the President has acted aggressively to open foreign markets to U.S. products and services. Today, 12 million American jobs depend on exports. — Does the Administration support outsourcing?, Bush‑Cheney '04, Inc.

Long‑time readers of The Backlash! know I oppose exporting jobs, and that I have long supported Pat Buchanan's "fair trade" policies. Unfortunately for that view, the reality is that countries like India and China are turning into economic juggernauts, and Americans cannot, in fairness and good faith, do anything to oppose this. We must embrace them, and all other emerging economies, as we have done with Europe, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

America is going through a time of extreme readjustment to the realities of the 21st century world economy. We cannot try to prevent jobs from moving overseas, instead we have to focus on fostering innovation here.

Nobody does this better than America. India and China are not simply emerging economies, they are emerging markets, with growing demand for American goods. We can resist this, and lose more jobs under the Democrats' reactionary plans, or we can embrace it, and create more new jobs here in America under the Republicans' proactive policies.

If Bush is to blame for anything, it is for preventing a worse recession, and accelerating the recovery.

Boobs R Us?

Breast‑feeding is natural, but so are side‑long glances

Posted August 10, 2004 4:30AM PDT

Women in Maryland are up in arms because an "employee" at Starbucks asked a nursing mother to cover up or feed her baby in the bathroom:

Carrying infants in slings and car seats, about 30 mothers gathered at a Silver Spring Starbucks Coffee shop yesterday to nurse lattes—and their babies. … The event was organized by Lorig Charkoudian, a conflict resolution trainer from Silver Spring who was inspired after a store employee asked her to cover up or go into the ladies' room while nursing her 15-month-old daughter, Aline, last month. — Md. Moms Say No to Coverup at Starbucks, by Rosalind S. Helderman, Washington Post, August 9, 2004

First off, when an article identifies a person without reference to their gender, that usually means they're a woman. In fact, an L.A. Times article last month about the overly strict enforcement of a ban on eating in the downtown Washington, D.C. Metro station went so far as to identify the offending officer as a "policeman" when the officer was really a woman. So, in this case, the "employee" who asked Ms. Charkoudian to cover‑up was probably a woman.

This is relevant, because women are more likely than men to complain when women expose their breasts…or any other body parts. Why? It has to do with sexual politics. Most men lust after women, and most men lust most after exposed female skin. The more, the better.

Feminists hate that. Feminists, liberal darlings that they are, feel it should be possible to demand that men change, that they stop "sexually objectifying" women. Conservatives know better. Conservatives know that, while breast‑feeding is natural, men looking is natural, too.

At a visceral level, most men want to see women flashing their breasts, and most men desire to live the "Playboy lifestyle," but in conservative societies, where families take priority over "lifestyles," both women and men are expected to follow certain rules of decorum. Rules which, to the self‑obsessed feminists, smack of oppression.

So they stage their little protests, demand liberation, but then inevitably complain when men look and lust. Too bad. If women are going to lactate in public, then men will look. If that's okay, then go for it.

Progress or Decline?

Gay marriage is irresponsible

Posted August 5, 2004 5:30AM PDT

In 1871, feminist pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton railed against the institution of marriage. In 1970, Sulamith Firestone, feminist author of The Dialectic of Sex, claimed that marriage made chattel of women. In 2003, lesbians and gays created a controversy when some of them began suing in court to overturn the will of the people and gain the right to government‑sanctioned marriage.

One of their first victories came in Massachusetts. Other states have followed, as activist judges and activist politicians granted marriage licenses to same‑sex couples in California and Oregon. Their latest victory comes, now, in Washington state:

(King County) Superior Court Judge William Downing found that the state's Defense of Marriage Act of 1998—which restricts marriage to a man and a woman—is unconstitutional and that keeping gay and lesbian couples from marrying serves no legitimate purpose. — Gay marriage backed: Ruling a major first step, but state top court must weigh in, by Tracy Johnson, Seattle Post‑Intelligencer, August 5, 2004

Members of the powerful feminist lobby were quick to show their support:

Today is an important step in gaining legal recognition of the right of all committed, loving adults to marry, but it's just the first step," said Lisa Stone, executive director of Northwest Women's Law Center, which joined Lambda Legal in suing King County in March for eight same‑sex couples denied marriage licenses. — Gay marriage backed: Ruling a major first step, but state top court must weigh in, by Tracy Johnson, Seattle Post‑Intelligencer, August 5, 2004

Who, but wild‑eyed, Bible‑thumping, religious fanatics could oppose this?

The objections to this are from people who see marriage as a religiously‑sanctioned institution, and think that that, indeed, should have something to do with whether the state recognizes it, number one. And number 2, that—you know, you may laugh at this definition, but—"it just ain't natural." And who, thereby, you get the aforementioned "yick factor." — Charles Jaco, filling in on the Dave Ross Show, August 4, 2004

I called in to broach the health and public health issues, but, not surprisingly, Jaco took calls only from people whom he could use to prove his case: that the only argument against gay marriage that opponents had was based on religion or the "yick" factor. As he put it, "Gay marriage, same‑sex unions, are a metaphor for everything else that evangelical conservatives think is screwed up about this Sodom and Gomorrah‑like society."

When I emailed Jaco and his producer to chide them about this, his producer replied that she is the one who chose which calls to air, that she was staggering pro‑gay marriage calls with anti‑gay marriage calls, and the reason she didn't put my anti‑gay marriage call through was because they "didn't have many anti‑gay (marriage) people calling."

Wait a minute! She didn't put my anti‑gay marriage call through because they didn't have many anti‑gay marriage callers? She admitted I was right! No way did she want to put through an American Indian who could instantly disprove his ridiculous assertion.

Certainly, given that upwards of 80% of Americans oppose same‑sex marriage, it stands to reason that, for a lot of people, it is a religious issue. But, although I am religious and I believe in God (in my view, atheism is irrational), I am not a Christian, Muslim or Jew, I am a conservative American Indian, and to me it has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with public health and the health of our children.

My respect and affection for my gay and lesbian friends notwithstanding, government legitimization of such unions will give children the impression it's just fine, thereby encouraging them to consider relationships which are demonstrably less healthy than heterosexual marriages. In general, gays suffer from a shorter life‑span and more health problems, while lesbians also suffer from health problems, as well as a higher incidence of domestic violence.

Domestic violence is a much more prevalent problem in lesbian relationships than it is in heterosexual relationships. Beginning with Claire M. Renzetti's prodigious volume of work in the field, first published in Violent Betrayal: Partner Abuse in Lesbian Relationships, the statistics on domestic violence in same‑sex relationships are growing.

Moreover, lesbians suffer significant but often ignored health risks:

Even without a specific crisis as grave as the AIDS epidemic, the diagnosis is sobering: compared to heterosexual women, lesbians appear to have higher rates of smoking, obesity and alcohol use. — Lesbian Health Problems Uncovered, by David Cray, 365Gay.com, © Copyright 2004 Associated Press , June 24, 2004

Gay men, of course, are dealing with the HIV issue, as well as a host of other STDs. But for society as a whole, this is also a public health issue because of the way in which it impacts society.

The feminist campaign against marriage, coupled together with the way in which the Johnson Administration's Great Society Program encouraged women with children to stay single, have resulted in a vast number of single‑mother households. To this day, feminists express outrage and resort to name‑calling whenever anybody bemoans the sad conditions that characterize single‑mother households, but, from poverty to social violence, fatherless households have made terrible contributions to the seamy side of society.

Advocates of same‑sex marriage often point to this dismal state and ask if homosexuals can do any worse. Some will, some won't, but that's not the issue. Same‑sex marriage will further erode an institution that is struggling, in our post‑feminist society, to recover from more than 40 years of assaults. Maybe every same‑sex couple who gets married will make a healthy, happy home where children will be raised better than anyplace else; but if, in the process, it serves to reverse the recovery of heterosexual marriage, the overall damage done to society will be severe. That, by itself, is sufficient reason to oppose redefinition of marriage to include homosexual unions.

It's right and proper to teach our children to be nonjudgmental of gays and lesbians. Whether homosexuality is a choice, genetic, related to emotional issues or hormone washes in the womb is irrelevant. Redefining marriage will encourage children to view same‑sex marriage positively, that will increase the number of them who, as adults, enter into same‑sex marriages, with devastating consequences to their health and to society. To support same‑sex marriage is, therefore, irresponsible.

As I previously wrote, "Ultimately, homosexual marriage is probably inevitable." What concerns us now, however, "is the stability, security and prosperity of society today." The day may come to legitimize same‑sex marriage, but not here, and not now.