perfidy

Looks like the Bush AWOL story can finally be put to bed as untrue. Fine with me: I'm more concerned with the present.

The Sun is reporting that Alex Polier, 24, is the center of the Kerry controversy. Still not much info, but the British Press is beginning to run with the story. The major American media (CNN, FOX, ABC, CBS, NYTimes) completely ignored the story last night, and as of this morning, still have nothing on their front pages. Which is a little odd. When the Lewinsky story broke, they were at least reporting on the fact that there was a story.

A couple links to Marginal Revolution: first, an exceedingly brief post, which I will quote in full:

In 1960 Taiwan was poorer than the Congo, here is the source.

Second, some thoughts on the just released Economic Report of the President.

The second post gives us some useful information on the whole economy thingy. Read it and we'll talk. But what really snagged my attention was the first one. I remember from when I actually read books and went to school; that at one time, as decolonialization was getting into full swing, everyone thought that Africa was the next best thing, soon to take advantage of all that brilliant and useful socialism and make the Dark Continent into the worker's paradise. Asia, on the other hand, was believed destined for misery and poverty.

Well, that sure happened. And the key, really, is this:

The Index of Economic Freedom

TL Hines is back with his weekly Dark Horse Dialogues. Now that the Kerry train is in danger of derailment, maybe the Donald Sauter candidacy is about to take off. Well, probably not. If it weren't for the candidate web pages he gives, I would be convinced that he's making this stuff up. But no one is going to make up page after page of classical guitar tablature, just for the sake of a joke. Not even a wierdo like TL. And I really doubt that anyone who wasn't entirely too serious would ever think to add this to one of his tablature pages:

ETHICAL PLEA: I do ask one thing regarding the printing of this tablature: please try to refrain from using government or your company resources to do it. Or, if you feel you have no reasonable alternative, please reimburse your employer for use of his material and equipment. I'd hate to think that my - and other people's - taxes and expenses for goods and services are paying for your recreation on the job. I'm funny like that.

While following the Kerry bimbo eruption trail, I ran across this link to a Kausfiles from back in the double M. The Feiler Faster Thesis is simply that:

The news cycle is much faster these days, thanks to 24-hour cable, the Web, a metastasized pundit caste constantly searching for new angles, etc. As a result, politics is able to move much faster, too, as our democracy learns to process more information in a shorter period and to process it comfortably at this faster pace. Charges and countercharges fly faster, candidates' fortunes rise and fall faster, etc. [Italics in original.]

Kaus mentioned this today in the context of the public's seeming unawareness of such basic Kerry facts as the fact that he threw someone else's medals over the White House fence. This is likely going to be overshadowed by the new bombshell - though hints are now coming out that this particular weakness has been known, at least in theory and in some quarters, for a while now. We shall have to see how this all plays out.

This primary season has had more twists and turns than a sidewinder with MS. We had the magnificent entry of Gen. Clark, then the Dean implosion, now this Kerry thing - along with the usual run of campaign bizarreness. Clark might be endorsing Kerry - even though he apparently knew of the coming bimbo eruption - to angle for a VP slot if Kerry survives the battle. Dean has stayed in, possibly because of his knowledge of it. Edwards must be dancing a jig, because there was little hope that the media or Dean would cut into Kerry enough that he could take the driver's seat. Only Al Sharpton has nothing to gain from this.

If this story has legs, it seems unlikely that Kerry will be able to reposition himself before the next round of primaries, because this story won't be leaving the front pages. Momentum is a thing of the past, as Dean has already discovered.

Click the more link for some fun stuff back from the 2000 election.

It also follows, if you buy the FFT, that Wilentz is wrong: Bush has plenty of time to reposition himself for the general election. His strategists will deploy the cliché that from March to November is "an eternity in politics." (Look at how Bush Sr. went from Gulf War hero to general-election loser! Look at how Clinton came back from the brink of disgrace! Look at how Gore went from being a stiff to unstoppable!) But if the Feiler Faster Thesis is correct, from now to November isn't an eternity anymore. It's more like five eternities. Bush probably has time to move to the center, move back to the right, feint at protectionism, convert to Catholicism, divorce his wife, admit he dropped acid, denounce vivisection, embrace Lenora Fulani, enroll in Bob Jones University, then tearfully apologize for all of the above on Meet the Press and still move back to the vital center again before November. OK, I'm exaggerating. But you get the point. We have no more idea what the public image of Bush will be in November than we have of what Chicago will look like in the year 2100.

I've just been discussing the recent passage of the law banning muslim headscarves in France with my office mate. To be sure, the law is even handed, in that it also forbids Jews from wearing yarmulkes and Christians from wearing large crosses. But participants in a protest in Egypt believe that the law is anti-Islam. And of course they're right.

The prohibitions for Jews and Christians is just a figleaf for a spectacularly lame attempt to do something about the Muslim minority in France that now is over 14% of the population. Theodore Dalrymple wrote in the City Journal a frightening description of the cités surrounding most French cities, and inhabited by millions of poorly assimilated North African Muslims. Until now, there has been little if any attempt on the part of the French or their government to construct any sort of policy for assimilating the growing Muslim minority. This despite the fact that riots, crime and support for radical Islam is rampant in the Muslim neighborhoods.

This effort is far too little, and perhaps too late as well. It has the simultaneous disadvantages of infuriating the Muslims while doing absolutely nothing about the underlying problems. It is a symbolic bandaid on a metaphorical sucking chest wound.

While I on one level I am feeling a delicious sort of anticipatory schadenfreude contemplating the disaster that could be facing France in the not too distant future, the fact is that despite recent French obsteperousness, it would be a very bad thing for the west if la France became the battleground in the fight between civilization and radical Islam.

A word to the wise: if you've gone almost five years without your regularly scheduled cleaning at the friendly neighborhood dentist, you may as well just never get one. I feel like my teeth have been peeled, and it hurts to breath through my mouth. The hygienist was gentle with the five megawatt, ultrasonic pain causing device, but I kept thinking of the line from Fight Club, "You can swallow a quart of blood a day and not get sick."

And because I had been so lax in attending to keeping my oral cavity in tip-top condition, I have to go back in a month do do it all over again.

Armed Liberal nicely articulates a position very close to mine in the election horse-race.

I was almost in a brutally tough position on this one, but Kerry's impending coronation makes it somewhat easier. While Bush's domestic policies aren't criminal, exactly, they are amazingly stupid in almost every dimension in which I can think to measure them. But he is doing the war thing sort of right. Unless he's planning to pull out too soon in the face of domestic political pressure. Now my head really hurts.

And if the Democrats had a candidate who had a strong track record on foreign policy and had some kind of remotely consistent plan for what to do now that we're here (see some of my ideas, as examples of what I'd like to see), I'd have to weigh the cost of switching teams mid-game against the net advantages of domestic policies I liked better against the likely effect of the proposed foreign policies against the fact that I've always supported Democrats, and that a strong Democratic Presidential showing would have coattails in local races that I value a lot.

This is arguably the most serious election in my adult life. I believe that the Communists would have collapsed sooner or later even if Reagan hadn't spent them into the ground (although he certainly made a difference). I think that Clinton did some good stuff in refocusing our domestic social-welfare programs.

But there's a big-ass hole in lower Manhattan, and our people are being beheaded on home video. It's not going to get better by itself, and we need to have a coherent set of policies and the resources and will to carry them out. Kerry's actions and statements to date don't give me an ounce of confidence that he's the guy to do this.

Bush is challengeable on that front, and I'd like to see him challenged in order, if nothing else, to get him to better articulate and defend what he's doing.

I'm not going to stay up late seeing if Kerry can make that challenge.

I wish I had something apropos, insightful, and pithy to add but I don't. I can only say... yeah.

Drudge is flipping out over news that John Kerry is trying to fight off a media probe into a recent infidelity. Here's what Drudge has to say:

CAMPAIGN DRAMA ROCKS DEMOCRATS: KERRY FIGHTS OFF MEDIA PROBE OF RECENT ALLEGED INFIDELITY, RIVALS PREDICT RUIN

A frantic behind-the-scenes drama is unfolding around Sen. John Kerry and his quest to lockup the Democratic nomination for president, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.

Intrigue surrounds a woman who recently fled the country, reportedly at the prodding of Kerry, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

A serious investigation of the woman and the nature of her relationship with Sen. John Kerry has been underway at TIME magazine, ABC NEWS, the WASHINGTON POST, THE HILL and the ASSOCIATED PRESS, where the woman in question once worked.

MORE

A close friend of the woman first approached a reporter late last year claiming fantastic stories -- stories that now threaten to turn the race for the presidency on its head!

In an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week, General Wesley Clark plainly stated: "Kerry will implode over an intern issue." [Three reporters in attendance confirm Clark made the startling comments.]

The Kerry commotion is why Howard Dean has turned increasingly aggressive against Kerry in recent days, and is the key reason why Dean reversed his decision not to drop out of the race after Wisconsin, top campaign sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Well, just when we all thought it was settled...

If this is true, then Kerry is a complete moron. If you can't keep it in your pants when you know a bazillion reporters (not to mention Republican oppo research teams) are going to be scrutinizing what you had for dinner twenty years ago, you don't deserve to be president.

NDR points to an interview with Senator Joe Biden on the Democrats and foreign policy during the election cycle.

He's right; the Democrats used to be the party of vigorous foreign involvement and bold solutions. That momentum is entirely on the other side of the aisle now. When's the last time you heard a Democrat utter something as bold and controversial as "evil empire," "axis of evil" or, "Tear down this wall"? You may not agree with them, but the Republicans are the ones proposing solutions, whereas the Democrats are currently merely decrying Republican proposals. That's no way to run a party, that's no way to run a nation, and that's no way to win an election.