Friday, April 23, 2004

Hypocrisy personified

John Kerry is sponsoring a petition which accuses Bush of using taxpayer's money to fund his campaign. There are no links to support the accusations, so they remain just that: accusations. (The whole thing is reminiscent of the similar allegations levelled against Hillary Clinton four years ago, and just as unfounded.)

Meanwhile, Kerry has missed almost every vote this year, and 64 percent of the votes last year, yet continues to draw his full salary, despite the fact that by law he is supposed to forfeit his pay.

Of course, Kerry doesn't think that senate votes are all that important.

"In the age of telecommunications, Sen. Kerry is in daily contact with his chief of staff,'' Meehan said. "Voting is just one small part of being a U.S. senator.'' cite

Kerry should take a cue from Bob Dole, the 1996 GOP nominee, who resigned his seat in order to dedicate himself to the race while not depriving his state of half of their senate representation. Instead, he spends his time smearing Bush instead of performing the job for which he is paid. Voting is by far the most important portion of a senator's job, and he has been "AWOL" for quite some time.

posted at 01:30 PM | permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting

Andrew Sullivan links to FundRace, which provides maps of donors by address. I was looking at the maps of the ten biggest donor cities, when I happened across the Atlanta map. One address in Atlanta stuck out, because it was both the largest donor (by far) and it was also a Republican stronghold. When I clicked on the address, I realized that it must be an office, because most of the donors were lawyers affiliated with a single firm. One of the other donors caught my eye, however. Andrew Young (yes, THE Andrew Young; he's identified as the CEO of Good Works International) was listed, as a $2000 contributor to the campaign of Geroge W. Bush. Since Young has been a vocal supporter of the Democratic Party for quite some time, and because there was no balancing contribution to any of the Democratic candidates, I wonder what he's thinking. Somehow, I doubt that he'll be questioned by a reporter, or that he'll have a comment on the subject if asked, but it's still noteworthy.

posted at 10:38 AM | permalink | Comments (0)

Pat Tillman killed in Afghanistan

This AP story reports that Pat Tillman, the NFL player who gave up his career to join the Army, has been killed in action in Afghanistan. There is no confirmation from the DoD yet.

Pat Tillman gave up a three million dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the US Army Rangers (special forces) after the September 11th attack by Al Qaeda. After the initial flurry of reporting on his decision, he disappeared from the media's radar, which was as he wished. He didn't want a media circus following him; it was a personal decision on his part, and he didn't ask for special considerations.

Tillman was known for his loyalty; he refused an offer from another team (one which would have significantly raised his salary) to stay with the team that drafted him, and then he asked to be released in order to serve his country. I'm humbled by his sacrifice; I'm not sure if I could have made the same decision had I been in his position. I'm saddened by the deaths of any American servicemember, but Tillman sacrificed his fame to serve his country, and gave his life as well.

UPDATE: Any comment in this thread that is inappropriate will be deleted, the poster will be banned, and I will identify the IP address in a separate post. I will not put up with the behavior exhibited by the trolls who have infested the larger sites.

posted at 09:41 AM | permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

Reciprocity—The flip side

Glenn Reynolds links to a piece that notes that John Kerry is still refusing to release his military records, an action for which Bush was relentlessly dragged over the coals. One of his readers says that Kerry is using the "rope-a-dope" strategy, noting that it worked for Bush.

I disagree. Even though there was absolutely nothing in the records, Bush is still being smeared as being "AWOL", mostly from twits who never served a single day in any military outfit (Michael Moore, anyone?) and disparage those who have. At least the major media have dropped the subject for the most part.

In keeping with the left's obsession with full disclosure, conservatives should demand Kerry release his record, daily, and then shift the terms of the debate should nothing turn up in the records. Maybe enough noise will create a media firestorm like the one that consumed the Bush campaign earlier this year. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and we ought to take a gander at the records that Kerry wants to keep hidden.

UPDATE: Kerry has released all the records. We'll see what happpens.

posted at 04:46 PM | permalink | Comments (2)

As a college student...

No, I've never been to college, but that didn't stop me from taking this quiz, which plots one's responses to a series of questions on a grid and compares the result to responses from college students. I fell into the "secular humanist" category (shared with 29% of the college students in the survey). The other three categories were "traditional liberal", "traditional conservative", and "religious centrists". Not surprisingly, the largest group encountered on campus was "traditional liberal", comprising almost a third of the total. The survey has this to say about me:

You are a Secular Centrist. Secular centrists like you tend to be:

•Strongly supportive of gay rights.
•Believe strongly in the separation of church and state.
•Less supportive of affirmative action than most college students.
•Less likely to be concerned about the environment than most college students.
•Less likely to believe in basic health insurance as a right than most college students.

I somewhat disagree with the second conclusion, although I understand how that conclusion was reached. All the remaining results should be familiar with regular readers. I am staunchly conservative in areas that are not covered by the survey (fiscal issues, law enforcement, personal responsibility), which would pull me out of the "centrist" column. My tolerance of religion informing one's personal choices, as long as they don't infringe on my liberty, would pull me out of the "secular" column, as it is interpreted by many leftists these days. The test is quick and interesting; check it out for yourself.

BTW, my responses were 5/5/2/1/2/4/1/1/4/3/3.

(Link courtesy of Gary Farber, who ended up with the same results, despite a distinctly different political bent. Yes, Gary, some of us conservatives do read past the Instalanche link<grin>.)

posted at 01:18 PM | permalink | Comments (2)