"The
Morning After"
"I say forget introspection. It's time to be honest about our antagonists. ... Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states." (Jane Smiley)
News and commentary on the post-election debate after President Bush's
victory.
2004 Electoral Vote Map
(The Washington Post, 2004/11/03)News and commentary: 2004/11/03 - 2004/12/01
December 2004
"'You Must Admit You Are a Victim'" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/12/01)November 2004
Friday, November 19, 2004
"I think this name fits..." (John Masterson, The People's Republic of Seabrook, 2004/11/19)Thursday, November 18, 2004
"The fear myth" (The Economist, 2004/11/18)
"American blues" (Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian, 2004/11/18)Friday, November 12, 2004
"How Enlightenment Dies" (Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 2004/11/12)
"'Moral Values' Myth" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2004/11/12)Thursday, November 11, 2004
"Those Tolerant, Open-Minded, Inclusive Liberals" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/11/11)
"Good Riddance" (Marty Peretz, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/11/11)
"'Intent' Star Faints On The Set" (Richard Johnson, New York Post, 2004/11/11)
"Latest Conspiracy Theory - Kerry Won - Hits the Ether" (Manuel Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating, The Washington Post, 2004/11/11)Wednesday, November 10, 2004
"Why the liberals have been left behind" (Janet Daley, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/11/10)Tuesday, November 9, 2004
"Kerry supporters seek therapy in South Florida" (Sean Salai, BocaNews.com, 2004/11/09)
"Bush's Secularist Triumph" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2004/11/09)Monday, November 8, 2004
"Bush Voters: Ignorant or Stupid?" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/11/08)
"'Go Figure'" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/11/08)
"Polls Apart" (Lawrence F. Kaplan, The New Republic, 2004/11/08)
"Election Death Cult?" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/11/08)Sunday, November 7, 2004
"No, it wasn't God" (David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 2004/11/07)
"Believe it or not, it wasn't just rednecks who voted for Bush" (Mark Steyn, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/11/07)
"Condescending Dems still don't get it" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2004/11/07)Saturday, November 6, 2004
"Man commits suicide at Ground Zero" (Rocco Parascandola et al., Newsday.com, 2004/11/06)
"I TRIED! SORRY! (DON'T BLOW UP TRAVIS COUNTY IN TEXAS PLEAAAAAAAAASE!)" (Sorry Everybody, November 2004)
"The Values-Vote Myth" (David Brooks, The New York Times, 2004/11/06)Friday, November 5, 2004
"OBEY" (LA Weekly, 2004/11/05)
"Meanwhile at "reality-based" blog The Daily Kos..." (Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit, 2004/11/05)
"Americans flock to Canada's immigration Web site" (David Ljunggren, Reuters, 2004/11/05)
"American Exceptionalism" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/11/05)
"The Hate-Red Blues" (Denis Boyles, National Review, 2004/11/05)
"Now it's payback time for Bush's staunch allies" (John Vinocur, International Herald Tribune, 2004/11/05)
"Life did not end on Tuesday" (Gerard Baker, The Times, 2004/11/05)
"Bush hatred flops big" (Mark Steyn, The Australian, 2004/11/05)Thursday, November 4, 2004
"Free States and Slave States, before the Civil War" (Learner.org)
"The Blue Cocoon" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/11/04)
"'Bush Derangement Syndrome' at Full Display Among Left-Wing German Media" (Davids Medienkritik, 2004/11/04)
"A catastrophic night for the Democrats" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2004/11/06 issue)
"So Much to Savor" (Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/11/04)
"The Unteachable Ignorance of the Red States" (Jane Smiley, Slate, 2004/11/04)
"A Rude Awakening" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2004/11/04)
"Big loss for the Bush haters" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2004/11/04)
"How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" (The Daily Mirror, 2004/11/04)
"God Help America" (Brian Reade, The Daily Mirror, 2004/11/04)
"FOUR MORE YEARS" (The Independent, 2004/11/04)
"Film-maker Moore silenced as credits roll on a fair fight" (Fraser Nelson, The Scotsman, 2004/11/04)Wednesday, November 3, 2004
"Jesusland" (Unknown/Matthew Yglesias, 2004/11/03)
"The Morning After" (Michele Catalano, A Small Victory, 2004/11/03)
"BUSH LIES" (Mandel Ngan, AFP, 2004/11/03)
"Kerry Concedes Election to Bush" (John Whitesides, Reuters, 2004/11/03)
2004 Electoral Vote Map (The Washington Post, 2004/11/03)
"Four More Years" (Ben Johnson, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/11/03)
"'You Must Admit You Are a Victim'" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/12/01)
Taranto unearths a piece from Nov. 7, "written by one Mel Gilles, 'who has worked for many years as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse,' and who 'draws some parallels between her work and the reaction of many Democrats to the election'":Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, "Why did they beat me?"
And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before.
They will tell you, every single day.
The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence. ...
First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized.(See also: "The Politics of Victimization" (Mel Gilles, mathewgross.com, 2004/11/07))
"I think this name fits..." (John Masterson, The People's Republic of Seabrook, 2004/11/19)
Masterson comments on a post which dubs the red states "Dumbfuckistan":
"As a left-winger, I have one fundamental principle that guides me in this life: people who disagree with me are inherently inferior, in every possible way. When I'm not damning The Bell Curve, I insist that my IQ is higher than those I disagree with.
We have to convince everyone that good left-wingers are the elite, and that's that. We're better than others. We're morally and intellectually superior, and there's no question about it. Anyone who would offer the slightest hesitancy to agree with me is just a fantatical, homophobic bigot. And I'm gonna keep on telling everyone until the whole world understands. And those who don't understand are unquestionably too stupid to understand." (Hat tip: Tim Blair.)"The fear myth" (The Economist, 2004/11/18)
"In the past fortnight, the Democrats have come up with lots of comfort-food explanations of George Bush's victory—from the idea that the rascal stole the election for a second time (there were a mere 3.3m votes in it, after all) to the notion that he rode into Washington, DC, at the head of an army of hooded fundamentalists. But perhaps the most dangerous of all these myths is the idea that Mr Bush terrified the voters into re-electing him. He divided the country along “fault lines of fear”, according to Maureen Dowd in the New York Times; he relied on “fear of and hatred for modernity”, added Garry Wills, polymath and devout Catholic. ...
The election certainly took place against a background of fear (Islamic fanatics are, after all, bent on killing as many Americans as they can). And the Republicans certainly played the fear card with gusto (as indeed did the Democrats: remember all the talk about reintroducing conscription). But if they are going to extract any useful lessons from their humiliation, the Democrats need to realise that the Republicans didn't just beat them on fear. They clobbered them on hope.""American blues" (Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian, 2004/11/18)
"And, on the other side of the pond, through Europe. We don't have so many Christian fundamentalists any more. Compared with the American religious right, Rocco Buttiglione, the withdrawn Italian Catholic candidate for European commissioner, is a dangerous liberal. But we do have Islamic fundamentalists, in growing numbers. And, I would say, we have secular fundamentalists: people who believe that to live by the tenets of Islam, or other religions, is incompatible with what it is to be fully human, and want citizens to be educated and the state to legislate accordingly. While I have been in America, the possible consequences have been played out on the streets of prosperous, pacific, tolerant Holland, with the murder of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and the counter-attack on an Islamic school. If America has its culture wars, its Kulturkampf, so do we. And ours could be bloodier.
So the expressions of European solidarity after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks ( "Nous sommes tous Américains" ) should acquire a new meaning and a new context after the November 2 2004 elections. Hands need to be joined across the sea in an old cause: the defence of the Enlightenment. We are all blue Americans now.""How Enlightenment Dies" (Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 2004/11/12)
Theo van Gogh XLIII: "Writing in the New York Times, an overwrought Garry Wills had this to say:The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.
The title of his article? "The Day the Enlightenment Went Out."
Oh really? If it was the fate of the Enlightenment for which Mr. Wills feared, he would have done better looking some 3,000 miles to his east, to lovely, wounded Amsterdam, a city once famed for its brisk, North Sea tolerance, a city that now mourns the death of an artist killed for speaking his mind. ...
After, allegedly (we must, I suppose, use that word) shooting his victim, B started to stab him. In a last attempt to save his life, a desperate Van Gogh reportedly pleaded with his attacker: "We can," he said, "still talk about it." Talk. Dialog. Reason. In response, savagery. The murderer sawed through Van Gogh's neck and spinal column with a butcher knife, almost severing his head. And that, Mr. Wills, is how Enlightenment dies." (See also: "The Day the Enlightenment Went Out" (Gary Wills, The New York Times, 2004/11/04) and "Jihad wrecks Dutch race harmony" (Matthew Campbell, The Sunday Times, 2004/11/07))"'Moral Values' Myth" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2004/11/12)
"In the post-election analyses, the liberal elite, led by the holy trinity of the New York Times -- Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd -- just about lost its mind denouncing the return of medieval primitivism. As usual, Dowd achieved the highest level of hysteria, cursing the Republicans for pandering to "isolationism, nativism, chauvinism, puritanism and religious fanaticism" in their unfailing drive to "summon our nasty devils." ...
Whence comes this fable? With President Bush increasing his share of the vote among Hispanics, Jews, women (especially married women), Catholics, seniors and even African Americans, on what does this victory-of-the-homophobic-evangelical voter rest?
Its origins lie in a single question in the Election Day exit poll. The urban myth grew around the fact that "moral values" ranked highest in the answer to Question J: "Which ONE issue mattered most in deciding how you voted for president?"
It is a thin reed upon which to base a General Theory of the '04 Election. In fact, it is no reed at all. ...
This does not deter the myth of the Bigoted Christian Redneck from dominating the thinking of liberals and infecting the blue-state media. They need their moral superiority like oxygen, and they cannot have it cut off by mere facts. Once again they angrily claim the moral high ground, while standing in the ruins of yet another humiliating electoral defeat." (See also: "The Values-Vote Myth" (David Brooks, The New York Times, 2004/11/06))"Those Tolerant, Open-Minded, Inclusive Liberals" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/11/11)
"'I find it easier to explain the psychology of a suicide bomber than how it is that most Americans like Bush, think he's taking the right course.' -- Melinda Ruley, Independent Weekly (Durham, N.C.), Nov. 10" (See also: "'I wish somebody else could be boss of the people'" (Melinda Ruley, Independent Weekly, 2004/11/10): "The way I see it, Bush has a brilliance that defied his superficial bumbling, and that is his direct access to the hairy little homo habilis in us all, making our piles of rocks at the mouth of the cave.")"Good Riddance" (Marty Peretz, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/11/11)
Peretz on the "extreme and bitter judgments against the citizenry after this election":
"The American people have plumb busted the hearts of the country's liberal elites, and the sentiments evoked among these elites are not dolorous but actually quite nasty. So much so that they reminded me of a poem by the communist playwright Bertolt Brecht, sardonic and rare in its anti-communist sensibility. On June 17, 1953, workers in the Russian Zone of East Berlin had risen up against the regime, and one of its top apparatchiks distributed a leaflet,Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts.About which Brecht observed,
. . . Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And choose itself another?It is surely what America's cultural top drawer would like to do themselves."
"'Intent' Star Faints On The Set" (Richard Johnson, New York Post, 2004/11/11)
A Bad Case of Post-Election Selection Trauma: "Vincent D'Onofrio, the star of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," passed out while shooting the hit TV series yesterday morning — prompting insiders to gossip that the actor is "losing it."
"Ever since John Kerry lost the election, [D'Onofrio] has lost his [bleep,]" said our on-set insider.
"He has been getting into fistfights with people, and when he passed out today, we all thought he was faking it. But then he insisted they call 911."
An ambulance raced to the Queens studio, where paramedics found nothing wrong with the gifted actor, who became a star in 1987 with his searing performance as a misfit Marine in "Full Metal Jacket."
D'Onofrio, a big Kerry supporter, was said to be devastated over President Bush's re-election. ... About a month before the election, D'Onofrio "insisted" on putting up anti-Bush posters and fliers, "and would attack anyone who disagreed with him," the spy added.""Latest Conspiracy Theory - Kerry Won - Hits the Ether" (Manuel Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating, The Washington Post, 2004/11/11)
"The e-mail subject lines couldn't be any bigger and bolder: "Another Stolen Election," "Presidential election was hacked," "Ohio Fraud."
Even as Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign is steadfastly refusing to challenge the results of the presidential election, the bloggers and the mortally wounded party loyalists and the spreadsheet-wielding conspiracy theorists are filling the Internet with head-turning allegations. There is the one about more ballots cast than registered voters in the big Ohio county anchored by Cleveland. There are claims that a suspicious number of Florida counties ended up with Bush vote totals that were far larger than the number of registered Republican voters. And then there is the one that might be the most popular of all: the exit polls that showed Kerry winning big weren't wrong -- they were right.""Why the liberals have been left behind" (Janet Daley, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/11/10)
"Now the aggrieved, "disfranchised" of New York and Los Angeles - cheered on by their friends in Britain - are saying that the American electorate is bigoted, reactionary and stupid. In Thatcherite Britain, they said that the voters were selfish, reactionary and stupid. Left-wing intellectuals, of course, are never, ever wrong. Nothing — absolutely nothing — ever causes them to question their own beliefs. It is the rest of the world that is out of step. And the rest of you — the great democratic mass of people who have the temerity to think your own thoughts and come to your own conclusions — are scarcely worthy of the franchise.
Democracy is suitable only for the enlightened - which is to say for people who accept the assumptions of the Guardian/BBC world view. If you cannot produce the right result in an election - even after you have been told very clearly by everybody from Robert Redford to Michael Moore what to think — then you are beneath contempt, and we are licensed by the household gods of liberal ideology to call you names. (On Radio 4's News Quiz last week, Jeremy Hardy described Bush and his followers as "stupid, crazy, ignorant, bellicose Christian fundamentalists". Presumably, by BBC logic, this does not constitute bigotry but wit.)""Kerry supporters seek therapy in South Florida" (Sean Salai, BocaNews.com, 2004/11/09)
Post-Election Selection Trauma: "Boca Raton trauma specialist Douglas Schooler said he has treated 15 clients and friends with “intense hypnotherapy” since the Democratic nominee conceded last Wednesday.
“I had one friend tell me he’s never been so depressed and angry in his life,” Schooler said. “I observed patients threatening to leave the country or staring listlessly into space. They were emotionally paralyzed, shocked and devastated.” ...
“We’re calling it ‘post-election selection trauma’ and we’re working to develop a counseling program for it,” said Rob Gordon, the Boca-based executive director of the American Health Association. “It’s like post-traumatic stress syndrome, but it’s a short-term shock rather than a childhood trauma.”
Gordon, the first American Red Cross psychotherapist sent to Ground Zero after the 9/11 terror attacks, said therapists’ main concern is to prevent the recurrence of Kerry-related suicides like the one in New York City. ...
Asked to describe symptoms of the post-election trauma, Schooler said, 'They include feelings of extreme anger, despair, hopelessness, powerlessness, a failure to function behaviorally, a sense of disillusionment, of not wanting to vote anymore – that sort of thing. We’re talking about a deep, unhealthy personal suffering that can best be remedied by intensive short-term therapy.'" (See also: "Man commits suicide at Ground Zero" (Rocco Parascandola et al., Newsday.com, 2004/11/06))"Bush's Secularist Triumph" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2004/11/09)
"As far as I know, all religions and all churches are equally demented in their belief in divine intervention, divine intercession, or even the existence of the divine in the first place.
But all faiths are not always equally demented in the same way, or at the same time. Islam, which was once a civilizing and creative force in many societies, is now undergoing a civil war. One faction in this civil war is explicitly totalitarian and wedded to a cult of death. We have seen it at work on the streets of our own cities, and most recently on the streets of Amsterdam. We know that the obscene butchery of filmmaker Theo van Gogh was only a warning of what is coming in Madrid, London, Rome, and Paris, let alone Baghdad and Basra.
So here is what I want to say on the absolutely crucial matter of secularism. Only one faction in American politics has found itself able to make excuses for the kind of religious fanaticism that immediately menaces us in the here and now. And that faction, I am sorry and furious to say, is the left. From the first day of the immolation of the World Trade Center, right down to the present moment, a gallery of pseudointellectuals has been willing to represent the worst face of Islam as the voice of the oppressed.""Bush Voters: Ignorant or Stupid?" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/11/08)
"But Bob Herbert of the New York Times, though agreeing that Bush voters are ignorant, doesn't think the situation is totally hopeless:I think a case could be made that ignorance played at least as big a role in the election's outcome as values. ... This is scary. How do you make a rational political pitch to people who have put that part of their brain on hold? No wonder Bush won. ... There's a fair amount of cluelessness in the ranks of the values crowd. ... A more practical approach might be for Democrats to add teach-ins to their outreach efforts. Anything that shrinks the ranks of the clueless would be helpful.
Herbert is on to something here. Just because someone is ignorant enough to vote Republican doesn't mean he can't benefit from a little re-education. By assuming otherwise, Smiley is yielding to the soft bigotry of low expectations." (See also: "Voting Without the Facts" (Bob Herbert, The New York Times, 2004/11/08))
"'Go Figure'" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/11/08)
"Jon Friedman, a commentator for CBS MarketWatch, is still trying to figure out what happened:The Bush political team intuitively understood the tone of the U.S. voters much better than the media did. To be honest, I still don't quite understand how certified media junkies like me could have been so wrong.
I read the New York Times and the New Yorker religiously. I watch CNN and the networks' evening news programs as well as the gabfests on Sunday mornings, too.
Go figure."(See also: "Media missed the passion that burned for Bush" (Jon Friedman, Investors Business Daily, 2004/11/05))
"Polls Apart" (Lawrence F. Kaplan, The New Republic, 2004/11/08)
"And so it went last week, as a parade of friends and relatives, knowing full well that I supported Bush, phoned and emailed to deplore the country's ignorance. Echoing a question posed by Slate, they asked: Why do so many Americans hate Democrats? Maybe, just maybe, the answer has something to do with the fact that so many Democrats seem to hate them. ...
Novelist Jane Smiley's contribution to the Slate symposium is instructive: "The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. ... Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. ... The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America." ...
There is a word for this sort of condescension, and it isn't fear, concern, or anxiety about the impulses of Middle America. It is anti-Americanism. ...
If this is what passes for rational discourse on the left — and for too many liberals these days, it is — then just who is it that belongs to the "reality-based community" and just who is it that suffers under the weight of what the left used to call "false consciousness"? ...
To be alienated these days, after all, is what Todd Gitlin once described as "a rock-bottom prerequisite for membership" in an establishment of its own. That establishment, comprising much of the media, academia, the punditocracy, and indeed entire swaths of blue America, forms a cohesive community — with its own rewards, norms, and favorite enemies. And as the post-election commentary has revealed, one of those enemies happens to be mainstream America." (See also: "The Unteachable Ignorance of the Red States" (Jane Smiley, Slate, 2004/11/04))"Election Death Cult?" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/11/08)
Suicide at Ground Zero and now this: "Genuine or not, this is the most disturbing reaction to the US election yet:A few of us, including my wife, are going to commit suicide. If you plan to do the same, do it with us. Together we can make a statement:
ANYONE ELSE WANT TO CONTEMPLATE SUICIDE WITH US? ...Reader Alan Wesson sent a note a few weeks ago on a similar matter. This is published with his permission:
I am a Brit, and in 1988 my wife's cousin, who was an avid Guardian reader, committed suicide by climbing a high-tension power pylon and grabbing hold of the cable. He did it because he had become depressed and despairing at what he had been led to believe was the utter inevitability of nuclear war against Russia (if you were a Guardian reader then, that was the scare they were selling - basically they purvey scares. Then it was WW3, now it's environmental doom, and their more credulous readers - i.e. most of them - buy the line). ...
The Guardian's 'thing' now is that the Americans are causing planetary meltdown by their fuel and power consumption (I don't know what they think we run *our* power stations and transport systems on), and their readership is now worked up into a lather because they think the only way to save the world from Global Warming is to vote for Kerry... ... Personally, I hold them at least in part responsible for my cousin-in-law's death, and I regard their irresponsible scaremongering as malign in the extreme.Does media demonising of Bush amount to irresponsible scaremongering? Possibly, given the response to his re-election." (See also: "Man commits suicide at Ground Zero" (Rocco Parascandola et al., Newsday.com, 2004/11/06))
"No, it wasn't God" (David Aaronovitch, The Observer, 2004/11/07)
The Values-Vote Myth III: "I much prefer secularism to theocracy. But the thing is, so do the Americans and nothing about this last election indicates otherwise, as I hope to prove. Yet a new conventional wisdom has sprung up almost instantaneously (a wisdom which describes two Americas - one irrational and priest-bound, the other open and rational) locked in a Pullmanesque contest that has just been won by the 'battalions of Christian soldiers' (as one of our most eminent historians put it).
'We ran a jihad in America,' wrote one celebrated American columnist. 'The faithful were shepherded to the polls as though to the rapture,' said another, conjuring an image entirely absent from any coverage that I saw at the time. ...
So what about the religious? The populist 'uprising' from the red states noted by Thomas Frank turns out, on inspection, to be more or a less a mirage, a self-inflicted liberal nightmare. ...
Above all, however, we must first avoid the one fatal error that so many have fallen into. George W Bush and his voters are not dumb. Those who think so are the really dumb ones.""Believe it or not, it wasn't just rednecks who voted for Bush" (Mark Steyn, The Sunday Telegraph, 2004/11/07)
The Values-Vote Myth II: "The big question after Tuesday was: will it just be more of the same in George W Bush's second term, or will there be a change of tone? And apparently it's the latter. The great European thinkers have decided that instead of doing another four years of lame Bush-is-a-moron cracks they're going to do four years of lame Americans-are-morons cracks. ...
Who exactly is being self-righteous here? In Britain and Europe, there seem to be two principal strains of Bush-loathing. First, the guys who say, if you disagree with me, you must be an idiot - as in the Mirror headline "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" Second, the guys who say, if you disagree with me, you must be a Nazi - as in Oliver James, who told The Guardian: "I was too depressed to even speak this morning. I thought of my late mother, who read Mein Kampf when it came out in the 1930s [sic] and thought, 'Why doesn't anyone see where this is leading?'"
Mr James is a clinical psychologist.""Condescending Dems still don't get it" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2004/11/07)
"I had a bet with myself this week: How soon after election night would it be before the Bush-the-chimp-faced-moron stuff started up again? 48 hours? A week? I was wrong. Bush Derangement Syndrome is moving to a whole new level. On the morning of Nov. 2, the condescending left were convinced that Bush was an idiot. By the evening of Nov. 2, they were convinced that the electorate was. Or as London's Daily Mirror put it in its front page: "How Can 59,054,087 People Be So DUMB?"
Well, they're British lefties: They can do without Americans. Whether an American political party can do without Americans is more doubtful. Nonetheless, MSNBC.com's Eric Alterman was mirroring the Mirror's sentiments: "Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the 'reality-based community' say or believe about anything." Over at Slate, Jane Smiley's analysis was headlined, 'The Unteachable Ignorance Of The Red States.'""Man commits suicide at Ground Zero" (Rocco Parascandola et al., Newsday.com, 2004/11/06)
"Distraught over the re-election of President George W. Bush, a Georgia man traveled to New York City, went to Ground Zero and killed himself with a shotgun blast, police said yesterday.
The suicide victim, Andrew Veal, 25, was discovered just before 8 a.m. yesterday when a worker for the Millennium Hotel looking at Ground Zero from an upper floor saw a man lying atop the concrete structure through which the 1 and 9 subway lines run. ...
No suicide note was found, but according to a Port Authority police source, family members said Veal, a registered Democrat, was despondent over Bush's defeat of Sen. John Kerry. A second source said Veal, who lived in Athens, Ga., and worked for the University of Georgia, was also adamantly opposed to the war in Iraq. ...
But Frank Franca, an East Village artist and registered Democrat, suggested the suicide was symbolic.
"I'm very moved by it," he said. 'Obviously, this person was devastated. I can see why he would come here.'"
"I TRIED! SORRY! (DON'T BLOW UP TRAVIS COUNTY IN TEXAS PLEAAAAAAAAASE!)"
(Sorry Everybody, November 2004)
From Tim Blair's International Sorry Day gallery: "Bush the Hitler-powered chimpoid oil bunny is back in power, and soon he will send everyone to meet his beloved Jesus. So say sorry now, like these enlightened folks." See also: Sorry Everybody."The Values-Vote Myth" (David Brooks, The New York Times, 2004/11/06)
The Values-Vote Myth I: "Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them.
In past years, the story line has involved Angry White Males, or Willie Horton-bashing racists. This year, the official story is that throngs of homophobic, Red America values-voters surged to the polls to put George Bush over the top.
This theory certainly flatters liberals, and it is certainly wrong. ...
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?" (See also, for example: "The Unteachable Ignorance of the Red States" (Jane Smiley, Slate, 2004/11/04))
"OBEY"
(LA Weekly, 2004/11/05)
Via: "Election News Brieflets"
(Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/11/05)"Meanwhile at "reality-based" blog The Daily Kos..." (Glenn Reynolds, InstaPundit, 2004/11/05)
"Meanwhile at "reality-based" blog The Daily Kos, reality seems less important than, well, lying:And thus, the biggest silver lining of this election is how the GOP's victory is thus far being claimed, framed and explained. To that I say, "Let us join that chorus." And we should do so now, because there is immediacy in the post-election window of opportunity.
Marching order #1, therefore, is this: No matter whom you talk to outside our circles, begin to perpetuate the (false, exaggerated) notion that George Bush's victory was built not merely on values issues, but gay marriage specifically. If you feel a need to broaden it slightly, try depicting the GOP as a majority party synonymous with gay-haters, warmongers and country-clubbers. ...This doesn't strike me as a very productive approach, but the post is certainly revealing." (See also: "Ralph's Gift" (Tom Schaller, The Daily Kos, 2004/11/05))
"Americans flock to Canada's immigration Web site" (David Ljunggren, Reuters, 2004/11/05)
"The number of U.S. citizens visiting Canada's main immigration Web site has shot up six-fold as Americans flirt with the idea of abandoning their homeland after President George W. Bush's election win this week.
"When we looked at the first day after the election, November 3, our Web site hit a new high, almost double the previous record high," immigration ministry spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi said on Friday.
On an average day some 20,000 people in the United States log onto the Web site, www.cic.gc.ca — a figure which rocketed to 115,016 on Wednesday. The number of U.S. visits settled down to 65,803 on Thursday, still well above the norm. ...
The idea of increased immigration by unhappy Americans is triggering some amusement in Canada. Commentator Thane Burnett of the Ottawa Sun newspaper wrote a tongue-in-cheek guide to would-be new citizens on Friday.
"As Canadians, you'll have to learn to embrace and use all the products and culture of Americans, while bad-mouthing their way of life," he said.""American Exceptionalism" (Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, 2004/11/05)
"Despite losing the majority of state legislatures and governorships, the U.S. Congress, the presidency, and soon the Supreme Court, our anointed elite still doesn't quite get it. Middle America can be amused by, but still despise, Michael Moore. It can be uneasy with the pessimistic reporting from Iraq, but still be very much willing to finish the war and win at all costs. It may enjoy a trip to Europe, but does not wish to emulate the French, Germans, or Greeks. ...
The Democrats now lament that America would prefer to be "wrong" with George Bush than "right" with them. They will no doubt adduce a number of other paradoxes, excuses, and sorrows. But the fact is that the Left was united, well-funded, and ran the most vitriolic campaign in the Democratic party's history — and still lost, taking all branches of power with it. The New York Times and the major networks have undone their legacy of a half-century, and in the desire for cheap partisan advantage have ruined the reputations of anchor men, the very notion of fair front-page reporting, and, indeed, the useful concept itself of an exit poll. 60 Minutes, Nightline, ABC News — these are now seen by millions as mere highbrow versions of Fahrenheit 9/11.""The Hate-Red Blues" (Denis Boyles, National Review, 2004/11/05)
"Obviously, it's easier to hate than to think, but the payoff, politically, is nil. That lesson is completely lost on our British friends. Lacking a better idea, the strategy of the liberal London dailies, as this front page of the Independent makes clear, is to hate Bush even more than they hated him before. ...
In fact, ever notice how, when hate-mongers try to appear affable, they can't resist the rush of a bile-shooter? In the International Herald Tribune, an editorial (via the New York Times) asks for a "new start" — but only after comparing Bush voters with Muslims who vote for all those goofy imams. The Guardian calls those who voted for Bush racists, then asks for a "handshake." Hell if I'd shake hands with anyone who wants to shake hands with a racist.""Now it's payback time for Bush's staunch allies" (John Vinocur, International Herald Tribune, 2004/11/05)
"Just days before Tuesday's vote, Felix Rohatyn, the distinguished banker and former U.S. ambassador to France, defined the election stakes for European consumption.
A Democrat who valiantly served the Clinton administration in 1999-2000 at the time the French first went off on America-the-hyperpower cum unilateralist and world's-greatest-problem, Rohatyn was aggrieved then at what he regarded as a false, even mean-spirited accusation. So he is personally familiar with political excess.
All the same, talking to the French newsmagazine l'Express, Rohatyn described this week's choice of a president as probably the most important in America since 1900 "and even since the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860."
Were Europeans supposed to read into this that the election was tantamount to choosing between Kerry or slavery and civil war? The interview didn't say.
But it well reflected the sense of rage and disenfranchisement that the internationalist wing of the American liberal establishment was experiencing at the prospect of Kerry's defeat. Over the months leading up to the vote, its tactics seemed to be a kind of media carom shot. It involved branding Bush as a horror in discussing him with Europe, legitimizing and reinforcing in the process a slew of more anti-American than anti-Bush commentators, and then watching as this was replayed back into the Democratic campaign mix as evidence from Europe that Bush's America had lost the world's love and respect.
Like America listened or cared.""Life did not end on Tuesday" (Gerard Baker, The Times, 2004/11/05)
"This “Hail to the Thief” line won’t work now that he is back with the largest number of votes ever cast for a presidential candidate. So the critics have to find something else to explain away the Bush phenomenon.
They have come up with this: Mr Bush did not win because he convinced the majority of mainstream, sensible Americans that his policies were the right ones and that his values were their values. He won because his campaign orchestrated a massive turnout by evangelical Christians (read: fundamentalist bigots) who were motivated by their myopic moral outlook, especially opposition to gay marriage, to return one of their own to the White House. Mr Bush’s election, therefore, is discredited, not because of its reliance on the Supreme Court, but because of its dependence on religious freaks. ...
Mr Bush’s re-election was no narrow victory for religious zealots. It confirms that America is a decidedly conservative country, but not an alien one.
And its implications for the rest of the world are not baleful. All the world has to fear now is four more years of an America doing its damnedest to export the value that is at the heart of all of its people’s beliefs: that people should be as free to choose their own direction as the American people so joyously were this week.""Bush hatred flops big" (Mark Steyn, The Australian, 2004/11/05)
"The Michael Mooronification of the Democratic Party proved a fatal error. Moore is the chief promoter of what's now the received opinion of Bush among the condescending Left -- Chimpy Bushitler the World's Dumbest Fascist. There are some takers for this view, but not enough. By running a campaign fuelled by Moore's caricature of Bush, the Democrats were doomed to defeat. ...
Bush hatred flopped big on Tuesday. That's not a problem for The Guardian's editors, who have to sell papers in Britain, but it is for a Democratic Party that has to sell itself in the US. Michael Mooronification damages everyone who gets it.
Look at the recently resurrected Osama bin Laden. Three years ago he was Mr Jihad, demanding the restoration of the caliphate, the return of Andalucia, the conversion of every infidel to Islam, the imposition of sharia and an end to fornication, homosexuality and alcoholic beverages. In his latest video he sounds like some elderly Berkeley sociology student making lame jokes about Halliburton and Bush reading My Pet Goat."
"Free States and Slave States, before the Civil War"
(Learner.org)
Ken Layne says the map above showing Free States and Slave States in 1860 is "close enough" to the 2004 Electoral Vote Map.
(UPDATE: Kevin Drum says the two maps "rather eerily matches".)"The Blue Cocoon" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/11/04)
"'I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won,' the late film critic Pauline Kael is said to have observed after the 1972 election. "I don't know anybody who voted for him." Pick up the New York Times 32 years later, and it's obvious that big-city liberals are as out of touch as ever. "Some New Yorkers, like Meredith Hackett, a 25-year-old barmaid in Brooklyn, said they didn't even know any people who had voted for President Bush," reports the paper's Joseph Berger in a Metro section story on New Yorkers who are "disconsolate" over President Bush's re-election:... "I'm saddened by what I feel is the obtuseness and shortsightedness of a good part of the country--the heartland," Dr. Joseph said. "This kind of redneck, shoot-from-the-hip mentality and a very concrete interpretation of religion is prevalent in Bush country--in the heartland."
"New Yorkers are more sophisticated and at a level of consciousness where we realize we have to think of globalization, of one mankind, that what's going to injure masses of people is not good for us," he said. ...Angry Left blogger Eric Alterman sums up the attitude:
Let's face it. It's not Kerry's fault. It's not Nader's fault (this time). It's not the media's fault (though they do bear a heavy responsibility for much of what ails our political system). It's not "our" fault either. The problem is just this: Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the "reality-based community" say or believe about anything.
Who exactly is parochial here? ... Bush voters tend to see big-city liberals as arrogant elitists, and the above quotes make clear that they are substantially correct. If those liberals were as sophisticated and open-minded as they fancy themselves to be, they would make an effort to understand why most Americans disagree with them rather than simply dismissing them as idiots." (See also: "A Blue City (Disconsolate, Even) Bewildered by a Red America" (Joseph Berger, The New York Times, 2004/11/04) and "(Still) A Land of Hopes and Dreams" (Eric Alterman, Altercation, 2004/11/03))
"'Bush Derangement Syndrome' at Full Display Among Left-Wing German Media" (Davids Medienkritik, 2004/11/04)
"Left-wing German media go bonkers over Bush's win.
TAZ, 11/4/04 (Left-wing German daily):BUSH BELONGS IN FRONT OF A WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL - NOT IN THE WHITE HOUSE
New wars of aggression cannot be ruled out
In his first term, US President George W. Bush already threw away more sympathy and earned more hostility and hate than any of his predecessors since 1776*. Bush achieved this catastrophic result with his contraproductive "war against terror", which he carried out with a crusade mentality. He constantly violates and scorns international law, and wages an illegal war against Iraq against the declared will of 95% of all countries with up to 180,000 civilians killed.
... lies and manipulation .... conditions fufilled for a an impeachment trial against Bush ... mandate for the continuation of his devestating policies ... neo-conservative baiters and religious warriors ... etc.,
etc., etc..(*Translator's note: the first American president took office in 1789, not 1776.)" (See also: "Bush gehört vors Kriegsverbrechertribunal - nicht ins Weisse Haus" (Andreas Zumach, TAZ, 2004/11/04))
"A catastrophic night for the Democrats" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2004/11/06 issue)
"One constituency that’s more or less dead after this election is the liberal warmongers — the fellows like Andrew Sullivan (of Britain’s Sunday Times) and Thomas Friedman (of the New York Times) and my compatriot Michael Ignatieff. Before the Iraq war, they were some of its biggest boosters. In recent months, they all turned, and most of them persuaded themselves that Kerry was the man to fix the mess in Iraq and see things through. I found this extraordinary. The defeat of Bush would have been seen around the world as a repudiation of his view of the war, and especially the aspect that the moulting hawks were once so keen on: his commitment to bringing liberty to the Middle East. John Kerry couldn’t have been more explicit that that was not his aim. The moulters’ willingness to abandon the long-term goal because of a nickel’n’dime jailhouse scandal and a rate of combat fatalities that any earlier generation of Americans would have regarded as the blessings of a merciful God speaks very poorly for them. Even as an armchair warrior, I wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole with these guys.""So Much to Savor" (Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal, 2004/11/04)
"Who was the biggest loser of the 2004 election? It is easy to say Mr. Kerry: he was a poor candidate with a poor campaign. But I do think the biggest loser was the mainstream media, the famous MSM, the initials that became popular in this election cycle. Every time the big networks and big broadsheet national newspapers tried to pull off a bit of pro-liberal mischief — CBS and the fabricated Bush National Guard documents, the New York Times and bombgate, CBS's "60 Minutes" attempting to coordinate the breaking of bombgate on the Sunday before the election — the yeomen of the blogosphere and AM radio and the Internet took them down. It was to me a great historical development in the history of politics in America. It was Agincourt. It was the yeomen of King Harry taking down the French aristocracy with new technology and rough guts. God bless the pajama-clad yeomen of America. Some day, when America is hit again, and lines go down, and media are hard to get, these bloggers and site runners and independent Internetters of all sorts will find a way to file, and get their word out, and it will be part of the saving of our country.""The Unteachable Ignorance of the Red States" (Jane Smiley, Slate, 2004/11/04)
Apparently, Smiley doesn't notice the irony of accusing all your 58 million opponents of being "unteachable ignorant" at the same time as you are attacking them for their "feelings of superiority."
Or, for that matter, the chutzpah of calling your opponents "ignorant", filled with "greed" and "bloodlust", "predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant" and then portray yourself as someone who is thinking that "humans are essentially good":
"I say forget introspection. It's time to be honest about our antagonists. ... I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush, so I am going to be the one to say it: The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million — my relatives are not ignorant, they are just greedy and full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.) ...
Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. ... The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America. Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are—they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence. The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind." ...
The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now — Cheney is the capitalist arm and Bush is the religious arm. They know no boundaries or rules. They are predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant.""A Rude Awakening" (Amir Taheri, New York Post, 2004/11/04)
"The European elites had spent much of Tuesday evening dreaming about how a President Kerry would ratify the Kyoto accords, sign on to the International Criminal Court, cut and run in Iraq, send flowers to Yasser Arafat and, perhaps, open a dialogue with Osama bin Laden. When it became clear that the American voters wanted none of that, the chattering classes in Europe were left speechless. One Paris TV anchor was literally struck dumb momentarily when, after hours of crowing over Kerry's victory and the American people's supposed liberation from Bushist tyranny, he had to admit that things had gone differently.
The shock felt in Europe was even greater because of the size of Bush's victory. The president won more votes than any candidate in the entire history of America. Dubya also became the first to win the presidency with a majority of the popular vote, since his father in 1988. ...
Until Tuesday, the standard excuse by many Europeans who opposed key aspects of Bush's policies was that they were only anti-Bush, not anti-American. They tried to justify that bit of sophistry with Michael Moore-esque lies about how Bush, having "stolen" the 2000 election, did not really represent the American people.
With Dubya's victory, it will no longer be possible for the Hate-America international to pose as merely anti-Bush. Their claim that Bush and his gang of Likudniks had somehow hijacked the United States has been swept away by American voters.""Big loss for the Bush haters" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2004/11/04)
"HATRED LOST.
For four years, Americans watched and listened as President Bush was demonized with a savagery unprecedented in modern American politics. For four years they saw him likened to Hitler and Goebbels, heard his supporters called brownshirts and racists, his administration dubbed "the 43d Reich." For four years they took it all in: "Bush" spelled with a swastika instead of an 's,' the depictions of the president as a drooling moron or a homicidal liar, the poisonous insults aimed at anyone who might consider voting for him. And then on Tuesday they turned out to vote and handed the haters a crushing repudiation.
Bush was reelected with the highest vote total in American history. He is the first president since 1988 to win a majority of the popular vote. He increased his 2000 tally by 8 million votes and saw his party not only keep its majorities in the House and Senate but enlarge them. And he did it all in the face of an orgy of hatred. ...
Bush-bashers reveled in their animosity — many openly and proudly embraced the word "hatred" — but I wondered all along whether they weren't driving away far more voters than they were attracting. "Their unabashed loathing may energize and excite them, but they are doing their candidate and their country no favors," I wrote in this space in July. "For most Americans, hatred is a political turn-off." Now that the object of their malevolence has won more votes than any previous president, will they consider giving up the politics of hatred in favor of something healthier and more constructive?"
"How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?"
(The Daily Mirror, 2004/11/04)"God Help America" (Brian Reade, The Daily Mirror, 2004/11/04)
As Taheri points out above: "With Dubya's victory, it will no longer be possible for the Hate-America international to pose as merely anti-Bush." Brian Reade proves him right:
"They say that in life you get what you deserve. Well, today America has deservedly got a lawless cowboy to lead them further into carnage and isolation and the unreserved contempt of most of the rest of the world. ...
They had somehow managed to re-elect the most devious, blinkered and reckless leader ever put before them. The Yellow Rogue of Texas.
A self-serving, dim-witted, draft-dodging, gung-ho little rich boy, whose idea of courage is to yell: "I feel good," as he unleashes an awesome fury which slaughters 100,000 innocents for no other reason than greed and vanity. ...
A radical Christian fanatic who decided the world was made up of the forces of good and evil, who invented a war on terror, and thus as author of it, believed he had the right to set the rules of engagement. ...
As for the ones who put him in, across the Bible Belt and the South, us outsiders can only feel pity.
Were I a Kerry voter, though, I'd feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets.
The self-righteous, gun-totin', military lovin', sister marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport ownin' red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land 'free and strong.'" (See also: "British press as divided as US electorate over Bush win" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/11/04): "In stark contrast, the left-leaning Independent had the headline "Four More Years", around which was placed a montage showing images such as shackled prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, the abuse of Iraqi detainees by US guards and an oil pipeline. ... The Daily Mirror took an even blunter approach, plastering a picture of Bush over its entire front page with a message to those who voted for him: 'How can 59,017,382 people be so DUMB?'")
"FOUR MORE YEARS"
(The Independent, 2004/11/04)"Film-maker Moore silenced as credits roll on a fair fight" (Fraser Nelson, The Scotsman, 2004/11/04)
"For the first time in years, Michael Moore was speechless.
The film-maker and author was keeping quiet yesterday as he digested the inconceivable: his books, films and campaigns had not even dented Mr Bush’s political lead.
His book, Stupid White Men, and film Fahrenheit 9/11 have sold well in the United States as they have across the world - radicalising a young audience which had never before voted.
But yesterday the self-styled "capped crusader" was searching in vain for any evidence that the shadow he has cast over American politics for the last three years had touched the polling station.
He had deployed 1,300 cameras to polling stations in Florida and Ohio, determined to catch on film the dirty tricks which he argues stopped thousands of black voters from casting their ballot four years ago.
"I’m putting those who intend to suppress the vote on notice: voter intimidation and suppression will not be tolerated," Mr Moore said in a statement.
But he gave up on Florida by 3pm on polling day, and headed to Ohio instead.
By yesterday lunchtime, it became clear that George Bush, his nemesis, had won a fair and unanswerable victory."
"Jesusland"
(Unknown/Matthew Yglesias, 2004/11/03)"The Morning After" (Michele Catalano, A Small Victory, 2004/11/03)
"If you don't mind, I'd like to address the throngs of Chicken Littles who seem to be out in full force on the net today. I just want to clear up a few things, as you all seem to be pretty misguided in more than one area today.
I voted for George Bush.
I am not a redneck.
I do not spend my days watching cars race around a track, drinking cheap beer and slapping my woman on the ass.
I am not a bible thumper. In fact, I am an atheist.
I am not a homophobe.
I am educated beyond the fifth grade. In fact, I am college educated.
I am not stupid. Not by any stretch of facts.
I do not bomb abortion clinics. ...
What did you all believe in this year? Hate? Anger? You ran your own campaign, one filled to the brim with bile and acidic spittle and you wonder why you feel so black today? You were pinning your hopes on the the wish that the rest of America harbored the same intense hatred as you and would vote with their clenched fists. Now that you are left without the hoped for victory party as an outlet for your rage, you have to direct it somewhere else. If not at the candidate, then at his voters, right? What I am seeing today makes me pity you, and it's a pity tinged with disgust and should not be mistaken for empathy."
"BUSH LIES"
(Mandel Ngan, AFP, 2004/11/03)
"Demo in New York: A protester wears an anti-Bush sticker on his forehead while demonstrating against US President George W. Bush and the results of the US presidential elections at New York's Union Square.""Kerry Concedes Election to Bush" (John Whitesides, Reuters, 2004/11/03)
"Democratic Sen. John Kerry conceded the White House race to President Bush in a phone call on Wednesday, ending the drama of ballot counting in Ohio and cementing Bush's re-election to a second four-year term.
Bush aides said he told Kerry he was an "admirable, worthy" opponent during the phone call, which ended their bitter and extraordinarily close eight-month struggle for the White House. ...
Kerry called Bush after meeting with running mate John Edwards and Sen. Edward Kennedy, his colleague from Massachusetts. Kerry told Bush the country was divided and urged him to work to bring Americans together, a campaign aide said."
2004 Electoral Vote Map
(The Washington Post, 2004/11/03)"Four More Years" (Ben Johnson, FrontPageMagazine, 2004/11/03)
"With 96 percent of the nation’s precincts reporting as of this writing, George W. Bush had already received more than 57 million votes, more than any other candidate in electoral history. (Ronald Reagan won 54 million in 1984.) Although the popular vote was still being tabulated as of this writing, it appears George W. Bush will garner nearly 51 percent, making him the first president in 16 years to be elected by a majority of voters. This is the largest popular vote victory since his father won 54 percent of the vote against Michael Dukakis in 1988. (To put things in perspective, Ronald Reagan also won 51 percent of the vote in 1980. By contrast, Bill Clinton earned only 49 percent in his 1996 “landslide” victory over Bob Dole.)"
Copyright © Watch 2001-2006.
Copyrights of quoted materials belong to their respective owners.
"When
people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent.
The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."
Articles
of the week
"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)
"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)
"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)
"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)
"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)
›
AOTW Archive
From the archives
Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.
"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)
"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)
"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)
"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)
Weekly archive
2006/12/04
- 2006/12/10
2006/11/27 - 2006/12/03
2006/11/20 - 2006/11/26
2006/11/13
- 2006/11/19
2006/11/06
- 2006/11/12
2006/10/30
- 2006/11/05
›
From
2001/09/11 -
Monthly
index
December
2006
November
2006
October
2006
September
2006
August
2006
July
2006
›
From
September 2001 -
Author index
›
Ajami,
Fouad - Johnson, Paul
›
Kagan,
Robert - Ye'or, Bat
Support
Watch
Please
feel free to donate if you enjoy the daily content and links Watch provides:
Contact Watch
Email:
watch-at-windsofchange.net
