MaroonBlog

I would like to point out that tragedy was averted by the tribble control measures. What if the Enterprise had run out of food? Would the tribbles have developed a taste for living human flesh? 'Captain's Log: *PAUSE* The rest of my crew is dead *PAUSE* and my phaser is empty. *PAUSE* I can hear them chewing *PAUSE* through the door. *PAUSE* Oh, God! NOOOOO!' (The sounds of mewing and fabric ripping, then silence.)

The Senate Rules Committee approved a plan last year that would gradually lower the threshold for filibusters against judicial nominees until a simple majority would allow a final vote. But a change in the rules requires 67 votes, and lacking anything near that support, the proposal never went to the floor.

Senator Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican who is chairman of the Rules Committee, has been among the Republicans who have also suggested that the Republicans try to win a change by seeking a ruling from the chairman, a position that a Republican would hold, that filibusters against executive nominations are unconstitutional. A favorable ruling would require just a majority to uphold.

Some Republicans have been reluctant to try that maneuver. They call it the nuclear option, because it could come back to haunt them if they are in the minority. Democrats have also threatened to tie up the Senate in knots if they lose their right to filibuster in that manner.

There's no time here to dismantle fully the edifice of condescension and ignorance constructed by Maher and Smiley (I put Dowd in a different category). But what offends them so much about religion is that it is a source of authority outside — and prior to — politics. What has offended the Left since Marx, and American liberalism since Dewey, is the notion that moral authority should be derived from anyplace other than the state or "the people" (conveniently defined as citizens who vote liberal). Voting on values not sanctified by secular priests is how they define "ignorance." This was the real goal of Hillary Clinton's "politics of meaning" — to replace traditional religion with a secular one that derived its authority not from ancient texts and "superstitions" but from the good intentions of an activist state and its anointed priests. Shortly before the election, Howell Raines fretted that the worst outcome of a Bush victory would be the resurgence of "theologically based cultural norms" — without even acknowledging the fact that "theologically based cultural norms" gave us everything from the printing press and the newspaper to the First Amendment he claims to be such a defender of.

What Maher, Raines, and Smiley fail to grasp is that all morality is based upon transcendence — or it is merely based on utilitarianism of one kind or another, and therefore it is not morality so much as, at best, an enlightened expediency or will-to-power. It is no more rational to vote based on a desire to do "good" than it is to vote based on a desire to do God's will. Indeed, for millions of people this is a distinction without a difference — as it was for so many of the abolitionists progressives and civil-rights leaders today's liberals love to invoke but never actually learn about.

Love, in fact, is just as silly and superstitious a concept as God (and for those who believe God is Love, this too is a distinction without a difference). Chesterton's observation that the purely rational man will not marry is just as correct today, because science has done far more damage to the ideal of love than it has done to the notion of an awesome God beyond our ken. Genes, hormones, instincts, evolution: These are the cause for the effect of love in the purely rational man's textbook. But Maher would get few applause lines from his audience of sophisticated yokels if he mocked love as a silly superstition. This is, in part, because the crowd he plays to likes the idea of love while it dislikes the idea of God; and in part because these people feel love, so they think it exists. But such is the extent of their solipsism and narcissism that they not only reject the existence of God but go so far as to mock those who do not, simply because they don't feel Him themselves. And, alas, in elite America, feelings are the only recognized foundation of metaphysics.

I didn't intend to get off on the tangent of religion. I'm not particularly religious myself, after all. Nevertheless, I think the great irony of this election is that for all the talk of how the bigoted Right won, the Left's loss has sparked far more bigotry. Their clever trick is to defend their hatred of the religious by calling it a hatred of bigotry itself — a rationalization no liberal would tolerate from any other kind of bigot.

Anyway, I should wrap this up. Look, I understand that the entire Popular Front of the Left lost — and big — last week. I understand they thought they were going to win. I understand that many of them believed all of the nonsense about Bush's being a fascist crusader and I understand that some actually believed P. Diddy's axiom that you should vote (Democratic) or die. (Although it should be self-evident that a man who chooses the name P. Diddy is not a man to take very seriously. Last time I checked, Henry Kissinger never contemplated calling himself "Special K.")

But for those of you who think your grief and disappointment justify your pious nastiness and blame-shifting for your own failures: Do keep in mind that it is precisely such self-indulgence and arrogance that costs you elections.

"A Communist stands on a street corner yelling, 'Fidel delivered us from our chains!' A drunk stumbling by answers, 'And our watches, rings, bracelets, and necklaces.'

Before the revolution, people died and became skeletons. After the revolution: skeleton first, die later.

For the new year, Cubans will receive two rice sacks each. One to wear as pants, and one to wear as a shirt.

Fidel makes a speech and declares, 'In Cuba, nobody goes to sleep hungry!' One disheveled man raises a hand and says, 'Commandante, I haven't eaten in days. I'm very hungry.' Fidel says, 'Then, true to my word, you will not go to sleep!'

The teacher asks Pepito, 'What systems are incompatible with the Communist system of government?' Pepito answers, 'The digestive system and the nervous system.'

Another teacher asks Pepito, 'Tell me three benefits of the Communist revolution.' Pepito answers, 'Nationalized health care, education, and defense.' 'Great! Now tell me three challenges the country faces.' Answers Pepito, 'Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.'

Still another teacher shows her class a photograph of President Bush and asks if anyone recognizes him. Absolute silence. She continues, 'Let me give you a hint: It is because of this man that we Cubans go hungry.' Pepito jumps up and says, 'I didn't recognize him without his beard and uniform.'"

In a "values" discussion on CNN the other night, the Republican governor of Nebraska was queried and probed as if he were from another planet: "Bipedal, carbon-based life forms in Nebraska are sexually dimorphic and pair off in long-term commitments called — forgive me if I mispronounce this — 'marriage'? Can you please describe, in as simple terms as possible, the concept of barbecue? Who is Brooks? And if I may follow up quickly, who is Dunn?"

But as early as Aug. 5, when the Swifties were just getting traction, Edwards wanted to push back, hard. McCain had just told the Associated Press that the Swift Boat ads were “dishonest and dishonorable... the same kind of deal that was pulled on me.” Edwards wanted to begin a speech, “I join with Senator McCain in calling on the president to condemn this dishonest and dishonorable ad.” But Kerry headquarters said no. Stephanie Cutter, the boss of the Kerry communications shop, explained that the campaign didn’t need to give the Swift Boat vets any more attention than they were already getting.

Edwards played along, but his aides were indignant. They warned the veep candidate that the story was already out of control and about to get worse. Historian Douglas Brinkley, author of a wartime biography of Kerry, cautioned that Kerry’s diary included mention of a meeting with some North Vietnamese terrorists in Paris. Edwards was flabbergasted. “Let me get this straight,” the senator said. “He met with terrorists? Oh, that’s good."

To translate it into UNIX system administration terms (Randy's fundamental metaphor for just about everything), the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz. society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with a kind of neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with any deviations from what they saw as the norm. Where as people who were wired into a church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand everything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack. They were, in other words, capable of displaying adaptability.

In a short while, we're going to have to get back to the real world. That bearded punk quaking in a Pakistan cave who decided to play pundit last Friday — we're gonna dismantle him the way we've dismantled his organization. Yeah, we noticed no attacks in the U.S. between 9/11/01 and 11/03/04 — that didn't happen by accident. It happened because we're winning, and we're not going to let up until the word "al Qaeda" is as distant and meaningless as "Barbary pirates."

W. doesn't see division as a danger. He sees it as a wingman.

The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel.

W. ran a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq - drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or 'values voters,' as they call themselves, to the polls by opposing abortion, suffocating stem cell research and supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

Mr. Bush, whose administration drummed up fake evidence to trick us into war with Iraq, sticking our troops in an immoral position with no exit strategy, won on 'moral issues.'

Accountability requires choice, and choice implies the exclusion of some possibilities. It can therefore be "polarizing." Perhaps Bush could have governed in a way that left the country less polarized — although that is not as clear to me as it seems to be to others. But while gratuitous offense and incivility are always to be avoided, political harmony is not an important goal in its own right. It is not more important than setting pro-growth policies, defending unborn human life, or providing for the common defense. Conservatives who thought Bush should try to accomplish those goals were not wrong to pursue them even at the risk of inspiring some bitterness.

This election outcome should have been implausible, if not impossible. With a litany of complaints — bad economy, bad deficit, bad foreign war, bad gas prices — amplified by a national media that discarded any pretense of neutrality, a national opposition party should have won this election.

But the Democratic Party is no longer a national party. As difficult as the challenges are — both real and fabricated — Democrats offered no solution that was either believable or acceptable to vast regions of America.

All of this points to an important political thought: Rather than wasting time trying to persuade blue-state liberals to switch their allegiance to conservative principles — whether national security, tax cuts, or the social issues — it is much more productive to expand the base of red-state conservatives and get them to turn out heavily on Election Day. America is a conservative “right” nation. It is now governed by a conservative president, a conservative Senate, a conservative House of Representatives, and a majority of conservative governors.

If the Bush-led conservative majority keeps its promises on a strong defense, on spreading peace-inducing freedom and democracy around the world, on limited government and lower tax rates to promote economic growth at home, on the pro-consumer, pro-investor, ownership-society, reformist conservative agenda for Social Security, healthcare, and education, and on the social values of protecting the unborn and preserving traditional marriage, then the 2004 election outcome will represent a huge step in the right direction for this great country.

A MANDATE FOR CULTURE WAR: That's Bill Bennett's conclusion. He won't be the only one. What we're seeing, I think, is a huge fundamentalist Christian revival in this country, a religious movement that is now explicitly political as well. It is unsurprising, of course, given the uncertainty of today's world, the devastating attacks on our country, and the emergence of so many more liberal cultures in urban America. And it is completely legitimate in this country for such views to be represented in public policy, however much I disagree with them. But the intensity of the passion, and the inherently totalist nature of religiously motivated politics means deep social conflict if we are not careful. Our safety valve must be federalism. We have to live and let live. As blue states become more secular, and red states become less so, the only alternative to a national religious war is to allow different states to pursue different options. That goes for things like decriminalization of marijuana, abortion rights, stem cell research and marriage rights. Forcing California and Mississippi into one model is a recipe for disaster. Federalism is now more important than ever. I just hope that Republican federalists understand this. I fear they don't.

99% of Precincts Reporting
George W. Bush 2,764,809 - 51 percent
John Kerry 2,620,594 - 48 percent

Cliff May:Jonah, you ask “why on earth” the exit pollsters are approaching more women than men. My guess: Because more men then women are working as exit pollsters.

Like if you had that job, you’d really pass up the pretty girls to go ask the men to fill out your silly little forms.

KJL:CLIFF IS EVIL: Now you've given all the women who weren't approached by pollsters a complex. Good work.

It’s 3 PM on November 2, 2004. There has not been a terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11/01.

If Osama bin Laden could have attacked us over the past three years, he would have.

If OBL could attack us today, he would.

Whoever is responsible for keeping the barbarians outside the gates deserves praise – and re-election.

'I personally would be shocked out of my pants if I was at college now,' confides Wolfe, who spent four years trawling the campuses for raw material. The book, he says, is 'about sex as it interacts with social status. And I have tried to make the sex un-erotic. I will have failed if anyone gets the least bit excited. So much of modern sex is un-erotic, if erotic means flight of fancy or romantic build-up. Sex now is so easy to consummate - it is a pressure that affects everybody, girls more than boys, I think.'

As he notes, the America which votes tomorrow is a country riven over morality like never before. On the flip side of the culture of ubiquitous sex is that of puritan Christianity, as harnessed in no small part by Bush. 'Yes, there is this puritanism,' says Wolfe, 'and I suppose we are talking here about what you might call the religious right. But I don't think these people are left or right, they are just religious, and if you are religious, you observe certain strictures on sexual activity - you are against the mainstream, morally speaking. And I do have sympathy with them, yes, though I am not religious. I am simply in awe of it all; the openness of sex. In the 60s they talked about a sexual revolution, but it has become a sexual carnival.'

Where does it come from, this endorsement of the most conservative administration within living memory? Of this president who champions the right and the rich, who has taken America into the mire of war, and seeks re-election tomorrow? Wolfe's eyes resume the expression of detached Southern elegance.

"I think support for Bush is about not wanting to be led by East-coast pretensions. It is about not wanting to be led by people who are forever trying to force their twisted sense of morality onto us, which is a non-morality. That is constantly done, and there is real resentment. Support for Bush is about resentment in the so-called 'red states' - a confusing term to Guardian readers, I agree - which here means, literally, middle America. I come from one of those states myself, Virginia. It's the same resentment, indeed, as that against your own newspaper when it sent emails targeting individuals in an American county." Wolfe laughs as he chastises. "No one cares to have outsiders or foreigners butting into their affairs. I'm sure that even many of those Iraqis who were cheering the fall of Saddam now object to our being there. As I said, I do not think the excursion is going well."

And John Kerry? "He is a man no one should worry about, because he has no beliefs at all. He is not going to introduce some manic radical plan, because he is poll-driven, and it is therefore impossible to know where or for what he stands."

As far as Wolfe is concerned, "the great changes in America came with the second world war, since which time I have not seen much shift in what Americans fundamentally believe. Apart from the fact that as recently as the 1970s, Nelson Rockefeller shocked people by leaving his wife of 30 years, while now celebrities routinely have children outside marriage, the mayor of New York leaves his wife for his lover and no one blinks. But a large number of people have remained religious, and it is a divided country - do not forget that Al Gore nearly won the last election. The country is split right along party lines."

And there has been a complete climate change in the nation which elected Bill Clinton twice, to that which may confer the same honour on George Bush tomorrow. This, says Wolfe, began not with the election of Bush, but on the morning of September 11 2001.

None of us who were in New York that day will ever forget it, and Wolfe is no exception. "I was sitting in my office when someone called to tell me two light planes had collided with the World Trade Centre. I turned on my television, before long there was this procession of people of all kinds, walking up the street. What I remember most was the silence of that crowd; there was no sound.

"That day told us that here was a different kind of enemy. I honestly think that America and the Bush administration felt that something extreme had to be done. But I do not think that the Americans have become a warlike people; it is rare in American history to set about empire-building - acquiring territory and slaves. I've never met an American who wanted to build an empire.

...

So what is it about his liberal neighbours and fellow diners in his adoptive New York that Wolfe cannot abide? "I cannot stand the lock-step among everyone in my particular world. They all do the same thing, without variation. It gets so boring. There is something in me that particularly wants it registered that I am not one of them."

Parting cordially, it seems strange that such an effervescent maverick, such a jester at the court of all power - all vanity, indeed - should so wholeheartedly endorse the power machine behind George Bush. And so an obvious thought occurs: perhaps Wolfe is jester at the court of New York too. Would he really be happier away from New York, out on the plains, in the "red states" where everyone at dinner parties votes for Bush? Wolfe's eyes revert to that mischievous glint, and he allows himself a smile. "I do think," he admits, apparently speaking for himself, his country and his president, "that if you are not having a fight with somebody, then you are not sure whether you are alive when you wake up in the morning."