Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Poll Drops House on Katherine Harris   The Florida Senate election is over a year away, so it's too soon to make any predictions, but if one were to make a prediction, it's that Katherine Harris candidacy for the Senate is DOOMED.  Doomed, I tell you, doomed!  Last week, Republican pollsters Strategic Visions ran a poll of the Florida Senate race, and even in that somewhat slanted poll, Senator Bill Nelson led 48%-42%.  And today, the nonpartisan Mason-Dixon polling organization released its poll of the Florida race, and dropped a house on the Wicked Witch of Florida.  In that poll, her favorable rating was 32%, her unfavorable 30% (those numbers are in line with past polls of her relative popularity, while Democratic Senator Bill Nelson's positives beat his negatives 44%-10%).  And Senator Nelson beats her in a head-to-head race 53%-36%.  It's also pretty hard to see how she could move up.  She has a pool of 70% of the electorate who don't hate her yet from which to get over 50% of the vote, while Senator Nelson needs to pull his majority from the 90% of the population that think he's okay.  She's likely to attack him with all the ferocity and all the cool logic of a rabid dog, but while that might drive up his negatives, it probably won't do anything to make her more popular. 3:00:26 PM    comment []

Quote for the Day, 6/21/2005   "I think I can become the kind of person that's worth you staying for. First of all, I'm a man who can cry. Now, it's true, it's usually when I've hurt myself, but it's a start."   -Steve Martin (Harris Telemacher), L.A. Story  11:49:30 AM    comment []

Everybody's Favorite All-Americans   47 right-wing bloggers responded to a poll asking them to list twenty "people who are screwing up America".  Notably, only one conservative, Senator John McCain, America’s most popular politician, made the list.  Now, I would have included some people they left out; and I would have left out some of the people they included.  But it's a perfectly respectable list.  In order of popularity, this, then, is the honor roll of the 25 greatest people in America, along with some brief personal comments: 23 (tie) Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.  These Reagan Republicans don't think much of a Justice he appointed. 23 (tie) Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  She's another female Justice.  Of course she's on the list. 23 (tie) Representative Maxine Waters.  Okay, she can be shrill.  21 (tie) Charles Rangel.  Simply the best spokesman for the concerns of urban Americans.  I call this racial profiling; if he were white, he'd be much higher ranked. 21 (tie) Vice President Albert Gore, Jr.  If he still had that beard, I think he might be higher on the list.  17 (tie) Justice David Souter.  My favorite Supreme Court Justice. 17 (tie) Reverend Al Sharpton.  Okay, I can't begin to defend Al Sharpton. 17 (tie) Markos Moulitsas Zuniga.  Okay, you got me with this one.  I have no idea who this is.  Is he (?) any relation to actress Daphne Zuniga? 17 (tie) President William Jefferson Clinton.  Poor President Clinton.  He must be thinking, "I came in 17th?  How did that happen?  Obviously, I've been slipping.  I've got to start eating my Wheaties." 16) Paul Krugman.  A fairly inoffensive columnist.  I honestly have no idea why so many of them have a grudge against him.  Maybe he stole somebody's parking space or something. 15) Noam Chomsky.  I find him unreadable, but I guess the right-wing bloggers don't.  13 (tie) Senator John McCain.  In 2000, the Weekly Standard backed him for President.  He's a war hero, and the most popular politician in America.  The chicken hawks have many reasons to resent him. 13 (tie) Senator Robert Byrd.  If a Republican goes from being a bigot to a conservative that votes against programs for minorities for purely ideological reasons, that's cool, but if a Democrat goes from being a bigot to being a liberal, clearly he's a hypocrite.  That Apostle Paul, who went from Christ's greatest foe to the pillar of the church...what a phony. 11 (tie) Reverend Jessie [sp] Jackson.  That's right, on the list they misspelled Jesse's name.  Their problems extend beyond simple political illiteracy. 11 (tie) President Jimmy Carter.  Yes, there's nothing like building homes for the poor, and fostering democracy around the world, to make right-wingers get their hate on. 10) House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.  She's obviously been doing a very good job.  When Dick Gephardt had the job, it's highly unlikely he would've made the top twenty.       8 (tie) Senator John Kerry.  What kind of list would this be without including the last couple Democratic Presidential nominees? 8 (tie) Senator Barbara Boxer.  Do you get the feeling they have a problem with women having the right to vote? 7) Senator Dick Durbin.  This is a topical vote, because he overstated the problems in Guantanamo by comparing them to Soviet and Nazi prison camps, which didn't have the kind of technology we have; but in a few months we will be back to "Who's Dick Durbin?" 6) Senator Hillary Clinton.  I'm surprised she didn't make it higher on the Republican hit list.  She still has bragging rights over her husband, who barely made the list at all.  I’m sure he's hurt. 5) George Soros.  The billionaire who gave hundreds of millions a year to Russia to help save their market-style economy...what a creep. 4) Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.  A year ago, Reid, a conservative Democrat, was one of the Republicans favorite Senators.  Now they think he's Tom Daschle. 3) Senator Edward Kennedy.  No list of people Republicans hate would be complete without Ted Kennedy. 1 (tie) Michael Moore.  The most successful documentary filmmaker in history, though I confess, I'm not a fan.  I think he slants things a bit too much.  1 (tie) Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.  I thought Dean was maybe going too far, but if the right-wing bloggers are that angry at him, I was obviously very much mistaken. 8:02:22 AM    comment []

Intolerance is a Christian Value?  Who Knew?   The departing superintendent of the Air Force Academy, Lt. Gen. John Rosa Jr., has admitted that evangelical proselytizing has reached such a fevered pitch at the Air Force Academy that there is an atmosphere of religious intolerance at the Air Force.  Simply put, Jews and Moslems and people of other faiths at the Academy are harassed and mistreated in an effort to convince them to convert.  (Because that always works so well.)  The superintendent has said the problem is so systemic that it will take a half dozen years at best to root the problem out. In 2003, the second-in-command at the Air Force Academy, Brig. Gen. John Weida, sent out an e-mail to the cadets saying they were accountable first to their God, which is problematic, because they are actually accountable first to their military chain of command, and military law.  There are numerous problems of application with an officer who follows the Bible ahead of his orders.  God's law says thou shalt not kill.  A military officer who accepts this precept is of limited use in combat.  If God wanted to assert personal control of the US military, one has to believe that He is capable of sending us a note (and that He's almost certainly not a brigadier general in the Air Force).  John Weida is currently under investigation for improper conduct. What's alarming is that despite being under investigation and a part of the problem at the Air Force Academy, Weida may be in line to assume temporary command of it until a replacement for the superintendent is named.  It looks like estimates that it will take only a half dozen years to take care of the problems at the Air Force Academy may have been unduly optimistic.  Just in case people think the problems with religious mistreatment aren't serious, the last whiff of a scandal at the Air Force Academy the discovery that dozens of female officer candidates had been raped...and had sometimes been punished for reporting the problem.  That was just two years ago. The problem was just compounded yesterday when a Republican Congressman said that Democrats were "demonizing Christians" because of their concerns over the mistreatment of air force personnel and constituents of other faiths at the Air Force Academy.  (Hmm.  Didn't Satan in fact mistreat Job, a Jew, because of his faith?  Job's faith, of course, would be Judaism.)  Congress then voted 219-199 against putting a stop to coercive evangelism at the Air Force Academy.  That was just two years ago.  I'm trying to find the word to describe this.  Oh, yeah, I've got it.  That's insane.  The renamed Air Force Bible College should be good for many things, but it won't be conducive to military training or order or discipline. 5:18:14 AM    comment []