Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Friday, July 26, 2002

Biff Bang Pow - Andrew Sullivan nails the Rubin controversy - or, as it's referred to in the major media, "huh?"
posted by Mitch Berg 7/26/2002 03:20:52 PM

Blahg - I'm going to be mighty busy today - lot of work, then going to North Dakota to pick up my kids from my parents'.

Hope you all have a great weekend, and I'll see you all on Monday.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/26/2002 06:26:30 AM

Conservative?-Read thefollowing quote, and tell me which gubernatorial candidate it's from:
"The state may have to play a bigger role if the federal government doesn't go far enough," he said.
Is this remark a quote from:
Ken Pentel, Green socialist
Roger Moe, Nannystate DFLer
Tim Penny, Nannystate-lite? or
Tim Pawlenty.

If you answered Pawlenty, you're apparently right.

Remember how Tim Pawlenty was supposed to be this arch-conservative? (As if that's a bad thing - if you haven't read that Krauthammer article, do it now...)

Now, he's released his economic development plan.

posted by Mitch Berg 7/26/2002 06:24:13 AM

Two Sides of his Mouth - As I pointed out yesterday, former President Clinton is telling people how, had he been president, there'd have been no business scandal (depsite the fact that most of the shenanigans took place on his watch, and that his Treasury secretary was intimately involved not only in creating the bubble but in the Enron debacle).

As Andrew Sullivan says:
The man who pardoned Marc Rich is lecturing the president on corporate corruption? The worst that could be said about Bush is that he hasn't been tough enough. At least he didn't actively reward it, like the former president.

posted by Mitch Berg 7/26/2002 06:15:27 AM

The Defame Game - Charles Krauthammer pegs that thing between conservatives and liberals.

In a nutshell; conservatives think liberals lack a brain, liberals think conservatives are short a heart.

It's true. Oh, I know some liberals who can burn some mental cycles, all right - but I have yet to meet a whole lot of liberals who don't think of conservatism as personality defect.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/26/2002 06:07:32 AM

Thursday, July 25, 2002

Speaking of Hypocrisy - GOP Senate candidate Norm Coleman criticized paleoliberal Senator Paul Wellstone's record on Defense.

The real news, and conversational beef, was in Wellstone's response. It illustrates the paleo-liberals' contempt for defense and the military.

It's really so unfortunate he's going down this road. I really mean it," he said. "None of us could have ever believed that we would have been attacked in our own country like we were.
Sorry, Paul - some "of us" not only believed it, but have been warning the rest "of us" about it for years. Including military and security planners - the ones you and your party so derisively dismiss.
Wellstone's campaign is accusing Coleman of using the 9/11 tragedy to try to get votes and is calling Coleman's comments about American causalities in Afghanistan "low blow politics at its worst."
That's right - criticizing your voting record is so much worse than accusing Republicans of wanting to throw children and old people out in the street.

Wellstone must go. Hopefully this site will help!

posted by Mitch Berg 7/25/2002 07:52:15 AM

Yet Another Tale of Hypocrisy - The House expelled Rep. Traficant last night as predicted.

Here's the part I loved; I listened to "All Things Considered" talking about Traficant last night, and over the past week. What did they call the Ohio Democrat? "Colorful". That was the most pejorative thing they could work up about the bribe-accepting racketeer.

If he'd been a Republican? Any bets? I mean, they called Henry Hyde worse than that...
posted by Mitch Berg 7/25/2002 07:41:55 AM

On the Lindh Trial - Linda Chavez on the more disturbing aspects of the Lindh plea-bargain.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/25/2002 07:34:13 AM

More about Harken - and the liberal media's mania with smear by insinuation.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/25/2002 07:31:48 AM

Ex-President - First, Clinton would have won the 2000 election. Or so he said.

Then - he would have reacted (according to him) better to September 11 than the President did.

Now - he tried, oh so hard, to reform the accounting industry!

Unacknowledged, by either him or the media that still does figuratively what Lewinski did literally, are the facts that the bubble (and the shady accounting that blew it up) occurred on his watch. Well, nothing he could do about that, right?

Well, yeah, except that his Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, was integral to the Enron scandal that kicked this whole readjustment off in the first place.

Again - let me know if you see a single mention of this in the major media.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/25/2002 07:25:42 AM

Wednesday, July 24, 2002

Making a Dog Sing Verdi - Following on the "success" of Paul "Richard Simmons" Wellstone's "Little Green Bus", Democrat consultant-at-large Pat Forceia has unleashed...

...The Roger Moe Stock Car.

Pretty apt. I see a flaming crash this fall, spewing bits of DFL into the stands...
posted by Mitch Berg 7/24/2002 04:35:23 PM

One Step Up, One Step Back - On the one hand, the Democrats' pharmaceutical plan - legalized theft - fell eight votes short in the Senate today, despite Paul "Richard Simmons" Wellstone's best efforts.

On the other hand, the Republicans' effort also tanked.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/24/2002 04:31:37 PM

Witch Hunt in Blue- The civil liberties' fallout of the Abner Louima case, courtesy Nat Hentoff.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/24/2002 04:28:32 PM

Overpowered by Gore, Part II - Jonah Goldberg on why Algore is the left's Bob Dole.

Although after Tipper and his' performance at the Democrat convention in 2000, I'm not sure Britney Spears will go near him...
posted by Mitch Berg 7/24/2002 04:26:06 PM

Pot? Meet Kettle - Hillary blasts the "activist" Supreme Court.

As if activist court decisions weren't part and parcel of her entire career, and those of nearly every uber-liberal politician.

And she's busy marching to the official tune, of course: the "Supreme Court Usurped States' Rights" buncombe, as if she ever met a state's right she wouldn't shiv in the ribs. And the tune is a lie: the SCOTUS affirmed the right of the State of Florida's legislature to fulfil its constitutional duty, without being dragged through open-ended extra-legal recounts.

Wasn't it Sartre who said "Hell is politicians that won't go away?" No? Then Sartre was pretty overrated.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/24/2002 04:25:08 PM

Tuesday, July 23, 2002

Media Bias Watch - So now, the media are finally twigging to the fact that Citibank floated Enron with a sweetheart, off the books loan. The word is, in fact, getting out.

OK - so in how many stories has the media - the same media that wastes not a moment to cast aspersions on the flimsiest pretexts against the Bush administration's alleged roles in these scandals - told you that the sweetheart loan from Citibank was arranged by the Secretary of the Treasury?

Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury?

Find me an example of this being reported in the mainstream media. Anyone.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/23/2002 07:40:53 PM

Good Dog - The Pioneer Press acknowledges the existence of the Watchdog - a rough-n-tumble freebie tabloid that is a welcome addition to the Twin Cities' squalid, incestuous media scene.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/23/2002 12:04:38 PM

Penny Stocks, Part II - In yesterday's bit about the Broder Op-ed, there was one idea I wanted to develop, but missed in my hurry to get to work.

As I said - the article is set, in the beginning, at the birthday party for John Anderson, the pseudo-Republican senator who ran as an independent in 1980. The parallel is interesting - and were it not utterly intentional, Broder would not have put it in. It's as if to say:
"The only good Republican is a Republican that acts like a Democrat"
Which is how many on the left (and the "Center" that the Independence Party claims to be) seem to see it. See the spin against Pawlenty? Not only is he "not moderate enough", he - a rather moderate and ecumenical conservative at best - is portrayed as "one of the "Taliban".

Here's the part I love; on the one hand, Independence Party flacks say "there's no choice between the major parties". Then, when conservatives give you a choice between parties, with a coherent conservative approach...

See the pattern here?

Tale of Two Police Departments - Jack Dunphy on the Runnion and Jackson cases.

Counting the Hours - til September 30.

I can hardly wait.

I'll do a big honking article soon to explain why I'm so jazzed about this Springsteen tour.

posted by Mitch Berg 7/23/2002 06:43:07 AM

Grrrr, Part II - So I wrote this big piece yesterday...

...and the Blogger software didn't publish it! Making me look, in the process, like I'd taken another day off from Shot in the Dark.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/23/2002 06:29:37 AM

Monday, July 22, 2002

Penny Stocks - David Broder in the Washington Post has issued a paeon to Minnesota Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Tim Penny.

It's fascinating to note that the article is set, initially, at the birthday party of John Anderson, the pseudoRepublican who ran for President as an "Independent" in 1980. Bear in mind, he was the same sort of Republican that Olympia Snowe or John McCain are today - Rockefeller Republicans, basically Democrats in GOP clothing.

The article illustrates, I think, a subtle media bias. The "Good Guys" are all Democrats who don't have to depart TOO much from their principles, or Republicans who completely abrogate those of their own party (principles that are subtly seen as ugly and base).

Broder says:
Penny will be a target of both parties, but his candidacy -- like King's -- is more proof that third parties can be more than protest movements built around charismatic figures.

If he appears as plausible and persuasive in November as he does in July, he won't have to borrow Ventura's cape and tights to win.

Perhaps he appears "plausible and persuasive" - Penny was always a DFLer who put some thought into his beliefs. His "Myths about Poltics" book actually had me thinking, for a while, that he had the potential to make "moderate" mean something other than "DFL Lite".

But he's scuttled away from all of the positions where he showed any principled difference from the DFL - retreated on his stances on guns and abortion, and embraced Speech Rationing ("campaign finance reform") with both barrels.

Broder, like most of the national media, misses a crucial point: Jesse Ventura didn't campaign as a mushy moderate! IN 1998, he led with a mass of libertarian-conservative rhetoric (smaller government, more responsibility, concealed carry reform) that is still fooling people in the national media. Penny isn't running as a libertarian-conservative, he's running as a DFL-lite wonk.

Broder all but declares Penny the winner-to-be. I think he'll take a lot of DFLer votes away from Roger Moe, and be the spoiler Tim Pawlenty needs.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/22/2002 10:19:38 AM

Sunday, July 21, 2002

Grrrrrr! - So since the Enron scandal broke, every other headline in the major media has been:

How Corporate America is predominantly base and corrupt,
Specious allegations of potential Bush Administration involvement (none of which has any legs, and it's highly doubtful any will)
Scare stories about the current business environment.
How must we punish business for this scandal?
Can the Bush Administration survive the crisis by election time?

So, what was the lead story on MPR's "Weekend All Things Considered" tonight (Sunday)?

Yep - "Is the Bush Administration Doing Enough to Restore Investor Confidence?"
posted by Mitch Berg 7/21/2002 06:18:14 PM

Berg's Law of Liberal Iraq Commentary:

In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive