Who said the media is liberal?

The Boston Globe has a piece on how Kerry lost. There are so many problems with it, it's hard to know where to start:

1. They claim that "almost all the prewar arguments for invading Iraq were wrong". Which is, of course, a lie. They only list two (out of about forty). Apparently two is "almost all" of forty. And even one of those two is wrong. The two they list are WMD's and "close links to al Qaeda". Leaving aside the fact that everyone (including Russia, France, the U.N., the Democrats, etc.) believed there were WMD's in Iraq and so it's hardly honest to brand it as a Bush "lie", the fact is that the media is now adding the word "close" before "links to al Qaeda". Bush never claimed any such thing. He claimed there were links. And, as the 9-11 Commission report made clear, there were.
2. The article keeps speaking of Republican efforts to paint Kerry as a flip-flopper, as if it were a totally fabricated accusation. Ditto the suggestion that he is "weak and inconsistent". The fact is that he IS weak and inconsistent. That's not just a Republican smear ... it's the truth.
   
3. The article keeps maintaining (much as the left did for Gore) that Kerry was always principled and consistent. To the extent that he ever appeared otherwise it was simply a result of how smart, logical, deep, profound, etc. he is. "Sure his positions seem contradictory and unclear ... but that's just because he's a genius and you're all morons."
4. The article insists that Kerry is principled but it then explains that he voted to authorize war because that was politically expedient (for him) at the time, and then voted to oppose the $87 billion because that was politically expedient (for him) at the time.
5. Then they describe the Swift Vets as "conspiring" against Kerry and "plotting the downfall of John Kerry", the implication being that they were deceitful.
6. It also mentions that there were 10 Swift Vets "plotting" in a conference room in Dallas ... conveniently ignoring that these 10 were backed up by hundreds.
7. Blah, blah, blah. It's like Terry McAuliffe wrote this.
   

With friends like these

Hopefully Bush won't waste much time reaching out to "allies" that are on the wrong side of the war on terror.

Jacques Chirac, the formerly significant leader of a formerly significant country, intentionally snubbed Iyad Allawi, but made time to visit Yasser Arafat. That means he prefers the company of the father of modern terrorism to the first democratically elected leader of a country that had previously suffered for decades under the thumb of another psychopathic terrorist. Of course, Chirac fought tooth and nail to save said psychopathic terrorist, proving himself to be an eager supporter of terrorists in general. And, equally clear, all of Chirac's efforts were useless because both he and his country stopped being relevant to anyone but terrorists years ago.

No doubt Chirac's petulance through this whole affair is largely from the frustration of impotence.

Make that 15 percent, maybe 20

Yesterday I guessed that the MSM's biased reporting accounted for 10 of Kerrys' 48 percent showing. That was before I discovered that the assistant managing editor of Newsweek was estimating it at 15 percent. Which means that a more accurate estimate of the nation's leanings would be 66-33.

Except that, given the MSM's bias, Thomas's 15 percent may actually be 20. Giving conservatives a 71-28 lead.

This is HUGE! (2)

The last one was a bit long, but here's a quick list of some of the reasons this is huge:

1. Bush advanced in almost every conceivable way.
2. Bush ran on principle and the public supported him.
3. Bush overcame not only the normal obstacles, but also the united assault of the MSM.
4. Kerry tried every dirty trick imagineable, told every conceivable lie, and Bush still won.
5. The public voted on the basis of morals, showing that the American people are far more principled than the Dems ever dreamed. A nightmare for the Dems.
6. In the next four years Bush will make appointments to the Supreme Court.
7. In the next four years Bush will expand democracy in the Middle East.
8. Bush will support Israel - the PA is finished.
9. The UN, the French, the Germans, etc. are all irrelevant now.
10. The terrorists who were working so hard to prevent Bush's re-election have failed. And now they know he's coming after them with a vengeance. No need to worry about re-election.
11. Osama bin Moron gave his best shot and still couldn't get Kerry elected.
12. Mikey Moose's lies failed to steal the election for Kerry.
13. Alec Baldwin may leave the country.
14. Conservative values win elections. The electorate has spoken and this is a serious victory for conservatives in the culture war.
15. All of the cheap and foul tactics of the Dems failed to steal an election for them.
16. Lots more.
    

This is HUGE!

For some reason there hasn't been a lot of talk about just how big a win this has been for Bush in particular and conservatives in general.

As mentioned already Bush has made advances in every area. And there are a ton of other highlights and records concerning his consecutive victories in the House & Senate, etc.

But it goes far beyond this. On paper Bush won the popular vote by 3%, but in reality he won it by a lot more than that. Why? Because the MSM is responsible for at least 10% of Kerry's 48%. Consider the following examples of the staggeringly biased approach of the MSM:

• Kerry simply criticized everything Bush did and assured us that he had a better plan that Bush. And the MSM gave him a total pass. They never bothered to ask him what his "better plans" were. Any idiot can criticize the current approach and say he has a better plan. And, in this case, any idiot did. And the MSM let him away with it. Want an example? How about everything? Kerry kept assuring us that he had a better plan for Iraq, but was never required to spell it out. Or how about Yucca Mountain? Kerry opposed building a nuclear waste repository there (well, actually he supported it until he decided to run for prez ... "I actually voted for Yucca before I voted against it" kind of thing). But did the media ever ask him what he'd do with the nuclear waste? Was it just going to evaporate under a Kerry presidency?
• Every whacko Kerry accusation against Bush was given the full-court press by the MSM. "Bush is going to reinstate the draft!" A total lie. Not even a shred of evidence. In fact, the evidence was quite the opposite - it was Kerry who was insisting we need to increase the size of the military, and it was Democrats in the Senate who were proposing such legislation. And yet the MSM ran with it. Same with Kerry's social security lies. Every scare tactic Kerry could dream up the MSM latched on to and helped him propagate it.
• Kerry also got a pass on every one of his problems. Think about it. The media goes psycho and drools because one guy can produce fake memos to the effect that Bush missed a physical 30 years ago. And this is headline news for days and days and days. Even if it were true, it's a complete none issue. But 200 Swfit Vets come out to testify that Kerry is lying about his service in Vietnam and the MSM ignores them. In an unbiased world, the Swift Vets would have received 100 times the attention as the fake memos because a) their accusations were far more serious, b) their accusations had far more evidence to back them up (hundreds of eye witnesses as opposed to no evidence at all), and c) Kerry had chosen to make his Vietnam service the centerpiece of his candidacy, whereas George Bush never played down his TANG service. But instead the MSM everything on its head and gives 100 times the attention to the trivial and irrelevant lies than to the serious and factual truth. Or how about the fact that Kerry is a self-admitted war criminal? And no-one in the MSM ever took him to task on it?

For these and other reasons, the MSM contributed to at least 10% of Kerry's 48%. With an unbiased media the final vote would have 61-38 or even better.

The MSM pulled out all the stops to sink Bush and Bush still won.

Huge. This is huge.

And of course...

If Bush is such a moron, what does it say about the Democrats that he's cleaned their clock for the third election in four years?

The position of the Left is that Bush is an incompetent imbecile. And yet, this incompetent imbecile has managed to liberate two countries and defeat his domestic enemies three elections in a row. And all of that in spite of the fact that the MSM did everything it could do to defeat Bush.

I don't know about you, but I might feel a little sheepish if I kept losing to an imbecile.

The view so far

This could change, of course, but so far here's what this election has yielded:

• Bush has gained in the popular vote
• Bush is the first President since 1988 to be elected with more than 50% of the popular vote
• Bush has the largest number of votes of any President in history
• Bush has increased his percentage in every state except 4
  
• Bush has gained in the Electoral College
• Republicans have gained 4 Senate seats
• Republicans have gained 4 House seats
• Republicans may gain one governorship
• Almost every conservative ballot measure passed - including all the ones opposing gay marriage
• Daschle - gone!
• Edwards - gone!

Republicans have won in every measurable way. So many people deserve credit: Rove, SwiftVets, etc. .... but especially Bush.

Is there a list?

Has anyone been keeping a list of all the losers (e.g. Alec Baldwin) who promised to leave the country if Bush won?

Is it enforceable?

The character candidate vs. the caricature candidate

George Bush has repeatedly distinguished himself as a man of principle and character - standing up for his beliefs and holding fast to what he believes to be right even when he knows it will cost him votes.

John Kerry, on the other hand, is a caricature. He's the embodiment of everything bad about a candidate: no principles, obvious pandering to polls, an admitted war criminal, a wife of undetermined species, decades of non-accomplishment in the Senate, makes Teddy Kennedy look conservative, etc., etc.

But now he's striving to not just be a caricature of himself, but also of everything bad about every other major Democrat. In 2000 Al Gore was down by about 800 votes in Florida and decided to contest the election. After a month of dubious recounts in only strategically selected counties, with obviously foolish new rules for "interpreting" ballots, etc. he only managed to "find" 300 more votes. It was ridiculous then when he was down by only 800. But now Kerry is down by 135,000+ in Ohio and he's going to try the same thing?!

Classless.

Here's a shock

It's 2:55 AM, 98% of precincts have reported in in Ohio, Bush is leading by over 125,000 votes, Kerry needs 113% of the remaining votes in order to win, every other network called Ohio for Bush hours ago, and CBS is STILL saying it's "too close to call".

Dan keeps saying they'd rather be last than wrong. Well, he's still got a shot at being last AND wrong, but presumably he'll manage to be last and right. Which is better than 2000 when he was first and wrong.

Why start now?

At first I was a little surprised to hear that Kerry is vowing to not concede defeat tonight in spite of the facts. But really, Kerry's never shown any class so why would I have expected him to start now? This is just the petty end to the petty campaign of a petty man.

The real message of a Kerry victory

If John Kerry wins the election tomorrow it will mean many things for America ... all of them bad. But there is evil of a Kerry win that would dwarf all others.

Quite simply a Kerry victory is a victory for terrorists.

Oh, I don't mean that Kerry supports terrorists or that he would call off the dogs. Kerry might continue the war. But it wouldn't matter. Even if he were to be harsher on terrorists than Bush has been (probability: 0%) it wouldn't matter. Because terrorists the world over will have the same perception: terrorists can choose the president of the United States of America.

I'm not saying terrorists like Kerry. They may hate him. But this much is true: they hate Bush more. Above all else terrorists want Bush gone. And several have come out and said so. If Kerry were to be elected tomorrow, terrorists will conclude that their heinous and brutal methods have been successful in overthrowing the most powerful man on earth. You can argue that they'd be wrong in that assessment. But whether they are right or wrong is, sadly, irrelevant. That will be their perception. And that is all that matters. Having seen terrorism work in Spain and other places, they will now believe that it has worked in the United States. And this will lead to more acts of terror that will dwarf in number and, eventually, in magnitude anything we have seen so far.

Terrorists want to get rid of Bush. Their crimes in Iraq and elsewhere have been to that end. And, if for whatever reason, Bush isn't re-elected tomorrow, they will be utterly convinced that terror works. Rejoicing will be universal and uncontrolled throughout the terrorist world. Recruits will flock to them. The Great Satan will have been defeated in a symbolic battle that will inspire these despicable fiends for generations to come.

Sadly, the fact that the polls aren't 90/10 for Bush is already a victory for terror. A narrow win for Bush tomorrow would also embolden terrorists, although not to the same degree. A narrow win for Bush would leave terrorists thinking, "We almost did it! We'll just have to push a little harder next time. Behead a few more westerners. Maybe start slaughtering children on video."

Obviously the people who vote for John Kerry are not voting to support terrorists. But the sad unpleasant reality is that terrorists won't see it that way. They will interpret every vote for Kerry as one more American who was sufficiently scared to keep from voting for Bush.

Why can't we just all be friends?

What does it mean when Osama comes out and pleads with the U.S. citizens to agree to a truce with him (i.e. don't re-elect Bush, i.e. elect Kerry). Osama and his chorus line have been threatening the defeat of the U.S. and global victory for Islam for years. "Streets run with blood", "Infidels will burn", "Yada, yada, yada".

But now all of a sudden he's out with a desperate plea that we just all get along. You leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone.

Well, it could mean one of two things.

It could translate as: "I've given up hope of winning the war. Please let me live." Which would be a correct assessment of his situation, except for the fact that Osama is too mentally deranged and psychopathically arrogant to ever realize it, much less admit it.

No, the real motive is quite different. Osama has realized that another four years of Bush raining down fire on terrorists will make it awfully hard to recruit new targets for the U.S. Armed Forces. He fears Bush and knows that his only hope of winning is to get rid of Bush. But how to do it?

He can't say (although he would no doubt love to), "Don't vote for Bush or in the name of glorious and peaceful Islam we will sever your infidel children's heads", because he knows Americans will strike back when sufficiently provoked.

And he can't say, "Vote for Kerry", because most Americans (with the exception of the one who made that fine "Fahrenheit 9/11" movie) would see through that. Not even most liberals are quite at the point where they're willing to follow explicit commands from a terrorist.

So instead Osama's tried something more subtle: he's offered a change. He's banking on the hope that enough Americans want a change from war so badly that they're willing to take the word of the world's premiere terrorist, out of nothing more than wishful thinking. And he's left it up to them to judge which candidate is most likely to accept his offer. If Americans want change, only John Kerry will offer it to them. Bush won't change; he's in this war until the end.

The problem for Americans is that Osama bin Laden won't change either, in spite of his offer to the contrary. In war change only comes about by mutual agreement or by the clear defeat of one combatant. If Osama were serious, then John Kerry could legitimately offer Americans change, because it's clear that John Kerry is looking for an excuse to cut and run. Winning a war - particularly a difficult war - requires fortitude, steadfastness, and an unyielding commitment to principle. John Kerry has none of these things. So the only way Kerry can deliver change is to come to an arrangement with Osama bin Laden. So in this latest video, Osama offered such an arrangement. Which the U.S. should utterly reject, even if Osama were completely sincere. He slaughtered 3,000 Americans and so there is only one arrangement America ought to offer: his head on a pole in the Rose Garden.

But Osama isn't sincere. This is a fight to the death for him, too. This latest tactic doesn't mark a shift in his purpose. He's fighting the same war he was three years ago. He's just trying to get rid of an opponent who's as serious about it as he is, and replace him with one whom he has a chance of defeating.

Americans already know George Bush's answer to Osama's offer. Sadly they also know what Kerry's, like Neville Chamberlain's before him, eventual answer would be. Tomorrow we discover how many Americans are willing to believe Osama's worth bargaining with.

Democrats, terrorists and Slate: united

As we've pointed out, terrorist leaders support Kerry. Well, they don't say it quite like that. They say they hate Bush and want him gone.

"But," the Democrats will complain, "Hating Bush isn't the same thing as loving Kerry!"

True, but nobody is claiming it is. However, opposing Bush in this election is the same thing as supporting Kerry. Longing for the defeat of one man in a two-man race would leave only Democrats unsure as to who you're secretly rooting for. (But then again, given that the Democrats as a whole, and Kerry in particular, vacillate so much, maybe they really would argue that opposing Nov 2 isn't a support to Kerry.)

So now Dems will insist that terrorists hate Kerry too ... they just hate Bush more. The thing is, doesn't that just reveal that the Democrats are eerily similar to the terrorists? Isn't that the position of almost every Democrat? "We don't really like Kerry either, but HE'S NOT BUSH!!!" (I say "almost every Democrat" because there is, I think, at least (but potentially only) one Democrat who unequivocally supports Kerry: John Kerry himself. (At last an issue that he has remained constant on!) I wouldn't even bet money that Theresa's support is rock solid.)

Kerry is such an abysmal candidate for President that not even hard-core Lefties can bring themselves to be enthusiastic about him. So they, one and all, admit to what a pathetic choice Kerry is but then say, "But he's better than Bush!"

David Frum nicely summarized the opinions of the staff at Slate (who are more pro-Kerry than the DNC) when they shocked the world by revealing that 97% of them were hard-left liberals. Their ringing endorsement of Kerry included such moving tributes as:

"I'm voting for Kerry, with no great belief that he will be a first-rate president. I cringe a little at where Kerry's line on terror and Iraq has lately ended up. ..."

"I'll take a chance on Kerry, but if he wins I'll skip the victory party. Too many of his supporters have proven as divisive, dishonest, and hateful as they imagine their bogeyman Karl Rove to be."

"I don't expect Kerry to be a successful president ...."

"Is [Kerry] a strong candidate? No. Do I agree with all his positions? No. Does he truly represent me? No. Is this a reactionary 'anyone but Bush' vote? On some levels it is, but I've decided he's good enough ...."

"Sen. John Kerry is the least appealing candidate the Democrats have nominated for president in my lifetime."

"Sure he can be long-winded, pompous, and evasive ...."

"Kerry's election-year straddles have left me cold."

And from the editor, Jake Weisberg, himself:

"I remain totally unimpressed by John Kerry. Outside of his opposition to the death penalty, I've never seen him demonstrate any real political courage. His baby steps in the direction of reform liberalism during the 1990s were all followed by hasty retreats. His Senate vote against the 1991 Gulf War demonstrates an instinctive aversion to the use of American force, even when it's clearly justified. Kerry's major policy proposals in this campaign range from implausible to ill-conceived. He has no real idea what to do differently in Iraq. His health-care plan costs too much to be practical and conflicts with his commitment to reducing the deficit. At a personal level, he strikes me as the kind of windbag that can only emerge when a naturally pompous and self-regarding person marinates for two decades inside the U.S. Senate. If elected, Kerry would probably be a mediocre, unloved president on the order of Jimmy Carter."

In other words, like the rest of the Democrats, they realize that Kerry is so atrocious that it's not possible even for them to pretend that he'd be a good president. But they are consumed with such seething loathing for Bush that they will support Kerry.

That would be shameful enough if they were only agreeing with each other. But when your position has become indistinguishably different from that of terrorists, it's time to end the crusade.

More foreign leaders for Kerry

John Kerry has assured us (and who could doubt his word??) that many foreign leaders want him to replace Bush as president. Initially there was skepticism on the right concerning this claim. But as we get closer to the election and more and more foreign leaders come out to oppose Bush, it's time for us to eat humble pie and admit that Kerry was being uncharacteristically honest: a large number of foreign leaders do want him to beat Bush.

As we've already mentioned, Yasser does.

But now we see that China does, too.

And, of course, there's the big news that Osama is also eager to see Bush get the boot.

Finally, given that Yasser and Osama both want Bush gone, it's a safe bet that all the world terrorist leaders (or at least the Islamic ones ... but I repeat myself) prefer Kerry, even if they haven't publicly endorsed him.