Riehl World View

Someone Get The LA Times A Dictionary

I cannot believe the reader's representative for a large circulation daily would write something like this:

L.A. Times columnists, Rutten among them, are encouraged to use their columns as forums for their fact-based assessments of news events. His assessments might not match yours, but that doesn’t mean that his assessments warrant correction.

Thud!! And all this time I thought I actually knew what fact means.

A fact is something that is the case. Consequently, anything that is not considered "fact" is, in fact, NOT the case. A "fact" is the state of affairs reported by a true statement.

Republican? So, What's The Point?

Betsy Newmark has an item up pointing to the problems facing the Republican Party today, at least some of them. As a Big Tent kinda guy, I get it, however, somewhere along the way you have to ask yourself, what's the point? Yes, I'd like to see something of a re-alignment around immigration reform (read border security) and National Defense as defining themes for the Republicans in 08, but does anyone believe throwing off low taxes as a campaign theme is going to help the Conservative, or Republican cause? Heck, why not throw off limited government and lose the libertarians, too?

Tony Blankley is tired of various groups of Republicans trying to read one candidate or another out of the party.

A few weeks ago, it was social conservatives reading Giuliani out of the party. Now, in an almost Sicilian revenge pattern, several free-market, low-tax conservatives are coming after Mike Huckabee with baseball bats -- or perhaps with badminton rackets (given the elite Eastern origins of the attackers.)

I so agree. Let these guys compete for the votes of Republicans. If we start carving out this exception here and that exception there for whom we consider solid Republicans, we'll be left with a very small core that might be pure by someone's standards, but will never win elections.

And as for the social conservatives, yeah, I get that a portion of the Republican Party feels the party has been beholden to them a bit much. But guess what? They show up with campaign contributions and they also turn out to vote. If they hadn't in 2000 and 2004, we'd be coming to the end of Al Gore's second term.

I'm confident Republicans will come together in the end. But it's the primary season. Republicans should be having these fights now. This is becoming a standard theme for Blankley and some other notable Inside the Beltway Right-side pundits. So much so that I wonder if they aren't more worried about their current or future positions in DC, than what positions make sense for an ideologically conservative party to represent.

I want Republicans to win in 08. But I want them to stand for things that matter. And past experience suggests that isn't such a bad idea in the end.

Edwards: Rudy Will Be Next Prez

I recall an early debate after which John Edwards attempted to get Hillary to support his efforts for smaller debates with only the serious contenders. Looks like she never got back to him and Edwards is getting real serious now.

Hillary Clinton is "unelectable," so says Edwards in a Halloween edition of "Scary Times."

The question from Edwards: What if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee?

The answer: Rudy Giuliani will be the next president.

If this is supposed to be cute it's not. If it's supposed to be funny no Democrat should be laughing.

Edwards also sent out a long bio piece to Iowans, 12 pages or so according to Chase Martyn, to try to balance out this hit piece. Considering his money gap it's amazing this is what Edwards chose to do. It's obvious he's trying to balance his new attack dog tactics with his small town mill town boy makes good dream story.

Malkin Is Indeed Evil

Michelle is dressing up as an iPhone for Halloween. Bryan notes it, along with other items at Hot Air.

When I turned 17, driving age in NJ, my Mother thought it would be funny to give me a VW - black, four inches long and filled with some repugnant cologne. Okay, they helped me get my first "Bug" later and I did get a first car, just not the one I wanted right away.

But that damned cologne bottle ... I still carry the scars. Buck up, Allah. If there isn't an i-Phone in your future ... Michelle is indeed the Wicked Witch of the Right. And I really don't think that's the case.

Coming To America?

After all, Europe often leads the way and American liberals follow:

It adds: 'Even-handedness dictates that we provide public recognition to minority cultures and traditions.

'If we are going to continue as a nation to mark Christmas - and it would be very hard to expunge it from our national life even if we wanted to - then public organisations should mark other religious festivals too.

'We can no longer define ourselves as a Christian nation, nor an especially religious one in any sense.

A Tortured Stunt?

Follow the narrative on this Huffington Post item, either I'm missing something, or there is an element of dishonesty at play here.

A fellow name of Kaj Larsen is touting an upcoming video item during which he was water boarded. But look at the time frame. Given his stated narrative, it seems he was ultimately spurred on by something he witnessed overseas in March 2007, right? So how come this waterboarding video first appeared in September of 2006? That would appear to make the March Cambodia trip irrelevant, unless he sailed there with John Kerry and they both wore magic hats? Either that, or water boarding is something of a hobby for him, in which case, I guess it isn't all that bad. Either way, it hardly qualifies as billed - "Current TV."

By April of 2006 the debate about coercive interrogation and its most controversial technique, water-boarding ... But, like many Americans, the pre-occupations of everyday life, for me the pressure of mid-terms and exams, pushed the controversy to the back of my mind.

Then, in mid March I traveled to Cambodia for Spring Break. While there I visited the Tuol Sleng (also known as S-21) prison in Phnom Penh. The Tuol Sleng prison had been converted to a museum and memorial for the victims of the Cambodian Genocide under the Pol Pot regime. As I walked through the museum and saw the photographs of the victims of the genocide, I was shocked to see a picture of the Khmer Rouge Water-boarding a Cambodian villager. At that moment I saw a throughline between the debate we were having domestically and the picture I was standing in front of. I was spurred into action, and upon my return to the United States, I decided to have myself water-boarded, this time on national TV, as a public service, so that this controversial technique could be judged in the court of public opinion.

HuffPo: Over The Top

The Huffington Post has never gone out of its way to be responsible in what it publishes. But this is over the top, even for them.

Dennis Perrin, who posted an irresponsible, libelous accusation at Huffington Post that an LGF reader threatened to “track down his IP address and kill him,” has posted a typically insult-laden response to my challenge to prove his allegation: Dennis Perrin: Life Is A Beautiful, Precious Flower.

Big Hit On Hillary Mostly A Miss

Look, I don't want Hillary to be the next President any more than anyone else on the Right. But has anyone taken the time to go back and read her original quote? She couched it just enough to put her in step with enough people to get by on it politically speaking. Even the NY Times noted the well-crafted endorsement of Spitzer's plan at the time. The double-talk charge stands, it does for mostly every candidate on one issue, or another. But she can point to the record to get off on the amnesty charge.

Clinton Takes Stand on Driver’s License Issue (Sort Of)

Updated, 6:45 p.m. | In a recent sit-down interview with the board of The Nashua Telegraph, a leading New Hampshire newspaper, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton finally was asked what she thinks of Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s policy to allow illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses.
Her answer? Judge for yourself:

I think it’s important to bring everybody out of the shadows. To do the background checks. To deport those who have outstanding warrants or have committed crimes in the United States, and then to say to those who wish to stay here, you have to pay back taxes, you have to pay a fine, you have to learn English, and you have to wait in line. And I hate to see any state being pushed to try to take this into their own hands, because the federal government has failed.

So I know exactly what Governor Spitzer’s trying to do and it makes a lot of sense, because he’s trying to get people out of the shadows. He’s trying to say, “O.K., come forward and we will give you this license.”

But without a federal policy in effect, people will come forward and they could get picked up by I.C.E. tomorrow. I mean, this can’t work state-by-state. It has to be looked at comprehensively. I agreed with President Bush and his efforts to try to approach this. He just didn’t have the political capital left by the time he actually got serious about it.

And it’s unfortunate that too many people are using this to demagogue the issue, instead of trying to solve it: you know, people in politics, people in the press, and there’s a kind of unholy alliance.

How Government Works

Government does the most damage on issues that people aren't paying a lot of attention to, because the MSM doesn't pay attention to them at all. Michelle will have the vote on LOST. Some video information here.

WND item here:

The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote today on the ratification of the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Treaty, a wide-ranging measure critics say will grant the U.N. control of the 70 percent of the planet under its oceans.

What Was Missing In The Democrat Debate

So I watched the Democrat debate tonight in its entirety, just taking it in. Is there an industry they wouldn't attack? From Hedge Funds, Defense, the Airlines, Insurance companies and, of course, the Oil Companies, it seems they all have investigations, regulations, or some restrictions in mind, assuming they flat out don't just want to do away with it completely?

Not once did I hear anything even remotely referencing the individual and certainly nothing that might challenge one. Apparently people can't become Doctors ... unless the government pays their tuition - and the trend discussed was free college for all at the government's expense. I mean, why should people be expected to invest in such a thing themselves? And they seem to be advocating having the State take charge of children as early as from two - four years-old. It's as if parenting should be relegated to a two-year proposition. Okay, you birthed the thing, we'll take it from here.

Medical research? We don't need the Pharma's, just turn it over to the NIH, while increasing governmental education-based grants for research across the board. There seemed to be no room for a market-based dynamic in such things at all.

As for the blow by blow, Hillary did get caught out for her double-talk, but Obama came off mostly flat, taking shots at Romney, more than anything else. What the heck was that about? I thought Richardson looked to be playing for the Veep slot by giving Hillary cover against any attacks.

Edwards sounded like a mix of Jimmy Carter, Opie, and dopey, even the candidates he previously dismissed as not serious sounded more substantial than him. Still, I came away thinking about what was missing, as opposed to what was there. It's as if what Government, not people, can accomplish is ultimately the only thing that matters to the lot of them. And I find nothing whatsoever inspirational about that. And nothing to vote for, either. But, in fairness, I mostly knew that going in.

Jim Geraghty has much more of the play by play.