DeanWatch

The Dean Trainwreck steams into New Hampshire:

Asked how he would beat primary rivals with more experience on foreign policy, Dean said he would keep reminding Democrats that he was the only major candidate who opposed the Iraq war, despite polls showing the vast majority of the American public supporting the invasion at the time.

"The bottom line is, what kind of foreign policy experience do you want in Washington, in the White House?" he said. "Do you want the kind of foreign policy experience that was willing to vote for the Iraq war, or not?"

And how will he convince swing voters who weren't so opposed to the war to fire President Bush?

"By going after him on terrorism, where he's really weak," Dean replied. [my emphasis]

The bottom line is, Dean will not win both the primary and the general election without a major political feint. (Heck, he may not even win the primaries.)

Bait #1: You're either for me or for having gone to war in Iraq.

Switch: The real issue is terrorism.

Bait #2: Bush is weak on fighting against terrorism, I'm not. ("I'll teach you something about homeland security.")

Eugh.

Department of Coincidences

The four teams reprising their playoff appearance from last year are AFC and NFC teams that lost the conference championship last playoffs (Tennessee Titans and Philadelphia Eagles), and AFC and NFC teams that were eliminated in the wild-card round (Green Bay Packers and Indianapolis Colts). Symmetry baby, symmetry!

NFL Playoffs Watch

A Len Pasquarelli column on the awesome set of playoff teams. He predicts the Patriots will win the Super Bowl because

It will be precisely 729 days between the time Patriots coach Bill Belichick traveled back to Boston with the franchise's first Vince Lombardi Trophy in hand and the second time he gets to hold the prized hardware aloft on a riser in Reliant Stadium. OK, now, here's the spooky part: In the two seasons since the Pats last captured the NFL title, they have scored -- drum roll, here, please -- 729 points.

Anti-Israelism as a cover for Antisemitism

Pragmatic Antisemitism, but still Antisemitism. (Kudos to LGF for picking up this story)

---

Actually, Abu Shanab was a pragmatic terrorist and Antisemite as well. It didn't change the fact that he was a murderer and a lesson in how not to chart a "moderate" course in Palestine.

After New Year's, there will be the run-down of the state of the blog that I should have done at the anniversary. There will also be a discussion of the NFL season and the Philadelphi Eagles playoff future.

Happy New Year's, everyone.

Meryl Yourish has a java script counter counting down the time until Syria leaves the Security Council. Thank god.

Bush knows the score

From The Australian:

When US President George W. Bush visited Canberra in October, he told his friend John Howard that the Democratic candidate who, if he won the primaries, would be his most formidable opponent in the 2004 presidential election was Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman.

Saddam Hussein is caught

Once a feared tyrant, now a laughable hobo:



I realize now that the best way to take in Saddam was alive. You can't make a martyr out of someone who spent his last months free hiding in a hole, and then quickly surrendered to the Army. No one (with the possible exception of Sunni terrorists) is going to use Saddam's execution for propaganda purposes if it is done at the hands of the people he dictated for the last decades. The U.S. does need to make sure that the trial of Saddam is conducted in a fair manner, probably with the Nuremburg Tribunals as a model.

A joke.

Lieberman has released a statement on Saddam's capture:

Hallelujah, praise the Lord. This is something that I have been advocating and praying for for more than twelve years, since the Gulf War of 1991. Saddam Hussein was a homicidal maniac, a brutal dictator, who wanted to dominate the Arab world and was supporting terrorists...

...This news also makes clear the choice the Democrats face next year. If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison, and the world would be a more dangerous place.

---

Also, see Meryl Yourish's "The Saddam Interrogation Transcripts." Quoth Monte Python, "And there was much rejoicing."

The Most Universal Argument Against Dean

Even if Dean shares your goals, ask yourself, will he share them tomorrow? David Brooks gives the most pragmatic and nonpartisan rejection of Dean as a candidate I have ever read.

But the liberated Dean is beyond categories like liberal and centrist because he is beyond coherence. He'll make a string of outspoken comments over a period of weeks — on "re-regulating" the economy or gay marriage — but none of them have any relation to the others. When you actually try to pin him down on a policy, you often find there is nothing there.

For example, asked how we should proceed in Iraq, he says hawkishly, "We can't pull out responsibly." Then on another occasion he says dovishly, "Our troops need to come home," and explains, fantastically, that we need to recruit 110,000 foreign troops to take the place of our reserves. Then he says we should not be spending billions more dollars there. Then he says again that we have to stay and finish the job.

See this Kausfiles post as well (scroll down to "Hello! Opposition Researchers!"). This confirms my opinion that aside from being wrong, Dean is a dangerous demagogue who will say anything to gain power. Hopefully his supporters will wake up to this sooner than later, because this will sink Dean one way or another.

---

Fortune cookie fortune of the day: "You get not what you deserve, but what you negotiate."

Meryl Yourish: "The world is tough enough on Jews. Unfunny parodies that echo the Jew hatred already extant throughout the world are not high on my list of things to like."

Light at the end of the tunnel for the New York Times?

NFL Watch

Don't count the Jets out yet: If the Jets win four straight against Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Miami, New England (two easy teams an two playoff contenders) and the Miami Dolphins also lose to Philadelphia and the Patriots, as well as Cincinnati or Baltimore losing two out of four games, and Denver loses to Kansas and Indianapolis (likely), the Jets take the second wild card spot in the playoffs.

Remember, Miami has tended to fade in Decmber over the last several seasons, and that while the Ravens have easy games left after the Bengals game, the Bengals face the Rams week 16. The Broncos also have significant injuries. It is improbable that events will coincide favorably to the Jets, but it is certainly possible, and the four straight looks more likely given the their fantastic win against the Titans.

---

More to come...

Quote of Note

"The decline and fall of everything is our daily dread, we are agitated in private life and tormented by public questions."

-Saul Bellow, 1976, Nobel Prize Lecture.

Around the Internet

Mutants in X-Men are the Jews of the comic book world. (Meryl Yourish)

A profile of Bill Watterson, artist/author of Calvin & Hobbes, one of the greatest comics ever. (Clevescene.com)

The same paper that headlined an article about terrorist weapon smuggling tunnels, "Palestinians Tunnel to Freedom," and has a columnist who has publicly stated that he refuses to read letters by people who have Jewish names, has published an op/ed titled, "Anti-Zionism is anti-semitism." Quoth Meryl Yourish: "Pigs must be flying again. But this is a wonderful, wonderful column."

That's all for now. Check back after MNF for the premiere of NFL Watch.

---

Pertinent thought: Has anything been more revolutionary to weblogs than permalinks?