Misc Commentary For December 4th, 2003

04 Dec, 2003 by John Hawkins

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A few things I wanted to mention that I didn’t think merited their own posts…

— This excerpt from a Howard Kurtz article about Joseph Wilson, who has long claimed that his wife would be put in danger if her identity was revealed, is so funny that you’d think it was satire if it wasn’t in the WAPO….

“In October, As Vanity Fair Notes, (Plame) Was At The National Press Club — Wearing A “Sharp Cream Pantsuit” — While Her Husband Received A Truth-Telling Award. Wilson Wept From The Podium, Saying, “If I Could Give You Back Your Anonymity . . .” And Then Introduced Plame, Who Also Teared Up.”

Yes, there’s no better place to hide your “secret” than at the National Press Club…

— Some people have asked how Instapundit could be both the ranked the best overall blog and the most overrated blog in the The 2003 Warblogger Awards.

Well, you have to be rated to be overrated and since almost no one is higher rated than Glenn Reynolds, it’s understandable that a lot of people think he is overrated too. I think of it as the “Britney Spears Effect”. The more popular you are, the more people you annoy.

— I also thought it was worth noting how incredibly dominant Mark Steyn was against incredibly stiff competition. In fact if you take out Jonah Goldberg’s votes (since he was ineligible), Mark Steyn beats the next 10 columnists COMBINED. That’s Mark Steyn (96) Vs. Victor Davis Hanson, Christopher Hitchens, Charles Krauthammer, Peggy Noonan, William Safire, Thomas Sowell, Ann Coulter, Walter Williams, George Will, & Kathleen Parker (93). Now you tell me why Mark Steyn isn’t being syndicated in every newspaper in America?

— The story of the 37 linguists who were kicked out of the military for being gay under “don’t ask, don’t tell” has been floating around for quite a while and has been used to bash the policy. However many of these linguists were trainees and a large percentage of trainees flunk out of the program. On top of that, not all of them were studying Arabic, so it’s not as if their loss was that big of a deal. Besides, are they supposed to get a free pass on the rules that everyone else in the military has to live by just because they’re linguists? They knew the rules (which are more lenient than the military would prefer by the way) before they joined up and if they couldn’t abide by them, they shouldn’t have gotten into the military in the first place.

— I think it’s notable that not all that much has been made out of Howard Dean’s latest gaffe on Hardball. He talked about getting the “Soviet Union” involved in dealing with the problem we’re having with Iran, not just once but FOUR TIMES. That’s obviously a boneheaded error, so why isn’t Dean hearing the same shrill cries of “you’re stupid” that Bush gets?

It’s because the Democrats and the press set up little memes for the candidates and then bend over backwards to confirm the judgement they’ve already made. So once that they decided that Reagan, Quayle, & now Bush were “stupid,” (notice that only Republicans are ever characterized that way by the mainstream press) they looked for anything that supported their little theory and emphasized it to the hilt while ignoring all contrary evidence. Trust me, if Dean, Gore, Clinton, Carter, etc, were treated the same way Bush, the same sort of ignorant people who believe Bush is “stupid” could be convinced that they were “stupid” too.