Jon Stewart Meets His Match With Tony Blair

Sep 16 2010 Published by under 2010 Elections

Finally! A guest on The Daily Show that disagreed with Jon Stewart that is articulate and capable! Last night, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair came on the program and had a conversation with Stewart free of denigration and cross-talk and in my opinion, Blair came out on top. The audience even enthusiastically applauded Blair at times, particularly when he said you can’t compromise with people like the Taliban and that if leaders like those in Iran say they’re going to destroy Israel and are trying to get nuclear weapons, you should be worried. Stewart also made a number of blunders. He said that the violence in Iraq is motivated by nationalism against occupiers (it’s not), that Saddam had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda or the ideology we’re fighting ( he did ), that Saddam was one of the few in the Middle East not trying to get nuclear weapons ( he was) and that, and this is the real kicker, toppling the Taliban and Saddam Hussein “did not mitigate the risk” and regime change in Iran won’t either. Watch the extended interview after the jump (you have to click on the “full episode” to watch the first of the three parts) and to see more of my comments: The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c Exclusive – Tony Blair Extended Interview Pt. 1 www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party Jon Stewart also said he believed that Ahmadinejad was just being loud and boisterous when he says he wants to destroy Israel. So, basically, Ahmadinejad is like the braggart friend that we all have who brags about how he could beat up the body-builder next to him and how he could score with Katy Perry. I probably don’t need to elaborate on how well Tony Blair handled this. He rightly characterized Stewart’s position as believing we can “manage” situations like these, but the cost should this “management” fail is too high to take a gamble like that. And most importantly— Jon Stewart says he believes the Iranian regime cares only about its own well-being and isn’t apocalyptic or really going to do anything that bad—but why does he believe this? I hear this line of thinking all the time. Why do people assume that our enemies are lying when they say they’re going to do something and are trying to create weapons to carry out their stated objectives? I’m going to call Dr. Phil and hopefully, I’ll come back with an answer.

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Jon Stewart Meets His Match With Tony Blair

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Audiences Reject Robert Rodriguez’s Anti-American “Machete,” Film Critic Wonders Why

Sep 15 2010 Published by under 2010 Elections

If you’re anything like me, the time you devote to entertainment is an investment. You work a day job. Maybe you have one or two part-time gigs on the side. You have a family and a home to attend to, chores to do, errands to run. Maybe you’re involved in a community group, a sports team, a social club. What little time you have left over is valuable and, if you’re going to spend it entertaining yourself, your choice of how is made with care. So, here’s a suggestion. After you’ve ground your way through a hard day’s work, ran to the store, picked up the kids here to drop them there, etc., how about going to to see a film where you and every institution and value you hold dear is mocked and demonized over the course of 105 minutes of gratuitous violence? What’s that? You’ll pass? Why? What’s wrong with you? [Robert] Rodriguez, the auteur who famously made his first film for only $7,000 , needed $20 million to foist “Machete” on the masses. But the film tanked in its second weekend, dropping 63 percent to come in fourth on the box office tally sheet. The big question is – why? Warning: Explicit Language and Graphic Imagery Gee, I don’t know. The film’s politics are as one-sided as any Michael Moore film, casting opponents of illegal immigration as monsters to be shunned, shot or both.  The film’s B-movie attitude made such platitudes easier to swallow than your standard one-sided documentary, but it still cast a good chunk of the country in an unflattering light. That had to hurt on some level, something the film’s key players acknowledged through omission . The film was clearly a labor of love by Rodriguez, an otherwise successful director whose filmography includes the family-friendly Spy Kids series. He had to know it would not be a hit with (legal) American audiences. This was something he wanted to do, perhaps to purge himself of some cathartic rage, or maybe just as a nod to Grindhouse fans.

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Audiences Reject Robert Rodriguez’s Anti-American “Machete,” Film Critic Wonders Why

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Romney backs O’Donnell (Ben Smith/Ben Smith’s Blog)

Sep 15 2010 Published by under 2010 Elections

Ben Smith / Ben Smith’s Blog : Romney backs O’Donnell

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Fundraisers Flood Members’ September Agenda

Sep 15 2010 Published by under 2010 Elections, Congress

With very little on the Congressional agenda this month, vulnerable Members are finding something else to do with their time: Raise money.

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Fundraisers Flood Members’ September Agenda

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Confessions of a RINO-loving sellout (but we still have the Vikings, right, Dave?)

Sep 15 2010 Published by under 2010 Elections, Senate

Dan Calabrese My friend David Karki appears to have had it with me, although I’m sure all will be good by the time my son and I visit him in November for our mostly annual Vikings trip. Even disagreements over political principle don’t trump football! But since Dave has posed some good questions to me, all stemming from my refusal to support Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell in the primary (although I hope she wins now), I think I’d like to offer some respectful replies. So here they are, in the order in which I feel like answering them: She makes me cringe, Dave. She's a phony baloney poseur. 1. In his headline, Dave asks, “How does electing liberals help conservatism?” My answer has two parts. First, it is not one of my goals to “help conservatism.” Conservatism is not a thing I serve. It is a general category into which a lot of different political ideas fit. Some of these ideas – like opposition to abortion and a preference for low tax rates – are completely unrelated to each other, but they’re all in the category. That’s fine. I happen to agree with most of them, but not because I feel compelled to, and not because I find it necessary to maintain some sort of conservative bona fides. Conservatism is not a thing that owns some sort of allegiance from me. Only the United States of America owns that. (Well, and God.) I don’t care about conservatism. I am not part of the conservative movement. I am a guy who writes what I think for a living, and if what I think agrees with conservatism (according to whoever gets to define it), fine with me. If not, I don’t care. My interest is in helping America, and if a “RINO” can be persuaded to support priorities that will help America ( which I believe is possible ), it doesn’t matter to me if conservatism was hurt or helped, only that America was helped. Second, Mike Castle is not a liberal. More on that . . . now: 2. Dave writes: “He (meaning me) seems to think the only way to get conservatives into power is to vote for liberals like Mike Castle.” Mike Castle is not a liberal. Mike Castle is a moderate northeastern Republican, a point Jay Cost makes in convincing detail here . Castle supports some things I really don’t like, particularly cap and trade. But he also has sponsored a bill to repeal ObamaCare, which to me is the single most important thing that needs to be accomplished in this country as soon as possible. If you don’t like moderates because they’re not conservative all the time, fine, but there is a difference between someone who sometimes votes with Democrats and someone who always does. The northeastern United States is a very liberal place, and a Republican has to be quite moderate to win there. Case in point: Scott Brown. He opposes ObamaCare too (yay!), but he voted for Obama’s dumbass Wall Street financial reform (hide the rope). Would you rather have Martha Coakley in the Senate? I don’t think Brown is a liberal. I think he’s pretty much what Mike Castle is – a moderate northeastern Republican who will sometimes vote as I prefer, and maddeningly sometimes will not. The political challenge for conservatives is to craft their legislation in such a way that the electorate clamors for its passage, and the likes of Mike Castle and Scott Brown want to support it, too. It is not to cast the likes of Brown and Castle into the nether regions, because you don’t have anyone better. 3. Dave writes: “We should not be projecting blame for the inevitable reaction to Castle’s action on anyone but him, and certainly not on O’Donnell or her supporters.” Irrelevant. I don’t care who’s to blame. I only care that Chris Coons is probably going to become Delaware’s new far-left socialist senator, and I think it’s kind of weird that this bothers me a lot more than it bothers all the oh-so-principled movement conservatives, who consider apostates in their own ranks to be a bigger problem than the people who openly seek to turn this country into the People’s Republic of America, and are not shy about saying so. Blame is a waste of time. Punishing Castle for his faults is stupid if it means Coons gets elected and the Democrats hold their majority. It’s classic nose-cutting-face-spiting. It’s for six-year-olds. 4. Dave asks: “What makes anybody think that if the GOP otherwise runs the table, and the Senate is 51-49, Castle wouldn’t pull a Jumpin’ Jim Jeffords and flip sides so that VP Joe Biden’s 50-50 tiebreaker vote would give the Senate back to the Democrats?” I guess we’ll never know, huh? I can guarantee you 100 percent that if it’s 50-50, Coons votes to elect Schumer as Majority Leader. Why do conservatives think this is somehow better? 5. Dave writes: “With all due respect to my colleague, Dan Calabrese, apparently for whom no RINO is too liberal to support . . .” That’s simply not true. I support Joe Miller in Alaska over Lisa Murkowski with great enthusiasm (and Murkowski is considerably further to the right than Castle, by the way). I support Marco Rubio over Charlie Crist in Florida (and did even when Crist was still pretending to be a Republican). The difference is that Miller and Rubio are both excellent candidates and appear likely to be excellent U.S. senators. I did not support J.D. Hayworth over John McCain in Arizona for two reasons: 1. On the three issues about which I care the most – ObamaCare, spending and national security – McCain is as good as Hayworth on the first and better on the other two. My top policy priorities are in good hands with McCain in the Senate, although I will acknowledge there are a lot of other issues where I have big problems with McCain; 2. Hayworth is a blowhard, a charlatan and a moron. I don’t want people like that in the U.S. Senate, even if they purportedly agree with me on some things. And that brings us to Christine O’Donnell. O’Donnell’s thin-skinned supporters are very upset with Karl Rove this morning because he was highly critical of O’Donnell on Fox News last night. They need to grow up and deal with the reality of what Rove said. He spoke of some very real and serious problems with their glamor girl: “One thing that Christine O’Donnell is now going to have to answer in the general election, that she didn’t answer in the primary, is her own checkered background . . . I’ve met her. I’ve got to tell you, I wasn’t frankly impressed with her ability as a candidate. There are serious questions about, how does she make a living? Why did she mislead voters about her college education? How come it took her nearly two decades to pay off her college loans so she could get a college degree? How does she make a living? Why did she sue a well-known conservative think tank?” When Sean Hannity responded lamely that she is a “solid conservative,” Rove refused to let him get away with that: “It does conservatives little good to support candidates who, at the end of the day, while they may be conservatives in their public statements, do not evince the characteristics of rectitude and truthfulness and sincerity and character that the voters are looking for.” Exactly. What the hell makes Sean Hannity, or David Karki for that matter, so sure that Christine O’Donnell is a “solid conservative”? Because she says so? What record does she have of proving it? None. What record does she have in public office? None. What record does she have of any sort of accomplishment whatsoever? None. She can’t even explain what she does for a living. And yet this is the woman you’re counting on to go to Washington and bring about the conservative revolution? Given a viable option, I will always support the more conservative candidate over a moderate. But ideology – especially publicly stated but entirely unproven ideology – is not the only thing I care about. I will not support a candidate who is fundamentally unqualified. I will not support a candidate who does not have a track record of achievement in his or her own life. I will not support a candidate who gives every indication of being a mere blowhard. And I won’t support candidates who have no chance of winning. If you “true conservatives” find it necessary to ignore all this and support the likes of Christine O’Donnell anyway, then you understand why I am not a member of your movement, which brings us to . . . 6. Dave writes: “And I don’t understand it at all from ‘conservatives’ like Dan.” I don’t know who Dave’s quoting here, but it’s not me. I don’t go around labeling myself as a conservative, and I’m certainly not interested in defending myself to those who scream that I am a RINO or an apostate or not a “true conservative” or whatever. I am me. I am Dan Calabrese. If you read what I write and want to label me as conservative, go ahead. I suspect most would. But I’m not on a mission to maintain good standing in the conservative club. I think for myself, and I think I’d rather have Mike Castle in the Senate, with all his flaws, than Chris Coons. And I think Christine O’Donnell is a phony-baloney poseur who never deserved to get this far. And yet, I do hope she wins. Because when Tony and I arrive in Bloomington, Minnesota on Nov. 6 for our weekend of football and tailgating with Dave, it would be great to spend our time enjoying the Republican takeover of the House and Senate that had just occurred. Even if that means we’ll spend the next six years wincing every time Senator O’Donnell opens her mouth. Become Dan’s friend on Facebook . Become a fan of The North Star National on Facebook . Buy Dan’s novel, Powers and Principalities. To book Dan as a speaker, contact Lourdes Swarts at Speakers Access.

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Confessions of a RINO-loving sellout (but we still have the Vikings, right, Dave?)

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How does electing liberals help conservatism?

Sep 15 2010 Published by under 2010 Elections, Congress, Senate

David Karki With all due respect to my colleague, Dan Calabrese, apparently for whom no RINO is too liberal to support, his columns bashing new Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell carry a clear inconsistency if not an outright cognitive dissonance. He seems to think the only way to get conservatives into power is to vote for liberals like Mike Castle. RINO = Liberal, Dan. From where I stand, there are a couple obvious flaws in his premise. One, Castle is a Democrat and votes like one. That he’s delusional enough to still think himself a Republican doesn’t make him one. And he has only himself to blame for his loss tonight. What else did he think would happen when he strayed so far from his base and did everything in his power to put them off or infuriate them? Whether O’Donnell is a good candidate or not thus became irrelevant. Just so long as she wasn’t Mike Castle, that was good enough for them. That fault lies squarely with him, and not with those conservatives who are accused of making the perfect the enemy of the good to the detriment of the greater cause. We should not be projecting blame for the inevitable reaction to Castle’s action on anyone but him, and certainly not on O’Donnell or her supporters. Should this seat go to the Democrats in November, he and he alone will have handed it to them. (Though, based on his voting record, the Democrats in one sense already had it.) Two, what makes anybody think that if the GOP otherwise runs the table, and the Senate is 51-49, Castle wouldn’t pull a Jumpin’ Jim Jeffords and flip sides so that VP Joe Biden’s 50-50 tiebreaker vote would give the Senate back to the Democrats? Hell, I’d fully expect it. Why? Because that’s where Castle’s ideological loyalties lie. The idea that a liberal would go with a conservative flow – out of expediency, I guess – simply makes no sense.  And I don’t understand why Calabrese and others cling to this fantasy. For the last time – RINOs are liberals. They hide behind that lie of a (R) label after their name, and when push comes to shove they never vote with conservatives. Be mad at such people for being unable or unwilling to be honest with themselves and voters about what they are, not at those of us who would simply get them to be honest for the first time. And this year, of all years, RINO-ism is unacceptable. We face the clearest and most present danger in our history in the form of what Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have done and are doing to our country. Getting along with them, or more efficiently managing the monstrous Leviathan government they’ve shoved down our throats is not enough anymore. This must be stopped and defunded in the two years to come, and once Obama is gone in 2012, repealed, reversed, and rolled back as quickly and completely as possible. The Mike Castles of the world have no intention of assisting in this effort, and would at best undermine it and at worst outright help to thwart it. He and his fellow RINOs who seem to inhabit the inside-the-Beltway establishment GOP need to get it through their heads that their time is over. We tried it their way earlier this decade, to disastrous results. The whole reason there was an opening for Obama to get into the White House and wreak the havoc he has is because the GOP so badly screwed the pooch. And why did that happen? Because we were dependent upon RINOs for a phony mirage of a majority. Calabrese has often ridiculed the GOP Congress of a few years ago. Yet he apparently wants to re-elect more of the same. How did a RINO-driven “majority” work for implementing conservatism last time around? That’s right – it didn’t. Repeating behavior while expecting a different result; isn’t that the definition of insanity? For the record, I know little about Christine O’Donnell and she may well be a poor candidate who faces very long odds in November. (And frankly, that’s the simplest explanation which is being missed – in Delaware, as in Arizona before it with John McCain and J.D. Hayworth, the choice was ostensibly between a non-conservative RINO and a non-electable conservative candidate.  In that situation, you can’t solve William F. Buckley’s strategy of the most electable conservative, because each fails half the test. The question thus isn’t which do you pick, but why weren’t there better candidates in the first place?) But the position that Calabrese holds is borderline incoherent. I can understand it coming from the likes of Karl Rove – who viciously and unconscionably smeared O’Donnell on Fox News tonight – because the careers of Beltway RINOs are the first to be put at risk by the Tea Party candidates. I understand it far less from Democrats, who if O’Donnell is half as awful as they claim should be popping champagne corks over an easy hold on which they’ll have to spend no money. As the oft-misquoted Shakespeare line goes, “Methinks thou dost protest too much.” And I don’t understand it at all from “conservatives” like Dan. How many times must the Castles, McCains, Snowes, Collinses, and Grahams of the Senate vote with the Democrats before you’ll give up on them? Are you really that into the Kevin Bacon fraternity hazing scene in Animal House? “Thank you, sir, may I have another?” You advance conservatism by electing conservatives. O’Donnell may not be the best candidate, she may be a long shot to win, but she’s all we have. If the choice were Castle or a Democrat in November, as Calabrese wanted, then the seat would already be lost. This way, there is still a ray of hope.

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How does electing liberals help conservatism?

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‘Now is the Time For the Idiots Who Supported My Opponent to Unite Behind Me…’ (Jim Geraghty/National Review)

Sep 14 2010 Published by under 2010 Elections

Jim Geraghty / National Review : ‘Now is the Time For the Idiots Who Supported My Opponent to Unite Behind Me…’

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Obstacle to Good Government: Cows

Sep 14 2010 Published by under 2010 Elections, Congress

Represenative Bob Etheridge has a new excuse not to answer questions from people. Last time his excuse was that he’s a violent weirdo who doesn’t like questions , but this time it’s because of cows . Etheridge left an event where he was answering questions an hour early because he got word his cows had gotten out, and apparently that needed his direct supervision. Who knows what happens with his cows if they get out while he’s in DC; I guess they just wreak havoc on the countryside unabated until Etheridge can finally come home and grab them and put them in headlocks and demand to know who they are — which they never answer being that they are cows. I wonder if this is something we can use against Democrats if they try anything during a lame duck session. “Now, let’s pass Cap & Trade and amnesty and– I just got a text… Oh no! Please no! The cows have gotten out! I. MUST. STOP. THEM!” DISCLAIMER: I’ve done some work for the Renee Ellmers campaign and support all cows roaming free.

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Obstacle to Good Government: Cows

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