OBSESSED WITH OFFENSE
I often find Ann Coulter to be too strident and often incoherent, and her style probably does more damage to her arguments than she imagines. However, this column on the Gen. Boykin fiasco is pitch perfect. The summation:

Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, said Boykin's remarks "fly in the face of the pleas of the president and violate the basic principles of tolerance and inclusion that are implicit in the culture of this nation." Uh-oh. If liberals don't like what Boykin said about the terrorists, wait until they find out about the MOAB bombs the U.S. military has been dropping on them.

THE LIBERAL MEDIA
Why would you ask the husband of Barbra Streisand to portray Ronald Reagan? What's next, a biography of Golda Meir produced by the Nation of Islam? Or maybe get Jerry Falwell to star in a biography of Bill Clinton? Ann Coulter as Hillary Clinton! How stupid must CBS executives be? And all the information released so far on the movie The Reagans, seems that it will focus on AIDS policy and psychics. I can't imagine how they might treat Reagan's tax reforms and booming economy, or his alliance with the Pope to bring down the Iron Curtain -- if at all. That sort of thing just doesn't interest these Hollywood types.

Oh, and CBS picked Brolin because of his role as a dumb and shallow Republican challenger on The West Wing. And CBS admits it.

Typical.

A TRADE HAS BEEN OFFERED
Got this comment today on our brand, spankin' new comment system. From a Democratic Brian:

You take Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman and we'll take Olympia Snowe and Lincoln Chafee. Deal? I'd much rather have a couple of moderate Republicans than a Democrat that thinks he's a Republican.

Why should our party move even farther right? Wasn't it Truman that said “When people are given a choice between a Republican, and a Democrat who acts like a Republican, they’ll pick the Republican every time.”

My party's been moving right for years, and so has yours. Eisenhower would be probably be a Democrat by today's standards. Democrats need to speak their views and offer a choice. Why would anyone bother to vote for a Democrat trying to be a Republican???

Well, Ike couldn't possibly be as weak on security matters as the Democrats are, so I'm sure he'd still be a Republican. And for the same reasons, so would Harry Truman.

We'll consider the trade, but Zell Miller's value is not so good now that he's leaving the Senate. Joe's OK on foreign policy, but needs to come a little right on other issues. But even without picking up these guys, I'd probably be willing to give Lincoln Chafee for a politician to be named later.

Really, is there a place to play Fantasy Politics online?

ANTI-WAR OR COVERING THEIR ASSES
Did France and Russia ship weapons to Saddam in 2001? Newsmax has pictures that say so. Wouldn't that be a violation of U.N. resolutions? Yes. Shouldn't the U.N. do something about it? If not, the U.N. truly is irrelevant.

1,100 PCs = SUPERCOMPUTER
Wow, Virginia Tech is good at something other than football.

DEMOCRATS: "WE SUCK"
Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA), the man who urged Bill Clinton to run 1992 was the keynoters at Bill's convention, is taking his party to the woodshed in his new book, A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat.

Now, Andrew Cuomo sticks in the knife:

Democrats lost elections in 2000 and 2002 because we were lost in time
. . .
We expressed no clear vision for the future
. . .
We had become the party of fear instead of the party of hope - spending more time warning what Republicans would take away rather than we did on what Democrats had to offer
. . .
To voters, we seemed bloodless, soulless and clueless . . . We fooled ourselves into a political strategy of timidity

And then he gives the Republicans some love: Bush "exemplified leadership at a time when America was desperate for a leader. . . He deserves credit, as do congressional Republicans, for recognizing the challenge of 9/11 and rising to it." Andrew seems to have a solid understanding of his party. I bet he votes for them anyway.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
We got tired of reading FederalReview e-mail and finding out that this site is full of right-wing nutcases, and at least one left-wing socialist. That's not the kind of information we should keep to ourselves. Now, you can post a comment for the whole world to see.

Tell us we are idiots. Tell us we are geniuses. Tell me I'm an idiot and that John is a genius. Or Hank is an Ithaca-obsessed boob or that Brian's barbecue isn't all that good. But we have finally added comment functionality to FederalReview. Thanks to BlogSpeak.

EDWARDS' CHANCES
An Edwards cheerleader site, the Stinging Nettle, presents what is, I think, I very plausible scenario for John Edwards, despite trailing Al Sharpton in recent polls, to win the nomination. Of course, it all hinges on South Carolina and who gets knocked out in Iowa and New Hampshire. I think scenario one is most likely:

(1) Dean wins Iowa and New Hampshire - Gephardt and Kerry are done. It's Dean, Edwards and an overrated Clark in SC.

But if Edwards loses SC he is finished, and if Dean shows reasonably well there, even if Edwards wins, he's finished. And now that Clark has given up on Iowa (a smart move that all candidates should follow), he'll be focusing on South Carolina.

Ah yes, the horserace. Here it comes.

RELIGION OF TOLERANCE
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who recently lamented that, even though Europeans killed 6 million Jews, "today the Jews rule this world by proxy," now complains about "state terrorism", meaning the U.S. liberation of Iraq:

It would seem that the great exponents and practitioners of democracy believe that the way to spread the doctrine and to break down resistance is by terrorizing the world.

No, just by terrorizing tyrants. The good Prime Minister steps down this month after 22 years in power.

PBA VOTE (64-34)
Voting to ban partial birth abortion, here are the Democrats:

Evan Bayh (IN)
Joe Biden (DE)
John Breaux (LA)
Robert Byrd (WV)
Thomas Carper (DE)
Kent Conrad (ND)
Tom Daschle (SD)
Byron Dorgan (ND)
Ernest Hollings (SD)
Tim Johnson (SD)
Mary Landrieu (LA)
Patrick Leahy (VT)
Blanche Lincoln (AR)
Zell Miller (GA)
Ben Nelson (NE)
Mark Pryor (AR)
Harry Reid (NV)

It's interesting that the Democratic leadership in the Senate voted for the ban.

Voting against the ban, the Republicans:

Lincoln Chafee (RI)
Susan Collins (ME)
Olympia Snow (ME)

Not voting. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (TX) and John Edwards (NC). I suspect that Edwards is trying to keep his options on open on this issue for the South Carolina primary.

DELIVERY AND DEATH, SENATE PASSES BAN ON PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION
In a breathless report, Jim Abrams of the Associated Press announces the Senate's approval of a ban on "a practice that critics call partial birth abortion." Later, journalist Jim describes the practice, in his own words as "abortions, generally carried out in the second or third trimester, in which a fetus is partially delivered before being killed." Good thing you attributed the "partial birth" phrase to "critics". I guess "partially-delivered baby/fetus killing" would be more approriate.

Jimbo says "the bill imposes the most far-reaching limits on abortion since the Supreme Court in 1973." Maybe it does, I don't know, but here's what it does ban.

The bill defines partial birth abortion as delivery of a fetus "until, in the case of a headfirst presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of the breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus."

I prefer this description by a registered nurse who assisted a "dilation and extraction":

I could see the heart beating. As Dr. Haskell watched the baby on the ultrasound screen, the baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen.

Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and the arms-- everything but the head. The doctor kept the baby's head just inside the uterus.

The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall.

The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby was completely limp. I was really completely unprepared for what I was seeing. I almost threw up as I watched the doctor do these things.

But this "procedure" in which a baby's head emerges from the mother, or his legs are out all the way to the umbilical cord and then he's killed is described in various ways by the "pro-choice" left:

Sen. Boxer: a medical procedure that is considered medically necessary

Sen. Lautenberg: a safe medical procedure

The AP Story continues: "Opponents of the legislation argued that, as defined in the bill, it could apply to several safe and common procedures, and that the real goal of the legislation was to erode overall abortion rights."

Common? It is common to kill a fetus after the head has been delivered or after the torso up to the umbilical cord has been delivered? Common? Should this be described as "common" and "safe" (safe to whom? not the fetus) or, should Sen. Santorum's adjective apply: "brutality". How is this not clear? Right is wrong? War is Peace? Freedom is slavery? Terminating a half-delivered baby is "safe," "common" and "necessary"?

Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Gloria Feldt said her group would seek an injunction preventing the legislation from taking effect.

Well, there's a misnamed group. Can't we call it "the organization that supporters call 'Planned Parenthood'?" Planned Infanticide maybe?

Genius Senator Barbara Boxer (and I'm sure Dennis Miller could defeat her) lost it: "I see what this is about ... this is about politics." Wow, politics in the Senate, no kidding.

"I never dreamed I'd be down here with senators who think they know more than doctors."

The only medical doctor in the Senate, Bill Frist, voted for the ban. Dream on Barbara.

FRESH AIR, FOR REAL
I've never really liked NPR's program Fresh Air (which is articulated with a normal voice - "Fresh" - then drop your tone half an octave and lower your volume - "Air", which is hosted by - with a normal voice - "Terry" - now drop your tone half an octave and lower your volume - "Gross"). I always feel like I'm eavesdropping on an obsequious confab between self-important students sipping coffee on couches at the multi-cultural student union.

So, I'm not surprised when the NPR ombudsman calls Fresh Air host Terry Gross "one of the best interviewers anywhere in American journalism". I am surprised that in the same column he notes that this "best interviewer" is also "unfair," "unethical" and "wrong". I wonder what the bad interviewers are like? (I know, they're on the Today Show).

These are words Jeffrey Dvorkin used to describe Terry Gross' interview with Bill O'Reilly, which was really nothing more than Terry Gross as stand-in for Al Franken (although she didn't imitate Al's off-his-meds technique). I'm just surprised that NPR took note of the criticism and publicly agreed with it. And I applaud them for it.

Now if Mr. Dvorkin would just turn his attention to cliché-ridden, senility-addled Daniel Schorr. Just a few minutes with him during your commute home will convince you that Nixon was at least right about one thing -- adding Schorr him to his "enemies list". In fact, Schorr is so proud of this, it appears on his NPR bio. Really.

COMEDY ON YOUR BUMPER
These leftist bumper stickers are good. I especially like the ambiguity of "I'd Rather Be Smashing Imperialism" and, especially, "If you want Peace work for Justice," which is exactly what we are doing in Iraq.

By their nature, bumper stickers have to be trite distillations of policy positions, but for some reason, I suspect that these encompass the entire argument on the left.

ACADEMIC DIVERSITY
Here's a nice column from Professor Mike Adams at the University of North Carolina at Wilimington, where, it appears, diversity is expressed through gay porn and pedophilic plays -- but be sure not to advertise a fraternity party -- it could be offensive to feminist sensibilities. I hope the professor will point some fingers and name some names in future columns. It would provide a good service to current and future UNCW students and their parents.