Look on Dictionary.com Under “Jerk”

Let me take a moment to describe my feelings about this subject.
Al Franken is a Jerk.. No, I mean it a real Jerk. blogoSFERICS seems to agree.

I think Al Franken is a jerk. I mean, he is really a jerk. He is the jerk to end all jerks.

Look in the dictionary under the word “jerk“ and you’ll see a picture of that jerk.

Guess I just hadda get that out.

Interesting thoughts as I go through my day.

In reflecting on Arnold’s speech last night, I’m taken by his reference to how he became a Republican… He referred to the 68 Campaign.. in which Humphrey and Nixon engaged. He had just escaped from Socialism, recall. Nixon at the time, he said, sounded like a breath of fresh air, and Humphrey sounded like a Socailist.

Two striking thoughts occur:

First, that the redemption of Richard Nixon is now completed, apparently.

Second, and perhaps of greater import to this seasons’s events, Humphrey was far to the right of 90% of today’s Democrat party leadership… and certainly to the right of the Democratic Party nominee… John F’ing Kerry.

InstaGlenn in the WSJ today:

….the Cambodia revelations happened not in the face of big media laziness, but in the face of active big-media opposition. (Even now, newspapermen like the Star Tribune’s Jim Boyd are criticizing bloggers for covering the story, though without admitting that the bloggers had the facts on their side.)

Does this mean that blogs will work in the Bush campaigns favor? Not inevitably, and there are plenty of lefty blogs doing their best to beat Mr. Bush. But so long as the mainstream media are lazy, and biased — and strongly in favor of a Democrat — the fact-checking and media-bypassing power of the blogosphere is likely to disproportionately favor Republicans. That’s not so much a reflection on blogs, alas, as it is a reflection on big media.

Not unlike what I’ve said in the past. In that post, I identified the reason the press has lost it’s authority, as does Glenn… the MSM’s vices… or as I put it then, their abuse of the authority given to them. Nice to see someone else gets it.

What is slightly more subtle, but is implicit in my original write-up… and it’s a point I wonder if Glenn understands… is a warning… and perhaps I should make it a bit more explicit.

Blogs now find themsleves in a position of “authority’…. which is actually better described as a position of trust… because of the abuses of the media they’re competing with. The relationship between authority and trust is interesting to me just now, and perhaps I’ll explore this later, if I think of it again.

The MSM is in trouble now and has lost their position of authority because they demonstrably have abused that trust… as people like Bosell have been trying to tell us for years, now.

The warning here is that it’s not outside the realm of possibility, and is even likely, that blogdom can be replaced by anything else, at need, if the trust given them is abused. Perhaps in this cynical age, such trust will be harder to build up. But for all that, such trusts will also fall faster, and be more fragile.

I do not see this as a bad thing; I see this as a natural check on abuse that’s been lacking.. a natural check that Blogs (and Fox, before it, for that matter) provided against the MSM.

Because of the abuses of the MSM, we’re being looked at with an only semi-trusting eye by the public. It’s up to we Bloggers, how long that trust, that authority, lasts.

Update: John Venlet notes my use of the word ‘authority’ and questions it, apparently preferring the use of the word ‘respect’. To which I have replied thus:

“John;

As I said in my own older post that I linked to in that discussion… the issue of the relationship between trust, and authority is of interest to me just now, because I think that bears on many issues of today… including the presidential election. (In my view it comes down to, as it always has, the issue of whom you trust more in this election in the position they’re running for. That issue is of the same import now as at any other critical time in our history, I think. Zell Miller did a good johb of addressing that issue of trust last night, though indirectly.  It also bears directly on the issue of the MSM vs their replacements.

I haven’t quite got it worked out as yet, but I’m convinced that…. (Absent force of law, gun, or lack of competition, or a combo of all of these) …authority is granted only as a matter of TRUST.

I alluded to this point in the post you link to; that perhaps the word “authority” was misplaced, and perhaps trust is more appropriate.  But then I got tangled on the relationship between trust and authority., and I wonder now if I didn’t get it right the first time.

Consider my line of thinking, please…You don’t give someone in your employ authority to run a machine, for example, until you trust him with it. You don’t give them the passwords to the computer, (and thereby the authority to use it) the keys to the safe (ditto) or anything else, unless you trust them. Authority, of ANY kind, where it is freely granted, is granted only to the level of trust the situation engenders. PAW, you usually grant someone only the level of authority you trust them with.

If you trust someone to give you the news, you grant them authority to tell you what’s news.

For many years, the MSM had the authority of being the sole power, the sole authority, if you will, the sole arbiter, of what was news. The MSM was trusted by the people because of a long-standing trust and by the fact that there was little in the way of serious competition in that area. Usually, people had no way to judge how well they handled that trust…. That authority. In a sense, the people were under force to accept the MSM and to grant them the authority insofar as what was and was not news… and often as not, what was truth, particularly in political and social areas.

Other voices coming into the scene changed all of that. The added information undermined that trust, and with it, the authority attached to it… and I think rightly so.

I’m suggesting in my post that Blogs are becoming more popular because in large part of a greater trust at the moment,. But I’m also suggesting that they can and will fall victim to diminished trust… diminished authority, should they fall to the same abuses the MSM did.

Your use of the word ‘respect’ is useful, becuse it certainly qualifies as that, but I submit that respect is built up by proving one’s self trustworthy with the authority granted.

We seem to agree there’s a relationship there; what’s in the discussion stage now is the order in which these different levels come in.

Does that make any greater sense to you now?

And by the way, I note Fox news exceeded all three mainline networks as well as all other cable networks last night. If we hold that Fox is still outside the realm of mainstream media, then, I suppose we can argue that the replacement of the MSM has been completed.

(In fairness, it should be pointed out that the trust/authority given Blogs is perhaps less than that initially given the MSM simply because the expectations were set lower going in… perhaps worthy of a sub-topic all it’s own, that point)

Reports off the wire…:

“MOSCOW (Reuters) – A heavily armed gang seized at least 120 hostages at a Russian school near Chechnya on Wednesday and threatened to kill 50 children for every one of their group who was killed, a senior local official said.”

The article goes on at great length, while never really describing these terrorists as what they are… They’re Muslim extremists. What is it about the Mainstream Media that they have this aversion to even mentioning in the clear what such people are… Muslim Terrorists?

I’ll tell you what it is; The press is trying to minimze the threat of Muslim Terrorism, thereby undermining President Bush, since they consider, correctly, his war of terrorism to be his strong suit.

I’ll open this to the floor, in the comments section, below. Can anyone think of a better reason than the one I’m suggesting?

The Truth Laid Bear with the Pen of NZ Bear:

“The even worse news for Kerry is that despite the exceptional job his campaign has been doing at executing political hari-kari, the Bush team hasn’t even started to attack him yet. All the damage thus far has been self-inflicted, or at the hands of the Swift Vets (also arguably self-inflicted, allowing that karma sometimes takes a while to come around — but it does come around). And don’t give me any nonsense about how Bush is behind the Swifties; these guys have hated Kerry’s guts for thirty years, and they show every intention of hating him for thirty more. No, Kerry’s recent Swift-Vet-driven collapse is the political equivalent of a boxer being clocked by a random spectator on his way to the ring.”

A great line, perhaps the best of this campaign so far.

A quick glance at Mr. Kerry shows only a part of how desperate the situation has become for the Democrats.

Comon, Gang… doesn’t anyone actually think before the nomination process goes though? Nah, what am I saying?… these are Democrats.

Seriously, though… couldn’t anyone at the DNC figure out he’d not made peace with the vets… many of whom are Democrats.. including John O’Neil, a leading spokesman for the SwiftVets, by the way? Why on earth would the Democrat intelligentsia have steered him into choosing the 120 days in Vietnam as the centerpiece for his running a campaign?

Well, in fairness, two things should be pointed out;

First, we’re dealing with a time… IE; Post 9/11… when the Military and the judicious use thereof in world affairs gains serious import. And most people, Democrats included undersatand this very well indeed. They’re solidly behind the President’s actions in Iraq. (Thus did all the Democrats running on anti-war stances, such as Screaming Howard lose support, even within their own party…. a point which, given Lerry’s anti-military history, should have been the first clue to Kerry’s upcoming major problems in the general election, assuming any of Terry McAwful’s people were actually watching something other than x-rated web sites…)

And secondl,y Kerry has no Senate accomplishments to run on. 

So, Kerry’s hand has been forced both by his (lack of a) record, and by current events into running a military centered campaign, in which he would lose in landslide proportions.

Democrats are finding out, as the entire country does, that Kerry is foundationally weak. Every position, every issue of the day… and I mean every one, save two, Kerry has reversed himself on. Taxes, Iraq, etc etc.. All of them, he’s managed to come down on both sides of. Not one flip and one flop, but repeatedly.

Oh, the two he’s not reversed himself on? Wanting to be president, and not liking George W. Bush. Trouble is, he keeps changing his mind about why each of those are true, as well.

Oh, and I nearly forgot… there’s one more thing he’s not reversed himself on… the content of his 1971 Testimony before the Senate, wherein he labeled the entire of the US military ‘war criminals’.

All of which adds up to this one immovable, undeniable fact… one even most Democrats are starting to see… They’ve nominated for the office of President of the United States, someone who is fundamentally stupid and shows it each time he opens his mouth. Someone whose campaign is so badly mismanaged by the very same staff whom would all be a part of his administration, one supposes… that such mismanagement ever getting to the White House can only be seen as a disaster for the United States. Someone who has repeatedly been caught in lie after lie after lie. Someone who actually makes Bill Clinton, God save us, look good by comparison.

As the Bear says:

So Kerry, fading in the polls, disliked by the electorate, faces the unappealing prospect of not only the traditional post-convention bounce for Bush, but that the true campaign hasn’t even started yet

All of this, plus the far leftist nuts driving away Democrat voters in NY this week, all adds up to a very bleak picture indeed for Democrats.

By now, the Democrats must be wondering mightily about how they’re going to get out of this with any face left at all.

Excerpts of Remarks by Governor Schwarzenegger

DRUDGE is running a topline that says:

“Attack Attempt On MSNBC Chris Matthews… Live On Air… Street Set Outside Convention… Hooded protester jumps security line … Police move in immediatly… Guard Tackled… Bush/Cheney supporters gathered near show set at Herald Square were pushed and spat on by protesters, fake blood thrown while Matthews remained on air… Developing… ”

OK, I guess this doesn’t shock me.

Yes, Matthews has been their best freind, but the idea that would make freinds of Leftists like Mattews immune to the nonsense…. something he clearly though was true, else he’d not have been where he was…. assumes that the people doing up violence and mayhem actually need a REASON to ply their craft.

I wonder if this will re-tilt Mr Matthews away from the far left. I doubt it, but I’m hopeful.

Light blogging tonight…. the life of a Server Jockey… Got a server at a customer’s place about 30 miles away sending up smoke signals… literally. Gotta ride in on my white horse, and save the day, or try to. Dunno when I’ll be back online, if at all tonight.

Update: Didn’t take quite as long as I figured. I must be better than I thought.

Belmont Club today, examines the plight of the French, who are trying to cut a diplomacy deal with the terrorists who have their two journalists hostage.  But what have the French to offer? Why nothing less than a compromise on Iraqi Freedom.

Says Belmont:

“French diplomats are attempting to link the release of the French hostages to changes in the method and manner in which the Iraqi elections will be held. The mere fact that France is negotiating implicitly means there will be a quid for the quo. After all, in 2003, European hostages held by Al Qaeda affiliate Algerian Islamic militant Group for Preaching and Combat were released in exchange for $6M dollars, according to Deutsche Welle. There were even demands from German politicians to force the ex-hostages to reimburse the state for the payout.”

Worse, Belmont predicts correctly, that if this goes unchallenged, that

“More Americans and Iraqis will die as the price of French appeasement.

Yet the French will not escape the carnivorous attentions of the terrorists in the end.”

RTWT.

And there it is, gang…. This is the choice we face in this election, here in the US. The troubles the French are having, being a result of their policy of appeasement, all ties in directly with the difference between George W. Bush and John Kerry, since, unarguably, Kerry’s stated foreign policy is connected directly to that of the French, particularly in terms of much butt-kissing of the terrorists. 

(Granted our judgment of Kerry’s position is shaky at best, since it assumes we can take Kerry at his word. It seems a stretch…. Particularly the way the man’s been flip flopping like a landed flounder headed for a French Kitchen, but what else can we go on, here?)

It seems to me this situation exemplifies quite clearly why the Kerry’s proposals, which direct us toward a more ‘subtle’ and ‘sensitive’ manner of dealing with terrorism won’t work, and will in fact backfire. The reason is simple enough. What Kerry calls ‘subtlety’ the terrorists correctly identify as ‘weakness’. Just as, by the way, the Arabs have been doing regards the west, including Israel, for 50 years, now… and that’s still going on today… as 15 more Innocents were killed in two bus bombings in Israel just today. The world particularly the UN, has been trying to negotiate it’s way out of terrorism for 50 years, and can’t do it. The reason for this inability is simple; We’re treating terrorists… International criminals of a scale only seen before in Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Empire… As equals… We’re trying to treat their culture of death as equal to our own… Their hate as valid…. Their systematic killing of any who oppose them as justified, instead of treating them as the criminals they are.

Seeing this weakness, the terrorists do now and will in future, act accordingly, creating more terror. The amazing, and yet predictable thing is, that should Kerry ever get into the White House and follow up the talk with putting that talk into policy… And given the history of foreign policy with the Democrats we have no cause to doubt he will…, it’s a only matter of time before we’re attacked, as the terrorists try to gain a position to bargain better from. At that point, all we’ll hear is Kerry wailing “It’s not my fault” as we watch what’s left of American cities, smoking,and as we watch America’s stature in the world crumble even further than it did under Jimmy Carter.

Ah, yes, Jimmy Carter, who gave is 444 days of hostages, and spent those 444 days trying to negotiate. After finaly giving up with this, the military option was tried. Problem was of course the military, being so under funded for so long, and so restricted in it’s operative orders, couldn’t perform the job.

The question before us then, is; Does the anti-War Kerry, like the Anti-War French, and like Jimmy Carter, like Madiline Albright,and all the rest… do they really understand that diplomacy when used without the military to back it up, is useless when dealing with Terrorists?

Clearly, the answer is each case, is, “no”. More, each seems proud of this mental disconnect.

Our further existence as a nation, therefore, depends on Kerry or for that matter ANY Democrat not getting the power to follow such ‘subtle’ policy as he proposes doing today. We cannot afford such a man in the White House again.

The American Thinker reports on what Kerry is so proud of.

Perhaps we now understand why he never mentions it.

Ann Althouse has some rather harsh words for many points of the convention last night… Most of which had nothing to do with the convention, and everything to do with the press.

The Solution, Ann, is to drop MSNBC, and CNN, too. Personally, I spent the night on C-Span.

Just connect the feed and shutup. Don’t keep telling me how stupid I am for watching the Republcans, and how stupid they are to be in NY, and so on.

While I’m on the subject can someone explain to me why, seemingly, the entire Clinton misadministration was being interviewed on the various networks while Denny Hastert and the other folks made their speeches, instead of actually letting the people speak?

Example; Can someone please tell me the great import of having Hillary Clinton doing her strut while the adults were speaking?

The Drezners had a baby girl last night Which, one supposes, beats the hell out of giving birth to an adult.

Seriously; stop by and wish them well.

Nothing formal here, justa few offhanded comments:

* Franken and Moore at the RNC? Yeah, they were both there, and both made the tube during the speeches.  This is akin to Limbaugh showing up to the Boston a few weeks ago. That either one of the slimeballs got out of the place while still breathing is a testimony to Republican open-mindedness… something which neither of them would ever admit to.

*Similarly, Ron Silver. Well, the man himself, at least. Ron Silver’s comments, hwoever… Let’s just say it was an interesting turn-round for this guy. I can’t imagine him being very popular in Hollywood after telling the left they’ve been trying to have to both ways.. protesting agains violent acts but never wanting to take actions against the violent.

*Speaking has never been McCain’s strong suit. His delivery was stilted at best. And longtime readers will know I’ve never liked the man in any event. But McCain’s Comments seemed to me to leave no doubt whatever as to who has his support in this election, and what he thought of the Iraq actions thusfar. Clearly the CNN folks were anoyed with his stated support, and for saying there was more at stake nthan WMD’s alone. Apparently they’d thought he was a closet Democrat… and I agree there’s much in McCain’s history to commend that idea. The Democrat hopes in that area were dashed last night, however. McCain hit a triple.

* As for Rudy Giuliani’s comments…..  Rudy is.. well… Rudy. He clearly was in his own element last night. I’ve done some public speaking, and can ‘feel’ if you will when someone’s got it working for them… and Rudy did last night. He came out swinging, and in my view, hit a Home run.

* Did you notice Zainab Al-Suwaij speaking about America’s contribution to Iraqi freedom?  I could hear Hitlery’s teeth grinding from the other end of the state; she of the line “Iraqi women were better off under Saddam” Her speech left no doubt Iraqis are grateful for our efforts toward their freedom. Again, can you imagine how much air that let out of the Democrat’s tires?

Hmmm. Having some problems connecting to CQ.
I wonder if our champions of free speech are at it again?
Everything I see about the server at this moment appears either heavy traffic… (His hit numbers must be spinning off the wall) or a Denial Of Service attack, and at the moment, I can’t tell which without getting more intrusive.
Timing does seem a bit odd, though, so I’m a little suspicious.

Update: It’s traffic possibly in combo with net weirdness.
He pulled 44000 hits today, 950 of ’em in the last hour.
Amazing.

Here’s the text of Rudolph Giuliani’s RNC Speech. This is AP’s feed. I may find a better one later.