Cognitive Dissonance, Cernig as Instapundit, and More!

Here's a 3rd post of the day. This links to Dean'sWorld.... It is about Terry Schiavo- she's a severely brain damage, bed-ridden woman... Basically her husband has gone to court to starve her to death and her parents and siblings want him to divorce her and let them take care of her. You can see video of her over the net. I once thought she was brain dead, a vegetable, etc. What a bunch of bull****. Go see for yourself. I wish the biggie conservatives would blogswarm this rather than find another Easongate...

Today’s 1st post of the day is here. It’s from New York Metro’s Kurt Anderson. You should read the whole thing, but two parts stood out to me. My favorite part:

… now our heroic and tragic liberal-intellectual capaciousness is facing its sharpest test since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Back then, most of us were forced, against our wills, to give Ronald Reagan a large share of credit for winning the Cold War. Now the people of this Bush-hating city are being forced to grant the merest possibility that Bush, despite his annoying manner and his administration’s awful hubris and dissembling and incompetence concerning Iraq, just might—might, possibly—have been correct to invade, to occupy, and to try to enable a democratically elected government in Iraq.

This reminds me of David Letterman interviewing Maureen Dowd. At one point, after listening to Dowd talk about what a disaster Bush had created in Iraq, Letterman said (paraphrasing from memory)-“But if Iraq is a stable democracy and ally in five years, what will you say?” To which Dowd, of course, had no answer, unless you count a facial expression indicating nausea as an answer.

And my least favorite part:

One day during the U.S. election campaign, President Bush accidentally uttered a plain truth about the war on terror. “I don’t think you can ‘win’ it,” he said, which immediately provoked attacks from the Democrats. A month later, John Kerry inadvertently told the same truth—“We have to get back to the place . . . where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance”—whereupon Bush pounced, saying he “couldn’t disagree more.” Later the same month, the president slipped and retold the same truth—“Whether or not we can be ever fully safe . . . is up in the air”—and Kerry, inevitably, replied: “You make me president [and] it’s not going to be up in the air.”

I can’t understand why Anderson can’t understand the difference between what Bush said and what Kerry said. Bush and Kerry agree that it is impossible to guarantee individual instances of terror will never take place. But what Kerry said- and what Bush disagreed with- is the idea that the U.S. should return to the days when we tolerated a certain amount of terrorist activity.

Terrorists tried, but failed to bring down the Towers? Let it go. It is annoying but let’s not make a big deal about it.

Terrorists attacked the USS Cole? Well, that is annoying, but no reason to go to war or anything. Kerry said our goal should be a return to the pre 9/11 mindset, when a certain amount of terrorism was considered acceptable. Bush said we should never return to the pre 9/11 mindset. (Probably because Bush believes that the mindset indirectly led to 9/11.) The differences between these two stances are self evident to me, and in fact the election hinged on the candidates’ differing approach to the War on Terror. I’m going to email Kurt Anderson about this. I doubt he’ll even see the email, much less respond, but if he does I’ll let you know.

Here is a copy of the comment I pasted (they don't have an email- just a comments section):

Dear Mr. Anderson,

Kudos and thanks to you for When Good News Feels Bad. It was brutally honest. I remember, during the air war against the Serbs, having similar feelings because I hated President Clinton. (That cognitive dissonance is a bitch, ain't it?)

No good deed goes unpunished, however, and I've a bone to pick regarding the following:

One day during the U.S. election campaign, President Bush accidentally uttered a plain truth about the war on terror. “I don’t think you can ‘win’ it,” he said, which immediately provoked attacks from the Democrats. A month later, John Kerry inadvertently told the same truth—“We have to get back to the place . . . where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance”—whereupon Bush pounced, saying he “couldn’t disagree more.” Later the same month, the president slipped and retold the same truth—“Whether or not we can be ever fully safe . . . is up in the air”—and Kerry, inevitably, replied: “You make me president [and] it’s not going to be up in the air.”

I can’t understand why you don't grasp the difference between what Bush said and what Kerry said. Bush and Kerry agree that it is impossible to guarantee individual instances of terror will never take place. But what Kerry said- and what Bush disagreed with- is the idea that the U.S. should return to the days when we tolerated a certain amount of terrorist activity.

Terrorists tried, but failed to bring down the Towers? Let it go. It is annoying but let’s not make a big deal about it.Terrorists attacked the USS Cole? Well, that is annoying, but no reason to go to war or anything. Kerry said our goal should be a return to the pre 9/11 mindset, when a certain amount of terrorism was considered acceptable. Bush said we should never return to the pre 9/11 mindset. (Probably because Bush believes that the mindset indirectly led to 9/11.) The differences between these two stances are self evident to me, and in fact the election hinged on the candidates’ differing approach to the War on Terror.

Hoping for a response,
Theron Marshman
AKA Harkonnndog
http://harkonnendog.blogspot.com/

2^nd Post of the Day:

This links to a post at JustOneMinute called Battle for the Blogosphere. It’s a great read, in which a righty basically tells lefties how to win that battle. It explains the way Daily Kos works:

The largest Lefty blog is the Daily Kos. One must register to enlist there; members can leave comments, or write "diaries", which function as blogs within a blog. In addition to leaving their own comments on other blogs, members can vote on diary entries, to move them up the in-house rankings and call them to other people's attention. So, for a member, the hours can be whiled away, and there is always plenty to do in Kos World.

That explanation alone is worth the price of admission. He goes on to call Kos a hive, as compared to Glenn Reynold’s Instapundit, which uses a methodology which works more like a pack. He says the right doesn’t have a hive and probably can’t have one. (I disagree, btw, I would say Freerepublic is a hive, of course it isn’t a blog, but still it serves that function.) Okay- but what got me was this:

It is unlikely that a major new hub could simply emerge, so one of the big, established lefty bloggers would need to decide that to beat Glenn, he was going to be Glenn. Atrios is already a prolific linker, so let's nominate him for the role. He should do two things.

I disagree. To be an Instapundit of the left you need to be center-left or, at worst, left-center. And you need to have a kind of ‘I don’t need this shit so I’ll say what I like’ attitude. And you need to exhibit class. So I nominate Cernig over at Newshog. Why should I care about the left? Well, a healthy left is necessary for a healthy right, imho.