Tuesday, April 13, 2004

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.  The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.  The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."   .... John Stuart Mill.

JOHN KERRY'S PHONY MISERY INDEX

For 30 years the misery index has been described as the sum total of the unemployment rate and inflation rate.  Both political parties have agreed on this index for decades.  Well ... John Kerry has a bit of a problem with the traditional misery index.  Using the 30-year-old measurement standards the misery index is lower under President Bush than it was under Bill Clinton and George Bush 41.  Well, you can't very well make people feel miserable using a misery index that shows them anything but miserable, can you now?  The Kerry solution?  Create a new misery index ... one specifically designed to convince otherwise happy Americans that no matter how blue the skies, they're really living in a state of complete and total despair.

So ... John Kerry sends his myrmidons out to find some economic statistics that he could use to prove to people that they really are miserable.  Here are the ones they came up with:

• Median family income
• College tuition
• Health premiums
• Gasoline prices
• Home ownership
• Job growth
• Personal bankruptcies

Now ... just how does Kerry's misery index measure up to the one we've been using for 30 years?  The inflation rate is left out.  Why?  Because it's low, that's why.  Ditto for the unemployment rate.  That's low also, so it had to be left out of sKerry's "you're far more miserable than you think you are" index. 

Let's take a look at some of the elements sKerry does use. 

Median family income.  Why not use family net wealth?  The true measure of how a family is doing economically is how wealthy they are, not how much they earn.  You can have $3 million in your checking account and a $3 million dollar paid-for home, and not work.  Your family income would be low .. but are you miserable?  I don't think so.

College tuition.  Most American families aren't paying any college tuition.  What kind of a measurement is this?

Health Premiums.  What does this figure mean to families who have health insurance as a job benefit?

Gasoline prices.  Adjusted for inflation, they were higher in the early 1980's.

Home Ownership.  The highest in history.

Job Growth   This doesn't matter to someone who already has a job.  Besides .. jobs are being created right and left right now.

Personal Bankruptcies.   A bankruptcy doesn't make me miserable unless the person declaring bankruptcy owes me money.

This moronic index ignores economic growth and inflation ... things that affect everyone!  The big question here is how in the world can the mainstream American media pay any attention to this BS without laughing itself into unconsciousness? The answer, of course, is that most of the people who are reporting on Kerry's ridiculous index are people who want to see Kerry win in November.

The real lesson to be learned here is that Kerry is campaigning on misery.  His election hinges on whether or not he can convince voters that they are really not quite so happy and comfortable as they think they are. 

Why don't we all create indexes!  Here's one!  How about the "Morality Index?"  We can apply the morality index to presidents.  Here are the items that would be included in the index.

• Number of women raped.
• Number of women groped
• Number of affairs with interns
• Number of affairs with night club singers
• Lies told while under oath
• Promises not kept

Somehow I think the present president might score a bit better on this one that some previous presidents I can think of, but I really don't want to name any names.

INTENTIONAL LIES?

For two days the Washington Post has been reporting that the August 6,2001 Presidential Daily Briefing memo -- the one recently declassified by the White House -- "... warned [President Bush] a month before September 11, 2001 attacks that the FBI had information that terrorists might be preparing for a hijacking in the United States and might be targeting a building in Lower Manhattan." 

There's a problem here.  That problem is that the August 6 memo doesn't say what the Washington Post says it says.  Not even close.  The memo mentions that some suspects had been casing federal office buildings in New York.  Not one mention of Manhattan, and no mention that any building in New York might be the target of a hijacked airliner.

Isn't it clear what's going on here?  The Washington Post is reporting -- in two successive news stories on two successive days --  that President Bush was warned specifically that terrorists were going to hijack airliners and target a building in lower Manhattan ... the location of the World Trade Towers.  They are presenting the facts this way because they know that the majority of Americans haven't read the actual PDB, and, furthermore, the majority of Americans are very unlikely to learn the truth about those memos.  The goal here is to twist the truth so that millions of Americans will come to believe that Bush had a specific warning, and ignored it.

I can tell you where this is going to go.   Six months from now, just before the November election, I'll be getting calls from people swearing that they read somewhere that George Bush had a memo in front of him a month before 9/11 telling him just what the terrorists were going to do, and where they were going to do it.  The fact that what the Washington Post reported is a lie will be lost.  What they reported will not.

Oh ... and pointing out this lie to you is proof of my right wing bias, in case you didn't know.

CEASE FIRE?

It's another day cease fire in Fallujah.  Evidently the Iraqi Governing Council has talked the US military into ceasing fire so that Iraqis don't become even more angry at Americans.  While US troops sit around observing the cease fire, they watch insurgent forces fortify their positions inside Fallujah.

The hell with this.  This whole cease fire bit is being viewed by Iraqis and Islamic fanatics as nothing but another sign of weakness.  The end result will be more violence, more actions against American troops.  Press the issue ... continue the campaign in Fallujah.  Show no weakness, show no lack of resolve.  That is the way to defeat al-Sadr and his goons.  We're paying the price right now for the compassion American forces have shown over the past several months.  It's time to convince the Islamofascist Jihadists that America means business.

BLAMING THE VICTIMS

Remember those four civilian contractors who were killed in Fallujah about ten days ago?  Their bodies were mutilated, drug through the streets and hung from a bridge.  What were these four men doing when they were attacked?  They were providing security for a shipment of food to the citizens of Fallujah.

Well ... guess who's to blame for their death?  Evidently they were to blame.  At least that's the feeling you get from a recent memo that Democrats Tom Daschle and Hillary Clinton sent to Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld.  Hillary and Daschle wrote that these civilian contractors were nothing less than a "private army" and that the Defense Department needs to do a better job of screening and controlling the actions of such people in Iraq.

Oh ... and by the way.  Neither The Hildabeast nor Tom Daschle had any suggestions on what should be done with or to the Iraqis who killed these men.  It was their fault, you see.  They just weren't being properly controlled by the Pentagon.

IS THIS HOW THE CLINTONS WILL DEFEAT KERRY?

Your intrepid Talkmaster has long said that the Clintons will find some way to torpedo the candidacy of John Kerry.  Say what you will, but there are two big-time Democrats who do not want to see Kerry win in November ... and their names are Bill and Hillary.  They are purportedly related, but only on paper and by virtue of the fact that they are the sire and dam of one 20-something female.

The Clintons know that if Kerry wins in November he will surely run again in 2008.  That is unacceptable to the Clintons.  Hillary is supposed to be the Democratic candidate in 2008, not John Kerry.  In order for Hillary to run in 2008 in an open election, with no incumbent on the ballot, Kerry must lose.

This brings us to Bill Clinton's much-awaited memoirs.  Democrats are starting to voice their concerns that Clinton will publish his memoirs at the precise time John Kerry will be campaigning for the attention of the American people.  In other words, Democrats are afraid that Clinton's book will suck all of the attention away from Kerry's candidacy. 

Clinton is promising that the book will come out well before the Democratic convention.  Let's see.

FYI

If you listen to John Kerry you come away with the impression that it is Americans, and only Americans who are fighting in Iraq.  Well, in case you're wondering, here is a list of countries that presently have troops serving in Iraq.

Albania, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Ukraine.

So .. just what is John Kerry's definition of an  "international coalition?"

By the way ... Kerry has already tried his hand at international diplomacy.  He tried to get Spain's new prime minister to keep his troops in Iraq.  He failed.

BILL CLINTON'S FBI DIRECTOR SAYS HIS BOSS FAILED ON TERRORISM

FBI Director Louis Freeh, appointed by President Clinton, has written an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that the Clinton administration's response to Al-Qaeda was inadequate.  Mr. Freeh testifies today before the 9/11 Commission. This should be a good one.

Freeh goes on to say that the FBI did all that it could to stop terrorists with the tools that it had.  Because terrorism was being treated as a law enforcement problem, Freeh describes how the warrant for Osama Bin Laden's arrest was simply a piece of paper.  It wasn't until war was declared on terrorism and Afghanistan invaded that actually executing the warrant was made possible.

And finally, he makes the point that keeps getting lost over and over again: the United States lacked the political means and the will of the nation to declare war on terrorism before September 11th.   

WHAT AN UNGRATEFUL LOSER

If this doesn't prove media bias, then nothing ever will.  60 Minutes' Andy Rooney, supreme Bush-hater and left-wing shill, has written a column where he has actually said that our fighting men and women in Iraq are not heroes.  Rather, he attempts and fails to make the case that somehow our brave soldiers are regular people who just joined the military because they couldn't get any other job, and then just went where they were told.  And in the ultimate insult, he says that those who joined the military are victims and not heroes. 

Isn't that great? Is Rooney intentionally trying to demoralize our men and women in uniform by telling them that they're really nothing special after all?  Nice going, Andy.

 I JUST LOVE THOSE WAL-MART IMAGE ADS

You've seen them on the tube, haven't you?  Those advertisements for Wal-Mart where people are talking about what a wonderful thing the Wal-Mart has been for their local community.  Oh, it's so wonderful.  They occupied an old abandoned building. They're paying piles of money in taxes.  They're employing so many of our local citizens ... and on and on.  OK ... I guess all of that is true, but they really ought to add one line to those image ads.  How about this one? 

"And if we want your property for one of our stores, and if you won't sell it to us, we'll just get the local government to seize it and turn it over to us anyway!"

Now that's truth in advertising.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Democrats are worried that the upcoming memoir by President Clinton will serve as a distraction from the Kerry campaign.  sKerry has nothing to worry about, if history is any guide.  Presidential memoirs are usually a  big bust.

Here's a brilliant column by Thomas Sowell about the irresponsibility of those on the 9/11 Commission, and the political nature of it all.

Dennis Prager breaks down Bob Kerrey's comments to Condoleezza Rice when she testified before the 9/11 Commission.  Interesting take on how liberals view minorities.

David Limbaugh writes about the Bush-hating liberal media, and their full-court press to discredit the President.

Cal Thomas says Dr. Rice made her case before the commission with great authority.  The question is, are people going to listen to her now?

Jack Kemp brings up an important point at tax time: what about Social Security taxes?

The media hysteria surrounding outsourcing begs the question: do you know anybody whose job has been outsourced? Matt Towery investigates.

With the April 15th tax deadline approaching, Bruce Bartlett looks at the war of the press releases.

Rich Lowry notes how Democrats are currently the retroactive hardliners on national security.  Since it's politically popular, they're tough on terrorism.

Ralph Peters writes that the Coalition must drop the hammer in Iraq now.....this is no time for restraint.

John Podhoretz exposes the distortions and half-truths being told about the August 6th Presidential Daily Briefing.

Mortimer B. Zuckerman looks at the high price of hindsight, and follows the handling of terrorism in the Clinton and Bush administrations.

GOLF THE BAHAMAS WITH NEAL!
Golf, beach parties, casinos, all to benefit charity--and Boortz listeners are invited. Find out more here!

BOORTZ BLAST NEWSLETTER
Everyone is talking about the Boortz Blast newsletter. Do you want yours? Sign up here and we'll deliver it directly to your inbox every 2 weeks. If you signed up but aren't receiving it, either your company or your spam filter could be keeping it from you. Try using a personal email address and check your spam filter's junk folder for wayward newsletters.

NEAL'S FANS GET TOGETHER
If you like Neal and are looking for like minded people to hang out with online or off, check out these places:

• Talkmaster Yahoo Group
• Meet Boortz fans in your area
• alt.fan.neal.boortz newsgroup (note, you're going to have to figure out newsgroups all on your own)

Belinda Skelton, Ken Rogers, Laura Nunemaker and Brian Ganey assist in the daily preparation of Nealz Nuze!