I’ve been seeing TV ads in the last couple of days that accuse Utah Representative Jim Matheson — the only Utah Democrat currently serving at a national level — of being a flaming liberal in the Ted Kennedy mold. However, an article in today’s Tribune indicates that Matheson has more often than not sided with House Republicans in his voting. Interesting…
I guess some people think that being “a little bit liberal” is kind of like being “a little bit pregnant.”
Blogs are like ice cream — sometimes you’re in the mood for one flavor, sometimes not. The one blog I never miss, however, is John Scalzi’s Whatever. It is quite simply the summit that all of us other bloggers should be striving for — always well-written, diverse subject matter, strong opinions, glimpses of the author’s personal life that manage to be cute without getting too cloying, and a sharp, laugh-out-loud wit that cuts through the crap to say exactly what needs to be said. Take, for example, today’s entry, in which Scalzi begins by saying that, “if John Kerry cannot beat George W. Bush in this election, he should be taken out and beaten to death with his own shoes.” Lest you think this is just another standard-issue Bush-bashing, let me point out that Scalzi spends most of the entry excoriating the Democrats for not seizing the opportunity this campaign represents. It’s an interesting read, and I think he hits the nail on the head. There is no reason why this election should be as close as it is, except that Kerry and his people haven’t played the game as well as they should have. I won’t say any more, because I think Scalzi says it better than I can. Take a look…
Let me direct your attention to this essay written by one Marshall Wittman. He’s a self-identified Teddy Roosevelt-style conservative who has worked in the past for the Christian Coalition and Sen. John McCain. And he intends to vote for John Kerry. His reasons why make for an interesting read, especially because he doesn’t see himself as surrendering his conservative beliefs or his desire to see a “a new politics of national greatness.”
[Ed. note: I know I said I wouldn’t discuss politics for a while, but interesting things just keep happening in that arena, and besides, it’s my blog. I’ll write about what I feel like writing about, thank you very much.]
[Ed. note 2: That last comment probably sounds a lot snarkier than I intended. I didn’t intend it to be snarky at all. It’s supposed to be taken in a good-natured, we’re-among-friends sort of way. Sorry if it came across as rude.]
I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t planning to watch the presidential debate on Thursday night. I didn’t see much point to it. I’ve known for a very long time which way my vote was going to go, and nothing I was likely to see was going to change my opinion. However, as the zero hour neared and the TV talking heads started to salivate, I found that I was more interested in seeing this thing than I thought. Many of the blogs I like to read had been going on about preparations and speculations for several days, and, as much as I hate to admit it, I got swept up in the hype. I tuned in figuring I’d just watch a few minutes, get pissed off at something, and then go do some reading. Instead, I ended up watching the entire thing, all ninety minutes of it.
Up to now, I haven’t had much interest in seeing the film that earned Michael Moore the ever-lasting enmity of political conservatives, namely his anti-Bush polemic Fahrenheit 9/11. I figured there was little point, since my opinions of the incumbent president and his administration are already well-developed and, I believe, well-informed. I had a pretty good idea of what charges Moore would level against Bush in this film, and they’re all issues I’ve learned about through other sources, so I didn’t need to see F9/11 for educational purposes. Nor did I need the film to stir up my political passions, because the daily headlines are usually sufficient for that. Finally, there was the deterrant effect produced by Moore himself. If he was a typical documentarian who stayed safely behind the camera, there wouldn’t be a problem in that regard, but one of the valid criticisms of Moore is that he likes to take center-stage in his films. In short, it often seems that Michael Moore’s movies are less about the subject matter than they are about Michael Moore.
However, after thinking and writing so much about the UVSC controversy over the past few days, my curiosity was aroused. And so, with Anne away on her Church history tour and nothing better to do on a fine early-autumn Saturday, I decided to go ahead and have a look at what it is that has everyone’s panties in a bunch.
[Ed. Note: Political rant ahead. You’ve been warned.]
Forget what I said about UVSC student Sean Vreeland in yesterday’s comments on the Michael Moore controversy. If you’ll recall, I complimented Vreeland on his statement that student fees would’ve been better spent on people from the presidential campaigns than on a celebrity like Moore. When I said that, I believed that Vreeland was simply a “guy on the street” who had voiced a reasonable-sounding opinion to a reporter and been quoted in the article I linked to. Apparently I didn’t read the article closely enough. Today’s article on this whole Moore-at-UVSC imbroglio clarified the situation for me. It turns out that Vreeland is in large part responsible for the stink that’s being raised over this event. He is the mastermind of a petition to “recall” (i.e. cancel) Moore’s appearance and oust Jim Bassi and Joe Vogel, the student body officers who invited Moore to speak.
I tuned out the local news last week while I was doing so much running around, so it’s only now come to my attention that liberal firebrand Michael Moore has been hired to speak at Utah Valley State College on October 20. Interesting. That means the grinding sound I’ve been hearing for the past few days is either the gnashing of teeth or villagers sharpening the points on their pitchforks. Anyone call Home Depot recently to check on the availability of torch oil?
I imagine that with the Republican National Convention starting tonight and the associated counterprotests already in progress, a load of fresh bile and new arguments will soon nudge aside the Swift Boat controversy that has dominated national discourse over the past few weeks. In fact, I’m probably at least a week past the sell-by date for this particular topic. Nevertheless I would like to voice a few thoughts before the Next Big Thing hits the airwaves.
Comic-book writer Peter David maintains a blog that, much like Simple Tricks, is a mishmash of whatever happens to be on the guy’s mind, including David’s rather, ahem, strong political opinions. These opinions (which are of the liberal variety) tend to ruffle the feathers of those who disagree with him (conservatives), leading to some interesting discussions in the blog’s comments section. Most of the time, these discussions are fairly rational and extend no farther than the blog itself. In today’s entry, however, David rages over the efforts of one of his detractors who wasn’t content to hash out their differences on the website. This dipshit instead sent a letter to Joe Quesada, David’s editor at Marvel Comics, to inform Joe that he would never again buy a book written by David because of the opinions expressed on David’s site.
I’m a little slow getting around to blogging about this, but here we go anyway. I saw on the local TV news a few nights ago that Vice President Dick “Go F*** Yourself” Cheney paid a visit to my hometown on Wednesday to rally the troops. He needn’t have bothered. To paraphrase Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Utah is kind of a sure thing for the Republican Party. Our electoral votes would go to the GOP if they ran a one-legged platypus as their candidate, just so long as that platypus wore an American flag pin and mouthed the appropriate slogans about “family values.” (Insert wisecrack about family values and publicly telling senators to perform anatomical impossibilities on themselves here.)