This broadstand attack from the halls of a new convert to neo-conservatism from the grips of old paleo-conservativism (I’d like to say that he’s a neo-neo conservative, but I think that term should be reserved for Christopher Hitchens). His beef comes through here:

What’s more, these “unpatriotic conservatives” aren‘t particularly conservative – in a post 9/11 sense – at all.

‘Cause, you see, 9/11 changed the very definition of the word “Conservative”. (Not that I really care… I suppose the strain of conservativism he’s a part of can very easily tap into the root foundation of Post WWII American Conservatism, rabid anti-communism, as the historical model tying him to “Post 9/11 Conservatism”. It’s a pretty logical and coherent string, and thus I don’t know if I understand Pat Buchannan’s claim of a “high-jacking” of his precious “conservatism”.)

But what seems to have caught the ire of the current writers at Lew Rockwell of this editorial from a former Lew Rockwell writer?

The mention of the name “Lyndon LaRouche”.

The paleo-conservative response:

Gancarski’s claim doesn’t really mean anything. If I were going to a foreign policy forum, you’d better believe I’d rather see a panel of speakers from the Old Right and the New Left, than hang out with the New Right and Old Left that the neocons represent. So what? Just because Chomsky and Cockburn understand it is wrong to bomb civilians and falsify intelligence doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Likewise, even Lyndon LaRouche is right once in a while, about half as often as a broken clock. So what that his outfit is a cult-of-personality pyramid scheme with 1930s corporate socialist ideology? Does that mean I can’t believe that the ban on DDT has been a humanitarian catastrophe — something LaRouche has said — without being considered a LaRouchie? Insanity.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Just to distance themselves from the spector of Lyndon LaRouche, well…

In the end, I read the half-mea culpas from the Establishment Liberal Editorial Pages of the NY Times and Washington Post and New Republic — frequently saying “We just trusted Bush too much, and thought he wouldn’t screw this up”, I stare at the and I wonder whether the modern day equivalents of the Vietnam War Protesters aren’t just electing the modern day equivalent of LBJ…

Tim Russert spoke before a grand jury on the matter of the Vallerie Plame leak. Matt Cooper of Time Magazine did likewise.

Here’s, in hindsight, a surreal interview Russert had with Bob Novak, begging the time worn question: What is this — some kind of circle jerk?

Never mind though.

Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan’s cover was blown.

Don’t worry about him though, because — you know — we have plenty of moles within the Al Qaeda organization. And I hear that Al Qaeda is an easy organization to infiltrate anyway.

Let’s, um… go ahead and change horses. Even though we’re in mid-stream and all that…

Art Bell is apparently less conspiratorial than David Letterman.

David Letterman played the famous George W. Bush quotation. And then he smirked a bit as the studio audience laughed.

Art Bell said the quote. Then expressed doubt as to whether it was true or not. Then, when the quotation was confirmed to his satisfaction, gave apologies to Bush, saying that Bush says thousands of words a day and is due for a screw-up of sorts, and everyone knows what he means anyway.

Conclusion: Art Bell is a tool of the government. David Letterman is telling the truth about the New World Order.

The golden rule of politics is that you always need to run as though you’re five percentage points behind. And, if you’re five percentage points behind, you run as though you’re ten percentage points behind.

That’s the cautionary note that one shoves into the back of one’s mind whenever prognastications of this type come up. Forget for a moment the confusing USA Today (or was it AP) account from a couple weeks ago that said that Bush was ahead in the electoral college — confusing because the polls did not match the reality of the news story…

And go laugh at the accounts of the “Baby Bounce” — the supposedly meager and historically tepid post-conveion bounce in the polls that Kerry barely mustered.

The internals for Bush… are not good. Never mind that he’s below the magical 50% mark in public approval, the amount that history says an incumbant must hurdle over. Never mind that the latest economic news is sour, sour, sour. And never mind that Kerry beats Bush on all but one measure on individual issues — and is gaining parity on that odd one out “security”. The internal that destroys Bush — Bush’s approval rating amongst the undecideds is in the 30s.

Thus, the professional pollsters, ever since Zogby announced that this was Kerry’s election to lose, are coming to the fore with prognastications such as this one.

“He (Bush) really will need a miracle to win, and the last miracle was for Harry S. Truman,” Sabato said in an interview after his speech. Truman pulled his upset presidential victory in 1948.

He said that if Bush hadn’t ordered the U.S. invasion of Iraq last year, he likely would be leading in 45 states and heading toward a landslide victory.

Indeed. Thinking ahead to a post-election post-mortem pin-pointing the precise moment when Bush lost the election, I’m convinced that history will record it as being the moment Bush … stood in front of an air-craft carrier, with a banner saying “Mission Accomplished” behind him. This is an administration that must stick by their story — in fact, even now Bush is basing his presidency on being “Resolute” “Staying the Course”… suddenly, the situation in Iraq becomes an open and shut case for the Bush Administration, and with such high expectations set an with that expectation as the rock-solid narrative truth…

Sabato called Kerry a cross between a funeral director and Lurch, the stiff butler on the old TV comedy “The Addams Family.”

“Only in a year like this could John Kerry be elected. He can’t connect with people. He’s way to the left of the American mainstream,” Sabato said.

God damned it, I want Howard Dean back!!

Sabato said Bush’s best chance to win is to focus on “hot-button social issues” and try to paint Kerry as too liberal on issues such as gay marriage, gun control, abortion and the death penalty.

Sabato said Bush’s father used such “wedge issues” to beat Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. But that was a time of peace and prosperity, Sabato said. “Now you’ve got war and an economy that is rocky.”

That’s part of it, but unless some Gay Marriage Ban Initiatives that are in the ballot in various swing states spur out the right-wing base, this doesn’t appear to be working as of yet. Actually, Bush’s strategy should be pretty clear by now. This is the issue Kerry focused in on his convention — I think if he wanted to get a big but superficial “bounce” out of the convention, he might have focused on something a little less difficult.

The third component of the campaign against John Kerry, reminiscent of the campaign against John McCain, manifests itself with “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth”… which may just end up being the most obnoxious of boomerangs thrown from the Bush camp at the Kerry camp. I almost feel sorry for some of these individuals — who can begrudge them for festering a grudge through 30 years at Kerry’s post-war war protests and inability to reconcile that with fighting in Vietnam, thus resulting in a breakdown of viewing reality. If Kerry had come out of Vietnam as hawkish as them, I doubt these individuals would have much problem with Kerry.

What spurred this post? Go to the sidebar, and see my list of states up for grabs. And go to electoral-vote‘s list of states.

Here’s the conventional wisdom, and probably true, way that one oughta watch the Election 2004 Coverage, as we sweep across the nation. “Landsliders” means that if that candidate wins that state, it’s a landslide. “Breakers” means that it’s not necessarily a landslide, but it’s a clear indication that that candidate will win the election relatively handily. And “close winners” means that if things go according to expectation… they’ll win. I took this from the Blogging of the President Blog…:

Kerry Landsliders: Virginia, North Carolina.
Kerry Breaks Bush Back: Ohio
Kerry Close winners: New Hampshire, West Virginia, Tennessee

Bush Landsliders: New Jersey
Bush Breaks Kerry’s Back: Pennsylvannia
Bush Closer Winners: New Hampshire, Deleware

Central Time Zone:

Kerry Landsliders: Arkansas, Louisiana
Kerry Backbreakers: Missouri
Kerry Close Winners: Iowa

Bush Landsliders: Minnesota, Michigan
Bush Backbreakers: Wisconsin, Iowa
Bush Close Winners: Missouri

Mountain Time Zone

Kerry Backbreakers:Colorado
Kerry Close Winners: Nevada

Bush Close winners: New Mexico

Pacific Time Zone

Bush Breaks Kerry’s Back: Washington, Oregon

Pennsylvania and Michigan fall out of Bush’s grasp. Virginia, Colorado, and Arkansas fall into Kerry’s grasp. The fact that you can put Tennessee into the “close Kerry” category suggests a further trend: it wasn’t too long ago when the punditry were saying that the only Southern states the Democrats were respectable with were Arkansas and Louisiana (the last state only because they’re quite good at electing conservative Democrats) — I mean, Gore lost his own homestate, after all!

Now, all an arm-chair political prognasticator can do is try to dream up scenarios that could alter this basic political landscape at a moment’s notice… Use your imagination.

Well, since the good man is running for the Senate in Illinois against Barack Obama, it gives me a good excuse to re-play this moment from the 2000 Republican Presidential nomination fight:

Gary Bauer: Alan, a couple of weeks ago, you criticized my good friend John McCain because he expressed some support of or interest in a controversial music group (Nine Inch Nails). In view of that, I was a little surprised this week to see you fall into a mosh pit while a band called the Machine Rages On, or Rage Against the Machine, played. That band is anti-family. It’s pro-cop killer, and it’s pro-terrorist.

It’s the kind of music that the killers at Columbine High School were immersed in.

Shaw: Question.

Bauer: I don’t know, don’t you think you owe an apology to parents and policemen on that one?

Alan Keyes: Actually I don’t, because I was in no–accusing me of having some complicity in that music would be accusing me of, I don’t know, being responsible for the color of my skin.

When you can’t control things, Gary, you’re not morally responsible for them. And I was not morally responsible for the music that was playing as I stepped out of my rally…. And until you told me this fact, I had no idea what that music was–contrary to our friend John McCain, who expressed the view that [Nine Inch Nails] was his favorite rock group….

To do it in a lighthearted way, rather than having it imposed on you by circumstances of which–over which you have no control is something that I think is totally unacceptable. So I think that I would beg to differ with you. I had nothing to do with that music, disclaim any knowledge of it.

Admittedly, I was willing to fall into the mosh pit, but I’ll tell you something. You know why I did that? Because I think that exemplifies the kind of trust in people that is the heart and soul of the Keyes campaign. It’s about time we got back to the understanding that we trust the people of this country to do what’s decent. And when you trust them, they will in fact hold you up, whether it’s in terms of giving help to you when you’re falling down or caring for their own children.

So I thought that, as an emblem of that trust, it was the right thing to do. And anyway, my daughter thought it was a good idea.

Bauer: Well, daughters are extremely important.

Al, let me read a quote from you. You said that one of the most important things is the dignity of the presidency. In fact, you said that it’s important that those of us that aspire to be president not act like guests on “The Jerry Springer Show,” which is incompatible with the dignity of politics.

Now, I’ll concede from your answer you didn’t know about the music. But nobody made you jump in the mosh pit. Do you think that’s consistent with…

Keyes: Oh, that’s very true.

Bauer: … do you think that’s consistent with the dignity of the presidency?

Keyes: Well, I would leave that to the judgment of the American people. I do know that when I got down, one of the folks who was there with one of the news crews looked at me and he said, “You know, you’re the only person I’ve ever seen dive into a mosh pit and come out with his tie straight.”

And I think that . . . do you know the real test of dignity? The real test of dignity is how you carry it through hard times. I think I learned that from my people. We went through slavery, when we didn’t have the outward signs of what others would call dignity, because we understood that dignity comes from within. And that whatever circumstance you are going through, you can carry that dignity with you, and no one can take it away.

So I think you may have a misunderstanding of dignity. It doesn’t come from what you do in a mosh pit. It comes from what you do as a result of the convictions of your heart. And I’ll leave it to the American people to judge the convictions of my heart.

……………
Gary Bauer did have a point there. What’s a man blasting a fellow candidate for praising the music of Nine Inch Nails (like, we all believe John McCain there) doing in a mosh pit for Rage Against the Machine? He can afford integrity — after all, what with a constituency of 2% of the Republican Party (his general average during the campaign.) [ The answer — in case you’re curious: going after the support of Michael Moore. Literally, that was the reason.]

It’s a sign of integrity – problems that just showed up with his run for Illinois Senate. In 2000, he blasted Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate carpet-bag run as an assault on “Federalism” — now, of course, he’s pretty much doing the same thing — moving from Maryland to Illinois.

Joshua Micah Marshall on Alan Keyes V. Barack Obama:

Keyes is something else to watch on the hustings or in a debate. But calling him a master debater is rather like saying Dolly Parton has a dynamite bod or Lou Ferrigno is toned — or, perhaps mostly aptly, that the Tasmanian Devil from the Bugs Bunny cartoons is quick on his feet. In other words, impressive in his own way, but also a bit cartoonish and rather less than subtle.

If and when these two guys debate what we’re going to hear are rants from Keyes — both spellbinding and inane — about how tort reform is necessary to bring America back into compliance with natural law, how drug reimportation is incompatible with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and how gun control has been outlawed by God.

The irradiated thoughts of Jerome R. Corsi, PhD., co-author of Unfit For Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.

April 11, 2004: The LIMOUSINE LIBERAL candidate, JOHN KERRY, has a problem — nobody wants to run with him. It’s like even the RATS see him as a ship going down and they know that if they got on, they’d have to jump off in the end. Maybe he can run with a dead Communist guy, like John Lennon:

IMAGINE THERE’S NO KERRY.

04/11/2004
The LIMOUSINE LIBERAL candidate, JOHN KERRY has a plan to deal with the Islamofacists — CAPITUALTE to them because they are ANTI-AMERICAN. He’s done it before: And he’ll do it AGAIN: (Kerry/ Fonda 2004)

03/14/2004 Kerry is a Manchurian Candidate, he wants to capture the White House to promote his anti-American, Communist-leftist agenda. Any victory for the enemies of the USA, will be perceived as a victory for him. Kerry has supported Socialists and Communists since he got back from Vietnam.

03/02/2004 JaneFondaKerry is being heavily funded by Iranians — check out how Gore was funded by the Chinese in 2000. May not come out until after the election but when it comes to JustForKerry the old rule applies in every aspect of his life — “FOLLOW THE MONEY.”

11/05/2002 May the Holey Month of BOMBadan drone beyond Yemen to pursue all violence loving mothers and fathers of this hateful psuedo-religion.

A real wiener. I suspect that this “Vietnam Veterans For Truth” is a Kerry front group. What a better way to come out swinging on a major campaign theme (“Did you know that I was in Vietnam?”) than by setting up an absurd straw-man to destroy. At the same time, they can remind the anti-war Left that he fought against the war in Vietnam without unsettling too many “patriots” — some cultural Southerners in rural Ohio that he needs to make inroads with (notice how his anti-war past was glossed over in all tellings of Kerry’s biography at the DNC Convention), by setting up his Vietnam – era enemies’ gutteral vitrol. (“He’s a Commie! See — here he is standing next to John Lennon!!”)

…………
hee hee hee hee. Via Scoobie Davis.