Defending the 12th century since the 14th; blogging since the 21st.

Catholicism, Conservatism, the Middle Ages, Opera, and Historical and Literary Objets d'Art blogged by a suburban dad who teaches law and writes stuff.


"Very fun." -- J. Bottum, Editor, FIRST THINGS

"Too modest" -- Elinor Dashwood

"Perhaps the wisest man on the Web" -- Henry Dieterich

"Hat tip: me (but really Cacciaguida)" -- Diana Feygin, Editor, THE YALE FREE PRESS

"You are my sire. You give me confidence to speak. You raise my heart so high that I am no more I." -- Dante

"Fabulous!"-- Warlock D.J. Prod of Didsbury

Who was Cacciaguida? See Dante's PARADISO, Cantos XV, XVI, & XVII.


E-mail me

 
Election roundup

1. The New York Sun story about Kerry possibly receiving a less-than-honorable Navy discharge, which was blogged and commented-on here, is surfacing again with fresh comments by an former Air Force colonel, thanks to World Net Daily. (Hat-tip: Hugh Hewitt)

October surprise? Obviously. But it wouldn't have been if the story had been pursued by the formerly-major media with a trace of the zeal they show for any Bush-late-for-dinner-in-Air-Force-Reserves story.

2. Troops inadequately equipped? If so, it isn't stopping at least 75% of them from supporting Bush. Watch for the "Count Every Vote" bacchantes, with their armloads of absentee ballots from prisons and their lawsuits against double-registration purges, to drop every banana peel they can in the path of overseas absentee votes. Due to Republican pressure and bureaucratic snafus in getting armed forces ballots mailed, PA Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Hack, has permitted a short extension of the deadline for such ballots.

3. The polls show either a small Bush lead, or a tie. (The rest of this graf is laced with links to Horserace Blog, a fine site that I've just discovered via Power Line.) Bush is narrowly ahead in FL, Kerry in PA; OH is apparently too close to call even within the margin of error, but there may be ground for optimism. (It helps that, re OH, the Sixth Circuit has ruled that voters cannot, after all, choose their own polling location.)

4. Red Sox pitching hero Curt Schilling is campaigning for Bush; Sox bureaucrats endorse Kerry. Sounds about right. (Hat-tip: Power Line)
posted by Cacciaguida at 7:57 PM

 
The New York Sun reports:

The communist regime in Hanoi monitored closely and looked favorably upon the activities of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War during the period Senator Kerry served most actively as the group's spokesman and a member of its executive committee, two captured Viet Cong documents suggest....

The significance of the documents lies in the way they dovetail with activities of the young Mr. Kerry as he led the VVAW anti-war movement in the spring of 1971.

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:48 PM

 
The "dirty tricks" scene out there is getting weird, The Washington Post reports. My favorite:

[E]lection officials received a flurry of phone calls about fliers handed out at a Pittsburgh area mall and mailed to an unknown number of homes. The flier, distributed on bogus but official-looking stationery with a county letterhead, told voters that "due to immense voter turnout expected on Tuesday," the election had been extended. Republicans should vote Tuesday, Nov. 2, it said -- and Democrats on Wednesday. A criminal investigation has been launched.

That's actually quite an old joke. That anyone would try to use it for real is simply delightf--- I mean, shocking, yes, shocking!

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:42 PM

 
CBS News ("fake but accurate") thinks the Bin Laden tape and 377tonsofexplosivesgate add up to "a rough week for President Bush." (Hat tip: LGF.) Wow. I've heard of bias, but CBS is about to bi its own as.

Dick Morris argues here that Bush's higher standing on both Iraq and terrorism mean that the more these issues are in the public eye, the better Bush does.

Even CBS acknowledges, two thirds of the way through its tedious thumbsucker:

Still, there is no concrete indication that the bad news this week had tangibly damaged President Bush’s chances at reelection. Bush-Cheney Campaign Chief Strategist Matt Dowd, in fact, said the campaign's own tracking polls show this week’s events have helped Mr. Bush.

“If the question is the war on terror, if the question is Iraq, the public has already responded. They support the president by double-digit margins on these issues,” Dowd insisted. “We are comfortable with the discussion this week.”

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:25 PM

 
Washington Post: U.S. Marines Set for 'Decisive' Battle in Sunni Triangle. From the article:

"Zarqawi is nothing more than a thug who is illiterate," said Maj. James West, a Marine intelligence officer based near Fallujah. Ordinary Iraqis "are more scared of Zarqawi because of what he has done" than any government or military force, he said.

posted by Cacciaguida at 4:17 PM

 
I've just passed the 75,000 hit mark. Thanks to all my readers!
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:48 PM

 
"This is one of the most important elections in recent times, so it's best if you just leave it up to the pros" -- and other election-day advice from The Onion.
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:49 PM

 
Spitting triggers tension in Jerusalem's Old City

Tensions in Jerusalem's Old City have flared following an incident in which a Jewish seminary student spat at an archbishop during a procession from the city's Armenian Quarter to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a site commemorating Jesus' crucifixion and burial.

Israeli police arrested the seminary student, but Christian clerics living in the walled Old City say such assaults by ultra-Orthodox Jews are a frequent occurrence....

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in a 12 October editorial: "It is intolerable that Christian citizens of Jerusalem suffer from the shameful spitting at or near a crucifix. Similar behaviour toward Jews anywhere in the world would immediately prompt vehement responses."

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:00 PM

 
A few weeks ago, pro-foxhunting activists broke into Parliament. Now a fox has done so too.
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:08 PM

 
Heh. (As The Rat would say. But the hat-tip goes to Mr. Z.)
posted by Cacciaguida at 3:44 PM

 
California state judge due to hear gay-marriage case "says lawyers on both sides must stick to legal arguments." What'll they think of next.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:50 PM

 
Washington Post: Likely Voters Narrowly Prefer Bush to Pick Justices

posted by Cacciaguida at 1:14 PM

 

Red Sox!!

Red Sox Win World Series

The Fox, Yale Law student and Yankees fan, makes some interesting arguments here for rooting for the Red Sox in the Series. Above all: their victory will be good for the Yankees, because, when next they face the Red Sox in an ALCS, they won't be saddled with playing History in a Red-Sox-versus-History morality play. And it will be good for Boston, where, he argues, the long championship drought has caused fanship to take on a neurotic quality.

In a similar vein, the Red Sox World Series victory will be good for my Mets. The Mets and the Red Sox are both goofy, regular-guy teams with fans who know what loyalty means. Appropriately enough, the Red Sox 2004 fan chronicle, co-authored by Stephen King, is entitled Faithful. (Yankees fans, by contrast, tend to turn to recrimination when thwarted. I've heard that during the Yanks' long dry spell from the early 60s to the late 70s, you could hear crickets chirping during games at Yankee Stadium: their fans don't love the team, they love winning.)

So it was a cruel twist of fate that pitted the Mets and the Red Sox against each other the last time the Red Sox were in the Series. If that happens again, I will of course be rooting for the Mets, but it will be a relief to be able to do so without thereby wishing another generation of frustrated hopes on those good, loyal Boston fans.

posted by Cacciaguida at 1:16 AM

 
This guy should get a grip -- at least he's not this guy.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:11 AM

 
"Still dating laughing-boy?" /"I'd have stayed in longer but they ran out of medals."

These lines from Woody Allen's Love and Death were the jokes du jour as Jonathan Lee did New York this past weekend, including a night at the opera, at which he wore his dress blues. (Extremely impressive though he was, in that environment he was probably more often mistaken for Pinkerton than for the leading edge of an invasion force.)

The opera was The Marriage of Figaro, his favorite, at the New York City Opera. Two days before the performance, my dad met one Eric Zamir-Zimmerman, a tenor (and fountain-pen fancier), and husband of Sharon Rostorf-Zamir, the soprano singing the pivotal role of Susanna. As a result, I called Sharon, she put Jonathan and me on her door-list for a backstage visit after the performance, and we went out for drinks afterwards with Sharon, Eric, and their friends.

As for me, I got to talk to Eric Z-Z about his career and plans, and to Sharon R-Z about her career and why she was just a great Susanna (which she was).

That was Friday night. On Saturday, Jonathan's aunts, being members of the British Association of Film and Television Artists (don't ask -- they're actually as American as gefilte fisch), got the whole family seats for a pre-release screening of c.g.-fest The Polar Express, with a q-&-a with star Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis (Gump, others) afterwards. Jonathan Lee was introduced to Hanks, who proceeded to tell him all about shooting the Vietnam/Marine sequences in Gump.

Typical weekend for a new Marine on his first ten-day leave, right? (By now, he's at Camp Lejeune for a three-week combat training program.)

posted by Cacciaguida at 4:39 PM

 
Two obits


James Cardinal Hickey, 1920-2004

Not everything was perfect in the Archdiocese of Washington during his tenure, but he was a faithful son of the Church who helped shepherd into being the DC campus of the JPII Inst. on Marriage and Family, and who always marched with the March for Life.



Robert Merrill, 1917(?)-2004

Shared with Leonard Warren the status of greatest Italian-style baritone of his era (including the Italians, among whom the only real competitor to Merrill and Warren, Tito Gobbi, couldn't touch them on vocal quality); but, thanks to not dying at age 49 (as Warren did, on stage), Merrill's career continued well into the 1970s.

Merrill was naturally gifted rather than musically trained. His wife Marian taught him his roles on the piano. "He just has a Stradivarius in his throat," said his amazed colleague, bass Giorgio Tozzi (with whom Merrill often appeared on stage and on recordings: e.g. Aida, Rigoletto, Barber of Seville).

I'd mention Merrill's regular singing of the National Anthem at Yankees games, but de mortuis nihil nisi bonum.

posted by Cacciaguida at 3:53 PM

 
Blog-break until Oct. 25. Takin' the Private to visit his grandparents and great-grandmother (and to take in a little NYC myself, with my Mets cap if I can't pick up a Red Sox cap along the way). Leave ends the 26th, and then he's off the Camp Lejeune for three weeks.

posted by Cacciaguida at 1:35 AM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida: the Miracle Sox

Scene: Watching the red-clad rejoicing as the Red Sox pull off a comeback worthy of the Miracle Mets, and the Yankees look around blinking like they missed a turn and ended up on the wrong planet (which who knows maybe they did)

CACCIA DI GREGORIO: You know, there won't be this much excitement even if they win the Series.

CACCIAGUIDA: That's because beating the Yankees is the one thing they can't do in the Series!

posted by Cacciaguida at 1:11 AM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida: hotel phone etiquette

Scene: at the Francis Marion in Charleston SC last week; the boys are watching the ALCS game in their room; Elinor doesn't want to watch, so I call over to other room. Caccia di Gregorio answers.

CACCIAGUIDA: What's the score?

CACCIA DI GREGORIO: [gives score and inning]

CACCIAGUIDA: Thanks. Bye. [Hangs up]

ELINOR: Good thing you got the right room. "None yet, but thanks a heap for askin'!"

posted by Cacciaguida at 6:50 PM

 
Ever seen riot police deployed to quiet a baseball crowd that's turning violent because its team isn't winning? That's Yankees fans for you, blogging company excepted.

No team in major league baseball has ever before forced game 7 after being behind 3-0 in a 7-game series. The Red Sox have already done the unprecedented; all that remains now is the difficult.

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:36 AM

 
Can any of my military readers comment on this item in The New York Sun?

Mystery Surrounds Kerry's Navy Discharge
BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB - Special to the Sun
October 13, 2004

An official Navy document on Senator Kerry's campaign Web site listed as Mr. Kerry's "Honorable Discharge from the Reserves" opens a door on a well kept secret about his military service.

The document is a form cover letter in the name of the Carter administration's secretary of the Navy, W. Graham Claytor. It describes Mr. Kerry's discharge as being subsequent to the review of "a board of officers." This in it self is unusual. There is nothing about an ordinary honorable discharge action in the Navy that requires a review by a board of officers.

More.

posted by Cacciaguida at 2:41 AM

 
The dream lives on for Sox:
Back-to-back comeback wins has Boston riding high

This New York Mets fan and Yankees-hater says yesss! In 1986, we did what we had to do. But for now, the Mets are out of it, so I say it's time to kick Yankee tush and Reverse the Curse!



posted by Cacciaguida at 1:59 AM

 
Needless to say, Morristown is back. Those of you who moved Jonathan Lee's blog over to the "no longer in service" column -- time to return it to active duty!

posted by Cacciaguida at 1:29 AM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida: When on leave, watch Lord of the Rings.

Scene: We're at the point in Fellowship where Gandalf and Saruman are magicking each other into walls with their staves.

Cacciaguida: Were pugil sticks like that?

Jonathan Lee: No. They were shorter, and padded.

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:03 PM

 

Yessss!

As of the Emblem Ceremony on October 14, it's Private Jonathan Lee Morris, USMC.

The parade ground and review stands where this took place are right behind a replica of the famous Iwo Jima statue. As part of the invocation, the chaplain reminded us that three of the men who raised the flag at Iwo were later killed in battle on that island -- and that they and countless other Marines have been watching over the Corps and helping this week's graduating recruits reach this day.

Graduation was on October 15:

Senior Drill Instructor: Platoon 20__, dissss-missed.

Platoon (high volume, perfect unison): Aye, sir! Oo-rah!!

With that, the training platoon that these men had constituted for twelve weeks ceases to exist (its guidons, or platoon banners, had been retired earlier in the ceremony), and their Marine careers begin.

Marine Hymn


posted by Cacciaguida at 10:51 PM

 

Marine graduation

Jonathan Lee's is coming up. He called last Sunday -- last Sunday of boot camp, they get to (or some of them get to?) use the public phone at the island branch of the Navy Federal Credit Union -- and he sounded great.

Thomas Ricks, in his bookumentary following one platoon through boot camp, describes the scene on the day before graduation:

[The platoon] moves out as one into the warm, hazy morning for its final 4.3 mile "motivational run" around Parris Island. "You own this island," Gunnery Sergeant Camacho shouts at them. The sound of rifle fire pops through the woods. 1st Sergeant Tucker, also joining them for the run, adds, "You're the best on the island, understand? You're the senior company on the island."

They shout as they run:

Feels good
Like it should
Feels fine
Double time!

Earlier, a colonel spoke to a group of recruits soon to graduate:

"It's your Marine Corps now," he says. "We're all responsible.

"Anyone here hear of Aristotle?" he asks. The recruits look at one another as if to say, No Sergeant Aristotle in my unit. The colonel explains: "He was a smart guy who lived a long time ago. He said we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, isn't an act, it is a habit."

Whoa. I like to imagine that scene continuing this way:

JONATHAN LEE: Sir, this recruit thinks that's from Book 6 of the Nicomachean Ethics, sir."

COLONEL: Cut the classical-home-school crap, Morris, or you'll drop for fifty. Now like I was saying....

Naa, Jonathan would never hot-dog that way (and any recruit who did would be lucky to get off with a nocturnal wedgie from his buddies, in addition to whatever the sergeant dealt out on the quarterdeck).

Anyway, we're all ready for the trip. Family day is Thursday the 14th, graduation is Friday the 15th. I'll see about bringing the laptop so we can blog along, and maybe post some pictures. But if not, then -- blogbreak until Sunday, when I'll tell you all about it.
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:59 PM

 
The normally courageous Daily Telegraph yanked Mark Steyn's October 11 column on the death of Ken Bigley, beheaded by jihadists. Read the spiked column here. Hat-tip: Mr. Z.
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:35 PM

 
A major new blog introduction:

Announcing Yurodivi: der Gottesnarr (i.e. God's Fool)

Yurodivi's blogtopics are listed as: "Catholicism, Opera, certain foreign languages, and Southern stuff"

Another Catholic opera fan! If we were to start our own blogring, what should we call it? I've been working on some ideas; feel free to add your own.

Opera Dei (That one was kind of obvious)

Un Tal Baccano in Chiesa ("Such an uproar in church!" -- Scarpia's entrance in Tosca)

Dinanzi al Re ("[Am I] in the presence of the King[?]" -- Grand Inquisitor's entrance in Don Carlo)

Meanwhile, I'm listening to a 1957 Met WALKÜRE, one of the most interesting features of which is Kurt Böhme as Hunding, a role he rarely did and never recorded elsewhere. He got his effects in the Wagner-villain bass roles, especially Fafner (remember him as Fafner the Dragon in the Solti SIEGFRIED!) not so much with sheer black tone (Gottlob Frick, Ernst Wiemann, Josef Greindl, and the young Martti Talvela all had him beat there), but with a gangster-like sound that made him the perfect Fafner, and an excellent Hunding. If his Hagen ever comes on the market, I'll nab it.

posted by Cacciaguida at 4:35 PM

 
Thanks to Davetown for this self-check quiz for depression.
posted by Cacciaguida at 4:16 PM

 
Next year's Senate

The WSJ's David Rogers writes:

Senate Democrats believe they also are more competitive and can capture four Republican seats in Illinois, Alaska, Oklahoma and Colorado. Meanwhile, they hope to hold their losses in the South to no more than two seats. That would give Democrats a 51-49 majority, counting like-minded Vermont independent, Sen. James Jeffords.

But, the Democrats are now behind in Oklahoma, and they are likely to suffer three losses in the South: Florida, South Carolina, and (though it's closer) North Carolina.

Power Line summarizes the presidential poll picture here.

posted by Cacciaguida at 2:45 PM

 
Canadian talk-show host and columnist Michael Coren -- spiritual itinerary: Jewish-secularist -> Catholic -> lapsed Catholic -> Evangelical -- returns to the Church. Two of his columns on point: here, and here. Hat-tip: National Catholic Register. That's Register, not Reporter. The Register is the good one.

posted by Cacciaguida at 7:19 PM

 

Little is known of Will's life before he left Stratford for London. He may have found employment as a teacher in the household of a wealthy Catholic, Alexander Hoghton, in Lancashire. He may even have been a secret Catholic and have had conversations with the Jesuit [St.] Edmund Campion in 1581.

-- Denis Donoghue, reviewing Will in the World, by Stephen Goldblatt, Wall St. Journal, Sept. 24, 2004, p. W7.
posted by Cacciaguida at 6:43 PM

 

Without in any way disparaging the genius of that eminent man, one may deem it a duty to correct the errors into which he fell, and conscientiously to combat, as an obstinate and mischievous superstition, the conviction of his pre-eminent accuracy and authority on matters of fact.

-- J.H. Round, Feudal England (1895), discussing E.A. Freeman's History of the Norman Conquest

posted by Cacciaguida at 6:13 PM

 
Happy Anniversary, Zorak and Old Oligarch!

posted by Cacciaguida at 8:11 PM

 
Evidently, when medicine is socialized, bureaucrats and judges get to tell parents of a sick child that she must die. Here, and here.

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:25 AM

 
2nd Pres debate

W00t W00t! Sorry I don't have time for a sharp analysis, but the format favored Bush, and he made the most of it.

A quick glance at the polls posted at RealClearPolitics.com (all pre-2nd-debate, as of this writing) shows Bush still leading in almost all of them, though by margins that give the campaign no grounds for relaxation.

Senate races: Martinez (R) is still leading Castor (D) in FL , and Coburn has (at last) pulled ahead of Carson in OK. FL will be a GOP pick-up if Martinez wins; OK is a GOP retention if Coburn pulls it out. The SD Senate polls (Thune v. Daschle) are all over the place. In NC, Burr is gaining on Bowles but is still behind; there's no excuse for missing the GOP pickup there. The GOP pickup in SC seems pretty sure. IL and AK are pretty clear Dem pickups.

When I was younger, part of me wanted to become a campaign operative. Another part of me wanted to run for office. I think I've been wise to ignore both, but this is nonetheless great fun.

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:09 PM

 
Just got a card from Jonathan Lee, one of the last I expect we'll get before we drive down to Parris Island for Family Day and Graduation:

Today is Saturday evening after the crucible.... Regarding treats, I first want some mnemonic foods like apples, pears, jerky, as well as seltzer water, if there is a way of keeping it cold. If you bring fruit, bring enough so thateveryone who eats it gets plenty. The only apples they have here are Red Tasteless, and I'm starting to yearn for something like a gala, a fuji, an empire or a Rome. Or indeed several. I'll tell you all about the crucible and other events tomorrow, as well as try to answer your questions about the Second Punic War.

Love, Jonathan

Did I mention he's 18?

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:49 PM

 
Thanks to those who are praying for my mother-in-law, who's the best one in the world.
posted by Cacciaguida at 11:48 PM

 
Princess:
That is what you asked for. Now you know it.
Do not desire a greater victory.
Go, stranger, with your mystery!

Unkown Prince:
My mystery? I have it no longer.
You are mine! You who tremble when I touch you,
You who grow pale when I kiss you,
You can destroy me if you want --
I give you my name and my life together:
I am Calaf, son of Timur.

Princess:
I know your name! I know your name!

Unknown Prince:
My glory is your embrace.

Princess:
Listen! The trumpets are sounding.

Unknown Prince:
My life is your kiss.

Princess:
The time is here -- the time of trial.

Unknown Prince:
I do not fear it.

Princess:
Ah! Calaf, appear before the people with me!

Unknown Prince:
You have won!

(Transition. The Imperial Court. They stand before the Emperor....)

Yeah, guess what I've been doing tonight.

posted by Cacciaguida at 10:57 PM

 
Let us pay our respects to Rodney Dangerfield.


Rodney Dangerfield, 1921-2004

posted by Cacciaguida at 3:25 PM

 
VP debate

It's good to be a real policy wonk -- not a ditzy "wonkette," but a real, number-crunching, vote-citing, ROM-brained, hard-bitten pro -- like Cheney, 'cause that's how he mops up the floor with cornpone prettyboys like Edwards. He never broke a sweat, and got Edwards near-pissed several times. The winner is Cheney, and not just on points.

posted by Cacciaguida at 10:31 PM

 
Washingtonians: Fr. Vincent J. Rigdon, a friend of many of us, will celebrate the 12:05 Mass tomorrow (Oct. 6) at the Catholic Information Center.

posted by Cacciaguida at 6:40 PM

 
Great editorial from The Washington Post here, showing that, though liberal, the Post is not amused when it receives e-mails proclaiming Kerry the winner of the debate, and those e-mails (a) echo DNC talking points as closely as Larry Tribe echoes Henry Abraham, and (b) they start arriving before the debate. Via Mommentary.

posted by Cacciaguida at 1:04 AM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida: points

CACCIAGUIDA [as we drop off Number One Son at his job at Applebee's]: It's those faux-Tiffany chandeliers over the tables. That's why I think Applebee's is aiming at a higher clientele than Golden Corral.

ELINOR: Well, even IHOP is higher than Golden Corral. They have people who bring you your food.

CACCIAGUIDA: I wouldn't say that means IHOP is higher-class than Golden Corral...

ELINOR: But you've said you don't like buffets.

CACCIAGUIDA: I don't make all my decisions based on class-prejudice; just most of them. There are some perfectly toney buffets. My only problem with them is that they aren't so good for conversation.

(Pause)

ELINOR: Sometimes I wonder why you married me.

CACCIAGUIDA: You could talk about Dryden while we walked around Yale. That adds 20 points right away.

ELINOR: That was kind of fabulous....

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:47 PM

 
Emperor Karl I Hapsburg beatified. The promoters of his cause maintain a website here. (Hat-tip: The Old Oligarch.)

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:42 PM

 
Drudge:
DEBATE MYSTERY: DID KERRY HAVE CHEAT SHEET, contrary to agreed-upon rules?

So what did Dem presidential contender John Kerry take out of his jacket as he approached the stage?

What did Kerry place on the podium?

Video replays of the Kerry maneuver played all weekend long on the internet.

See also Bloggers Catch Kerry Cheating, by blogger Malachy Joyce.
posted by Cacciaguida at 2:46 PM

 
Conversation chez Cacciaguida: importance of weapons training

CACCIAGUIDA [quoting a bumper-sticker]: "Suicide bombers, Marines: Which Do You Think Gets the Virgins?"

ELINOR: You know, there've been some very incompetent suicide bombers lately. One of them blew himself up taking a leak.

CACCIAGUIDA: [LOL]

ELINOR: Talk about caught with your pants down.

CACCIAGUIDA: [ROTFL]

ELINOR: I mean, what a triumphal entrance into paradise.

CACCIAGUIDA: [ROTFLHAO]

posted by Cacciaguida at 1:53 AM

 
Ouch: Florence King on "the overcivilized man's need to prove himself the equal of earthy men that was satisfied to a large extent by universal military service." Via The Rat.

posted by Cacciaguida at 10:06 PM

 
Weekend roundup of presidential politics

Power Line and its readers dissect a Newsweek poll showing a Kerry "surge." Conclusion: the poll is statistically meaningless -- but watch for it to become the basis for a Kerry/media effort to use the "comeback" theme to erase talk of Kerry's past mistakes and create an aura of Kerry inevitability. I would add: watch for The Washington Post to morph into the Kerry Transition Gazette, as it did, mutatis mutandis, in October of 1992. However, back then, Bush I really was behind, and now, Bush II really isn't.

The Rasmussen post-debate poll shows a 4-point Bush lead, but I must say to the Bush campaign: that should be wider, so watch out. The campaign is following my advice and rolling out a "global test" ad.

Also, the last time this happened, there was a Republican presidential landslide.

posted by Cacciaguida at 8:41 PM

 
KerryWrongforCatholics.com
posted by Cacciaguida at 1:15 AM

 
Suppression of the monasteries -- again?

What's with Tony Blair -- Neo-Conservative in foreign policy, New Left in social policy? After abolishing fox-hunting, changing the House of Commons's Serjeant[sic]-At-Arms to Director of Security, trying to eliminate the term "Crown" from prosecutorial documents, and, for all I know, ordering inns called "The King's Arms" to rename themselves "The Chief Executive Officeholder's Outer Security Apparatus," his government now wants to abolish an old rule in the tax code to the effect that all religious entities are presumptively "charitable" in tax terms. Religious orders and the like could still theoretically obtain "charitable" tax status, but they would have to prove on a case-by-case basis that they are entitled to it.

Aside from the obvious sentimental arguments against this move -- "What's the cash value of holding a dying man's hand"? etc. -- there is something even more serious going on here.

Hatred of monasticism has been a feature of liberalism from its inception; the more contemplative the order, the greater the scorn. It's a pervasive theme in Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws: no one chapter about it, just a drumbeat of anti-monastic sneers interspersed throughout the book regardless of the actual subject-matter at hand. Persecuting the religious orders is always one of the first orders of business for anti-Catholic regimes, whether Protestant (Henry VIII) or openly atheistic (the French Revolution).

What's going on? Is this Blair placating his party's hard-Left to pay for supporting Bush in Iraq? Or what?
posted by Cacciaguida at 7:24 PM

 
R.I.P. Anthony Rhodes, Anglican defender of the Catholic Church and Catholic culture -- and eventually a convert himself.
posted by Cacciaguida at 7:20 PM

 
"The problem is not whether the majority of Europeans is Islamic," he added, "but rather which Islam--sharia Islam or Euro-Islam--is to dominate in Europe." The Weekly Standard on a future Islamic Europe.

posted by Cacciaguida at 5:40 PM

 
A friend in the Bush campaign says they're already "on it" re "global test," as I suggested here. This story suggests that they are indeed. In addition, a transcript of the Allentown speech shows the President quoting Kerry on "global test" and getting a strong reaction to it.

posted by Cacciaguida at 5:10 PM

 
News24, South Africa, says:

Body language needs work 01/10/2004 20:50 - (SA)

Washington - George W Bush needs to get rid of the grimaces and smirks, John Kerry is still struggling to put on a natural smile, experts said on Friday after the first presidential debate between the two rivals.

posted by Cacciaguida at 4:57 PM

 
Kerry: "Global test"??

What's with this "global test" thing that Kerry carefully and deliberately embraced last night? We can only act in our perceived national self-interest if our doing so meets some "global test"?

This line potentially highlights Kerry's greatest vulnerabilities: UN-lover, appeaser of cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys, wants to bring in those black helicopters in droves, thinks you can stop terrorists by throwing chablis at them, etc. It's his biggest albatross -- and he wore it like it was a Purple Heart or something! He girded it on of his own free will, and of his own free will he wore it.

Now the Bush campaign has to plug it in and make it light up.

posted by Cacciaguida at 11:14 AM

 
More about the debate

A consensus is emerging that Kerry won on style, lost on substance, and on balance did well enough so that he's still in the race. Bush could have pushed him harder, e.g. on his anti-defense Senate record. Doing so, and getting Kerry flustered, could have put the whole thing in the bag. Otoh, if Bush had made any daring moves and not executed them well, he could have put himself in the bag. As front-runner, not-screwing-up was job number one, and he did it.

Some pro-Bush viewers thought Bush allowed himself to show anger at Kerry. Not nearly as much as Gore did against Bush in '00, imo, and perhaps not at all; but if even a few people thought he did, that's bad, and he needs to make sure that on Oct. 8 he's smooth as silk and damn-glad-to-meetya.

CNN's headline says Poll: Kerry tops Bush in debate, but much of their own reporting gives the lie to the header. E.g.:

By narrow margins Bush came out better on believability, likability and toughness.

And:

[T]here was virtually no change among those polled on which candidate would handle Iraq better or make a better commander in chief, with Bush maintaining a double-digit advantage on both issues.

That's not going to change as long as Kerry keeps saying "I have a plan" and his "plan" turns out to be -- we'll have some meetings! Dilbert Nation won't buy that.

As I acknowledge earlier, Bush looked tired. Could this be because he had undertaken physically and emotionally draining visits to hurricane victims earlier in the day?

Some of the print pundits:

Dick Morris: Kerry wins on style, Bush wins on substance
Bob Novak: No knockout punch, but good news for Kerry
Fred Barnes: Not enough to change dynamics of the race

posted by Cacciaguida at 10:37 AM