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Wednesday, September 15, 2004

The Inspector Dreyfus Award

Viewpoint is considering initiating an Inspector Dreyfus award named for the character in the Pink Panther movies who went insane because his hated subordinate, the incompetent Inspector Clouseau (played by Peter Sellars), went from one completely serendipitous success to another. As Clouseau's accidental successes took an increasing toll on Dreyfus' sanity he first developed severe facial ticks, then he contrived plans to assassinate Clouseau, and finally he went completely over the edge and into a strait-jacket.

The Democrats seem to be playing Dreyfus to Bush's Clouseau (at least they regard Bush much the same as Dreyfus regarded the Peter Sellars character), and like Dreyfus they have been driven to varying degrees of madness.

There will be no shortage of candidates for the award, of course, and we may have to make daily presentations to accomodate the large number of deserving entrants. We'll see. In the meantime, Robert Kuttner of the Boston Globe makes a strong bid to receive today's honor. Here's an excerpt from his current column:

[T]he frustrating reality is that everything important about George Bush and his presidency is a lie. Bush himself is far more of a phony. As several biographies have documented, he virtually fell upwards, benefiting from family connections to survive a dissolute youth, draft avoidance, and several business failures. But Bush has seized the iconography of the honest cowboy, the regular guy clearing brush on his Texas ranch, the war hero arriving by fighter plane to rescue America. That Kerry actually served in combat, that he made his way upwards with far less family help, gets buried under the smears. Bush's presidency has been an even bigger lie, beginning with the dishonest way he assumed office and the gap between his moderate posture and his extremist policies. There is such a huge medley of lies that a challenger almost doesn't know where to start.

The tax cuts didn't create jobs. No Child Left Behind is big government without the resources. The deficit will sandbag the economy for decades. The Medicare drug plan is a fake. Privatizing Social Security will leave retirees worse off.

And his national security policy is worse. Whether the venue is Iraq, the phony case for war and the disastrous aftermath, the hit-and-run policy in Afghanistan, North Korea's quest for nuclear weapons, or the vaunted "war on terror" and the Keystone Kops Homeland Security Department, it all leaves America and the world less safe.

Okay. I know it's pretty tame compared to, say, Al Gore's stuff, but the award is not retroactive. It starts today. Gore still has plenty of time before the election to give another unhinged speech and stake his claim to the Dreyfus trophy. Readers should feel free to submit their own nominations through our Feedback section.

One Iraqi's View

Mohammed at Iraq the Model gives us a good idea of the level of support for the American effort among Iraqis and has some inside scuttlebutt on what's going on in Fallujah and Talla'far as well. He also says this:

We in Iraq accepted the sacrifices needed to remove Saddam. In Afghanistan we didn't see any real demonstrations protesting against the American Army for the accidental death of civilians when targeting Taliban fighters and the same applies for Iraq lately. Isn't it amazing that many people in the west and some Americans blame the American army and administration for the life losses and mess in Najaf, while Najafies are strongly blaming Sadr in their latest demonstration without a word to condemn the American army!? Aren't people, even seemingly simple people, smarter than what some media elite thinkers and reporters want us to believe!?

It's also worth mentioning that the news I heard from inside Fallujah confirm that the bombarded targets we hear about in the news every now and then did belong to Zarqawi followers and those targets were identified and chosen according to reports from the Fallujans most of the times.

Meanwhile, Arthur Chrenkoff's 10th edition of Good News From Iraq is available here. It's stuff you'll never hear from Dan, Peter, and Tom, much less the New York Times.

Register to Vote

If you're 18 and a U.S. citizen but are not registered, time is running out. In Pennsylvania you must be registered by October 4th. The race is going to be very close in PA and every vote will matter. Pennsylvania residents can download a registration form by going here and following the link. This will only work, however, for those who would vote for President Bush in November. If you are a Kerry supporter the link is unfortunately down and probably will be until October 5th.