I wonder how many people give credence to public opinion polls? I never see any polls on that issue.

I wonder how many people give credence to public opinion polls? I never see any polls on that issue.

Debunking Mao, in Berkeley:

The husband-and-wife team of Chang and Halliday supported their archival research with interviews with 150 former Mao lieutenants, concluding that Mao was not only bloodier than Hitler or Stalin but worse in his destruction of culture.

The unrepentent commies and Maoists who (sadly) still infest the place are, needless to say, upset.

The Supreme Court’s Raich ruling last year was a disaster not just for federalism (and freedom), and the founders’ original notion of limited government, but for coherent judicial philosophy in general. Professor Reynolds (and Brandon Denning) explain explain why:

As a practical matter, of course, Supreme Court control over the lower courts has been notional for some time. Lower court caseloads have been exploding, while the Supreme Court is actually hearing fewer cases than it did decades ago. But the Supreme Court

John Weidner has a review of an old science fiction book, and of contemporary society.

I want a new congressman. He’s one of the three brave morons who voted for immediate withdrawal from Iraq. It’s pretty bad when your rep is on the same page with Cynthia “Moonbat” McKinney. Particularly considering that he’s Jewish, and she’s made many anti-Israel and anti-semitic statements.

Lexington Green says that the Anglosphere needs one.

I just went and watched the latest GOP commercial, which is pretty devastating against the Donkeys who are currently trying to rewrite history about their own beliefs about Saddam. But I’m not sure it’s totally fair. Has Hillary been backtracking on this, or Evan Bayh? If not, I’m not sure they should be lumped in with the others. And it’s too bad they don’t have a clip of Kennedy.

Not that I’m a Hillary fan–there’s plenty of reason to oppose her and fear her ascendance to power, but I think she’s been playing the war pretty smart all along (as would behoove her if she wants to win the presidency, though it may cause her grief in the primaries).

I’m hearing on the news that Chirac made a speech (his first public appearance since the riots started) in which he said that France was in a malaise. No word if he was wearing a cardigan at the time, or beset by rabbits. Or what his daughter thought about the world situation.

Anyway, is it time for the French Ronald Reagan?

[Update at 9:15 PST]

Here’s the link.

Glenn is glad to see Senator McCain defending the president from the accusations of lying us into war. Me, too.

But the Senator goes too far. In turn, he is in fact guilty of the same thing of which he accuses the Democrats (and the same thing of which many of them falsely accuse the president).

I don’t know when it became common in public discourse to completely erase the crucial distinction between making a false statement and lying. It probably goes back further than this, but the first time I noticed it was when the president’s father went back on his pledge (“read my lips”) to oppose new taxes, and then acquiesced to them under pressure from the Democrats who ran Congress and some “moderate” Republicans. As a result, many charged President Bush the elder with “lying” at the convention.

But going back on a pledge isn’t a “lie.” It’s certainly deplorable, but there can be good reasons for doing so (though I don’t think they were valid in this case). But to break a promise is not a lie, unless the person intended to break it at the time it was made. It is in fact not reasonable to talk about “lies” about future events, since ultimately the future is unknowable to anyone–it is merely possible to be wrong (again, unless the prediction is made with the knowledge that the event will be different than the prediction, and is fully within one’s control). It may be that the first President Bush had no intention of keeping his pledge, but I certainly have no way to get into his mind to know that. Absent some “smoking gun” memo (“Ha, ha, ha…I certainly put it over those anti-tax rubes last night”), I doubt if anyone else does either.

And that’s what it comes down to. It is not sufficient to make a false statement and be a liar. It has to be made in the knowledge that the statement is false, with the deliberate intent to deceive.

Now, I believe that in fact many accusing the president of lying, pace McCain’s accusation, are in fact telling lies (that is, they don’t really believe that he is lying, and are simply saying this to politically damage him, and are indifferent to, or in some extreme cases, happy about, the degree to which this damages the war effort). But it’s certainly possible to make such an accusation and not be a liar, which is to say that the accuser actually believes the accusation.

We’ve certainly seen enough people suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome to find it credible that people believe such nonsense, so it’s unfair to brand them all intrinsically liars. It should be sufficient to call them deranged, unless the Senator has some personal knowledge that they know what they are claiming is false. Accordingly, he should, in the interest of defending the principle, apologize for his own overly broad accusation.

[Update a few minutes later]

Hey, and speaking of deranged, here’s the head of the DNC:

Asked what the president withheld, Dean charged that Bush withheld proof that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks [The president never made a claim of such a connection–ed]. Dean claims Bush deliberately corrupted intelligence reports and sent them to Congress.

“The intelligence was corrupted, not just because of the incompetence of the CIA; it was corrupted because it was being changed around before it was presented to Congress,” he said. “Stuff was taken out and not presented. All of this business about weapons of mass destruction, there was significant and substantial evidence passed from the CIA and the State Department to, perhaps, the office of the vice president — we don’t know just where — in the White House that said, ‘There is a strong body of opinion that says they don’t have a nuclear program, nor do they have weapons of mass destruction.’ And that intelligence was not given to the Congress of the United States.”

Dean repeatedly characterized the Bush administration as “corrupt.”

Well, maybe he’s lying, but after the scream, I have to go with deranged.

This from the party of Bill Clinton. Who, by the way, admitted to lying…