Congressman Billybob Sez: "Who's Next?"

This here's the 346th Report ta the Folks Back Home from the (More er Less) Honorable Billybob, cyberCongressman from Western Carolina.

Proliferation izza word fer the day. Not proliferation ov weapons, but proliferation ov freedom n self-government.

Since yer Congresscritter don us'ally use big words lack that, I'll turn this over ta ma able assistant, J. Armor, Esq..

Let's begin this lecture with a blast from the past, a few bars from Tom Lehrer's classic about nuclear proliferation:

"First we got the bomb, and that was good,
‘Cuz we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, and that's okay.
The balance of power's maintained that way.
Then China got the bomb, but have no fears.
They can't wipe us out for at least five years."

It is a sobering thought that Lehrer wrote these words over thirty years ago. The point here is that not just ultimate bad things -- nuclear weapons – can proliferate. Ultimate good things – freedom and self-government – also can proliferate. That is the long-term meaning of the events now occurring in Iraq.

Although there will be more fighting, the war is over. There remain only certain "pockets of resistance" to deal with. Let's address those.

There are many people who could serve as poster children for arrogant foolishness in Hollywood. I choose Susan Sarandon, because she made some excellent movies, including Bull Durham, and because she has been spouting brass-plated geopolitical nonsense. I took time to venture over to a competing rally in Washington, and heard her state views she obviously believes, but which have no relationship with reality.

Most people agree that Bull Durham is one of the finest sports movies ever made. Some rate it as the best ever, as do I. So it was no surprise that the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown long ago scheduled a special screening of this film on its fifteenth anniversary and invited the stars to take part.

It was also no surprise that the Hall of Fame recently cancelled the invitations to Ms. Sarandon and her bad-mouthed POSSLQ, Tim Robbins, in light of their recent comments and the reactions to them. (POSSLQ is a US Census category, "persons of opposite sex sharing living quarters.")

This week at the Press Club in Washington Mr. Robbins condemned the backlash against him and Ms. Sarandon as violating their "freedom of speech." Peter Jennings of ABC conducted a pity party for Mr. Robbins on air, on the same issue. Both fail to understand that freedom of speech is a double-edged sword. It does not mean, "I have freedom of speech. You have freedom to shut up."

The little people who go bowling on Thursday, take the family to Shoney's on Friday and spend a few squirreled dollars for a movie on Saturday, also have their freedom of speech. The reporters don't gather in flocks when these people speak, yet they speak with their wallets. Susan Sarandon, who depends on their dollars, is a either a brass-plated fool if she thinks she can ignore their voices with impunity, or a hard-wired hypocrite if she thinks they have no right to speak in their own way, in response to what she says.

Sarandon, and many other denizens of Hollywood, need to be toppled from their self-constructed pedestals, their heads severed (figuratively, of course), and dragged through the streets where the little people can smack them with their sandals.

Nicholas De Genova is an anthropology professor at Columbia University. He was one of twenty speakers at a "teach in" there last week, sponsored by the Columbia Anti-War Coalition. While a few of the presentations were scholarly, most took the viewpoint that "George W. Bush, not Saddam Hussein, poses the greatest threat to world peace and security." Many ranking professors at that institution took part in this anti-Bush, pro-Hussein rally. The most obnoxious comment of the day was made by Professor De Genova.

To the cheers of the assembled students, he said that he wished for "a million Mogadishus" against the American troops in Iraq. (That was a reference to the 18 Americans killed in Somalia, portrayed in the movie Black Hawk Down.) So the professor was wishing for 18 million American deaths. In that particular battle, the kill ratio was 100 to 1. So the professor was also wishing for 1.8 billion citizens of the Earth to be killed. But then, logical consistency is not the long suit of the "anti-war" protestors.

Others in other circumstances have made similar comments. Ellen Ratner, a Fox News contributor and a regular on National Public Radio, said about a month ago on the Neil Cavuto Show that she hoped that "Bush will mess up the war," meaning that enough Americans would be killed so that "Bush will not be reelected." If one sits through a couple dozen "anti-war" screeds, as I have done, it quickly becomes clear the real purpose is not to oppose the war, but to oppose President Bush and those who agree with him. But I digress.

Should the University keep on staff in the Geology Department a professor who believes and professes to his students that the world is flat? Should it keep in the Chemistry Department a professor who believes in alchemy? Should it retain in the Mathematics Department a professor who teaches that two plus two equals five?

This is not a matter of either freedom of speech or academic freedom. Professor De Genova (and many others like him) are teaching stupidity to another generation of college students. In any university, the purpose is to preserve and increase the stock of human knowledge. Such professors are, therefore, enemies of the institutions where they "teach."

This week, after the Iraqi prison for children had been opened, weapons had been found in schools, hospitals, and mosques, two thousand sites of potential WMDs had been found with mountains of documents, and the Iraqis had (mostly) welcomed the troops – after all this, the Faculty Senate of UCLA voted 180-7 to condemn the Iraq War. Getting it wrong before the war was an error, but an understandable one. Getting it wrong now is geopolitical idiocy. It is not the role of any university to preserve and spread stupidity – especially while using money from the grateful taxpayers to carry out that task.

Professor De Genova and thousands of others, in hundreds of college towns, need to be pushed off their perches, and their heads (metaphorically) dragged through the streets while students beat on them with spiral-bound notebooks.

Dan Rather's interview with Saddam Hussein a month ago reminded me of Larry King interviewing a well-endowed starlet. It was all smiles and softball questions. Rather's interview was arranged by the good offices of Ramsey Clark, prime mover of the "anti-war" movement and a staunch ally of the world's few remaining Stalinist dictators.

Rather has now gone to Iraq to continue his biased reporting from the front, now that it is no longer a front. His reporting remains of a piece with the Hussein interview in which the "news" man bowed and scraped to the dictator like he was a rock star, and the dictator played the "news" man like a cheap violin.

The American people, in line with their views, have reacted to Mr. Rather in a very predictable fashion. CBS News has lost 15% of their viewers during this war, the largest loss of any major network, and a richly deserved one.

Even Uncle Walter Cronkite has been revealed as a public fraud, decades after he left the air as the "most trusted" American. This week he said, "I am a pacifist. I guess I always was." He never mentioned that obviously relevant fact when he was on the air.

We are in a new era. Millions of Americans who don't buy and read books can watch raw information on 24-hour news channels. They can reach on their own the same conclusions that Bernard Goldberg did in his book, Bias. Millions of Americans have discovered what only hundreds of thousands knew before, that CBS News is a deeply bigoted organization.

Dan Rather, and many others, need to be bumped off their dwindling media hillocks – just a nudge will do it -- and their heads dragged (electronically) through the streets while viewers beat on them with their remote controls.

The subject du jour is the rebuilding of Iraq. The airways are cluttered with assorted experts saying that Iraq cannot be reconstructed as free democracy. They say it will take too much time, too many troops, too much money, and probably won't succeed in any event. But no more than twice in twenty hours of such blather have I heard the word "Japan" mentioned.

Anyone can find the history of the American rebuilding of Japan with a few mouse clicks on the Internet. In just two years, General Douglas MacArthur led the reconstruction of Japan from a military dictatorship of 1,500 years standing, into a modern, democratic, free market nation. At the most, MacArthur had 200,000 troops in Japan. Comparing populations, Iraq will therefore require about 60,000 troops in place. That is only slightly more than the American troops now stationed in Germany. And in Germany they are neither needed nor properly appreciated.

In short, a few dozen "experts" on the future of Iraq also need to have their heads dragged through the streets, figuratively speaking.

This is just too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel. Just imagine the heads of Senator Tom Daschle and Representative Sheila Jackson Lee being dragged through the streets, in tandem so as to be politically correct.

Until this week, you believed it was divine will that Saddam Hussein remain in control of Iraq. In the land of Nebuchadnezzar, the moving finger has writ. Either your theology or your politics require massive reexamination. Allah has spoken.

Getting it wrong before the war was an error, but an understandable one. Getting it wrong now is geopolitical idiocy.
...
But, the central image of heads (metaphorically) being dragged through the streets, made my editor nervous.

No big surprise here. No big surprise.
After all, "...we could have brought that statue down for a lot less" after all has become a classic for the clueless, sort of wailing at the ruined grand piano after the firemen has saved your house from burning down.

And even O'Reilly has bought into the "WMD" drumbeat.
We better find Saddam, and damned soon because that might be the only means of redemption for us dummies who continue believing that there is overpowering evidence that not attacking would have been a morally bankrupt position.
Saddam, we need you!

What the bio of Charlie Taylor, NC, 11th District, does not show, is this:

He suffered a stroke almost four years ago, and is slow of speech and movement. He was not the sharpest knife in the draw before that. He is a "good ol' boy" who runs on favors, and has gotten his *ss in a crack a couple times because of that.

I have more energy -- physical and mental -- than he does. More knowledge. More real world experience. I can run a harder campaign, and serve better in Congress, than he can. And I can debate rings around Charlie -- and if he refuses to debate, I can debate an empty chair using clips from his speeches.

His bio also does not show is financial situation. He spent his war chest to zero in the last election to fend off a Democrat who was heavily funded by the "edukashun" unions, last time. If I run against him, he will have to raise $1 million for the primary, and another $1 million for the general. He can not accomplish that.

Bottom line: I don't think I will have to wait for Charlie Taylor to retire. I think I can persuade him that it is time to retire.

As for politics, NC 11 is a conservative district, and my credentials as a consevative are as good or better than Charlie's are.

I have a lot of work to do in the District, and a lot of ducks to line up. But it can work. I'll keep my friends at FreeRepublic posted.

Billybob / John

I never said it was impossible, especially if he has weaknesses. And it's not like I wouldn't want you to win or anything like that, either.

But think like an ordinary, everyday voter for a second. Most voters don't base their voting decisions on the same things political people do. If he was congressman in my district (I'm stuck with Bob Etheridge--ugh!), as long as he was a decent man and voted the way I wanted most of the time and was nice and personable, I wouldn't see any reason to vote for someone else in the primary.

So, how do his non-political constituents feel about him? Is he well-liked? Who are his strongest supporters and why?

I think you would have a good shot, though. You're very smart and well-spoken. I don't think you should run a negative campaign, though. I think you should praise him every chance you get, but just show people how you can get more done for them than he can. I don't know how well the "good ol' boy who runs on favors" would play in that district if the whole place is full of good ol' boys. If he voted the way most people wanted and brought home the bacon, without a dead woman or live boy falling out of his closet, then that's all most regular folks want out of their congressman. You can run on being "new and improved". I think you can use a lot of humor in your campaign (think Paul Wellstone's first campaign) because you're smart enough to strike the right balance between being funny and knowing your stuff and being serious.

Of course, this is all just my own personal $.02. I don't know a lot of how these things are really done--which can also be a point in my favor because I'm an average voter in many ways and the average voter is who you have to convince.

We don't do the sandal thing here. Now what we might do is what many veterans hope to out live Hanoi Jane so that they can do on her grave. That's at least as big much a sign of contempt here as giving them the bottom of your shoe is in Arabic countries. Far worse than merely fliping them the "Hawaian Good Luck Sign". More civilized, if less satisfying would be merely turning your back as their likenesses passed by, perhaps with that "Fickle Finger of Fate" held out behind your back.

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