Daily Ramblings:
InstaBob Debate Reaction & Analysis ... 09/30/2004b (this space for commentary on tonight's Presidential debate as and if required)
- 8:34pm: C-Span showing strange woman standing mute between podiums ... oh, now she's talking ...
- 8:44: DONNA SHALALA (!) ... apparently came to announce that she gave her ticket to someone else and now she's leaving ...
- 8:48: Oh no! Teresa and Laura are both in all white! Couldn't they have called eachother? Teresa looks enraged.
- 8:50: Jim Lehrer has the red tie on, supposed to convey both power and warmth. Does he think he's running for something? He's announcing how strictly he will enforce the rules, that he will "publicly humiliate" any member of the audience who breaks them. It's genuinely scary ... You tell 'em, Jim!
- Bush went with blue tie.
- Kerry "I believe in being strong," "I will kill" terrorists - he has to say it, demonstrates his weakness.
- Bush is on his game. Has his Kerry quotes memorized. Projecting command.
- How dare Kerry invoke Tommy Franks? Tomorrow the Bush campaign can put him in an ad testifying to Kerry's lie.
- "A free Iraq will help secure Israel." Score a big one for GWB.
- Score one for Jim Lehrer "How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Iraq is a mistake, you said it, Senator Kerry. A mistake that "has to succeed."
- Big win for GWB on how you keep allies and how you lose them. "Come join us for the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." Right on.
- "Osama Bin Laden doesn't decide how we defend ourselves." GWB.
- Kerry keeps returning to Vietnam!! Over and over again! He hasn't learnt anything about his own campaign.
- "Go to johnkerry.com to read my plan." JF'n Kerry.
- What does it mean, "passes the global test?" Good question, Dubya. As Bob said, think global? "RETHINK IT."
- Dang those Iranian MOOLAHS. Right on.
- Kerry is blather, blather, blather. When Dubya speaks, he speaks directly, succinctly, clearly.
- "Not this President." I would never use nuclear weapons to defend this nation - NEVER. JF'n Kerry.
- Kerry "was there for the transformation" in Russia and "went down into the KGB." Say again?
- Mrs. RightWingBob points out that Kerry looks like some kind of deranged bird tonight. Exactly what species, we can't put our finger on. Cockatiel? I don't know.
- Dubya closes in superb form.
- Bush tells Kerry: GOOD JOB!!
- What can I say? My prediction of yesterday arrives in spades. Forget what anyone else says. Bush wins, big time.
Addendum 11:50 pm: And Allah has the round-up of the opinion that counts, including yours truly (talk about big time). Mainstream media is doing its darndest to demonstrate that Kerry won and has the big mo' coming out of this. A big poll from CBS!! That of-course was going to be their line, barring Kerry's spontaneous self-combustion on the podium. Doesn't matter. Even many voters who thought Kerry won on points, thanks to his scattershot blather, will be coming away preferring Bush, because they believe him, and with good reason.
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Talking About Chronicles ...09/30/2004
Some interesting tidbits from the online chat with David Gates, who had interviewed Bob Dylan for Newsweek and offered himself for readers' questions on MSNBC.com.
The biggest piece of "news" out of it was a direct explanation of why Bob is playing keyboards these days - according to Mr. Gates:
he told me a lot about that. basically it has to do with his guitar not giving him quite the fullness of sound he was wanting at the bottom. (six strings on a guitar, ten fingers on a piano.) he's thought of hiring a keyboard player so he doesn't have to do it himself, but hasn't been able to figure out who—most keyboard players, he says, like to be soloists, and he wants a very basic sound. he says he wants to tweak the sound some, because he's not quite satisfied with how the guitars and keyboard are sounding together.
So much, apparently, for theories about arthritis or carpal tunnel problems. As for the new songs Bob said he was working on, this additional delightful detail:
he did say he's written a song based on melody from a bing crosby song, 'where the blue of the night meets the gold of the day.'
This was a real trademark song for Bing, and one he actually has writing credit on too. Right Wing Bob happens to be a major Bing Crosby fan, so it is endlessly pleasurable to know that Dylan is too. He has also alluded to it on other occasions in the past.
And on a different note, there is this little grenade, prompted by a question about what Dylan would be writing about in forthcoming volumes:
he does have 'blood on the tracks' stuff and material about 'freewheelin' and his walking off the ed sullivan show, which, by the way, he regrets having done. what else he's written, or might plan to write, don't know.
Now because Right Wing Bob is nothing if not fair, I'm going to grant that since this wasn't a published part of their interview, it amounts to something only slightly above hearsay. Nevertheless, how interesting if Dylan regrets that moment - still held up to this day by those who would champion his countercultural/protest persona - when he refused to play on the Ed Sullivan show because they didn't want him to sing "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues." I wouldn't say it indicates that he is now a member of the John Birch society, but rather that he may appreciate that this was a slight song - a topical song of the kind he avoided putting on his actual albums - and it was not something to make a hullabaloo about. Even that Sullivan may have had good reason not to have someone on his show seeming to make fun of not just John Birchers, but anti-communists in general. How nice for history if there were footage of Bob Dylan on the Ed Sullivan show performing, say, "Don't Think Twice It's All Right."
Another little tidbit, prompted by someone's comment that they are "shocked at Mr. Dylan's dismissal of the pivotal historic events of the '60s," though I don't think that's exactly how Bob has put it. Anyway, Gates includes this in his reply:
he seems to follow the news—we shared a little joke about the apparently forged bush documents.
Priceless.
In case anyone was wondering, and (bizarrely to me) some were, there's "definitely no ghostwriter." Simon & Schuster edited and cut, but "didn't add anything." Anyone who thinks Bob Dylan would put out an autobio using someone else's words has got to be in some other solar system, if you ask me. People have pointed out seeming clichés or music industry press release type language in the Chronicles excerpt, like:
"All I'd ever done was sing songs that were dead straight and expressed powerful new realities."
People shouldn't forget that Bob has a penchant for taking cliché and using it in an off-kilter way to throw the reader/listener and make them think. Christopher Ricks has written extensively on this - a nice example is from "I Shall Be Free," - "I see better days and I do better things," where Bob is playing on the cliché, "seen better days." Take 10 minutes and you could find a dozen examples yourself. By using a cliché in an odd way, it also makes the reader/listener rethink what that phrase means. What does Bob mean above when he says "powerful new realities?" I don't know, but I could speculate ... I won't right now. Whether doing these things with cliché will work in a good way in a book of prose, and in a memoir, is open to debate. Only a few people have read the whole book at this point, and they don't seem to be commenting.
My grubby little hands can't wait.
Addendum: Another nice detail, this time from the Sunday Telegraph interview, which is now available in the Chicago Sun-Times, is that before running off to New York city to become "the conscience of a generation," the young Bob Dylan seriously considered "enrolling in the Army and going to West Point."
Just wait for people to start saying that Dylan is engaging in revisionist history and portraying himself incorrectly for some unfathomable, inscrutable reasons of his own. I'm just glad to be one of those fans for whom this self-portrait makes simple, straightforward sense.
Seeing The Real You At Last ... 09/29/2004
I don't know if it should be Right Wing Bob's role to make predictions, but when it comes to tomorrow's Presidential debate, I'm going to go way out on a limb. The basic arithmetic of this election was set when the Democrats picked John F. Kerry as their nominee. It is this: the more that ordinary Americans see Kerry and hear him speak, the more they will dislike him. His past performance in Massachusetts political races means nothing. The bulk of this country is not actually like Massachusetts, though the Democratic party seems to forget this every few election cycles. And even Massachusetts voters will be doing a different kind of calculus on November 2nd - it is something quite different to elect a Senator versus electing a President. Look for Bush to do surprisingly well there - though not to win. Of-course he won't need to.
Many pundits are describing the debate as Kerry's great opportunity to turn the trends around. Actually, allowing the candidate to be viewed, live, by millions of Americans is probably just about the worst thing that could happen to the Kerry campaign at this or any stage. They have a bad product; their best hope is to get people to buy it mostly sight unseen, or based on false advertising. The last thing they should want is to have to demonstrate how the product works on live prime time television. Because it doesn't work. Kerry's negativism, stiffness, arrogance, dishonesty and extreme liberalism (yes, that word) will come across and will simply repel normal citizens. This explains why his campaign had no positive bounce - and arguably a negative one - from his convention. (And at least at his convention he was able to deliver a prepared and choreographed speech.) It also explains why he was doing his best in the polls when out of sight in the spring and early summer, when there was a drumbeat of bad publicity from Iraq, and he could occupy the role of some white-knight-idealized candidate in the minds of the general public who knew him not.
So, the prediction is simply that Bush will win overwhelmingly - where it counts - in the hearts and minds of ordinary voters, if not with the pundits who pop up after the show.
Kerry's best hope now is to suffer third degree burns in his final tanning session and be forced to call the whole thing off. If he decides to simply "be himself" in the debate, the result will be disaster. If he decides to force himself into some unreal mold and manner of behavior, then the result will be simply weird, and conspicuously so. One could almost pity him for his predicament ... if he weren't a deceitful, craven, billionaire-by-marriage who celebrates the beheadings of decent Americans in his campaign ads.
Go 'Way From My Window ... 09/28/2004
This, of-course, is nuts. In a story on Chronicles, this newspaper (Pioneer Press) chooses to talk to (and hold up as an expert) exactly the kind of fan Bob fantasized about igniting. In 1972 (when she was 37 years old!) she took a trip from Deerfield, Illinois to Greenwich Village to hunt down Bob. Who does she go see to get the skinny on Bob's location? A.J. Weberman, the guy who combed through Dylan's garbage to find an explanation for his "sell-out," and organized street protests in front of his family's house. Even so, he doesn't willingly give her Bob's address - she rifles through his papers and finds it. Then she rings Dylan's doorbell, gets deflected by Sara, and hangs out across the street waiting for Dylan to come out. Dylan is gracious to her when he does, of-course. 32 years later, she is not so gracious. Speaking of Dylan's choice to play keyboards instead of guitar in concert these days, she says:
"I know artists have to change... I know everything has to change, but he went off the wall this time ... I'm furious with him."
And of the last time she saw him in concert:
"He never picked up the guitar," she says. "I will be mad about that for the rest of my life. That's obscene."
(emphasis added)This is all pretty obscene alright. This woman really believes that Dylan owes her something - that he must meet her expectations and do things in exactly the way that she prefers. How frightening is that? It's beyond her grasp that if she doesn't like what Dylan's doing, she can just choose not to listen. He must play guitar for her. He hasn't done enough for her yet.
Is it any wonder that Bob asked Newsweek not to reveal the location of the hotel where he met their reporter? It may not be 1968 or 1972 anymore, but they're still out there.
I have to admit that when I read the excerpt of Chronicles, with Bob describing being persecuted by "fans," I felt a pang, kind of like: "I dreamed I was amongst the ones that put him out to death."
But no. It ain't me babe! Bob can do whatever he wants. I look forward to being surprised, flummoxed and knocked off balance. If he should decide to pack in his music career and start hosting the CBS Evening News, then fine, he's made more wonderful records than any human being could ever be expected to make. I just hope he provides somewhat more balanced reporting than what we've been getting.
Kerry Denies Owning Chinese Assault Rifle ... 09/27/2004 b
... while Bob Dylan boasts of owning a "clip-fed Winchester blasting rifle."
Alright. I wasn't going to go to town on the Newsweek excerpt from Chronicles. I really wanted to wait until I could read the whole book. Only thing is, I didn't count on what the rest of the world was going to do. How can Right Wing Bob keep silent when everyone else is hyperventilating over Dylan saying of his hippie tormentors, "I wanted to set fire to these people" ... ?
First, I want to reiterate the prime directive, contained in my mission statement here. It is not my intention to try to maintain that Dylan agrees with me on all political questions, or that he can be labeled a "conservative." He spurns all labels, and does not participate in partisan politics, and I respect that about him.
That said, now that this excerpt of his memoirs has been published, it is not his conservative-minded fans who are reacting with shock or horror.
The first thing that needs to be commented on is that as soon as you get one step away from Dylan's actual words, the media are still engaging in their usual distortions.
Since we started talking about firearms, lets continue on that theme. Any number of stories, like this in the Herald Tribune, imply that Dylan armed himself in his home in Woodstock solely for the purpose of defending himself against marauding fans. Their stalking "led him to keep several guns in his house and stifled his creative process." So, it equates Dylan with your typical celebrity who may abhor guns but is forced to carry one because of death threats and obsessive fans.
That ain't what Dylan writes.
He says, without specifying a timeline, that "Peter LaFarge, a folksinger friend of mine, had given me a couple of Colt single-shot repeater pistols, and I also had a clip-fed Winchester blasting rifle around ...." He says he had it around - not that he ran out and got it when the druggies started knocking on his door. And consider how he describes these pieces. He doesn't just call them "guns," like your average Hollywood liberal would. ("I had to get a gun - and I hate guns! It's terrible!"). He characterizes them in a gorgeously colorful and almost tactile fashion. "Colt single-shot repeater pistols / clip-fed Winchester blasting rifle." These terms may or may not be technically correct, but what's clear is that Dylan had his own sense of what these firearms were - their lineage and their design. (Colt and Winchester are both classic American gun manufacturers, I might add - no Lugers for Bob!) He knew these pieces, and what they were mattered to him on some level. All of this matches perfectly with classic American notions of the place and purpose of firearms. In rural America in particular, a firearm is a tool and and a necessary possession, even for people who are not being stalked by Californian drop-outs. A farmer needs a rifle he can depend on, whether for ending the life of one of his farm animals or defending his stock from a wild one. It's not about wanting to kill people - as Dylan also says here: "... it was awful to think about what could be done with those things." Even in urban America, millions of people today own guns, not because they look forward to spilling blood, but because they greatly value their independence and their ability to defend themselves if necessary. Dylan had said just a page earlier in this excerpt,
Being born and raised in America, the country of freedom and independence, I had always cherished the values and ideals of equality and liberty.
As an aside, in a 1981 interview, Dylan was pressed on the subject of gun control (does Billy Joel have to answer these questions?). While acknowledging that America "always has been gun crazy," he also says, "Guns have been a great part of America's past," and "I don't think gun control is making any difference at all. Just makes it harder for people who need to be protected." (Hey Wayne! It looks like we've found a successor for Chuck Heston.)
He is admirably consistent, as usual. Woodstock 1967, London 1981, and now, in Chronicles, in 2004. He's the same guy - surprise surprise.
That notion of consistency brings up another issue. The world's media is reacting like this is the story of the century, "Bob Dylan repudiates hippie fans," "unwilling icon," "fame triggered personal crisis." To anyone who has been interested in Dylan's career and read his interviews through the years, there is certainly nothing shocking in what he is saying in this excerpt. Those who consider themselves fans and find themselves shocked by this either have not been fans for very long or have selectively tuned out those things they preferred not to hear. Dylan has gone on the record many times describing his anguish at being held up as a spokesman, at having groups of people expecting something in particular from him. His confrontations with Weberman and his band of loons in the Village are well known. His deliberate attempt to put off these people and make them forget about him by releasing, for example, "Self Portrait," has been common knowledge for decades. Indeed, it was pretty damned obvious at the time. So the degree to which surprise and shock is being expressed is a vivid illustration of just how distorted is the image of Bob Dylan that the media has been perpetuating, and just how many individuals have bought into it.
Which reminds me. Bob Dylan grants a major interview to the Sunday Telegraph about Chronicles. (Unavailable on their site but posted here.) This fortunate journalist is getting to speak to Bob directly, as well as refer to Dylan's own words from his book. But he just can't limit himself to the facts in front of him - he can't restrain himself from making his own characterizations of things about which he clearly knows next to nothing. Specifically, where he says, "A year later, Dylan had written his great anti-war anthem, 'Blowin' In The Wind.'" Et tu, Mr. Sunday Telegraph? Dylan is on the record too many times to count saying he doesn't write "anti-war" songs. At this stage of the game anyone who's paying attention knows that "Blowing In The Wind" is a song that asks timeless questions, but doesn't expect an answer - and least of all does it expect that war is going to end. And if you don't expect that war is ever going to end on this earth, then why would you write an anti-war song? For more on an anti-war Dylan song that isn't, see God On Our Side.
There's more to say, but there'll be more time to say it too, God willing. And the book isn't even out yet.
Something Is Happening Here... 09/27/2004
Iranians Take To Streets Of Tehran.
A rare pro-democracy protest has taken place in the Iranian capital Tehran.
Local residents said Persian-language television channels from the United States inspired the protest. The channels broadcast callers throughout the day telling people in Tehran to take to the streets.
Two hundred riot police were deployed on the streets in Tehran early in the day when about 2,000 people turned out. By nightfall, the protest had gained momentum, with hundreds of cars pouring onto the streets, blaring their horns.
There have been no reports of clashes, although hard-line vigilantes had also turned out.
... But you don't know what it is, do you, Mister Khameini?
New Morning ... 09/26/2004
Chronicles is excerpted in Newsweek. My own reaction to reading Bob's narrative is just plain joy and amazement. It is absolutely direct. From the liner notes to the Jimmie Rodgers tribute album to the liner notes on World Gone Wrong, it had seemed that Dylan would always add the turns and twists of poetry to any kind of writing. But the writing here is just a guy telling the truth, with the clear desire that the reader understand precisely what he is saying. Any other commentary can wait. His book deserves to be read in full. And the excerpt published so far surely can't help but make anyone who has spent a lot of time writing about Dylan feel like stepping back and reflecting fairly deeply. It is a wonderful thing that Dylan has arrived at this point and has the chance and the space to speak for himself.
Pappa is reading the news ... 09/25/2004
It's Right Wing Bob echo syndrome. Kerry's looking for American failure - and he's it (Mark Steyn).
Kerry/Al Zarqawi '04 ... 09/24/2004
Let's take it one more time ... from the top. Abu Masab al-Zarqawi, leader of an Al-Qaeda related terrorist group, beheads two innocent American citizens, with a video camera recording their grotesque, terrifying, disgusting murders. They are alive, awake, aware and screaming, and their heads are sawed off. Do not watch the videos unless you think you need to be haunted by that horror till the day that you too die. May God bless and keep the souls of these men, always.
How does the campaign of John F. Kerry, war hero, candidate for President of the United States, respond? By instantly adding Zarqawi's publicity-seeking crimes to a list of problems that those seeking a democratic Iraq face in this television advertisement, clearly implying that the U.S. should change course, because we are being defeated. Could Al-Zarqawi possibly ask for more? Could he possibly dream of more in his wildest wettest fantasies? He brutally kills two helpless, bound Americans - and one of the only two serious candidates for President of the United States instantly invokes these murders to assist his campaign, on the basis that the war in Iraq was "a mistake."
On Thursday, 09/23/04, the Prime Minister of Iraq comes to Washington, and addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress. Senator John F. Kerry, an elected member of that congress from the state of Massachusetts, does not attend. He instead mocks this crucial ally of the United States, saying he is putting his "best face" on the situation in his country (as if that would be a crime by a man who seeks to lead Iraqis to democracy) and emphasizes that "terrorists are pouring into the country," as if the mere arrival of the enemy were reason to hoist a flag of surrender.
What does John F. Kerry think that these terrorists would be doing if they were not opposing our armed forces in Iraq? Would they be planting flowers and helping old ladies across the street? Would they be writing love letters to their American pen-pals? Doesn't the fact that the terrorists are opposing us in Iraq demonstrate that this is part of the war on terrorism? Was the war in the Philippines a "distraction from the war on Japan" in 1944? No, because the Japanese were there, fighting us. If we needed to go to the Antarctic to fight and defeat the Japanese, we would have done so. Candidates of both parties somehow understood the meaning of war back then. It meant taking on and defeating the enemy who had attacked us. Now, the Democratic candidate for President in 2004 seems to believe that we would be better off not overly annoying the enemy who attacked us on September 11th, 2001.
Now, today, September 24th, 2004, John F. Kerry has released a new television advertisement. In case anyone thinks that he may have he thought better of elevating the acts of Al-Zarqawi to campaign fodder for his candidacy for President, here he spells it out even more clearly:
Americans are being kidnapped, held hostage, even beheaded. Over a thousand American soldiers have died.
What is to be the answer, in John F. Kerry's mind, to these acts of inhuman murder against our civilians, and the deaths of our brave service men and women in combat? It is clearly stated in the nature of the answer that he accuses President George W. Bush of not having.
And George Bush has no plan to get us out of Iraq. John Kerry does.
Bingo. The more atrocities that Al-Zarqawi and his ilk commit in Iraq, the more impressive content that John F. Kerry will have to put in his ads, to demonstrate the need to remove American forces from Iraq. As go the fortunes of Al-Zarqawi, so go the fortunes of Senator John F. Kerry in this election. If Zarqawi orchestrates a mass rape of a convent full of nuns, followed by their one-by-one beheadings, all captured on videotape, John F. Kerry has one killer ad in the making. If Zarqawi should be captured or killed, Kerry will have to find some other murderous monster to promote on prime time television, if he wants to keep his campaign theme consistent.
This is by Kerry's express choice. He could at any point have stepped back, said that political differences should end at the water's edge during wartime, and made this election about domestic policy. Think of how his stock would have risen with ordinary American people were he to have done that. Yes, he would have lost the enthusiasm of the "Bush is Hitler" crowd, but they couldn't even win a lousy Democratic primary for Howard Dean, let alone a national election.
This is the ground John F. Kerry has staked out for himself. America is wrong, our enemy is very, very mean, and we are losing.
It is a daring strategy, granted, if you think that "daring" is to be admired. Some will be convinced. Some will flinch from the horror of what the enemy is doing, and blindly hope that by choosing a defeatist President, we can avoid our enemy's glare. Just how many remains to be seen, but some without a doubt will choose the Kerry/Al-Zarqawi ticket.
Others will be voting Bush/Cheney, and I don't believe they'll be in the minority.
Idiot Wind ... 09/23/2004
"One thousand U.S. casualties. Two Americans beheaded just this week. The Pentagon admits terrorists are pouring into Iraq," the ad says. "In the face of the Iraq quagmire, George Bush's answer is to run a juvenile and tasteless attack ad."
This is the Kerry campaign in response to a Bush/Cheney ad showing John F. Kerry engaging in the (apparently juvenile and tasteless) sport of windsurfing, with a voice-over describing his shifting views on important issues.
So, in the face of two innocent Americans being gruesomely butchered on video by an Al Qaeda terrorist, the response of the Kerry campaign is to rush out with the word "quagmire," and add these brutal and despicable crimes to a defeatist list of reasons to retreat and surrender.
There shouldn't be anything surprising about this, but somehow it still is surprising, and disturbing. How did this man John F. Kerry come to be one of the two we have to choose from in November to be President of this nation? How is it that he hasn't learnt anything since 1971? At the Democratic National Convention he promised he would defend this country if elected President. By telling the beheader Zarqawi exactly what he wants to hear at a crucial moment, he's already failing in that commitment.
Love And Theft ... 09/22/2004
I've been fortunate enough to strike up a correspondence with Ronnie Keohane after enquiring with her regarding the Lily Among Thorns website. It emerged along the way that she had written a piece back in 2002 relating lyrics from the Love & Theft album to the events of the day that it was released, September 11th, 2001. From Rolling Stone magazine on down, many people have remarked on some of the uncanny echoes audible on this album, released on that day. What to make of it? Would almost any Dylan album, listened to in that context, resonate strongly, because Dylan's is a world where the vital questions are always on the line, and mortality is being faced? Or is there something altogether distinct going on with Love & Theft?
Whatever you might think, you should find her piece interesting - and, if you're like me, you might also find it both moving and chuckle-inducing in parts. I'm grateful to be able to reproduce it here: "Bob Dylan: The Prophet's Son."
The Circus Is In Town ... 09/21/2004
No choice but to reprise this for Dan Rather. Sing it loud and try not to choke up:
This whole story and its ever-increasing list of names is beginning to resemble a surrealistic Dylan story song. We've got Bill Burkett, Lucy Ramirez, George Conn (con?! - and he is said to be the innocent party!), Ben Barnes, Joe Lockhart, Max Cleland ... we've got Texas, we've got surreptitious meetings at livestock shows, we've got:
In the parking lot outside, he said, he burned the ones he had been given and the envelope they were in.
Then,
... he drove to a location he would not specify, about 100 miles from his ranch, to put them "in cold storage."
The correct temperature for photocopies of forgeries?
He passes the documents to Mapes and Smith at "a drive-in restaurant near Baird."
I'm alternately hearing Brownsville Girl, Hurricane, and Tweeter & The Monkey Man. You'll have to listen for the echoes yourself - I have to earn some bread and butter today. However, the final word comes from a place we all know only too well.
Horse Race ... 09/20/2004
"Six in 10 Pakistanis voice their support of suicide attacks against 'enemies' of Islam," says UPI, reporting on a Pew study. In addition:
The Pew study found 47 percent of Pakistanis said that Palestinian bombings against the Israelis were justifiable while 36 percent said they are not.
An 11 point advantage there for sending children wrapped in explosives into Israel to detonate their own bodies and blow men, women and children to pieces. Even with a healthy margin of error, looks like the pro-slaughtering of innocents crowd would sweep the electoral college in Pakistan.
On the subject of deliberately killing yourself in order to take out American troops in Iraq, six in 10 older Pakistanis said that sounded like a useful way to spend your day. Somewhere between four and five in 10 of younger Pakistanis heartily agreed.
Original text copyright © 2004 by RightWingBob.com
Quotes from the works of others are linked to their source or are as otherwise attributed, and are used in accordance with Fair Use guidelines. Contact: rightwingbob(at)gmail.com
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