Lance Kuntzman of Hyannis, Mass., was the only respondent to last week’s trivia question to know that immersion foot, also known as trench foot, is the condition prosecutors allege Gary Dodds gave himself to make it appear as if he developed frostbite during his adventure in and around the Bellamy River last year. I’d include a picture of trench foot, but you don’t want to see one.
Dodds is innocent until proven otherwise, and I have no idea what happened that night. But if the prosecution is right I hope whatever fun he might’ve been having during his disappearance was worth it. Immersion foot is a nasty condition that could lead to gangrene, and recovery is painful. It’s a high price to pay to hide a secret.
And by the way, in case you’re thinking, “hmmm, Trench Foot would be a cool name for a metal band,” forget it. These guys, who claim “Our sound can not be restricted by classification, as we strive to encompass the entire spectrum of musical possibilities,” beat you to it.
Kuntzman takes as his prize the new release, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, by Robert Dallek. Nice bit of bookery for knowing about Mr. Dodds’ feet.
If you’ve received an e-mail comparing the energy consumption of Al Gore’s Nashville mansion vs. George W. Bush’s Texas ranch, Snopes.com confirms its veracity. Bush’s ranch is more environmentally friendly than Gore’s mansion.
Ooooh, that’s gonna make Al angry.
Former Democratic congressional candidate Gary Dodds of Rye has been indicted by a Strafford County grand jury on a felony charge of falsifying physical evidence and two misdemeanor charges, one of conduct after an accident and the other of causing a false public alarm. The felony charge involves alterations to a part of Dodds’ body.
Name the condition prosecutors think Dodds gave himself to make his appearance coincide with his story of swimming the Bellamy River and falling unconscious on the other side after wrecking his Lincoln Continental on the Spaulding Turnpike in April of last year. First correct response (except from a certain few people who know who they are) gets a pick of any prize I’ve got.
The prizes include, but are not limited to, Making War To Keep The Peace, by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, by Robert Dallek, The Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood, by Sy Montgomery, and Empire, by Orson Scott Card.
I have dozens of other books, and I might even have some non-book prizes up my sleeves, too.
My good friend Jon Sanders saw the story of Hugh Grant tossing a tin of beans at a photographer and concluded sagely that the incident has crucial lessons for the gun control debate. The lesson, of course, is that baked beans should be outlawed. Unfortunately, such legislation would lead to the inevitable rallying cry from baked-beans-rights groups: “If you outlaw baked beans, only criminals will have baked beans.”
I tried to watch the Democratic candidates debate last night. I really did. But sometime during a Hillary Clinton or Chris Dodd answer I became a nappy-headed editorial writer. I drifted off. This kept happening, but unfortunately not when Mike Gravel was speaking.
Throughout, I kept longing for one of two different scenarios. Either Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel disappeared, leaving the floor to candidates who actually have a prayer of at least getting on the ticket, or everyone else disappeared, leaving the floor to a snapping dachshund and an overexcited but defanged pit bull. I’d pay money to see that spectacle.
Based on what I saw between naps, I thought Biden did a little better than I expected, though the man just cannot contain his arrogance, Clinton sounded like she’d swallowed a small chunk of a cinder block and she couldn’t cough it out, Edwards kept going back and forth between trying to look prettier than Hillary and trying to sound more sagacious than Obama, Dodd looked and sounded like someone’s grandpa who wound up with a lectern only because he and one of the producers were once poker buddies back in 1965, Richardson was too laid back and came across as the cool kid who got voted onto the stage by his back-of-the-classroom cut-up buddies but was in over his head once the talking started, Kucinich gave the Sci-Fi Club its token representative, Gravel’s anger was calculated to make him seem more youthful and vigorous but all it did was make everyone else try to quickly recall if they’d had their rabies vaccine lately, and in the midst of all that Obama emerged as the serious, rational, normal, sincere and emotionally stable candidate.
I was surprised at how unpresidential John Edwards seemed. He was somehow diminished by the whole affair even though he tried desperately to show how smart and thoughtful he was. The looooong pause before identifying his moral leader was a good glimpse of his calculating manner. Can he ever go with a gut instinct? Does he have gut instincts? His answer to the mistake question — that he regretted his vote for the Iraq war and he learned to trust his own instincts better — was, I think, an unintentional admission that he did in fact vote for the war only because he was advised that it would be politically expedient and not because he had judged it to be the correct action at the time.
Dennis Kucinich should stay behind the curtain and send his wife out in his place from now on. He’d get a lot more votes that way, and her hair alone would distract whatever male candidates she happened to be standing beside.
Clinton should have lost the jaw-breaker sized pearls. And I thought she looked tired. She wasn’t as quick with the answers as she can be, and she was neither elevated nor diminished by being the only woman on stage. She just was, and she didn’t seem to distinguish herself from the crowd too often. Her answers tended to be thoughtful and very polished, but her demeanor and delivery were uncharacteristically, well, like an old woman. She’s better than that, and I’m sure she was disappointed afterward.
From my view, Obama came away the clear winner, if anyone can be said to have “won” that so-called debate. He stumbled at times, but on the whole he showed he could hold his own with the more seasoned pols, he was calm, confident, firm and forceful when he needed to be but casual and relaxed when the moment called for it. What struck me most was his cool confidence. The guy just looked like he could handle anything thrown at him (except a question about what he did in his personal life to save the planet) and that can go a long way in the eyes of an undecided voter who is judging the candidates more on general impression than policy specifics, and I think those are most voters.
Rudy Giuliani has gained the support of Executive Councilor Ray Wieczorek and former House Speaker Doug Scamman. Wieczorek’s support is not at all a surprise. Ray’s son JIm works on Giuliani’s campaign, and the former Manchester mayor’s endorsement was expected. Wieczorek and Scamman join as two of four state co-chairmen for Giuliani.
The other two co-chairmen are attorney and former state GOP finance chairman Tom Christo and former state GOP vice chairman and New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women president Georgi Hippauf. Christo was among the attendees at Giuliani’s last New Year’s Eve bash in New York City.
Charlotte Allen has a good story at The Weekly Standard today exploring why the National Right to Life Committee dislikes McCain, the most solid and consistent pro-life presidential candidate in this race. Bet you can guess what the beef is.
I was at the Rudy Giuliani speech in Manchester last night when, according to Roger Simon, he said that if a Democrat wins the White House we’ll have another 9/11. But I never heard Giuliani say that, and the quotes in Simon’s column do not support that allegation.
The headline on Simon’s Politico.com column reads: Giuliani warns of ‘new 9/11′ if Dems win. Why is “new 9/11″ in quotes? As far as I can find, Giuliani did not say it. And Simon does not quote him as saying it.
Giuliani’s point was that all of the Republican candidates for President advocate an aggressive, offense-based approach to the War on Terror while all of the Democratic candidates advocate a more passive, defensive approach. He encapsulated that idea in this quote:
“Never, ever again will this country ever be on defense waiting for [terrorists] to attack us if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense!”
He was speaking of the entire War on Terror, and though he said several times that Republicans prefer an offensive approach while Democrats prefer a defensive one, not once did he say that if a Democrat is elected President we would have another 9/11. He never said it, and the headline on Simon’s column is grossly inaccurate.
Democrats warn all the time that Republicans are making us less safe by taking a too-aggressive approach to terrorism, an approach makes Muslims hate the United States and radicalizes them. And the press never calls them on this. But if a Republican suggests that Democrats are making us less safe by not being aggressive enough, it is somehow considered out of bounds. Yet last night, nothing Giuliani said about the War on Terror was out of bounds. He was pointing out the different ways that Democratic and Republican presidential candidates think about the War on Terror, just as Democrats do all the time.
Well, the written announcement speech was great, but McCain’s delivery of it was wanting. He hadn’t internalized the speech, and he kept looking down at his notes to read it. Unfortunately that hindered his delivery, which had moments but tended to be weak. As he was leaving the stage, the C-SPAN microphone picked him up saying that he couldn’t read the teleprompter. A very bad development for one of the most important speeches of your campaign.
Just got an advance copy of Sen. John McCain’s announcement speech, which he’s making in Portsmouth today. It’s excellent, definitely the best speech he’s given in this campaign and maybe the best speech any candidate has given in this campaign.
McCain right away explains that his support for continuing the fight in Iraq is not a blind support for what the liberals are calling “Bush’s war,” but rather a more sophisticated decision to recommit to winning a very difficult conflict that he believes we absolutely must win. He also makes clear that he thinks the Bush administration has bungled much and has at times been incompetent.
“We all know the war in Iraq has not gone well. We have made mistakes and we have paid grievously for them. We have changed the strategy that failed us, and we have begun to make a little progress. But in the many mistakes we have made in this war, a few lessons have become clear. America should never undertake a war unless we are prepared to do everything necessary to succeed, unless we have a realistic and comprehensive plan for success, and unless all relevant agencies of government are committed to that success. We did not meet this responsibility initially. And we must never repeat that mistake again.
“We must also prepare, far better than we have, to respond quickly and effectively to another terrorist attack or natural calamity. When Americans confront a catastrophe, natural or man-made, they have a right to expect basic competence from their government. They won’t accept that firemen and policemen are unable to communicate with each other in an emergency because they don’t have the same radio frequency. They won’t accept government’s failure to deliver bottled water to dehydrated babies or rescue the infirm from a hospital with no electricity. They won’t accept substandard care and indifference for wounded veterans.
“That’s not good enough for America. And when I’m President, it won’t be good enough for me.”
He then lays out what he would work to accomplish as President.
“I want my presidency to be an opportunity – an opportunity to fix what we all know needs to be fixed:
“to strengthen our military, intelligence, diplomacy, and law enforcement and use the power of American ideals and commerce to win the war against violent extremists, and help the majority of Muslims who believe in progress and peace to win the struggle for the soul of Islam;
“to balance the federal budget not with smoke and mirrors but by encouraging economic growth and preventing government from spending your money on things it shouldn’t; to hold it accountable for the money it does spend on services that only government can provide in ways that don’t fail and embarrass you;
“to save Social Security and Medicare on our watch without the tricks, band-aid solutions, lies and posturing that have failed us for too long while the problem became harder and harder to solve;
“to make our tax code simpler, fairer, flatter, more pro-growth and pro-jobs;
“to reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign sources of oil with an energy policy that encourages American industry and technology to make our country safer, cleaner and more prosperous by leading the world in the use, development and discovery of alternative sources of energy;
“to open new markets to American goods and services, create more and better jobs for the American worker and overhaul unemployment insurance and our redundant and outmoded programs for assisting workers who have lost a job that’s not coming back to find a job that won’t go away;
“to help Americans without health insurance acquire it without bankrupting the country, and ruining the quality of American health care that is the envy of the world;
“to make our public schools more accountable to parents and better able to meet the critical responsibility they have to prepare our children for the challenges they’ll face in the world they’ll lead.”
McCain moves to distinguish himself from the Bush administration’s focus on election results rather than policy results, saying:
“I won’t judge myself by how many elections I’ve won, but by how well I keep my promises to you. To keep those promises, I can’t just win this election by a few votes in a few counties in a few states. I need a mandate from you big enough to convince Congress that Americans want this election to be different. You want to change the politics of selfishness, stalemate and delay; move this country forward and stake our claim on this century as we did in the last. Then I ask you for the opportunity to devote every day of my presidency to making this government work for you, and for a mandate big enough to get the job done.
“I’ll challenge myself and each member of Congress to wake up each morning and ask ourselves: will we remember today as the finest day of our public life; the day we worked just for you, not for us? And I’ll challenge the American people to reject phony soundbite solutions that have failed us in the past, and hold us accountable for the work you have given us.”
His conclusion, I think, is outstanding.
““I’m not running for President to be somebody, but to do something; to do the hard but necessary things not the easy and needless things. I’m running for President to protect our country from harm and defeat its enemies. I’m running for President to make the government do its job, not your job; to do it with less and to do it better. I’m not running to leave our biggest problems to an unluckier generation of leaders, but to fix them now, and fix them well. I’m running for President to make sure America maintains its place as the political and economic leader of the world; the country that doesn’t fear change, but makes change work for us; the country that doesn’t long for the good old days, but aspires to even better days. I’m running for President of the United States; not yesterday’s country; not a defeated country; not a bankrupt country; not a timid and frightened country; not a country fragmented into bickering interest groups with no sense of the national interest; not a country with a bloated, irresponsible and incompetent government. I’m running for President of the United States, a blessed country, a proud country, a hopeful country, the most powerful and prosperous country and the greatest force for good on earth. And when I’m President, I intend to keep it so.”
I’ve not been a McCain fan. But after this Reaganesque speech I think a lot of conservatives might give him a second look.
I went to Rudy Giuliani’s speech in Manchester last night, where I met Fred Thompson in line at the bar right after the speech. He said he loved the speech and was very excited to have made it to the event. OK, it wasn’t that Fred Thompson. It was Fred Thompson from Atkinson. I caught his name tag and had to ask if that was his real name. He said it was, and he had to convince the woman at the registration table because she didn’t believe him. Was he supporting Rudy or his namesake for President? “I really like him,” he said of the other Fred Thompson. But he likes Rudy, too, and he hasn’t made up his mind yet. He wouldn’t mind getting his picture taken with each of them, though.
The event went well. Rudy’s still not a polished public speaker, but he’s getting better. With his self-effacing manner and constant jokes about his own ambition and career, he is a very endearing speaker. I counted more than 200 people at the speech, and they seemed to really take to him, especially when it came to foreign policy. He’s got to work on his command of domestic issues, though.
He does really well with the vague ideology. He cast himself as the heir to Abraham Lincoln, as a candidate dedicated to the Republican ideals of personal freedom. He did a good job connecting all of his policy proposals to Lincoln’s belief in individual liberty. It was an effective theme. It reminded me a little of how Barack Obama sticks to lofty rhetoric to inspire his audience, and in the end they don’t always notice that they didn’t get a lot of meat. Rudy’s speech was that way. Big on broad ideas, thin on detail. It was effective and it inspired the audience. He should stick to that strategy until he has to start getting into more detail.
The Manchester Artists Association is seeking new artists for juried exhibits in the MAA Gallery on Elm Street. If you know any local artists or photographers looking to get their work displayed, you can have them contact Gallery Director Nancy Johnson at the gallery.
