The powerful anti-Bush lyrics in Eminem's last album went largely unnoticed. But there's no mistaking it this time. With a week before the election, Eminem has released Mosh, along with an incredibly powerful video. Moby, yes the same Moby of whom that little imp Eminem once said in a song "You thirty-six year old baldheaded fag, blow me." Yes, Moby has called this new Eminem song and video the best thing that's been done all year. I could not find a downloadable copy of the awesome video, but here are links for a streaming version in Windows and RealAudio that will work. They're the official ones from eminem.com. You must watch this video: Windows Media Player Realmedia Here are some of the lyrics: All you can see is a sea of people some white and some black Don't matter what color, all that matters we gathered together To celebrate for the same cause don't matter the weather If it rains let it rain, yea the wetter the better They ain't gonna stop us they can't, we stronger now more than ever They tell us no we say yea, they tell us stop we say go Rebel with a rebel yell, raise hell we gonna let em know Stomp, push, shove, mush, Fuck Bush, until they bring our troops home (c'mon) ... Someone's tryina tell us something, Maybe this is god just sayin' we're responsible For this monster, this coward, That we have empowered ... Strap him with an …

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This is fascinating. Pat Buchanan's magazine, The American Conservative, decided not to endorse anyone this election, but instead run separate endorsements from the individual editors. Buchanan, while he disagrees with Bush on most things, decides to endorse him anyway. But the number two, Executive Editor Scott McConnell goes the other way. Altogether, the editorials break down: 1 for Bush, 1 for Kerry, 1 for Nader, 1 for the Libertarian, 2 for the Constitution Party, and 1 for staying home. They're all interesting, and from these links, you can check out all the others. Given, there's an unsavory anti-immigrant angle in some of it, but putting that aside, there is fascinating material in here supporting my long-standing and oft-reiterated view that there is nothing conservative about this president. The Kerry endorsement is here: http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html. Equally interesting to me, as a former Green leader and long-time proponant of decentralism is the Nader endorsement, http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover2.html,which asserts that his anti-corporatism is pure small-c conservatism.

To the Editor, In Jonathan Alter's October 18, 2004 Newsweek column, Try a Slice of Humble Pie, he says: "From the outset, Bush has treated John Kerry like a terrorist". The proper logical construction is not that Bush treats Kerry like a terrorist; it's that Bush treats anyone who disagrees with him, anyone who sees things differently, as "them", the Other. The woman who asked the debate question about whether he had made any mistakes, the media, the terrorists, Democrats, non-Fundamentalist Christians, cabinet members who've criticized him, are all evil, out to get him (and goodness in general.) A tactical benefit of seeing one's enemies as "them" is that it allows one to maintain a facade of civility while waging battle using inhuman tactics. There is no strategic difference between Abu Grab and the Swift Boat ads; they both assume an any-means-necessary approach justified by the ends. Bush doesn't treat John Kerry like a terrorist; he sees John Kerry as a terrorist. To George W. Bush, if you are not with him, you are against him, and if you are against him, you cannot be a righteous person. This way of thinking in anyone is dangerous; in the leader of the free world, it is catastrophic. Phil Rose New York, New York

To the Editor, In Jonathan Alter's October 11, 2004 Newsweek column, Your Gut Only Gets You So Far, Alter betrays a wrong-headed understanding of the thesis of Malcolm Gladwell's upcoming book, Blink. I hope Alter hasn't read the book but only heard about it around the cocktail party circuit; otherwise, his characterization is inexplicable. Gladwell's broad thesis, as I understand it after reading the impressive book, is that people often distrust their gut reaction and overthink a problem, that their initial decision is not a simplistic instinct-only response but a relatively sophisticated one, and that, not recognizing this fact, they spend a lot of time proving it out. His secondary point is that this proving is really only so they can feel OK about the view they already arrived at; it often adds nothing to the decision and, critically, can distract or deter them from deciding and acting. Does this describe a tendency in Kerry? No doubt. But calling Bush a "blink" president is absurd. Gladwell's "blink" is a far cry from Bush's uninformed and rigid decision making. In the example Alter cites from the book, the decision makers are the world's best-informed and most up-to-date experts in their field -- classical art. Their gut feelings about a forgery are based on vast knowledge. The core thesis of Blink is that what seems like instinct is actually the lateral synaptic processing of huge amounts of data -- and shouldn't be discounted. Gladwell does not support deliberate ignorance or a refusal …

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On Victor Davis Hanson's October 08, 2004 column in National Review Online, Sizing Up Iraq by Philip F. Rose [This was submitted to National Review as a letter to the editor, but I haven't noticed they ever publish letters from non-conservatives, only praise and minor squabbling, so I'm more than doubtful they will publish it.] Hanson's analysis, based he says on "constants across 2,500 years of time and space that presage victory or defeat" leaves out one rather significant area: Is it right for us to be there? Is it moral? Ethical? Worthy and obtaining of respect in the world? I realize it was not his task to answer this question, but I find it immoral in itself to ask only whether we can win without asking whether we have a moral leg to stand on as we shoot up a foreign country. To the question of whether we can win, Hanson is not very reassuring. The analysis is laden with seems to bes and so fars? He says, "There is as yet no mass movement analogous to the Vietcong." As yet? He says, "Unlike the case of South Vietnam, the provisional democratic government is not flanked by a hostile nuclear China or Soviet Union." This is true; neither China nor the now-nonexistent Soviet Union border Iraq. A hostile nuclear Iran does. Hanson's dismissals of Kerry's chance to do better are without merit. He says Kerry's attempts to map another course have been met with "polite chuckles". Who's chuckling? Hanson? …

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