The tribe has spoken, now for goodness sake get a life

The Sydney Morning Herald. ^ | November 7, 2004 | Miranda Devine

[ConservativeStatement]

'How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" shrieked Britain's Daily Mirror in an enormous front-page headline. "Why did so many Americans get off their backsides to vote this time around?" wondered Ian McDonald in a letter to Melbourne's Herald Sun. "Were all the donut shops closed for the day?"

These were among the more rational responses last week to the US election "disaster" from sore losers, reeling from inexplicable (to them) back-to-back victories of the two most vilified leaders of the coalition of the willing.

[ConservativeStatement]

As if I needed another reason to love Australia.

[ConservativeStatement]

If you are having problems with the link, try www.Google.com, then select news and enter Miranda Devine -- the author's name .

[Mr. Mojo]

The SMH is unfortunately a register-to-read site.

[billorites]

We’ll save australia
Don’t wanna hurt no kangaroo
We’ll build an all american amusement park there
They got surfin’, too

[Right_in_Virginia]

'How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" shrieked Britain's Daily Mirror in an enormous front-page headline

The "Daily Mirror" needs to revise that number --- upward ;-)

[denydenydeny]

My favorite line in the piece is the final one:

It is this inescapable realisation of their own impotence which so baffles and enrages their enemies.

[ConservativeStatement]

Right on, mate! Loved it, too. LOL.

[Blood of Tyrants]

http://www.bugmenot.com

Download it and install it and when you need to register at a non-pay site, bug-me-not will come up with a name and password automatically. Works on most non-pay sites.

[billhilly]

I live in a red state, but a blue county. Also, I'm certainly old enough to have seen this all coming. The liberalism of America, I mean. Strip the lefties of their Starbucks, and their Deli and they would be hard put to feed themselves.

People in the red states are doers as well as thinkers, and when they read tripe, they know it. They are also capable of farming, gardening, canning, clothes washing and any number of skills that not too many generations ago were required for survival. Other skills were hunting and fishing. We know how to feed ourselves. We also have all of the farmland except Illinois, Wisconsin and California.

[MeekOneGOP]

Election 2004 and 2000 county-by-county:

2004:

2000:

[AndyJackson]

We also have all of the farmland except Illinois, Wisconsin and California.

I think you have all of the famland except for the government subsidised cheese industry.

[reformed_dem]

We have the California farmland. The Central Valley is all red.

[billhilly]

Good to know. I lived along the coast near Ventura in the early sixties, but that was a long time ago.

[NZerFromHK]

I'm frankly surprised why the SMH (a leftie LSM kind of like Australia's UK Guardian) would publish a conservative article until I saw the source: the Melbourne Herald Sun. No wonder why.

Anyway for the benefit of most here, here's the article;

---

The tribe has spoken, now for goodness sake get a life

By Miranda Devine
November 7, 2004
The Sun-Herald

'How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" shrieked Britain's Daily Mirror in an enormous front-page headline. "Why did so many Americans get off their backsides to vote this time around?" wondered Ian McDonald in a letter to Melbourne's Herald Sun. "Were all the donut shops closed for the day?"

These were among the more rational responses last week to the US election "disaster" from sore losers, reeling from inexplicable (to them) back-to-back victories of the two most vilified leaders of the coalition of the willing.

The parallels between the Bush and Howard victories are remarkable. Both incumbents were wildly maligned as liars and dangerous right-wing lunatics who sneaked back into office by selling their nations' souls to fundamentalist Christian weirdos.

Both challengers underestimated their opponent. John Kerry was quoted in Newsweek saying to an aide: "I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot." Latham thought he could bully Howard with a handshake.

Polls and pundits before both the Australian and US elections agreed the result was "too close to call", at least within margins of error, until they were socked with resounding Howard/Bush victories. Both incumbents pulled off unforeseen majorities in their respective senates. Howard became the first prime minister in four decades to increase the Government's majority two elections in a row. Bush became the first president since 1936 to increase his vote the second time around. His haul of more than 59 million votes is the most of any president. He is the first presidential candidate since 1988 to win more than 50 per cent of the popular vote. Along with a record voter turnout, he increased his percentage support with women, Hispanics, blacks, Jews, Catholics and union members. His gay vote dipped but was still almost 25 per cent. So much for Michael Moore.

Then there were the uncannily similar pre-election dinner parties in both countries. In Sydney we had the ABC's Media Watch presenter David Marr: "We were at it again the other night: a bunch of journalists, old friends and colleagues, eating, drinking and thrashing out the problems of the country . . . the newspapers and networks we work for seem to be reporting another country and another government," he said in a speech in September.

Conservative "tabloid thuggery" was "sapping the confidence of Howard critics" to do their duty, he complained, despite abundant evidence to the contrary.

In New York, columnist Tina Brown wrote of a "surreal moment at a serious Manhattan dinner party when 12 power players who had all been talking at once about the mess in Iraq suddenly fell silent to listen to the waiter . . . 'I'm from the suburbs,' he announced, 'and I'm voting for Bush.' " She uses the rest of her Washington Post column figuring out how to convince people like the waiter they are wrong, rather than suspecting she and her dining companions might be the oddballs.

The post-election dismay of disappointed cognoscenti in both countries has been a wonder to behold. Used to getting their own way, they never dreamed the men they so revile would win so big, in the face of unprecedented celebrity opposition, Big Media antagonism and such campaigns as Not Happy John and Rock Against Howard.

The coalition of the hostile in Australia had to make do with Frenzal Rhomb and Bob Ellis, who plumbed new lows with a vicious paragraph about Melanie Howard and her husband.

But in the US, stars Ben Affleck, Bruce Springsteen and Cher came out in force against their "stupid lazy idiot" of a President. "Has everyone lost their f---ing minds?" Cher cried.

With most big newspapers in the US endorsing John Kerry, a study by the US Centre for Media and Public Affairs found Bush had received twice as much negative news coverage as his rival. In the last month Bush enjoyed 77 per cent negative media coverage.

Obviously, the bad press didn't hurt Bush any more than it did Ronald Reagan, who boasted 91 per cent negative coverage in 1984 before he won a record landslide in 49 of the 50 states. The Guardian newspaper's experiment backfired in Clark County, Ohio, where voters received letters from its readers urging them to dump Bush. Clark County, which voted Democrat in 2000, swung to Bush.

All the patronising arrogance, hatred and hyperbole did nothing to stop Bush or Howard. In fact it may even have helped them. It is this inescapable realisation of their own impotence which so baffles and enrages their enemies.

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[AndyJackson]

We have the California farmland.

Yes, but the Wisconsin dairy industry is blue. It is the cheese subsidy.