About
Captain Ed is a father and grandfather living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, a native Californian who moved to the North Star State because of the weather. He lives with his wife Marcia, also known as the First Mate, their two dogs, and frequently watch their granddaughter Kayla, whom Captain Ed calls The Little Admiral.
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The Crows Nest
Rule 1: Drag The Corpse On Over First
If I've learned anything in four years of blogging, don't try to be out in front of the death rumors, especially with the villains of the world. Saddam died a hundred deaths before we caught him alive in his spider hole, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi almost as many before his demise last year. Osama may or may not be alive, but everyone's avoided speculating on his fate for a while now. Maybe Val at Babalu Blog will get luckier with his "Castro Is Dead" story. We all hope so. I'll wait for the announcement ....
Hobbs Choice
Volunteer Voters is holding its annual "Best of Nashville" on-line polls, and one of the categories is for the best political writer. Our friend Bill Hobbs, now posting at Newsbusters, and he'd like his on-line fans to cast their votes. Drop by and put one in for Bill if you get a chance!
Murtha Getting Backlogged On Apologies
Gary Gross of Let Freedom Ring sees another case collapsing on the Haditha charges. He's called for Murtha to apologize earlier, and adds another reason to the tally.
No Such Thing As 'Moderate' Islam?
Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan told a television interviewer that he finds the label "moderate Islam" offensive. Shrink Wrapped has a lot more on this, but at least in the same interview Erdogan acknowledged that "radical Islam" exists, and that it's been a catastrophe. Be sure to read the whole post.
MS-NBC Gets Punk'd
Power Line has a great post on a lack of journalistic effort on the part of MS-NBC. In covering the Michael Vick story, they reported on what they thought was Al Sharpton's website proclaiming Vick's innocence. I guess Alex Johnson and two other MS-NBC reporters couldn't bother to read the title bar of the site, which proudly proclaims it as a "parody site".
New Instapundit Podcast On Pharmaceuticals
I just caught this e-mail from Glenn Reynolds about his new podcast with Richard Epstein, the author of Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but the topic is important enough to make sure I carve out time for it tomorrow. Get their first and tell me what I'm missing ....
Fed Trying A 'Stealth Easing'?
The Federal Reserve seems to have conducted a quiet campaign to steady markets that started spinning out of control, according to King Banaian at SCSU Scholars. He thinks that the Fed has conducted a "stealth easing". Be sure to read his explanation and follow his lnks.
A Shameless Bit Of Sel-Promotion
Gateway Pundit and Val at Babalu Blog note a crass PR move by Hugo Chavez. Venezuela has responded to Peru's eathquake disaster with food shipments -- and with Hugo's smiling picture on the cans. He also uses the tuna-can label to undermine President Garcia of Peru, who narrowly defeated Chavez' pal Ollanto Humalla, whom the labels extol for his "solidarity" with Chavez.
Tacky beyond belief.
Bush Going After Palestinian Terror Financing?
George Bush's new orders to USAID forces them to review the executive management of all NGOs to ensure that they have no terrorist connections. Carl in Jerusalem says at Israel Matzav that the order specifically intends to target Palestinian front groups for terrorists. Let's hope he's right.
Slow Start!
Yes, I'm off to a slow start today, thanks to some scripting issues, a bad back, and an alarm clock that needs replacing. Bear with me -- I'm ramping up, I promise...
And Now, In Little League Action Last Night ...
I once played in a Little League game where we lost, 30-1, obviously before mercy rules came into being. The only comfort during that shellacking was that 13-year-olds don't have to justify their salaries for being on the field. You have to wonder what the Baltimore Orioles have to feel without that caveat today, after losing 30-3 to the Texas Rangers. Sixteen of the runs came in the last two innings .... (via TMV)
Bush Speech On Iraq
I got a couple of e-mails wondering why I haven't linked to George Bush's speech today. I liked it; I just didn't have much to add. Rush Limbaugh covered it well on his site, and Power Line also links approvingly but has nothing much more to say. Michael Goldfarb notes that the Weekly Standard had made a similar argument regarding Vietnam a year ago.
Rove Fears Me -- No, Really!
Hot Air notes the latest fundraising letter from John Edwards. No longer content to indulge his paranoia when Ann Coulter mentions him, now he wants to indulge it when Karl Rove doesn't. Has any candidate seemed this desperate before now?
Racism Or Hard Truth?
Angela Winters looks at an editorial cartoon and the controvery it has caused in Jacksonville, Florida, especially in the black community. Truth or racism? When rap artists tell young listeners not to cooperate with the police, how much responsibility do they have for the victimization that follows? Read all of the essay at The Moderate Voice.
Support Citizen Journalism
Bill Ardolino at INDC Journal reminds us that there is a reporter shortage on the front lines. The best way to solve that problem? Donate to Public Multimedia, the citizen-journalist organization that supports Bill Roggio, Bill Ardolino, and others. (And a direct donation to Michael Yon would be much appreciated as well.)
Comments (15)
Posted by patrick neid | May 29, 2007 12:02 PM
without the press ginning up the story there is no possibility of accountability in scandal coverage. this latest story being a case in point. almost all committee hearings are the result of prior news coverage. very rarely does congress self generate. instead they read newspapers like poll data and react accordingly.
i continue to be amazed that repubs have been electing presidents, 28 of the last 40 years, despite living with a belligerent press.
Posted by dave rywall | May 29, 2007 12:45 PM
So, during all those years under Clinton, no Republican thought it worthwhile to scrutinize the hiring practices of the then Attorney General? My, how unobservant. Or is it incompetent.
Sounds like sour grapes and an attempt to cloud the issue - the Republicans got caught today but 14 years ago the Dems didn't, the only reason being that Repubs weren't paying attention.
The "they did it too" complaint would have a lot more weight to it if the Repubs had been doing their job of oversight a decade and a half ago.
Posted by Captain Ed | May 29, 2007 12:47 PM
Who controlled Congress in 1993?
Posted by burt | May 29, 2007 12:56 PM
I believe both Goodling and the Reno raconteur indicated that politics strongly influenced non political jobs. That may verge on the illegal.
Posted by dave rywall | May 29, 2007 1:47 PM
I dunno who controlled congress in 93. I do know anybody can bitch about anything anytime if they want to, though. Doesn't appear that that happened when, perhaps, it should have. To complain about it now in May of 2007 is pretty lame.
Posted by rbj | May 29, 2007 1:52 PM
Jeez, davey, how can you be so ignorant of who controlled Congress in '93? I'll give you a hint, the first letter of the party is D.E.M.O.C.R.A.T.I.C.
No surprise they didn't investigate.
I suspect that both parties have been doing this for a long time, it's just now that one party has decided to play "pure and innocent."
Posted by Charles | May 29, 2007 1:56 PM
An anonymous source? Why? It can't be that the source is afraid that the Democratically-controlled executive branch will exact revenge for whistle-blowing.
This is just another example where people are willing to believe any evidence, no matter how suspect, that agrees with their own beliefs.
A while ago there was a retiring member of the DoJ who said that the Reno DoJ was the least political in his experience. And he wrote under his own name, you can look it up. It was, of course, poo-pooed by the likes of some on this blog. We have the sworn testimony of Goodling, about which Captain Ed has been utterly silent (how about that, CE? Admitted and apparent illegal activities going on under AGAG's watch -- this is beyond incompetence, it's criminal negligence on the part of the AG). Now we may have someone who refuses to divulge his name so we can judge his provenance, and it's truth is taken for granted.
I suggest that everyone wait until the source behind this is divulged before getting all excited.
Posted by dave rywall | May 29, 2007 2:39 PM
There was nothing preventing the Repubs from raising holy hell if they were so upset about the hiring practices, regardless of who controlled congress. They weren't upset, they didn't act and now it's 14 years later. Now the Repubs are getting nailed for something they could have easily have taken action on against the Dems a decade and a half ago.The Repubs got caught and should take their lumps.
It's the old YEAH BUT defense: like the younger brother getting caught for coming home drunk at 15 and, in his defense, saying yeah but his older brother did the same thing 14 years ago. Ridiculous.
Posted by jr565 | May 29, 2007 4:05 PM
Dave,
I don't think they bothered raising holy hell, because I think they figured it was a given that a president would hire attorneys who were in line with his policies, and that there would be some political connections involved. They didn't therefore raise a stink because, on this issue, unlike the democrats, they are not demagoging hypocrites.
With the amount of umbrage your side has raised about a complete non story and the attempt to try it in the media as if it were the second coming of watergate, don't you think it should be noted that stulff like this was swept under the rug when Clinton and co. did it. They're supposedly the opposite side of the coin to the evil republicans after all.
If lumps should be taken though for stuff like this, your side should at least acknowledge that your guys should have taken the lumps but didn't because your side swept it under th rug like the hypocritical demagoging crooks that they are.
This doesn't speak ill of the conservatives in the past it speaks ill of you and your side, because it points out a) that this is a complete non scandal that is being drummed up by your side completely for political purposes, and that your faux outrage is only as deep as your partisanship.
Posted by Angry Dumbo | May 29, 2007 5:14 PM
Sadly, Captain, Democrats don't lose here. The DOJ firings were part of the Chucky and Rahm show to throw a bone to their "truther" base, who believes the DOJ firings are part of the much more sinister Bush/Cheney plan behind Iraqi intelligence reports.
Chucky and Rahm are playing their Soros/Truther base like fiddles. So far it is working to raise load of money and activate folks to their cause. However, these people will get wise to this game after a while and expect Chuck and Rahm to walk the walk.
Just ask Mother Sheehan.
Posted by Major O | May 29, 2007 6:03 PM
And that's it exactly jr565:
It's important to note that many of the folks crowing over this supposed "scandal" were elected officials when the Clinton Administration did the same thing in '93. The fact that some of these SAME people have now changed their tune is critical to showing what is REALLY going on here, so no, it isn't just a "Oh YEAH? Well THEY did it too!" cop out as some on this thread maintain.
Posted by Major O | May 29, 2007 6:06 PM
And that's it exactly jr565:
It's important to note that many of the folks crowing over this supposed "scandal" were elected officials when the Clinton Administration did the same thing in '93. The fact that some of these SAME people have now changed their tune is critical to showing what is REALLY going on here, so no, it isn't just a "Oh YEAH? Well THEY did it too!" cop out as some on this thread maintain.
Posted by Ryoushi | May 29, 2007 6:15 PM
Old news. Republicans have got to get past whining about the Clinton Administration.
The real damage here is how dismally the Bush appointees have performed in the aftermath. Who hired these people?
Posted by pilsener | May 29, 2007 8:56 PM
PLEASE!
Someone tell me with a straight face that they don't believe that politics goes on everywhere in Washington.
Just like professional wrestling, it's impossible for just part of it to be "fake". The air, the water, the stones, the office furniture, every part of the federal government is suffused with political considerations. So to look at any agency at any time and find politics going on is a great deal less than shocking.
Posted by MarkW | May 30, 2007 6:20 AM
In 1993, the Senate was still in the hands of the Democrats.
Is it any wonder that a Democratic congress decided that a Democratic president could do no wrong?