July 1, 2005
In a blogpost that the Captain slapped up a few days ago -- Oh. Wait, let me introduce myself: this is Dafydd ab Hugh, guest-blogging for Captain Ed while he recuperates from winning $2.8 million in the World Series of Poker finale, playing (as is his wont for FEC reasons) under the name Tuan Le. If someone posts here under the name "Captain Ed" (including the quotation marks) in the next few weeks, it's actually the nom de plume du jour of well-known labor leader and founder of the Socialist Party of America, Eugene Debs. I may be the most well-known blogger in the blogosphere who doesn't actually have a blog (yet; shortly). You may remember me from my high-school filmstrip series "It's All About Adhesives." Getting back to the point at hand, in this post, Captain Ed (the original) noted that evidence is mounting that the recently elected president...
As CQ readers know, I will be leaving for Washington DC for a week-long vacation in our nation's capital. We've turned this into a family trip, with the First Mate joining me and my mother (Vayapaso) and my sister meeting us for parts of the week. None of us have been to DC before, and we're all looking forward to the trip. My vacation started last night, as I'm taking today off to finalize some arrangements for the dogs and the house ad, of course, start packing. Vacation for a blogger doesn't mean that blogging will stop; I plan to continue posting throughout my trip, hopefully with photos of a few of the sights of DC. However, it does mean that my pace will slow down a bit. For that reason, I have invited commenter extraordinaire and long-time correspondent Dafydd ab Hugh aboard as a guest blogger. His first post,...
Gallup announced yesterday that it had taken a snap poll after the speech given by George Bush on the war in Iraq from Fort Bragg. The poll showed some movement bolstering support for the war. In fact, it showed Bush picking up ten points on whether we are winning in Iraq (up to 54%), twelve points on keeping troops in Iraq until the situation improves as opposed to setting an exit date for their evacuation (now at 70%/25%), and seven points on whether Bush has a clear plan for handling the war in Iraq (up to 63%/35%). All of these gains were made, Gallup points out, despite the fact that the speech had the lowest ratings of any prime-time presidential address in Bush's terms of office. Only 23 million people watched the speech, and Gallup notes that most of them consisted of Bush supporters. CNN also reported on the low...
As Sherlock Holmes would often say, the game's afoot -- Sandra Day O'Connor has resigned from the Supreme Court: Supreme Court Justrice Sandra Day O'Connor submitted her retirement notice to President Bush on Friday, setting the stage for a contentious battle over her replacement. ... One of the court's two swing votes, O'Connor often sides with more conservative justices as she did in the Bush v. Gore ruling in 2000. O'Connor's retirement puts more pressure on the Senate than a Rehnquist retirement would have done. Rehnquist has consistenly provided a conservative voice on the court, and replacing him with another conservative would probably not have concerned moderate Democrats, who want to keep their powder dry for selected battles. O'Connor, however, has voted more from the center, and replacing her with a staunch conservative might get some of those moderate Democrats to the firing lines in the political battle to come....
The New York Times reports on the burgeoning effort by the GOP to extend its reach into a crucial Democratic demographic. Black Republicans have started to run for offices across the country, a phenomenon that threatens the last bastion of lock-step Democratic voting, and their last hope of recapturing majority status in national elections: In Maryland, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, black Republicans - all of whom have been groomed by the national party - are expected to run for governor or the United States Senate next year. Several other up-and-coming black Republicans are expected to run for lower statewide offices in Missouri, Ohio, Texas and Vermont in 2006. It is not clear that local Republican organizations will embrace all of those candidates, and several face primaries. But national Republican leaders have been enthusiastically showcasing those blacks' campaigns, saying that whether those candidates win or lose, the party can still gain...
Glenn Kessler reports on the status of Palestinian efforts to secure their territories for more far-reaching peace initiatives in today's Washington Post, and finds that the Palestinian Authority has fallen far short in even forming a unified security force under civilian control. The Palestinians still refuse to confront and disarm militants, perhaps because a majority of their official state security forces don't really exist: Though Israel is scheduled to depart the Gaza Strip in six weeks, the badly fractured Palestinian security forces are still struggling to consolidate into a body capable of maintaining control, a top U.S. general told Congress yesterday. Lt. Gen. William E. Ward, who four months ago was assigned to assist the Palestinians with their security services, described a difficult and at times frustrating experience of trying to reorganize a "dysfunctional" system of individual fiefdoms and an almost nonexistent chain of command. The Palestinian police also have...
MEMRI provides a translation of a column that ran earlier this month in the influential Saudi newspaper, Al-Jazirah. In an interesting departure from normal Arab anti-American rhetoric, the state-approved daily published this reflection on the historical benefits that the Saudi-American association has provided the oil-rich kingdom. It also argues against the pan-Arabist impulse that has destabilized the entire region of Southwest Asia: What have the Arabs given us Saudis in comparison to what we have gained from our relations with America? I know very well that this is an extremely sensitive issue that many would hesitate to address; they are restrained by a culture of fear that prevents them from confronting controversial and sensitive issues head-on. The late King Abdul Aziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, was a resourceful and far-sighted statesman when he chose the Americans rather than the British to come and search for oil in the...
Reuters went out of its way to take a potshot at America today in a completely unrelated story about a 115-year-old Dutch woman and her predilection for herring: A Dutch woman who swears by a daily helping of herring for a healthy life celebrated her 115th birthday on Wednesday as the oldest living person on record. Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, a former needlework teacher, was born in 1890, the year Sioux Indians were massacred by the U.S. military at the Battle of Wounded Knee. So is Ms. Andel-Schipper a Sioux Indian? Did she marry a Sioux Indian? Is her middle name Sue? Apparently, the answer to all these questions is No. For some reason, however, Reuters chooses to use the Wounded Knee massacre as a benchmark for the life of a Dutch woman. Was Wounded Knee the only historical event of 1890 that Reuters could discover? Given that the article mentions...
(I could actually have picked all of the categories for this post, as the Supreme Court now encompasses the entirety of human endeavor.) Over at Patterico's Pontifications, Patterico suggests, in an update to a guest post by Angry Clam that is both angry and potty-mouthed, that a good choice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supremes would be Emilio Garza. I agree; but as always, I have my idiosyncratic reasons for doing so. UPDATE: Patterico notes in the comments here and on his own blog that he is not suggesting Judge Garza for the Supreme Court; he is predicting that Garza will get the nod. Patterico's actual fave for the seat is Judge J. Michael Luttig, who has sat on the 4th Circus for fourteen years. Apologies, Patterico! O'Connor was the first woman appointed to the Court. She was appointed by Ronald Reagan, but she turned out not to...
First, why is this even important? Because language frames thought. I won't go as far as George Orwell in the "Newspeak" chapter of Nineteen Eighty-Four; I don't believe that absent a word for a concept, the concept itself becomes literally unthinkable. But I do believe language structures thought, changing how we think about an idea. So creating a new word for Islamic terrorism changes how we perceive it, which affects how we fight it. This is especially true when the new word is actually a contraction of two other words, Islamic and fascism, into Islamofascism. The shortening restricts the ability to think critically about the alleged connection, short-circuiting rational thought and heading straight for the emotional centers. Or as Orwell put it, "Comintern is a word that can be uttered almost without taking thought, whereas Communist International is a phrase over which one is obliged to linger at least momentarily."...
AP reports that it has reports showing that inmates at Gitmo initiate violence against the guards at Camp X-Ray, and incidents of retaliation result in disciplinary action. Rather than the unfortunate victims of American oppression that Amnesty International has painted, the detainees actively attempt to provoke guards into confrontations, showing the dangerous nature of Gitmo's inmates: Military authorities have previously disclosed some incidents of guard retaliation at Guantanamo Bay, which resulted in mostly minor disciplinary proceedings. What emerges from 278 pages of documents obtained by The Associated Press is the degree of defiance by the terrorism suspects at Guantanamo. The prisoners banged on their cells to protest the heat. They doused guards with whatever liquid was handy from spit to urine. Sometimes they struck their jailers, one swinging a steel chair at a military police officer. And the American MPs at times retaliated with force punches, pepper spray and a...
July 2, 2005
The Democrats wasted no time coming out on the offensive against George Bush and the upcoming Supreme Court nomination. Senators from the minority caucus isseud warnings yesterday that they fully intend to continue their obstructionist tactics unless Bush meets with them in person to get their prior approval on any candidate: Capitol Hill braced yesterday for the first Supreme Court confirmation fight in nearly 11 years, and Democrats warned President Bush to consult them "face-to-face" before offering a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. ... Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat and a member of the committee, told reporters it would be "a shame" if Mr. Bush makes his nomination "without real face-to-face, back-and-forth consultation." Democrats argue that this is the correct meaning of the Senate's constitutional "advice and consent" role. No it isn't, and no Senate has ever demanded such a process from a President in American history....
The grassroots effort to convince the G-8 nations to rescue Africa got off to a shaky start this morning in Tokyo, the launching pad for the concert series designed to produce political pressure on the richest nations act now. Only 10,000 showed up for the debut concert in Tokyo: he Live 8 global music marathon to raise awareness of African poverty began in Japan on Saturday, as Bjork and Good Charlotte joined local bands in a concert that failed to generate much interest in Asia's only G-8 nation. Added to the Live 8 list at the last minute, the concert in Japan drew only about 10,000 people, all of whom were selected in a lottery. The venue in this Tokyo suburb normally holds about 20,000. Even so, organizers said that considering they had less than a month to prepare, it was a good showing. The Tokyo venue came as a...
The British government has started to research ways to ration energy use, not just for commercial ventures and government facilities but for each and every person in the UK. The Telegraph reports that Tony Blair's ministers have started thinking about imposing a system of "personal carbon allowances" that residents can barter or trade as they see fit, but which would restrict access to all forms of energy for consumers: Every individual in Britain could be issued with a "personal carbon allowance" - a form of energy rationing - within a decade, under proposals being considered seriously by the Government. Ministers say that increasingly clear evidence that climate change is happening more quickly than expected has made it necessary to "think the unthinkable". ... Under the scheme for "domestic tradeable quotas" (DTQs), or personal carbon allowances, presented to the Treasury this week, everyone - from the Queen to the poorest people...
MS-NBC analyst Lawrence O'Donnell announced on last night's McLaughlin Group that the person who outed Valerie Plame to Robert Novak was none other than Democratic bete noir, Karl Rove: Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove. Here is the transcript of O'Donnell's remarks: "What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is. "And I...
...Then he's off the hook legally. Again, a caution: I'm neither a lawyer, nor a law-school grad, nor a law-school admittee, nor even a wanna-be lawyer. (I was in the Navy once, so you can call me a sea lawyer.) I am, however, reasonably literate; so I will presume to give legal advice, secure in the knowledge that I have, in fact, nothing to lose! As Himself noted in Creepy Liar Strikes Again, Lawrence "Creepy Liar" O'Donnell now implies (without much credibility, and without explicitly making the claim) that the original leaker of Valerie Plame's name to Robert Novak was Karl Rove. O'Donnell says that e-mails from Time, Inc. between reporter Matthew Cooper and his editors at Time Magazine will prove this, though he does not claim to have actually seen the e-mail himself. So far as I can tell, O'Donnell, who is a producer of the NBC series the...
So this is what the Center of Democracy looks like! The First Mate and I landed in DC this afternoon, arriving at Ronald Reagan Airport around 4:30 pm. After the normal confusion of deplaning, we quickly collected our luggage and got our rental car, a Mazda compact that surprisingly handled all of our baggage. Due to a fundamental misjudgment of local geography, I booked our room in Gaithersburg, about 40 minutes outside of the sites we want to see, but the hotel is comfortable and affordable. The drive took so long that I had almost convinced myself that I had gotten lost, but the correct off-ramp appeared and we found ourselves checked in, exhausted. We ate at a lovely steak place called Sir Walter Raleigh's in Gaithersburg. It featured a generous salad bar and a casual atmosphere, and the 12-ounce sirloin I ordered came cooked to perfection. The only flaw...
After generating months of controversy from his remarks about 9/11 victims being "little Eichmanns" to disputes over his alleged Native American heritage and claims that he falsified key parts of his curriculum vitae, Ward Churchill has embarrassed University of Colorado innumerable times. However, it hasn't kept CU from giving Churchill a merit increase for his performance (via LGF): University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill was awarded a 2.28 percent merit pay increase this week for work performed in 2004, a little less than his department's average recommended salary increase for professors. A statement released by CU said pay increases for Boulder campus faculty are approved by interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano and based on reviews and recommendations by committees at the department, school or college, and administrative levels. Churchill's increase was finalized Thursday. The average recommended increase for ethnic studies department faculty was 3.21 percent, according to the CU statement. "In...
July 3, 2005
The Minneapolis Star Tribune runs an opinion piece by Mark Fitzgerald today bemoaning the loss of confidence for the media in today's market. He notes the recent Pew polling that shows that less than half of Americans believe that the press protects American democracy. Fitzgerald also laments the case of Diana Griego Erwin, the latest example of Exempt Media columnists that simply made up sources to create stories which matched her preconceived notions of how the world should work -- in this case, dozens of times -- with all those editorial layers about which we hear endlessly allowing it to continue for years. Fitzgerald wonders how the press can recover from these debacles to once again capture the confidence of the American public. His answer -- to bash Bush even more: How did we in the press fall from defender of democracy to an institution the public sees as either...
The New York Times takes on Africa in its op-ed pages today, offering not only a house editorial but an opposing opinion piece that dashes a bit of cold water on the Times' idealistic approach. The unsigned editorial offers praise for the work already done by the Bush administration on Africa, but insists that more money and effort needs to be forthcoming from the G-8 in order to rescue the continent: An unusual and mutually reinforcing set of possibilities is converging around this week's summit meeting of the world's richest countries in Scotland. If Mr. Bush is truly the compassionate conservative he says he is, he will not let the moment pass with the United States continuing to contribute far less than its share to the international effort to include Africa in the prosperity of the 21st century. ... But so far there has been a discouraging gap between Mr....
I received this in e-mail today from The Mahaka Surf Report, a blog that I had not yet read. While I'm pausing from my busy day seeing the sights of Washington DC, the capital of freedom and liberty, perhaps this can serve as a reminder of the brave men and women who have made it that. I pray Caelestis makes it back home, safe and sound, at the end of his tour of duty. I also pray that we Americans remember how fortunate we are to have someone like him defending and representing us. I hope Mahaka doesn't mind my reproducing this in full. Today I leave for the war Well it's time to go and do what I have been called to do. Today I head for to the war for the third time and I have some things to say. To me this is a blessing, a calling...
Democrats have apparently decided to be helpful in the upcoming judicial nomination process. Instead of caterwauling at the mere mention of the SCOTUS opening, they now have people floating suggestions in the media for "acceptable" choices. Norm Orenstein advises Bush to look outside the judiciary altogether and select a politician instead: Choosing judges, especially at the Supreme Court level, has taken on a heightened importance -- and presidents and their partisans want to make sure they know what they are getting. A track record at the federal appeals court level is a much safer predictor of behavior at the next level up than service in the U.S. Senate, or as a governor or in other political office. But having a court that consists largely or only of nonpoliticians has serious costs for the public. Not only are judges less inclined to think broadly of the country and its social and...
Someone needs to give Sir Bob Geldof a call. The Guardian (UK) has shifted the goalposts on Live-8, now claiming that the effort to rescue Africa from poverty now includes a Kyoto-style global-warming plan to force drastic energy reductions on the United States. In an article on Bush on the eve of the G8 summit, the Guardian conflates the two issues into one push: George Bush sounds a warning today to those hoping for a significant deal on Africa and climate change at Wednesday's G8 summit, making clear that when he arrives at Gleneagles he will dedicate his efforts to putting America's interests first. The president will adopt a stance starkly at odds with the idealism professed by the performers at Saturday's Live 8 concerts around the world and their television audience of 2 billion. "I go to the G8 not really trying to make [Tony Blair] look bad or...
July 4, 2005
The London Telegraph reports this morning that Iraqis have increasingly become so disenchanted with the insurgents -- both foreign and domestic -- that the tribal leaders have organized their own counterinsurgencies in areas like Qaim. These clan-based factions have turned on those who attempted to impose their own Taliban-like rules on communities: Tribal leaders in Husaybah are attacking followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist who established the town as an entry point for al-Qa'eda jihadists being smuggled into the country. The reason, the US military believes, is frustration at the heavy-handed approach of the foreigners, who have kidnapped and assassinated local leaders and imposed a strict Islamic code. ... Captain Thomas Sibley, intelligence officer of 3rd battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, based in Qaim, said: "People here were committed supporters of the insurgency but you cannot now even get a marriage licence." ... The trigger was the assassination of...
Yesterday, our family toured the DC area by bus, which allowed us to see most of the sites we intended to visit on our trip. We made it to the Vietnam War memorial, where the First Mate found the name of a family friend, William Rowland (picture in extended entry), who gave his life for his country in June 1968. The tour took us through other inspiring and thought-provoking monuments, such as the World War II memorial, the FDR monument, and Arlington Cemetery, where we visited John Kennedy's gravesite and thousands of others. We found all of these exhibits and remembrances remarkable. However, we found one particular display to resonate most with all of us, one that moved us the most. At the Smithsonian American History Museum, one of the newest exhibits greets visitors almost immediately upon entry. That is a three-story-long American flag -- a star-spangled banner with a...
Continue reading "A Fourth For Remembrance" »
When I first announced my trip to Washington, DC, I received many kind offers from local readers for assistance and pointers. One of the kindest offers came from a CQ reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, who gave me and my family a chance to tour the Pentagon on July 4th. Needless to say, we gratefully accepted this offer, and early this morning we started out our celebration of Independence Day by meeting him for the tour. He started us off in the west wing, the portion of the building that terrorists attacked on 9/11. We could not take pictures of the outside, but remarkably, we had no trouble taking pictures of the interior. The Pentagon has a beautiful memorial at Ground Zero for the victims of 9/11. (More pictures of the memorial and other experiences will be found in the extended entry.) Our friend also showed us the direction...
Continue reading "An Independence Day To Remember, Part I" »
July 5, 2005
James Allan wrote yesterday on the occasion of America's Independence Day to urge his fellow Canadians to reconsider their political choices. Now an ex-oatriate living in Australia, Allan finds that he can no longer comprehend Canadian politics, where the Conservatives sound like liberals in his adopted homeland -- and yet the electorate consistently mistrusts them and elects a single-party government on a consistent basis: When I raised this point during my time back in Canada -- that any well-functioning democracy needs the voters to kick parties out of power on a fairly regular basis -- I was met every time with this reply: "But Harper and the Tories are so right wing. We agree in theory, but really, no one could vote for them." The same sort of message could be heard implicitly on CBC radio and in most of the mainstream media. But here's the odd thing. In global...
After making Tom DeLay and his travel arrangements a major political issue this session, Nancy Pelosi has inadvertently created an embarrassment for dozens of Democratic lawmakers who found themselves in the same position as DeLay -- having outside funding for travel expenses go unreported and covered by lobbying groups in apparent violation of the House ethics rules. Now Pelosi herself has come under closer scrutiny as she revealed several questionable trips for herself: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) filed delinquent reports Friday for three trips she accepted from outside sponsors that were worth $8,580 and occurred as long as seven years ago, according to copies of the documents. ... The most expensive trip was not reported on Pelosi's annual financial disclosure statement or on the travel disclosure form that is required within 30 days of a trip. ... The unreported trip was a week-long 1999 visit to Taiwan, paid...
The Arabic world has now gotten a taste of al-Qaeda diplomacy over the past week, as Iraq-AQ ringleader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has changed tactics. Instead of just blowing up Iraqis in an attempt to demoralize the populace -- a strategy that clearly has backfired -- he has now turned his guns and bombs on diplomats posted to Iraq from neighboring Middle East countries: Gunmen fired on a convoy carrying Pakistan's envoy to Iraq on Tuesday in the third attack on a senior diplomat in three days, police sources said. The sources said two cars of gunmen fired at the convoy in the wealthy Mansour district of Baghdad but sped off after guards returned fire. Nobody was reported hurt, they said. Earlier in the day, Islamist terrorists wounded the envoy from Bahrain in another spray of gunfire. This follows the kidnapping of the Egyptian ambassador on Saturday, demonstrating that Zarqawi has...
Like a great many people in the blogosphere, Bernard Goldberg's book Bias resonated deeply with me. His honesty about the institutional biases of the mainstream media outlets, especially at his former home at CBS, confirmed what many of us argued for years: that the liberal mindset of the editorial filters at these institutions directly impacted what we read and saw in their output. Goldberg described himself in that book as "classically liberal," arguing that liberalism in America had taken a sharp left turn and left him and many others behind, allowing him to see the bias closely from the inside out. That self-categorization may not apply any longer after the publication of 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37. In this effort, Goldberg effectively outs himself as a conservative-libertarian as his roster of American embarrassments overwhelmingly takes on the Left. From its first pages, Goldberg...
A few days ago, when July was fresh and new, I argued in That Ain't the Half of It that it really doesn't matter whether Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was or was not a leader of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, because the enormity of his undisputed post-revolutionary career as an assassin for the Revolutionary Guard -- during which he murdered hundreds of Iranian dissidents living abroad -- simply overwhelmed the question of whether he was also a student radical. The only objection that could reasonably be raised (apart from dredging up some evidence to contradict the biography at GlobalSecurity.org) is that Ahmadinejad's homidical vocation, as horrific as it was, was not directed at us, and that we should only be concerned with attacks on America -- which moves the embassy-seizure question back to front and center. Now I argue that if that is your...
I had the opportunity to interview Bernard Goldberg this morning as we drove around Washington DC, as he kicked off the publicity campaign for his new book, The 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37). Unfortunately, my very full schedule today kept me from posting about the interview until now -- and that's too bad, because Goldberg has definitely declared himself on a mission with this book. Most of the people who frequent the blogosphere have read his seminal book on media bias, prosaically titled Bias. When I mentioned the fact that the book inspired me and many others to take action to combat the pervasive cultural bias in the media, he told me that the problem is much wider than that. "This takes on a much bigger subject, and this is the culture at large," he said. "Whether we are Democrats or Republicans, liberals...
July 6, 2005
Here is the first part of the transcript for my interview with Bernard Goldberg. In this part of the conversation, Goldberg talks at length about his disenchantment with liberalism and his frustration at the revolution in the liberal approach since the days of John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. CQ: Thank you for being here. I’m a big fan of your previous book, Bias -- BG: Thank you. CQ: One of my inspirations for becoming a blogger was the work you did in Bias, and I think that’s true of half the blogosphere, at least. That resonated, as you know, not just with the blogosphere but with a large portion of America that felt disenfranchised by the media at large. It seems that your new book speaks to that same constituency, but maybe on a broader basis. Is that your goal in writing this book? BG: That’s exactly right. What Bias...
I continue my converasation with Bernard Goldberg in this installment of the interview. Goldberg talks about his experiences with the blogosphere, the connection of sports to culture, and the New York Times. You can find Part I here. CQ: Did you follow some of the speculation in the blogosphere and the media as to who was going to be in your Top 10, Top 25? BG: [Laughs] A little bit. You know, I’m laughing because I’ve geared myself up to hear people say, “What? How come you didn’t put Hillary on the list?” Things like that. Of course, it goes without saying that the people on the Left will say to me, “How come Bush isn’t on the list? How come Rush isn’t on the list?” So I’m going to let people have fun with the list. I give them the opportunity on the very last page to tell me...
As many of you already know, I will appear at the Heritage Foundation on July 8th to speak at a symposium on bloggers, journalism, and the convergence of the old and new media. Mark Tapscott, the Director for Heritage's Center for Media and Public Policy, has titled the presentation as "Are Bloggers and Journalists Friends Or Enemies"? Originally, Mark had lined up Jim Hill, the managing editor for the Washington Post Writers Group, as my counterbalance for the presentation. Mark has now added Daniel Glover, the managing editor for National Journal's Technology Daily. Daniel also runs the NJ's Beltway Blogroll blog. Here's the description from the Heritage Foundation invitation: American blogger Ed Morrissey has broken story after sordid story on Canada's multi-million dollar Adscam scandal. But are bloggers "real" journalists? Are bloggers and journalists natural enemies or allies in reporting the news? Or are bloggers a completely new kind of...
Matt Drudge reports today that Senator Chuck Schumer has no intention on preserving the comity of the upper chamber when George Bush nominates a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor. Instead, he has joined his colleagues in the obstructionist camp to paint whomever Bush selects as a radical, regardless of their identity: Senate Judiciary Committee member Chuck Schumer got busy plotting away on the cellphone aboard a Washington, DC-New York Amtrak -- plotting Democrat strategy for the upcoming Supreme Court battle. Schumer promised a fight over whoever the President’s nominee was: “It's not about an individual judge… It's about how it affects the overall makeup of the court.” The chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was overheard on a long cellphone conversation with an unknown political ally, and the DRUDGE REPORT was there! Schumer proudly declared: “We are contemplating how we are going to go to war over this.” For...
The Democrats ratcheted up the tension over the new opening on the Supreme Court, declaring today that the gestures from the Bush administration today to key Senate Democrats do not amount to their definition of consultation. Ted Kennedy and Dick Durbin want a list of potential candidates from the White House that will allow the minority party to declare which are acceptable instead: Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois got a call Wednesday from White House chief of staff Andrew Card, who is with Bush in Europe for the Group of Eight summit. Card also has called Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Charles Schumer of New York and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, but no names of possible nominees were mentioned, according to the lawmakers' aides. The Democrats said they want to know more — specifically, whom the president is considering — before Bush sends his first Supreme Court nomination...
The capture of five American citizens in Iraq who allegedly have plotted attacks against the Iraqi government and American troops has caught the attention of the ACLU. The civil-rights group now insists that those Americans captured in a theater of war must have due process through civilian courts and have filed habeas briefs for their release: The U.S. military in Iraq has detained five Americans for suspected insurgent activity, Pentagon officials said Wednesday. The five have not been charged or had access to a lawyer, and face an uncertain legal future. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to identify any of them, citing the military's policy of not providing the names of detainees. They are in custody at one of the three U.S.-run prisons in Iraq. One was identified by his family and U.S. law enforcement officials as Cyrus Kar, an Iranian-American filmmaker and U.S. Navy veteran. Saying Kar is being...
To celebrate my DC adventures, we have decided to get together tonight (Thursday) at the Phoenix Park Hotel in the heart of Washington DC. Mike from PajamaHadin has graciously volunteered to do the honors as the point person for this celebration. We're going to try to find a place for dinner and/or drinks and meet at the lobby of the Phoenix Park Hotel at 7 PM. I apologize for the lack of notice on this event. I have been busy almost every waking moment during my trip here, and quite simply have not been able to make sense of my schedule until very recently. I just got back from Gettysburg this evening and had a late dinner, after which I've had to catch up on posting and e-mail. Thank goodness Mike has a central point at which we can congregate; I don't think Gaithersburg would have great appeal to most...
July 7, 2005
Extree, extree, getcha red-hot future combat today! As has been the case for, oh, a few thousand years, the violent tendencies of human beings are leading the way to tomorrow's technology. War is not only good for business, it's good for science. Here are just a few of the goodies that await us in future battlefields. Warning! This is a very long post, nearly all of which is tucked into the extended-entry section. Forwarned is forlorned!...
Continue reading "Dafydd: Future Shock & Awe" »
Sometimes watching the Corrections section of the newspaper can give readers the best instruction on the inner workings of the media. Normally, of course, one would expect that the kinds of corrections run by management fall into the category of poor fact-checking, which in this age of Internet and Nexis searches is inexcusable. The New York Times offers one today, however, that should raise eyebrows for everyone who reads it (emphasis mine): The Op-Ed page in some copies yesterday carried an incorrect version of an article about military recruitment. The writer, an Army reserve officer, did not say, "Imagine my surprise the other day when I received orders to report to Fort Campbell, Ky., next Sunday," nor did he characterize his recent call-up to active duty as the precursor to a "surprise tour of Iraq." That language was added by an editor and was to have been removed before the...
London suffered a series of coordinated bombing attacks this morning on the cusp of the G-8 conference in Gleneagles, Scotland, targeting its transportation systems just as in Madrid last year. Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for these attacks, which has caused an unknown number of deaths and injuries: Two people have been killed and scores have been injured after three blasts on the Underground network and another on a double-decker bus in London. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said it was "reasonably clear" there had been a series of terrorist attacks. He said it was "particularly barbaric" that it was timed to coincide with the G8 summit. He is returning to London. An Islamist website has posted a statement - purportedly from al-Qaeda - claiming it was behind the attacks. London's police chief Sir Ian Blair said there had been "many casualties" but it was too early to put a...
On July 7, 2005, let it be known that the world united behind our British brothers and sisters as fellow members of Western Civilization under attack by the forces of tyranny and oppression. We stand with our friends who have suffered a terrible act of war on their civilian population, a cowardly and shameful act that amply demonstrates the depths of depravity of the enemies of freedom and liberty. We are all Britons today. When we say that, we don't mean it to imply that this is conditional on Britain engaging in self-flagellation to maintain our sympathy. We don't mean that we expect our friends to simply remain victims to retain our friendship and support. We don't mean that the people who have been attacked should withdraw into a corner in order to somehow earn our tears. We mean that we support our friends -- and that support means that...
The AP reports this morning, between updates on the London terrorist attack by al-Qaeda, that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi lawyer has quit his defense team. Ziad al-Khasawneh complained that the American contingent of Saddam's legal team tried to tone down Khasawneh's support of the insurgency that has killed so many Iraqis, what the AP calls a "resistance": Ziad al-Khasawneh told The Associated Press he tendered his resignation in a telephone call Tuesday to Saddam's wife, Sajida, who is believed to be in Yemen. "I told her I was resigning because some American lawyers in the defense team want to take control of it and isolate their Arab counterparts," said al-Khasawneh, an Arab nationalist who has often expressed support for Iraqi resistance. Among the Americans on the team are former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark. Al-Khasawneh said Clark and Curtis Doebbler, another American lawyer helping defend Saddam, were "upset with my statements...
As if the bombings in London didn't demonstrate their brutality clearly enough, al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq have executed their Egyptian hostage. They released a video of the diplomat identifying himself for the camera before apparently killing him immediately afterwards: Al-Qaida in Iraq said in a Web statement Thursday that it has killed Egypt's top envoy in Iraq, posting a video of the blindfolded diplomat identifying himself. "We announce in the al-Qaida in Iraq that the verdict of God against the ambassador of the infidels, the ambassador of Egypt, has been carried out. Thank God," a written statement in the Web posting said. The video does not show the envoy, Ihab al-Sherif, being killed. Al-Qaida in Iraq, headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said a day earlier that it had sentenced al-Sherif to death as an "apostate" for his country's support of the United States and the Iraqi government. The...
When a people are attacked, brutally and without warning, there are two possible responses: they can get up, scamper for safety, and there cower; or they can get up, stand on their own two feet, and hit back with everything they have. When a people are attacked in their own homes, they can't run anywhere else, so the only alternative is crawling and begging for mercy, doing what they're told, and hoping to be spared. Or they can fight. We will find out in a few days which path the Britons will take: that of Spain under Zapatero -- or that of Great Briton under Winston Churchill. The terrorists bet on the first, just as they bet in 2001 that we were the America of Vietnam, Beirut, and Somalia. But I'm betting on the second. Once again, the butchers have misunderestimated their expected victims. Of all people in the world,...
One reason I have such faith in the British is that I remember my history. Great Britain did not simply endure the Battle of Britain, the attempt by Nazi Germany to subjugate the British people. They fought back. The RAF was in the air every damned day and hellish night, fighting, killing, and defying the enemy. In 1940, while America still slumbered in splendid isolationism and Stalin was still allied with Hitler, Great Britain became the very first country to refuse to join the Nazis, to refuse to surrender to the Nazis, and actually to defeat the Nazis and drive them off. Adolf Hitler was dumbfounded. After Dunkirk, he made the same mistake the terrorists make today: he thought Great Britain was defeated and would quickly offer her surrender. But instead, the British dug in and fought back, despite staggering losses -- more than 20,000 dead and 30,000 wounded --...
The Fraser Institute has performed a financial analysis of the financial analysis of the Sponsorship Program, which shows that the corruption and graft runs far deeper than previously thought. The amounts of money and the scale of its laundering dwarf earlier estimates: The numbers of people and amounts of money involved in the Gomery inquiry are larger than previously known. Problems with federal government sponsorship and advertising programs can be understood using an economic theory of incentives and institutional structure. This study finds that at least 565 organizations and individuals are identified in reports and testimony related to the Gomery inquiry. The original 2003 Auditor General sponsorship and advertising report cited only 71 organizations. The activities under investigation are therefore quite widespread. The people identified in these reports and testimony are politicians and bureaucrats (government insiders), and political party members and business people(government outsiders). This paper finds that almost all...
With all of the current debate on the responsibility and rights of the American press to protect its anonymous sources, one would think that media organizations would have a clear understanding about what constitutes confidentiality. However, a CQ reader has recently found out first-hand that not all media outlets take care to keep their confidential sources anonymous. Michael Sanders, the director of Expeditions and Research at the Ancient Cultures Research Foundation, sent an e-mail to Jon Meacham at Newsweek giving him a tip on research that supports the idea that the ancient Hebrew temple in Jerusalem was not built on the Temple Mount, but elsewhere in the city: In the recent issue of the Biblical Archaeological Review and in private correspondence, David Ussishkin, the doyen of Israel archaeologists is quite adamant in his conclusion that the Jerusalem of King Solomon did NOT extend further than the central portion of the...
July 8, 2005
The Minneapolis Star Tribune demonstrates in its lead editorial today that it still doesn't quite understand the terror war, even after the London bombings yesterday. The editorial board knows enough not to engage in its usual Bush-bashing, so it hasn't succumbed to its usual tone deafness. Yet they still use the occasion to not only argue against the war in Iraq, but also to argue contradictorily that the war on terror mainly amounts to a law-enforcement problem: [T]here are ways to fight it. Some are better than others. Just days ago, Bush said again that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. He asserted that the United States fights terrorists there so it won't have to fight them at home. The London bombings illustrate the fallacy at the heart of that argument: Terrorists aren't a finite army that you can defeat on a battlefield and achieve victory....
In contrast to the reaction of American Muslims after 9/11, when organizations like CAIR spent far more time declaring themselves as victims rather than working constructively to fight terrorism, London's Muslims wasted no time yesterday decrying the bloody attacks on Britain's civilian transportation systems: Muslim leaders in Britain yesterday were swift to condemn a series of deadly bomb blasts in London and they appealed to Britons not to single out their community for reprisals. The leaders also made an unprecedented appeal to the estimated 1.7 million Muslims living in Britain to tip off the police about who had carried out the bombings. "These evil deeds makes victims of us all," the Muslim Council of Britain said. "The evil people who planned and carried out these series of explosions in London want to demoralize us as a nation and divide us as a people. "All of us must unite in helping...
The Army News Service reports that eighteen top Taliban commanders have turned themselves over to the Karzai government for its amnesty program. The commanders come from the splinter Taliban group Hezb-i Islami, which often found itself at odds with Mullah Omar: Eighteen of Gulbiddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami commanders turned themselves over to government officials in the Paktia Province June 12. Under the terms of the Afghan government’s reconciliation program, Pakhm-e Sohl, the former commanders returned home after years of living in Pakistan. ... The loyalty statement to the Afghan government includes an agreement not to possess heavy weapons or take up arms against the Afghan government or Coalition forces. The commanders received new reconciliation identification cards and were embraced by Taniwal who welcomed them back to Afghan society. Talking through an interpreter, Taniwal said today is another important step toward bringing complete peace to the province. “By working together and...
As many of you already know, I went to DC this week for both vacation and work, having scheduled an appearance at the Heritage Foundation to speak on blogging, journalism, and the intersection between the two. While I have regaled you with various adventures of our vacation, including my sudden lack of geographical comprehension, this event has remained my central focus this week. Mark Tapscott set up the panel discussion, with Jim Hill, the managing editor of the Washington Post Writers Group, and Daniel Glover from the National Journal, who now edits their Beltway Blogroll column. We had a lively presentation, I believe, on the issues facing journalists and bloggers in this new market for information dissemination, followed by a thoroughly enjoyable Q&A session afterwards. Post columnist E.J. Dionne joined us in person and tossed out a couple of tough and interesting questions. Mary Katherine Ham from Townhall blogged the...
While the Democrats have watched the Republicans start to make inroads into the African-American demographic recently, trying to undermine their last lock-step traditional base, another key constituency has its leaders talking about looking outside the Democratic box as well. The president of the SEIU, the union that represents millions of government workers, warned the AFL-CIO that supporting Democrats exclusively will not benefit labor in the long run: Organized labor should help politicians who will advance labor's cause rather than simply supporting Democrats, says a union leader pushing for changes in the AFL-CIO. "We can't just elect Democratic politicians and try to take back the House and take back the Senate and think that's going to change workers' lives," said Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union. During a briefing Thursday, Stern said politics is only part of labor's strategy. He said "electing Democrats and taking back the House...
I have my flak jacket, my helmet, and my concrete bunker. I'm going to need them... because I'm about to be in flagrante delicto of committing the act of controversy. I am about to make a case for a very selective version of substantive due process. I'm not talking about the trivial case that only argues for incorporation of some or all of the Bill of Rights to the states. I mean a full-throated argument in favor of so-called "fundamental rights," rights not explicitly enunciated in the Constitution, being used by judges to strike down some laws. Yep, the same judicial philosophy that was used -- misused, in my opinion -- to bring us the abominations of Dred Scott, Griswold, and Roe, along with many, many others. I hope to show that these were errors of execution, but that the principle is not necessarily wrong per se. And I even...
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July 9, 2005
Bear Flag League Conference coming up soon! (The primary category for this post should be Log Rolling, but the Captain inexplicably failed to set that one up.) Where: CalTech (that's in Pasadena, California -- hence the "bear flag" reference) When: 17 July 2005 How much: $50 if you're a schlemiel who pays full price; $40 if you contact Patterico (see link) and pretend that you listen to Hugh Hewitt or that you read Captain's Quarters. Oh, wait, if you're reading this, I guess you qualify legitimately! Link: Bear Flag League Conference Why: I dunno... good conversation, rubber chicken, who could ask for anything more? Speeches by Ted Costa (conservative activist and one of the originators of the recall petition that booted Gray Davis back into the Outer Darkness); Daniel Weintraub (Sacramento Bee columnist who operates the SacBee corporate blog California Insider); and Bob Hertzberg (unsuccessful mayoral candidate in the recent...
If the Islamist lunatics who bombed London two days ago expected the Brits to react as the Spaniards did after Madrid, their mission has failed utterly. The London Telegraph has a new poll taken in the aftermath of the bombings that show increased support for Tony Blair, the fight against Islamofascism, and the battle to establish democracy in Iraq (via USS Neverdock): The response of Tony Blair and his ministers to the attacks has clearly boosted the standing of both. Early this year, twice as many people said they were dissatisfied with Mr Blair as Prime Minister as said the opposite. In the aftermath of Thursday's bombings, Mr Blair's approval rating has flipped from negative to positive for the first time in five years. Moreover, the bombings have failed - despite Mr George Galloway's best efforts - to undermine support for the British presence in Iraq. The proportion wanting British...
The Telegraph reports that Steven Spielberg has started filming a new movie about the terrorist attack on the 1972 Olympics in Munich, in which Palestinian terrorists murdered eleven Israeli athletes. Spielberg has shrouded the project in secrecy. However, Hugh Davies reports that one of the consultants for the project has tipped off the Israelis that the film will concentrate on the Mossad's actions in going after the terrorist planners in the attack's aftermath rather than the attacks themselves: The material is so delicate that the project, which is being filmed in Malta, is shrouded in secrecy. For while movies like 1977's Raid on Entebbe, starring Peter Finch and Horst Buchholz, portray Israel in a heroic stance, the new picture is about the misgivings of Golda Meir, the then Israeli prime minister, as agents from Mossad tracked down the perpetrators. ... The climax will show how the Israeli operatives, tired after...
The First Mate and I have had a wonderful vacation here in the nation's capital this past week. We've seen amazing sights, such as the Pentagon tour we took, the Mount Vernon tour, visiting the founding documents of our nation at the National Archive -- really, so many that I can't name them all at the moment. I've taken almost 500 pictures on my digital camera so far. Plus, we've met with bloggers from here and elsewhere, and the speaking engagement at the Heritage Foundation was a tremendous honor. It's really been a great week. One of the highlights for Marcia and I was our evening last night as the guests of Michelle and Jesse Malkin and their two beautiful children. Even though we have corresponded numerous times over the past months, we haven't had a chance to meet until last night. They invited us over for dinner and we...
Senator Harry Reid proved himself completely tone deaf when it comes to the issue of nominations to the Supreme Court. While his fellow Democrats plan on going to war over the opening created by Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement, Reid offers a way to avoid partisan battle -- by having the White House completely capitulate: Contending that President Bush's far-right allies are pushing him to appoint an extreme conservative to the Supreme Court, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid pointed to liberal icon Earl Warren as a model. Earl Warren? The Godfather of judicial activism? In his party's weekly radio address, Reid, D-Nev., noted that Saturday marked the anniversary of the 1974 death of Warren, a Republican whose court established a liberal tradition with its 1954 school desegregation ruling and other decisions. Reid said Warren had been able to forge a consensus on the court that would become the national consensus. "Mr....
July 10, 2005
North Korea has agreed to return to the six-nation negotiations that George Bush insists on using to address the nuclear expansion of the Kim regime. After a year of alternately threatening and flirting with the West, Kim Jong-Il has apparently decided that his economic situation has degraded to the point where he needs to engage the US on its terms, rather than his: The agreement to restart the talks was reached at a rare dinner meeting here between a senior U.S. envoy and his North Korean counterpart, held shortly before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived Saturday night for talks with Chinese officials on the North Korean issue. During the meal, Kim Gye Gwan, the North Korean deputy foreign minister, told Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill that North Korea was willing to attend talks in Beijing the week of July 25, according to a senior U.S. official traveling...
Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner has told the NAACP that he intends on shepherding the renewal of expiring portions of the Voting Rights Act, a key issue for the NAACP and other minority groups. The GOP would like to use that effort to bolster its standing with these traditionally Democratic voters, as part of RNC chair Ken Mehlman's outreach efforts: House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) plans to announce today at the NAACP's annual convention that he will work to extend portions of the Voting Rights Act that are scheduled to expire in 2007, congressional aides said yesterday. Civil rights leaders recently reminded President Bush about the expiring passages and have been working to get congressional leaders' attention for the issue. Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has made outreach to minorities and support for enforcement of the Voting Rights Act a hallmark of his chairmanship. ... "While...
The Karl Rove-Valerie Plame link that Matt Cooper supposedly protected appears very weak after Newsweek released its story today on the mysterious sourcing for last year's leak. Newsweek does its best to pump up the volume in its lead: It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA. The ellipsis here makes all the difference. What, exactly, did Cooper warn not to source to Rove? Readers have to move past...
Is this the whiniest article ever? Newspaper Withholding Two Articles After Jailing by Robert D. McFadden The New York Times July 9, 2005 The editor of The Cleveland Plain Dealer said last night that the newspaper, acting on the advice of its lawyers, was withholding publication of two major investigative articles because they were based on illegally leaked documents and could lead to penalties against the paper and the jailing of reporters. The editor, Doug Clifton, said lawyers for The Plain Dealer had concluded that the newspaper, Ohio's largest daily, would probably be found culpable if the authorities were to investigate the leaks and that reporters might be forced to identify confidential sources to a grand jury or go to jail. "Basically, we have come by material leaked to us that would be problematical for the person who leaked it," Mr. Clifton said in a telephone interview. "The material was...
In an earlier post, Dafydd: If It's Rove..., I wrote the following: Lawrence "Creepy Liar" O'Donnell now implies (without much credibility, and without explicitly making the claim) that the original leaker of Valerie Plame's name to Robert Novak was Karl Rove. According to Michael Isikoff in a Newsweek story, luridly titled "Matt Cooper's Source: What Karl Rove told Time magazine's reporter," this implication appears to be false; while Rove was (one of) Cooper's sources, as O'Donnell claimed, it was nothing like the way the Left has portrayed it: it was not an attempt to retaliate against Wilson for speaking the truth; it was an attempt to warn Newsweek that Wilson's op-ed was, in fact, a lie. Cooper claims, in the now-famous Newsweek e-mail, that Rove told him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA... but it appears that Rove did not even know her name, let alone that she was...
July 11, 2005
In the Navy, we used to say "two percent never get the word." So maybe this post will reduce that down to 1%.... Whenever you see a post here on CQ, or anywhere else, for that matter (since I'm just a vagabond blogger), that begins thus -- Dafydd: -- it means that the post was not written by Captain Ed. It was written by me, Dafydd ab Hugh, guest blogging on yet another brilliant, controversial, and stunningly popular blog owned by someone else. Got it? If the blogpost begins with just the title, no name, then the Captain Himself wrote it. But if it begins with my name, Dafydd, then I, Dafydd ab Hugh, wrote it, not the Captain. Thanks, all!...
I'm back from DC, not exactly well-rested after a whirlwing tour of the nation's capital, but certainly exhilirated from the wonderful events of the week. I doubted that we could have squeezed that much into two weeks, let alone the one week that we had in Washington. I'd like to thank all of the friends that helped make the trip so memorable, especially Mark Tapscott at the Heritage Foundation, who really made the entire expedition possible. I'd also like to thank Dafydd ab Hugh, who filled in admirably in my semi-absence this week to post some provocative and thoughtful essays. One of these days, Dafydd will start his own blog -- and we'll certainly look forward to that. Back to blogging ......
One would expect that after the London bombings, European officials might have experienced some change in their outlook on the Middle East peace process and the necessity of self-defense for democracies the world around. However, one would have to ignore the deeply ingrained moral relativism that has infected the European consciousness, especially outside the Anglosphere, to be surprised at the latest nonsense from the EU foreign office. Javier Solana has once again spent his energy criticizing a wall for damaging peace efforts while ignoring the reason why the wall has to be built in the first place: European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana criticized Israel on Monday for a barrier it is building around Jerusalem, and the Palestinian prime minister said it made a farce of efforts to restart the peace process. srael faced new pressure over its controversial network of walls and fences a day after giving final...
Ed Klein perceives a conspiracy in his inability to get bookings on television to promote his new biography of Hillary Clinton. Howard Kurtz notices that Klein hasn't received nearly the attention given to Kitty Kelley for her load of tripe about the Bush family: Despite the enormous hype surrounding Edward Klein's scathing and hearsay-filled book about Hillary Rodham Clinton, the author has been ignored by all but two television talk shows. This collective cold shoulder hasn't stopped "The Truth About Hillary" from hitting No. 2 yesterday on the coveted New York Times list. "It's the biggest example to date of how major media censorship doesn't stop a book anymore from being a bestseller," Klein declares. ... Klein says that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews, CNN's Paula Zahn, Fox's John Gibson and ABC's "Good Morning America" were among those who had tentatively booked or expressed strong interest in him, only...
The death of independent MP Chuck Cadman from long battle against cancer creates a difficult situation for the ruling Liberal minority. Cadman had provided the edge as one of three independents to back the government during the recent confidence motions that threatened to end Prime Minister Paul Martin's term at the helm of the Canadian executive. Without his vote, it could mean that the Liberals might not survive another such motion, but replacing him could make matters even worse: The death of independent MP Chuck Cadman leaves a big hole in the political landscape and all indications are it is not one the Liberals will be in a rush to fill. The vacancy, however, puts the minority government in a dilemma. Should it quickly call a by-election in Surrey North in an attempt to add a crucial seat by taking advantage of Conservative Party disarray in British Columbia? Or should...
Hillary Clinton has received criticism for her remarks comparing George Bush to Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman in her speech to the first Aspen Ideas Festival. She accused Bush of avoiding tough issues with the character's famous attitude: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton went on the attack against President Bush in a speech Sunday, accusing him of damaging the economy by overspending while giving tax cuts to the rich. ... "I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Newman is in charge in Washington," Clinton said referring to the freckle-faced Mad Magazine character. She drew a laugh from crowd when she described Bush's attitude toward tough issues with Newman's catchphrase: "What, me worry?" Hillary appears to have a problem with reality. Unemployment has reached its lowest point in years, down to 5%, lower than the average unemployment rate during her husband's terms in office. The economy continues its strong growth, showing an annual...
I will appear on MS-NBC's Connected: Coast To Coast with Ron Reagan and Monica Crowley at 4 pm CDT today. The topic: sourcing for news stories, and the media's responsibility to protect its confidential sources. UPDATE: Once again, the folks at MS-NBC and Connected treated me very well and provided a thoroughly enjoyable experience. My thanks to Ron, Monica, and the producers at the show (especially Elizabeth and Susan) for their kind assistance. Ian has the video on his site -- and I'm about to watch it on my TiVo ... UPDATE II: Okay, at least it looks better than my last appearance -- although absent rigor mortis, I'm not sure it could have been worse. I was more nervous watching this than actually doing it. UPDATE III: The Generalissimo at Radioblogger has the transcript posted, along with a critique of my sartorial selection for the appearance. For the record,...
...Not in 2008, not ever. First, a note: the Captain is now back, so I suspect this will be my last post. I haven't yet spoken to him; but this blog is not really a multi-person venue. Yes, there is Whiskey and a couple of others; but they post rarely. For the most part, this is the labor of love of Captain Ed. Heck, it's called Captain's Quarters, not General Quarters! So unless I hear different, I will assume that as he stands up, I stand down. But I just wanted to leave with a final controversial prediction. I absolutely believe, conventional wisdom notwithstanding, that Hillary Rodham Clinton Rodham will never be the Democratic nominee for president. (She might not even be a candidate, if she thinks she's going to lose; but her ego may compel her to try, just as John Kerry's did.) The reason is fairly simple: because...
July 12, 2005
I have received a reprieve from the governor, just as some clod in a mismatched gray jacket and Navy-blue trousers was throwing the switch. I may post a few more. And I have one here that.... But wait -- No, really; you'd better be sitting down for this. Seriously, I don't want to shock your system. Think of me as William Castle: there's a nurse standing by with a blood-pressure machine, checking to make sure you're medically fit to read this next post. Okay, you in the red pullover! Take a hike! I can recognize a weak heart when I see one. Here we go: it turns out that... the Democrats lied! Here is Harry Reid today. Don't tell me he didn't say this; I saw him on video on Brit Hume, and I just had to back up the DVR and get it down exactly, because I could not...
The NAACP has decided to extort payments and concessions from companies that transacted business in support of slavery as their next project, along with lobbying cities to cease contracting with such firms until they cooperate with the group: The NAACP will target private companies as part of its economic agenda, seeking reparations from corporations with historical ties to slavery and boycotting companies that refuse to participate in its annual business diversity report card. "Absolutely, we will be pursuing reparations from companies that have historical ties to slavery and engaging all parties to come to the table," Dennis C. Hayes, interim president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said yesterday at the group's 96th annual convention here. "Many of the problems we have now including poverty, disparities in health care and incarcerations can be directly tied to slavery." Since slavery ended 140 years...
The Washington Post updates its readers on the efforts by the FEC to determine whether bloggers deserve the media exemption granted by the McCain-Feingold Act, or BCRA as it is more officially known. Brian Faler reports that the panel has not yet issued a decision and covers the thrust of the commentary received by the panel during its public hearings: A growing number of the online pundits of various political persuasions are urging the Federal Election Commission to explicitly grant them the same wholesale exemptions from regulations governing contributions to political candidates that mainstream reporters, editorial writers and pundits get. "I'm troubled by the fact that participants in this emerging medium, which allows anyone the opportunity to participate in the national political discourse at a minimum cost, would face stricter regulation and stronger scrutiny -- along with the potential for ruinous legal expenses -- than would participants in media outlets...
Today's second entry in racial politics comes from an unlikely source -- the 50th state and tropical paradise, Hawaii. Activists for native Hawaiians who can trace their geneaology to the time of the Hawaiian monarchy want to establish an autonomous reservation system on the Pacific archipelago, similar to those granted to Native American tribes in North America. Despite the decades of corruption and poverty these examples created for Native Americans, Lawrence Downes and the New York Times considers this a splenid idea: Over decades, the islands emerged as a vibrant multiracial society and the proud 50th state. Hawaiian culture - language and art, religion and music - has undergone a profound rebirth since the 1970's. But underneath this modern history remains a deep sense of dispossession among native Hawaiians, who make up about 20 percent of the population. Into the void has stepped Senator Daniel Akaka, the first native Hawaiian...
The New York Times plays the Rove card to the hilt today, putting their martyrdom of Judith Miller front and center while extending a mystery that the media created and the Times could immediately resolve. Instead, we get breathless accounts of non-comments from the White House that prompt 2,000-word front-page articles that wind up telling us nothing: Nearly two years after stating that any administration official found to have been involved in leaking the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer would be fired, and assuring that Karl Rove and other senior aides to President Bush had nothing to do with the disclosure, the White House refused on Monday to answer any questions about new evidence of Mr. Rove's role in the matter. With the White House silent, Democrats rushed in, demanding that the administration provide a full account of any involvement by Mr. Rove, one of the president's closest advisers,...
British intelligence and law-enforcement specialists continued their torrid pace in investigating the terrorist bombings of last week. Today, Sky News reports that the four bombers likely died in the explosions, while the BBC flashes that an arrest has been made in Yorkshire: It is "highly likely" one of the Tube bombers died in the attacks on the Underground network, police say. The suspected bombers travelled down from the West Yorkshire and met at Kings Cross station shortly before the attacks were launched on Thursday morning, police said at a press conference. Their images were captured by CCTV cameras. Personal documents have been found at all four bomb scenes and although the four attackers are thought to have died police were careful not to say whether Britain had suffered its first suicide bomb strike. Those personal documents have been received with some skepticism by investigators. They worry that the papers could...
John Podhoretz writes an excellent column for the New York Post today, asking readers to recall his words from the beginning of the Plame controversy in 2003. Podhoretz predicted that the entire kerfuffle would consist of an administration official explaining why Wilson got selected for the Niger assignment in the first place: I offered my speculation of what an administration official might have said to a journalist to explain just how Wilson — a Clinton administration official — got the assignment in the first place: "Administration official: 'We didn't send him there. Cheney's office asked CIA to get more information. CIA picked Wilson . . . Look, I hear his wife's in the CIA. He's got nothing to do. She wanted to throw him a bone.' " Hate to say I told you so, but . . . According to this week's Newsweek, Karl Rove said something very similar indeed...
I probably should not assume that everyone is on the same page of the dictionary. But one of the commenters to a previous post of mine, Dafydd: Bride of "If It's Rove"..., raised a definitional point that deserves response. Attempting to prove that Bush indeed made some sort of "firing pledge," he notes a press conference on June 10, 2004 in Savannah, GA, in which the following exchange occurred: Q: Given -- given recent developments in the CIA leak case, particularly Vice President Cheney's discussions with the investigators, do you still stand by what you said several months ago, a suggestion that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent's name? THE PRESIDENT: That's up to -- Q: And, and, do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so? THE PRESIDENT: Yes. And that's up to the U.S. Attorney to find the...
For those who keep insisting that the Palestinians only want to live in peace and only resort to violence because of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the popular Hamas "Party" would like clear up that misunderstanding. Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar told an Italian journalist that any agreement reached with the Israelis only amounts to a temporary solution, allowing them to gather strength to wipe out the Jewish state within a decade: Hamas will not compromise on one inch of Greater Palestine, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar told an Italian newspaper earlier this week. Speaking to the Corriere Della Sera newspaper, al-Zahar said Hamas would "definitely not" be prepared for coexistence with Israel should the IDF retreat to its 1967 borders. "It can be a temporary solution, for a maximum of 5 to 10 years. But in the end Palestine must return to become Muslim, and in...
July 13, 2005
A Muslim terrorist on trial for the brutal murder of Theo Van Gogh in the Netherlands gave the world a glimpse of the reasons that Islamists have gone to war against the West for more than a decade. Mohammed Bouyeri, who almost decapitated Van Gogh before using his body as a pincushion to display Bouyeri's manifesto, told the victim's mother that killing her son meant nothing to him because Van Gogh wasn't a Muslim: Turning his chair towards Anneke van Gogh as she watched from the public gallery, Mohammed Bouyeri said: “I don’t feel your pain. I don’t have any sympathy for you. I can’t feel for you because I think you’re a non-believer.” The Islamic radical admitted killing Mr van Gogh, a Dutch film-maker, saying that he had been driven by his religious beliefs and would do the same again. Bouyeri, the son of Moroccan immigrants to the Netherlands,...
Senate Democrats, relying on a single instance where Bill Clinton asked Judiciary Committee chair Orrin Hatch his opinion on a potential nominee, have demanded that President Bush "consult" with them before selecting a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Bush has now contacted 60 senators to get their input on the nomination, far exceeding what Clinton or any other President has done in the past -- and yet the Democrats still complain that it's not enough: White House officials and Senate Republicans have already declared that the outreach to lawmakers about the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is unprecedented, with more than 60 senators contacted or consulted about the choice. "He has gone way beyond what any president has ever done," said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah). But Democrats are trying to establish their own standard for the consultation, with demands likely...
Remember John Bolton? His nomination to the UN Ambassador's post had Washington and political circles in a tizzy until Sandra Day O'Connor retired from the Supreme Court. Despite his initial reluctance to do so, Bolton apparently has indicated that he will accept a recess appointment from George Bush rather than attempt to push his way through a recalcitrant Senate once again: With neither the White House nor Senate Democrats showing any sign of yielding in their long-running dispute over documents related to Bolton's State Department work, speculation is rife that Bolton is prepared to accept a recess appointment good through the end of 2006, despite warnings from some GOP senators that it would weaken his influence and effectiveness. ... "He'll take the recess" appointment, said the administration source, who is familiar with Bolton's thinking. "The president has made his selection, and the president is asking the Senate to confirm the...
The head of the agency responsible for distributing American development funds to international groups says that the money now goes to building democracy, even in Arab nations that previously vetoed such use of the funds. Andrew Natsios told reporters that previous to this year, the State Department prohibited USAID from supporting groups that established governments vetoed, especially nascent democracy activists: America's top aid official said on Wednesday Washington's new support for pro-democracy groups in the Arab world was bearing fruit, even in Egypt, once given a free hand to vet such funding by its U.S. ally. Andrew Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, told Reuters during a visit to Amman that USAID had previously granted the Egyptian government the right to block money for any civil society group it disliked. "They didn't like democracy funding and they didn't approve it. They believed in tight control over civil...
It seems that every twenty years or so, politicians have to get a reminder on economics regarding the relationship between effective tax cuts and tax revenues. Presidents Kennedy and Reagan both cut marginal tax rates and wound up sparking economic growth that generated billions of extra revenue. Within hours of hearing the leading Democratic presidential candidate excoriate President Bush for following their lead, the White House now shows that the budget deficit has dropped significantly and more tax has come into federal coffers than expected: For the first time since President Bush took office, an unexpected leap in tax revenue is about to shrink the federal budget deficit this year, by nearly $100 billion. On Wednesday, White House officials plan to announce that the deficit for the 2005 fiscal year, which ends in September, will be far smaller than the $427 billion they estimated in February. Mr. Bush plans to...
An independent investigation into the detention facility at Gunatanamo Bay housing terrorists captured by the US only turned up three violations of Army regulations and the Geneva Conventions, the AP reports today. None of these involved torture of any kind, although one investigator found that the totality of techniques used on one prisoner qualified as "abusive": The chief investigator, Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, described the interrogation techniques used on Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who was captured in December 2001 along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. It was learned later that he had tried to enter the U.S. in August 2001 but was turned away by an immigration agent at the Orlando, Fla., airport. Mohamed Atta, ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, was in the airport at the same time, officials have said. Schmidt said that to get him to talk, interrogators told him his mother and sisters were whores,...
The NEA published its agenda for its July 7th Assembly, listing all the new action items under consideration and the action taken on each. How long does one have to read down the list before the NEA actually addresses an issue having directly to do with educating students? The first item? Third? Fifth? How about ... fifteenth? Here's what comes ahead of education at the National Education Association: 1. [Defeated, no description] 2. Fighting Wal-Mart 3. Investigating the positions of financial firms regarding Social Security privatization 4. Adding "multiethnic" and "other" as options on ethnicity questions 5. Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the NEA and ATA 6. Forming coalitions to "protect" Social Security 7. Explaining the difference between two different pension plans 8. Requesting an article for their newsletter on "health problems from exposure to fragrance chemicals". 9. Getting outside funding to allow 25 more people to attent the EPA...
I am pleased to announce that I have joined the Daily Standard as a regular contributor to their pages. My first column, "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Left", reviews Hillary Clinton's Aspen speech in which she compared George Bush to Alfred E. Neuman. I posted briefly on this earlier this week, and my new column takes a closer look at the factual misrepresentations that Hillary made, and the lack of accountability given to them by the media: HILLARY CLINTON made headlines earlier this week when she compared President George W. Bush to Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman, the gap-toothed, freckle-faced mascot whose signature statement is "What, me worry?" As political put-downs go, this hardly ranks as the most egregious, even in the modern era of politics. Fellow Democratic Senator Harry Reid called Bush both a liar and a loser earlier this year, and later only grudgingly offered to retract...
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that Minneapolis-St. Paul airport has evacuated its Humphrey terminal, where most charter flights embark and disembark, after an unattended package got the attention of a bomb-sniffing dog: The Humphrey Terminal at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was evacuated this evening after bomb-sniffing dogs smelled something suspicious in an unattended bag. Passengers and employees were sent to a parking garage across the street. The Bloomington bomb squad was on the scene. The Lindbergh Terminal was not affected by the evacuation. No more details are available at the moment. Keep checking back. (h/t: Hugh Hewitt) UPDATE: The story has been updated. Now it appears that two dogs sniffed something suspicious in two vending machines. The machines were separated within the terminal, one being roughly in the center and the other located at the south end. Air traffic continues to get processed at the larger Lindbergh terminal, but Humphrey has...
I like Rick Santorum. I really do. Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Senator has a habit of talking without thinking about the consequences of his rhetoric. Earlier this year, he broke Godwin's Law and used Hitler for an analogy in reference to the Democrats and the judicial-nomination filibusters -- an analogy that actually made logical sense but was politically foolish. In his latest faux pas, he doesn't even have logic on his side: What drew the concentrated ire of the Bay State's congressional delegation was Santorum's decision this week to repeat his three-year-old comment that liberalism was at the root of the scandal over child sex abuse in the church. "Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture," Santorum wrote in a July 12, 2002 article for the Web site Catholic Online. "When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal,...
July 14, 2005
After checking my referrer logs this morning, I noticed that a few visitors had begun to arrive from cbsnews.com. I found this rather odd (pun intended), as I hadn't written anything about CBS in ages. I followed the link -- and found out that CBS picked up my Daily Standard article on Hillary Clinton and her Mad Magazine moments in Aspen. Interestingly, the site notes that the piece ran on CBS with permission from Nation Review Online. Of course, it originally ran in the Daily Standard and, as far as I know, never appeared at NRO. So far, I'm scratching my head on this one. However, I'm pleased that CBS saw fit to reprint the article, and I hope that new readers from that site take a look around CQ and decide to stick around....
After seeing themselves politically marginalized for boycotting what turned out to be hugely popular elections, Iraq's Sunni leaders have now begun to urge their communities to take part in the electoral process: In mosques, conferences and on the street, some Sunni Arab leaders are rallying members of their once dominant community to join forces and participate in upcoming elections in a bid to find their place in the new Iraq. ... "Boycotting the last elections ... deprived the people of opportunities," said Sheik Adul Jabbar Qadri, preacher at the Fattah mosque in the largely Sunni town of Beiji. "Now everyone feels this was a mistake and that all Iraqis should participate." Qadri has been using his weekly Friday sermons to encourage Sunnis to cast ballots. "We also urged them to put their differences aside and to keep away from violence," he said. Qadri said a recent meeting in Beiji brought...
The members of the Senate's Gang of 14 that held off the GOP push for the elimination of filibusters on judicial nominations have scheduled a breakfast meeting to further discuss the ramifications of their agreement, the New York Times reports. Sheryl Stolberg reports that the Gang wants to remain unified to ensure a smooth process on the upcoming confirmation fight, but that appears easier said than done: With the resignation of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - and renewed speculation that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who has thyroid cancer and was in the hospital Wednesday with a fever, could retire - the members of the Gang of 14 are trying to chart a course that would keep them unified in the event of a divisive Supreme Court confirmation fight. On Thursday, they are planning to meet for breakfast to do just that. If the gang sticks together, it could become...
Kevin McCullogh, Salem Radio Network talk-show host and all-around great guy, has often written movingly about the struggle his mother-in-law has waged against cancer. It appears, sadly, that she will shortly pass on. Kevin writes about that in his post from last night titled, "The phone call you're never quite ready for...": The phone call that we knew since Feburary of this year - might come - finally has. Early tomorrow The Lovely Bride boards a plane headed for California to say goodbye. There is little that can be said at this time. This part of life is hard, and not without considerable pain - regardless of the amount of suffering someone has been through. I watched my Mom be bed-ridden for weeks and elude death multiple times in the final months... yet in that moment... nothing quite prepares you for it. ... Mom is a hero by every measure....
According to the Guardian (UK), the French may soon reach a level of political dissatisfaction that will threaten to not only topple Jacques Chirac but the entire economic structure of Europe's most socialized democracy. Kim Willsher reports from Paris that a movement has started to form in fits and starts that may soon generate into a revolutionary effort: Today should be Jacques Chirac's big moment. As the standard bearer of France's republican tradition he oversees an impressive parade on Bastille Day. Horseguards, soldiers, pilots, police officers and firemen will march down the Champs Elysées accompanied by as much hardware - tanks, rocket launchers and fighter jets - as France's military might can muster. But, even in his Bastille Day best, Mr Chirac cannot ignore the fact that France is deeply fed up, and with him above all. ... That France is not in the mood to party is clear. But...
The AP reports that abortions dropped by 30% in Minnesota in 2004, a year after passage of the Women's Right to Know Act. The new law requires abortion providers to give information about medical risks, potential fetal pain, and assistance options to women seeking abortions, and imposes a 24-hour waiting period. In its first year of application, abortions dropped to their lowest level in 30 years: The number of abortions in Minnesota dropped to a 30-year low in the first full year after the state passed a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions. ... The number of abortions in 2004 dipped to 13,788, the lowest level since 1975, the first year the state Health Department started tallying the numbers. The department has been reporting annual abortion figures to the Legislature for the past five years. The number of abortions in the state has been falling since it peaked in...
US forces in Iraq announced today that they captured the al-Qaeda leader in charge of the operation that kidnapped and later executed a diplomatic envoy from Egypt last month. American military forces found Abu Seba in Ramadi last Saturday as part of an ongoing mission to disrupt Zarqawi's terrorist network: The U.S. military on Thursday announced the capture of two key members of Iraq's most-feared terror group, including one suspected in the kidnap-slaying of an Egyptian envoy and attacks on senior diplomats from Pakistan and Bahrain. Khamis Farhan Khalaf Abd al-Fahdawi, known as Abu Seba, was arrested last Saturday following operations in the Ramadi area west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement. He was accused of involvement in the abduction and killing of Egypt's top envoy in Iraq and attacks on Pakistani and Bahraini diplomats earlier this month. "Seba served as a senior lieutenant of al-Qaida in...
A new paradigm is sweeping the blogosphere -- well, that portion of it that I view in between my frequent naps, experiments in animal husbandry, and trips to the taxidermist. The global war on terrorism, or GWOT, is really not a war at all but more akin to a "blood feud." The idea has been discussed by Hugh Hewitt, both online and on the air; by Wretchard (Richard Fernandez) at The Belmont Club; at Free Republic; NoLeftTurns; a Canadian blog called ThePolitic; and many other sites. I think the originator of this new simile is one Lee Harris. Writing in Tech Central Station on July 8th, "War in Pieces: The Blood Feud," Harris opined: After the London bombing, I feel more than ever that the war model is deeply flawed, and that a truer picture of the present conflict may be gained by studying another, culturally distinct form of violent...
Continue reading "Dafydd: Cold Water On Hot Blood" »
An opinion poll in six Muslim countries shows surprising results for attitudes about Islamists and Western-style democracy. Support for Osama bin Laden has fallen to half of what it had been in previous surveys, while support for democratization and freedom has grown enormously: Osama bin Laden's standing has dropped significantly in some key Muslim countries, while support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence has "declined dramatically," according to a new survey released today. In a striking finding, predominantly Muslim populations in a sampling of six North African, Middle East and Asian countries are also as alarmed as Western nations about Islamic extremism, which is now seen as a threat in their own nations too, the poll found. ... Compared with previous surveys, the new poll also found growing majorities or pluralities of Muslims surveyed now say democracy can work in their countries and is not just a political...
Sometimes I wish I could buy some people a clue in the same manner as Wheel of Fortune contestants can purchase vowels from Vanna White. The latest meme coming from Senate Democrats regarding Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay -- now that their characterizations of torture chambers worthy of Josef Mengele have been debunked -- holds that our failure to give full POW status to terrorists at Gitmo will lead our enemy to abuse captured US soldiers. Quit laughing. I'm serious: The U.S. Congress should pass legislation defining the legal status of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay to avoid more damage to the United States' image abroad and reprisals against U.S. soldiers, senators said on Thursday. ... Senators said harsh interrogation practices and the refusal to grant prisoner of war status to detainees could backfire when U.S. soldiers are captured. "Our troops are looking at us to see whether we're going...
According to ABC News, British intelligence thought they had stopped the coordinated attack on the London subway and bus system when they first discovered the plot -- when Pakistani officials arrested al-Qaeda computer expert Naeem Noor Khan a year ago this week. His laptop contained a remarkably similar plan for the attack, and the British arrested a "senior" AQ operative at the time: Officials tell ABC News the London bombers have been connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in the Pakistani city of Lahore. The laptop computer of Naeem Noor Khan, a captured al Qaeda leader, contained plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, as well as on financial buildings in both New York and Washington. "There's absolutely no doubt he was part of an al Qaeda operation aimed at not only the United States but Great Britain," explained Alexis Debat,...
July 15, 2005
And so it begins -- the canonization of the London bombers. Whenever I become convinced that the MSM cannot sink lower into their miasmic bolgia, they invariably find a way to tumble to a deeper circle of Hell. Now the "useful idiot" Scheherezade Faramarzi (if that is her name) profiles the four slayers of the innocent in London. Through her thousand and one tales of passion, spirituality, and beauty, we discover they were all fine, upstanding citizens who were driven into the frenzy of madness by the evil Bush and his wicked incursion into innocent Iraq. She starts with a bang, making certain that even the most casual reader will understand that IT'S ALL GEORGE BUSH'S FAULT: London Bombers Were Angered by War in Iraq by Scheherezade Faramarzi AP July 15, 2005 LEEDS, England (AP) - Shahzad Tanweer, the 22-year-old son of a Pakistani-born affluent businessman, turned to Islam, the...
The self-proclaimed world's greatest deliberative body and the chamber supposedly intended on being a "cooling saucer" for the passions of the day descended into the political equivalent of a playground slapfight yesterday. The pushing and shoving arose from the rapidly disintegrating effort to pin blame on Karl Rove for outing Valerie Plame as Senate Democrats attempted to strip him of his security clearances: The partisan fight over Karl Rove exploded onto the Senate floor yesterday, with Democrats trying to strip him of his security clearance and Republicans retaliating by trying to strip the chamber's two top Democrats of theirs. The moves, which came as amendments to a spending bill, both failed, but not before each side blamed the other for "juvenile" behavior and for poisoning a well of good feelings they said had existed in the past few weeks. ... Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, along with Minority Whip...
The AP reports that a Muslim baggage screener for the Transportation Security Agency moonlighted as a rapper, calling himself the 'Arabic Assassin' and writing lyrics about killing people and blowing up buildings. The TSA fired Bassam Khalaf despite his assertion that he only used that identity as a publicity generator: When Bassam Khalaf raps, he's the Arabic Assassin. His unreleased CD, "Terror Alert," includes rhymes about flying a plane into a building and descriptions of himself as a "crazy, suicidal Arabic ... equipped with bombs." Until last week, Khalaf also worked as a baggage screener at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. ... Khalaf, 21, was hired on Jan. 16 and fired July 7, according to a TSA termination letter that cited his "authorship of songs which applaud the efforts of the terrorists on September 11th, encourage and warn of future acts of terrorism by you, discuss at length and in grave...
Democrats in the Senate twice threatened more executive-nomination obstructionism if the White House refuses to meet their demands, this time on lower-level appointees. Both Barbara Boxer and Barack Obama separately told nominees to two EPA positions that they will block their confirmation unless mollified by the Bush administration on policy: Two Democratic senators suggested Thursday they may block one or more of President Bush's nominees to key Environmental Protection Agency posts unless they get answers they want from the agency. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said he wanted to know when the EPA would issue regulations for lead paint exposure from house remodeling. ... Obama told reporters after the hearing that he wanted a definite date from EPA officials about when they would issue the regulations, which by law were supposed to have come out in 1996. If that's not forthcoming, he said, he would use "whatever mechanisms I have available...
The New York Times now has a source within the grand jury proceedings in the Robert Fitzgerald investigation into the alleged leak of Valerie Plame's status as a CIA operative. The new article for tomorrow's edition by David Johnston and Richard Stevenson reveals that Karl Rove spoke with Robert Novak before he released his column -- but that Novak told Rove about Plame, including her name, and not the other way around: Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, spoke with the columnist Robert D. Novak as he was preparing an article in July 2003 that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said. Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph...
Egyptian authorities arrested the chemist sought by British investigators after last week's bombings in London: Egyptian police on Friday arrested an Egyptian biochemist sought in the probe into the London bombings, an Egyptian government official said. Metropolitan Police in London said a man has been arrested in Cairo, but they would not confirm his name or characterize him as a suspect. Magdy el-Nashar was arrested in Cairo early Friday, the Egyptian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because an official announcement of the information had not yet been made. That happened pretty quickly. Apparently Nashar made a mistake thinking that he could find shelter in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood and its al-Qaeda allies must not have as much popularity as they once did in the North African nation -- but we hear that's going around these days....
Reuters reports this morning that despite initial widespread skepticism about the timeline for the Iraqi constitution, it will now arrive on time. The delivery of the draft by August 15th sets up the scheduled October referendum and the new general election at the end of the year: In a month, Iraq should have a constitution, meeting a deadline set as part of a U.S.-backed timetable for its transition from occupation to independence. Three months ago, after it had taken 12 weeks just to form a government, many doubted the Aug. 15 target for the draft constitution could be met; long, bitter wrangling had dented hopes raised by an election held, on schedule, on Jan. 30. Now, few doubt that some form of draft constitution will appear more or less on time -- even though the parliamentary committee working on it has not, as it once suggested, unveiled a preliminary text...
An appellate court has upheld the decision by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly forcing the FEC to regulate Internet speech as part of the BCRA: An appeals court agreed Friday that federal election regulators wrongly opened several loopholes in the new campaign finance law meant to take big contributions out of elections. The federal appeals court in Washington affirmed U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's 2004 ruling striking down several FEC regulations interpreting the 2002 campaign finance law and ordering the commission to write tougher rules. The lower court judge struck down 15 commission regulations. The FEC asked the appeals court to overrule her on five of them, but lost its bid Friday in a 2-1 ruling. We find yet another judge who cannot determine the meaning of "Congress shall pass no law ..." To be fair, this appeal was not on the BCRA itself but on Kollar-Kotelly's ruling on a lawsuit brought...
A federal appeals court has overturned an earlier ruling that attempted to give Gitmo detainees access to American courts for determination of status. In a sweeping victory for the Bush administration, the appeals court also ruled that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Salim Ahmed Hamdan or any al-Qaeda or terrorist detainees, making the military tribunals legal and appropriate: A federal appeals court put the Bush administration's military commissions for terrorist suspects back on track Friday, saying a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison who once was Osama bin-Laden's driver can stand trial. A three-judge panel ruled 3-0 against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, whose case was halted by a federal judge on grounds that commission procedures were unlawful. "Congress authorized the military commission that will try Hamdan," said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The protections of the 1949 Geneva Convention do not apply to...
After the Madrid bombings last year, the Spanish electorate voted out the Jose Aznar government and elected Jose Zapatero, who ran on a platform of withdrawal from Iraq. Zapatero took a lot of criticism, even from the troops he recalled from their posts, for flinching in the face of terror and holding up the nation to ridicule. Fortunately for Zapatero, some Spaniards have demonstrated that they have the convictions to fight terrorists where they find them: Inmates on Friday beat up a suspected al-Qaida cell leader jailed on charges he helped plot the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, breaking his jaw, nose and a tooth and injuring one of his eyes, Spanish officials said. Imad Yarkas, 42, a Syrian-born Spaniard, was set upon by other prisoners in the dining hall of a prison in the eastern city of Castellon, said officials at the Interior Ministry department that oversees...
After all of the hysteria coming from the Left about Karl Rove and his alleged leak of Valerie Plame's status as a covert agent -- for which her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, demanded Rove's firing -- perhaps we need to revisit the Wilsons and their involvement in the Niger investigation. In his New York Times opinion piece published on July 6, 2003, Wilson claimed that the CIA asked him the previous year to investigate claims that the Iraqis tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. This is the conclusion he said he reached (emphases mine throughout post): Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine,...
As the Captain reported below, a power-mad three-judge panel of the D.C. circuit has made a dreadful ruling. What the hell you been smoking, ab Hugh? The Hamdan ruling was incredibly good! We need those military tribunals to -- Not THAT ruling, you nitwit! I'm talking about the ruling that upheld Judge Kollar-Kotelly's ruling that the FEC had to start regulating blogs and other internet "communication" under the McCain-Feingold "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act," treating them not like the sainted "exempt media" (the MSM), but rather as if blogs were the equivalent of political ads... forbidding us from blogging about candidates within sixty days of an election, for example, without having our posts being assigned a dollar value and counted as "contributions" to a campaign. This would presumably mean that if I posted about the 2006 race and urged Santorum to be reelected, and if my insights were deemed to be...
July 16, 2005
According to this, I'm Jean-Luc Picard. Hindrocket over at Power Line is Yoda, as is Hugh Hewitt; and Lileks is Duke Paul Atreides from the Frank Herbert novel Dune. I'm not sure what any of this means; but there's a free meal in here somewhere, and I'm going to find it. UPDATE: I'm married to Yoda. Hm... maybe that should be "Yodette."...
I get a lot of e-mail based on the work done here at CQ. Unfortunately, I also get lots of spam, and so I have had to set a spam filter on my e-mail account that takes some of the pressure off. I also have had to get a lot more selective about how to filter it. In order to make sure that your e-mail gets through, I thought I would let readers know how I'm approaching this issue. * Anything that doesn't include my e-mail address in the To: field will likely wind up in the spam bucket. Broadcast e-mails, except from services to which I've specifically subscribed, clog up my inbox and usually have a sales pitch involving former Nigerian princes and people who feel happy to be leaving me money in their will. * Except for known sources, e-mails with nothing but a URL will get ignored....
The New York Times reports on a memo that Colin Powell reportedly carried aboard Air Force One on a trip to Africa the week before Robert Novak named Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. The importance of this memo revolves around the people who accompanied the President and Powell on the Africa trip and the fact that it describes the circumstances of Joe Wilson's hiring for the mission to Niger. However, the report by Richard Stevenson makes several factual errors that even a quick perusal of the Intelligence Committee report would correct. The first error committed by Stevenson is one of omission. The Times has been beating a supposed Karl Rove connection to death over the past few weeks. However, if one looks at the contact dates for the two conversations Rove had with reporters -- July 9 for Novak, July 11 for Matt Cooper -- obviously Rove didn't go...
As could have been predicted by almost anyone watching events in the Palestinian territories, Hamas proved itself the stronger faction in an internecine confrontation yesterday that wound up drawing an Israeli response. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, under pressure to curb violence and disarm terrorists, finally authorized his security group to use force against Hamas in Gaza to keep them from firing rockets at Israelis. The patronage-riddled Fatah police fared badly against the more popular Hamas terrorists: Palestinian police and Hamas gunmen fought running battles, killing at least two civilian bystanders, after Mr Abbas sought to exert his authority on the militants who threaten to wreck the planned Israeli withdrawal from settlements in Gaza next month. ... The crisis in Gaza began late on Thursday when Hamas attacked Jewish targets. A volley of four rockets was launched towards the village of Netiv Ha'asara, which lies just inside Israel, killing a 22-year-old...
Normally the United States gets cast in the role of bad guy for insisting on economic and political reform as the basis for aid, especially to Africa. However, the Guardian (UK) reports that a group of smaller European nations has attempted to "undermine" the G8 agreement at Gleneagles pushed by the Live-8 movement by tying debt relief to verifiable reform: A group of small EU countries are seeking to water down some of the key proposals agreed last week by G8 leaders in Gleneagles, leaked documents have revealed. The documents, which were obtained by the Jubilee Debt Campaign group, showed that Belgium was leading an initiative that would make it more difficult for 18 of the world's poorest countries to be granted 100% debt relief. ... Under the deal brokered by Tony Blair at last week's G8 summit 18 of the world's poorest countries on the HIPC list - highly...
Kate at Small Dead Animals finds a major problem with the CBC's reporting on donations made to Gurmant Grewal's political campaign. She has a copy of a letter from the Conservative Party to Terry Milewski at CBC that outlines the problems with the CBC report -- before the CBC went to air with it: As backgrounder on this complainant, it is a well-known fact that he is a very good friend of Ujjal Dosanjh. So good a friend is he of Mr. Dosanjh that just after the Taping Incident became public, and Mr., Dosanjh's central and principle role in that event became known to the public, Mr. Mann telephoned Mr. Grewal and voiced extreme displeasure with Mr. Grewal's actions. And then just a few short weeks later, up pops a complaint relayed to you regarding two cheques. Mann has provided you with two items, one for $1800. and another for...
I'll be rejoining the Northern Alliance Radio Network today after a two-week hiatus in Washington DC. We start off our first hour at noon CDT at AM 1280 The Patriot, where CQ readers outside of the Twin Cities can listen on the Internet stream, talking about the week in review. In the second hour, Bernard Goldberg joins us to discuss his book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37. I interviewed Mr. Goldberg for the book's release -- in fact, I got the first post-release interview -- and I know you'll enjoy the conversation. Speaking of conversation, you're invited to join in by calling 651-289-4488!...
Cynthia McKinney has returned to her old tricks in Congress. Working through her new organization, 9/11 Citizens Watch, she plans on hosting a full-day "Congressional" briefing for Representatives and their staffs on the supposed lack of progress in investigating the 9/11 attacks. Much like the John Conyers "impeachment" panel based on the Downing Street Memos, McKinney and a couple of cohorts plan on offering their wild conspiracy theories in the guise of a sober, official hearing: On July 22, 2005, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) will host a full-day briefing, co-sponsored by Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), and other sponsors, for Members of Congress and their staffs in the Caucus Room, Cannon House Office Building, Room 345, Independence Ave. & First Street SE, from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. One year after the release of the 9/11 Commission Final Report many questions about what transpired on September 11, 2001 and who should...
Actually, the answer is absurdly simple. There are many, many, many Sunnis in Iraq who are not themselves terrorists; but they know who the terrorists are, where they can be found, and they know that they are plotting to murder dozens of children, women, and other innocents. But because the victims are largely Shia, these Sunni simply do not care enough to become "rats" or "tattletales;" thus the bombings continue. This probably describes a minority of Sunni, but it must be a sizeable minority, and sufficiently clustered together that there are "safe zones" known to the terrorists where they can plan, plot, and produce their deadly product. That is why the Iraqi forces cannot round them all up: a core group of several thousand are being shielded and supported by a group of cheerleaders for al-Qaeda among the Sunni in Iraq. There might be a smaller group of Shia in...
July 17, 2005
Dana Milbank and Charles Babington point out that Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman and New York Senator Chuck Schumer went to the same Brooklyn high school, James Madison. However, it appears that neither share that old school spirit with each other any longer, especially after Coleman singled out Schumer for "partisan attacks" in the Plame case: Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn and James Madison High Class of '66, took off Thursday after another nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn and James Madison High Class of '67, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). "The chairman of the Democratic Senate campaign committee" -- that would be Schumer -- is "sucking the oxygen out of that atmosphere of collegiality and constructive cooperation by trying to make a partisan issue of something that is being handled by a special counsel today," Coleman said in a news conference on the Wilson-Plame-Rove CIA leak...
Lots of project work on the plate for the Captain this Sunday, and a visit from friends as well. Given that the news has been relatively quiet this weekend, I'm taking the afternoon off. However, I will return later tonight with a book review and more blogging. Which book? Well, what's the book of the weekend?...
Matthew Cooper has decided to write about his testimony to the grand jury investigating the leak of Valerie Plame's name and status to Robert Novak. In the new edition of Time Magazine, Cooper confirms that the New York Times version of events published late last week which had him calling Rove, not the other way around, was accurate: In his 2 1/2 hour testimony last Wednesday before the grand jury investigating the CIA leak case, TIME White House correspondent Matthew Cooper testified that when he called White House political advisor Karl Rove the week of July 6, 2003, Rove did not reveal Joe Wilson’s wife’s name and did not reveal her covert status to Cooper. But he did say that Wilson’s wife works at the “Agency on WMD.” This was the first time Cooper had ever heard of Wilson’s wife. ... Cooper writes that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald “asked me...
Can ... we ... PLEASE ... get Congressmen and Senators to throw away the Nazi analogies? Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) became the latest idiot to get impaled on a historical swastika when he attempted to paint Islamofascist terrorists as worse than Nazis. That may have escaped notice, but then LoBiondo decided to up the ante by crediting Hitler with a rational motivation for killing six million Jews: Congressman Frank LoBiondo apologized for suggesting that Guantanamo Bay detainees were worse than Adolf Hitler because the Nazi dictator "sort of had a political rationale about what he was doing." The New Jersey Republican made the remark on a radio talk show this past week, describing his recent visit to the Naval Base in Cuba. Muslim terrorists, he said, were more evil than Hitler. "Hitler, in his philosophy, was, you know, he hated Jews, he was murdering Jews, and there were some people...
I refrained from running out to purchase the new Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, during the midnight madness sales at the local bookstores. Last time, that meant serious delays in getting a copy of the book. However, either Scholastic produced a more realistic first run or the initial enthusiasm may have been overestimated. When I went to the bookstore on Saturday, I found several dozen copies at 40% off available and almost no shoppers in the store. I took advantage of the opportunity and picked up my copy, and after finishing a couple of other projects this weekend, tore through the new installment. * SPOILERS -- BEWARE! * In my opinion, J. K. Rowling improves with each new outing, and Half-Blood Prince follows in that tradition. Rowling plays around a bit more with the formula here, just as she started to do with Goblet of Fire,...
July 18, 2005
Apparently there really is a greeting card for every occasion, as the commercials used to claim. Cathy Gallagher has ensured that with her new line of greeting cards for cheating spouses, romantically named the Secret Lover Collection. This product line emphasizes the special bond formed between two people who promise other people not to sleep around, but then do anyway: Gallagher doesn't plan on patronizing her own business. "You don't have to be a murderer to write a murder mystery," she says. Nor, apparently, does one need to be unfaithful to write a Christmas card that says, "As we each celebrate with our families, I will be thinking of you." Gallagher says her Secret Lover Collection of 24 cards is the first line exclusively for people having affairs, and she expects hot sales. She says half of married people have had affairs (though some studies show the figure to be...
The Los Angeles Times runs an article on the Plame leak today that manages to avoid advancing the story with any evidence and get the existing facts almost entirely incorrect, despite a number of revelations in the past few days from grand-jury leaks and the new article by Matt Cooper. Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten concoct their stew of "revelations" and bad fact-checking by relying on anonymous sourcing: Top aides to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were intensely focused on discrediting former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV in the days after he wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times suggesting the administration manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq, federal investigators have been told. Perhaps that springs from the fact that Wilson not only lied in that op-ed -- on which I have written extensively -- but also had begun leaking false versions of...
Is it too much to ask for a newspaper's editorial board to have passed their high-school Civics classes? Apparently so in Minneapolis, where the Star-Tribune's editorial this morning once again attempts to opine on the Supreme Court opening left by Sandra Day O'Connor. They start in the predictable pattern set by earlier missives: Americans have come to see how profoundly a single justice can influence the court and the country. No one has seized upon that lesson with more fervor than America's religious right-wingers, who consider O'Connor's retirement during a Republican administration a chance to redirect the court. They won't readily say it, but they're eager to see another ideological bedfellow on the bench -- a predictable thinker whose views on abortion rights, gay marriage, police power and strong governmental authority reflect their own. Uh-huh. I don't hear them complaining about Chuck Schumer demanding that any nominee answer questions about...
The French continue to isolate themselves in the war on terror. First they allegedly concocted the forged documents that came to the CIA and caused a row over the State of the Union speech. Now they have gone out of their way to lie about sensitive information in the middle of the London bombing case simply to score a couple of political points, enraging the British and threatening to end cooperation between the two countries on intelligence: In an interview with Le Monde that appeared on the newsstands last Monday afternoon - two days after the exceptionally open briefing - [French antiterrorism coordinator Christophe] Chaboud announced to the world that he knew "the nature of the explosives" used in the London bombings. It "appears to be military, which is very worrisome," he said, adding: "We're more used to cells making homemade explosives from chemical substances. How did they get them?...
Unfortunately, the Plame investigation has uncovered a genuine national scandal -- the inability of the national news media to read a government report. David Broder provides another example in yesterday's Washington Post, where he continues to misrepresent the facts surrounding naming of Valerie Plame in a 2003 Robert Novak column. He starts off in a chatty vein by explaining the use of anonymous sourcing and the trust it requires, but quickly gets down to misrepresenting reality: The first publication of Plame's name came in a column by Robert Novak, who said he had been given her identity and occupation by two Bush administration officials. The obvious intent of the leak -- and of the column, which ran in The Post and other newspapers -- was to discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had just published an op-ed article in the New York Times challenging a presidential claim that...
We have enough problems fighting the war on terror in the measured, strategic method used by the Bush and Blair administrations without Republican Congressmen recommending the bombing of sites held sacred by Muslims across the political spectrum. Yet today, Tom Tancredo (R-CO) suggested that a nuclear attack on an American city could result in a bombing run on Mecca: A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons. Rep. Tom Tancredo made his remarks Friday on WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla. His spokesman stressed he was only speaking hypothetically. ... "Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered. "You're talking about bombing Mecca,"...
As predicted, a fine time was had by all, except for those who got lost, never finding the joint due to the wretchedly error-ridden directions. Some attendees, however, mistrusting the geographical abilities of bloggers, thought to look up the route on the map and arrived undetoured. Relying entirely upon my world-famous memory (and this "agenda" sheet of paper I hijacked back home with me), I shall post here a brief and entirely serious precis of the highlights of the Bear Flag League reception. If serious, sober-minded reporting of such a momentous occasion as this yanks your crank, read on. The management warrant that no outright fabrications will be found in the following dissertation. Everything is true, including the orgiastic fertility rites and the sacrifice of a llama following the event. Special Note: All times are approximated to within ± 3.825 minutes, due to obscured view of the sun....
Continue reading "Dafydd: Bear Flag League Reception and Hootenanny" »
July 19, 2005
(All right, that's not fair. Hugh has had points before. So maybe "twice.") But this one is pretty big. Hugh was one of the first to jump on Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) for his hoof-in-mouth suggestion that if America is nuked by some militant Islamist group, we should increase the danger to the United States by orders of magnitude by bombing Mecca. (Michael Medved was also quick off the mark.) Here's Hugh: I want to be very clear on this. No responsible American can endorse the idea that the U.S. is in a war with Islam. That is repugnant and wrong, and bloggers and writers and would-be bloggers and writers have to chose sides on this, especially if you are a center-right blogger. The idea that all of Islam is the problem is a fringe opinion. It cannot be welcomed into mainstream thought because it is factually wrong. If Tancredo's...
UPDATE: Beldar has
more on this topic, including a lengthy explanation in my comments. And on a personal note, I want to wish him well in his recovery from a recent (and blessedly mild) heart attack.
Germany has shown once again why using a law-enforcement approach with terrorists ultimately fails to protect Western nations. A German court released suspected terrorist financier Mamoun Darkanzli because of a dispute over an extradition request and the reversal of a newly-passed German law intended to strengthen legal tools to fight terrorism: In a ruling seen as a sharp blow to coordinated counterterrorism efforts in Europe, Germany's highest court refused Monday to turn over to Spain a citizen suspected of aiding Al Qaeda, arguing that a recent European agreement to streamline extradition procedures violated the rights of German citizens. ... But on Monday the German Constitutional Court declared the law creating the European warrant void, even though it was ratified by the German Parliament in November. The court reasoned that the law infringed on the right of every citizen of Germany, enshrined in its Basic Law, to a court hearing in...
Stephen Harper took time off from his Canadian summer tour to speak at a convention of center-right parties from around the world meeting in Washington DC this week. Looking to invigorate his image abroad and to repair some of the damage to Canadian-US relations over Iraq and missile defence, Harper proclaimed that a Tory government in Canada would start getting serious about counterterrorism efforts: A Conservative government in Canada would move aggressively to step up efforts in the war on international terrorism and create a single office to oversee Canada's spy and security forces, Opposition Leader Stephen Harper promised yesterday in a speech to right-wing fellow travellers gathered in Washington. "In particular, Canada can play a stronger role in the war on terrorism," Mr. Harper told a receptive audience of representatives of centrist and conservative parties from more than 60 nations attending the triennial International Democrat Union meeting. The G&M...
The Washington Times goes after the partisans still flogging the Rove-Plame connection in the face of all available evidence in its editorial today. The paper points out that the media has chased its own whistleblower while ignoring the corruption he pointed out: Let's make it clear at the start: Were special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation to bring evidence to light that Karl Rove or anyone else in the Bush White House had anything to do with revealing the identity of any covert CIA agent, President Bush should fire them and they should be forced to face the full consequences of the law. But nothing in the public record thus far suggests that Mr. Rove or anyone else in the administration has committed such a violation in the case of Valerie Plame. Mrs. Plame is the former CIA agent who suggested that her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, an opponent of...
Iraqi terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has concentrated his effort in recent weeks on inflaming sectarian passions in Iraq by targeting Shi'ites and Kurds for attack, rather than Americans or the thus-far sympathetically inclined Sunni population. That changed today as a terrorist assassinated a prominent Sunni politician working on the new Iraqi constitution: Mijbil Issa was gunned down, along with an adviser to the committee and a bodyguard, in the Karradah area of Baghdad, according to Mohammed Abed-Rabbou, another Sunni member of the drafting committee. Issa was among 15 Sunnis named last month to a committee charged with drafting a new constitution by Aug. 15. The Sunnis were added in an attempt to reach out to the religious community at the heart of the insurgency. However, two Sunni committee members had already quit because of threats from the insurgents who oppose the U.S.-backed, Shiite-dominated government. Zarqawi seems to have decided...
Despite having one of the worst political scandals in Canadian history as an albatross, the Liberal Party continues to outpoll the Conservatives, building up strong leads in BC and the Atlantic area. The reason? The Tories still have not done a good job of showcasing their party leader: The gift of scandal and voter fatigue with the four-term Liberal government have done little for Stephen Harper's Conservatives, a new poll suggests. A Pollara poll gives the Liberals a commanding advantage - 11 points ahead of their arch-rivals, with staggering leads in battlegrounds like B.C., the Toronto area and Atlantic Canada. Michael Marzolini, who heads Pollara, says the Canadian electorate wants to punish the Liberals and there's only one explanation for such a large lead. "The whole thing is Stephen Harper at this stage," said Marzolini, who was once the Liberals' pollster. Once again, the lack of standing for Harper remains...
Figuring that the press has eaten itself enough over the Plame leak investigation, George Bush announced that he will toss the media a fresh bone on which to chew for the next few weeks, tonight at 9 PM EDT: President Bush has decided whom to nominate to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court and was poised to announce his pick in a prime-time Tuesday night address. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the Bush administration was asking television outlets to broadcast the speech live. Bush's spokesman would not identify the president's choice. But there was intense speculation that it would be Judge Edith Clement of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Speculation all morning long has centered on Edith Clement, as the gentlemen at Power Line have discussed. Neither appear terribly impressed with her selection, if it turns out to be her. Clement did get...
...Is Moslem Derangement Syndrome. Do I mean the undenial derangement of some but not all Moslems, who murder the innocent to make some irrational point of religious bigotry? Oh, not this time. By Moslem Derangement Syndrome, I mean those Americans who advocate the murder of hundreds of thousands of Moslems, just to make an equally irrational point arising from their religious bigotry. I explicitly refer to all those who propose, demand, and practically salivate over "nuking Mecca." I'm not talking about Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO). He never went that far. As far as he did go, he was still a dangerous fool; but just as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) does not really believe that American guards at Guantanamo Bay are just like Nazi concentration-camp guards, Stalinist gulag torturers, and Khmer Rouge butchers -- he was just stretching for a ridiculous (but dangerous) intensifier -- neither does Tancredo really support the...
ABC and Fox News now report that Bush will name John Roberts as Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement. (via Michelle Malkin) If true, this is great news. More later as it develops. UPDATE: People For the American Way won't share my enthusiasm: In the short time since he was confirmed by the Senate in May 2003, Judge Roberts has issued troubling dissents from decisions by the full D.C. Circuit not to reconsider two important rulings. These included a decision upholding the constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act as applied in a California case and a ruling against Bush Administration efforts to keep secret the records concerning Vice President Cheney's energy task force. Hey, this might be a two-fer: a conservative justice and a member of the CheneyChimpyMcHalliburtEnron conspiracy! UPDATE II: He doesn't have many fans at the Alliance for Justice, either: As a political appointee in the Reagan administration, Roberts worked...
July 20, 2005
If George Bush wanted to set the media elite back on their heels with his first Supreme Court nomination, he succeeded brilliantly. The selection of John Roberts appears to have stunned editorial writers in the four largest cities. Their entries today heralding this new judiciary battle show a healthy dose of caution and calls for a dignified process. Most of them tip their hat to Bush's political skills, noting the difficulty for Democrats to deal with the thin paper trail of Roberts, but still point out potential land mines for his confirmation. The Washington Post gives Bush the most credit for a thoughtful selection: IN NOMINATING Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court, President Bush picked a man of substance and seriousness. Judge Roberts has served only briefly on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but he was previously among the country's best-regarded appellate lawyers,...
An informed source told me this afternoon that Bernard Goldberg's appearance on CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch turned out to be a sandbag to attack Goldberg and his book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37). The interview, which airs at 10:30 pm EDT on Wednesday night, starts off as a one-on-one with Deutsch, and apparently went off with no problem. Deutsch or his producer asked Goldberg to stick around for another segment to participate in a panel discussion on cultural mores, and Goldberg agreed. However, instead of debating cultural issues as the producers had explained the segment to Goldberg, it turned out that the show had stacked the panel with people who disliked Goldberg's book -- and ganged up on him to belittle it. Goldberg stuck it out for the segment, but was understandably irate at the end and told the booking...
My new Daily Standard column has now been posted. I explore the Rove-Plame debate in the light of anonymous sources and the Deep Throat celebrations of just a few weeks back: SO IN SUM: In July 2003, a rogue CIA operative, hired by his analyst wife at the agency, was leaking false information about war intelligence to national newspapers. When that didn't raise enough eyebrows, he went public, misrepresenting his findings and the nature of his selection for the assignment. Having a CIA operative suddenly take political potshots at the administration called into question whether the White House had lied about intelligence or the ambassador was telling the entire truth himself. Cooper went to his best sources to find the answer to the question, and he got the right answer. Sounds just like Watergate, except in this case, the White House told the truth while low-level elements at the CIA...
UPDATE II: Jon at QandO nails
bad reporting and criticism at Tapped. It's been a while since I've linked to Jon, but I read his neo-libertarian (libertarianism mixed with sanity) blog every day, and I recommend it to everyone. Great stuff there.
I predict that, despite the mostly-pleasant sounds wafting from Washington circles in the past fourteen hours since George Bush made John Roberts his first Supreme Court nominee, we will see a highly contentious public battle over his confirmation. Senators Leahy, Schumer, Kennedy, and Durbin signaled in muted tones that they have no intention of treating Roberts expeditiously, and instead have emphasized that they will treat this confirmation as "starting from scratch" -- which, as Jon Cornyn correctly deduced, presaged obstructionist tactics. But that only speaks to tactics. The ammunition for the Democrats will prove too seductive to refrain from firing, and the largest battle will actually return them to a favorite accusation against the Bush administration: their conduct of the war on terror. Last week, Roberts joined in a unanimous decision to affirm the jurisdiction of military tribunals in processing terrorists detained overseas, a decision that has a solid basis...
Fans of Star Trek are mourning the loss of the colorful actor who brought the Enterprise's engineer, Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, to life on television and the silver screen. James Doohan passed away early this morning from pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, at age 85: Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said. He had said farewell to public life in August 2004, a few months after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. I spent many wonderful moments watching Doohan portray the ever-resourceful Mr. Scott, whose love for the ship surpassed even that of the captain, James Kirk. My nickname comes from my earlier passion for the series, which has lessened considerably over the years, but the fondness remains. Doohan's Scottish...
After the initial glow of George Bush's announcement of John Roberts as his Supreme Court nominee, rumblings have surfaced on the right about his lack of a track record defending conservatism. The loudest of these rumblings comes from the ever-outspoken and highly entertaining Ann Coulter, who takes her accustomed no-holds-barred approach to venting her dissatisfaction: So all we know about him for sure is that he can't dance and he probably doesn't know who Jay-Z is. Other than that, he is a blank slate. Tabula rasa. Big zippo. Nada. Oh, yeah...we also know he's argued cases before the supreme court. big deal; so has Larry Flynt's attorney. But unfortunately, other than that that, we don’t know much about John Roberts. Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Never. Not ever. ... It means absolutely nothing that NARAL and Planned Parenthood attack him: They also...
Some Senate Democrats signaled today that they will not likely support any attempt to filibuster SCOTUS nominee John Roberts, at least not based on his judicial philosophy. The AP reports that two key Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Joe Lieberman, have characterized Roberts as mainstream enough not to invoke the "extraordinary circumstances" envisaged by the Gang of 14: The possibility of a Democratic filibuster against Supreme Court nominee John Roberts in the Republican-controlled Senate seemed to all but disappear Wednesday. ... "Do I believe this is a filibuster-able nominee? The answer would be no, not at this time I don't," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a strong abortion-rights supporter and a committee member. ... Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said the group had sent a message to the president to send the Senate a mainstream conservative. "And it appears at first look that Judge Roberts is that," he said. Roberts is "in...