Flying Home, with France On My Mind

Today we're flying back to Minneapolis, after a great vacation with the family. These times are never long enough, but it will be great to sleep in our own beds again.

No other posting today, as I will be too danged busy, but you should check out this post at Jennifer's History and Stuff about France. I spent my blogging time today writing an extensive comment on why and how the French irritate the livin' snot out of me. (If you read this, Jennifer, sorry about the length.)

Tomorrow, we'll have the 500th post at Captain's Quarters!

From the Soldier's Perspective

Andrew Sullivan posts this e-mail from a soldier at the Thanksgiving celebration in Baghdad where President Bush made his appearance:

Mr. Sullivan, I was present for the surprise visit by the President. It was truly wonderful to be there, and my buddies and I really are grateful that President Bush would take a real risk to come see u. He flew about 12 hours to spend 2 hours with us, he served food to the troops, but he never got a chance to eat himself, at least not until he got on the plane, I'd imagine. For 2 hours, the President walked amongst us, not a receiving line where we came to him, stiff and formal, but coming to us, reading our names on our uniforms and greeting us by name. He looked me in the eye when he shook my hand, he joked with some, whispered to others, spoke a little Spanish to my friend. 2 hours of almost non-stop motion, how exhausting after a 12 hour flight! He did it to be with us, and we appreciate it.

It's amazing how well that compensates for the media elite currently blathering on about how the secrecy of the trip amounts to lying to the sainted press corps, as if security considerations were just an annoying afterthought. Howard Kurtz reports on the biggest whiners:

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, criticized the White House correspondents who made the trip without spilling the secret. "That's just not kosher," he said. "Reporters are in the business of telling the truth. They can't decide it's okay to lie sometimes because it serves a larger truth or good cause."

So, Tom, let me get this straight: if a reporter decides to pose as a mental patient to blow the lid off of abuse in psychiatric hospitals, he's acting unethically -- correct? I mean, the reporter is lying, isn't he? If a reporter poses as a slaughterhouse worker in order to inform the public of substandard practices in food handling, he's lying, isn't he? Investigative journalists do this all the time -- and in the case of the Bush trip, it wasn't even lying -- it was keeping one's mouth shut for a finite, short period of time so that the story could be told safely. Explain to me how that's unethical and that's lying, but the two cases I mentioned earlier (Geraldo Rivera, 1969, and Upton Sinclair, 1906), explicitly lying about one's identity and purpose is somehow justified by the end result.

Philip Taubman, Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, said that "in this day and age, there should have been a way to take more reporters. People are perfectly capable of maintaining a confidence for security reasons. It's a bad precedent." Once White House officials "decided to do a stealth trip, they bought into a whole series of things that are questionable."

Philip Taubman and Tom Rosenstiel really ought to compare notes. On one hand, Rosenstiel says that reporters are obligated to tell what they know, but on the other hand, Taubman's insisting that the White House could have told the entire press corps and no one would have breathed a word of it. Oh, and the White House "decided" on stealth mode, too; it's not as though it were necessary to keep him alive, or anything like that. Kim Hume has a more realistic view:

She said the administration took a network pool crew, as it was supposed to, and "we didn't get any competitive advantage from it." Had more journalists been told, Hume said, "the story would have leaked in about two seconds" because "news people are the biggest gossips alive."

Second, from this story, the cell wasn't captured in its entirety. Why? Wait for it -- media leaks. It would have been real nice if the Beeb had been a bit more, say, robust in their coverage of that part of the story. I'd love to know which outlet leaked information that made it possible for suspected terrorists to get out of dodge before the cops grabed them, wouldn't you? (But by all means, lets rehash whether it was unnecessary deception for the White House to put out a fake menu before the President left for Baghdad. I'm sure that information would never have leaked.)

The media are up in arms both because Bush didn't invite them all to his little party, and also because they're beginning to suspect that he's going to breeze to re-election next year, and they aren't happy at all about either one.

UPDATE: Demosophia has a good post on this same topic. Money quote: "I suppose they'd also have insisted on giving Hitler fair warning about the invasion of Normandy." And besides the one post I linked from Rantingprofs, you can read more about this story in several earlier posts as well.

Politburo Diktat Maps the Blogosphere

Comrade Commissar is not just good political enforcer -- he is Glorious Revolutionary Cartographer as well. If you click on just one link today, you must click on this one, Comrades.

I notice that KaptainEdsk is located in South-Central Reynoldssia, which suits me just fine. Nice place for good weather and a nice little dacha near the Volga, da? This is your one-stop blogroll; simply click where you want to travel, and faster than Glorious Revolution, you are transported to the blog of your choice. (Da, I know, Comrades, choice is counterrevolutionary plot, but we must peacefully co-exist for the moment ...)

Dana Milbank Spouts Off Again

Dana Milbank, whose reporting leaves no doubt about his feelings for the Bush administration, attempts an in-depth analysis and only manages to state that Bush is "indelibly" tied to results in Iraq -- as if that's breaking news:

Iraqis may be reassured that the United States will put down the insurgency and restore order in their country. Or they may take the image of Bush landing unannounced at night without lights and not venturing from a heavily fortified military installation as confirmation that the security situation in Iraq is dire indeed.

But one thing is certain. Bush's Thanksgiving Day surprise ties him, for better or worse, ever more tightly to the outcome of the Iraq struggle.

Well, excuse me for stating the obvious, but duh. "Insurgents" -- otherwise known as unreconstructed Ba'athists who would like nothing better than to re-install Saddamism/Stalinism -- have access to SAMs and explosives and relatively cheap cars that can be used as low-speed guided missiles. No one knows that better than the Iraqis, for Pete's sake. I suspect they are a lot more aware of their security situation than would be a pampered reporter typing out his "analysis" from the safety of his mid-Atlantic home office. I suspect that they are a lot more aware of their world now that they have over 150 newspapers free to print whatever they like, rather than Saddam's Minister of Information -- Comical Ali -- telling them that the camo-wearing groups of people arriving in armored vehicles through the middle of Baghdad didn't exist, and if you help these imaginary folk, the Fedayeen will kill you.

And if you don't already know that Bush's presidency is absolutely tied to the war on terror, and specifically to success in this radical intervention in Iraq, then reading Dana Milbank won't cure you from your obtuseness.

There is nothing novel about presidential visits to war zones at holiday time. Bill Clinton went to Kosovo for Thanksgiving in 1999, Lyndon B. Johnson went to Vietnam for Christmas in 1967, and President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower visited Korean battle fronts in 1952. Richard M. Nixon also traveled to Vietnam, in 1969.

Ho ho ho ... oh, wait, he's serious. Nixon, Johnson, and Eisenhower visited the troops when the zones were hot, just as Bush did yesterday. Kosovo was hardly a hot zone in November 1999. This is an attempt to de-emphasize Bush's surprise visit to the troops. Don't get me wrong; Clinton did the right thing in 1999 by spending his Thanksgiving with the troops, and I'll assume that he would have made the trip if it was still a hot zone, like Baghdad is today. It's just that the two visits are hardly equal in terms of impact or security.

In contrast to Bush's carrier landing, which they immediately branded a stunt, Bush's critics yesterday did not begrudge him the trip to Iraq, nor the necessary secrecy, nor even the disinformation the White House used to lead people to believe he would be at home on his ranch in Texas all day.

This is pretty disingenuous, as critics spent most of the day yesterday begrudging him all of these things; they just didn't have the guts to go on the record. For instance, MS-NBC manages to get this into their story:

Upon hearing of the visit, Iraqis looked on with befuddlement and bemusement, saying they knew it was meant for U.S. troops but hoping he gained some insight into the country during his brief stay. ... Defending his decision to make the trip and the deception surrounding it [emphasis mine], Bush said: “I think the American people appreciate me going to express my sympathies to these kids.["]

In addition, while I was watching the news of the event on CNN, there was a good deal of discussion as to whether the administration had acted ethically in deceiving the White House press corps about the president's itinerary for Thanksgiving, as if he had decided to eat at his in-laws instead of at his ranch. Talk about missing the entire point! Also, if you want to see more carping about the Thanksgiving visit, feel free to lose 30 points off your IQ by visiting Democratic Underground, where they are inventing all sorts of weird motives and conspiracies, but in all fairness, they are hardly representative of mainstream opposition.

You can read the rest of Milbank's "analysis", but it contains little in the way of analytical thought. It's just a rehash of wire service quotes from yesterday and today. Why does the Post continue to allow Milbank to cover this presidency, anyway? If this trite and hackneyed piece is the best he can do, he should be reassigned to movie reviews and let someone else who understands the news cover it.

UPDATE: Power Line gives this a brief mention, but also links to a straightforward story at the Washington Times.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Although this is not well known in many areas, it is popular in Minnesota to deep-fry turkeys for Thanksgiving; the process seals in moisture and cooks the bird rather quickly. However, it is not without its dangers, and it seems that every year brings stories like this:

Bill Fickett wanted to give his wife a break from the kitchen on Thanksgiving, so he offered to cook the turkey. His gesture ended up setting their garage on fire and causing about $14,000 in damage. ... Fickett was heating up about 3 gallons of oil for the turkey right before the fire started. He adjusted the temperature to the recommended 350 degrees, then stepped into the house to get the bird.

Smoke was pouring out of the garage when they came back.

When St. Cloud firefighters arrived about 2:15 p.m., the garage was in flames, said Gene Kostreba, acting assistant fire chief. The fire was contained to the garage, which was not attached to the house.

Fortunately, the Ficketts only lost the garage and its contents (no car was inside at the time), and not the house or anyone's life, and no one was hurt. But it underscores the danger of this process. If you are going to deep-fry your bird, you can't walk away, and you had better be clear of any structures when you cook. Bill Fickett has a better idea:

"I'll probably stick to baking them now.''

New Additions to Blogroll

Today, I'm adding a couple of blogs to my blogroll. First, I'm adding Blog Iran, a blog dedicated to freeing Iranians and establishing a true democracy in Iran, free of the control of the mullahs. Today I received an e-mail from Haleh at ActivistChat.com:

The news site provides pro-freedom and pro-democracy news - specifically in regards to Iran, and BLOG-IRAN is a Grassroots Campaign that is uniting Bloggers from around the world who support the Iranian struggle for freedom & democracy.

The goal of each is to provide much needed awareness of the struggle for democracy in Iran as well as support America's/Bush's vision of aiding people of the region and throughout the world in their battle for
freedom.

Here's a telling quote regarding Bush's commitment to spreading democracy, and our willingness to support that policy:

Food for thought: - Bush has greater support in Iran among the Iranian population than he has here in the states, lets hope he can act on the great speeches and defend freedom of Iranians, the only way for the war on terrorism to be won.

The only way to truly secure our freedom is to free as many people as we can from brutal, oppressive dictatorships and kleptocracies. Hopefully these changes can be peaceful; in the spirit of supporting peaceful change, I'm adding Blog Iran to the Int'l Waters list.

I'm also adding Eye on the Left to the Battleships list. EotL is a sharply partisan but always interesting blog, and quite frankly, I'm not sure why I haven't added them before. It's a great window on the opposition, especially its fringe elements.

Chickenhawk? I Think Not

President George Bush flew into a hot zone in order to spend Thanksgiving in Iraq:

President Bush made a Thanksgiving Day visit to Baghdad, appearing before delighted soldiers taken completely by surprise. After appearing before some U.S. troops in Baghdad and the Iraqi Governing Council, Bush left Baghdad at about 8 p.m. Iraq time, or noon EST. Air Force One stayed on the ground for just two-and-a-half hours, the White House said.

I can't tell you how outstanding it is to see a commander-in-chief spending a family holiday with the troops that he has, wisely or foolishly, put into harm's way. Obviously, this visit could not be announced to either the troops or the press before it was made. Here's how the troops found out:

Iraq's U.S. civil administrator L. Paul Bremer told the soldiers he wanted the most senior person in the room to read the president's Thanksgiving proclamation and asked who was there to do it.

Then Bush emerged, misty-eyed and wearing a U.S. Army exercise jacket. As soon as the soldiers spotted him, the room erupted in cheers. He told them he had arrived for a warm meal.

"I can't think of a finer group of folks to have dinner with," he told the troops.

The folks at the Democratic Underground are not pleased:

We can never underestimate Bush and Co. This will play *very* well on TV - not just Faux - it's breaking on all the networks. They're playing it up that Bush risked a great deal by flying into a hot zone (they're rehasing the SAM attack on the DHL plane from the weekend). All sounds very Bruce Willis (puke) ballsy. We can wail and gnash our teeth about how pathetic this is, but Bush scored some major points here. It's quite different that the aircraft carrier fiasco (where there was NO danger at all) - there actually was some danger here. It's high time that dems realize exactly what we're up against and act accordingly.

Perhaps it's time for them to understand that politics is not everything with this president. Bush is leading in all polls against all candidates without even airing a single ad, despite the months-long tirade his opponents have launched against him. Bush did not need to make this trip, and in fact the trip may not have been advisable from a national-security perspective. The fact that he did it anyway speaks volumes about his character and his motivations. We hear a lot from Democrats about supporting the troops; if this is the tenor of the reaction we see from this event, it will speak volumes about the character of the opposition. (Thanks to Eye on the Left for the story and the quote.)

UPDATE: Give a cheer to Senator Hillary Clinton; she spent Thanksgiving with the troops in Afghanistan.

Thanksgiving Greetings Around the Web

Here are a few good posts this Thanksgiving holiday:

Power Line has George Washington's original Thanksgiving proclamation. Definitely a good read today. They also link to a story in today's Strib that I read last night, about George H.W. Bush's Thanksgiving letter back home to his parents when he was stationed in Minneapolis in 1942.

The Sophorist continues the historical perspective with a proclamation from Abraham Lincoln making Thanksgiving official, in 1863.

Jon at QandO gives thanks for capitalism and its ability to produce freedom.

Lileks, who is about to pull a disappearing act in December [sob], has a small thought for today.

Venomous Kate's baking all day. My blood sugar went out of control just looking at her menu.

Guess who Matt Margolis is thankful for! (Me, too.)

Lastly, while we're at home with our families giving thanks, there's one family in the Upper Midwest that will be praying for the safe return of their 22-year-old daughter. DC at Brainstorming posts pictures and the story of Dru Sjodin. Here's one of them:

DC believes in the power of prayer; so do I. Let's all remember her and her family in our Thanksgiving prayers today.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from Captain's Quarters! As we continue our vacation, I can't help but to think how blessed I am for my life and my family, even with all of our problems and challenges. Sometimes I think my life truly started when I got married ten years ago, even though I joke that it seems like 20, which usually earns me a slap on the arm.

Yesterday we spent a great day at Disneyland. Now, I grew up in Orange County; I went to Disneyland (and Knott's Berry Farm) about a thousand times when I was growing up, so except for the newly added attractions, it's been old hat for me whenever I go back. But my sister works for Disney -- we get in free, and so we've usually gone there on every trip back to California. At the end of the day, we've always had a lot to joke about: all the commercialism, the cheesy music, the prices (we pay for the food & merchandise!), the crowds, and the silly parades.

This time, though, we took the Little Admiral, even though at 18 months I thought she was a little too young to enjoy Disneyland. I was wrong. She loved Disneyland, the rides, the big characters walking around, and all of the sights and sounds I have been taking for granted. I got video of her riding Dumbo with Mommy and Daddy, and saw the surprise and delight in her eyes when that elephant took off at the beginning of the ride. We have video of her laughing and running up to Minnie and Goofy and giving them hugs (and I thought they'd frighten her -- ha!). Best of all, I got to hold her during two showings of the holiday parade and watch her as she saw Santa at the end, waving and saying "hi", and completely enraptured by the music. And there's nothing better than holding your granddaughter like that while she's in such delight of the world around her.

So, on Thanksgiving, I'm thinking that while it's good to be cynical with government and politics, perhaps I should be less so with the other things in life: family, friends, and places like Disneyland, where a young girl can be delighted with sounds, sights, music, and just being alive in the middle of a whole lot that's good and wonderful. Yesterday, "The Happiest Place on Earth" was not just a slogan, and you know what? I am so thankful I got to be there to see it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. May your day be filled with wonder and goodness.

Magyar Blog: When and How Do You Call It a Night?

This may seem a bit cruel once you read Martin's entire post, but he does raise an interesting point of blog etiquette:

What is the etiquette for ending a blog? And not just a cessation of posts either, I mean taking it down completely. If this blog disappears, and all links lead to 404 errors (or even a message from me apologizing), is that some sort of Stalinist re-writing of history? It's not like a million people have linked to this site. I got one link from Instapundit, one from Serenity's Journal, a bunch from Frozen In Montreal, two from Sneakeasy’s, and a couple from Debbye in Toronto. Seriously, in seven months of blogging, that’s it. So no one will be crushed. But do I have some obligation to keep the content online?

Read the entire post. I admit that the thought has occurred to me in a theoretical sense, although I am very happy to be blogging at this stage. I would assume that some sort of valediction would be polite, even if your readership was small, just to let them know you're OK and haven't been hit by a bus. Since Martin is paying for his hosting, cutting off the funding would likely mean his stuff would go off line more or less instantly, while with Typepad, I'm not sure if that would happen or if I would no longer be able to access my blog if I stopped the service.

However, if you read Magyar Blog, you'll see that it is interesting and well-written. My advice would be to continue as long as you have the passion for it. If you feel like you need to go a different direction, create a new blog but keep your old one up in case you feel like returning to it.

And good luck!

UPDATE: Martin clarifies that he's not paying for the hosting, and that the Stalin-style purge would be self-inflicted. I didn't get that the first time around.

Gray Lady Getting Alzheimers?

Eric at Viking Pundit notes an unusual correction by the Newspaper of Record:

The diagramless puzzle in the magazine on Sunday provided an erroneous clue for 21 Down, seeking the answer "Colin." Colin Powell is secretary of state, not defense.

Now, perhaps I am being a bit harsh, but shouldn't a newspaper know the correct job titles for a sitting president's Cabinet members? Especially in this case, where the Secretary of State is frequently hailed by said newspaper as a lone voice of reason in this administration, while the Secretary of Defense is routinely castigated? I understand that this is just a puzzle, not a hard news story. But one would suppose that the Times allows its employees to read the entire paper; if this is an example of how well the Gray Lady serves to educate its readership ...

Positive Medicare Coverage from the Strib!

Imagine my surprise when I read this article, entitled "Medicare drug plan helps poorest most," featured on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's web site:

The poorest and the sickest older Americans will benefit most from the Medicare legislation passed Tuesday by the Senate and sent to President Bush for his anticipated signature. ... "This bill, we know it is not good enough," said Michele Kimball, Minnesota director of AARP, which supported the legislation. "The perfect plan would have cost $1 trillion. This is the best we could do. But, bottom line, it will help millions who have no help."

There has been a lot of heat and smoke about this proposition, and not just from Democrats, either. Plenty of Republican conservatives are scratching their heads wondering what happened to the party of fiscal responsibility when it just expanded an entitlement program widely believed to be marching towards bankruptcy. But what good is any medical plan that doesn't offer some sort of prescription drug benefit? And for deficit hawks, this bill introduces means testing for the first time in Medicare. Eventually, that could stave off its predicted collapse if means testing is expanded into other areas of Medicare.

But the headline and lead are what stuns me -- the Strib acknowledging that Republicans help the poor and sick. Next thing you know, they'll finally acknowledge that Arabs are capable of handling democracy, and that the UN can't deliver it.

Nah ... now I'm just getting greedy.

Redoing the Blogroll

If you think you're noticing some changes in the blogroll, you are correct. I am changing the blogroll to categorize the listings a little better. My blogroll has grown so large that it's difficult sometimes for people to understand what their relationships are to my blog. As soon as I figure out completely what the new system will be, I'll post an explanation.

The Cheese Stands Alone

For all of you cheese lovers out there, I'd like to introduce a new addition to the CQ blogroll: The Cheese Stands Alone. It's well-written, funny, incisive (I guess that means it has fangs), and most of all, it links back to me. Although it lists me in the Brie category, which implies some sort of French connection, and I don't think it's the cool one with Gene Hackman and nifty car chases with drug dealers. Perhaps it has something to do with my blog being like fine champagne, and as the Cheese says, there is no sex in the Champgne Room, and not much of it here either.

Since there's no sex, and in honor of the newest blogroll addition, here's a list of my Top 10 Cheese of All Time:

10. Fonzie jumps the shark, and Happy Days bites the dust.
9. David Soul sings "Don't Give Up On Us, Bayyy-beh".
8. Every episode of "Friends".
7. Any TV show where the protagonist and antagonist team up to oppose something truly "evil", like Republicans, or independent thought, or other dangerous things.
6. Jesse Ventura, who's getting moldy.
5. Dan Quayle, who still isn't properly aged.
4. Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves." (Limburger.)
3. Synchronized swimming/rhythmic gymnastics. (Yes, they are athletic. No, they're not sports. Get over it.)
2.Everything Stephen King has written since "It", including the 43rd novel or short story about cars being possessed. You think this guy owned a Ford at one time in his life? Sheesh.

And the #1 Cheese of All Time is:

1. Battlefield Earth, the world's greatest unintentional comedy of all time. Besides Jesse Ventura.

By the way, I'm lactose-intolerant.

Politburo Diktat: Ted Rall in 2005

The Commissar has a crystal ball these days, and he's not afraid to use it, comrades. In this post, he's looking into Ted Rall's future commentary, and has translated the screams and grunts thusly:

Thank you for joining the ABB (Anybody But Bush) resistance forces. You have been issued an AK-47 rifle, rocket-propelled grenade launcher and an address where you can pick up supplies of bombs and remote-controlled mines. Please let your cell leader know if you require additional materiel for use against the Bushies.

I don't regret voting for Howard Dean in 2004. But Bush seized power again in 2004, 54% of the popular vote and 300 electoral votes notwithstanding.

Read the whole thing, or be prepared to explain to Glorious Revolutionary Political Apparatchiks why you have failed in this assignment. And Comrade Commissar, if you're checking me out in that crystal ball, I swear she never told me she was the General Secretary's daughter ...

Challenge, Chapter 8: The End, The Beginning

In the final paragraphs of his Weekly Standard article, Stephen Hayes notes that the Feith memo really just skims the surface of the contacts between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaeda. Hayes notes another possible connection:

The memo contains only one paragraph on Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, the Iraqi facilitator who escorted two September 11 hijackers through customs in Kuala Lumpur. ... Other intelligence reports indicate that Shakir whisked not one but two September 11 hijackers--Khalid al Midhar and Nawaq al Hamzi--through the passport and customs process upon their arrival in Kuala Lumpur on January 5, 2000. Shakir then traveled with the hijackers to the Kuala Lumpur Hotel where they met with Ramzi bin al Shibh, one of the masterminds of the September 11 plot. The meeting lasted three days. Shakir returned to work on January 9 and January 10, and never again.

In this case, the US has intelligence reports of Iraq providing material assistance specifically to allow the people who perpetrated 9/11 to travel unmolested. For what purpose? Why would Iraq go to the trouble of doing that, unless it was to assist al-Qaeda in its plans to attack American assets? Hayes continues:

Shakir got his airport job through a contact at the Iraqi Embassy. (Iraq routinely used its embassies as staging grounds for its intelligence operations; in some cases, more than half of the alleged "diplomats" were intelligence operatives.) The Iraqi embassy, not his employer, controlled Shakir's schedule. He was detained in Qatar on September 17, 2001. Authorities found in his possession contact information for terrorists involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 embassy bombings, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and the September 11 hijackings. The CIA had previous reporting that Shakir had received a phone call from the safe house where the 1993 World Trade Center attacks had been plotted.

Shakir, it seems, has several connections to attacks on US interests, not just 9/11. So where is Shakir now? You're not going to believe this, but Iraq and Amnesty International [!] got him sprung:

The Qataris released Shakir shortly after his arrest. On October 21, 2001, he flew to Amman, Jordan, where he was to change planes to a flight to Baghdad. He didn't make that flight. Shakir was detained in Jordan for three months, where the CIA interrogated him. His interrogators concluded that Shakir had received extensive training in counter-interrogation techniques. Not long after he was detained, according to an official familiar with the intelligence, the Iraqi regime began to "pressure" Jordanian intelligence to release him. At the same time, Amnesty International complained that Shakir was being held without charge. The Jordanians released him on January 28, 2002, at which point he is believed to have fled back to Iraq.

So not only did this Iraqi operative have numerous connections to al-Qaeda, but the government of Iraq leaned on Jordan to have him returned. Apparently, no one knows where Shakir is now, but it seems rather obvious that he's not welcoming the US military in Baghdad.

Stephen Hayes has demonstrated repeated and substantiated ties between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaeda. So where is the mainstream media? Where are the investigative reporters? Finally, one major US newspaper is taking this seriously, although only in its op/ed pages. William Safire writes in today's NY Times:

Deniers derogate as "cherry picking" Feith's intelligence summary available to senators: "The Czech counterintelligence service reported that the Sept. 11 hijacker [Mohamed] Atta met with the former Iraqi intelligence chief in Prague, al Ani, on several occasions. During one of those meetings, al Ani ordered the IIS [Iraq Intelligence Service] finance officer to issue Atta funds from IIS financial holdings in the Prague office."

If true, that would implicate Saddam's regime in the murder of 3,000 Americans. Though the C.I.A. can confirm two Atta trips to Prague, in 1994 and 2000, it cannot confirm the two other visits the Czechs reported, including one on April 9, 2001, with Saddam's top European agent, al-Ani, then vice consul in Prague. C.I.A. chief George Tenet testified that the meeting reported by the Czech service was "possible," but the F.B.I. floated hints that car rental records showed Atta to be traveling between Virginia and Florida that week.

Enter the writer Edward Jay Epstein in the liberal online journal Slate: "All these reports attributed to the FBI were, as it turns out, erroneous. There were no car rental records in Virginia, Florida, or anywhere else in April 2001 for Mohamed Atta, since he had not yet obtained his Florida license." You cannot rent a car without a driver's license.

Let's see who else picks up the ball and runs with it.

Palestinian Toys Sending US Message: Do We Hear It?

Someone please explain to me again why we want to give sovereignty to people who produce children's toys such as these:

On the Bush Blogroll

I made a decision tonight that I would officially affiliate my blog with the re-election effort of President Bush. While I think it would surprise no one who reads my blog that I have supported Bush's efforts at prosecuting the war on terror, explicitly stating an affiliation with his re-election campaign made me nervous about casting doubts on my selection of news stories and sources. But no more.

Let me make this clear; I blog for myself, just as I think for myself, and my support of Bush's campaign doesn't change that. For one thing, I don't oppose same-sex civil marriage, and that position won't change. I oppose the death penalty. I believe that Bush is going in the wrong direction on government growth. And it's readily apparent that George Bush is not an effective communicator, and employs darned few good communicators in his senior advisory corps. Had I had the realistic choice in the 2000 Minnesota primary, I would have voted for McCain.

So why support Bush, and especially why affiliate Captain's Quarters with Blogs for Bush?

Because I believe two key things about George Bush: he understands the fact that Islamofascists have been waging war against the United States for over a decade, perhaps as long as 24 years, and George Bush has the nerve and wisdom to keep from being deflected from pursuing this war to its end on our terms. I look at the collection of fools and worse being feted on the Democratic side and I despair for our security if any of them, with the possible exception of Lieberman, gets elected president. Dean, who is likely about to run away with the nomination, is enthusiastically proclaiming the endorsement of Ted Rall, a Marxist nutcase who continually devises elaborate and paranoid conspiracy theories to explain why America is the root of all evil in the world. If after reading Rall calling for the death of American soldiers and reviewing cartoons such as this one which ran shortly after 9/11, Dean thinks that Rall's endorsement is impressive, then Dean is a dangerous, Marxist idiot who needs to be returned to the people of Vermont:

George Bush, at least, knows which civilization needs to prevail if people are going to be free and secure in the future. George Bush freed almost 50 million people in two years at the cost of less than 1,000 American casualties and deposed two of the worst totalitarian regimes in recent decades. Ted Rall advocates the political system which resulted in the oppression of hundreds of millions, the slaughter of millions, and Dean wants us to know that he's proud Ted Rall supports him. That's enough for me.

UPDATE: Eye on the Left has some good observations on the Rall endorsement of Dean, too.

UPDATE 2: According to Jake in the comments, the Dean blog has been extensively editing the Rall post in the hope that it will mitigate the connection betweem Dean and Rall. Fat chance. Check out this post at the Volokh Conspiracy to read the original.

Challenge, Chapter 7: Differences and Motivations

Hayes, in the summary of his original article on the Feith memo, makes the following observation:

CRITICS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION have complained that Iraq-al Qaeda connections are a fantasy, trumped up by the warmongers at the White House to fit their preconceived notions about international terror; that links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden have been routinely "exaggerated" for political purposes; that hawks "cherry-picked" bits of intelligence and tendentiously presented these to the American public.

The Bush Administration has not been the only target for this criticism. Rupert Murdoch's Fox News (the Weekly Standard is also owned by Murdoch) was the subject of a rather notorious study that purported to show that its viewers tended to be extraordinarily misinformed on the war on terror. One of the points that claimed to demonstrate the ignorance of Fox News viewers was the result that around 70% of them thought that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. This resulted in widespread sneering by the rest of the mainstream media about the editorial content and balance at top-rated Fox News. [Disclosure: I rarely, if ever, watch Fox News, except for occasional breaking stories regarding the war. I tend not to watch TV news at all. I prefer Internet sources, and even at that, I don't usually do much reading at Foxnews.com.]

What results from that is a significant motive by the same media mainstream to protect its competitive stance, i.e., Fox News is a shill for Bush and the "neocons". That's why we see news outlets like Newsweek ignoring significant elements of the Hayes/Feith story on one hand, and practically demanding that the Bush administration getting a criminal conviction before demonstrating strong Saddam/al-Qaeda ties both pre- and post-9/11. The key problem is that we are under attack by an enemy abroad, and we have been for at least a decade in the case of al-Qaeda; we can't afford to just sit back and wait for Saddam and his ilk to hold news conferences admitting to supporting and financing these groups. For crying out loud, that's why we have intelligence agencies!

And one who should know better is Senator Carl Levin, who Hayes notes is still operating on the Clintonian prosecutorial approach:

Carl Levin, a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made those points as recently as November 9, in an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." Republicans on the committee, he complained, refuse to look at the administration's "exaggeration of intelligence."

Said Levin: "The question is whether or not they exaggerated intelligence in order to carry out their purpose, which was to make the case for going to war. Did we know, for instance, with certainty that there was any relationship between the Iraqis and the terrorists that were in Afghanistan, bin Laden? The administration said that there's a connection between those terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Iraq. Was there a basis for that?"

Thanks to Hayes and the Weekly Standard, we know that not only was there a basis for that, there was a strong case, almost a prosecutorial case, demonstrating it. But Senator Levin apparently insists that the Executive, who has a constitutional duty to protect the United States from attack, freeze its activity until a jury comes back with a conviction. One would like to think that with the country under attack, even the hard partisans of both sides would understand the need to protect the country. However, as the Rockefeller memo shows, some of the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee (like Levin) are more interested in playing politics than in getting to the truth:

SUMMARY: Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war.

So what you have, in effect, is the Senate Democrats reaching a conclusion before even hearing the evidence in front of them, and in one case deciding that despite this conclusion, they wouldn't take action to presumably protect the country until it gave them the best possible political advantage:

3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time. But we can only do so once.

The best time to do so will probably be next year ...

If the Administration is really running rampant and skewing data in order to pursue an overly militaristic foreign policy and is killing American servicepeople needlessly as a result, why would the Democrats wait until next year to do something to stop it? If Democrats really believe that's the case, doesn't a deliberate delay in responding make them complicit? Of course it does, and the answer is that the Democrats don't appear to care about that one way or the other, as long as they can exploit it for political gain next year. As retiring Democratic Senator Zell Miller said in reaction, this is disgusting. It demonstrates that the American public is not getting the review of the data that they deserve, from either the opposition party or from the mainstream media, both of whom are more interested in scoring points off their respective betes noires than they are in protecting and informing the American public.

Next: a final nugget from Hayes regarding Iraqi connections.

Good Advice for New Bloggers

For those of you who may be new to blogging, or are considering starting your own blog but aren't sure how to build a readership beyond your own family, here's some good advice from the Commissar at the Politburo Diktat:

As great Revolutionary Ringo Starr sang "You gotta pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues, And you know it don't come easy." You must work to build Revolution. Seek out intelligentsia. Exchange Blogrolls. Comment on posts. Trackback to posts. ... Find "comrades." (No, not in hackneyed, satiric sense of Commissar, in real sense.) A network of blogger/readers. Blogrolling? That only first step. Many have 100, 200 blogs on Blogroll; not all of them are comrades. "Comrades" are bloggers, maybe of roughly same size, who read your blog, maybe comment now and then, mention/link to your blog in posts, and maybe exchange emails.

This advice is easy if you like reading blogs. If you don't, be prepared to be a diarist and nothing more. Read the whole post, and then check out the rest of the Politburo Diktat.

You Wouldn't See This Christmas Special (Well, Maybe on Fox)

Michelle at A Small Victory is a sick and twisted individual ... but dammit, this just makes a lot of sense:

Rudolph is not a cuddly, warm, fuzzy story. Rudolph, in fact, is a tale of pacifism and appeasement and mental abuse.

When Rudolph is first discovered to have the light bulb nose, his father is appalled. Ashamed, he tries to cover up his son's nose. What kind of father is that? He is telling his kid right off the bat, kid, you're ugly and you embarass me. Diguise yourself in public.

Michelle uses this perspective to thoroughly deconstruct the entire sad saga of the ruby-schnozzed reindeer, only she has a suggestion that would teach children ... uh ... something different:

If Rudolph learned anything at all on his great adventure, he would have turned around and said fuck off and die you miserable bastards. Find some other sucker to save Christmas for you. And then he would take out his AK-47 and turn the whole crowd of miserable reindeer into a carnivore's dream. Then he would go back to the Island of Misfit Toys, become their ruler and plot to take over all of Rankin-Bass land.

Disturbing? Yes. Deeply cynical? Undoubtedly. Hilarious? Yah, you betcha. Read the whole thing. And Merry ^%&*#%* Christmas to you too, pal.

Power Line: A Million Hits

Congratulations to Big Trunk, Hindrocket, and Deacon for going over 1,000,000 hits! Power Line is one of the best blogs on line, and is definitely among my daily must-reads. They've been kind enough to mention me on more than one occasion, for which I am very grateful. Gracious, intelligent, and powerfully good writers -- small wonder they've been as successful as they are.

Congratulations, guys, and I'll bet your next million comes in half the time.