Mr. Bush Can Play Hard-to-Get Too, M. Chirac

Jacques Chirac, who reneged on promised support to George Bush and Colin Powell, now waits by the phone and can't understand why they don't call:

The official invitation has been lying in his in-tray for several months, but President George W. Bush has failed to let the French know whether he will attend the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings in June. France's president, Jacques Chirac, is expecting at least 15 heads of state to be present at the commemorations marking the decisive Allied offensive against the Germans in Normandy on June 5, 6 and 7.

15 heads of state will be on hand to celebrate, huh? Won't it be embarrassing for Chirac if the US president has something better to do the first week of June, even more so since this will be the first time a German Chancellor has been invited to attend. On the other hand, it's also the first major anniversary since the French defaced the cemeteries of Allied soldiers with Nazi symbols and spray-painted insults to the British and the Americans.

However, in the words of one Paris-based diplomat, Mr Bush is "making the French sweat". Relations between France and America have been strained since the French vehemently opposed US-Anglo military action against Saddam Hussein a year ago. The French government is hoping that the D-Day commemorations will help break the ice between the two countries. President Bush's failure to respond to the invitation is seen as a mark of his continuing personal anger and bitterness over France's formation of an anti-Iraq war axis along with Germany and Russia.

Apparently, the visits of two French ministers have not resulted in the message being received: it wasn't the anti-war position of the French that was objectionable, it was their reneging on their promise to support us if we voted for UNSC resolution 1441 and it failed -- which it did, and miserably so. Their motivation for betrayal has been uncovered in arms sales and bribes to highly-placed French officials. The French sold us out, and now they wonder why we're not excited to visit Normandy to commemorate the sacrifice of thousands of American lives in liberating them 60 years ago.

The truth is that in an election year, Bush could use the good domestic coverage that the D-Day ceremonies would bring, but his appearance would likely result in demonstrations by thousands of French protestors who would have been shot if they'd uttered a peep while occupied by the army that the British and Americans kicked out of France, starting on D-Day. I'm not sure it's worth it, and I'm certain that the current corrupt and treacherous French leadership isn't. It's extremely unlikely Bush would skip the celebration, but let's hope his schedule fills up before then.

Under Construction

Here's an update from the construction site at the new Captain's Quarters -- it's coming together really nicely, thanks to Mel at Skinny Dippin' Designs. We're not quite ready for visitors, but we're getting close. I think we may actually launch by Monday, if not earlier. Don't forget that the new URL will be http://www.captainsquartersblog.com. (If you click it and come back here, we're not under way yet.)

If you want a creative and responsive designer for your MT blog, make sure you stop by Skinny-Dippin' Designs. Mel's been terrific so far and I think you will love the new layout.

Dean Campaign Fading, Not Yet Ready to Die

The Boston Globe today paints a picture of a campaign that has lost all forward momentum and awaits one final, terrible blow to put it out of its misery:

Though the former Vermont governor, who for months led polls in the race for the Democratic nomination, says he will continue campaigning regardless of the results of the Wisconsin primary -- which polls indicate he is likely to lose by a significant margin -- his actions are beginning to say otherwise.

His calendar for next week is not booked beyond Wednesday, when he plans to return home to Burlington, Vt. ... Turning serious, he told a group of reporters who joined him on a dairy farm tour: "I'm going to go back to Burlington and kind of regroup and figure out how to tackle 10 of the biggest states in the country at the same time."

Yet moments later, when asked if he would remain an official candidate heading into the March 2 "Super Tuesday" voting in those 10 states, Dean said, "I don't know the answer to that question yet."

The article describes skeleton crews manning silent phones at Dean's headquarters in Burlington, and staffers who openly discuss vacation plans and almost as openly debate the merits of working for other campaigns. In polls leading into Wisconsin's Tuesday primary, Dean trails Kerry by 42 points, 53%-11%, and is being edged by Edwards for second place -- barely -- at 16%. In fact, as many people are undecided as are voting for Edwards, which only means that it may be a dogfight as to who gets to lose better to the Kerry juggernaut.

Although he may not acknowledge it, Dean's campaign ran aground in Iowa when he finished a distant third behind Kerry and Edwards, and he sealed his fate with his weird performance in the aftermath. With his temperament a continuous question, as well as his judgment and his foot-in-mouth speaking tendencies, Dean managed to crystallize all of these doubts into one singular, spectacular "Yeeaagh!" Muskie cried; Dukakis rode a tank; Dean held a pep rally. All that's left for the Dean campaign is to decide when and where the corpse should actually lay down. That target keeps on moving. First, Washington's caucuses were the threshold date, but that quickly changed to Wisconsin when polling numbers came back from the Pacific Northwest. Now Dean talks about Super Tuesday, but the parade has passed him by, and he knows it.

But of course, a much-subdued Dean still can't resist displaying arrogance, even under these conditions, as an anecdote at the end of the article illustrates:

At one point, as the entourage swept past empty cattle stalls, Dean pointed to a deep gutter running the length of the barn -- a trench for manure runoff. "Once when I was governor, I was on a dairy farm during campaign season," Dean recalled. "So as I was walking around the corner and wasn't looking what I was doing and -- Whoosh! -- and of course it was full."

Turning to his media entourage, whom he branded "city slickers," he said: "For those of you who don't know anything about dairy, this is a manure trench, and it's not good to step in it in loafers."

Well, Farmer Dean, the press may not know a lot about dairy, but they sure know manure when they see it. And it seems an odd thing to warn the press about stepping in it, when Dean's been doing that, figuratively speaking, since December.

Collapse, Continued

The Bush-AWOL story continues its collapse today, as more ex-Guardsmen come forward to not only acknowledge Bush's service with them, but also to note his volunteering for combat service:

A retired officer with the Alabama Air National Guard says he witnessed President Bush serving his weekend duty in 1972 -- an account that could be significant given Democratic questions on whether Bush fulfilled his service obligations during the Vietnam War.

Speaking on the phone Friday from Daytona Beach, Florida, John B. "Bill" Calhoun said he commanded Bush and that Bush attended four to six weekend drills at Dannelly Field in Montgomery. He said Bush was with the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Alabama in 1972. ...

Joe LeFevers, a member of the 187th in 1972, said he remembers seeing Bush in unit offices and being told that Bush was in Montgomery to work on Blount's campaign. "I was going in the orderly room over there one day, and they said, 'This is Lt. Bush,'" LeFevers said Tuesday. "They pointed him out to me ... the reason I remember it is because I associate him with Red Blount."

Red Blount's son, Winton Blount III, said Bush was the campaign's deputy manager and spent a lot of time in Birmingham and north Alabama. "He was a very active part of that campaign," said Blount. "And as my aunt said, she hoped people would act as nice in other people's homes as he did."

Not only did Bush serve in Alabama for his required drill time, but we also have confirmation that he volunteered to fly combat missions in Vietnam, but was refused, in a letter first noted by Hugh Hewitt:

According to Campenni, Bush inquired about participating in a volunteer program called Palace Alert that used Air National Guard pilots flying in the F-102 Delta Dagger interceptor jet in Vietnam.

The Air Guard advised Bush he did not have the desired 500 hours of flight time as a pilot to qualify for Palace Alert duty, and, in any event, the program was winding down and not accepting more volunteers.

Now we have the President's DD214, his honorable discharge, his pay records, his points awards records, and people who saw him at drills in Alabama. Despite not having a shred of credible evidence of any wrongdoing, Bush has provided all of the evidence demanded of him by the people on the left who were and are as virulently anti-military as any group in the US. And now that he has produced all that -- and has ordered the entirety of his military records released for public review -- I want to get an explanation for the following:

1. Why is Terry McAuliffe still the DNC chairman after engaging in slander?
2. Why hasn't John Kerry apologized for equating National Guard service with draft dodging?
3. Why haven't the media apologized for running with a story with a single source, no confirmation, and no proper investigation other than to ask obviously ignorant questions that anyone with any reference to military standards could have explained to them? Failing that, explain the difference between the Bush AWOL allegations and the Kerry infidelity allegations in a way that demonstrates a clear reason why a single unverified source was good enough for publication in one but not the other.

Until we get these issues cleared up, it is obvious to anyone who's followed these stories that the national media has two standards for publishing allegations, and that the Democrats -- whose last successful Presidential candidate admitted to gaming the draft system to avoid service altogether -- will repeat any lie and make up any story to get themselves elected and to destroy anyone's reputation along the way. They've done that repeatedly during the judicial confirmation process, abetted again by the national media, and they're doing it again in the presidential election.

The Presidential Dating Game

No, I'm not talking about John Kerry's supposed dalliance. Last night, Dennis Kucinich appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and played a celebrity version of The Dating Game:

The Ohio congressman asked questions of a trio of unseen women in a "The Dating Game" takeoff Thursday on NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Responses by Jennifer Tilly, actress Cybill Shepherd and Los Angeles radio talk show host Kim Serafin blended sexual innuendo with politics and references to Kucinich's environmental concerns.

I don't recall this much attention being paid to Jerry Brown's bachelor status when he ran for President in the 80s, but due to his dating history (Linda Ronstadt, for one) and his good looks, people may have assumed he could get his own girlfriends. Kucinich has no such pedigree, but he does seem to have a good sense of humor about himself and has played along with these publicity draws in the spirit of fun. And what middle-aged bachelor could refuse a panel that included Jennifer Tilly and Cybill Shepherd? (I'm not familiar with Serafin.) He wound up winning a date with Tilly, and if you've ever listened to Shepherd talk, you know he made the right decision.

While I consider Kucinich a ludicrous candidate for President as I've mentioned before, I have to admit I'm getting more respect for him as a person as he hangs tough and displays his self-deprecating humor. I'm sorry I missed the show; I guess I stopped TiVoing Leno too early in this election cycle!

Electric Venom's Letter[s] of the Day

I completely missed the opportunity to link back to Venomous Kate yesterday in the rush of work and visiting friends, but Electric Venom included me in yesterday's Word of the Day for my post on Osama'a Navy. Lots of other good stuff in there too, so be sure to check it out, and while you're at it you should go through today's collection as well. Don't forget to congratulate Kate on her link from uberblogger Andrew Sullivan, too!

Globe: Bush AWOL Accusers Lied

The Boston Globe reports today that key witnesses contradict allegations made by a central source for the Bush AWOL-coverup story:

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett, who has been pressing his charges in the national news media this week, says he even heard one high-ranking officer issue a 1997 order to sanitize the Bush file, and later saw another officer poring over the records and discovered that some had been discarded.

But a key witness to some of the events described by Burkett has told the Globe that the central elements of his story are false. George O. Conn, a former chief warrant officer with the Guard and a friend of Burkett's, is the person whom Burkett says led him to the room where the Bush records were being vetted. But Conn says he never saw anyone combing through the Bush file or discarding records.

"I have no recall of that," Conn said. "I have no recall of that whatsoever. None. Zip. Nada."

Conn's recollection also undercuts another of Burkett's central allegations: that he overheard Bush's onetime chief of staff, Joe M. Allbaugh, telling a Texas Guard general to make sure there were no embarrassments in the Bush record. Burkett says he told Conn, over dinner that same night, what he had overheard. But Conn says that, although Burkett told him he worried that the Bush record would be sanitized, he never mentioned overhearing the conversation between Allbaugh and General Daniel James III.

The Globe, which has been at the forefront of the media pushing this story, now reveals that the entire series of accusations had no basis in reality and in fact should never have been legitimized by the press in the first place. The author of an upcoming book that purports to detail the AWOL charges and their cover-up now admits he never even attempted to interview the two people Burkett accuses of "sanitizing" Bush's files:

But the book's author, James Moore, a former Houston TV news correspondent, concedes he never interviewed some of the key players who could have verified Burkett's charges, including Conn and retired National Guard Colonel John Scribner -- the officer Burkett says he saw removing items from the Bush file.

Moore, told yesterday that Conn contradicts Burkett's story, said he believes Burkett's allegations are true. "I think we're into a classic he-said, she-said," Moore said.

Listening to Hugh Hewitt's show yesterday, Peter Beinhart of The New Republic vehemently accused Hugh of irresponsible journalism by mentioning the Drudge Report story about Kerry's alleged infidelity without having done any responsible verification of the sources, in effect making Kerry publicly prove his innocence without having any evidence of his guilt. However, TNR and every other media outlet has done the exact same thing to George Bush despite the normal presumption of innocence and the extraordinary presumption of satisfactory and complete service that an Honorary Discharge presents. Instead, for at least the file-shredding accusations, every media outlet in the country relied on a single source that its investigator never felt the need to verify with the people he accused of participating in the cover-up!

Not only that, but the Globe story finally shows prior motivation for Burkett's accusations:

Burkett has, in the past, raised his allegations about the Bush records as part of his personal struggle with the Guard over medical benefits. For instance, in a 1998 letter to Texas state Senator Gonzalo Barrientos, Burkett complained that he had not received adequate medical care when he became seriously ill after returning from a mission to Panama.

Now that the Globe has demonstrated the journalistic bankruptcy of this story, I await the apologies of the national media in disavowing this libelous and shameful story. I shan't hold my breath.

UPDATE: A big welcome to Prof. Reynolds' readers from Instapundit, as well as from other links. One link was back to this forum, in a thread that had a response with a subject heading that called either Captain's Quarters or Instapundit the "biggest Bush a@@-kissing blog". I couldn't get to it from behind the firewall here, but I hope it refers to me. I've always wanted to be #1 at something ...

Get-Tough Policy on Spending Starts With Roads

President Bush, stung by attacks on his spending from his base, drew a line in the sand yesterday when he threatened a veto for a highway-funding package that increased by half over the previous funding bill:

States would get an additional $100 billion over the next six years to build roads, repair bridges and improve public transit under a Senate-passed bill that the White House says is extravagant in an age of record deficits. The Senate voted 76-21 Thursday to approve the $318 billion surface transportation bill, a winning margin that would be enough to override a presidential veto threatened by the administration.

The current six-year highway spending bill, which expires at the end of this month, provided $218 billion.

Bush wants no more than $258 billion spent, which is still a 20% increase from the previous version; spread over six years, that averages close to the rate of inflation. With his base extremely unhappy with spending levels in the past three years, Bush needs to reign in Congress this year to demonstrate some fiscal discipline. But the margin of victory in the Senate is more than enough to override a presidential veto, making this an odd choice for Bush's first-ever veto, if it comes to that. A veto override would make Bush look weak at a time when he most needs to look presidential. He will probably conclude that in a year when he should pick his battles, a tactical retreat on highways may be his best course if he can't negotiate a compromise on the cost.

Greenspan: Make Tax Cuts Permanent

Alan Greenspan yesterday testified before the Senate Budget Committee in favor of President Bush's plan to make the Bush tax cuts permanent:

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday that Congress should make President Bush's tax cuts permanent and cover the $1 trillion price by trimming future benefits in Social Security and other entitlement programs.

Greenspan told the Senate Budget Committee that Congress, "as a first order of business," should restore budget rules that cap discretionary government spending and require increases in entitlement benefits or cuts in taxes to be offset by other program cuts or other tax increases.

Greenspan was asked how he would come up with the decade-long cost of $1 trillion to pay for extending the 2001 and 2003 individual tax cuts. "I would argue strenuously that it should be taken out on the expenditure side," he answered.

Greenspan delivered the traditionally conservative position of smaller government, something the present Administration has been reluctant to do, preferring its more populist and expansive "compassionate conservatism" until recently. Greenspan's testimony may give some comfort to Bush's restless base which has recently made their displeasure known with some of Bush's legislative choices, such as increasing the funding for the National Endowment of the Arts and the proposal to create a guest-worker program to deal with illegal immigration.

Greenspan's remarks on Social Security, on the other hand, may cause Bush some problems in November, although his advice is simply common sense:

He recommended two items for study in terms of trimming benefits: linking the retirement age to the population's longer life spans and tying cost-of-living benefits in Social Security to a less-generous index than the Consumer Price Index. ... Greenspan said it was precisely as a result of that looming wave of retirement that lawmakers must update Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs.

For the rest of us, adjusting retirement targets for longer life spans make sense; the average life span has increased by several years since the creation of Social Security and retirement age has only gone backward during the 70 years since. When Social Security was implemented, 65 was higher than life expectancy, and after the economic collapse of 1929-32 most people's savings had been wiped out, meaning that nothing was left if they could no longer work. In 2004, those conditions no longer exist, but we have never addressed the change in context, allowing Social Security to grow out of control. Greenspan warns us, correctly, that the impending retirement of the baby-boomer population bulge will either bankrupt the system or force younger workers to float the difference.

Unfortunately, Social Security reform in an election year is a bit analogous to having a catatonic dragon sleeping just outside your city. You know eventually the dragon will wake up and wreak havoc, but it's not awake now, and you'd just as soon let it lie and make it someone else's problem later. Even suggesting that reform will be necessary -- especially for Republicans -- guarantees that the airwaves will suddenly be filled with ads paid for by AARP accusing you of "ageism" and nightly news stories of old ladies eating cat food to get by. You can expect the Bush administration to herald Greenspan's tax advice but grow strangely silent about his recommendations for paying for it, at least until after November.

Clark to Endorse Kerry

Wesley Clark will endorse John Kerry for the Democratic nomination, according to unnamed Democratic party officials:

Wesley Clark will endorse presidential contender John Kerry, a high-profile boost for the front-runner as he looks to wrap up the party's nomination, according to Democratic officials. With next week's Wisconsin primary looming, Clark plans to join Kerry at a campaign stop in Madison, Wis., Friday to make a formal endorsement, said officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

If it seems a little early for Clark to give an endorsement -- after all, he just withdrew from the race yesterday morning -- it makes sense if he's looking for consideration as Kerry's running mate. Given that the bimbo eruption just occurred, if Clark stands by Kerry and winds up being the bridge Kerry needs to get past whatever scandal results from the Drudge story, he'll have earned Kerry's gratitude. Oddly enough, Clark himself figured into Drudge's story as having made an off-the-record comment to reporters predicting an infidelity scandal. If Clark withdrew with the knowledge of this story's imminence, it can only mean that he wanted to be in the best position to gather IOUs from Kerry and the Democratic Party.

Clark may be attractive as a VP nominee due to his Southern heritage and his military service, as I wrote yesterday, but his campaign went from one ineptitude to the next, and I know that Dick Cheney will shred Clark in any debate. I think a Kerry-Clark ticket is likely, and the Republicans have to like what they see.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers, and I hope you enjoy your visit.

Not This Again!

Matt Drudge reports this morning that a new bimbo eruption is coming, and that John Kerry is the target. I'm not bothering to excerpt this story; if you're interested, click the link. Unless this story involves harassment, I'm not interested at all.

I feel that John Kerry is a terrible choice for President. I think that marital infidelity shows a lack of moral fiber. But I don't feel that the two are related, nor should they be. It's faux-scandals like this that make it difficult to find people to serve in the public arena. Marital infidelity without illegal behavior is an issue between the Senator, his wife, and God. If being without sin will be a minimum requirement for President, I'd like to see that slate of candidates.

What, then, is the difference between John Kerry and Bill Clinton? Plenty. For one thing, Clinton and his supporters turned businesses into witch hunts with poorly-defined sexual harassment laws and policies, making his trysting with an intern in the White House extremely hypocritical. For another, the transparent attempt to buy her silence with a Revlon job arranged by Clinton's close adviser Vernon Jordan paralleled the Webster Hubbell case, and was pursued as a pattern of obstructing justice. Finally, regardless of the advisability of forcing Clinton to testify on this issue, he committed perjury. Had Clinton had the sense to cheat with someone outside of his office and avoid paying her off to keep quiet, none of the impeachment business would have occurred.

I've seen just enough of the details to see that none of this applies to Kerry, and anyone who pursues this as an election strategy will find themselves covered in the muck almost as much as Kerry, including Drudge and any other news sources. It's silly, it's pointless, and it will only serve to generate sympathy for Kerry in the long run. (See Bill Clinton and Gary Hart.) Let's bury this garbage and focus on the issues.

UPDATE: Going around the Northern Alliance as much as I can, I see that Saint Paul at Fraters Libertas agrees with my assessment, but Hindrocket at Power Line thinks that it will have some effect on the race, at least initially, perhaps boosting John Edwards. I think it would be more likely to boost Howard Dean, who has a better national organization and has performed better than Edwards in the past few primaries. More later as I get to their blogs ...

Osama's Navy?

The British believe that al-Qaeda has up to 15 ships that they will use for terror attacks, possibly against Parliament, just off the Thames in London (via Drudge):

A private memo sent to police chiefs by the Met's marine unit is headlined: Next Terror Attack Waterborne?

Ship insurer Lloyd's of London is said to be helping MI6 and the CIA trace vessels bought by al-Qaeda from a Greek shipping magnate with links to bin Laden. The memo states shipping agents have been asked to help in the search.

The report by the Met - which says it obtained its intelligence from maritime agencies - states: "Al-Qaeda has reportedly taken possession of 15 ships, forming what could be described as the first terrorist navy. The ships fly the flags of Yemen and Somalia where they are registered - and are capable of carrying lethal cargoes of chemicals or a dirty bomb."

The ships are believed to be in the Indian and/or Pacific Oceans, but with over 120,000 ships sailing in those waters, it will be difficult to identify al-Qaeda rogues. I suspect that US satellite surveillance is already being used in this regard. Naval vessels have figured significantly into al-Qaeda operations in the past, and not only in the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 American sailors. US intelligence believes that the bombs used in the two embassy bombings in Africa in 1998 were delivered by sea, as well as the explosives for the Bali nightclub bombing in 2002. American intelligence also has the al-Qaeda "admiral" Abdulrahim Mohammed Abda Al-Nasheri in custody, who according to the article had been planning suicide attacks on Coalition warships in the Gibraltar area when he was arrested.

This points out a central al-Qaeda strategy: attacking or exploiting transportation services in order to terrorize nations into paralysis -- at least that is their hope. Al-Qaeda knows that our perception of liberty centers on our ability to freely travel, within our own border and outside of them as well. They believe that by attacking us in this manner that we will shortly lose our will to fight back, leading us to withdraw from our global responsibilities and hide behind our shores. Some here believe we should do just that; at least two of them are running for President. In November, we will have the chance to demonstrate our response to such tactics. Hopefully, the electorate will provide a resounding answer.

Powell: "You Don't Know What You're Talking About"

The normally even-tempered Secretary of State, Colin Powell, became angry at a Congressional hearing and scolded a Congressman and a staffer:

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, a retired four-star general known for his even temperament, paused yesterday during a congressional hearing to berate a Hill staffer for shaking his head as Powell offered a defense of his prewar statements on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

The public scolding came after Powell had already endured a number of attacks by Democrats on the administration's Iraq policy during an appearance before the House International Relations Committee. He had just snapped at a member of Congress who had casually declared President Bush "AWOL" from the Vietnam War.

The staffer, who sat behind the panel members, was shaking his head at Powell's testimony, a rude gesture by any stretch of the imagination, and after grinding his teeth throughout the angry and accusatory interrogation from the panel's Democrats, Powell wasn't about to sit there and have some staffer mocking him from behind the skirts of the Congressment at the hearing.

Powell was recalling for the panel his review of the prewar intelligence. "I went and lived at the CIA for about four days to make sure that nothing was," he began, when he paused and glared at a staffer seated behind the members of Congress.

"Are you shaking your head for something, young man, back there?" Powell asked. "Are you part of these proceedings?"

Earlier, when Rep. Sherrod Brown contended that President Bush had been AWOL during the Vietnam War -- apparently, Brown drinks Terry McAuliffe's Kool-Aid on a regular basis -- Powell snapped and berated the Congressman:

First of all, Mr. Brown, I won't dignify your comments about the president because you don't know what you are talking about," Powell snapped.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean, Mr. Secretary," Brown replied.

"You made reference to the president," Powell said.

"I say he may have been AWOL," Brown repeated.

"Mr. Brown, let's not go there," Powell retorted. "Let's not go there in this hearing. If you want to have a political fight on this matter, that is very controversial, and I think is being dealt with by the White House, fine. But let's not go there."

Good for Powell, and shame on Sherrod Brown for dragging this vile trope into a hearing on international relations, for crying out loud. If the Democrats want to make all Congressional hearings into International ANSWER and MOveOn.org forums, they'd better start getting used to being brought up short by the adults in the administration.

Kerry Senate Testimony Discovered

Hugh Hewitt dedicated tonight's program to the transcripts of John Kerry's Senate testimony on the Vietnam War in 1970. The document is fascinating as a historical snapshot of the times in which it occurred, but also a very disturbing insight into what drives John Kerry in politics. Hugh has covered some of the more ridiculous items, and Power Line goes over quite a few more, which I'll touch on in a moment. I'm more interested in Kerry's philosophy, not so much how wrong his analysis of the situation wound up being, although that's important, too.

For instance, there's this nugget on page 195:

I think that politically, historically, the one thing that people try to do, that society is structured on as a whole, is an attempt to satify their felt needs, and you can satisfy those felt needs with any kind of political structure, giving it one name or another. [emph mine] In this name it is democratic; in others it is communism; in others it is benevolent dictatorship. As long as those needs are satisfied, that structure will exist.

Think about what Kerry said in his testimony in the Senate, in the halls of the greatest experiment in self-government in human history. In a few phrases, Kerry breezily equated the oppression of communism and "benevolent" dictatorship (any examples, Senator?) with democracy, and asserted that the differences were a mere matter of semantics. This is emblematic of the leftist moral relativism that instructs people that the West is not special, that a system of freedom and liberty is no better than systems that consciously and deliberately starved millions to death for political purposes. It's not hard to see from this quote why Kerry couldn't be bothered about the results of our pullout from South Vietnam; in fact, during his entire testimony, he argues for an immediate and unilateral withdrawal, joking with the panel that the North Vietnamese would be more likely to carry our bags to the airport than our allies in the South. I wonder if he still finds that funny.

Later, when Kerry is asked about his statement that Congress didn't really represent the people, Kerry replies with the arrogance of the ignorant (page 201):

CHAIR: ... all these people get here because of support back home, as you know. They are simply representative of their constituents. You do accept that, I believe.

KERRY: Partially, not totally ... As someone who ran for office for 3 1/2 weeks, I am aware of the many problems involved, and in many places, you can take certain districts of New York, the structure is such that people can't really run and represent necessarily the people. People don't care. The apathy is so great that they believe they are being represented when in fact they are not.

Typically, Kerry assumes that he has a complete perspective after a whopping 25 days on the campaign trail, and also assumes that support for politics he opposes springs from apathy rather than agreement. If only the poor benighted masses would just wake up, they'd all be Kerry supporters.

And then there is this, at page 190, an echo of the type of argument that was given to oppose action in 1991 and 2003, and really every single effort we've made since Vietnam:

KERRY: ... I think at this point the United States is not really in a position to consider the happiness of those people as it pertains to the army in our withdrawal. We have to consider the happiness of the people as pertains to the life which they will be able to lead in the next few years....

The war will continue. So what I'm saying is that, yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America, and we can't go around -- President Kennedy said this, many times. He said that the United States simply can't right every wrong, that we can't solve the problems of the other 94 percent of mankind. We didn't go into East Pakistan; we didn't go into Czechoslovakia. Why then should we feel that we now have the power to solve the internal political struggles of this country?

Once again, we're given the defeatist argument that since we can't solve every problem everywhere simultaneously, we should do nothing instead and only "help other people in an altruistic fashion commensurate with our capacity," whatever that meant. But at least at the start of the conflict, it was no more an internal power struggle than was the Korean War. In both wars, the Russians and Chinese were involved in trying to drive all other forms of government except Stalinist/Maoist communism from the Asian continent. South Vietnam was a separate nation as recognized by the UN at the time and an ally of the US. Distinctions such as these didn't move the young Kerry at the time despite his self-description as an "internationalist". It points out a tremendous question as to whether a President Kerry would honor mutual-defense agreements when circumstances invoke them, even if they fit into his international model, as did the original Gulf War in 1990/91 -- and Kerry voted to oppose action to repair the international order, even with UN support.

Hugh and Power Line do a great job in pointing out Kerry's fatally mistaken understanding of global politics, and their analyses are spot-on, especially Big Trunk's series of examples where the left's identical approach resulted in well-meaning but fatal disaster. What Kerry's record demonstrates to me is that Kerry's philosophical approach hasn't changed at all, and that means that if elected, he will lead us on another string of foreign-policy appeasements and retreats, making the world a much more dangerous place.

Haddayr Copley-Woods: Throwaways

My good friend Haddayr Copley-Woods writes another excellent column today for the Minnesota Women's Press, this time on events in her neighborhood and the related murders of two young people: one an innocent bystander in a gang shooting, and the other the originally intended target who was murdered months later.

Well, they finally did it. This time, the person aiming to kill Timothy Oliver, 18, got his man instead of a little girl doing homework in her living room. The paper didn’t say what many readers probably thought about the South Minneapolis shooting: “Oh—a gangster. Someone who doesn’t matter.”Certainly Brian Keith Edwards—the man who allegedly shot Oliver—believed he didn’t matter; so did Myon Burrell, the first man who tried to shoot him. In fact, Burrell thought both Oliver and Tyesha Edwards, the 11-year-old girl he shot and killed more than a year ago, were throwaway people. Even if he didn’t mean to shoot her specifically, he certainly didn’t care that his inexpertly aimed bullets might go astray.

At least one person doesn’t think Oliver is a throwaway: Tyesha’s stepfather, Leonard Winborn. “There’s another family that’s grieving,” he said, following the shooting. “There’s another family that’s going through the same things we did.”

Disturbed by the different reactions the two deaths caused her personally, as well as in the community, Haddayr writes about the understandable need to emotionally protect oneself from every terrible event that occurs, but wonders what effect that has over the long run. The constant attacks and death that seem to surround us not only desensitizes us to the fact that individual people die, but that each one leaves family and friends behind who will never stop grieving for their child, spouse, grade-school friend, regardless of the wrongs that person committed. She describes a particularly callous reaction that unfortunately is all too common:

For instance, I recently explained to a new acquaintance the havoc that a group of drug dealers has recently made at the end of my otherwise terrific block.

He looked sympathetic until I told him where I lived. Then he actually snorted. “I’ll bet they’re not the only drug dealers on the block,” he said. “You just have to expect that sort of thing over there.” The tone in his voice said: “Oh. That place. The place where the people don’t matter.”

Haddayr warned me that I might not like the politics in her column, and she does take a couple of shots at the state government with which I might disagree, but in essence her challenge is spiritual, not political, and personal rather than public. In a situation where a person is killed trying to harm another person, especially a child, my sympathies are reserved for the intended victim. But in this case, both victims were the targets of senseless violence, and even if Oliver belonged to a gang, it doesn't mean he deserved to be killed in cold blood, nor does it mean that the people who live in the area deserve to be written off. Oliver was 18 years old and could have turned his life around; he could have worked to help others to do the same. But now we'll never know, and his family will live the rest of their lives wondering what could have been.

As a Christian, I believe in redemption and the sanctity of life. Jesus challenged us to love our neighbors as ourselves. That doesn't mean we excuse our neighbors or don't protect ourselves from those who do us harm, but it does mean that we are challenged to do better than to consider other people -- especially entire classes of people -- as throwaways. Every life has value, at least potentially, and it's not for us to shrug off the grief and sadness of our neighbors so callously. Leonard Winborn understands this, and we should learn what he teaches. Make sure you read Haddayr's entire column.

Kerry Interview 1970: Give US Military Command to UN

John Kerry, when he first ran for elective office in 1970, told the Harvard Crimson that he was an "internationalist" who felt that the UN should retain command of the US military:

“I’m an internationalist,” Kerry told The Crimson in 1970. “I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.” Kerry said he wanted “to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care.”

The Kerry campaign, celebrating primary victories in Virginia and Tennessee last night, declined to comment on the senator’s remarks. As a candidate for president, Kerry has said he supports the autonomy of the U.S. military and has never called for a scale-back of CIA operations.

When a candidate takes elective office, they swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Nowhere in that document does it allow any entity except the President and Congress to control or restrain American armed forces. John Kerry comes from a radical-left group of thinkers who believed -- and still do -- that the only way for the world to get along is for everyone to cede sovereignty to the UN, despite the fact that not only does the UN not uphold democratic ideals, but it puts nations like Libya and Syria in charge of committes on human-rights abuses and counter-terrorism.

One may be tempted to say that this was all just youthful idealism that has long since matured, except that Kerry keeps returning to these first principles in his legislative career, and sometimes goes past even that. In 1991, despite UNSC approval, Kerry voted against taking military action to eject Saddam from Kuwait, although he says now that he was in favor of action -- just not at that point. He voted for action in 2002 but has backpedaled furiously from that vote ever since Howard Dean entered the race, claiming he meant for Bush to get a permission slip from the UNSC prior to taking any action. And despite what his campaign claims, Kerry has repeated attempted to gut the CIA by stripping it of funding. Power Line noted back in July 2003:

Kerry, whose involvement in politics arose out of his virulent opposition to the Vietnam War, said at the beginning of his career that he would like to "almost eliminate CIA activity." This might be defended as a youthful indiscretion, except that throughout his career in the Senate, Kerry has acted in a manner consistent with those early sentiments. In 1994 he tried to cut $1 billion from the intelligence agencies' budgets. In 1995 Kerry offered legislation to "reduce the intelligence budget by $300 million" in each of the fiscal years 1996 to 2000. His bill never made it to the floor.

In the face of Kerry's lifelong antagonism to the intelligence community, his preaching about intelligence failures and gaps of knowledge are crassly hypocritical. Kerry's record reveals him to be just as much of an internationalist as he was when he tossed someone else's medals over the White House fence; the only aspect of Kerry that has improved is his opportunism. His recipe of appeasement and forensics in securing America, while emasculating the CIA and ceding military sovereignty to the anti-democratic majority at the UN, will bring disastrous results if he is elected.

Maybe This Explains His Attraction to Saddam

Apparently, marrying oneself to a dead partner is something of a French pastime:

Dressed in a demure black suit, a 35-year-old Frenchwoman has married her dead boyfriend, an exchange of vows that required authorization from President Jacques Chirac. ... Such marriages are legal if the living spouse can prove the couple had intended to marry before the other died. The French president must also authorize it.

I don't know what's more disturbing (with apologies to Mme. Demichel) -- that a woman would pursue such a course of action when her "groom" has been dead for 17 months, or that approval of such unions is an official duty of the French President. I hadn't realized how ingrained the notion of useless marriage was to the French, but it does explain why they insist that we are still partners even after they've plunged the knife in our backs.

Just Because He's Paranoid ...

Howard Dean has spent the past few months insisting that the Democratic Washington establishment has been out to torpedo his campaign, which up to now has sounded a bit like Ross Perot's accusation that Republicans wanted to harass his daughter at her wedding. However, a strange group of donors did conspire in Iowa to run negative ads against the then-frontrunner, including some of his own donors:

Labor unions, former Democratic Sen. Bob Torricelli and one of presidential hopeful Howard Dean's own donors were among big givers to a group that ran ads criticizing Dean in three early voting states. Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values raised $663,000 last year and spent $626,840 of it, a finance report provided to The Associated Press on Tuesday showed. ... It drew some big donors, including two giving $100,000 each.

They are Slim-Fast Foods tycoon S. Daniel Abraham of Florida, who also contributed $2,000 each to Dean and several other Democratic hopefuls; and Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network LLC, a New York-based sports cable channel that televises New York Yankees' baseball games. The network's chief executive, Leo Hindery, contributed $2,000 to then-Dean rival Dick Gephardt.

Torricelli gave $50,000 out of his remaining campaign funds to the group that ran the ads, making Abraham, Hindery, and Torricelli responsible for 40% of the funding. In fact, the FEC may look into Torricelli's contribution as it may have been illegal to convert those funds to such a group. (What a surprise -- Torricelli acting unethically.) As far as Dean's fair-weather friends go, it's not unusual for donors to spread the wealth around a few campaigns, but it looks very strange that his supporters went out of their way to give money to hit ads like these.

The most interesting part of the story is how many Gephardt supporters were involved in this effort, including several of his union backers, who gave $130,000 to the effort. The group's spokesman only explains that they didn't buy a donor list from Gephardt, making it seem like a huge coincidence or that the Gephardt campaign coordinated with the group directly. Adding all this up, it's hard to blame Dean for thinking that the party machine had it in for him.

The Last Ride of the Strange Ranger? Maybe Not

After a losing effort in Tennessee and a disastrous showing in Virginia, General Wesley Clark has decided to bow to reality -- for possibly the first time in his campaign -- and withdraw from the race:

Wesley Clark, battered by losses in his Southern base, was abandoning his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination and heading home to Arkansas to exit the race. ... Of the contests to date, Clark was only able to squeeze out a narrow victory in Oklahoma. The final blow came after third-place finishes Tuesday in primaries in Virginia and Tennessee, states that were part of the Southern strategy he thought would ride him to the nomination. Clark had hoped to emerge as a Southern challenger to the front-running Massachusetts senator, but Tuesday's outcome erased any hope of that happening. He got 23 percent of the vote in Tennessee, but only 9 percent in Virginia.

Today's announcement will end the short but odd journey of the former commander of NATO forces in the Balkans, who announced his candidacy before even officially becoming a Democrat and after two years of praising the present Republican administration. Along the way, Clark managed the impressive feat of reversing himself more often and in a shorter period of time than Howard Dean, who at least had the burden of a long political record. In many ways, Clark epitomized the plight of the Democrats in this election cycle: railing against Bush's supposed unilateralism, but unable to articulate anything he would have done differently; claiming to have opposed the war all along until Congressional testimony from 2002 and an op-ed piece floated to the surface; insisting in New Hampshire that he supported abortion up until the moment of birth, and then later describing himself as pro-life.

Now, since he decided to acknowledge defeat, even if somewhat tardily, buzz about a potential VP nomination has started:

New to politics, Clark may still have a future. At 59, he is young enough for another race and, with his military experience, he might fit on a wartime Democratic ticket.

Two factors make Clark an attractive choice for VP in somewhat deluded Democratic circles: He's a military man and he's a Southerner. Since Terry McAuliffe and John Kerry have made military service such an issue that even the National Guard doesn't qualify anymore, John Edwards doesn't make the grade (no service at all). It wouldn't surprise me if Kerry chose Clark, even after Clark denigrated Kerry's military service, just to oppose Bush's position as a war president. Well, as Kerry is fond of saying, bring 'em on. If there was one candidate who would have been easier to shred on policy than Howard Dean, it's Wesley Clark, and all that choice would do would be to open up Kerry's flank for attack. Being military men, I'm sure they know what that means.

EIKIW: Calling All Democrats

I found this at a good local blog, Everything I Know Is Wrong, posting about being a lifelong Democrat until the mid-1990s. Sean's making a plea to Democrats everywhere to open their eyes and look at what his party has become:

I started my life as part of a family of liberal Democrats. I grew up in the sixties with a decidedly liberal Democratic bent. I voted for Hubert Humphrey against Richard Nixon in my school's mock election (Humphrey narrowly beat Nixon - it was Minnesota after all). I watched the Watergate proceedings all through summer vacation one year. I had the feeling that history was happening right in front of my eyes. I was horrified by the way the Republicans rallied around such a corrupt president, though I was pleased, when the time came, that Nixon did the right thing and resigned. Their behavior cemented my feelings against them.

I continued my liberal leanings (or so I thought) and habit of backing Democratic candidates; McGovern, Carter, Mondale (I was beginning to get bored), I did not vote for Dukakis, I just couldn't make myself, I voted Libertarian in protest, then Clinton (finally an exciting Democrat).

Clinton's first term was my last Democratic vote of any type. I voted for him because he was a Democrat and not a dolt. The idea of voting Republican had not yet even crossed my mind. Republicans were EVIL. That's what my party, the news and everyone I knew said (I am from Minnesota). That's why I didn't vote for Reagan, even though I liked him and I liked what he did for our country. I swallowed the whole trickle-down-economics-is-an-evil-plot-to-benefit-Reagan's-friends thing, hook line and sinker.

Sean writes passionately about his feelings of betrayal. Make sure you read the whole thing.

We'll Be Awaiting Your Abject Apologies

George Bush released his records of service from his tour of duty in the National Guard, and they prove indisputably that he fulfilled his obligations:

The White House, facing election-year questions about President Bush's military service, released pay records and other information Tuesday that it said supports Bush's assertion that he fulfilled his duty as a member of the Air National Guard during the Vietnam war. The material included annual retirement point summaries and pay records that the White House said show that Bush served. ...

The documents indicate that Bush received credit for nine days of active duty between May 1972 and May 1973, the period that has been cited by Democrats as evidence that Bush shirked his military responsibilities.

A memo written by retired Lt. Col. Albert Lloyd Jr, at the request of the White House, said a review of Bush's records showed that he had "satisfactory years" for the period of 1972-73 and 1973-74 "which proves that he completed his military obligation in a satisfactory manner."

And now that Terry McAuliffe, John Kerry, and Howard Dean have spent the last couple of weeks besmirching Bush's reputation and slandering him, we will all await their apology. In that they have spent the last couple of weeks equating National Guardsmen with draft dodgers, we already know they're unqualified to lead this nation, and we hope the American electorate responds accordingly.

Airheads

The Northern Alliance of Blogs has a very exciting announcement -- we will be starting our own radio talk show in the Twin Cities on March 6th!

Thanks to our good friend and Lord High Commissioner, Hugh Hewitt, an opportunity arose for us to create a live show for our local Salem Communications Network affiliate, AM 1280 The Patriot. Up until recently, AM 1280 The Patriot had mostly repeats of their weekly shows airing all day Saturday and Sunday, but while Hugh was out here for The Patriot Forum, he suggested that we could create live programming in order to boost their audience. The station was delighted to meet with us, and today Mitch Berg (from Shot In The Dark) and I met with station management to finalize the arrangements.

Starting on March 6th, we will have a three-hour live show aired in the Twin Cities. Eventually, if we don't stink, we hope that AM 1280 The Patriot will have other options for broadcast such as live internet streaming, but for now we're tickled to be on the air in our local area. As the show develops, we will be updating everyone on the arrangements and news.

Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Dang! Mitch scooped me. Fastest blogger in the West, he is.

We're Winning, Part 178a

The "resistance" in Afghanistan is running out of steam, according to the commander of NATO forces in the country:

The armed resistance against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan is dwindling despite claims by the al-Qaida terror network that it has launched a renewed campaign in the country, NATO's military commander said. U.S. Marine Gen. James L. Jones said there are fewer than 1,000 fighters of the ousted Taliban regime and their al-Qaida allies in Afghanistan.

"The level of the threat ... is quite a bit lower than I had thought," Jones said late Monday as he returned from a one-day visit to Afghanistan. ... Coalition commanders believe "the opposition is running out of energy," Jones said.

This is despite the winter snows that hamper Coalition patrols. The approval of the new Afghani constitution has created a new political situation in Afghanistan, one that will exclude the Taliban as more and more Afghanis buy into the protections and freedoms that the new government will protect. Even if the new document doesn't provide the levels of protection that is seen in the West, it establishes a quantum-level improvement for their citizens over what they've historically experienced.

Only by eliminating the brutal oppressive regimes in the Middle East will we overcome the nihilistic bands of lunatics that want to impose Islamofascist regimes around the world, and we will accomplish it by showing the Middle East the benefits of self-government and liberty. Afghanistan was first only because the Taliban remained stupid enough to give refuge to the worst of the terrorists. Iraq was second because we needed to end the 12-year quagmire of the failing containment of Saddam Hussein in order to secure our strategic and tactical flank. Once we establish relatively free and open societies in both countries, the people in the region will have an opportunity to turn from hopelessness and powerlessness and demand the same for themselves. Will they take it? The choice, if we remain on course, will be that or continued military action on their soil, not ours. 9/11 woke us up, hopefully permanently.

Bush's Numbers Rise With New Efforts

In a demonstration of what campaigning will do for George Bush, a new CNN/Gallup poll shows the President's numbers rising as he began to take his case directly to the people:

As President Bush defended his record last week, his approval rating and his strength against the leading Democratic presidential contenders improved, according to a new poll, but the numbers still point to a close election. ... Bush's approval rating in the poll, conducted Friday through Sunday, was 52 percent, compared with 44 percent who said they disapproved. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

In a poll taken a week earlier, Bush's approval rating was at 49 percent -- the lowest of his presidency -- with 48 percent disapproving of Bush's performance.

As I argued yesterday, Bush needs to start framing the debate in order to make sure it focuses on the appropriate and most important question: American security in an age of Islamofascist terror. John Kerry proposes to return the American effort to a law-enforcement approach, a failed strategy (of both political parties -- let's be clear) that culminated in the catastrophe of 9/11. In essence, John Kerry proposes to wait until a crime is committed before taking action.

George Bush, on the other hand, advocates and has implemented a strategy of war rather than law enforcement. He has taken 9/11, the bombings of the two American embassies in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole, among other provocations, as acts of war against the territory of the US and is taking action appropriate to that strategy. He doesn't propose to sit back and wait for another attack in order to gather more evidence; he has taken the attack to the enemy. And it has paid off. Al-Qaeda operations have been limited to essentially their own back yard and have killed more Muslims than anyone else, making them and their fanatical cause much more suspect among Middle East moderates.

The elections of November give us a clear choice as to which strategy we want pursued: law enforcement or war. Which has been more effective? That's the debate that George Bush must frame, and he needs to start now. The economy is recovering, jobs are being created, and so the election will rest on security, as it must. The latest polls show that the public is ready to listen. Make the stark distinction as clear as can be, Mr. President. Make the case. Don't wait for September, or Kerry will have already distracted the center on the true nature of what's at stake in November.

First, They Came For The Smokers ...

The forces of those who know what's best for you are gathering again to strip more personal choice from you -- this time aiming at your diet:

"Clearly, the obesity epidemic over the last 20 years is driven by something in our environment," says Robert Jeffery, professor and interim chairman of the division of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota. He also researches public policy for the Minnesota Obesity Center. "Our basic biology has not changed." ...

"To get the most bang for your buck, if we want people to change, then we should change the price structure of food," Jeffery says. Higher costs for unhealthful foods are one way, as is done elsewhere through taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. But the public resists those costs, Jeffery notes.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has pushed this issue over the past year or so, quoting liberally from those who want to either start taxing "bad" foods or press lawsuits against fast-food vendors in order to limit the choices available to consumers. In a related story, the Strib conducted a poll on obesity and makes Minnesotan reluctance to hike taxes on certain foods seem hypocritical:

About 2.4 million adults in Minnesota are at least 30 pounds overweight, so it's easy to see why most Minnesotans agree we need to change our course, especially when it involves children. Take junk food in the school vending machines. Literally. Get rid of it, they say. And those Happy Meal ads blaring betwixt and between the cartoon shows (the ones that sabotage the best efforts of the home cook)? Perhaps folks are none too happy about temptations that entice kids at their most vulnerable moment, plopped in front of the TV. Most want limits on those ads.

But when it comes to hitting us where it hurts -- the wallet -- we are less strident. No new taxes on food, we say, even when it's the unhealthful stuff. As for legal protections for those who are obese -- similar to those for the disabled -- most of us support such sanctions. Yet plenty of us oppose any special protections.

However, it's hardly hypocritical to believe that we need to control the food content of our children's diets as parents and want our schools to avoid undermining that parental privelege and at the same time believe that government shouldn't act as a parent to 200 million adults who are capable of making their own decisions. Once again, we have a group of people who get frustrated when years of advocacy do not deliver desired results, and turn to regulation and litigation to achieve them instead. It's a different worldview; they see all liberty as a grant from the government, not government as a grant from a free people, which is why their poll shows that Democrats are far more likely to support price controls on objectionable food. The analogy used by the Strib writer illustrates this perfectly:

Amid a cholera epidemic, a community's water pump was found to be contaminated. To protect the town and prevent further illness, residents were taught what -- and how -- to keep clean. But, and this was the glitch, to bring cholera to an end, everyone had to be taught and everyone had to follow the recommendations.

Someone finally pointed out that the solution was to fix the pump.

Of course, not all food comes from one source, something that escapes the writer of this article; food comes from many sources, the result of our free market. Different foods are manufactured in response to demand, and the pricing of the food depends on that demand in opposition to its supply. Obesity-policy advocates propose to artificially tilt the market by overtaxing some foods, driving people to choose other foods, but it's not as simple as that. For one thing, the food industry employs a great number of people, and an even greater number of people invest in these companies. Toying with the market will result in large job losses and retirement-fund instability. Who do you think will be the most affected by these changes? The low- and middle-income families these advocates profess to protect through government interference.

But more than the economic consequences, the erosion of liberty is the paramount concern. At what point do we get to make our own decisions about our lives? People who claim to protect us from ourselves present our gravest threat to freedom, the more so because they are sincere in their desire to do good. They know best about what we need, and individuals who follow their advice as a matter of personal choice would benefit from doing so. But when they try to leverage the power of the government to dictate and limit the choices available to us on such a basic issue as the food we eat, the cure becomes more deadly than the disease. Like the NY Times article which advocated limiting consumer choice in general in order to promote "happiness", it reduces all of us to the level of children with government as the nanny, doling out what the poor dears need and slapping our hands when we don't choose what's best for us.

Critics will respond that obesity places heavy costs on the economy, mostly through the overuse of health-care resources and absenteeism from the workplace. It's the same excuse that generated the mind-boggling litigation against tobacco producers and the liquor industry. Government intrusion on the health-care industry allows this argument to be made, and demonstrates the dangerous road we have tread when we allowed the government to become a primary source of funding for medical services. What people fail to understand is that when we empower government to solve our personal problems, there is a price to be paid beyond the taxes collected. Each decision we abdicate to our government reduces our liberty a little bit more.

First they came for the smokers, and that was okay, because tobacco is evil and deadly, so no one questioned the legal sacking of the corporations that provided it -- even though anyone who started smoking after 1963 did so in defiance of warning labels on the product that told people it was deadly to do so. Next they came for the gun owners but were driven back. Now they've come for your dinner plate. How much more of this has to happen before people finally wake up?

75,000 Visitors

Just a note thanking all of my readers who have pushed me past 75,000 visitors. Big thanks to all of you who've blogrolled me and linked back to me, and special thanks to my friends in the Northern Alliance.

In celebration, I'm announcing that I will be moving Captain's Quarters to a new hosting service as soon as a new design is in place. The traffic on the site has increased to the point where upgrading to full hosting services makes economic sense, and the folks at Hosting Matters make it pretty attractive to do so. Hosting Matters already supports some of the most well-known blogs, such as Instapundit, Little Green Footballs, and Power Line, so I feel like CQ will be in good hands.

I've already set up a new domain -- www.captainsquartersblog.com -- which you can start using immediately, as it's temporarily redirecting back to this site. I'm switching from Typepad to Movable Type, made by the same people, so I'm used to the concepts. I'll also have a new e-mail address, but you can continue to use the old one, too. I think I'll have a designer working on this in the next few days, and then I should have a definite time frame for the grand opening. I should be able to upload the entire contents of CQ to the new blog, so the archives will all be on the new site. After the switch, I'll keep this blog running (on a reduced service plan) in case I need a backup if Hosting Matters has a problem.

After tomorrow I may have another announcement regarding the blog ... we'll see. Keep your fingers crossed -- and keep coming back!

Best Damn War Analogy, Period

I have to hand it to Jon at QandO. In response to Joseph Wilson's tired assertion that Bush opened up an "unnecessary second front" on the war on terror by invading Iraq, Jon uses this analogy:

You know, I once bought pesticide to deal with the fleas that had found my dog. I had two choices.

1: I could spray the entire can at the dog.
or:
2: I could spray the dog...and other areas in which the fleas lived.

I guess I should have chosen the first. Instead I opened an "unnecessary second front" on the fleas. Worked, too, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence. Joseph Wilson kills every last flea on his dog, every time he sprays him down.

......which is about once every two weeks, since all the fleas just go elsewhere for a while.

Perhaps there's a parallel there, but let's not think about it too much.

Yeah. What he said.

Still Northern Alliance to Me

The Elder at Fraters Libertas has immortalized the Northern Alliance in song ... the Billy Joel song "Piano Man," to be specific. An "homage" like this deserves a response -- and one will be coming soon, I'm sure.

Now where did my Jim Croce songbook go? Hmmmm ....

Considering the Political Defensive

Since at this point we can consider John Kerry the Democratic nominee, absent a bimbo eruption or scandalous revelation (hint: his Senate record won't be good enough to derail him), it's time to also consider what attracts the Democrats to Kerry and to think about how to counteract it.

Hugh Hewitt today takes Kerry to task over a number of issues, but mostly focuses on the larger war on terror. In his last two paragraphs, he wraps up the argument thusly:

Kerry seems set on a strangely nostalgic course: An anti-war campaign by a Senator who voted for the war. Which is a bit like the war-hero who came back from war only to testify --falsely-- to the war crimes he and his colleagues committed. I get the sad sense that Kerry's going to be campaigning against himself for the next nine months, the sort of self-indulgent psycho-drama that the self-absorbed among the boomers love but which the rest of us view as narcissism.

I think most of the voters will conclude we really can't afford Hamlet as president and thus will reject Kerry decisively. We are in a war. The war goes on. Win the war. Lead the world. Vote Bush-Cheney in 2004.

It's easy to dismiss Kerry as a hypocrite on the war, and Kerry makes it easy by coming up with silly and incredible explanations to avoid saying I changed my mind, which politicians aren't allowed to do without a careful and thorough explanation -- Kerry obviously has none. For Kerry, it's about political expediency rather than philosophy. It doesn't mean that Kerry's position can be so easily dismissed. As I have sat back and watched, to my surprise, a dullard like Kerry win primary after primary and Joe Lieberman fail to win a pledged delegate, it should be fairly obvious by now that Kerry's opposition to the war in Iraq is resonating despite it being an opportunistic position.

Here's how Kerry is doing it. When the Bush administration made its case to Congress, it laid out a series of credible and interconnected cases for going to war against Saddam Hussein, any of which they argued was sufficient casus belli. However, I don't think the administration counted on the public feeling that it was the totality of these conditions becoming the standard by which the war would be judged. When one of the pillars seems to have been knocked out from underneath (although that is far from settled), a good portion of the public has lost confidence in the case as a whole. Kerry, perhaps unconsciously, taps into that uneasy feeling of being wrong and turns it back on the administration as "betrayal", as Al Gore put it over the weekend. He's saying, "Sure I voted for action, but that was because I bought the entire Bush argument. Had I known that one significant part was wrong, I would have voted against it." People don't like to feel mistaken and Kerry's position offers them a way to feel better about themselves, one that many independents may take if they have no intellectual argument to dispute it. This is why attacking Kerry's flip-flop in 2002 won't work -- it just reinforces his "betrayal" argument.

Unless this is addressed firmly and consistently by the White House, the public will lose confidence in our efforts at rebuilding Iraq and in the overall war on terror. The White House needs to get past the WMDs and stop talking about "retaining the capabilities": that horse has already bolted. We need to hear about 17 UNSC resolutions that went unanswered, violations of the cease-fire terms, attacks on the "no-fly" patrols that people have forgotten, the oil-for-food bribes of European governments, and the attempts to purchase missile technology from North Korea, and demonstrate each of these as a casus belli on its own. The Bush administration needs to flood the airwaves on this now, before Kerry's meme becomes an unstoppable force.

Independent voters need what I call "water-cooler arguments," talking points that are easily recalled in order to defend their positions. The partisans on both sides already have theirs, but the partisans aren't enough for either party in November. If Bush doesn't fill the vacuum soon, the administration may lose the battle for the independents before the nominating conventions even close.

The Arab League Discovers Humor

The Arab League, of all things, issued a report this morning critical of the US-led coalition's administration of Iraq -- on human-rights grounds:

Violations of human rights and international law by U.S.-led forces in Iraq have embittered the populace, an Arab League report obtained Monday said. ... "It (the treatment of Iraqis) is not in conformity with relevant international legal rules or with human rights documents in general," said the report obtained by Reuters.

The report quoted some Iraqis who were critical of Arab indifference toward their plight under the brutal rule of former President Saddam Hussein and said a change in methods by U.S.-led occupation forces could ease tensions.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Perhaps our response should be, "When you can announce these reports filled with your concern over human-rights abuses from the door of synagogues and Christian churches, then we will listen to your complaints." These are the same governments who rule by decree and torture and execute their citizens on the whim of their presidents-for-life. Even those closest to the West diplomatically, such as Egypt and Jordan, do not allow dissent or freedom of religious expression. Egypt has been under "emergency" suspension of even the pretense of democratic rule for decades now. They openly support the deliberate targeting and murder of Israeli citizens by suicide bombers. Lastly, the Arab League never lifted a finger to help Iraqis when they were brutally oppressed by Saddam Hussein under far, far worse conditions. Their concern fails to move me.

If we can soften our approach without endandgering our security and the security of the large majority of Iraqis who work with us to build a free and democratic Iraq, then we should by all means do so. But the Arab League would do better to focus on themselves if they want anyone to take their concerns about human rights seriously.

Kerry Takes Maine, Edwards Trails Kucinich -- Again

In yesterday's Maine caucuses, John Kerry again led the Democratic hopefuls, this time winning 45%-26% over Howard Dean:

With 50% of the statewide vote tabulated, Kerry had 45% of the vote. Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, had 26%, and Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, making his strongest showing to date, had 15%. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark of Arkansas, neither of whom had focused on Maine, finished a distant fourth and fifth. ... His success in Maine pushed his total to 426, compared with Dean's 184, according to Associated Press. The votes of 2,161 delegates are needed to win the party's presidential nomination at the July convention in Boston.

Dean, who didn't spend much time in Maine, scored his second runner-up finish of the weekend, while both John Edwards and Wes Clark finished out of the money in all three contests. Not only that, but the two sons of the South aren't putting up much of a fight south of the Mason-Dixon line, either: polls in both Tennessee and Virginia show Kerry with double-digit leads over both men, who are irrelevant if they can't take a Southern primary against a Massachussets Democrat.

Howard Dean still can't see reality, as he told CBS' Face the Nation that he recognized Kerry's momentum and that people liked to back a frontrunner -- something he no doubt recalls from just a couple of months ago -- but that he doesn't think that he's got plenty of time to stop Kerry:

Still, Dean rejected intimations by host Bob Schieffer that his campaign was on the brink of extinction. He added: "At some point here … people will say, 'Now wait a minute here, let's really have a close look at this.' "

Dean's correct, but unfortunately, that point will probably be in October. Despite improving to second in two caucuses, Dean's campaign can be described in an old Saturday Night Live line -- valiantly hanging on in its fight to remain dead. Dean's publicly pinned his hoped on Wisconsin's primary, where he trails Kerry by 40 points with eight days to go. Perhaps after that, reality might finally crash in on Loud Howard.

We're American Airlines, Proselytizing As We Do Best

You know your flight is about to turn weird when the pilot asks you to raise your hand if you're sure ... that you're a Christian:

American Airlines is investigating reports that a pilot asked passengers to identify themselves as Christians so non-Christians on board could talk to them about their faith, a spokesman said Sunday. ... Kincaid said the pilot, whose name was not released, reportedly asked Christian passengers to raise their hands before suggesting that the other passengers should discuss Christianity with those passengers.

The pilot, who had just returned from a mission to Costa Rica, reportedly said he would be available at the end of the flight for further discussion, Kincaid said.

You would think that a pilot might have other things on his mind than a religion check -- like actually flying the plane. Next, he'll be asking to change the boarding classes from first class, business class, and coach to Saints, Sinners, and The Unwashed Heathen.

Can't Get Enough of Link Love, Babe

Continuing my Sunday tours through the blogosphere in honor of Valentine's Day (it's next Saturday -- start making those arrangements!), let's see what's happening on some of my blogroll friends ...

Starting with the Northern Alliance, Saint Paul at Fraters Libertas notes the success of the two local dailies despite their lack of customer service, and draws the only logical conclusion: it's time to get more rude with readers. Hindrocket at Power Line gives some background on Herb Brooks now that the movie Miracle has been released; be sure to read it. King at SCSU Scholars reviews a piece by Mark Steyn and relates it to his own well-documented work in improving educational standards in Minnesota. The Warrior Monk at Spitbull rails against the suburban machine. And Mitch at Shot In The Dark notes his change of heart on capital punishment.

Sailing further along the coasts of the blogosphere, Electric Venom has a couple of posts up worthy of note. The first is the long-delayed Snark Hunt, featuring yours truly's take on Adam Sandler's latest career announcement. And Venomous Kate also has a link to the transcript of some truly original cyber romance (adults only, please!). Alicia at Twilight Café recounts her experiences terrorizing poor man-boys at fast-food restaurants. (If you're ever in Texas, be afraid ... be very afraid.) DC at Brainstorming, meanwhile, has become Pre10tious ...

Moving out into more stormy seas, Jon at QandO uses the Democrats' suggested questions for the Bush/Russert interview and handles the pressure better than Bush did -- unfortunately. Brant at SWLiP, fresh off of playing Dueling Comments with me here, gives a Holocaust revisionist a chance to rebut Brant's earlier outrage. As you might expect, it's all vague assertions of conspiracies and no proof whatsoever; Paul Davies needs to read more William Shirer. To see where that crap leads, Crossing the Rubicon2 notes a disturbing incident intersecting anti-Semitism and Germans once again, complete with aggravated assault, this time in New York. And Allah notes that Europeans simply love Jews -- in fact, they want them to move there and abandon Israel. They're suggesting Germany, of all places. Seriously.

Finally, it's not link-love unless we check in with the Master of Red himself, the Commissar at Politburo Diktat. In one post, the Commissar gives us 10 signs your blog has made it, and in another notes a report that the US may provide aid to Iraqi communists as a bulwark against Islamic extremism. Uh, guys, didn't we just kick out the Marxist Ba'athists?

Saddam's Nest Egg

The US believes it has discovered the location of at least some of Saddam Hussein's cash -- but so far, neither the US nor the Iraqi Governing Council can get their hands on it:

The United States believes it has found at least $300 million Saddam Hussein hid in banks, yet doesn't have enough evidence to get countries such as Syria and Switzerland to hand over the money, U.S. and European officials told The Associated Press. The funds at stake could go to the Iraq insurgency or the country's reconstruction — depending on who gets it first. What troubles investigators more is that much of Saddam's cash may already be gone. ...

Much to the frustration of the Bush administration, countries that acted quickly on relatively weak evidence involving al-Qaida funds have been unwilling to do the same on Iraq, partly because of growing doubts about the quality of U.S. intelligence.

While our friends wait for more solid intelligence, no one knows for sure if the $40 billion that Saddam has been estimated to have stashed away still exists, or if any or all of it has found its way into the hands of terrorists and Iraqi insurgents. (For that matter, no one knows how much of it found its way into the pockets of foreign diplomats, either.) Forty billion dollars buys a hell of a lot of RPGs and explosives for car bombers. It could also buy a few chemical and biological weapons, too.

Bush on Meet The Press: C-

President Bush appeared on Meet the Press with Tim Russert this morning to discuss his decision to go to war in Iraq, intelligence failures, and the upcoming election. I had some qualms about Bush in an extemporaneous setting and at least in the first half of the show, my fears proved justified. The president appeared rattled during the entire span of Russert's questioning on the war and intelligence, stammering, leaning forward, repeating phrases time and again, and providing disjointed and borderline non-responsive responses.

The inarticulate nature of George Bush is no campaign secret, although in prepared speeches he can often become inspiring. Even in press conferences, Bush usually presents a businesslike and efficient tone. In a one-on-one interview, however, he often has trouble forming complete sentences as he tries to organize his thoughts. You can almost see the wheels turning. He falls back on stock catchphrases, such as "Saddam was a madman" and "Saddam was a danger". Both of these are true, and if spoken once or twice in a 30-minute period would have been effective. Instead, Bush repeated these and other snippets of phrasing in response to almost every question Russert asked. I found myself thinking that I could have presented a more articulate defense of the Iraq war, and at times spoke aloud to the television, trying to coach Bush. (The First Mate wondered if I had lost my mind, as I wore headphones and the external sound was off on the TV).

Bush did much better in the second half of the interview, discussing subjects that obviously were more in his comfort zone: his National Guard service, the economy, and the upcoming election. The stammering decreased and his posture improved, demonstrating an ease which eluded him in the first half. As a result, Russert also seemed to relax and threw a couple of softball questions out to Bush. (Example -- Russert: "What will you do if you lose?" Bush: "I'm not going to lose.") Bush ably defended tax cuts as an economic stimulus, saying that the only way to grow an economy was to put money in the hands of consumers, and refused to rule out more tax cuts, saying, "A president has to keep all his options open." When asked about Kerry's comment that Kerry knew Bush at Yale and he hadn't changed at all, Bush bluntly replied that he never knew Kerry at Yale. Bush finished the interview at the peak of his performance, but declined to answer Russert when asked if they could do this again later during the campaign.

The overall impression Bush delivered -- and remember, I'm one of his supporters -- is that he is very uncomfortable answering questions on Iraq and doesn't have ready answers to questions that have been percolating for weeks now. Quibbling on testifying before the select committee on intelligence made him look vacillating and weak. In short, Bush gave a poor performance, one that will likely haunt him in the weeks ahead. If he can't do any better explaining the very-much-justified action in Iraq than this during the campaign, then Bush and the Republicans will have a very difficult autumn ahead of them.

UPDATE: Wired Opinion has a more charitable take on this than I do, from Jonathan's liveblogging.

UPDATE II: Welcome Instapundit readers!