Considering Nader

Ralph Nader once again has the political world in a tizzy trying to figure out whether he will run again for President, this time as an independent rather than a Green. Reporters are camped out for the announcement, Democrats are speaking out against one, and Republicans pray for one:

Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press," Nader, the Green Party's presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000, is expected to announce whether he will make another White House bid, this time as an independent. Democrats who fear he could siphon off enough votes to tip the election to President Bush have been trying to talk him out of it.

"We can't afford to have Ralph Nader in the race," Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe told CNN on Friday. "This is about the future of our country. If you care about the environment, if you care about job growth, you've got to support the Democratic nominee. So I'm urging everybody to talk to Ralph Nader."

So even the worst national party chairman has the shakes when confronted with the possibility of facing a Nader candidacy that only got less than three percent of the vote nationwide last time out. Democrats have blamed Nader for Gore's loss, primarily because the margin of loss in New Hampshire and Florida was less than the votes Nader received in those states. In a close election, having Nader drawing votes away on the left is the nightmare scenario. And with Howard Dean's sudden meltdown at the start of the primaries, Dean's hard-left supporters appear to be a ready-made constituency for Nader.

But if Nader represents Armageddon, why haven't the Democrats done more to bring Nader into their party? After all, Dean's campaign mirrored that of Nader's 2000 run, complete with Internet savvy and policy positions. The only difference was one of temperament, and at that Nader bested Dean. The Democrats -- mostly meaning Terry McAuliffe -- have had over three years to engage Nader, but up to now have spent most of their energy demonizing him. Perhaps they were too confident they'd win, or maybe McAuliffe thought they couldn't get close to Bush this year and another Nader run wouldn't make much difference. Nader himself signaled a willingness to consider options when he publicly broke with the Greens late last year. Whatever the reason, McAuliffe's failure to persude Nader to bring his talents into the Democratic Party is simply inexcusable -- if in fact that's what happened.

Another possibility exists besides a run/don't run announcement. Nader could announce his support for a particular candidate outside of the normal party channels, although that possibility seems rather remote. Who would he endorse that's still in the race? Certainly not Kerry. More than likely it's an announcement that he'll be running. If it's that he's not running, though, it could be that McAuliffe finally did his job and cut an eleventh-hour deal with Nader. What would it take to get Nader into the Democratic Party? How about the VP slot on the ticket? That would keep the Deaniacs from bolting. Putting Dean in the bottom slot would do that, too, but Dean already ruled out an independent run.

Bear this in mind -- if Nader says he's running tomorrow morning, Terry McAuliffe is through, and if Nader says he's not, Terry McAuliffe cut a deal with the devil to stop him.

Kerry: I Can't Handle Criticism

John Kerry once again cried foul because the Republicans actually have the audacity to campaign against Kerry's record in the Senate:

"President Bush — through his surrogates, specifically through Saxby Chambliss — decided once again to take the low road of American politics," Kerry said in Georgia, one of 10 states choosing electoral delegates on March 2. ... "No one is going to question my commitment to the defense of our nation," Kerry said.

Former Senator Max Cleland, a triple-amputee from his service in Vietnam, got even nastier when Senator Saxby Chambliss (who beat Cleland in 2002) spoke out against Kerry's voting record on defense in the Senate, where Kerry has not only repeatedly voted to reduce defense spending but twice introduced legislation to cut funding for the CIA. Instead of addressing the issues, Cleland called Chambliss a coward:

"For Saxby Chambliss, who got out of going to Vietnam because of a trick knee, to attack John Kerry as weak on the defense of our nation is like a mackerel in the moonlight that both shines and stinks," he said.

Only one word captures the essence of Democrats, at least in this election cycle: pussies.

When one is running for political office, previous voting records are fair game. In fact, it's the most objective and relevant material in any election! Politicians who resort to name-calling when their records are challenged are hiding something.

Cleland got beaten in Georgia largely because he voted against the Homeland Security bill for the reason that unions didn't like that workers could be fired for not doing their jobs. All Chambliss did was state that Cleland was more interested in his union support than in homeland security, which exactly described Cleland's 'no' vote; he chose to dump the bill entirely than go without the civil-service protections he sought. For the Democrats ever since, it's been an article of faith that holding Cleland responsible for his voting record somehow challenged his patriotism, when it did nothing of the sort. It challenged his judgment, and correctly so. For the last two years, every Democrat who's gotten on the stump has loudly decried any criticism of their record or their policies as an attack on their patriotism.

Bunk. And as Harry Truman, one of the last Democrats with the intestinal fortitude for national politics, famously said, "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen." Another adage holds that "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

And how have these same Democrats campaigned against Bush so far?

* Called him a liar, repeatedly, for relying on the same intelligence that the previous Democratic President believed
* Accused him of causing the deaths of American soldiers for the personal gain of his Vice President
* Branded him a deserter during wartime (without a shred of evidence), a capital offense

Why is Kerry so afraid to defend his own record that he deliberately changes the subject whenever it is brought up? Why does he screech hysterically about "patriotism" whenever his Senate votes become the topic of conversation? Ask yourself this: if he is so afraid to discuss these topics, what will he do if he becomes President and America is attacked again? Because if he can't face up to an honest debate on voting records and policy, then he sure as hell doesn't have the spine to stand up for America when it counts, at least not anymore.

UPDATE: Power Line's Hindrocket notes the same attack and agrees that Kerry's hysterical screeching indicates his vulnerability on his ultraliberal voting record:

Looking on the bright side, it is obvious that the Democrats believe, presumably on the basis of poll data, that Kerry's thirty-year record of anti-American, anti-military, anti-freedom activism cannot withstand scrutiny. I think they're right.

UPDATE II: Oxblog is as disgusted as I am. (via Instapundit)

UPDATE III: Hugh Hewitt also weighs in with a lengthy repudiation of the "McCarthyism of the left" which is well worth reading. I suspect it may form the core of a later column in the Weekly Standard, or at least I hope so. Money quote:

As disappointing as Kerry's reverse McCarthyism is, what is far more shocking is Kerry's attempt to outlaw investigation of his record by anyone who didn't serve ib Vietnam. In a democracy that long ago outlawed literacy tests and poll taxes, Kerry's attempt to erect a new barrier to democratic participation, one based on military service, is shocking. Kerry doesn't want his Senate record of defense and national security examined, much less his Vietnam-era radicalism, because neither will sit well with the public. So he launches an extraordinary attempt to seal it off by suggesting his critics have been cowards. Make no mistake, that's exactly what he's trying to do, but in so doing he displaying political cowardice.

Yeah. What he said.

Scott Ritter: Bribed?

Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector who took on the Clinton Administration's lack of action against Iraq and then mysteriously started singing a different tune in 2002, may have had good reasons for his change of heart -- 400,000 of them, approximately, as Jon at QandO notes:

MEMRI is reporting on the alleged documents revealing who was in the pay of Saddam Hussein. ... It's well-known that Iraq was actively subverting the Food-for-Oil sanctions by exporting oil to to tune of 200-400,000b/day to neighboring nations like Syria. However, if his end-arounds included political pay-offs, it will require diplomatic consequences....and possibly legal consequences. Case in point:

Shaker Al-Khaffaji (7 million barrels) advanced $400,000 to Scott Ritter, former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq. Ritter produced a documentary purporting to tell the true story of the weapons inspections, which in his telling were corrupted by sinister U.S. manipulation. [47]

Again, let me state: this list is far from confirmed, and may represent a Chalabi-like attempt to blacken the names of enemies. On the other hand, this seems to come as no suprise to some Iraqi's who say "Many Iraqis and particularly those involved in the oil trade business were aware that the regime was selling quantities of its oil to oil companies and individuals with which it was associated or had good relations to circumvent the UN sanctions which controlled Iraq for 13 years. The policy of the old regime was to support anyone who stood by it or was trying to export goods to Iraq outside the sanctions."

Very interesting how all of that Iraqi oil-for-food money got out to all of the usual suspects of appeasement, isn't it? Make sure you read the rest of the post at QandO.

Sean Moves to Typepad, Blogosphere Cheers!

The fine Minnesota blog Everything I Know Is Wrong has moved up to a new Typepad site, and Sean has done a great job making it look good. He also has an excellent post challenging the Democrats to quit attacking Bush and start talking about their plans for prosecuting the war on terror. Make sure you update the blogrolls and take a look!

Hmong Immigration Increasing in Twin Cities

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports today that a new influx of Hmong refugees will soon relocate to the Twin Cities, totalling over 14,000 in addition to the 42,000 that already live in the area:

Anticipation of a new life abroad has gripped this village of about 14,400 -- some estimates run higher -- since the U.S. State Department announced two months ago that it had struck a resettlement deal with the Thai government. The Hmong who live on the grounds of this Buddhist temple north of Bangkok will start to arrive in the U.S. this summer. The arrivals are expected to continue for at least two years.

The Hmong are a Laotian minority ethnic group that supported the United States during the Vietnam War and its incursion into Laos to drive out the North Vietnamese. Since then, as the Hmong Studies Internet Resource Center states, they have been a people without a country. Dr. Mai Xiong writes:

The United States and North Vietnam signed an agreement in Paris in 1973 to withdraw their military forces from Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam. In 1974, the Pathet Lao (the Lao communist government) prepared an 18-point policy called the Program for Achieving Peace, Independence, Neutrality, Democracy, Unification, and Prosperity of the Kingdom of Lao to gain citizens’ support, so they could take over Laos. When the Pathet Lao took over the country in 1975, they violated this 18-point policy and began a bloody campaign against the Hmong in retribution for helping the Americans during the Secret War in Laos. ...

The communists organized a massive troop movement against the Hmong in 1977, and they were driven from their homes. Many of them, including their wives and children, fled and hid in the jungle. The communists attacked the villages, burned the houses, destroyed the crops, and killed the livestock. Many communist soldiers raped the Hmong women and killed the children who surrendered because they could not run away.

I highly recommend that you read the rest of Dr. Xiong's essay, as it clearly expresses how our abandonment of our allies in Southeast Asia did not result in freedom and self-determination, as those who espoused the retreat claimed it would. In fact, just considering the Hmong, almost 170,000 of them already live in the US. However, in 1971, John Kerry insisted that a unilateral withdrawal would only result in the US having to protect 2-3,000 people at most (pages 190-1):

But I think, having done what we have done to that country, we have an obligation to offer sanctuary to the perhaps 2,000 to 3,00 who might face ... political assassination. ... So what I am 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 ...

More than thirty years after Kerry and his clique of defeatists and retreatists pushed this country into abandoning its allies in Southeast Asia, we are still paying for that failure by giving refuge to exponentially more than the two or three thousand refugees Kerry predicted. In just the Twin Cities over the next two years, we'll be absorbing five times that number, in addition to those already there. In California, residents of Garden Grove and Westminster saw their cities utterly transformed in the late 1970s by the massive resettlement of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees. In Cambodia itself, our withdrawal created the political vacuum that enabled Pol Pot to massacre 2 million Cambodians and make refugees of millions more, dwarfing Kerry's ludicrous allegations of American "murders". Communists swept through Indochina after our retreat, killing millions and enslaving the rest. To this day, Kerry has never acknowledged the errors of judgment he displayed in his anti-war period; indeed, he relies on that record to attract fellow defeatists and isolationists.

America should be taking in these refugees; they made only the mistake of relying on American assurances of support, not knowing the character of those who would one day decide that it was far easier to abandon them to the tender mercies of the Viet Cong and Pol Pot than to muster the political will to win the war. Now that we know the measure of Kerry's character and judgment, we need to make sure that he is never again in a position to abandon freedom in favor of isolationism and betray friends on behalf of thugs.

John Kerry's 1971 Testimony Audio On Line Now

Hugh Hewitt has been playing the totality of the audio of John Kerry's prepared statement preceding his Senate testimony in 1971. The audio is now available from the Democracy Now! website. (via Instapundit) The website also has a streaming-video presentation on John Kerry and his anti-war activities hosted by Amy Goodman, although the take on Kerry is that his recent record is a betrayal of his anti-war roots. It contains some interesting video of Winter Soldier press conferences and other information, as well as pictures and video of the war interspersed with pictures of Kerry, then and now. It's not pleasant, so consider yourself warned.

The Bush Message to the Conservative Base

Yesterday, President Bush bypassed an onbstructionist Senate and used a recess appointment to place William Pryor, the Alabama Attorney General, to the federal appellate court:

After three years of watching Senate Democrats block his judicial nominees, President Bush trumped them for the second time this year by installing Alabama Attorney General William Pryor on the federal appeals court. ... Bush on Friday gave Pryor an almost two-year stint on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, calling him a "leading American lawyer" and saying Democrats had used "unprecedented obstructionist tactics" last year to stop him and five other nominees.

Democrats disliked Pryor for one reason and one reason only -- they felt his devout Catholocism would eventually mean that he would rule against abortion if given a chance, despite Pryor's record of upholding the rule of law. This ridiculous construct somehow allowed the Democrats in the Senate to pass off their opposition as principled, when in fact it demonstrated nothing more than religious bigotry; under their approach, no Catholic would be qualified to sit on an appellate bench, an attitude that Catholics should find repugnant. In fact, one of the leaders of this cause is none other than Ted Kennedy, whose own brother had to fight the same slur that he heaps on Pryor: that his Catholicism makes him answer to the Pope rather than the Constitution. Shameful.

But Bush's real message isn't intended for those recalcitrant Senators who won't allow an up-or-down vote on nominees. This message is for those recalcitrant members of Bush's voter base who, disenchanted with what they see as profligate social spending and a meager devotion to conservative principles, threaten to "sit on their hands" in November. This strategy has been leaking all over the blogosphere and talk-radio circuits. Michael Savage in particular likes to beat this horse to death on a daily basis. The idea is that if their abstention allows Kerry to take the White House but Republicans can still hold onto both houses of Congress, then the resultant gridlock will freeze spending and make the Republicans take the hard-right base more seriously in 2008. They point to the Goldwater fiasco in 1964 as an example of how a terrible defeat can refocus a political party, and propose to take that road in November.

Uh-huh. Sounds terrific (even though it took 30 years for the Republicans to take control of Congress after the Goldwater debacle), but it ignores two key issues: the war on terror and the appointment of federal judges. Bush spoke to the latter issue yesterday, and this is his message: Four Supreme Court positions. Several more Appellate Court positions. Which party do you want to see in charge of deciding who fills those roles? Because an abstention in 2004 won't just resonate for four years -- it will resonate for decades. If they decide that having a Massachussetts liberal make those appointments serves their cause better, then they have chosen to go down in flames and take everyone with them.

Iran Shrugs, Hard-Liners Control 'Parliament'

As expected after the Iranian Guardian Council -- the ruling band of mullahs who make all policy for the original Islamic Republic -- disqualified most of the reformist Parliamentary candidates, hard-liners dominated yesterday's elections. But Iranians, despite being told that voting was a religious requirement, stayed away in droves:

Libya Able To Create Weapons-Grade Plutonium

Far from taking advantage of Bush's need for a PR win and surrendering a useless WMD program, the UN has discovered that Libya successfully manufactured small amounts of weapons-grade plutonium:

Libya succeeded in making weapons-grade plutonium before announcing it would abandon its efforts to build a nuclear bomb, United Nations inspectors said yesterday. ... Libya's nuclear experiments included the separation of plutonium, albeit "in very small quantities", it said.

Anyone doubting Libya's earlier intentions now? If we had not shown the fortitude necessary to chase Saddam into a hole in the ground -- and then drag him out of it -- Ghadafi would still deny the existence of his programs and wait the West out on sanctions. Only after we demonstrated that our passive security policy had passed unmourned into history did Ghadafi calculate his risk-to-benefit ratio and come clean with the West. Only after we showed that we finally now mean what we say did Iran agree to IAEA inspections, which yesterday led to a find of undeclared nuclear centrifuges on an Iranian Air Force base.

And now, in November, Americans will be given the choice to return to an old policy of "law enforcement" -- waiting for the terrorists to strike before taking action -- and consultation paralysis with recalcitrant and corrupt allies, or to stay the course with the first security policy against terrorism that has actually made the world safer for Americans and everyone else. You can forget the (improved) economy and social programs -- that's the choice we all have to make.

What's it going to be?

California Judiciary Punts

Another California judge has punted in the gay-marriage case, declining to issue a stay even though San Francisco clearly violates the state constitution by issuing licenses to same-sex couples:

Gay and lesbian couples won another reprieve Friday when a judge declined to immediately stop San Francisco from granting them marriage licenses, saying conservative groups failed to prove the weddings would cause irreparable harm.

No other details are available yet. However, it appears that the judge ruled that Frisco's prima facie flouting of the constitutional amendment passed recently by California voters doesn't require an immediate injunction. Imagine, if you will, if a schoolteacher required students to pray every day. Do you suppose a judge would find enough "irreperable harm" to issue an injunction? A California judge would break a finger signing that order to get it out as fast as possible.

As I've stated before, I don't have a big problem with the idea of gay marriage, as long as it isn't imposed on society as a "right" from unelected officials. In California, that seems to be the exact method being used, and it's especially reprehensible after voters passed a constitutional amendment specifying that they did not want such marriages legalized. If people want this to be a wedge issue, they're rapidly becoming successful. The actions of judges to legislate from the bench alienates people like me, who only want to see laws made by the legislature, where law-making belongs.

UPDATE: The AP has updated its story:

Judge Ronald Evans Quidachay denied the Campaign for California Families' request for a temporary restraining order but said the group did have the right to a hearing on their argument that the city is violating state law. The conservative group argued that the weddings harm all Californians who voted in 2000 for Proposition 22, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

The judge suggested that the rights of the gay and lesbian couples appeared to be more substantial. "If the court has to weigh rights here, on the one hand you are talking about voting rights, and on the other you are talking about equal rights," Quidachay said.

Rubbish. Under the state law, marriage is defined very specifically and that was done by a referendum, direct democracy in action. While referendums cannot override the constitution, the correct process would be for groups opposing the law to challenge the law in court, not for state agencies to disregard the law at whim.

Time to Set the TiVo

Power Line's Hindrocket lets us know that he will be appearing on the Twin Cities' PBS program, "Face to Face", which is a Minnesota Nice version of Crossfire. The program airs this Sunday at 10:30 am and the panel reviews the credibility of politicians. [You can get a half-hour discussion out of that? Well, he is a lawyer ...] He's already taped the segment and notes:

I think the show will be pretty good, although, in these half-hour formats, there's a limit to how much you can do. I tried to work in two or three facts that many people don't know--like the cyanide block found in the al Qaeda safe house in Baghdad, and President Bush's 1972 Air National Guard evaluation.

I'll post a review of the show later on Sunday. If you're in the area, make sure you tune in.

UPDATE: Apparently, Power Line's had a busy week -- now Best of the Web has linked back to Big Trunk's post on the Deaniac reaction to their candidate's withdrawal. Make sure to read the entire hilarious (and oddly frightening) article.

Israelis to Evacuate More Settlements

Israel's deputy Foreign Minister, Ehud Olmert, said that Israel is not only preparing to evacuate all Gaza Strip settlements but also a number of West Bank settlements as well:

Israel will seek to retain major settlement blocs in the West Bank, but will dismantle Jewish settlements close to Palestinian towns and villages "wherever possible," the deputy prime minister said Friday. ... Olmert said that as part of a West Bank withdrawal, "the major settlement blocs have to stay under our control."

"The Americans understand this ... the argument is over all those areas where the Jewish settlements are mixed in with the Palestinian population in a way that causes confrontation and damage to both sides," he said.

It's difficult to determine whether this represents a reluctant acknowledgement of a difficult, if not impossible, tactical and political situation or a unilateral surrender to terrorism. Yasser Arafat has waged a war of attrition with the Israelis, calculating that the slow, steady drip of terrorism will wear down Israeli (and Western) stamina and allow him to either drive the Israelis into the Mediterranean, or at least help him cut the best deal possible in the interim. European reaction certainly encouraged Arafat; just a while ago, some in Europe were considering a plan to encourage the Israelis to abandon their country and move to Germany, of all places. Rewarding this strategy only encourages more of the same.

However, the very nature of Israel's settlements in the West Bank make them almost indefensible in the case of outright military action, and while the Palestinians don't have that kind of capability now, they've repeatedly attempted to smuggle heavier arms into PA territory. Also, in any negotiation, some settlements will be dismantled, perhaps most of them. In this, the Israelis lose nothing of consequence except some low-value bargaining chips, and they gain enough momentum to complete their wall along the Green Line. They also keep more Israelis secure by getting them behind that wall, even if the dislocation costs get expensive, monetarily and politically.

In the end, I suspect this debate comes up a wash, and in reality the Israelis need to build the wall to keep the bombers out of Israel itself. Once the wall is built, the logistics of protecting those settlements that are small or integrated tightly into Palestinian communities becomes much more difficult. Very reluctantly, I have to agree that this may be the best decision for Israelis, especially in that it is unilateral and doesn't require any negotiation with Arafat or his puppets. Perhaps it is better to let him die and then pursue diplomatic solutions with whomever comes to power. Certainly, we've seen that doing everything else hasn't worked.

1,000 Posts -- And Another New Look

Just in time for my 1,000th post, Mel at Skinny Dippin' Design has the second skin ready for Captain's Quarters. If you look at the left sidebar just below my e-mail, you'll see a new link titled, "Skin the Site". If you click it, you will be given the option of choosing between two 'skins' for the site. The first, which is the one you're likely using right now, is called "War", and that's the one with the azure background and the stunning graphic of a ship sailing into battle. The second skin is called "Peace" and features a softer look, different fonts, and a completely new graphic. As long as your browser is cookie-enabled, you should be able to choose which skin you get whenever you come back to CQ -- which you should do often, of course.

I have received a lot of great feedback on the site, and a few people are having trouble displaying the sidebars due to the colors used. The new skin may help, so I would encourage you to give it a try. If not, Mel and I are developing a third skin with a more basic look in order to make sure everyone can read the site comfortably. Don't hesitate to let me know what you think! If you're considering a new blog or a new look for your existing blog, you should be talking to Mel.

A couple of other housekeeping notes:

* Mel has reconfigured the archives so that you can access weekly and monthly archives through drop-down boxes in the right sidebar. Category archives are accessible under their own heading, of course, and if you click the Archives label, you will go to a page where all of my posts are listed individually, in descending date order. All 1,000 of them. Happy hunting! (It's great for searching on titles.)

* When I converted the blogrolls from the static lists on the old site to Blogrolling, apparently some of them didn't convert properly. If your blog has been dropped off of my blogrolls, let me know ASAP so I can fix the problem.

* Also, my old site is now a backup site and won't be updated unless HM has a DDoS attack or some such, so you should update your blogrolls to this site if you have me blogrolled. If you blogroll through Blogrolling and add CQ, your site should automatically appear in Sister Ships. Or at least, that's the rumor at Blogrolling ...

An Offer He Can't Refuse

Hugh Hewitt made an unprecedented offer to John Edwards on his radio show and his blog last night:

My offer to Edwards to co-host my program any or all days from now until March 2 remains open. Given that I am on, among many palaces, in drive-time in L.A., San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, and in the early evening in Boston, Atlanta, Cleveland and Cinncy --all Super Tuesday markets-- I am certain he'd been tripling his exposure in those cities by coming into the studio, but I haven't heard from the campaign. Arnold, of course, used talk radio like a scalpel in the California recall. The talkers are probably the only way to communicate with the Golden State electorate especially, and candidates in radio studios bring television cameras with them. We'll see if Edwards has some cowboy in him.

It would be hard to understand why Edwards wouldn't take Hugh up on his offer, at least for a day or two, considering that his campaign is reportedly low on the funding necessary for pushing through the various areas Hugh lists. There is a risk in giving up personal appearances in favor of sitting in studio with Hugh and the Generalissimo, and Edwards' target audience may not normally listen to Hugh's show. (Horror! Well, they should start ...) However, that could easily be overcome simply by promoting the appearance, something that both Hugh and Edwards can do well.

Hugh's offer got picked up around the blogosphere, and everyone seems to be urging Edwards to enter the lion's den. Roger Simon says, "Edwards would be a fool not to do it. If I were running, I'd jump at the chance. Sure Hugh is a conservative, but he's a fair one and one of the most intelligent interviewers on the air." Instapundit states simply, "If Edwards passes on this offer, he deserves to lose." I agree.

It's About Time

While I highly doubt that the Bush re-election campaign looks to this blog for advice, nonetheless they are acting as I urged yesterday, launching their advertising blitz against the presumptive nominee, John Kerry:

President Bush's reelection campaign has decided to focus its coming advertising barrage not only on John F. Kerry's record as a senator but also on his days as an antiwar activist, a House candidate and Massachusetts's lieutenant governor. ... Campaign officials said in interviews that they plan substantial positive advertising about the president, focused on his proposals rather than accomplishments, when they begin spending tens of millions of dollars on the airwaves next month. But they made it clear that many of the ads will accuse the Democratic front-runner of "hypocrisy," in McKinnon's word, in part by reaching back into his early career.

Quite frankly, I think they're a bit late. The Democrats have been using Bush for target practice since last fall, and the silence from the White House has to a large extent allowed the Democrats to frame the debate. As always happens when an incumbent president has no primary opposition, the spotlight falls on the candidates for the other party, and Howard Dean, John Edwards, and Kerry have sucked up a lot of the political oxygen in the past two months. This has put the White House on the continual defensive, having to explain why the Democratic attacks on Bush's policies and records are wrong, rather than leading the discussion by promoting those policies themselves.

And of course, everyone on the Democratic side has participated in the AWOL smear, from the party chairman on down, and none of them have repudiated these lies, even after extensive records and several eyewitnesses have destroyed this fallacy. Kerry's reportedly told his staff to no longer pursue that meme, hardly the same thing as acknowledging it was untruthful and wrong, which makes his campaign's whining yesterday all the more ridiculous:

Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said: "These attacks and smears against us are just one more example of the fundamental need to change the direction of the nation from George Bush's extreme agenda to an agenda that meets the needs of mainstream America. And these attacks allow us to turn to real issues in response, which is precisely what the voters want to hear."

Sorry, Stephanie, but hearing the Democrats complain about smears after listening to them on the stump for the past month leaves one breathless from the hypocrisy. Besides, the Bush campaign intends to focus on Kerry's public record, which is certainly fair game for any campaign. Specific areas we can expect to see addressed are:

* A 1970 Harvard Crimson interview in which Kerry said that U.S. troops should be deployed "only at the directive of the United Nations"

* Kerry's high-profile opposition to the Vietnam War and comments about U.S. atrocities (accusing Vietnam veterans of widespread war crimes such as rape, mutilation, torture, and the "murder" of 200,000 Vietnamese a year)

* Kerry's record on tax increases and defense spending cuts -- especially his multiple attempts to cut intelligence funding in the 1990s

* Kerry's hypocritical sellouts to illegal campaign contributors, such as his legislative intervention on behalf of an insurer for the Big Dig, pressuring the SEC to meet with a Chinese spy, and the extraordinary letter-writing campaign Kerry waged to secure a $150 million defense contract for a donor who just pleaded guilty to election fraud

These issues provide just a springboard for the Bush campaign. They have about four months of Democratic vitriol to answer, as Matthew Dowd notes: "We have a job to do to correct the false impression given about us and the false impression about Kerry himself. This guy did 15 attack ads on us in the last few months." As they continue to mine Kerry's record in public office and public policy, we will no doubt discover much more about why Kerry gets a higher lifetime rating from liberal support groups than does Teddy Kennedy -- and the Bush campaign will finally start telling us why.

'I would live in America, no problem'

The Telegraph publishes this remarkable statement from an unnamed Iranian Republican Guard soldier stationed at the old American embassy in Teheran:

"I would live in America, no problem," said one 22-year-old, who added that he associated the country with "love and freedom".

Nearby, "Down with USA" was painted on the wall in garish red and yellow hues.

Another guard, also in his 20s, added: "Our government has one view of America but the people have another. Our government tries to show the US as an enemy of our country and of our people. All of the young believe the US is good. Most of the people believe this."

Why were these young men standing guard over our old embassy in Teheran? The Iranian government, controlled by radical mullahs since Ruhollah Khomeini since the Islamic Revolution began 25 years ago this month, had turned the building into a museum dedicated to American "crimes", complete with ghastly symbolism:

A miniature Statue of Liberty planted on the embassy's lawn wears the grotesque face of a skull and bare ribs protrude from her shrunken chest. The bald eagle crest that once adorned the gates has disappeared, defaced by countless hammers and chisels.

But today the museum is virtually defunct. It opens only on selected anniversaries, chiefly for the benefit of foreign visitors.

It is a measure how far the prestige of the mullahocracy has fallen in 25 years that this monument has been left to wither on the vine, of interest to only non-Iranians, and guarded by the youth that rejects its message as the Iranian ruling class tries to pretend that nothing has changed since the heady days of 1979. In the upcoming elections, the official estimate puts the turnout for the upcoming vote at 30 percent, less than half of the 67 percent that voted in the last election, and with the mullahs disqualifying most of the reformist candidates, that may be a generous prediction.

Iran appears ready to collapse from within, and rather than pursuing a policy of normalization with the present ruling class, we should instead continue to passively isolate Iran until the younger generation seizes power on its own. Any other policy, such as the engagement that John Kerry promises and Colin Powell suggests, only serves to embolden the Supreme Council and demoralize the agents of true change and liberation in Iran. If people don't remember anything else, they should remember this one fact: the mullahs are not our friends. The 22-year-old Guard member who wants nothing more than the ability to see America ... that's our friend. Let's not let our friends down.

It's Nice to be Noticed

Thanks to a tip from Sean at Everything I Know Is Wrong, I found a nice compliment and a new blogroll addition. Amy Ridenour at the National Center for Public Policy Research -- whose newsletters I receive by e-mail, and you should as well -- has her personal blog on the site, and paid CQ a huge compliment:

... that's the most gorgeous blog I have ever seen. The articles are thought-provoking, too.

Thanks, Amy! I'd love to take full credit (I will for the articles!), but if you want to know who's responsible for the design, check out Mel at Skinny-Dippin' Designs. In fact, Mel has a surprise for all of you coming very soon -- a new skin for Captain's Quarters will soon be available for your selection. This skin will be "War" and the new one will be "Peace". Let me know which one you like!

Kerry's Hypocrisy Defended on the Left

After a series of embarassing revelations about favors given by John Kerry to illegal contributors, Peter Beinart of The New Republic rides to his rescue -- sort of -- in today's TRB. Beinart argues that all these incidents demonstrate is politics as usual, but that to charge Kerry with hypocrisy is to charge everyone with hypocrisy. Beinart writes:

Let's stipulate that Kerry has occasionally helped out his financial backers--sometimes at the public's expense. Brooks says this makes Kerry's attack on special interests "phony." But virtually every governor or member of Congress--which is to say, virtually every presidential candidate--has raised money from people with an interest in legislation and at some time or another has written a letter, or voted for a bill, on their behalf. In the 2000 GOP primary, Bush even argued that anti-special interest crusader John McCain was tainted by "all those fund-raisers with lobbyists" he had held during his years in the Senate. And Bush was partially right.

But the piece that Beinart never mentions can easily be found in Kerry's own campaign website, where he makes broad, damning statements such as, "From the moment I take office, I will stand up to the special interests and stand with hardworking families so that we can give America back its future and its ideals."

Is this an example of "standing up to special interests"?

A Senate colleague was trying to close a loophole that allowed a major insurer to divert millions of federal dollars from the nation's most expensive construction project. John Kerry stepped in and blocked the legislation. Over the next two years, the insurer, American International Group, paid Kerry's way on a trip to Vermont and donated at least $30,000 to a tax-exempt group Kerry used to set up his presidential campaign. Company executives donated $18,000 to his Senate and presidential campaigns.

Kerry's website states that "John Kerry has a proven record of standing up to the very special interests George Bush caves to." Is this part of that record?

In 1996, Senator John Kerry was locked in a hard-fought and close reelection campaign with Massachusetts Governor William Weld. Kerry was the policy wonk, noted for his expertise in international crime, arms and drug dealing, and intelligence. ... [Johnny] Chung gave $10,000 to Kerry's campaign -- most of it illegally -- hosted a fund-raising party in Beverly Hills, and threw in an extra $10,000 to honor Kerry at a Democratic Senate Campaign Committee event. Kerry eventually returned all the Chung money.

In return, Kerry opened a door for a friend of Chung: Liu Chaoying. ...

"Who is Colonel Liu?" asked William Triplett, a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer and author of two books on Chinese influence in US politics. "She began her military intelligence career with Chinese Navy intelligence. She has been, in succession, assistant to the President of the China National Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation and the China Great Wall Industries Corporation, both of whom have been sanctioned twice -- in 1991 and 1993 -- by the United States for ballistic missiles sales to Pakistan. She later became president of China Aerospace Industrial Holdings Ltd. and she made illegal campaign contributions to the Clinton Gore ticket and John Kerry in 1996.

"She is a communist,” says Triplett; she is a high-tech spy; she is an arms broker and she met Bill Clinton at a fund raiser and John Kerry in his Senate office."

In the Liu case, Kerry made a call to the SEC, which he oversaw as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, and set up a meeting she wanted in order to get listed on the stock exchange. And does this quid pro quo meet the threshold that Kerry sets when he says, "I have a message for the influence peddlers, for the polluters, the H.M.O.'s, the big drug companies that get in the way, the big oil and the special interests who now call the White House their home: We're coming. You're going. And don't let the door hit you on the way out"?

Sen. John F. Kerry sent 28 letters in behalf of a San Diego defense contractor who pleaded guilty last week to illegally funneling campaign contributions to the Massachusetts senator and four other congressmen. ... Between 1996 and 1999, Kerry participated in a letter-writing campaign to free up federal funds for a guided missile system that defense contractor Parthasarathi "Bob" Majumder was trying to build for U.S. warplanes. ...

Kerry's letters were sent to fellow members of Congress — and to the Pentagon — while Majumder and his employees were donating money to the senator, court records show. During the three-year period, Kerry received about $25,000 from Majumder and his employees, according to Dwight L. Morris & Associates, which tracks campaign donations.

Beinart tries his best, and he is an excellent writer, but he cannot cover up Kerry's hypocrisy on special interests, not with a record like Kerry's left over the past 19 years in the Senate. Beinart's piece no more exculpates Kerry than did Louis' declaration in Casablanca when he said, "I am shocked, shocked to find gambling in this establishment!" Had Kerry taken the McCain-Feingold approach and said that the system needs reform, that might have been acceptable. But to throw stones at Bush while living in a giant crystal house and claiming to be simon-pure is the definition of hypocrisy. Beinart should know better; perhaps he agrees with what Power Line sees as the operative definition of special interests:

I suppose in his mind, people who contribute to his campaigns are just public-spirited citizens, not "special interests." "Special" interests are the ones who contribute to Republicans.

Economic Expansion Continues

The Bush economic plan continues to expand the economy and points to strong growth for the year:

A key economic forecasting gauge advanced a strong 0.5 percent in January, suggesting that the nation's economy will expand further in coming months. The business-funded Conference Board said Thursday its Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators rose to 115.0 last month following gains of 0.2 percent in December and 0.3 percent in November. Analysts had expected a rise of about 0.3 percent for January.

Ken Goldstein, the business group's economist, noted that the index has been gaining since last spring. The rise points to "sustained economic growth, perhaps through the first half of this year," he said.

And guess what's fueling the strong growth in the economy? Tax breaks, which are enabling increases in both exports and business infrastructure investment. Jobless claims dropped in the past week as well, demonstrating that job growth will be a consequence of that investment. Business has gained confidence in the recovery and are now tooling up for expanded production and distribution, and that means more people will be needed to fill those orders.

Don't expect the Democrats to talk too much about this, though. They have the Chicken Little economic forecasts too tightly integrated into their stump speeches to survive their amputation now.

With Marshall, It's All Personal

As I was driving to work this morning, I caught the replay of the last hour of Hugh Hewitt's show from last night, and the quality of the debate from Joshua Micah Marshall stunk, and that's been the rule rather than the exception. Both in tone and in content, Marshall constantly relies on personal attacks and hysterical approaches whenever Hugh challenges him on a political issue. Last night the topic was John Kerry's Senate testimony in 1971 that alleged that the US murdered 200,000 Vietnamese a year, but the topic is irrelevant.

Here's the template for debates between Hugh and Marshall:

H: So, Josh, have you read the report today that says the sky is blue?

J: Oh, Hugh, that is so like you and your buddies on the right! What does color have to do with anything? You and your colorist friends never complained that the sky wasn't pink during the last Bush administration!

H: Josh, I'm just referring to this article --

J: That article has already been discredited, it's so lame, and I can't believe you're still talking about that, Hugh.

H: But the sky has been consistently the same across different partisan administrations --

J: Oh, my God, Hugh, that is just ridiculous, you KNOW it's a matter of perspective. From your right-wing cloistered view, of course the sky is always blue. I can't believe you mislead your listeners like this.

And so on and so on, week in and week out. Peter Beinart of The New Republic gets hysterical in debate on occasion, but for the most part actually debates, rather than trading in invective and desperately attempting to change the subject. I'm beginning to understand Hugh's motivation for inviting Marshall on the air with him: to underscore the intellectual bankruptcy of a good portion of the Left, including the so-called intelligentsia.

While learning to debate in high school and college, two key concepts were repeatedly drilled into us -- whoever raises his voice first loses the argument, and whoever resorts to personal attacks forfeits credibility. Joshua Micah Marshall apparently never learned this, and judging from his appearances on the air, didn't do too well in comportment, either.

Kerry: A Man Who Just Can't Say No

For a man who claims not to be beholden to special interests, John Kerry certainly appears to enjoy thir fruits as often as possible. The Los Angeles Times -- not exactly big boosters of the Right -- reports today that Kerry wrote 28 letters on behalf of a defense firm that filled his coffers with illegal campaign contributions:

Sen. John F. Kerry sent 28 letters in behalf of a San Diego defense contractor who pleaded guilty last week to illegally funneling campaign contributions to the Massachusetts senator and four other congressmen. ... Between 1996 and 1999, Kerry participated in a letter-writing campaign to free up federal funds for a guided missile system that defense contractor Parthasarathi "Bob" Majumder was trying to build for U.S. warplanes. ...

Kerry's letters were sent to fellow members of Congress — and to the Pentagon — while Majumder and his employees were donating money to the senator, court records show. During the three-year period, Kerry received about $25,000 from Majumder and his employees, according to Dwight L. Morris & Associates, which tracks campaign donations.

Court documents say the contractor told his employees they needed to make political contributions in order for him to gain influence with members of Congress. He then reimbursed them with proceeds from government contracts.

As in the Liu Chaoying case, which is mentioned in this article but curiously doesn't mention Liu or her status as a spy, there is no indication that Kerry was aware of DR. Majumder's illegal activities. However, this clearly demonstrates the extent to which Kerry can be bought. After Majumder began sending contributions to Kerry's campaigns, Kerry clearly wanted to keep that funding channel open and spent an enormous amount of time throwing his weight around to make sure Majumder stayed in business.

It worked. Majumder managed to wring $150 million in government contracts over the past several years, helped along by his friend in high places, the man who can't be bought but is available for lease, and the man who wants to be President, John Kerry. Read the entire article. Clearly, if the Democrats nominate Kerry, they will have to forfeit their normal "holier than thou" approach, and unfortunately for the Dems, Kerry has none of Bill Clinton's warmth and charm.

UPDATE: A big welcome to Instapundit readers, and I hope you blogroll / bookmark Captain's Quarters and come back again. Professor Reynolds captured the point of this article perfectly in his summation: "In this, he's not terribly different from some other politicians. But he's claiming to be."

After All That ...

After a highly-publicized effort to inject itself into the question of power transfer in Iraq, the UN has determined that the US was right all along and that direct elections will not be possible in the near future:

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan will endorse the U.S. position that direct elections cannot be held in Iraq before the United States hands over political power to Iraqis on June 30, senior U.N. officials said Wednesday. But Annan, scheduled to brief the Security Council and other U.N. members Thursday, will delay for at least another week his recommendations on the sensitive question of how to choose a provisional government, officials said.

Annan's decision is a major boost for the Bush administration, which has struggled to address the demand of Iraq's leading cleric that direct elections be used to select an interim government, rather than the complex system of regional caucuses that the United States had proposed. Washington has turned to the United Nations to adjudicate the issue.

This decision will boost the Coalition's credibility in its handling of the occupation and may help get the Shi'a imams to settle down a bit. The cleric who had insisted on elections, Sistani, had also agreed to abide by the UN's decision. As the article states, this is a good opportunity to give the UN the "vital role" the US has talked about since Baghdad fell. But the US is also wary of the Security Council using this opportunity to grab control after they couldn't be bothered to enforce their own resolutions -- seventeen of them -- demanding that Saddam meet his agreements to verifiably disarm and cease from importing offensive weapons:

One State Department official voiced concern about the possibility that member nations might call for a Security Council resolution to formally approve a new plan for Iraq's transition, which could complicate and delay the process with just over four months remaining. ...

France and Germany, the council's two toughest critics of the U.S.-led war against Iraq, said today that the Security Council should adopt a new resolution. Germany's ambassador to the United Nations, Gunter Pleuger, said previous resolutions on postwar Iraq would not be sufficient to reflect the dramatic political changes in Iraq.

"It would also be desirable to have a new resolution to draw [in] those countries who are really needed, not so much the Europeans but also Arab-speaking countries and Islamic countries," he said.

The US needs to be firm on this point. The UNSC had their opportunity to get involved in February of last year and defiantly sat on their hands, led by these same two countries as well as Russia. Since then, we have discovered why -- as plenty of captured intelligence shows that all three were selling illegal arms to Saddam and government officials in France and Russia, at least, were taking oil-for-food bribes in the form of oil brokerage.

Now, just when a delicate balancing act in Iraq is necessary for a successful transition to civilian control, Germany proposes to bring in a lot more people to stick their thumbs into the mix, including the spectacularly stupid proposal to get Islamic countries involved -- as if the various kleptocracies and Islamofascist regimes surrounding Iraq would support a democratic and free republic. It was this thinking that makes the UN such a laughingstock, and why the Coalition was correct in limiting their involvement from the start of military operations.

Happy Anniversary To Us

I don’t usually comment too much about my family life on this blog, mostly because my family deserves their privacy and sharing my personal stories differs ethically from sharing theirs. However, this is a special occasion, as today is our tenth wedding anniversary, and I thought I’d take some space to tell you about the First Mate.

Marcia and I met about fifteen years ago in a young-adult group at our church (when we both met the age requirement) because I gave her a regular ride to the meetings. Marcia went blind 24 years ago due to her diabetes and one of her few limitations is that she can’t drive. She and I quickly became good friends, and after a year or so we began dating on and off. In fact, as Marcia loves to tell people, we had our first date in July and our second date in December because neither of us were sure that the July outing actually qualified as a date with the other. The Captain is bold except on the stormy seas of romance, apparently. After a couple of years of this off-and-on romance, I relocated from Southern California to Arizona and both of us figured that we were going our separate ways, but Marcia was never far from my thoughts. Eventually we got back together and got married, and I relocated to Southern California.

Marcia, despite her diabetes, loves taking care of family and works hard making our house a home, but shortly after we were married, she began to experience kidney failure. After a brief but rapid decline, we were fortunate enough to get a transplant, and her health improved. Experiencing the severe illness in all its forms made me appreciate everything that Marcia did to support me and her son from her first marriage, whom I later adopted. I can tell you that she had her hands full with the two of us, but always has a smile and a laugh for me when I come home at the end of a long day.

When I first started this blog, Marcia was in the hospital, as her diabetes continues to cause health problems for her, and it’s now apparent that her transplanted kidney is failing. Her energy runs out quickly and she gets frustrated with the symptoms of kidney failure, such as high blood pressure and painful fluid retention. But still she works hard at home, now taking care of the Little Admiral during the day and still trying to make things easy on me. Instead of cooking every day, I try to get her to let me bring food home – thank goodness for Panera – as we go through a new transplant regimen and hope for the best. She is determined not to let this stop her or even slow her down more than necessary. And she encourages me to continue doing the activities I enjoy and not to worry too much about her, which is impossible, of course.

Today, we’ve been married ten years, and I can tell you that I couldn’t have picked a more remarkable woman with whom to spend that time. I couldn’t have picked a more loving and caring woman. I couldn’t have picked a tougher woman. I know I don’t deserve this blessing, but that’s what God does; he gives us the blessings we don’t deserve.

Happy anniversary, sweetheart.

Watcher's Council Nominates CQ Post

The Watcher's Council at the Watcher of Weasels blog has their weekly nominations posted for their Council vote, and my post on Mel Gibson's interview with Diane Sawyer is on the list of non-Council entries. Make sure you read the rest of the entries while you're there.

UPDATE: As the Watcher himself points out in a comment, I've had two posts nominated, the second one being this post about Arafat and PA corruption. Wow! Quite an honor, and thank you. I guess I should have read the list a wee bit more carefully ...

UPDATE II: The results are in -- and my review of Gibson's interview finished a very respectable second, thank you very much! The Council winner was Jihad on Frisco by Damnum Absque Injuria, and the non-Council winner who topped me was What to Write, What to Write by Inn of the Last Home.

Jealousy Is Such An Ugly Emotion

Jacques Chirac -- the jealous type? Apparently, Tony Blair has been makin' time with Jacques' main diplomatic squeeze, and he's not happy about it:

Tony Blair put himself squarely at the heart of European decision-making last night by breaking into the Franco-German axis and persuading it to speed up economic reform. He brushed aside criticisms from Italy and other countries which have been left out in the cold by the decision of the EU's three most influential powers to join forces and give a lead to the rest. ...

But he was publicly rebuked by Jacques Chirac, the French president, who showed his unease at Mr Blair's intrusion into what he said was the EU's most "intense" relationship. France fears that Germany is edging closer to Britain, a shift underlined by Joschka Fischer in an interview with The Telegraph three weeks ago.

Chirac and Schroeder famously exchanged places at a conference not too long ago, making the point that the needs of the French and Germans are indistinguishable. Since then, the relationship between the two European powers has decrescendoed, with Germany starting to play hard-to-get and noting that France doesn't speak for Germany on all foreign-policy issues. Germany also said that France doesn't bring them flowers anymore and sometimes forgets to put the seat down, too.

With all of that going on, who can blame Chirac for being upset seeing Tony Blair romancing their "intense" partner? But he has no one to blame but himself. After all, France pledged to be true to Germany, but then all those oil-for-food bribes from Saddam came out, and it turns out that France played footsy with Saddam behind Germany's back. Maybe that's why Chirac overcompensated by pouting and telling everyone that it didn't matter that Germany talked with the UK, because if you love something, let it go, blah blah blah:

He was dismissive when asked whether the close relationship between Paris and Berlin, which allows ministers from one country to represent the other at EU meetings, would serve as a model for the new arrangements between the Big Three.

"Everybody will understand that the Franco-German relationship is very specific, that it is not something you can impose or export in the short term," he said. "It is an intense relationship; that is illustrated by our regular contacts."

It's those intense relationships that burn out so fast, mon cher ...

I'm Always One Step Behind

Man, I tell you -- here I go to all the trouble to move off of Typepad, get direct hosting for Captain's Quarters, and have Mel at Skinny Dippin' Designs whip up this excellent look, and I find out that the premier blogger, Instapundit, has started his own Typepad blog.

Glenn actually agreed to start this blog as a test of Typepad, and in his brief series of posts today comes to the same conclusion I did: it's a great service for personal and lower-traffic blogs and any kind of start-up, but if you exceed traffic limits for any significant period or you want a highly customized look, you're better off moving to direct hosting and a self-contained system like Movable Type. I loved my time there, but I'm glad to have a home of my own.

Dean Retiring From Campaign

Howard Dean, finally bowing to reality and 17 straight primary losses, will announce his withdrawal from the presidential campaign today or tomorrow:

Howard Dean will end his campaign for the presidential nomination and launch a new "campaign for change" within the Democratic Party to keep his issues alive and his supporters organized, a key campaign aide said Wednesday.

The former Vermont governor, who went winless in 17 caucuses and primaries after falling from leading contender early in the year, does not intend to endorse either John Kerry or John Edwards, the aide said on condition of anonymity. Dean has been impressed with Edwards and suggested on the campaign trail that he would make a better nominee, but Dean has decided to stay out of the Kerry-Edwards contest, the aide said.

This makes sense of his remarks last night after losing badly in Wisconsin. At the time, I thought he sounded eulogistic as he talked about the many accomplishments of his campaign, at least in his opinion, and the need for continuous change in the political process. He will probably convert his organization into a 527, pushing the agenda rather than his specific candidacy. This way he can keep his base from straying out of the Democratic Party and into the Greens or independents-based organizations. That is, he will if the Democrats are smart enough to embrace him now that he no longer threatens to take over the party -- and I suspect they'll be interested in harnessing Dean.

The biggest loser, aside from Dean, has to be the suddenly-radical Al Gore. Gore went out of his way to elbow aside Lieberman and endorse the maverick, if somewhat unstable and inconsistent, Dean. Since then, Gore has become exponentially more strident and less in control of himself in trying to emulate the passion that came a little more naturally to Dean. I'd be surprised if Gore is invited to participate in any meaningful way at the Dem convention in July; I think they'd prefer not to be foaming at the mouth.

NBC: Kerry Unwittingly Assisted Chinese Spy

Yesterday afternoon, NBC reported that John Kerry provided material assistance to Liu Chaoying [spelled differently throughout the article], an arms dealer and espionage agent for China, in exchange for campaign contributions:

In 1996, Senator John Kerry was locked in a hard-fought and close reelection campaign with Massachusetts Governor William Weld. Kerry was the policy wonk, noted for his expertise in international crime, arms and drug dealing, and intelligence. ... [Johnny] Chung gave $10,000 to Kerry's campaign -- most of it illegally -- hosted a fund-raising party in Beverly Hills, and threw in an extra $10,000 to honor Kerry at a Democratic Senate Campaign Committee event. Kerry eventually returned all the Chung money.

In return, Kerry opened a door for a friend of Chung: Liu Chaoying.

So the man who claims he opposes special interests and claims he can't be bought certainly seems available for rent when necessary. While helping contributors and friends of contributors happens all the time, seldom does one see a politician who participates so blatantly and then turn around and get so sanctimonious about it.

But Kerry's hypocrisy isn't really the story -- his bad judgment in his "friends" presents a clear danger to the US:

The woman, Liu Chao Ying, worked in high ranking positions for two companies responsible for brokering one of the biggest and most controversial arms sales of the 1990's -- a $300-million missile deal with Pakistan. The two companies were sanctioned by the United States for their deals with Pakistan. ...

"Who is Colonel Liu?" asked William Triplett, a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer and author of two books on Chinese influence in US politics. "She began her military intelligence career with Chinese Navy intelligence. She has been, in succession, assistant to the President of the China National Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation and the China Great Wall Industries Corporation, both of whom have been sanctioned twice -- in 1991 and 1993 -- by the United States for ballistic missiles sales to Pakistan. She later became president of China Aerospace Industrial Holdings Ltd. and she made illegal campaign contributions to the Clinton Gore ticket and John Kerry in 1996.

"She is a communist,” says Triplett; she is a high-tech spy; she is an arms broker and she met Bill Clinton at a fund raiser and John Kerry in his Senate office."

Kerry wasn't able to swing everything Liu wanted, which was a listing for her company on the stock exchange, but Kerry, as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, did arrange a meeting for the Chinese spy with the Securities and Exchange Commission after Chung slipped his 1996 campaign some illegal cash. Nor can Kerry plead ignorance of Liu's illegal arms dealings, unless he's so vapid that he doesn't vet the people to whom he gives such high-level assistance. Liu's companies had already been sanctioned by the US twice: once in 1991 and again in 1993 for illegal arms sales to Pakistan -- giving Pakistan a missile system capable of nuclear-arms delivery.

Kerry met with Chung in 1996 through staff connections with Richard Sullivan, the DNC staffer who had gotten $351,000 from Chung for the Clinton/Gore ticket and other Democratic candidates. In the last week of July, he met with Kerry, who agreed to fax over a letter to the SEC (which reports to the Senate Banking Committee) and his staffers did so while Chung watched. Chung promised to support Kerry, and later did so through a number of illegal campaign contributions.

And what was the ultimate source of the money? Chung later told investigators and an open Congressional hearing that General Ji Shengde, the number two in Chinese military intelligence might have been the ultimate source, describing a meeting in the basement of a Hong Kong restaurant where Ji told him of a plan to funnel $300,000 to the Clinton campaign, explaining “we like your president”.

Not only did the Chinese like our president, apparently they liked Kerry too, and for much the same reason: he was accessible and he delivered when asked. Chung later pled guilty to a number of charges and cooperated with federal investigators looking into Chinese election tampering in 1996.

So here we have John Kerry, who in the middle of a war wants us to trust him with the Presidency, taking money and giving favors not just to campaign contributors, not just twice-sanctioned nuclear-arms dealers, but to Chinese espionage agents -- by using his position on the Banking Committee to pressure the SEC into meeting with Liu. Is this corruption and catastrophically bad judgment what we want to see in the White House? Kerry showed a tremendous lack of judgment and discernment, even if he didn't know Liu was a spy; her involvement in illegal arms sales would have been a matter of public record. Kerry was either too greedy to properly check the backgrounds of people with whom he "asked" the SEC to meet or he was too stupid; in either case, he's hardly the man to protect the US, especially in wartime.

Dean's Self-Eulogy Starts Off Gracious, Gets Arrogant

Howard Dean took to the podium first, trailing John Kerry and John Edwards badly, and congratulated them on running excellent campaigns, and thanking his supporters for their hard work. After that, Dean gave an increasingly strident speech taking credit for changing the nature of the debate, some of which may be true, and oddly kept decrying corporations moving to Bermuda, when he made it easier for those same corporations to avoid the tax consequences of such moves by setting up tax shelters in Vermont. In that manner, but not in temperament, it was vintage Dean.

I thought I heard a hint of a withdrawal in Dean's speech, almost eulogistically reviewing what he sees as the accomplishments of his campaign. With key staffers defecting and a string of poor showings in the primaries, even Dean sees that the game is about over for his Presidential campaign. The latter part of Dean's speech, however, got cut off by the almost simultaneous starts of the Edwards and Kerry post-election speeches. Fox briefly cut over to Edwards but switched to Kerry immediately after he began speaking. Kerry's speech was dull and uninteresting, delivered in a monotone and featuring all of the usual suspects of the liberal platform.

Now with 58% of precincts reporting, Kerry has a four-point lead over Edwards and looks like he has Wisconsin wrapped up, but his image as an inevitability may be damaged, and Edwards certainly earned a second look with his showing tonight. But if he wants to be taken seriously, Edwards will need to win a couple of states in the next Super Tuesday two weeks from tonight.

Happy Anniversary, Patterico's Pontifications

Patterico's Pontifications, which has been at the forefront of the effort to hold the Los Angeles Times accountable for its dreadful editorial bias, celebrates its first anniversary today. Patterico always has something interesting to say, although I see that I forgot to include something in yesterday's link-love effort. Make sure you check it out and drop him a congratulations while you're there.

Fox News Calls It For Kerry -- While He's Trailing

Fox News, depending strongly on its exit polling, has declared Wisconsin for John Kerry after getting 22% of precincts reporting -- and with Kerry trailing by several hundred votes. CNN also calls it for Kerry at 8:52 CST. Is it so necessary to "call" elections that are this close?

Wisconsin 7%: Edwards Ahead?

With seven percent of precincts reporting, John Edwards is edging John Kerry for the lead, 38%-37% in a state where he trailed by as many as twenty points. Fox News exit pollings predicts a five-point Kerry win eventually, but the steamrolling Kerry campaign suddenly finds itself not quite stalling, but certainly losing some of that steam in regards to Edwards.

Howard Dean, meanwhile, is trailing far behind the two principals with 19% in a state where as recently as two weeks ago he said he had to win to continue. Dean fired a senior campaign manager for acting on this statement earlier this week, and Dean must face the fact that not only is he not winning key primaries but he isn't even coming in second anymore.

Now with 11% reporting, Edwards is still leading by a single percentage point. Edwards, who would be a tougher opponent in November, may have new life in this campaign.

Hugh Hewitt: The Danger of John Kerry

Hugh Hewitt played an audio tape of John Kerry's testimony before Congress as a 27-year-old anti-war activist and failed Congressional candidate, in a show I regrettably missed. Fortunately, Hugh posted during his final hour of the show and recapped the reaction from his listeners and his own excellent insight into the relevance of Kerry's politics circa 1971:

I played John Kerry's 1971 testimony on the radio program, and the response was intense. The first two hours brought scores of calls and e-mails which denounced Kerry for his slander of the military that served in Vietnam and for his understanding of the war. Kerry has thus far successfully dodged a discussion of the specifics of his testimony, and it was very hard to find the audio --it took my producer Duane considerable digging to find the tape.

The impact of actually hearing Kerry slander the military--his accent is unbelieveable, and his tone of arrogance and condescension repulsive-- is powerful, and I do not believe he can serve successfully as Commander-in-Chief given the reactions I heard from veterans and currently serving military. We are in the middle of a war, and the Democrats are in the process of nominating a man hated by a large portion of the uniformed service for his actions of thirty years ago.

I am more concerned about his judgment today than his judgment of 33 years ago. Kerry made his statement at the age of 27, after a first run for Congress, and his career since has been an unbroken campaign to neuter the American military though he would deny this from dawn till dark. He does not understand that America has real enemies today that won't play by his rules any more than he understood communism in 1971. He just doesn't get it. Period. His honorable service and his heroism in no way covers the terrible judgment he has displayed since he returned from the battlefield.

While Kerry supporters will shrug this off as being 33 years old -- more than half a lifetime for Kerry -- his own party undermined that position earlier this month by attempting to make Bush's National Guard service a campaign issue. The chairman of the DNC himself went on national TV and declared that Bush dodged his service in 1972-23 without a shred of proof to support the allegations. Now that some Guardsmen from that period have come forward to confirm that Bush served with them in Alabama, they want to put the 70s behind them once again, but they will find that door difficult to close now.

As I've written earlier, Americans want to believe in redemption and personal growth, but they want to see evidence of it from candidates, especially those who espoused radical views during their political career, as Kerry did. (He ran for Congress in 1970 and testified in 1971.) If such growth can be demonstrated from a solid legislative record or policy-position standpoint, a good candidate should be able to rise above a radical youth. Kerry clearly cannot demonstrate anything along these lines, as Hugh states in his blog tonight. Kerry's legislative record, especially over the past two decades in the Senate, shows that the presumptive nominee attacks spending for critical military systems and the intelligence community whenever he gets the chance. Far from growing and repenting, Kerry operated from the core philosophies he espoused in VVAW and his 1971 testimony against the Vietnam War.

Putting a man with such a track record in the White House in the middle of a war on Islamofascism should scare the hell out of everyone except the terrorists. I can't believe that Americans would do that in the end.

A Horse Is A Horse? Of Course!

This ... is not good news:

Sherman Hemsley of "The Jeffersons" fame is lending his voice to the title character in Fox's updated version of "Mister Ed." Hemsley joins David Alan Basche, who was previously tapped to play Wilbur Post, and Sherilyn Fenn, tapped as Wilbur's wife.

"Mister Ed" is a remake of the 1960s talking-horse sitcom. This time around, the equine title character has an urban sensibility.

I have lived my entire life being compared to that friggin' talking horse, and now it's going to start all over again. But now, instead of Rocky Lane's sonorous baritone, I'll have Hemsley's snappy, screechy voice being parroted at me every time someone says my first name.

It's Captain Ed, dammit ... Willll-burrrrrrr. [sigh]

Arafat -- Keep The Graft Rolling

Yasser Arafat continues to defy efforts to reform the Palestinian Authority, now by blocking a basic reform intended on reducing the levels of corruption in Palestinian security forces:

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is preventing his prime minister from carrying out a key financial reform, and the dispute is threatening to hold up much-needed foreign aid, Cabinet ministers said Tuesday. ... The argument between Arafat and Qureia broke out after the Palestinian Cabinet decided Saturday to pay members of the security forces through deposits to their bank accounts, Cabinet ministers said.

Currently, security officers are given lump sums of cash and then distribute the money to their employees — an invitation to corruption.

Qureia needed the Cabinet decision ahead of a trip to European capitals this week, ministers said on condition of anonymity. Qureia knew European leaders would ask him about the issue and might condition further aid on the reform, they said.

Reforming this system is key to bringing Palestinian security forces under the control of the civilian government. Imagine, if you will, your local police force being paid directly by your local police chief, the income of each patrol officer dependent on the whim of the boss. To whom do you suppose they will be loyal -- to the law, or to the paymaster? Now imagine that distribution method in place in Fatah, where the cash probably disappears into a sinkhole of terrorist resources well before it gets to the level of a patrol officer. The PA exercises no control over law enforcement under this arrangement, especially since Arafat controls the security apparatus and can put his allies into positions which control the money.

Arafat's continuing obstinacy at reforming the PA should demonstrate to all the folly of dealing with Arafat at all. Rampant corruption and broken agreements have brought the West Bank and Gaza to complete ruin as Araft's "security" lieutenants facilitate and actively participate in terrorist activities designed to drive the Israelis into the Mediterranean, and he is continually enabled by well-meaning EU and American governments who want to see self-determination for the Palestinians. But self-determination, in this case, seems to mean a terrorist state at constant war with its neighbors and their allies. Since we just got done eliminating two other governments in the area that did the same thing, what possible good can come of propping up a new one in the West Bank?

We need to rethink our approach on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead of encouraging more negotiations with Arafat and his henchmen that end in frustration, we should be encouraging the Israelis to build their wall and leave the Palestinians to themselves -- no border crossings into Israel, no required investment, just the self-determination they want. Once that occurs, Arafat's government will collapse from the rot within and negotiations with more reasonable elements may be possible.

Hoo-yah! EV Letter of the Day: H

Rammer takes Venomous Kate's duties over for a day and puts up the Letter of the Day. After horsing around with this post, I hastily hopped over and had a hoot with Rammer's picks. One of the selections today was my earlier post, Shot in the Ash, but there's plenty of other good stuff at Electric Venom -- go check it out!

Dodgers Hire New GM from A's

The Los Angeles Dodgers, a proud but chronically underachieving franchise, took steps to correct that in the first days of the Frank McCourt era by hiring Oakland A's assistant GM Paul DePodesta:

DePodesta, Beane's top assistant since November 1998, faces a considerable challenge. A 1995 cum laude graduate of Harvard University with a degree in economics, he inherits one of baseball's largest budgets -- Los Angeles' $105 million payroll last year nearly doubled Oakland's -- but also one of the sport's most consistently underachieving teams.

The Dodgers haven't won a postseason game since defeating Oakland in the 1988 World Series, last reached the playoffs in 1996 and finished 15 1/2 games behind the National League West-winning Giants a year ago despite recording the majors' best ERA. Los Angeles also ranked last in the majors in scoring and, despite the best efforts of previous G.M. Dan Evans, has failed to obtain a true hitting threat this off-season.

The Blue, in other words, have spent most of the last couple of decades being very blue, as their high-priced talent have consistently failed to gel on the field. Despite a string of Rookies of the Year in the early 90s, their farm system hasn't produced solid performers and for the most part, their forays into free agency haven't produced much else other than disappointment. Even when the Dodgers spent big money on superstars, they either self-destructed (Darryl Strawberry) or poisoned the atmosphere (Gary Sheffield). The Dodgers have remained mostly competitive during those years, but you don't spend $105 million a year to consistently come in second or third, year in and year out -- or at least Frank McCourt doesn't.

Frank McCourt, whose $430 million purchase of the Dodgers was completed Friday, believes that DePodesta's reputation for innovative thinking will stimulate the franchise.

"We wanted someone who was going to bring new ideas to the organization," McCourt said at the news conference, adding that DePodesta "stood out" from the other candidates, including Evans, Philadelphia assistant G.M. Ruben Amaro Jr. and former agent Dennis Gilbert.

DePodesta, 31, became the third-youngest person to be hired as a major league G.M. Boston elevated Theo Epstein at 28 in 2002, and San Diego hired Randy Smith at 29 in 1993.

The Oakland A's have a reputation for squeezing the most from a tight payroll budget, and have a string of playoff appearances over DePodesta's tenure as assistant GM. Billy Beane, the A's GM, credits DePodesta with "at least half" of the success they've had during the past five seasons. Even if the Dodgers haven't made a big splash in this free-agent market, this may be their best acquisition in years.

Gibson Defends The Passion of the Christ

Mel Gibson appeared on a special Primetime Special Edition, interviewed by Diane Sawyer about his soon-to-be-released film, The Passion of the Christ, to both publicize the movie and to explain it. Gibson appeared along with panels of Christian and Jewish scholars to debate points of theology and intent in Gibson's vision of the last twelve hours of the temporal life of Jesus.

I have not yet seen the film (which opens next week, on Ash Wednesday), but I do plan on seeing it as soon as I can, especially after seeing Sawyer's interview. Gibson, who looked uncomfortable throughout the show, still appeared to answer as honestly as he could, being charming perhaps even despite himself, especially when he claimed that he was thinking about pitching his tent next to the WMDs, so that "no one could find me". The only time he looked angry instead of uncomfortable was when the conversation strayed to Gibson's father, who is an extremist paleo-Catholic and Holocaust skeptic (at least in terms of scope), telling Sawyer, "You don't want to go there."

While there were many fascinating parts of the interview, the focus obviously fell on the allegations of anti-Semitism. Gibson admits that these charges "make him crazy," and it's not hard to understand why. Gibson asserts that he has made a film that faithfully represents the Gospel accounts of the Passion. If this is true, and if he then is challenged because of it, critics are really alleging that Christianity itself is anti-Semitic -- certainly an assertion that would offend many millions of Christians who consider themselves anything but, including myself, a staunch defender of Israel whose maternal grandfather was Jewish. Gibson himself said that his critics "really don't have a problem with me ... they have a problem with what's written in the four Gospels."

And what is the basis of this supposed anti-Semitism? A representative of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, said he was "disturbed" and "pained" by the reaction of several thousand evangelical Christians at a screening he crashed, who cried, wailed, or sat silently at the end of the movie. Not once did he state during the program that Gibson misrepresented the Gospels or even the overall historical record, nor did any of the other scholars condemn anything in the movie outside of the "blood curse" verse in Matthew, which was removed from the movie, at least in the subtitles. Gibson explained that after a lot of reflection, he decided that there wasn't enough time in the movie to put that verse in its proper theological perspective. It's still audible in Aramaic, but I highly doubt that anti-Semites spend their time learning ancient Jewish languages.

Sawyer even tried to associate Passion plays with Adolf Hitler, saying in effect that they caused Hitler to be anti-Semitic, which is beyond ludicrous. Hitler, as Gibson points out, was hardly a model Catholic, and his anti-Semitism was well-established before his political career ever began. Hitler was an occultist and a believer of a warped Germanic mythology, weirdly twisting Wagner's Ring into a religious belief of German supremacy.

Instead, as the program repeatedly underscored, the issue of most critics was that the movie was made at all. At one point, someone asks, "Why are we revisiting this now, of all times?" This question is ignorant and ridiculous. Christians the world over "revisit" the Passion every year at Easter, straight from the same Gospels that Gibson uses as source material. It's not as if Gibson unearthed some obscure apocrypha that no one would otherwise know. And Gibson expertly skewered the most inane criticism offered by ABC's panel, from an "expert" who stated that if he was a Martian seeing Gibson's version of the story first, he wouldn't understand why such a nice man was killed because Gibson didn't provide the context. To which Gibson replied, "Yeah, you're right ... if you were a Martian." Do critics really believe that we're all Martians who have no access to the rest of the story?

The movie was made because Gibson wanted to make it and had the resources to do it. Eventually, the market will determine whether he made a wide commercial decision in doing so. Why can't these scolds and finger-waggers simply trust people to make their own decisions on the film?

Terry Waite: Still Crazy After All These Years

One of the early direct victims of Islamofascist terror, Terry Waite, has returned to Beirut, where he was kidnapped and held for five years before being released in 1992. Unfortunately, his experiences and the passage of time has not dimmed the almost legendary naivete that caused Waite to become a hostage in the first place:

Self-knowledge has never been, even his friends acknowledge, his greatest virtue. He went to Lebanon in 1987, the year he was kidnapped, as the envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury after successfully negotiating the release of British hostages in Iran and Libya. At the time he naively believed, to the alarm of some colleagues in Lambeth Palace, that his status as church representative would keep him safe.

The article in the Independent goes on to blame his association with Oliver North for the kidnapping by Islamic "militants", as the paper calls them. I recall when Waite made his much-publicized trek to Beirut to negotiate for the release of the primarily American hostages, and numerous officials warned him not to do it. For one thing, the West supposedly didn't negotiate with terrorists, although that policy was already out the door by that time. For another, Waite had no idea what he was doing in Beirut, which was a completely different situation than he had faced in either Iran or Libya, neither of which were in the throes of a civil war. But Waite publicly insisted on going, with an arrogance that managed to surpass his naivete, and asserted that there would be a basis of mutual respect that the Americans couldn't give the "militants". In fact, Waite intended on showing up the warmongering Americans and their allies, including and especially Margaret Thatcher. He instead became the poster child for the cluelessness and fecklessness of appeasing terrorism and spent the next five years paying for his faults.

After all that, you would think that Waite would have learned something, but sadly, Waite hasn't changed at all. On the current state of terrorism in the Middle East, Waite offers his analysis:

"I do see a parallel between what was happening in Lebanon years ago and what is happening in Iraq," Mr Waite said yesterday. The war against Saddam Hussein was "a mistake" because "a dictator holds down the disparate groups in the country by force [and] if you remove him suddenly, the disparate groups spring up and inevitably you get conflict, as we are seeing".

He believes the war in Iraq, the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay and the Palestinian conflict have created another generation of terrorists even more extreme than those who took him hostage.

For Terry Waite, who once represented the Archbishop of Canterbury, the evil of removing a man like Saddam Hussein outweighs the evil of his continued presence because -- because -- his oppression of minority and opposition groups is so brutal that they keep quiet (permanently, in most cases, as we've seen in Iraq's mass graves). Efficiency and security have been rationalizations for dictatorships ever since Hitler got the trains running on time, and its sounds like the peace of the dead suits Waite just fine and dandy.

As for the ridiculous assertion that Guantanamo Bay's Camp Delta has created a more extreme brand of terrorists, well, it must be a very quiet and less mobile brand. Terry apparently pines for the day when terrorists merely killed thousands of people in a day by plunging commercial airliners into crowded office buildings. His assertion is so ridiculous that the Independent's sympathetic treatment of it speaks volumes about the slant of the paper and the intelligence of its editors.

As we grow older, we pray for and work towards wisdom and enlightenment. Unfortunately, Terry Waite reminds us that such growth does not come to those who go out of their way to resist it.

Love to Link-Love Ya, Baby

It's a little late for Valentine's Day, but it's never too late for a little link-love ...

The Cheese Stands Alone has a new caption contest. Just think of it as a public service for the election ...

Evangelical Outpost would like to know what the Left's problem with the Day of Purity promoting abstinence among teenagers. Since when do we root for teenagers to go out and have sex? Read on for Joe's daed-on interpretation ...

PoliBlogger's given his site an update for his one-year anniversary. Let him know what you think -- it's good, but I think I liked the old scheme a bit better ...

DC at Brainstorming is a Monopoly -- er, Blogopoly -- game piece ...

Fresh Bed Goodness plots her stalking strategies in advance of the new Northern Alliance radio show debut on March 6th. But unbeknownst to her, I know exactly where that Culver's is -- and if she waits until the end of the show, maybe I'll drop by ...

Steve Gigl explains why source code is NOT a blueprint, dammit! ...

Jay Reding looks into Howard Dean's future and thinks he sees an independent run at the Presidency in his near future. He may be right -- Grossman's public defection may be enough to push Dean past the tipping point with the Democrats ...

Sean at Everything I Know Is Wrong expresses his frustration at the double standard applied to scandalmongering between the Left and the Right ...

QandO has been on fire since Jon and McQ hooked up to teamblog at the new QandO site. (Not that it wasn't terrific before, of course!) McQ blogs on the Winter Soldier "investigation" in which a young radical named John F. Kerry participated and for which he testified to Congress. It's a lengthy but important post -- be sure to read the whole thing ...

Electric Venom's Letter of the Day is G, and while you're there, check out Jim's workplace dilemma with a co-worker who apparently just graduated from middle school ...

Finally, the Commissar at the Politburo Diktat uncovers many more scandals in W's youth, including dangerous activities with farm animals. Comrade Commissar even has reaction from the Kerry camp! Hey, truth is simply a matter of perspective, da?

Unnecessary Awards, Unnecessary Columns

Writing in today's LA Times, William Kowinski decries the existence of separate acting awards at the Oscars based on gender:

After all, there is no award for the best screenplay by a woman. Sofia Coppola wasn't nominated as best female director. There's no award for a best picture by a woman producer. Why are there separate acting awards divided by gender?

There doesn't appear to be anything about acting skill that is gender-specific. In fact, many women insist on being called actors and bristle at the designation of "actress" because they believe it to be demeaning, like the term "authoress."

A writer is a writer, and an actor is an actor. Aren't these gender-designated categories just relics of a less-enlightened time? There are no separate categories based on race, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual preference or any other element of diversity. Why not best performance by a Latino in a leading role?

Kowinski, after having defined the pressing issue that is so important that the Times gives him space in its Op-Ed section during an election year, then describes the grassroots demand that's, uh ... not forthcoming:

It's worth noting that women haven't been burning their SAG cards to protest gender-specific awards categories. ... Having their own categories means that more women are more likely to get more attention, which helps all women actors. ...

But the Oscars have gender-specific acting awards today because these awards have always been there, because the press and public like them and because nobody seems to want it any other way.

Let's recap. The Oscars have been given out for over 70 years with gender-specific categories. This structure helps women, makes the award shows more interesting, the press and public like them, and no one wants to change them. So what reason does Kowinski have in wasting time writing this column, and why does the LA Times bother printing it? Just to shoot blanks in the gender wars? Kowinski complains about unnecessary awards, but either he's a fabulous ironist or he's completely clueless about the absurd nature of his complaint.

Only the Captain Goes Down With the Ship, Dr. Dean

A key leader in the Dean campaign has publicly announced that he will defect to the Kerry campaign if Dean doesn't pull off a miracle in Wisconsin tomorrow:

The chairman of Howard Dean's presidential campaign, Massachusetts Democrat Steve Grossman, said yesterday that he will switch allegiance to the campaign of fellow Bay Stater John F. Kerry if, as Grossman expects, Dean loses tomorrow's Wisconsin primary. ... "If Howard loses the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday night, I will either reach out to the Kerry organization, they will reach out to me, or there will be a simultaneous outreach effort by both sides. And I will make a public commitment to do anything and everything I can to help John Kerry become the next president of the United States, including, but not limited to, building bridges between the two organizations so John Kerry can benefit from the strength of the Dean organization," Grossman, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in a telephone interview from Stowe, Vt., where he was skiing with his family.

One wonders how the news of Grossman's ultimatum will somehow enhance Dean's chances in Wisconsin, because if that's what Grossman intended -- and presumably he's trying to get Dean elected -- watching rats desert a sinking ship doesn't inspire confidence. It's hard to lay all of the blame on Grossman, though, when Dean himself has been saying for two weeks that everything depends on Wisconsin. The subtext of that public strategy obviously states that a significant loss in Wisconsin means the campaign is over.

And why Wisconsin? Why not Super Tuesday in two weeks instead, where more delegates are up for grabs? Simply put, it's cheaper. Wisconsin has a primary date all to itself, allowing Dean to focus on one state and not worry about spreading himself too thin and spending money he no longer has. Unfortunately for Dean, Wisconsinites read the papers and Internet, and know that Dean rolls into their primary a severely damaged candidate.

Grossman says that Dean intends to turn his presidential campaign into a political movement in order to stay involved, converting his organization into a 527 PAC for advocacy of Dean's positions -- and maybe for a little payback, too:

Such groups are known as 527s, named for the section of the federal tax code that defines such entities. The groups are exempt from taxation so long as they are aimed at voter mobilization. They recently have come under review by the Federal Election Commission after protests that they are being used to advocate for specific candidates, in violation of a campaign finance law that took effect in November 2002.

One 527, Americans for Jobs, Health Care & Progressive Values, aired ads critical of Dean before the Iowa caucuses, including one with an image of Osama bin Laden that questioned Dean's national security credentials.

According to Democratic Party operatives speaking on the condition of anonymity, Dean's group -- which probably would be named in consultation with his supporters -- would be funded through appeals to the core of donors who helped Dean raise $41 million last year for his presidential campaign, a record for any Democrat during a primary season. Dean burned through much of that money as he sought unsuccessfully to win the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, which were then followed by 14 losses in nomination contests.

In other words, Dean wants to be the conduit for the Soros money and be a kingmaker, if he can't be a king himself. I doubt that George Soros would be too sanguine about giving Dean a whole lot of that money, though, considering how quickly Dean burned through his commanding advantage in funding before getting through the first two states. Besides, the DNC won't want Dean to be in the middle of fundraising efforts, sucking available donations from their nominees in the fall election for Dean's political advocacy. Grossman understands that and is looking to get the best deal he can now while there's still time, which is understandable, but still somewhat disloyal.

UPDATE: Howard Dean has fired Steve Grossman, so if anyone from the Kerry campaign wants to know, Solid Steve's available for parties ...

Who's Covering for Kerry?

Power Line notes late tonight that the Sun in Britain is reporting that a major US television network is suppressing an interview Kerry's alleged paramour gave detailing their relationship:

The beauty said to have had a fling with presidential hopeful John Kerry has recorded a bombshell tell-all interview. Journalist Alex Polier taped a talk with a US TV network at Christmas.

The former Washington intern, 27, told all about an alleged fling with the 60-year-old super-rich senator in spring 2001. The channel is sitting on the tape until it has enough evidence to back her story.

If the sex claims are true, they would shatter his White House hopes. Kerry, a married dad of two, has denied the fling. But Alex told pals she fled to Kenya on his suggestion.

One TV source said: "She wants to tell her story. She has talked at length about her relationship with Kerry. But no one is believing her."

If true, then this unnamed network is demonstrably using two different standards of journalism; after all, not one of the networks waited for proof in alleging Bush was AWOL or that TANG leadership shredded files, even though in the latter case, the only source was second-hand and none of the principals named in the allegation were even approached. In this case, a principal has been interviewed by a news organization detailing the allegations first-hand, and instead of running feature stories ad nauseaum or even mentioning it at all, they've chosen to sit on it for almost two months.

Why do the letters CNN spring to mind?

Shot In The Ash

The widow of a gun enthusiast and hunter has come up with a novel way to honor her dead husband -- loading his ashes into shotgun cartridges and shooting pheasants:

Joanna Booth organised the shoot for 20 close friends on an estate in Aberdeenshire after asking a cartridge company to mix the ashes of her husband James with traditional shot.

A total of 275 12-bore cartridges were produced from the mix and were blessed by a minister before they were used to bag pheasants, partridges, ducks and a fox on Brucklay Estate.

The cartridges had something going for them; a novice shooter brought down four partridges with them. Even so, I'm not an opponent of hunting, but it seems a little creepy to mourn a dead husband by killing anything and everything that moves. How would you be able to eat any of the kill knowing that the buckshot probably carried traces of your spouse's ashes into the meat? I think I'll just ask the First Mate to make sure I'm tossed overboard in the usual manner.

The WaPo Gives, The WaPo Takes Away

Earlier today, I blogged about an excellent editorial in today's Washington Post that demonstrated their intelligence and insight into the empty-suit phenomenon that is John Flip-Flop Kerry. Unfortunately, as Power Line notes, that intelligence doesn't extend much beyond its op-ed section. Dana Milbank, a consistently biased Bush detractor on their Politics desk, engages in an exercise of obtuseness regarding the new Bush campaign ad:

The ad accurately points out that Kerry has raised $640,000 from lobbyists, "more special-interest money than any other senator." And it fairly questions whether Kerry is disingenuous to accept money from those he would vanquish.

But the Center for Responsive Politics, which calculated the figure Bush cited about Kerry ($638,358 raised from lobbyists since 1989, to be exact), has some bad news for Bush, too. The president raised $842,262 from lobbyists in the current election cycle -- almost four times the $226,450 Kerry raised. And if you take away the funds Kerry collected for the presidential campaign, he is no longer the Senate's top recipient of special-interest funds.

Does Bush have a glass-houses problem here?

No, as Hindrocket notes, because Bush isn't traveling around the country piously denouncing "special interest groups" while shoving their money into his pockets with both hands. Besides, as George Will noted in the same edition of the Post, the term "special interests" seems to be defined exclusively in the context of groups one opposes.

At any rate, Milbank well knows all of this, and he knows that the difference between what Kerry raised as a Senator and what both will raise as presidential candidates is that presidential elections don't take place exclusively within Massachussets. To pretend that there is some sort of equivalence between a Senate race and a Presidential race makes Milbank out to be an idiot, or completely lacking credibility while covering Bush. In fact, it may make him out to be both.

Welcome Aboard the New Captain's Quarters!

Welcome to the new Captain's Quarters, with a spiffy new layout from Skinny Dippin' Designs! After a little over four months on Typepad, we outgrew the traffic limitations and so I've set up shop at Hosting Matters. Now I'll be able to customize the site (with Mel's invaluable help) and allow you to do the same. In the next couple of days, Mel will have another "skin" available for you to use. I think you'll like what you'll see. In fact, if you need some web design done, you should give Mel a try ... you won't be disappointed.

A few housekeeping notes:

* The Now Hear This links still connect back to the old site. I will be updating those as we go, but eventually they will all link back to this site.

* I won't be terminating my Typepad service for a while at least, so if you've linked to something I've written, it won't go away. Your Trackback pings all migrated here along with the posts and the comments.

* You'll notice that I've switched to Blogrolling for the links. Yeah, I gave up. But they look a lot better, and now I can track when new posts have gone up. If you link to me and you don't see a link back on one of my blogrolls, the Sister Ships group is now set up as a RecipRoll. If you're linking me through Blogrolling, your blog should appear on this list.

* The categories don't display on each individual post any longer, although I can adjust that later, but the category links will sort everything you need. The timestamp is the permalink for each post.

Let me know what you think of the new site!

This Explains A Lot About My High-School Love Life

Just in time for Valentine's Day, CNN reports on an anthropological study that explains why Homo Erectus had such a thick skull:

After studying fossils in a region called Dragon Bone Hill in China, anthropologist Russell Ciochon of the University of Iowa concluded males of the species were clubbing one another over the head, probably to win females.

Those with thicker skulls who survived these bloody confrontations would pass that trait to offspring, Ciochon said.

If you're male and you've been through high school, you should be very familiar with the mating-selection process that seems to favor aggressive, thick-skulled candidates who had no problem beating the others on the heads with clubs ... and books, and hoses, and rocks, and really almost anything else on hand, including the hand. The process is not limited to high school, either; you can observe the same results at nightclubs and other places where the younger crowd socializes. In fact, I observed this almost throughout the entirety of my single life, until I met the First Mate, who professed a distaste for head-butting as a romantic gesture.

Perhaps this article should be required reading for adolescent women, with the caveat, "If you make these kinds of choices, you'll wind up with thick-headed offspring." I know that would make millions of male chess-playing marching-band members very, very happy.

Mark Steyn: A Tale of Two Tales

I missed this column from Mark Steyn last night, but fortunately The Big Trunk at Power Line didn't. Steyn notes the hypocrisy and blatant bias in American media in how they responded to two poorly-sourced scandal stories, and how only one of them actually pans out -- and that's the one they're not covering:

Now let's consider the Kerry scandal: If you read the British newspapers, you'll know all about it. It's not about whether he was Absent Without Leave, but the more familiar political failing of being Absent Without Pants. It concerns a 24-year old woman - ie, 41 years younger than Mrs Kerry - and, with their usual efficiency, the Fleet Street lads have already interviewed her dad, who's called Kerry a "sleazeball". But if you read the US newspapers or watch the news shows there's not a word about the Senator's scandal. Though it seems to have a somewhat sounder factual basis, and at least one witness more relevant to this situation than the loose-lipped Gen Turniphead was to Mr Bush's, it's the media that's gone Awol. In this case, it seems it would hurt to ask. So Mr Bush has been unable to do the John Kerry routine, declining to comment but adding that "it's not my marital record that's at issue". We have two flimsy "scandals" tangentially related to character, but only one of them's all over the networks.

I'm not going to make a case for covering the John Kerry adultery scandal, although I may be in a minority on the right (see comments) in my belief that marital infidelity doesn't disqualify one for political office. However, that story has better sourcing and more verification than does anything about Bush's National Guard service and file-shredding accusations. People can certainly argue about relevance, but truth is an absolute defense anyway, and the truth is that Bush was honorably discharged in 1973, which means that the Defense Department concluded that Bush's service was both honorable and complete.

Nor does Steyn argue for more bimbo eruptions in American politics; he, like myself, wants journalists to practice the same thresholds for publication whether the target of allegations is Democrat or Republican. And in the case of John Kerry, it's the media that's gone AWOL, as Steyn says, and he continues:

By contrast, the Kerry narrative is almost impenetrable. If Vietnam bitterly divided a nation, split communities, tore apart families, etc, etc, Sen Kerry somehow managed to wind up on both sides of the fence: in the 1960s, he was John Wayne taking out the gooks in 'Nam; in the 1970s, he was Hanoi Jane Fonda, leading the protest movement; now, after two decades in Congress opposing every new weapons system for America's military, he's campaigning like Bob Hope on a USO tour flanked by wall-to-wall veterans. What story accounts for Senator Flip-Flop these past 40 years?

If character is the issue, Bush can relax. And, if doing your bit for national security is the issue, then John Kerry's been AWOL for two decades.

Read the entire article; as always, Steyn is a delight to read.

Washington Post Hits The Nail On The Head

In the midst of running up big primary wins, John Kerry has managed to finesse his past policy contradictions and focus almost primarily on attacking George Bush. Today's Washington Post lead editorial pulls the string on Kerry and demands some explanations from the new front-runner:

The most important confusion surrounds Mr. Kerry's position on Iraq. In 1991 he voted against the first Persian Gulf War, saying more support was needed from Americans for a war that he believed would prove costly. In 1998, when President Clinton was considering military steps against Iraq, he strenuously argued for action, with or without allies. Four years later he voted for a resolution authorizing invasion but criticized Mr. Bush for not recruiting allies. Last fall he voted against funding for Iraqi reconstruction, but argued that the United States must support the establishment of a democratic government.

Mr. Kerry's attempts to weave a thread connecting and justifying all these positions are unconvincing. He would do better to offer a more honest accounting. His estimation of the cost of expelling Iraq from Kuwait in 1991 was simply wrong; and if President Bush was mistaken to think in 2003 that there was an urgent need to stop Saddam Hussein from stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Kerry made the same error in 1998.

Kerry has yet to explain these glaring contradictions in his record, and for good reason: his positions are not generated by an overall political philosophy but by sheer political expediency. In that way, Kerry and Clinton are cut from the same cloth. The Post argues that these myriad contradictions -- they mention several more in the article -- indicate nothing about how Kerry would lead if elected president. Well, almost nothing; I suspect it indicates that Kerry, like Clinton, would lead by market research and focus-group testing, meaning simply if it feels good, do it. In fact, that may well be Kerry's lifelong political philosophy after all.

Addendum: George Will, in his WaPo column today, helps Kerry focus on his own platform for America by reminding the Senator of his many (28, in fact) policy misstatements and political contradictions over the years. He asks Kerry for answers to questions such as:

When you denounce "lobbyists" do you include those for Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club? Is "liberal lobbyist" an oxymoron?

You say the rich do not pay enough taxes. In 1979 the top 1 percent of earners paid 19.75 percent of income taxes. Today they pay 36.3 percent. How much is enough?

In January 1991, after Iraq extinguished Kuwait's sovereignty, you opposed responding with force rather than economic sanctions. Have such sanctions ever undone such aggression?

You strongly praise former Treasury secretary Bob Rubin, who strongly supports NAFTA and free trade. Have you changed your mind about him or about free trade (as you have changed your mind about the No Child Left Behind Act, the 2002 war resolution, the Patriot Act, etc.)?

The answers will be forthcoming, I am sure ...

Score One for the Iraqi Police

The new Iraqi police force have captured their first important fugitive, the Four of Spades in the US deck of cards:

Mohammed Zimam Abdul-Razaq -- the four of spades in the military's "deck of cards" of 55 most-wanted Iraqis -- was arrested at one of his homes in western Baghdad, Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Kadhum Ibrahim told journalists. Abdul-Razaq sat next to the Iraqi official wearing a traditional black robe. Ibrahim said he did not resist arrest. ...

While presenting Abdul-Razaq to reporters, Ibrahim appealed to the top Iraqi fugitive, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, to surrender, promising he would be treated with dignity. Al-Douri is the former vice chairman of the ruling Revolutionary Command Council.

This couldn't come at a better time, as the Iraqi police have weathered a series of attacks, culiminating in yesterday's daring raid on an Iraqi police jail that freed dozens of insurgents and killed over 20 policemen. While the Iraqis maintain that the raid was staged by foreign-based insurgents, American analysts are convinced that the tactics used indicate former Iraqi military involvement.