First the Dutch, Now The Germans

The latest UN peacekeeping failure took place earlier this year in Kosovo, when ethnic Albanians rioted throughout the region, burning churches and other buildings to the ground. Nineteen people died in the process, despite the presence of a UN peacekeeping task force designed to provide security and stop violence before it gets out of hand. Now a German police report criticizes the German troops making up that UN KFOR unit for cowardice, according to tomorrow's London Telegraph:

German troops serving with the Kfor international peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo have been accused of hiding in barracks "like frightened rabbits" during the inter-ethnic rioting that erupted in the province in March.

A hard-hitting German police report sent to the Berlin government last week criticises the troops for cowardice and for their failure to quell the rioting in which 19 people died and about 900 others were injured. ...

"Despite continuous appeals for help from Kfor, nobody from the military appeared to back up the police," the report said. "Kfor proved to be incapable of carrying out the duties to which it has been assigned."

Further damning evidence, based on interviews with Unmik officers, Serb church leaders and unnamed UN officials in Prizren, was published in Der Spiegel magazine. The magazine concluded: "The German soldiers ran away and hid like frightened rabbits in their barracks. They only reappeared in armoured vehicles after the Albanian mob had wreaked its havoc and left a trail of destruction."

The commanding officer of the German KFOR unit objected to this characterization, explaining that his rules of engagement did not allow his men to use their weapons unless they needed to defend themselves. This certainly appears to be similar to a previous Balkans peacekeeping failure in Srebrenica, when Dutch troops stood by and watched Bosnian Serbs slaughter thousands of Bosnian Muslims in what was supposed to be a UN "safe zone". In the earlier case, confusion about the rules of engagement combined with a lack of will to employ force except for unit defense to create the perfect recipe for chaos and anarchy.

These incidents provide the best tactical reason that the UN should not ever be in charge of "peacekeeping" -- the UN, by its nature, lacks the will to employ deadly force to save lives. Most times, they refuse to even put themselves in position to intercede, as Srebenica and Kosovo both show. To expect them to maintain order in a hot zone like Iraq would be to invite dozens more Srebrenicas as Sunnis and Shi'a took advantage of the power vacuum the UN would create. Without the deterrent of significant firepower and the will to use it, which the UN lacks under its own command, places like Iraq would spin into civil war and create interminable 'transitions' that go nowhere.

NYT: Abandon Ship

Roger Cohen signals our surrender in tomorrow's New York Times, arguing that the Abu Ghraib scandal has so damaged our credibility that our best option is to pull up stakes and crawl back home:

A military defeat is a damaging thing, and Iraq remains a tense battleground. But a moral one may be more devastating and more enduring for a power like the United States that has long held that its actions are driven, at least in part, by the desire to be a force for good with a liberating mission for all humanity.

It is precisely such a rout of the American idea that now confronts the United States in Iraq. The world is asking what sort of liberation is represented by an American woman holding a prone, naked Iraqi man on a leash in Saddam Hussein's Abu Ghraib prison, of all places. No matter that the offenders represent a tiny minority of the American military or that torture may be common in Arab jails. Such images will be held aloft for many years whenever America declares itself determined to right a wrong.

"This is the most serious setback for the American military since Vietnam," said Richard Holbrooke, a former United States ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration. "We now have to admit that the American position is untenable." In Europe, some people are saying that if America were a country of 10 million people, its leaders would be hauled before an international criminal court.

The conclusions drawn here are ludicrous; Abu Ghraib, while a tremendous embarrassment to the US, bears no resemblance to a military defeat. Nor does it make the American presence untenable, unless the US does nothing to stop it, which it has. Holbrooke hardly represents an unbiased view -- he's working for the John Kerry campaign, a fact not mentioned until almost the end of the article. His statements here demonstrate the strategy a Kerry administration would take on the war -- which would be to give up every time you have a setback.

Cohen displays an odd sense of war and its history:

In unsuccessful wars, a certain rot tends to set in. The first 100 days are often critical; after that, it is harder to regain the initiative. So whatever America does now, it is facing a rising tide of not easily reversible resistance and doing so in a country whose stability is tenuous.

For Cohen's benefit, here's a list of what 100 days into a war gets you:

World War II: In the Pacific theater, Japan seized Rangoon after a series of successful raids in the entire theater. The first American "victory" of WWII in the Pacific doesn't come until April 18th, 1942 (Doolittle's Tokyo Raid), more than 120 days after Pearl Harbor. No territory lost to the Japanese is actually regained until Guadalcanal landings in August of that year.

In the European/North African theater, it takes almost a year before the US attacks the Nazis, landing in North Africa in November 1942. 100 days later, the Americans got their notorious introduction to world warfare by getting shellacked at Kasserine Pass. Americans stumble through until springtime before finally winning a major battle.

In World War I, after the initial offensive by Germany stalls out at the Battle of the Marne in 1915, neither side achieves any breakthrough for years, fighting along entrenched positions and unable to dislodge the other.

Korean War: The North invades the South on June 25, 1950. For most of the first 100 days, US and UN forces fall back as the North Koreans win battle after battle. At the end of 100 days, the momentum swings dramatically after the Inchon landings. On October 9th, the UN forces push the NoKos all the way back across the 38th parallel and invade the North. However, the Chinese jump into the fray, which results in the three-year fight to a stalemate at the 38th Parallel.

Far from being an indication of success or failure, the first 100 days of a war tell you practically nothing about its eventual conclusion, at least for the past century. In the case of this war, however, Cohen fails to note that both the Taliban and the Saddam regime fell far sooner than 100 days after initial military engagement. In fact, these two phases of the war on terror have been unprecedented for their success -- 50 million people liberated from tyrannies with the loss of less than 1,000 battle casualties.

For a solution to our supposedly unwinnable predicament, what does Cohen recommend? He doesn't. Instead, he busies himself explaining all the drawbacks of the three options he sees open to us, which are to leave the Iraqis to entirely fend for themselves by next year, have the UN take over, or stay and fight the insurgents. The option which draws the least amount of Cohen's attention is the UN, whose ruined credibility in the face of the rampant corruption of the Oil-For-Food Program Cohen never bothers to mention. In fact, for an example of systemic abuse of the entire Iraqi people, UNSCAM cannot be topped; it propped up Saddam Hussein and stuffed the pockets of the people running the program, all while selling out the very people the program was intended to help. If Abu Ghraib was an American Waterloo in Cohen's mind, then OFF should convince Cohen to shut down Turtle Bay altogether.

Cohen's article joins a number of shrill cries for surrender to atone for the handful of idiots at Abu Ghraib. Let the processes we have built for criminals take care of the issue as designed. No one claimed America or Americans were perfect; the difference is in how we handle those who abuse others. Instead of defeatism, we can use this opportunity to show the world our real strengths.

UPDATE: Correction: Battle of the Marne was the high-water mark of Germany, not Verdun as I had mistakenly wrote initially. Thanks to Mitch, who noted it in the comments.

Let's All March ... Somewhere

I don't often do this, but I perused the local Minneapolis Star-Tribune due to acute boredom this afternoon. After getting past the fact that the Strib managed to bury most of Mark Dayton's appearance at the Hill yesterday -- which means they understand exactly how poorly he fared -- another headline caught my eye: 1,000-Man March Planned May 21. I suppose these days a protest just doesn't count if you can't tag "[round number]-Man March" onto it in the same way that a scandal without a "-Gate" suffix gets relegated to page A-32, but the number seems to be pretty low, compared to the Million-Man March (that attracted about 800,000) and the Million-Mom March (which drew 150,000). I figured that a thousand-man march might draw something like, oh, twelve guys and thirty-three reporters for their true and noble cause.

Of course, on this point, the whole notion falls apart. Take a look at the entire article, which I will helpfully reproduce here as it only comprises three sentences:

Community leaders and activists will hold a 1,000 Man March beginning at 4 p.m. May 21 at New Salem Baptist Church, 2519 Lyndale Av. N., Minneapolis. The march will proceed through several blocks in north Minneapolis. For more information call New Salem at 612-nnn-nnnn or The City Inc. at 612-nnn-nnnn.

For more information? How about any information? I assume from this invitation that the entire point is to find 1,000 men to walk several blocks in north Minneapolis. Apparently, walking only a couple of blocks (or a few miles) is strictly prohibited and probably indicates a corporate/Republican/male-power-structure oppression.

If you live in the Twin Cities or plan to visit on May 21 and have nothing better to do on a Friday evening except walk a limited distance, this event is for you. Perhaps a more accurate title for the protest would be "1,000-Loser March". That's the kind of group I could support, if for no other reason than pity and an appreciation for their honesty.

Northern Alliance Radio: Our Investors Don't Panic

Don't forget that the Northern Alliance Radio Network will be broadcast in the Twin Cities this afternoon, as usual on Saturdays, between noon and 3 PM. I suspect that one topic we may indulge will be a little Schadenfranken over the continuing debacle over at Err America. As the Chicago Tribune reported yesterday, more ra -- er, people seem to be deserting the sinking ship while others insist on rearranging the deck furniture:

In yet another sign of trouble for Air America Radio, the liberal talk network's co-founder and chairman, Evan Cohen, resigned Thursday along with his investment partner and vice chairman, Rex Sorensen.

The company also failed to make its scheduled payroll Wednesday, leaving its staff of roughly 100 writers and producers unpaid until Thursday. ...

"We're on a wild ride," said Jon Sinton, the network's president, acknowledging that Air America has suffered "the typical bumps and bruises faced by any start-up."

"But the bottom line," he said, "is that we are on the air to stay."

Let's see -- we take a bunch of socialistic, anticapitalist, antiglobalist activists and have them form an entertainment corporation in order to rail against corporate power ... and then they can't make payroll? What a shocker!

I guess George Soros finally listened to their programming.

Mitch Berg notes other indications that their business plan had significant defects from the start:

1. They've been on the air five weeks. And they're already sucking pond water.

2. Let me read that again. Did it really say "100 writers and producers" to produce 17 hours of weekday programming (and maybe 8-10 more on the weekends)? No, I must have mis-read that...

...er, no, it does say 100 writers and producers. To produce six weeday and three weekend programs. A lavish commercial talk operation would hire, er, maybe six producers, four engineers, and maybe some interns to screen the calls.

Simply amazing.

And You Thought Americans Were Ignorant About Geography

The Guardian reports today that the Irish postal service, An Post, issued a stamp which confuses Cyprus with Crete and failed to include its own border with Northern Ireland, which belongs to the UK:

The 65 cent stamp - 330,000 of which were issued on May 1 to commemorate the EU's expansion and for use to mail letters to all 25 member states - places Cyprus off the south-east coast of Greece, much closer to the location of Crete than Cyprus. The horizontal sliver bears scant resemblance to the chubby, rhino-horned shape of Cyprus but comes uncannily close to the long and slim Crete, Greece's largest island. ...

In Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, symbol-sensitive Protestants also found fault with the stamp, which has erased the staunchly defended border between Irish south and British north.

"The stamp manages to get every single European border right on the continent, but ignores our own," said Steven King, an adviser to the Ulster Unionist Party in Belfast.

King mailed a copy of the Good Friday Agreement to officials at An Post in which the Republic of Ireland renounced its claim to Northern Ireland in favor of self-determination, mostly as a joke. King does not demand a redesign of the stamp. However, the stamp may wind up being such an embarrassment that it may have to shelve the stamp, intended to commemorate EU enlargement. While the spokesperson from An Post defended the design, saying that scale had to be disregarded to fit Cyprus on any normal size commemorative stamp, she doesn't explain why the shape of the island had to be transformed as well.

Here's a map of Greece, with Crete at the bottom, and one of Cyprus. Compare those with the stamp shown in the Guardian article. I think An Post has some explaining to do.

More Apologies from The Gopher State

After yesterday's performance by our intellectually- and historically-challenged Senator, Mark Dayton, Minnesotans have felt the need to abjectly apologize to the rest of the nation in general, and to the military specifically. Hugh Hewitt challenged us to demonstrate our contrition, which I did on his show yesterday and here at CQ as well.

One of my readers, a fellow MN-blogger who operates the Intergalactic Capitalist blog, also apologizes in a humorous and R-rated rant that discusses Dayton's intellect, his grasp of history, his neurology, and his potential for becoming an Enzyte spokesman. StarBanker notes this Power Line entry by Rocket Man, who reported on Dayton's "homily" to a Roman Catholic audience at St. Joan of Arc Church in Minneapolis last summer:

Our country has moved decidedly to the right. Our citizens, many are less involved. Our social system is less compassionate, government is less effective and liberalism is more distrusted....Where is God in the midst of all this injustice? I don't have a clue. I don't know if He, or She, or Whatever doesn't exist, died, is incompetent, doesn't care, is laissez faire, or has a master plan I don't understand.

Does that sound like a stable and intelligent speech to give to Catholics? The only part with which I could agree is this: "I don't have a clue." He certainly demonstrated that yesterday in his performance on national TV.

Bush to Arafat: No Rush

George Bush made it clear that in order to proceed to a two-state solution in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Palestinians need to stop terrorism and begin complying with the road map, starting with security issues. Otherwise, the timetables will be adjusted accordingly, according to the BBC:

US President George W Bush has said the deadline for setting up a Palestinian state has slipped due to violence and a change of Palestinian leaders. "I think the timetable of 2005 is not as realistic as it was two years ago," Mr Bush told Egypt's al-Ahram daily. ...

Mr Bush said the US remained committed to the internationally-accepted peace plan for the Middle East - the roadmap, and would underline this with a letter to Mr Qurei.

"Well, 2005 may be hard, since 2005 is right around the corner. I readily concede the date has slipped some, primarily because violence sprung up."

I have argued in the past about the self-defeating nature of a policy that stampedes towards a Palestinian state when its leadership openly supports terrorism in Israel. Even Iran works through proxies, but the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade openly takes credit for its mass murder of Israeli citizens, and the AAMB is known to be part of Yasser Arafat's own Fatah faction within the PLO. The excuse given is that the Palestinian Authority has the right to fight against occupation, but none of the apologists can explain how blowing up pizza parlors and civilian buses filled with Israeli citizens qualifies as acceptable military action.

The EU has pressured Bush to indicate more support for the two-state solution, and he has tried to walk a fine line in doing so. Its implementation is an impossibility when the Palestinians themselves, in their words and actions, argue against the two-state solution and insist on the extermination of Israel. Bush strikes exactly the right note in his statement: get on the bus instead of blowing it up, and we'll talk. Otherwise, we're in no rush to grant sovereignty to a pack of terrorists.

Brooks: Ctrl-Alt-Del

David Brooks gets uncharacteristically hysterical in today's New York Times op-ed piece, but in his wildly pessimistic viewpoint he does score one important point regarding international relations and the role of the UN. In order to get there, though, you have to wade through a lot of hair-shirt rhetoric:

It's pretty clear we're passing through another pivot point in American foreign policy. A year ago, we were the dominant nation in a unipolar world. Today, we're a shellshocked hegemon.

We still face a world of threats, but we're much less confident about our own power. We still know we can roll over hostile armies, but we cannot roll over problems. We get dragged down into them. We can topple tyrants, but we don't seem to be very good at administering nations. Our intelligence agencies have made horrible mistakes. Our diplomacy vis-à-vis Western Europe has been inept. We have a military filled with heroes, but the atrocities of a few have eclipsed the nobility of the many.

In short, we are on the verge of a crisis of confidence.

Brooks' argument that our confidence is in crisis doesn't feel like good, long-range analysis as much as it does overreaction to the events of the past two or three weeks. In the past two and a half years since 9/11, we have toppled two of the most oppressive tyrranies in the world, especially in Iraq, where torture and genocide had made hash out of the refrain, "Never again." America has freed 50 million people in that time, and has done so with less than 1,000 battle casualties, an unprecedented feat and one that not only demonstrates our power but also our ability to project that power while doing our best to minimize collateral damage.

However, Brooks uses this to make a point, and a good one at that, regarding the futility of the UN. How can we expect to spread democracy and self-determination to all peoples of the world while forcing our efforts into the UN harness, while it brims over with petty dictatorships and warlords?

In this climate of self-doubt, the "realists" of right and left are bound to re-emerge. They're going to dwell on the limits of our power. They'll advise us to learn to tolerate the existence of terrorist groups, since we don't really have the means to take them on. They're going to tell us to lower our sights, to accept autocratic stability, since democratic revolution is too messy and utopian.

That's a recipe for disaster. It was U.S. inaction against Al Qaeda that got us into this mess in the first place. It was our tolerance of Arab autocracies that contributed to the madness in the Middle East.

To conserve our strategy, we have to fundamentally alter our tactics. To shore up public confidence, the U.S. has to make it clear that it is considering fresh approaches.

We've got to acknowledge first that the old debates are obsolete. I wish the U.S could still go off, after Iraq, at the head of "coalitions of the willing" to spread democracy around the world. But the brutal fact is that the events of the past year have discredited that approach. Nor is the U.N. a viable alternative. A body dominated by dictatorships is never going to promote democratic values. For decades, the U.N. has failed as an effective world power.

We've got to reboot. We've got to come up with a global alliance of democracies to embody democratic ideals, harness U.S. military power and house a permanent nation-building apparatus, filled with people who actually possess expertise on how to do this job.

No doubt, the UN could function perfectly well as it was initially intended: a multilateral platform for diplomacy which brings all nations to the table simultaneously. The US has no need to walk away from that. Where the UN has failed is in the imposition of a shadow "world government" enforcing its own laws and regulations. In the first place, that structure is fatally flawed by its own membership; can you think of a more ludicrous notion than putting the Sudan, China, and Cuba on a Human Rights Committee? The Sudan wants to implement Shari'a law, which punishes adultery by stoning to death the women involved. Besides, the last development most UN members want to see is greater democratization; they're at Turtle Bay to hang onto as much power as they can. The Oil-For-Food program revealed how corrupt the UN has become, mostly due to a complete lack of controls on the Secretariat and the unwillingness of member nations to act as a check against its operation; in the case of UNSCAM, that willingness sprang from the petrodollars being stuffed into member nations' pockets.

Finally and most importantly, the twelve-year odyssey of Saddam Hussein demonstrated the full measure of ineptitude and emptiness of the UN Security Council in particular. Willing to pass resolution after resolution, allowing Saddam Hussein to defy those resolutions year after year, and sticking the US and the UK with the bill for their failed "containment" strategy -- did you see much in the way of anyone else's military enforcing the sanctions? -- the UNSC has been shown to be the Hamlet of the world, sputtering with indecision until far too late, and in that role has become the perfect antecedent of the League of Nations.

Brooks is correct; it's time to look to new solutions, such as the G-20 plan floated earlier this year. In order to bring freedom to the world, we cannot allow ourselves to be deliberately slowed down or halted by being yoked to dictatorships through the UN. We do have to reboot. We need to clear our assumptions from the screen and take a fresh look around us and at our priorities. If we are serious about spreading freedom and democracy as a way to ensure our national security -- and I strongly believe that to be the best strategy -- then we need new partnerships and new institutions based on those ideals.

Critics threaten military justice system

The U.S. military justice system works. It effectively prosecutes criminal activity committed by troops, while preserving an accused member’s constitutional rights. One of the cornerstones of the system is the concept of unlawful command influence. Simply put, a commander must remain free to exercise his or her own discretion to impose discipline without inappropriate interference from a superior commander. Superior commanders must not make comments that would imply they "expect" a particular result in a given case or type of cases.

Critics, like Peter Beinart of the New Republic, have ruthlessly attacked Secretary Rumsfeld for his lack of “outrage” regarding the incidents at Abu Ghraib prison. These critics should be mindful that Secretary Rumsfeld is not in a position to demand court-martials or specific punishments for the members suspected of those offenses. Comments by him could be attributed to the officers responsible for charging those individuals, which would provide a classic argument for unlawful command influence and thereby endanger the prosecution.

The military must be allowed to effectively prosecute the offenses committed at Abu Ghraib. Proving our system works will further our goals for democracy in the Middle East. Hysteria and knee-jerk reactions will only weaken us and could destroy an otherwise strong case against those accused of mistreating the prisoners.

NYT's Wilgoren Shilling For Kerry

Jodi Wilgoren attempts some heavy lifting for the John Kerry campaign in today's New York Times. In an attempt to undo the damage that Kerry has inflicted on himself, Wilgoren takes on the worst of Kerry's stumbles -- the infamous "$87 billion" vote comment:

President Bush's re-election campaign sent squadrons of researchers to scour Senator John Kerry's three decades in public life in search of material to use against him. But they turned up nothing as potent as 13 words that spilled from Mr. Kerry's mouth shortly after he effectively secured the Democratic presidential nomination.

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion — before I voted against it," Mr. Kerry said on a March afternoon in Huntington, W.Va.

Mark McKinnon, Mr. Bush's media man, summed up the sound bite: "You don't get gifts like that very often."

Michael Meehan, a spokesman for Mr. Kerry, called it "an expensive lesson."

And Ken Goldstein, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, said the quotation "just sounds ridiculous."

Unfortunately, Wilgoren uses the article to whitewash the actual flip-flop that this represented, instead presenting it as an example of John Kerry's 'nuance':

"Secondly, this is very important, I actually did vote for the $87 billion — before I voted against it. Joe Biden and I thought this: we thought since a lot of mainstream, regular folks in America were sharing a big burden of this war, we thought since those families are sacrificing, that just maybe the wealthiest people in America would be willing to also contribute, and so Joe and I brought an amendment to the $87 billion, and we said, `This should be paid for now, not adding to the deficit,' and the way we should pay for it is say to the wealthiest 1 or 2 percent of Americans, instead of accepting $690 billion of tax cuts over the next 10 years, wouldn't you just be willing, in the spirit of patriotism and sacrifice, to just take $600 billion?

"And you know what? The president said no; the Republicans voted no."

David Wade, Mr. Kerry's press secretary, remembers "a standing ovation or some powerful applause" at the end. ...

Mr. Meehan, the Kerry spokesman, said the episode was a reminder of the struggle to adapt the complexity of the legislative process to a "presidential-sound-bite world." "I've been asked the question since then, and I say, `Yeah, we voted for the $87 billion if we could pay for it,' " Mr. Meehan said. "There'd be no ad, and people would be nodding their heads, `Yes!' "

It all sounds good, because this fits into our expectations -- the media jumped all over one sentence out of context, the evil opposition exploits a simple turn of phrase to embarrass the good guy, and so on. Wilgoren gives a good attempt at rehabilitation. However, she leaves out a critical element of Kerry's history on the $87 billion appropriation, one that demonstrates Kerry's hypocrisy and his Machiavellian political instincts, which in truth the bumbling nature of Kerry's quote somewhat conceals.

ABC News reported on March 19 that they had discovered an interview that Kerry had given on the CBS show Face The Nation on Sep. 14th, 2003, where Kerry and Senator Joe Biden discussed the appropriations bill for the Iraq war. At the time, Kerry was pursuing the amendment that would require a "delay" in the Bush tax cuts to pay for the funding. However, Kerry told Doyle McManus during the FTN interview that regardless of the financing method, leaving the troops without the funding wouldn't happen:

Conducting the interview on CBS, Los Angeles Times D.C. bureau chief Doyle McManus asked Kerry, if his amendment "does not pass, will you then vote against the $87 billion?"

Kerry's full response is as follows: "I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to — to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running," he says. "That's irresponsible. What is responsible is for the administration to do this properly now."

Kerry says he is "laying out the way in which the administration could unite the American people, could bring other countries to the table, and I think could give the American people a sense that they're on the right track. There's a way to do this properly."

"But I don't think anyone in the Congress is going to not give our troops ammunition, not give our troops the ability to be able to defend themselves," he says. "We're not going to cut and run and not do the job."

As ABC News notes in the same piece, shortly after this interview, Howard Dean's candidacy caught fire, fueled by the anti-war activists on the left. Traditionally, these represent the fringe of the Democratic Party, but in the latter half of 2003 they fed Dean an unprecedented amount of funding for his primary fight. By the time the appropriation came up for a final vote on October 17th without his tax-delay amendment, Kerry had faded to the rear of the primary contenders. It was at this time that Kerry began to shift his rhetoric to attract the hard-core leftists, talking about how Bush misled him into voting for the authorization to use force against Saddam Hussein, and becoming on of only 12 Senators voting against the funding for the troops, a move which Kerry himself described five weeks earlier as "reckless" and "irresponsible".

Did it work? Of course it did. When Dean imploded in Iowa by first doing his best Dan Quayle impression when Al Sharpton challenged him on his diversity record in lily-white Vermont and then going into performance art after his surprisingly bad showing in the caucus, Kerry had successfully co-opted Dean's message, transforming himself from a colorless traditional-liberal functionary to the darling of the MoveOn.org set. He took the gamble that the hard left wouldn't care about his record of waffling as long as he said all the right things now and that the Bush-hatred would easily carry him to the nomination.

In this context, the reversal on the $87 billion appropriation involves much more than strangled syntax. It reflects deeply on the character of John Kerry, who never met a principle higher than his own ambition. Wilgoren ironically attempts to shift readers' attention from Kerry the manipulator to Kerry the verbal stumbler, a role in which the press has long cast George Bush (with some justification) and one method they've used to cast aspersions on his intelligence. Apparently, the Gray Lady has decided to provide context-free reporting regarding John Kerry, and in that effort, they've selected the perfect reporter.

(cross-posted at Oh, That Liberal Media)

Let Justice Prevail

In today’s WSJ, Newt Gingrich cautions the American media on its hysteric response to the Iraqi prison scandal:

“The media coverage of the violations of American law against Iraqi prisoners is in peril of setting a dangerous double standard for America and the Arab world. The administration must be very careful in explaining how we feel and what we will do. Otherwise our enemies will use our own words as an excuse to exploit this double standard.”

“To be clear, a very small number of Americans did a terrible thing at Abu Ghraib. And because we live under the rule of law, and we take protecting the Constitution seriously, the accused will be investigated and, when guilty, punished. The incidents themselves are to be condemned.”

The fact that Mr. Gingrich’s warning is necessary is more unfortunate than the acts committed in Abu Ghraib. The spectacle of Congressmen and Senator Kerry leaping at the chance to scream for Secretary Rumsfeld’s resignation reveals that political power means more to the left than our country’s freedom from terrorism. Steadfast leadership in the White House and Department of Defense is essential to victory in the war against terror, but partisan Democrats place greater importance on electing “Anybody but Bush” in November.

Captain's Quarters Expands: Introducing 'Whiskey'

As I alluded earlier, Captain's Quarters will be making a big change. When I started the blog in October of last year, I envisioned this as a solo effort -- one that probably wouldn't attract a lot of notice. Well, thanks to some terrific readers and big assists from people like the Power Line guys, Hugh Hewitt, and all of the Northern Alliance and many others, Captain's Quarters has had much more success than I ever would have imagined. So much so, in fact, that it's time to bring on a partner to expand boundaries of the blog beyond my own experiences.

So I'd like to introduce my new partner, Whiskey, who will start posting tonight. She's an American attorney, a graduate of Cornell Law School, living in East Asia, who has had military experience and so can speak to those issues from a more personal perspective when she desires. Whiskey undoubtedly will tell you more about herself as she adds posts, which will most likely appear while we're asleep, here in the States. We're going to be a 24x7 operation here at Captain's Quarters. In fact, to borrow a phrase from the British Empire, the sun will never set on this blog!

I know you will find Whiskey to be an excellent writer and a fortunate addition to Captain's Quarters. I've added her new e-mail to the top of the left column, so feel free to e-mail her as well as me.

Minnesotans Owe You An Apology

I just heard the exchange between Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton, Donald Rumsfeld, and General Richard Myers at the Senate hearings regarding the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The transcript of the exchange has to be either read or heard to be believed. The worst of it -- but not all of it -- revolved around Myers' request to CBS to delay the publication of the pictures until the hot spots where troops were taking fire, and could conceivably be captured, until after they had pacified those areas. Dayton became hysterical at the notion that the military might ask the media to assist them in keeping American troops as safe as possible, under the circumstances:

DAYTON: Mr. Secretary, is that standard procedure for the military command of this country to try to suppress a news report at the highest level?

MYERS: It didn't -- let me just -- Senator Dayton, this is a serious allegation...

DAYTON: Sure is.

MYERS: ... and it's absolutely -- the context of your question, I believe, is wrong. ... This was not to suppress anything. What I asked CBS News to do was to delay the release of the pictures, given the current situation in Iraq, which was as bad as it had been since major combat ended, because I thought it bring direct harm to our troops; it would kill our troops.

We talked about it, and I said, "I know this report will eventually come out. But this -- if you can delay it for some period of time -- it would be helpful."

Dayton, a moment later, gave this speech:

DAYTON: I would just say, General -- and I agree with your assessment of the consequences of this on our troops, and that's the great tragedy of this, but attempts to suppress news reports, to withhold the truth from Congress and from the American people is antithetical to democracy. ... And whatever the intentions may be, sir, the result is always the same. And it's, I think, terribly tragic that the president, who wants to expand democracy around the world, by actions of his own administration is undermining that democracy in the United States.

That's always the result when people try to control information, delay it, manage it and suppress it, it has that result. It's antithetical to a democracy.

Rumsfeld had had enough at this point, and forcefully interjected:

RUMSFELD: May I speak a minute, Mr. Senator?

Throughout the history of this country, there have been instances where military situations have existed that have led government to talk to members of the media and make an editorial request of them that they delay for some period disclosing some piece of information. It is not against our history. It is not against our principles. It is not suppression of the news. And it's a misunderstanding of the situation to say it is.

DAYTON: It is against our principles. It's against our principles when you come before 40 to 45 members of the Senate three hours before that news report is going to occur and don't mention one word about it, sir.

That is antithetical to democracy and the Constitution, which has the Senate and the House as co-equal responsibility for this country.

No sooner had this ludicrous assertion escaped Dayton's lips, in contradiction to centuries of polite and proper interaction between the military and the media, than he challenged Rumsfeld and Myers to explain why they felt it was necessary to send tanks and troops into a war zone:

You're increasing the number of forces, the number of tanks over there. How can this have anything to do but to escalate the level of violence, the opposition of Iraqis, intensify the hatred across the Arab world to the United States, and more atrocities? How can this have any result other than to put us deeper into this situation and make the conditions there worse for our forces and for our nation and for the world?

Haven't we heard, over and over from the opposition, that Rumsfeld hasn't committed enough troops and materiel to Iraq? "War on the cheap" has been the knock on Rumsfeld for the past year. Now they want to argue both ends of the argument; not only has Rumsfeld sent too little men and materials, but he's wrong if he sends more. The Kerry campaign seems to have had a serious effect on the entire Democratic party.

And so we, the bloggers of Minnesota, must not only apologize for our inane and incoherent Senator, but we must commit ourselves to ensuring that this craven political opportunist doesn't have the opportunity to embarrass the state in 2007. For more apologies, please see Power Line and Fraters Libertas (two posts -- apparently our shame cannot be bounded by one). We are all very sorry -- and very motivated.

Mark Dayton just made Northern Alliance Radio's hit parade at #1. Now we know what we'll be talking about on Saturday afternoons after the presidential election.

UPDATE: McQ at QandO beats me to the punch as he's researched the whole wartime military-media relationship in American history. After making the point that suppressing the story would have meant the military forced CBS to shelve it and not politely asking them to postpone showing the pictures, McQ notes:

Dayton is completely off-track about this not being our tradition. All news from the war was approved before it was allowed to be sent to the US broadcast in WW II among other measures in place.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt establishes the Office of Censorship in 1941 to censor communications between the United States and foreign countries and to prevent news organizations from publishing information the enemy might be interested in. Roosevelt appoints Byron Price, a respected journalist, to run the office. Price accepts the post on the condition that the media can voluntarily agree to self-censorship. The office employs 14,462 civilians to monitor cable, mail, and radio communications between the United States and other nations. The office closes in 1945.

The Office of War Information (OWI) is established in 1942 to control the flow of information between government agencies and manage the release of war news. The OWI opens an overseas branch and successfully transmits news and propaganda over the radio. The office closes in 1945.

Correspondents are allowed to travel with troops provided all writing is submitted to military censors prior to publication. In 1942 the press voluntarily accepts a Code of Wartime Practices.

No photographs of American dead are released to the public for the first two years of World War II. In 1943 the ban on photographs of the dead is partially lifted in an attempt to galvanize public support for the war. Graphic photographs
and pictures showing faces of the dead are still censored.

Seems a Senator that's going to make those types of accusations would do his homework on the one hand and undestand the utter stupidity of his charge on the other hand.

Yes, you'd think so, but he's Mark Dayton, and we're not.

Washington Post/ABC Poll: Let Rummy Stay On

The numbers are in, and they indicate that the Democrats overplayed their hand, and badly. According to a new Washington Post/ABC poll, majorities of Republicans, independents, and Democrats reject forcing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from office during wartime due to the actions of soldiers in the field:

Seven in 10 Americans said Rumsfeld should not be forced to quit, a view held by majorities of Republicans, Democrats and self-described political independents. The survey comes a day after President Bush gave Rumsfeld a vote of confidence, and as Rumsfeld faced stiff questioning by members of Congress enraged that they were kept in the dark about abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. ...

Republicans and Democrats largely agree on the seriousness of the allegations, the scope of the problem and the future of the secretary of defense, but differ dramatically when it comes to Bush's role in the process and the wisdom of the Iraq invasion in general. Across the partisan spectrum, majorities of Republicans, Democrats and political independents said this kind of abuse is unacceptable, no matter what the situation, and about half in each group said they are either upset or angry about it.

At least six in ten in each group said that the soldiers involved should be charged with a crime. But majorities of Republicans (82 percent), Democrats (58 percent) and independents (73 percent) said Rumsfeld should not be forced out of his job over the prison scandal, but also agree the reported incidents are serious.

It would be hard to imagine a more shocking and dispiriting event to occur in the war than the revelation that American troops engaged in the disgusting behavior seen in these photographs. Some Democratic politicians, seeing an opening to exploit, have used the natural revulsion and profound disappointment they created to beat Rumsfeld over the head for the past few days. But as the polling states, not only have they failed to convince Republicans or independents -- voters they need to win in November -- but they can't even convince their base that Rumsfeld should be kicked out during wartime.

Kerry, who just yesterday called for Rumsfeld's removal, obviously has some explaining to do. His rush to judgement demonstrates his lack of seriousness regarding the war on terror and in leadership. He had the chance to show some genuine leadership by calling for passions to cool until Rumsfeld had a chance to respond and more facts became known. Once again, he put his presidential aspirations ahead of his nation's security and tried to exploit a bad situation for his own personal gain.

Expect the Rumsfeld meme to fade quickly from the headlines.

Strong Job Growth Adds To 2004 Gains

Job-growth numbers released this morning surprised analysts for a second straight month, and even last month's spectacular job growth was underestimated, reports USA Today:

Employers added 288,000 jobs to their payrolls in April as the nation's unemployment rate slipped to 5.6%, reinforcing hopes for a sustained turnaround in the jobs market that had lagged for so long. Payrolls have risen now for eight months, with 867,000 new jobs created so far this year, the Labor Department reported Friday.

March's blockbuster job numbers, meanwhile, were updated from 308,000 to 337,000 new jobs created, emphasizing the explosion in job growth. Ever since the last of Bush's economic plan was implemented in Q1 2003, the economy has turned around and now significant job growth has returned. Even the much-maligned manufacturing sector has grown, adding 21,000 jobs in April.

Kerry will shift focus from the economy to the war from this point forward as his perceived "big issue" slips away from him, but he won't escape his rhetoric on rolling back the growth engine of the Bush tax cuts. The lesson here, as in the 1980s, is this: Tax cuts work. Putting money back into the private economy puts investment capital where it belongs, which creates jobs and wealth. As we get closer to the election, this lesson will become more and more obvious, and the choice for economic prosperity more clear. Kerry supports tax increases; Bush supports tax cuts. We can see which strategy produces results.

NYT: Rumsfeld As Proxy For Bush

Today's New York Times editorial continues their fact-challenged series this week by demanding the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld. The Times doesn't justify the demand through the revelations of abuse, whose nature surfaced this week in photographs through CBS News, but which had already been under investigation for months by Rumsfeld's Department of Defense. Instead, the editorial castigates Rumsfeld for the entire war in Iraq in a blistering but essentially empty-headed screed in which the name Rumsfeld obviously stands in for Bush.

Even the first two sentences show the hypocrisy and obstinacy of the Times editorial writers:

There was a moment about a year ago, in the days of "Mission Accomplished," when Donald Rumsfeld looked like a brilliant tactician. American troops — the lean, mean fighting machine Mr. Rumsfeld assembled — swept into Baghdad with a speed that surprised even the most optimistic hawks.

I believe that came directly after the brilliant military strategists at Times, and most of the mainstream media, declared that the Coalition troops had bogged down in the Iraqi desert and that Rumsfeld clearly didn't have a war plan, didn't it?

This is far from a case of a fine cabinet official undone by the actions of a few obscure bad apples in the military police. Donald Rumsfeld has morphed, over the last two years, from a man of supreme confidence to arrogance, then to almost willful blindness. With the approval of the president, he sent American troops into a place whose nature and dangers he had apparently never bothered to examine.

What nonsense. The DoD as well as State did extensive examinations and war-gaming on Iraq and had done so going back two administrations. Not only did they study it, the US experienced it first-hand in the first Gulf War, although the remainder of the experience during that conflict showed what happened when that grand UN-based coalition handcuffed the US from finishing the job. The dangers of insurgency were well-known and the planning for them at least adequate. In a year of occupation, there have been two revolts, both of which have been minor. The more serious one, in Najaf, has been handled with patience and skill as the CPA has engaged the Shi'ite majority to work against the radical cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, and in fact a Shi'ite militia friendly to the CPA has sprung up to resist al-Sadr's own forces in Najaf and Kufa.

In fact, that wargaming and planning caused a scandal when Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke both claimed it took up most of the Bush administration's attention after 9/11. The Times has already pontificated about the supposed distraction this caused. So which is it -- did they plan too much or too little?

We now know that no one with any power in the Defense Department had a clue about what the administration was getting the coalition forces into. Mr. Rumsfeld's blithe confidence that he could run his war on the cheap has also seriously harmed the Army and the National Guard.

Skipping the Howard Dean-style hyperbole, the second sentiment -- that the DoD has not committed enough troops to the effort -- may be true, although I'm not a military planner, and neither are the Times' editorial writers. However, that is a policy issue, not grounds for dismissal or impeachment, as Congressman Charles Rangel suggested for Rumsfeld if his resignation was not forthcoming.

And now let's address the disgusting spectacle at Abu Ghraib, which no American minimizes, by reviewing another incident from another war. When General George Patton twice slapped enlisted men for suffering from shell-shock and getting hospital treatment, newspapers were outraged. One well-known editorial cartoon showed Patton stomping on a frightened GI, with a Nazi swastika on his boot. Despite these incidents being a contravention of rules and centuries-old tradition of respect towards the American enlisted man, no serious person called for the resignation or removal of Dwight Eisenhower, Patton's CO, or George Marshall, the Chief of Staff. They did call for Patton's removal -- and blood -- but Eisenhower wisely shelved Patton until after D-Day, when Patton's brilliance played a major role in the defeat of the Nazis.

We are at war, and removing the main strategist of that war because people several levels below him broke the law makes no sense. I notice that the editorial board and the publisher are still intact at the Times, even after their editor-in-chief promoted and protected a reporter who repeatedly and obviously faked his stories. What happened to punishing the people responsible for the acts, or does that only apply to the Times? It is the measure of the Times' lack of seriousness that they fail to consider the impact of Rumsfeld's resignation when American troops are under fire.

In the future, perhaps the Times and their compatriots on the left will have the courage to attack Bush frontally, rather than using his advisors as punching bags, as they manage to do with Paul Wolfowitz briefly during this rant. Quit focusing on apologies and resignations and start realizing that we are fighting a war.

The Kerrys Toss Out A Deadly Red Herring

The New York Times reports that Teresa Heinz-Kerry told Barbara Walters that she once almost had an abortion in the 1970s but a miscarriage made it unnecessary, in an interview that will be aired tonight:

Teresa Heinz Kerry told a television interviewer this week that she had planned to have an abortion in the mid-1970's after discovering that cortisone she took while unaware of her pregnancy could cause birth defects but that she had a miscarriage the night before the scheduled procedure.

"I'm pro-choice, because I'd like to have that choice myself," Mrs. Heinz Kerry, the wife of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, told Barbara Walters in an interview scheduled to be broadcast on Friday night on the "20/20" program on ABC. "I presume that most women will look at a choice like that as a terrible choice. But they should be given the chance to make it as I was."

Republicans outside of the mainstream campaign will salivate over this revelation. Some will surrender to the temptation to rake Kerry over the coals on this issue, blowing this up into a shadow campaign issue. The temptation will be there ... but it will be a huge, huge mistake.

In the first place, finding out that the Kerrys support abortion rights hardly qualifies as a great revelation. It's one of the more consistent stands the Senator has, even though he vacillated on partial-birth abortion for a while before voting against the ban. His consistency makes this a zero-impact issue.

Even worse, the circumstances of Ms. Kerry's decision are undeniably sympathetic. Even if you oppose abortion as I do, for reasons I'll probably put into a separate post sometime soon, being told that your medications have likely deformed your heretofore-unknown unborn child is a devastating tragedy, one which I certainly wouldn't want to face. To effectively attack her choice from three decades ago, you would have to argue that she's lying now, and good luck proving it. And for what? To start an argument with people who have already decided what they believe on the issue?

I suspect that the Kerrys didn't just let that slip during the Walters interview. Both Kerrys are smart people and have extensive experience in handling media interviewers -- and while I'm aware of Walters' reputation for getting the extra reveal from her interview subjects, I'm not terribly impressed by her. I think that Mrs. Kerry deliberately chose to tell that story now, both to allow the audience to connect to her and to give the Republicans just enough rope with which to hang themselves. I'm hoping that most Republicans are smart enough to refuse to take the bait.

Minnesota Senate Pulls The Switcheroo on Social Studies

The Minnesota Senate, working against time to complete their business before a mandated adjournment date, thumbed its nose at the House by passing an alternate set of Social Studies requirements that conflict with those passed weeks ago by the House:

The DFL-dominated Senate gave its approval Thursday to a set of social studies requirements for all Minnesota students that goes lighter on the facts and heavier on the analysis than its more knowledge-based counterpart passed by the House in March. ... The chief author of the policy bill, Sen. Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins, said he didn't think differences in the general principles of what's required in the two versions were that big.

But a major difference is in the number of people, places and events kids are required to know. In the Senate social studies standards, those are generally left up to the teacher, though numerous examples are provided. The House version, which has stirred up controversy over what critics contend is its Republican-white-male bias and Trivial Pursuit-like emphasis on meaningless facts, has a more extensive list of specifics that kids need to know.

For a detailed analysis of the competing policies, read Prof. King Banian's excellent series at SCSU Scholars. However, the article tells us all we need to know about the sellout job the Senate passed yesterday. First off, the "requirements" wind up being nothing but guidelines that don't require teachers to instruct anything specific regarding people, places, and events. I understand the effort to teach to grand themes, but unfortunately you cannot build the comprehension needed to cover grand themes unless you have at least some grounding in the people, places, and events. Try teaching about the evils of American slavery and its eventual bloody end, for instance, when your students don't understand the significance of the Missouri Compromise, Harper's Ferry, or any of the economic issues that fed slavery for generations.

But even more than the specifics, the process used to develop the Senate version fall back to the typical, corrosive paternalism that the education industry demonstrates on every issue. The House used citizen groups and education professionals alike to develop their proposals, giving parents significant input into the final product. The Senate, engaging in a political war to discredit Governor Tim Pawlenty's education commissioner Cheri Yecke, instead had their proposal drafted in a short period of time by UM professors, without any formal process of review by the communities that will wind up bound by them. It is a naked partisan ploy with no purpose except a tactical method of keeping pressure on Yecke and Pawlenty, and it rejects the long and grueling effort by their constituents that led to the House version.

Arrogance and paternalism have been the hallmarks of the DFL's engagement with state politics and the Minnesota electorate. Perhaps their constituencies will finally understand that the DFL stopped listening to parents on education issues a long time ago, having sold them out to the teachers' union, and make some long-overdue changes in November.

Moore to Disney: Thanks For The Ride

The London Independent reports in tomorrow's edition that Michael Moore, instead of being a victim of evil, corporate America in the form of the Disney Corporation, instead lied about Disney's intentions to promote his film as well a an illusion of martyrdom:

Less than 24 hours after accusing the Walt Disney Company of pulling the plug on his latest documentary in a blatant attempt at political censorship, the rabble-rousing film-maker Michael Moore has admitted he knew a year ago that Disney had no intention of distributing it. ...

In an indignant letter to his supporters, Moore said he had learnt only on Monday that Disney had put the kibosh on distributing the film, which has been financed by the semi-independent Disney subsidiary Miramax.

But in the CNN interview he said: "Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it."

And so the bloviating filmmaker managed to fool the New York Times into putting his hoax onto its front page, as the article notes, as well as writing a scathing editorial chiding Disney for its lack of commitment to free expression:

Give the Walt Disney Company a gold medal for cowardice for blocking its Miramax division from distributing a film that criticizes President Bush and his family. A company that ought to be championing free expression has instead chosen to censor a documentary that clearly falls within the bounds of acceptable political commentary. ... it is clear that Disney loves its bottom line more than the freedom of political discourse.

The Times editorial notes that Michael Moore "likes to skewer the rich and powerful." I wonder how they feel now that the Times has become another victim of Moore's lies.

Via the new aggregate blog Memeorandum, a fine addition to the blogroll.

Zapatero Refuses to Quit Digging

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Zapatero ignores the proverb that instructs those who find themselves in a hole to quit digging. The New York Times reports in tomorrow's paper that Zapatero insists that Spain remains a loyal ally of the United States, even while he informs the Times that he has backtracked even from the appeasement stance he took when he was first elected:

Spain's new prime minister said on Thursday that he would never send Spanish soldiers back to Iraq, even if foreign troops there were put under the authority of the United Nations or NATO.

"Spanish troops have spent time there and have completed their mission in Iraq," said Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. "There's no point in them going back."

This contradicts Zapatero's claim that he only opposed having Spanish troops in Iraq due to the lack of a UN Security Council resolution governing the Coalition Provisional Authority. When the US and the UK tried to propose a new UNSC resolution to satisfy Zapatero before his announced withdrawal date of June 30, Zapatero suddenly announced Spain's immediate withdrawal of troops at the end of April due to the improbability of any such effort succeeding. And now, not only does Zapatero rule out participating in any future UN or NATO effort to stabilize Iraq, but he floats a notion so ridiculous that Spanish credibility should be forfeit until Spaniards vote him out of office:

In an interview at Moncloa Palace, Mr. Zapatero dismissed the creation of a peacekeeping force under the United Nations as "rather improbable or utopian" because of the unstable security situation in Iraq.

Similarly, he rejected the idea of a NATO-led force similar to the one that exists in Afghanistan, saying that it was more likely that a force assembled by the Arab League "could give the Iraqis peace of mind."

Zapatero thinks the Arab League would provide "peace of mind"? Has he looked around the Arab world recently, or at all? The most stable of the Arab nations, Saudi Arabia, is an intolerant Wahhabist theocracy that not only spawned the nutcases that formed al-Qaeda, but whose troops are used to keep their own people from rising up and tossing the House of Saud into the Persian Gulf. Egypt also barely manages to keep the lid on their society as President-for-Life Hosni Mubarak rules by emergency decree, following the same long tradition as his predecessor, Anwar Sadat. Syria would dearly love to march into Iraq to reclaim Baghdad for the Ba'athists and put the same thugs back in power that we kicked out. Jordan, Qatar, and Kuwait couldn't put a division together between them with any effectiveness. Zapatero couldn't possibly make a worse suggestion; pulling out entirely might do less damage than inviting the Arabs in the area to invade and pull Iraq apart.

Elaine Sciolino indulges in wishful thinking when she describes Zapatero as "largely unknown" to people outside Spain; we've seen plenty of the appeasement-minded Socialist already. However, Sciolino does include an amusing, if disturbing, moment with Zapatero:

Since his election, Mr. Zapatero has doubly enraged the Bush administration. The first time was when he announced that he would carry through on a campaign promise to withdraw Spain's 1,300 troops - the sixth-largest foreign force in Iraq - unless they were put under a United Nations command by the end of June, when some degree of sovereignty is scheduled to be given to the Iraqis.

Then Mr. Zapatero decided not to wait and began a unilateral withdrawal instead.

"We have not deceived anyone," Mr. Zapatero said in explaining the policy shift. "In order to avoid any uncertainty for our troops and our allies, I made the decision quickly."

He reiterated that according to polls, 90 percent of the Spanish people were opposed the war and that it was his duty to respond to the will of the people. Even his daughters, who are 8 and 10, weighed in. "From the day I won the election they were asking me every night, 'Daddy, when are you going to bring the troops home?' " he said.

Those of us old enough to remember the 1980 US presidential campaign will immediately be reminded of Jimmy Carter. In an infamous declaration during one of the debates, Carter was asked to name the biggest problem facing the world. He replied that he asked his teenage daughter Amy the same question, who told him, "nuclear proliferation". Carter likely would have lost the election anyway, but the cheesy invocation of Amy and the idea that her judgment overrode his own capped his reputation as an earnest but dangerously clueless fool. From Sciolino's portrait of Zapatero, he's making that impression right from the beginning of his term in office.

He also manages to be pretty impressed with himself:

Asked about the American presidential election, Mr. Zapatero said that since he took office he promised to say nothing about other countries' elections. But he felt certain that his own victory would have a ripple effect. "It's obvious that the election in Spain necessarily has to have an impact," he said.

Maybe ... but probably not the impact he thinks.

Madonn'! What Would Tony Soprano Say?

Having Irish and Italian descent, I'd like to think that I know a thing or two about whiskey, Guiness, and Italian cuisine. I grew up on my mother's excellent Italian cooking, and my godmother and maternal aunt, who recently passed away, was just as sharp in the kitchen. She made a tossed salad that was a family favorite, using red wine vinegar and regular, heavy olive oil -- straight from Italy, of course!

However, I don't know how she'd react if she read this article, appearing in tomorrow's New York Times, that blows the lid off of olive oil:

To divine the secrets of the famously Italian olive oils that are exported from the famously Italian countryside here, it is instructive to go right to the source. Not endless olive groves lovingly tended as if they were old friends, but more typically, a charmless tanker truck bearing foreign olive oil. ...

Consumers the world over want Italian olive oil because it is supposed to be the finest, redolent of la dolce vita, and so the industry finds a way to give it to them, sort of.

In truth, Italy does not grow enough olives to meet even its own demand, let alone foreigners'. Spain, not Italy, actually has the world's largest olive harvest. As a result, Italy is one of the world's leading importers of olive oil, part consumed, the rest re-exported with newly assumed Italian cachet.

Italy imports its own olive oil? Mama mia! The Spaniards aren't terribly pleased by the deception, either, and Clifford Levy invokes the spectre of Milli Vanilli in reporting the story:

Whether the Italian practice is proper depends on the interpretation of different laws in Italy, the European Union and the United States. As the producers carefully point out, if a Belgian chocolatier uses cocoa from Ivory Coast, does that mean that the chocolate is African?

To which at least some American consumers and the Spanish olive growers say, harrumph.

More than a trace of Mediterranean pride is at stake. The Spanish industry, unable to develop as robust a consumer reputation around "Imported from Spain," has long resented essentially providing the vocals for the Italians' lip-synching.

This practice of importing the oil and repackaging for export has not escaped notice before this, even in the US. Bertolli, whose product I often purchase myself, settled a lawsuit brought in New York for an undisclosed sum and an explanation of the oil's source on the back label of its containers. Berio, Bertolli's competitor whose business provides the main focus of the article, also recently changed its labeling to comply with American and other international requirements.

So how much of Italian olive oil is actually Italian? Not much, even according to Berio executive Alberto Fontana; in some years, it can be less than twenty percent. Fontana argues that the Italianess of the olive oil comes from the skilled refining and blending of the source oils, and not from the areas where the olives were grown or pressed. However, the labels on the products don't discuss the refineries or the blending equipment -- they invoke the images of the Old Country, an agrarian evocation of a simpler, purer life that stands in ironic contrast to the cynical truth.

In fact, every time I see Extra Virgin (which no self-respecting Italian would buy anyway) on a bottle of olive oil in the supermarket, it will remind me of my lost Italian-cuisine innocence. Infamnia!

Cruel Bastards

One of the first qualifications for teaching or coaching children should be that you have a higher level of maturity than those you would lead. Unfortunately, at Pleasantville Middle School in Pleasantville, NJ, no such standards applied at the time these idiots were hired:

The 13-year-old boy's coach called him just before last month's team banquet and told him to make sure he attended because he was getting a special trophy, the boy's father said.

At the event, the boy watched as all of his Pleasantville Middle School teammates received trophies or certificates.

He was then called up to receive his award, and a coach told the crowd that the boy was being honored because "he begged to get in the game, and all he did was whine."

The trophy had a silver figure of a baby atop a pedestal engraved with the boy's name, which was spelled incorrectly. Family members said the teen — an honor roll student — was so embarrassed that he stayed home from school on the following Monday.

Fox News failed to name any of the coaches involved, which is unfortunate indeed, because parents in the ironically-named Pleasantville have the right to know who these cruel and heartless morons are. This was no off-the-cuff remark or a butt-chewing in the heat of competition, which would be understandable, perhaps even motivational, although I would argue that approach with thirteen-year-olds. Buying a "trophy" of a crying baby demonstrates well-planned hostility and contempt, and presenting it without warning in front of an audience of parents and fellow students is nothing less than sadistic.

The school principal stated that he would recommend "some kind of punishment," but if I were a parent at his school, I would attend tonight's school board meeting and insist on termination. People that mean-spirited should not be allowed to work with children in the future. In fact, parents should insist on transfers for their children if they wind up under their supervision. Hopefully, parents who attend this meeting will spread the names of these coaches around the community, and wider, to ensure that they do not have an opportunity to indulge their antisocial behavior in the future.

UPDATE AND BUMP 5/6: According to CNN, the school board voted to terminate the coach, but the superintendant wants them to reconsider:

A middle school basketball coach who presented a "Crybaby Award" trophy to a 13-year-old player has been fired from his coaching job, and the board of education wants him out entirely, officials said Wednesday.

James Guillen, 24, must make a public apology, attend sensitivity training and hold a second banquet to give out a proper award, School Superintendent Edwin Coyle said. But he said he opposed firing him as a teacher.

Perhaps the school board should also consider Coyle's employment status if he thinks that someone like Guillen should be allowed to work with students in the future.

Why Did Bremer Block the IGC's UNSCAM Audit?

Friends of Saddam notes that CPA head Paul Bremer has blocked the Iraqi Governing Council's effort to audit the UN Oil-For-Food program using the accounting firm KPMG. Accountacy Age filed a brief report on Bremer's action but does not note any reason for blocking the audit:

KPMG was commissioned by the Iraqi Governing Council to investigate the scandal-hit fund, but the work was halted after Paul Bremmer, the head of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, said it could not be paid for out of CAP funds without a proper tender process.

A twin-track process emerged as a result. The governing council has confirmed KPMG as the investigator, but the provisional authority still has its tender procedure underway.

In any forensic accounting investigation, elapsed time can permanently cripple any ability to track missing funds or records. To stop KPMG's work because of a bureaucratic detail about payment mechanics suggests that Bremer has other motivations than a complete accounting of OFF funds. Given that the CPA has captured hundreds of millions of dollars in cash left behind by fleeing Ba'athists -- which were used, in some instances, for quick funding for rebuilding that also bypassed normal "tender processes" -- obstinacy takes on the appearance that the money is more important than the investigation. Also, since the US has decided to work more closely with the UN on Iraqi sovereignty, suspicions about cutting deals on OFF investigations for political support in Iraq may arise.

Bremer should be instructed to cooperate with the IGC immediately on their efforts to find the money that was supposed to assist Iraqi citizens and to quit giving the impression that the US wants to stonewall this investigation. A simple guarantee of payment would allow KPMG to begin while the CPA untangles the appropriation procedures. Bremer is scheduled to be replaced by John Negroponte in July, after the transfer of sovereignty, and the Iraqis will likely take this function over themselves -- but two months is plenty of time for the thieves to bury their trail.

A Moment To Acknowledge Our Humanity

Hindrocket at Power Line directs our attention to a story, with accompanying photograph, from the Cincinatti Enquirer about a moment on the campaign trail where we can remember that despite all of the partisan vitriol and rhetoric, we are all Americans. George Bush, making a campaign appearance in Lebanon, OH, shook hands with the crowd who had gathered to enthusiastically greet him. As he did, the following incident briefly made everyone forget about campaigns and speeches:

Lynn Faulkner, his daughter, Ashley, and their neighbor, Linda Prince, eagerly waited to shake the president's hand Tuesday at the Golden Lamb Inn. He worked the line at a steady campaign pace, smiling, nodding and signing autographs until Prince spoke:

"This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11."

Bush stopped and turned back.

"He changed from being the leader of the free world to being a father, a husband and a man," Faulkner said. "He looked right at her and said, 'How are you doing?' He reached out with his hand and pulled her into his chest."

Faulkner snapped one frame with his camera.

"I could hear her say, 'I'm OK,' " he said. "That's more emotion than she has shown in 21/2 years. Then he said, 'I can see you have a father who loves you very much.' "

"And I said, 'I do, Mr. President, but I miss her mother every day.' It was a special moment."

I don't include this story to try to convince readers to vote for George Bush because he took a moment to acknowledge a young girl's grief and loss by reaching out to her; John Kerry will have similar moments on the campaign trail, I am sure. I include it to remind us all that despite all of our policy differences, we are all still human beings ... even the politicians. We do well to remember that in our current political climate.

CWO3 Olin Ashworth, Distinguished Flying Cross Award

From this December 2003 Newsmax article:

Our nation’s highest aviation award is the Distinguished Flying Cross. This past July Chief Warrant Officer 3 Olin R. Ashworth, an Apache helicopter pilot, was awarded the DFC for intrepid conduct during a dramatic hour and twenty minute-long battle between the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment and Iraqi forces on the evening of March 23.

Ashworth led his company of war birds into the target area, coming immediately under an intense barrage of enemy ground-fire.

Most helicopters were damaged by the onslaught and some were forced to limp back to base. Although having sustained hits, Ashworth pressed the attack. When his wingman came under heavy machine gun fire, he swooped down into the fray, knocking out the gun positions that had marked his fellow aviator.

Once finally over the target area, his aircraft took a round in the canopy, which sprayed glass into his co-pilot/gunner’s face, blinding him.

Now flying his battered ship solo, Ashworth’s harrowing flight back to base was again interrupted by the enemy. His wingman again received continuous fire from a heavy caliber machine gun position, as well as a fusillade of rocket-propelled-grenades. With his wingman’s guns jammed and most of his rockets already expended, Ashworth again swept in, knocking out the enemy position with rocket fire.

Later when interviewed by a DoD reporter, the modest Ashworth commented only, “It’s a team, whether you’re out there or not. I could tear it [the DFC] up into pieces and give everybody part of it, because everybody was out there covering me.”

Modesty aside, Ashworth is now the warrior with the highest decoration in his unit.

More tomorrow ...

Smoking Ban for Saint Paul?

The Saint Paul City Council has proposed a ban on smoking in public places, such as bars and restaurants, and it appears to have significant support. Three of seven Council members have committed to "aye" votes, while only one publicly opposes it so far, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports in today's paper:

The measure, unveiled Wednesday, appears to have substantial support in the early going, with three members in favor, one against and three undecided.

But it is uncertain at this point whether Mayor Randy Kelly will support the ban, which would affect about 845 licensed restaurants and 190 on-sale liquor establishments.

The Star-Tribune weighs in with negative reaction from restaurant patrons, who claim that smokers have rights too. The owner of Mickey's Diner, a landmark in Saint Paul, declared that a smoking ban would be an "infringement on my personal freedom," a sentiment shared by his patrons in the article. One of them claimed that "smokers have rights, too."

Of course they do. But smoking in public places simply isn't one of them.

I tend towards libertarianism in politics, allowing the market to work through most domestic problems, because in general the market -- be it the economic market or the political market -- tends to come up with proportionate and effective resolutions. A declaration of a "right", however, distorts the market and places issues beyond market-based resolution. It seems to me that Americans, for all our liberty, have poor education when it comes to the definition of a "right".

Natural rights -- the philosophy that underlies the Constitution -- is based on the notion of private property, leaving aside the religious implications. Each person has freedom to act within the boundaries of respect for others' personal property. What that means is that no one can claim a right to an action that intrudes on another's private property or acts to confiscate it. The right to free speech does not include a right to use my private property, be that my lawn or my printing press, to express your opinion.

Nowhere in the Constitution does it imply that people have a right to behave any way they want on their own property; you can't commit murder, for instance, as it violates the victim's private property (his person), even if he's on yours at the time. Similarly, you can't steal or defraud someone who happens to stand on your driveway or in your house and expect no consequences. Nor, in the common practice of American freedom, are you allowed to do certain things to yourself, such as prostitution or drug use, even if you're on your own property at the time, as those activities have been widely agreed to cause damage to the entire community and the greater majority of the people's private property (taxes, physical property, etc).

In public places, where businesses operate with public licenses to ensure safety, health, and fairness in commerce, the notion of a right to smoke holds even less weight. Smoking is not a passive exercise, nor is it neutral to people around it. The stench of the smoke quickly permeates the clothing of everyone in the vicinity, not to mention the annoyance of the stench itself to the senses. My clothes and my lungs are my personal property, and smoke invades them without my permission. That's why claiming smoking in bars and restaurants as a "right" makes little sense.

In other words, the community has the "right" to set rules and boundaries on behavior, within the constraints of the Constitution, in order to allow for the expressions of freedom as well as for the safety and protection of its citizens. The process of making these decisions is established by democratic processes within each community, giving everyone a right to participate in the process in order to come up with solutions that can receive the broadest possible support. That is, by definition, a marketplace -- the political marketplace of ideas -- which has just as much validity as the economic market.

The City Council is the most local form of government and is most responsive to the desires of its constituents. Why not make the case there? Because more people don't smoke than do, and even some smokers understand that their habit is best pursued in private. Proponents of public smoking face a losing proposition in the political arena, and so therefore try to claim smoking as sacred ground by declaring it a right in order to stifle debate.

Smoking bans have been enacted across the US on state and local levels, and the republic has not collapsed. People still smoke in their cars, at home, and on the street without fear of disappearing into a Gestapo-like black hole of government oppression. If you think a smoking ban is bad policy, organize opposition and convince the City Council to reject it. But don't claim that filling a restaurant with cigarette fumes is somehow a right on par with freedom of speech and religion.

Foreign Endorsements: Not Everyone Roots for Kerry

John Kerry got into hot water for telling a whopper earlier this year about foreign leaders who supposedly told him that he had to win this election so Bush would be out of the picture. Not only did he refuse to name any of these leaders, but he made an ass of himself by shouting down a voter who questioned him at a town-hall style meeting. Kerry continued to insist, when news organizations proved he hadn't had an opportunity to even be in the same city as a foreign leader for over a year, that one could meet up with foreign leaders in restaurants.

Well, now Bush has a public endorsement from a foreign leader, and it comes from a surprising source -- conservative, Islamic Pakistan:

[Pakistani Prime Minister] Zafarullah Khan Jamali's comment was a rare taking-of-sides by a world leader in another country's election, and one that is particularly unusual given the American president's low standing among Muslims angered over the war in Iraq, U.S. support for Israel and allegations that American servicemen abused Iraqi prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. ...

He said the contest between Bush and Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic candidate, is a matter for the American people to decide, and that Pakistani-U.S. relations go beyond personalities.

But he added: "What the results of those elections are we must wait and see, though I would wish President Bush well, definitely."

This provides much more amusement than comfort. It's inappropriate for any foreign leader to endorse presidential candidates, Republican or Democrat, and the fact that Jamali makes these kinds of comments reflects on the lower commitment to democracy currently seen in Pakistan. True democrats respect the process in which the governed -- and only the governed -- make those choices. Besides, if Kerry won the election, a statement like this could cause mistrust and poorer relations between the two nations.

However, I find it telling that a conservative Muslim politician, especially from Pakistan, prefers George Bush over John Kerry, when Kerry has been running on his diplomatic skills and claiming that Bush has done nothing but alienate the rest of the world. It sounds to me that, contrary to leftist opinion here and in Europe, that some Muslim nations may be as sick and tired of terrorists running around Southwest Asia as we are, but without the US engaged in the area can do little about it.

Bullish on Bush, Bearish on Events

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll holds an interesting trend for the presidential race -- half of the electorate are pessimistic about the direction of the country, but don't seem to be blaming Bush, who continues to slowly move farther ahead of John Kerry:

Only a third of American voters believe the nation is in sound shape, but they are largely not blaming President Bush, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday, which showed Bush running slightly ahead of his Democratic opponent for president, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

The poll of 1,012 registered voters, conducted Saturday through Monday, found that 50 percent of Americans believe “that things are off on the wrong track,” compared with only 33 percent who said “things in the nation are generally headed in the right direction.” The rest said that prospects were mixed or that they were not sure.

But if the presidential election were held today, Bush would still edge Kerry by 46 percent to 42 percent, according to the poll, which was conducted for NBC and the Journal by Hart/Teeter Associates of Washington, which reported that the survey had a 3 percentage-point margin of sampling error.

This polling data includes Ralph Nader, who attracted five percent of the vote, will play a spoiler role in swing states where the popular vote will be close. Even after a couple of tough months, though, Bush continues to lead Kerry in the three-way race. Bush's personal positives continue to far outstrip Kerry's however, which will cripple Kerry in the long run unless Bush significantly stumbles between now and the general election:

Even so, Bush continues to hold his slight lead over Kerry in overall presidential preference. More striking, he continues to be far more popularly personally, even as he has been buffeted by criticism of the war and of his administration’s planning for it in a series of new books and in hearings by the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

By a 2½-to-1 ratio, more Americans feel “very positive” about Bush than they do about Kerry — 30 percent, compared with 12 percent. When voters who said they were “somewhat positive” about either candidate were taken into account, Bush approached an outright majority in favorability, at 49 percent to 38 percent.

Of course, all of these polls have the same flaw: they report on national numbers, as opposed to state-by-state polling. We're unlikely to see that type of expensive polling until after the conventions, but consider that 2000 demonstrated that it's possible to lose the popular vote but still win the Electoral College. At RealClearPolitics, you can track what limited state polling exists, including a page on those states RCP considers likely battleground states where shifts from the 2000 election will be critical. While Kerry has crept into a tie in Arkansas (6 electors) and pushed past Bush in neighboring New Hampshire (4) by four points, he's let Florida (27) slip slightly back to Bush. Bush, on the other hand, has a double-digit lead in Wisconsin (10), which he lost in 2000, balancing the two states Kerry may be picking up. In addition, Bush has tied Kerry in Pennsylvania (21) -- some polls put him ahead -- and edges Kerry in New Mexico (5).

If the election was held today, therefore Bush picks up 15 EC votes for sure and loses 10, which means he extends his lead in the electoral college. Forget the national polls; this is where your concentration should focus. The candidate who builds momentum in these states wins the game.

Rumsfeld Fails the First Commandment of the Subordinate

According to a report on CNN posted less than an hour ago, George Bush has expressed his severe displeasure to Donald Rumsfeld for not informing him of the nature and scope of abuse allegations prior to the President learning of both from media reports:

President Bush told Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday that he was "not satisfied" at the way he received information about charges that Iraqi prisoners had been abused by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison, a senior administration official told CNN.

At a private Oval Office meeting, Bush complained about learning of the existence of photographs showing Iraqi prisoners being humiliated and degraded from media accounts, the official said. "He was not happy, and he let Secretary Rumsfeld know about it," the official said.

Bush also voiced concern that he was not kept up to speed on important information about the scope of the problem -- and how the Pentagon was handling it, the official said.

In business as well as in government, the first commandment of the subordinate is always, "Thou Shalt Not Allow Thy Boss To Be Surprised." Rumsfeld's responsibility necessarily includes knowing everything that's happening under his command, especially those issues which could result in embarassment for the US during an incredibly sensitive mission such as Iraq. In fact, preventing embarassing incidents should also be a high priority for Rumsfeld during the war on terror, which is as much a war of ideals as it is a war of bullets and intrigue. It's hardly overstating the damage these abuses have done to state that it may wind up being the Islamofascists' greatest victory so far.

When bad news comes, senior leadership must be prepared to deal with it expeditiously in order to contain the damage to the greatest extent possible. Finding out about failures from outside of the organization robs the executive of the ability to do that, regardless of the executive and the organization involved. From the point of view of the executive, hearing your subordinate say that he didn't know of it doesn't absolve the subordinate -- in fact, it makes it worse. It's the subordinate's job to know.

Once, towards the beginning of my current career, my organization fouled up when servicing the company's CEO (a Fortune 500 company) at his house. Nothing embarasses a business unit more than when it completely breaks down in providing service to any customer, but when that customer is your ultimate boss, well ... I'm sure you get the picture. Unfortunately for me, I did not inform my district manager of the problem expeditiously, and so when he received the phone call from the CEO, he at first thought that he was about to be congratulated on the outstanding quarter he had just completed.

Needless to say, the following two or three days were somewhat less than pleasant for your captain.

In fact, keelhauling appeared to be an open option, but after stammering through several tense phone calls with the DM, he explained to me the first commandment of the subordinate, and I've remembered it ever since. I also kept my job, as a failure to promptly communicate an error or a fiasco is not the same thing as committing the fiasco itself. I took responsibility for the incident, determined its cause, and set things right promptly.

Calls for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation by Senator Joseph Biden only satisfy a partisan urge during an election year. If Rumsfeld had encouraged or allowed, actively or passively, abuse of Iraqi prisoners, then a resignation would be appropriate. No one has proposed that to be the case. Biden lacks the seriousness to understand that we are in the middle of a war and resignations of senior military leadership damage, at least temporarily, the ability wage war effectively -- which means the minimization of American and civilian casualties and the most rapid realization of our objectives. Changing senior leadership now and then potentially six months from now would mean an ongoing distraction for several months, possibly up to a year. Would Biden be as sanguine about shuffling personnel if a major al-Qaeda attack or series of attacks occurred against our forces in Afghanistan or Iraq during that period? I rather think not.

Bush gave an excellent response to Al-Arabiya TV news this afternoon, and got his message across to Rumsfeld. Let him put the directives into action and monitor his progress to verify his ability to keep the commandment in the future.

Major Mark E. Mitchell - Heroism in Afghanistan

From this December 2003 Newsmax article:

Right behind the Medal of Honor in order of valor is the Distinguished Service Cross. A Special Forces leader holds the distinction of being awarded the first DSC since Vietnam.

Maj. Mark E. Mitchell, a Special Forces officer, was awarded the coveted and revered DSC for leading a team of 16 American and British soldiers into combat operations against about 500 Taliban and al Qaeda-trained fighters who had taken over a fortress near Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, where they had been imprisoned.

Major Mitchell’s citation states, “His unparalleled courage under fire, decisive leadership and personal sacrifice were directly responsible for the success of the rescue operation and were further instrumental in ensuring the city of Mazar-e-Sharif did not fall back in the hands of the Taliban.”

The Distinguished Service Cross was presented to Mitchell by Gen. Bryan “Doug” Brown, commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, in a ceremony at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.

Like his Army comrades, above, the Major displayed the unerring modesty of the true hero:

“It is a tremendous honor,” Mitchell said. “But I don’t consider myself a hero. I am not personally convinced that my actions warranted more than a pat on the back. Wearing the Special Forces foreign-service combat patch on my shoulder and serving with the finest soldiers in the world is enough. I was just doing my job and our mission was accomplished.”

More tomorrow ...

Why Not Just Have Nader Endorse Kerry?

Bruce Ackerman, opining in today's New York Times editorial section, attempts to chide Ralph Nader into making his presidential campaign completely pointless. Okay, well, making it more pointless:

With Ralph Nader bobbing along at 2 percent to 7 percent in the polls, now is the time to consider whether our system is flexible enough to avoid another election in which a candidate loses the popular vote but wins the presidency. The answer is yes — if Mr. Nader chooses to cooperate.

In November, Americans won't be casting their ballots directly for George Bush, John Kerry or Ralph Nader. From a constitutional point of view, they will be voting for competing slates of electors nominated in each state by the contenders. Legally speaking, the decisions made by these 538 members of the Electoral College determine the next president.

In the case of Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, electors will be named by each state's political parties. But Ralph Nader is running as an independent. When he petitions to get on the ballot in each state, he must name his own slate of electors. While he is free to nominate a distinctive slate of names, he can also propose the very same names that appear on the Kerry slate.

If he does, he will provide voters with a new degree of freedom. On Election Day, they will see a line on the ballot designating Ralph Nader's electors. But if voters choose the Nader line, they won't be wasting their ballot on a candidate with little chance of winning. Since Mr. Nader's slate would be the same as Mr. Kerry's, his voters would be providing additional support for the electors selected by the Democrats. If the Nader-Kerry total is a majority in any state, the victorious electors would be free to vote for Mr. Kerry.

With all due respect to the Yale poli-sci professor, it also renders Nader's run pointless. What Ackerman suggests reduces Nader to another campaign shill for Kerry on the stump, and actually worse than that, postures him as a false alternate choice for those who remain dissatisfied with either Bush or Kerry as candidates. Under Ackerman's scenario, the electors wouldn't be "free" to vote for Kerry if they win the majority of votes -- they'd be required to do so.

In fact, if Ackerman thinks otherwise, let's posit this scenario: Kerry and Nader nominate the same slate of electors, and the combination of the popular vote elects their combined slate. Let's say that Kerry gets 45% of the popular vote in this state, and Nader 6%. Does Ackerman truly think that the electors are "free", at that point, to vote for Nader at the electoral college? Is that the result he endorses -- where the electors decide on their own which of their sponsors they'll support regardless of the popular vote?

What could that lead to? Even if Kerry/Nader electors vote in proportion to the percentage of popular votes received, 6% of electoral votes could be decisive. It would have subtracted 16 votes from Bush in 2000 in a similar scenario on the right, making Gore the winner. It could lead to having a situation where not only does Kerry win a plurality of the popular vote but also nominally wins a majority of Electoral College votes -- but enough of them decide to support Nader (being that they are also Nader electors) that Bush wins the election in the Electoral College despite not having a majority in either popular votes or electors. This nonsense from Ackerman could make the 2000 election look like a garden party.

Ackerman, in his zeal to protect Kerry on the left, proposes a Rube Goldberg solution to what we don't usually consider a problem: free choice. Nader is not Kerry's political or philosophical twin, and distinguishes himself by running a much more consistent far-left campaign than Kerry has in either direction. Kerry has to convince voters that either Nader can't get elected and therefore that he will represent their interests better than Nader. If Nader supporters disagree, Kerry won't get their vote.

Mr. Ackerman, that's how democracy works; it worked that way in 1980 when John Anderson ran independently, and in 1992 when Ross Perot did the same with much more impact than Nader has achieved thus far in his two campaigns. Your suggestion smacks of desperation and little thought to the potential consequences, a disappointing effort for a man with your resume.

Disney to Moore: Drop Dead

Michael Moore and Disney subsidiary Miramax found out that the Mouse meant what it said when it earlier told Miramax that it would not allow any Disney companies to distribute Moore's new film, Fahrenheit 911:

Disney executives indicated that they would not budge from their position forbidding Miramax to be the distributor of the film in North America. Overseas rights have been sold to a number of companies, executives said.

"We advised both the agent and Miramax in May of 2003 that the film would not be distributed by Miramax," said Zenia Mucha, a company spokeswoman, referring to Mr. Moore's agent. "That decision stands."

Typically for Moore's team, his agent tried to blame the Bush administrations (George and Jeb) for Disney's decision, claiming that Disney chief Michael Eisner told him that the distribution deal would endanger tax breaks at the federal and state (Florida) level:

"Michael Eisner asked me not to sell this movie to Harvey Weinstein; that doesn't mean I listened to him," [Ari] Emanuel said. "He definitely indicated there were tax incentives he was getting for the Disney corporation and that's why he didn't want me to sell it to Miramax. He didn't want a Disney company involved."

Just the measured commentary we've come to expect from the group that regularly puts fiction into its "documentaries". The Disney explanation makes more sense:

A senior Disney executive elaborated that the company had the right to quash Miramax's distribution of films if it deemed their distribution to be against the interests of the company. The executive said Mr. Moore's film is deemed to be against Disney's interests not because of the company's business dealings with the government but because Disney caters to families of all political stripes and believes Mr. Moore's film, which does not have a release date, could alienate many.

"It's not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle," this executive said.

What's at stake is Harvey Weinstein's cut of the box office and his standing with the Democratic party, as Rutenberg alludes. Moore can now negotiate any distribution deal he likes, but Weinstein had set up a sweetheart deal that allowed he and Moore to lock up the North American profits between themselves, some of which would certainly find its way to party coffers.

This could have been avoided, of course, had Weinstein, Moore, and Emmanuel listened to Disney a year ago when they told them clearly that Disney would never distribute the film. Instead, they calculated that Disney would back down to avoid any negative publicity involved in rejecting Moore's work and allegations of political bias. However, it demonstrates the compartmentalization in which the Hollywood left lives if they thought that Disney's refusal to participate in Moore's work would somehow be more controversial than the opposite. Portraying the Disney corporation as a right-wing tool, given their support of many left-wing causes, will only underscore the radical nature of Hollywood and Moore's supporters.

Powell: I'm No Casualty

Colin Powell, appearing on Larry King last night and reported on CNN this morning, rejected the notion that his tenure as Secretary of State has made him a "casualty of war" and that he enjoys his job despite some difficult days:

In an interview with CNN's Larry King, Powell disputed the popular caricature of him as a frustrated and sidelined figure soldiering along in an administration where he's not appreciated.

"I enjoy serving my country. I enjoy this job," Powell said. "But are there difficult days, are there tough times? Sure. These are tough issues. They're tough issues to get your mind around ... There are debates. Sometimes you win debates, sometimes you lose debates."

"That's not the point. In this job ... the issue is not to win or lose a particular debate. The issue is to make sure that the president gets the very best information he can get, honestly, in order to make decisions for the American people."

His response counters an upcoming article in GQ, presumably stuck between the hair gel ads and a review of Tommy Hilfiger underwear, that accuses the administration of turning Powell into a depressed and increasingly irrelevant scold due to the war in Iraq. This article, linked by Drudge, interviews a number of people on the record, including the Secretary of State himself. However, the interviews and their presentation are so histrionic that they defy belief, and it becomes quickly apparent that Wil S. Hylton's pulp-fiction style intends on delivering a message whether he hears it or not.

For instance, Powell's interview is held off until almost the end of the article, prior to which Hylton treats us to an amateurish buildup of his own opinions of Powell and other members of the administration. In fact, in a 6500-word article on a top-notch interview, it takes Hylton 3500 words of his own editorializing to get to any substantive portion of the actual Powell interview. After this lengthy and tiresome prologue, Hylton then spends just 1200 words on his primary subject, and makes an interesting admission in the last paragraph of that section:

Soon Powell was offering advice on how to attack the flank in battle, providing a glimpse of the exclusive club made up of the world's foreign ministers, and all the while brushing aside my questions, such as when I asked about whether he wanted to quit the administration and he snapped, "I never speculate on that," careening into a five-minute dissertation on China. When it was finally over, he stood up to say good-bye, flashed me a sly smile, and said, "You didn't get as much substance as you might have wanted."

In fact, the only time the subject of Powell's supposed dissatisfaction with the job comes up is in that paragraph. Hylton only detailed reporting of Powell for quotation is in reference to an obscure incident in Spanish-Moroccan diplomacy over disputed possession of an island off the coast of North Africa. This anecdote takes up two-thirds of Hylton's report on his interview with the main subject of his piece.

Unfortunately, other administration officials aren't so fortunate. Hylton writes about Condoleezza Rice, for instance, with such venom that it utterly reveals his biases:

I got a small but precious glimpse of the show when, shortly after I interviewed Colin Powell, I met with Condoleezza Rice in her office at the White House, a bright and white and airy room that looked like a wedding cake turned inside out, where Rice sat prim and pretty beneath an Impressionist painting in a black business suit and bright red lipstick, smiling politely as she lied through her teeth about the war between the State Department and the Pentagon, as though no such conflict could possibly exist, not in her immaculate White House, and the century-long battle between the two agencies had, in fact, come to a screeching halt on January 20, 2001, when she and the Texan came to town. ...

"There isn't some kind of little DOD [Department of Defense] cabal out there," she snapped, "saying things to Taiwan that the rest of the government isn't saying." ...

And yet even after I had read Wilkerson's quote aloud to Rice, she refused to budge from her script. "As a government," she said weakly, "we use all of the elements together in order to effect policy. They're working always in concert."

Even from a strict writing perspective, "she said weakly" is poor structure; using adverbs in that manner gets beaten out of you in first-year Composition or Creative Writing in college, and is usually only seen in Harry Potter novels. Here, of course, it's used to indicate that Hylton broke her down during his interview with her. More examples:

When asked about Powell's relationship with Vice President Cheney— Woodward's book described the two as barely on speaking terms; Rice then claimed that they are "more than on speaking terms: They're friendly...very friendly"— [Powell "mentor" Harlan] Ullman said, "I can tell you firsthand that there is a tremendous barrier between Cheney and Powell, and there has been for a long time. It's like McCain saying that his relations with the president are 'congenial,' meaning McCain doesn't tell the president to go fuck himself every time." Then he added, "Condi's a jerk." ...

When pressed, Rice acknowledged that it might have been possible for U.N. ambassador John Negroponte to have made the speech, but insisted, "There's really nobody else that can do it." When I pressed a little further, asking, "So there was never a discussion?" she spat out, "No. Everybody said it would have to be Colin," adding a moment later, "We wanted to have enough of a profile. It was an important presentation. Extremely important presentation. So we wanted to have enough profile."

Hylton gets even more hysterical when he recounts his interview with Richard Armitage, putting in enough exclamation points that his article comes dangerously close to resembling a National Enquirer story on Bennifer rather than a supposedly serious piece on Colin Powell and the politics of foreign policy:

"Four days!" Armitage practically shouted when I mentioned Powell's visit to the CIA. "Four days! And three nights! The secretary is a man of honor! He values being credible. To be credible, you have to be able to stand behind what you say. That's why he fieldstripped it. Just like, you ever heard of fieldstripping cigarettes back in Nam?" He was referring to the process of tearing up smoked cigarettes so they will decompose quickly and leave no trace for the enemy. "That means tear it up and shake the tobacco that's left to the wind," Armitage said. "He fieldstripped it."

"On the last day and night [at the CIA], the secretary called me, and he said, 'I need a little extra reinforcement.' So I went out there and spent Sunday and Sunday night with him. He needed someone. He was the voice throwing everything out, and he wanted another loud voice at the table."

The amateurish writing, the 3500-word editorial prologue, the lack of substance in Hylton's interview with his subject, and the obvious contempt in which he holds everyone but Powell and Powell's staffers should have indicated to GQ that Hylton's effort should have been shelved, and Hylton himself sent back to the men's-cologne beat, where he could feel free to indulge his penchant for editorializing in the midst of his reporting and use as many exclamation points and adverbs as his heart desires. I suspect GQ hoped to put a designer tuxedo in the window with this article, and wound up with nothing more than an off-the-rack knockoff of a mediocre Joshua Micah Marshall blog entry.

Caption Contest #8 Winners!

What's that -- up in the sky? It's a bird! It's a plane! It's an SOB! No -- it's the Captain's Caption Contest winners! Pat Curley, our guest judge from the Kerry Haters Blog, has selected the winning entries for this week's contest. Just to give you a heads-up, here's the picture again:

Without further ado, here are the winners...

Captain's Award (Outreach Award) -- Mike:

"Don't Jump", shouted the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee to the latest person to undergo vetting for the VP position on his ticket.

You Have The Conn #1 (Cy Young Award) - Guy-N-Texas:

And after I tossed my medals, er ribbons over the fence the wind caught 'em and they fell back down in my office.

You Have The Conn #2 (Penthouse Forum Award) - Jim S.:

I don't usually respond to spam, but let me tell ya, this stuff really worked!

You Have The Conn #3 (Sing Along With Sonovabitch) - Steadward:

In a more serious moment in the campaign, John Kerry describes his career in the Senate:
"You put your first vote in, you pull your first vote out, you put your next vote in and you nuance all about.
"You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn your stance around, that's what it's all about. Hey!"

Report To Sick Bay (On The Double) - Scott Jones:

As the Pope-mobile whizzes by, presumptive NARAL ally John Kerry uses a fishing analogy to demonstrate for His Holiness the upper size at which it's still OK for an embryo to be "thrown back."

I'd like to thank Pat Curley, a long-time CQ reader, for guest-judging this week's contest, and don't forget to drop by his blog. Comments on this post will remain open, as usual, in order for the winners to gloat, the others to disparage Pat's intellect and my parentage, and for any other entries submitted just for the sheer enjoyment of amazing your friends and confounding your enemies.

I already have the picture picked out for Friday's contest, and I'm hoping to have the judge announced in conjunction with an announcement of other changes at CQ. Be sure to get your keyboards ready for the next contest!

SFC Paul Smith -- The First Medal of Honor Nominee in War on Terror

Big thanks to Captain Roger Crossland, who alerted me to this Newsmax article I missed in December, when it first ran. The first soldier nominated for a Medal of Honor for combat in the war on terror, Sergeant First Class Paul Smith gave his life on the battlefield in Iraq, at the airport in Baghdad, while fighting to save the lives of the men he led.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, SFC Smith was a platoon sergeant/acting platoon leader in Bravo Company, which was in contact with Saddam’s forces nearly every day.

The drive on Baghdad from the south eventually carried the task force containing Smith’s parent 11th Engineers into Saddam International Airport. By the morning of April 4, the aggressive U.S. force was well inside the airport complex, and a containment pen had to be quickly constructed to secure the enemy prisoners.

There was a tall wall paralleling the north side of the highway servicing the airport -- on the battalion’s flank just behind the front lines. Smith decided to punch a hole in it, so that the inside walls would form two sides of a triangular enclosure, and the open third side could be closed off with rolls of concertina wire.

At Smith’s direction, an armored combat earthmover crashed through the wall and, while wire was being laid across the corner, one of his squad’s two armored vehicles moved toward a gate on the far side of the adjacent courtyard.

When the driver pushed open the courtyard gate to open a field of fire, he immediately observed up to 100 enemy soldiers massed to attack. The only way out was the hole the engineers had put in the highway wall and the gate that faced the enemy, who began to open up on the U.S. troops with heavy fire --

Enemy soldiers stationed in trees and atop a nearby terrain-commanding tower fired a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades into the U.S ranks. An enemy mortar round hit the engineers’ lead armored vehicle, seriously wounding three soldiers inside.

Dodging fire, Smith helped evacuate them to an aid station, which was also coming under attack. The consummate professional, Smith promptly organized the engineers’ defenses, noting that all that stood between the attacking enemy and the task force’s vulnerable headquarters were about 15 to 20 troops.

A second armored vehicle was hit by an RPG, but was not completely knocked out of action. Simultaneously, enemy soldiers began charging from the courtyard gate or scaling a section of the wall, jumping into the courtyard, which had become a deadly trap.

Smith took personal command of the smoking and damaged second armored personnel carrier, maneuvering the big vehicle into a position where he could bring its heavy .50-caliber machinegun fire to bear on the determined enemy.

Another remarkable soldier on the field that day, First Sergeant Tim Campbell, realized that they had to knock out the Iraqi position in the enemy-held tower. After consulting with Smith, Campbell led two soldiers to take the tower. Armed only with a light machinegun, a rifle and a pistol with one magazine, the small force advanced behind the smoke of the tall grass that had caught fire from exploding ammunition.

Constantly exposed to heavy enemy fire, Smith resolutely stood by his machine gun, yelling for more ammunition three times during the fight. The warrior blasted through 400 rounds before he was struck down and mortally wounded by the withering small arms fire.

According to the citation, his sustained fire killed 20 to 50 Iraqis, allowing American wounded to be evacuated, saving the aid station -- as well as the task force headquarters.

Later, back in the U.S., the senior U.S. commander on the ground in Iraq, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, noted Smith’s actions in an emotional speech. Wallace described how Smith told his men, “Every time you hear the .50 caliber go silent, hand me up a can of ammo.”

"The gun went silent three times," recalled Wallace. The fourth time, there was no call for more ammo. Smith had died in the service of his country, personally credited with saving the lives of so many of his comrades.

A much-decorated veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Smith was a 33-year-old from Tampa, Florida. He left behind a wife, a son and a daughter.

You can find out more about SFC Paul Smith, his life, his family, and their status at this excellent site run by the St. Petersburg Times, "The Last Full Measure of Devotion". It will take a number of reviews, up to a dozen, before a decision is made on a final recommendation to Congress to award the Medal of Honor. However the government chooses to honor him, we should all know SFC Paul Smith's story and recognize the tremendous courage and sacrifice he made to make us more safe and secure.

UPDATE: My colleague Mitch notes that SFC Smith would be the first American nominated for the MoH in the current war, and provides a link in the comments to a fascinating story of the British Special Forces soldier who got the first MoH.

Liberal Network, Take 2

Al Gore finally closed the deal on the launch of his long-desired television network. Gore led a group of investors in the purchase of Newsworld International, a cable/satellite television channel which broadcasts 24-hour news programming from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. While Gore often spoke of creating a liberal television network to counter what he claimed was the right-wing bias in the American broadcast networks, he now says that the programming will remain neutral:

"This is not going to be a liberal network, or a Democratic network in any way, shape, or form," the former vice president said.

Rather, he said, the reason for buying the network was to create an independent source of information.

If that sounds like a distinction without a difference, the list of Gore's investors will only reinforce that opinion:

Gore made the announcement with business partner Joel Hyatt, who founded a chain of low-cost storefront legal clinics and is now a faculty member at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Hyatt, who will serve as CEO of the venture, said the network operates profitably, but would need significant additional investment to be relaunched.

Backers of the company, known as INdTV Holdings LLC, include venture capital firm Blum Capital and Yucaipa Companies, an investor in grocery stores headed by Democratic fundraiser Ron Burkle.

Other individual backers are a list of prominent Hollywood and Silicon Valley figures, including Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, former Warner Home Video president Warren Lieberfarb and The West Wing actor Bradley Whitford.

Yes, that certainly looks like a balanced, non-partisan ownership group. Not that they're required to be, of course -- but having Al Gore claim that this group would put all that money ($70 million was the asking price, according to the NY Daily News six months ago) into this kind of venture while claiming to be apolitical stretches credulity to the breaking point. According to a New York Observer article republished on Independent Media TV, the tortured path to moguldom for the former VP involved some interesting characters:

Mr. Gore’s group plans to transform the sleepy foreign-news outlet into a youth-oriented public-affairs channel, a jump-cut news network for the iPod set. Despite vociferous claims that the network isn’t attempting to be the liberal antidote to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, it’s difficult to ignore the obvious: It may be fair, it may be balanced, but it’s going to be owned by Al Gore...

It wasn’t easy for Mr. Gore to get his hands on NWI. According to two sources familiar with the situation, Mr. Gore went so far as to seek the influence of French President Jacques Chirac in buying the channel, hoping that Mr. Chirac would aid him in landing a sweetened deal with Vivendi chief executive Jean-René Fourtou—and quick. That request resulted in a meeting last summer with executives of Universal Television Group and Vivendi’s chief operating officer, Jean-Bernard Levy. At the time, however, Vivendi was preparing to sell its cable properties to NBC, which temporarily stalled Mr. Gore’s media ambitions.

The deal was delayed for nearly a year, most recently by Barry Diller, chairman and chief executive of InterActive Corp. As the former owner of USA Networks, which he sold to Vivendi for $10 billion in 2001, Mr. Diller still owned a stake in those properties. Sources said Vivendi was keen on selling NWI to Mr. Gore, but Mr. Diller needed to resolve his ownership in Universal properties first. One source with knowledge of the situation suggested that Mr. Diller had stalled the deal as a bargaining chip to improve his take on Vivendi’s sale of Universal to NBC. But a spokeswoman for Mr. Diller disputed that. "It was only Mr. Gore who asked us to reconsider, given how long the process was taking," she said, "to which we did agree to let this asset escape from our J.V. [joint venture], for no consideration of any kind or as part of any discussion with Vivendi."

In any case, the path was cleared for Mr. Gore’s group to close the deal. It’s not clear where Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt rounded up the money, or how they will cover the gargantuan programming costs to come. But as you may recall, Mr. Gore’s first gig after the election of 2000 was becoming vice chairman of Metropolitan West Financial Inc., headquartered in Los Angeles, which hired him to explore high-tech investments. With the assistance of Peter Knight, his former Democratic fund-raiser and a managing director at Metropolitan West, Mr. Gore had access to scores of investors, according to sources close to him.

Gorevision plans on using documentaries, comedy, and other formats to provide "bold" and "irreverent" viewpoints to public affairs and entertainment, targeting the 18-34 age group so desired by advertisers. In order to produce entertainment that will steal that group from the sports and news shows they now favor, it will take a serious cash infusion above what they've already spent on ownership of the channel. Given the above information, I doubt they're going to generate the investment needed nor spend the money required to avoid communicating any partisan slant.

Captain's Caption Contest #8!

After a tough week on the campaign trail, one has to think that John Kerry might be a bit despondent. However, showing that Boston Brahmin/Botox optimism, Kerry keeps a happy face on and insists things are looking up:

Yes indeed, it is that day of the week, Friday, when Captain's Quarters soars above the crowd to bring you the Captain's Caption Contest! This week we all point to Pat Curley at the Kerry Haters blog as the guest judge. (Er, from the title, can you guess what Pat thinks of our subject matter?)

Please enter your captions into the comments section (no e-mails, please) and don't be afraid to send up a few trial balloons! Comments will remain open until Tuesday, May 4th at 6 PM CT, when Pat will select the winners. Have fun and keep checking back!

BUMP 5/1: Happy May Day! Keep 'em coming ...

BUMP 5/2: Great entries -- you're making Pat's job too tough! ...

BUMP 5/3: 24 hours left! ...

COMMENTS CLOSED 5/4: It's all up to Pat now! Thanks for the great entries! I'll announce winners later tonight or tomorrow morning ...

Recognizing Heroism In Battle: A Continuing Series

As I posted earlier with Captain Roger Crossland's excellent essay on the nature of heroism, we make a severe mistake when we only honor victimization in the war on terror. One particular criticism that can be made of the current administration is the lack of communication regarding the heroic efforts of our men and women under combat conditions, not through their death or wounding but through their extraordinary actions under fire to win the war -- which should be the point of their being under fire in the first place.

Today I received an e-mail from Peyton Randolph, a regular reader and an officer in the inactive Reserve who currently works with the Army as a contractor, stateside. Peyton sent me an e-mail that the Army released earlier which demonstrates the quick action and bravery that American armed forces demonstrate under fire. Perhaps by reading about their courage, we can brace ourselves as well for the effort needed to win the war against Islamofascist terror. I am starting a new category, Heroes, on Captain's Quarters for stories such as these.

Sir,

...I met yesterday outside Najaf with a 1LT from the Iron Dukes of 2-37 Armor who as tank company XO was leading a convoy of two platoons of tanks on HETs [heavy equipment transporters - Ed] from Al Kut in the east to Najaf in the west, a distance of about 175KM. As they passed through the town of Diwaniyah, they were ambushed by a group of insurgents--undoubtedly former regime soldiers with some military training--with RPGs, heavy machine guns, and AK-47s. The Task Force Scouts had passed through only 30 minutes earlier without contact, so this was a well planned ambush of probably 50 or so organized in two and three man teams.

The convoy suffered three soldiers KIA in the initial moments of the ambush--one Iron Duke, one 2ACR cavalry trooper, and one transportation officer. The convoy immediately returned fire. They had several HUMMWVs in escort, and the tanks on the back of the HETs were manned with loaders and TCs on crew served weapons. Within minutes of the ambush, one of the HETs was disabled, and the Lieutenant realized he would have to stand and fight to ensure he had everyone. The Iron Dukes "broke chains" as they described it, by essentially driving off the back of the HETs under fire to engage the enemy. In the course of the next hour, they fought their way out of Diwaniyah employing every weapon available to them including main gun. They got everyone and everything out with the exception of one HET. Enemy BDA was 30 killed and an unknown number wounded.

A day after this fight, I received an email from CPT Thomas Moore, of the 1175th Transportation, who was the convoy commander. He wrote: "were it not for the courage and actions under fire of the 2ACR and 2-37 soldiers that day, he is certain all his men would have been killed." He asked me if he and his soldiers engaged in that fight with us could wear the 1AD combat patch. I told him I'd be honored.

There are many such stories of courage under fire and just as many stories of incredible compassion to the innocent...

Continuing mission, sir.
V/R Marty

To recap: an American convoy was ambushed by well-trained Saddam remnants near Diwaniyah while transporting tanks and weaponry through the area. While being ambushed, the unit managed to unload the tanks from the transports under fire and not only return fire, but essentially wipe out their ambushers, at a loss ratio to the remnants of 10-1, almost unbelievable for an ambush action. By standing and slugging it out, the unit not only survived but delivered a terrible defeat to the enemy.

As the author of this e-mail notes, this is one aspect of what we do in Iraq to win the war. For another strategy involving the military, see this post, and for a longer and more detailed view from a contractor (a friend of mine), see this post.

Addendum: Peyton disagrees with me about the "repositioning" of Marines around Fallujah and expects a sudden change to occur soon:

The Marines haven't gone anywhere - they've pulled back and redeployed from a few secured areas, replaced by the "Falujah Security Brigade." Given the American and international press' inclination to report bad news, the Marines have just let them call it as they see it. I see it as the greatest deception plan ever. No disinformation necessary, just let the press spin things as they will. I expect the Marines to open a huge can of whoop-ass on the whole northern part of the city, and it could happen at any time. Night time is most likely, in my opinion. Place your bets and whack the refresh button on Fox News.

I hope you're right, Peyton -- I'd be glad to buy Mitch Berg a beer if so.

NYT Book Review Lauds Anti-American Rip-off

I don't mean to write a book review here, never having read Globalia by French author Jean-Christophe Rufin, but based on the New York Times review, I don't plan on adding it to my summer reading list, either. Alan Riding gives plenty of column space to what appears to be nothing more than a bad derivative of Brave New World, 1984, and Logan's Run, with a heavy dose of French anti-Americanism tossed in for seasoning:

In the novel Globalia, which embraces much of North America and Europe and parts of Asia, is the political unit that dominates the globe, aspiring to be a perfect world in which organ replacement ensures extraordinary longevity, private companies flourish and social welfare is guaranteed, political and ethnic conflicts have disappeared thanks to the abolition of history. Its motto is "Liberty, Security, Prosperity."

Globalia's cities and territories are enclosed by bulletproof glass walls and roofs that protect the inhabitants from the impoverished masses who live in "nonzones." These outsiders play the critical role of posing the threat that preserves Globalia's cohesion. Blamed for terrorist actions even when Globalia's agents plant the bombs, they provide the fear that persuades Globalians to accept constraints on their freedom and knowledge. ...

He added that other aspects of Globalia were inspired by the United States, like fear of growing old, unrelenting advertising, the hidden power of giant corporations and permanent apprehension about terrorism. Even Globalia's denial of history, he said, has echoes of the founding fathers' idea of "breaking with the old world, with its legacy of the past, and building a society on moral rather than historical foundations."

What a shock -- a French author who thinks that the US is dangerous! Unfortunately, the good doctor (Rufin is a physician) misses the mark. For instance, where he got the idea that we have a "permanent apprehension about terrorism" escapes me, especially since we've spent most of the last thirty years ignoring it. He also asserts that the current fear of terrorism is mostly overblown, conveniently ignoring the deep hole on the southern end of Manhattan and the 3,000 people that were murdered less than three years ago. For an author, he seems somewhat uninformed:

Yet the absence of history, he said, tends to promote conformity. "It is a kind of tyranny of the majority that imposes itself," he added, "and fear is one of the few ways of justifying this. In the cold war there was a real risk of mutual destruction. Today I believe the depiction of the threat far surpasses the risk. There is a sort of mise-en-scène of the threat which illustrates how, without an enemy, democracy creates one. It cannot function without one."

The last sentiment is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Tyrranies can't function without enemies, external if possible but internal if necessary, in order to justify the totalitarian approach to governing. Democracies go too far the other direction; they shade their eyes against rising threats, preferring to believe that everyone wants to get along, just as they do at home. To have a Frenchman making this argument shows how disconnected from history Rufin really is. After all, the last time France held world-power status, it refused to act on the growing Nazi menace on its own eastern border until it was far too late, and then capitulated rather than fight. Nor are we blameless in this impulse. We have sat around playing deaf and dumb for over twenty-five years while Islamofascists have declared war on us, until 9/11 forced us to acknowledge that people really want to see us dead -- a fact that some among us still refuse to see.

Meanwhile, the New York Times' Book section has no problem celebrating an author who tells us that democracy is totalitarianism while selling a book that warns against double-speak. I don't know why this surprises me, but it still does.

John Kerry Courts The Jewish Vote

Sometimes it's hard not to feel sorry for John Kerry as he stumbles his way through the early part of the campaign, but he has only himself to blame. In the same day, he managed to put his foot squarely in his mouth in comments aimed at garnering the Jewish vote. As Hugh Hewitt and my colleague Big Trunk at Power Line point out, Kerry made this incredible gaffe regarding their religion:

For all of its history, ADL has been self-asked to live up to one of the oldest most fundamental principles of civilization. It is actually one of the Commandments as we know: "Love your neighbor."

No, it's one of the commandments as we Christians know, because it came from the lips of Jesus himself. For Jewish activists at the Anti-Defamation League, this must have been a rather jarring note. Jews have a well-founded fear of cultural domination by Christians which only recently, and only in the US, has begun to recede as they are accepted as full members of society and free to worship as they choose. To have a Catholic politician give them religious lessons, and faulty ones at that, must have caused them no end of amusement as well as questions about Kerry's judgement.

Perhaps this is what Kerry meant by "personal diplomacy" to solve the Middle East question; he'll just describe everyone as Christians, and they'll believe it. Why didn't we think of that before?

UPDATE: Linda from Auterrific returns to tell me I'm wrong, in the comments in this post. Welcome back, Linda, and congrats on the new blog space. Linda, being Jewish, is a better authority on this than I am. However, the context of what was said -- not so much the Golden Rule but the phrasing, "Love your neighbor" -- seems to be more of a reference to the New Testament than the old. I deride, you decide. Fair enough?

Canelos to Kerry: Exploit Vietnam Vets Now, Not Later

Peter S. Canelos must have missed reading the news yesterday, which can be the only explanation for his column in the Boston Globe this morning. Canelos wonders what happened to John Kerry's "band of brothers," a tiresome phrase that has gone from Shakespearean to sappy in the space of a few months. The BoB haven't made an appearance since Kerry clinched the nomination, and Canelos exhorts Kerry to bring them back now:

The mute testimony of the veterans ennobled Kerry, shining more light on his character than the loyal gazes of Nancy Reagan or Laura Bush could ever confer on their men. Kerry seemed to grow more formidable, and his sudden surge to the nomination coincided with the veterans' arrival at his side.

Now, Kerry mostly campaigns alone, with aides, local politicians, and a cranky, sleep-deprived press corps as his entourage. His much-decorated service in the Vietnam War has become a dry fact on his rsum, something to be parsed and debated. The mystical bond with others who've seen combat is no longer palpable. It's vanished into the political haze.

The Band of Brothers aren't gone for good, of course. Expect to see them at the Democratic convention and, for sure, in the last few weeks of the campaign. In all of his toughest campaigns -- 1984, 1996, and this year's primaries -- Kerry has brought the veterans in for a closing rush, like the New York Yankees turning the ball over to Mariano Rivera. And late surges pushed Kerry over the top in all those races.

But this time, he needs their help sooner _ a fact at least partly reflected in his campaign's decision, announced yesterday, to run new ads stressing Kerry's life story, and drawing in part on the accounts of his crewmates.

Canelos somehow missed the story yesterday where not just a mere band of Kerry's brothers in arms, but an entire fleet of them have "banded" together to declare Kerry unfit for the presidency. What's particularly striking about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is the composition of the group -- 19 of 23 officers with whom Kerry served, and every commanding officer under which he served, are signatories to their declaration, which will be released today at a press conference:

Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander-in-chief." They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday.

"What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com . The event, which is expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Canelos fails to mention this in his strategic advice for the Kerry campaign, making one wonder whether he simply missed this story or whether he ignored it. Either way, his description of veteran appearances at Kerry rallies, including the tiresome Max Cleland and the lie about besmirching his patriotism that every left-leaning columnist must regurgitate, should resonate in stories about the SBVT press conference today:

At each campaign stop, they were joined by other Vietnam veterans, including hundreds from Massachusetts, their faces etched with wisdom culled from battlefield horrors and the special pain of having suffered in a war that divided the country.

As John O'Neill and his band of brothers intend on reminding people today, John Kerry personally caused a great deal of that "special pain" himself by launching his political career on their reputations. John Kerry's testimony encapsulates the type of activity that divided the nation, not so much about the politics of the war, but about the easy, breezy way the radical left painted the servicemen as evil war criminals and the US government as war profiteers. In fact, you can hear strong echoes in war protests today, from the incessant allegations from Kerry himself in lies about Dick Cheney's alleged war profiteering to Ted Rall's despicable cartoons calling the late Pat Tillman a sap, a dupe, and implying that he also was a war criminal.

Peter Canelos invokes the pain while never acknowledging the agent of that pain, and encourages John Kerry to exploit the Vietnam veterans that he once broadly slandered as murderers, rapists, and drug addicts, all in order to win the presidency for the Democrats. In the same breath, Canelos ignores those veterans who refuse to stand by while the man who unfairly fouled their reputations for a generation attempts to use them once again as a stepping-stone for his political career. Canelos' cynicism and hypocrisy unfortunately only find their match in the Kerry presidential campaign.

Addendum: John O'Neill writes his own column in today's OpinionJournal.com.

A Marine's Plea

Hugh Hewitt posted this at his site, and I think it's required reading for anyone who thinks that the overwrought oracles of doom about Iraq that dominate the mainstream news media have no effect on the troops they claim to support. Pass this around, and make sure people understand it. Yes, it's just one Marine's opinion, but he's the one that's out there on the line. We shouldn't let him down.

Hello Everyone,
I am taking time to ask you all for your help.

First off, I'd like to say that this is not a political message. I'm not concerned about domestic politics right now. We have much bigger things to deal with, and we need your help.

It seems that despite the tremendous and heroic efforts of the men and women serving here in Iraq to bring much needed peace and stability to this region, we are losing the war of perception with the media and American people. Our enemy has learned that the key to defeating the mighty American military is by swaying public opinion at home and abroad. We are a people that cherish the democratic system of government and therefore hold the will of the people in the highest regard. We love to criticize ourselves almost to an endless degree, because we care what others think. Our enemies see this as a weakness and are trying to exploit it.

When we ask ourselves questions like, "Why do they hate us?" or "What did we do wrong?" we are playing into our enemies' hands. Our natural tendency to question ourselves is being used against us to undermine our effort to do good in the world. How far would we have gotten if after the surprise attacks on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor, we would have asked, "Why do the Japanese hate us so much?" or "How can we change ourselves so that they won't do that again?" Here in Iraq the enemy is trying very hard to portray our efforts as failing and fruitless. They kill innocents and desecrate their bodies in hopes that the people back home will lose the will to fight for liberty. They are betting on our perceived weakness as a thoughtful, considerate people. Unfortunately our media only serves to further their cause.

In an industry that feeds on ratings and bad news, a failure in Iraq would be a goldmine. When our so-called "trusted" American media takes a quote from an Iraqi doctor as the gospel truth over that of the men and women that are daily fighting to protect the right to freedom of press, you know something is wrong. That doctor claimed that out of 600 Iraqis, that were casualties of the fighting, the vast majority of them were women, children and the elderly. This is totally absurd. In the history of man, no one has spent more time and effort, often to the detriment of our own mission, to be more discriminate in our targeting of the enemy than the American military. The Marines and Soldiers serving in Iraq have gone through extensive training in order to limit the amount of innocent casualties and collateral damage.

Yet, despite all of this, our media consistently sides with those who openly lie and directly challenge the honor of our brave heroes fighting for liberty and peace. What we have to remember is that peace is not defined as an absence of war. It is the presence of liberty, stability, and prosperity. In the face of the horrendous tyranny of the former Iraqi regime, the only way true peace was able to come to this region was through force. That is what the American Revolution was all about. Have we forgotten? Freedom is not free and "peace" without principle is not peace. The peace that so-called "peace advocates" support can only be brought to Iraq through the military. And we are doing it, if only the world will let us! If the American people believe we are failing, even if we are not, then we will ultimately fail.

That is why I am asking for your support. Become a voice of truth in your community. Wherever you are fight the lies of the enemy. Don't buy into the pessimism and apathy that says, "It's hopeless," "They hate us too much," "That part of the world is just too messed up," "It's our fault anyway," "We're to blame," and so forth. Whether you're in middle school, working at a 9-5 job, retired, or a stay-at-home mom you can make a huge difference! There is nothing more powerful than the truth. So, when you watch the news and see doomsday predictions and spiteful opinions on our efforts over here, you can refute them by knowing that we are doing a tremendous amount of good. Spread the word. No one is poised to make such an amazing contribution to the everyday lives of Iraqis and the rest of the Arab world than the American Armed Forces. By making this a place where liberty can finally grow, we are making the whole world safer. Your efforts at home are directly tied to our success. You are the soldiers at home fighting the war of perception. So I'm asking you as a fellow fighting man: Do your duty. Stop the attempts of the enemy wherever you are. You are a mighty force for good, because truth is on your side. Together we will win this fight and ensure a better world for the future.

God Bless and Semper Fidelis,
1st Lt. Robert L. Nofsinger USMC
Ramadi, Iraq

Kerrey's Lame Excuse

Bob Kerrey ignited a firestorm of controversy when he walked out of the 9/11 Commission's meeting with President Bush in order to speak with Senator Pete Domenici. Now he tells National Review Online that he regrets leaving and considers it a mistake:

Kerrey had scheduled a meeting at noon Thursday with New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, a member of the Appropriations Committee, at Domenici's office in the Hart Senate Office Building (the two were to discuss an issue related to the New School, of which Kerrey is president). To make the meeting, Kerry left the White House at about 11:40 A.M., missing the last hour of the commission's questioning of Bush and Cheney.

But when Kerrey arrived at the Hart Building, he was told that Domenici was busy on the Senate floor, voting on a series of amendments. Noon came and went. Instead of meeting in the office, Kerrey went to an area just off the Senate floor, where, at about 12:30 P.M., he was finally able to have a quick word with Domenici.

In the end, Kerrey says, he would have done things differently. "If I had known that there were votes in the Senate at the time, and Sen. Domenici was not in his office, and I would not be able to see him until later, and I would only get 30 seconds or a minute with him, then yes, I would have stayed at the White House," Kerrey told NRO.

So, the meeting with George Bush that the 9/11 Commission had publicly griped to get for months, with no time restrictions, on the supposed administration failures that caused the deaths of 3,000 Americans, still wouldn't have been as important as meeting with Senator Domenici about the New School -- a meeting that could have taken place at any time? That Senator and Commissioner Kerrey may consider the fact that Domenici could only give him a few minutes to be the determining factor that made his early exit a mistake only emphasizes what a waste of time the 9/11 Commission has become. The Bush 'conversation' appears to be all about publicity and not about any substantive purpose. If it had any such purpose, then how could Kerrey render any sort of informed judgement on his own without hearing Bush out?

If Bob Kerrey still cannot explain why Domenici's input on the New School had more importance than the long-sought-after 9/11 Commission meeting with the President, then I take back what I said earlier: he's the perfect VP candidate for John Kerry. He makes Kerry look positively Churchillian in comparison.

Bad-Blood Brothers

John Kerry may take more pounding on what supposedly is the strength of his presidential-candidate resumé -- his service in Vietnam. CNS News reports that a band of Kerry's brothers in the service, which includes all of his former commanding officers and most of his colleagues during his in-country service in Vietnam, have formed a group which plans on declaring that Kerry is unfit for office:

Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander-in-chief." They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday.

"What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com . The event, which is expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said.

Kerry had appeared extensively throughout the early Democratic primaries with a small group of fellow vets which he called his "band of brothers," but Kerry obviously has family he's not introduced. John O'Neill, who relieved Kerry in Vietnam, leads the SBVT and is no stranger to Kerry. O'Neill once squared off against Kerry in a debate televised by Dick Cavett on his talk show in 1971. Since that time, O'Neill left the debate behind until Kerry won the nomination for President. Now a successful attorney, he has launched himself back into the politics of today -- and really, the politics of three decades past.

"We are going to be presenting a letter that deals with Kerry's unfitness to be commander and chief that has been signed by hundreds of swift boat sailors, including most of those who served with Kerry," O'Neill explained.

"The ranks of the people signing [the letter] range from admiral down to seaman, and they run across the entire spectrum of politics, specialties, and political feelings about the Vietnam War," he added.

The CNS report proceeds to name some of the signatories, such as Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman, who had been in charge of the swift boat units, and Kerry's former CO, Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard, who had already questioned Kerry's first Purple Heart.

If the group tries to take on the minutiae of Kerry's medals, they will get shot down in short order. Regardless of Kerry's fitness to serve as President, he earned those medals according to the judgment at the time, and that judgment should not be called into question now. None of these signatories should have much to say about Kerry's in-country service anyway, and it's best left as it stands now: he served his country honorably under fire. Any attempt to minimize that only reflects poorly on his critics. I say that as a civilian who believes that service of any kind, if viewed as honorable at the time, should remain honored afterwards. I certainly wouldn't want anyone disparaging my father's service (Army, Korea, 52-53) or my late father-in-law's service (Marine pilot, Pacific 44-45, Korea 51-53) in that manner.

However, this band of irate brothers stands on solid ground when basing attacks on Kerry's character on his activities after returning to the US. Kerry may well have had sincere misgivings about the war in Vietnam on his return home; many veterans did, for many different reasons. What they didn't do in most cases was to appear on camera a multitude of times and claim their "band of brothers" to be war criminals fighting a criminal war of annihilation, while their colleagues were still under fire from the enemy. Most did not accuse them of being murderers, rapists, and pillagers in rhetoric which caused an entire nation to revulse at their return instead of rejoice. And even amongst those who did so, some at least have acknowledged their egregious error in doing so. Kerry won't even admit to it, claiming that he called them war criminals only to indict the American government who sent them there.

These men have a legitimate reason to oppose Kerry and to organize against his election. Hopefully, they will retain their focus on that reason and not let themselves get distracted by silly questions about the extent of some injuries, which only open themselves to charges of irrelevance.

UPDATE: Jon Henke at QandO notes:

You know, I did a lot of things in my mid-20s that probably would not reflect well on me. I would sincerely hope that my "fitness for office" would not be judged by what I did when I was much younger. I'd imagine the image of that long-haired bachelor would not mesh well with an honorific like "The Honorable...."

While there is certainly room for argument over whether Kerry slandered all US soldiers, or just repeated tales of the sort of incidents that did occur in Vietnam - and there's also room for discussion on the merits of one or two of John Kerry's Purple Hearts, I don't think one can judge whether a candidate for President in 2004 is "unfit for office" based on mistakes he may - or may not - have made when in 1970-71.

I respectfully disagree, though, on both counts. First, any debate on the first Purple Heart was made irrelevant by the second and third PHs. Kerry was wounded twice under fire at the least, and any minimization of that is irrelevant and petty, and more to the point, political Kryptonite. In regards to Kerry's politics in 1971, they formed the basis of his entire political career, and also Kerry has repeatedly campaigned on his Vietnam experience as his main qualification for the presidency. If he does that, then his immediate post-Vietnam political experience cannot be considered a "youthful indiscretion" but a critical component of what he claims as his credentials. George Bush did not campaign on his fighter-pilot experience in the National Guard. That's the difference.

By the way. QandO has added Dale Franks to its roster and implemented a mild face-lift. Now more than ever, this is a daily must-read blog.

Brownstein Clueless on VP Candidates -- Or Kerry Is

The LA Times' Ron Brownstein, who normally has good connections to the Democrats, comes up with two laughable candidates for the VP slot: Bob Kerrey and Wesley Clark. Not that these two wouldn't have their supporters -- but based on recent experience, they would only add to John Kerry's liabilities instead of balancing the ticket. Brownstein sees it differently:

Conspicuously missing from that list are candidates who could reinforce Kerry's national security credentials.

But two might deserve more attention than they have received. Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, who won a Medal of Honor in Vietnam, was an early hawk on Al Qaeda and Hussein and has reemerged through the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks as a powerful voice for a comprehensive assault on terrorism.

Even more intriguing is a name that has attracted even less attention: former NATO Supreme Commander and 2004 Democratic presidential contender Wesley K. Clark. The irony is that Clark probably would be generating more buzz as a potential vice president if he hadn't sought his party's nomination. The consensus in Democratic circles is that the retired Army general dimmed his prospects through an uneven performance on the campaign trail.

Brownstein bases his recommendation for Clark on his defense of Kerry on the medals flap last week, which amounted to "if you didn't serve, you can't criticize," which is just flat-out wrong. So far, Kerry's entire message has been "Vote for me, I got medals for my Vietnam service," which convinced Democrats that he could stand up to Bush on the war. Unfortunately, when he did stand up, all he's proposed to change is the man in the Oval Office. If he wants to keep putting his Vietnam Service as his chief qualification for the Presidency, then he'd better quit griping when his opponents mention that those medals still remain in his office despite his showy act of throwing them over the White House fence in 1971.

Besides, Clark's performance wasn't merely "uneven", it bordered on the unbalanced. Expect any Clark VP bid to be met with Clark's views on abortion, which he insisted should be legal until the moment of birth, an extremist viewpoint from which he incoherently backed away a few days later. Clark will also need to answer for his own policy flip-flops, which threatened to overtake Kerry's reversals earlier in the campaign, on his support for Bush as late as spring 2003 in editorial columns. Not a good choice at all.

As for the other Kerrey, the former Senator has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts with the 9/11 Commission, but with the grandstanding of the public hearings, that may not play as well as hoped on the general-election stage. First off, Kerrey has tried to make an argument for pre-emptive action in Afghanistan pre-9/11, which makes hay of any argument that war in Iraq was ill-advised. (Which threat needed to be taken more seriously in January 2001 -- the one that pinned down tens of thousands of American military personnel, where missiles were fired at American patrols, or the one that had shelter from an extremist Islamic government in a remote region, surrounded by nations hostile to the US? Tough call to differentiate.) His fumbling of Condoleezza Rice's name, over and over again, does not lend a sense of intellectual skill to Kerrey; how hard is it to distinguish between an old white guy and a younger black woman, anyway?

Brownstein also makes the mistake of thinking that a focus on economy helps Kerry, a mistake the Democrats will recognize as the economy grows stronger and more jobs continue to appear, but that's another post for another day. Either Brownstein has lost the story line at the Kerry campaign by focusing on these two poor choices, or the Kerry VP selection committee has really had the wheels come off. I suspect we'll be seeing either Bill Richardson or John Edwards at the bottom of the ticket in July.

UPDATE: Okay, McQ, you're on ... He puts it so well, and so succinctly, at QandO:

Clark is a loose cannon in political terms. He doesn't have the temperment nor the experience to weather a campaign well ... especially as the second fiddle.

With the Kerry campaign already adrift, Clark would be the spark in the powder magazine to sink it completely (and you may quote me on that Capn' Ed.)

Done!

LA Times: Kerry Losing Ground With Latinos

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Kerry campaign has stumbled significantly in its strategy towards the Latino community in four key states, allowing the Bush campaign to get far ahead of them. In Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Florida, the Bush campaign has already built networks of precinct staffs and regional management to court Latino voters, while Kerry has none in any of these states:

In each of the ... battleground states where the Latino vote is pivotal — Arizona, [New Mexico], Nevada and Florida — the same is true: Bush has staff and headquarters; Kerry does not. Bush also has run television ads in Spanish in each of those states; Kerry has not.

Kerry's slow start in appealing to Latinos has complicated his quest to keep Bush from making inroads with a voting bloc that's expected to play a key role this year in determining who wins the White House, according to Democratic strategists and Latino backers of Kerry.

"It's like being in a foot race, and the other guy gets a 20-yard head start," said Armando Gutierrez, an Albuquerque consultant who produced ads in Spanish for the Al Gore and Bill Clinton presidential campaigns.

The LA Times takes care to get quotes from several Latino volunteers in Kerry's campaign, but the lack of Latino leadership in Kerry's inner circle gives pause to their community and underscores the notion that Kerry doesn't take them seriously. They're not keeping quiet about it, either:

For all the activities of the outside groups, Latino leaders warned that Kerry should not depend on those groups to shore up his campaign.

Raul Yzaguirre, president of National Council of La Raza, one of the country's biggest Latino groups, also expressed concern that there were no Latinos in Kerry's inner circle of advisors.

"It not only bothers me, I think it's not smart," Yzaguirre said. "It's not intelligent politics."

He said Kerry had done "little to nothing" to court Latinos since defeating his Democratic primary rivals. Clinton and Gore, he said, "showed more sensitivity at this stage than Sen. Kerry has so far."

Bush has zero chance at winning La Raza's endorsement, of course, but La Raza represents more of the leftist part of the Latino community, the less-fanatical MEChA people who may not support El Plan de Aztlan and the conversion of the American southwest to Mexico. When La Raza comes out and speaks poorly of Democratic efforts, it signals a big potential problem for them in the general election. If mainstream but leftist groups like La Raza aren't enthusiastically engaged in the process, the message will get out, and there will be a lot of people staying home or voting for someone else in November. The problem for the Democrats is the former option, as stay-at-homes affect the entire ballot and not just the presidential race.

Kerry's campaigning liabilities continue to come to the fore as this campaign rolls along, and so far the Democrats seem a bit nonplussed that he's emerged as the nominee. Normally the party would take charge of a debacle like this, but with Terry McAuliffe running things at the DNC, they may have trouble deciding which debacle needs more attention. If the elections turns out to be a close one, the Democrats will regret the time they lost in these states and the head start they gave the Bush campaign.

Pakistan: Let's All Just Get Along

The BBC reports that the American military commander in Afghanistan is worried that the Pakistanis have gone somewhat wobbly in the war on terror, especially against al-Qaeda. The Pakistanis appear reluctant to actually capture "militants", as the BBC calls them, instead asking for pledges to renounce terrorism:

The commander of US forces in Afghanistan has expressed concern at Pakistan's strategy against foreign al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters. Lieutenant-General David Barno said Pakistan must eliminate a "significant number" of militants along the border.

"There are foreign fighters in those tribal areas who will have to be killed or captured," he said.

Pakistan says foreign fighters can stay in the region if they renounce terrorism and live peacefully. ... On Friday, Pakistan extended a deadline for foreign militants to give themselves up to authorities after no one surrendered.

Even apart from the war on terror, when a sovereign state tolerates the existence of foreigners on its soil that intend to fight against secular governments -- which is what Pakistan is in the eyes of the fanatics -- it indicates perhaps a fatal weakness, a corrosion in the state itself. To tolerate such a thing is to invite more foreigners to join them. At its base, it is a craven attempt to pander to those who would commit violence in an effort to direct their violence elsewhere. In fact, it comes close to the description of a nation which harbors terrorists, which we warned against following 9/11 and the launching of the war on Islamofascist terrorism.

Unfortunately, Pakistan is no Afghanistan; it's a certified nuclear power, which would make direct military action by the US in Pakistani territory extremely dangerous for the entire region. Moreover, Musharraf has risked his life in aligning with the US, even if he may wind up an unreliable partner. Any opposition towards Musharraf at this point would only signal undecided states that we won't maintain support for allies in this war, making converts in the war (Libya) less likely.

We need to stress to Musharraf that this policy of amnesty for foreign fighters only means that more of them will flock to the mountains of northwest Pakistan to train and plot -- and that their next assassination attempt may be more successful for it. Perhaps that will outweigh his reluctance to clean out the tribal areas of Waziristan.

For A Guy Who Doesn't Fall Down ...

... John Kerry spends a lot of time suddenly appearing in the horizontal. This time, the SOB appears to be sand:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry took a spill from his bicycle after hitting a patch of sand during a ride Sunday afternoon, but he was uninjured, campaign officials said.

Kerry was riding south on a two-lane road at about 1:00 p.m. in the direction of Walden Pond State Reservation in Concord, a quiet, suburban town about 18 miles northwest of Boston.

He was approaching a stop light at the intersection with Route 2 and was slowing down when he veered left into the oncoming lane and fell, according to an Associated Press reporter who witnessed him fall. Secret Service agents and local police immediately stopped traffic while Kerry and a handful of bicycling companions moved to the shoulder.

The Secret Service detail apparently stayed off the bicycles, which meant that Kerry couldn't blame them for falling off of his customized bicycle -- which Tim Blair notes has to run somewhere in the $5K range. The Boston Herald, in a prescient moment, ran an analysis on this very subject on Friday:

How much would you pay for a bicycle? Is seven grand too much?

Not as much as John Kerry [related, bio], I daresay, now that we know, thanks to a front-page story about his butler in The New York Times, that he owns a Serotta bike. The Serotta, see, is custom-made, with the ``holistic (whole-cyclist) approach to bicycle fitting.''

Translation: It's very expensive. How expensive, you ask. Serotta's ``price points'' are between $1,800 and $5,000 - just for the frame, mind you, if you want extras, like gears and titanium spokes, tack on another $2,000 - which raises the question: what do you suppose Kerry's point is?

Consider that Kerry's second wife owns a Gulfstream V jet, the Flying Squirrel, worth $35 million, and also bought him a personal powerboat, the Scaramouche, worth at least $800,000. So do you think Liveshot's wife's first husband's trust fund bought a bike on the low end, or the high end?

I'll go out on a limb and say Liveshot's bike is worth five large. And that it actually belongs, not to the solon himself, but to his ``family.''

The man of the people, indeed. Next time, maybe the Secret Service should insist on training wheels, custom-made, of course. (via Just About Everybody In The Damn Blogosphere While I Was Watching The Sopranos)

Sharon Plan Defeated By Own Party

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon may face the end of his career now that his high-stakes gamble on withdrawal from Gaza has apparently backfired:

TV polls indicated Sunday that the ruling Likud Party overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's proposal to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four small West Bank settlements. ... The telephone polls, conducted by Israel's three main TV stations, gave opponents a large lead of between 12 and 24 percentage points.

A survey by Channel 2 had the smallest lead for opponents, with 56 percent against the plan and 44 percent in favor. On Channel 10, the poll indicated 58 had voted against and 42 percent in favor. The greatest gap was given by Channel 1, with 62 percent against and 38 percent in favor.

In a stunning defeat, Sharon could not even secure a bare majority of his own party for his policy of disengagement in Gaza, putting into question his ability to lead the government. Sharon himself said as much earlier this week when he told Likud members that they could not both support him and vote against the proposed disengagement plan. Referendums have a nasty habit of blowing up in one's face, a subject on which his British counterpart, Tony Blair, has acquired recent experience as well.

Sharon's plan likely faced defeat anyway, but the killing of a pregnant settler in Gaza and four of her children earlier in the day settled the issue for Likud members:

Also Sunday, gunmen killed a pregnant Jewish settler and four of her children in Gaza, and Israel responded with a missile attack on a Hamas radio station. The woman was apparently on her way into Israel to help campaign against the Gaza withdrawal plan.

All this leaves open the question of what the next steps will be. If Israelis insist on remaining in Gaza, at least until final negotiations, then they will need to identify honest negotiation partners as soon as possible. Otherwise, Likud just voted to continue the violence indefinitely without any strategy to bring it to a close.

Another Rubberdove Bites The Dust

I'm not even going to comment on this, as Michele Catalano does far too good a job on it. However, the gist of this is that a leftie anti-war blogger has apparently lied for years about his military experience. He did it to argue his props for his anti-war position. He did it to ridicule those who opposed him. He did it to gain notoriety, coming in the form of mainstream media interviews and the like.

And once found out, blamed everyone else for not figuring it out earlier.

I've decided that this species of human effluvia needs a name: rubberdove sounds about right. What do you think? (via Instapundit)

UPDATE: Greyhawk has a great and (especially under the circumstances) reasoned post about Micah Wright at the always-terrific Mudville Gazette. More also at Jim Treacher's blog. Kurt Vonnegut, who has to be one of the most overrated authors of the twentieth century, reveals his amorality in his response to the revelation that Wright lied about his background:

"The romance of his military background rang a bell with me and made me like him a lot," Vonnegut told us Friday. "You almost want to say, 'So what else is new?' Human beings are terrible liars. I still like what he did. He's a liar, but I still like his pictures."

Vonnegut wrote the introduction to Wright's book of re-worked war propaganda posters. I guess it's all OK as long as you're a lefty, eh, Kurt?

Kofi Annan Fumbles on OFF on Meet the Press

Kofi Annan appeared today on Meet the Press and wilted under Tim Russert's questioning on the Oil-For-Food program. The transcript tells the story:

MR. RUSSERT: Someone also very close to you has alleged involvement in this scandal. This is how The San Diego Union Tribune wrote about it. "What particularly troubles are revelations that several hundred individuals, political entities and companies from more than 45 countries profited from doing illicit business with Saddam, accepting his oil contracts and paying the murderous dictator secret kick-backs. That included, according to Iraqi Oil Minister records, U.N. Assistant Secretary General Benon Sevan, executive director of the oil-for-food program, who received a vouch for 11.5 million barrels of oil through the program, enough to turn a profit as much as $3.5 million."

Now, Mr. Sevan has denied that allegation.

SEC'Y-GEN. ANNAN: Yes, sir.

MR. RUSSERT: But NBC News has obtained this letter that was sent on his stationery on April 14. This is just two weeks ago. "I refer to your e-mail ... regarding a request by `a Governmental Authority' for reports ... relating to the Oil-for-Food Programme. ... While we understand Saybolt's"--that's a company--"desire to be cooperative with bodies looking into the Programme ... we would ask that Saybolt address any further requests for documentation or information concerning these matters to us ..."

So Mr. Sevan, who's being investigated, is telling a company that's also being investigated, "Don't cooperate with government authorities unless you clear it with me." Why is he still involved in the investigation?

SEC'Y-GEN. ANNAN: Right. No, I wasn't aware of this confess for--Benon has worked with the U.N. for several decades, and I will be surprised if he's guilty of these accusations.

I suspect that what escapes Annan's awareness about UNSCAM could fill volumes. Annan's lack of awareness of Sevan's correspondence -- which should have been available to Annan, had he bothered to check -- has not kept Annan from loudly announcing Sevan's innocence of corruption allegations and labeling them as politically motivated. Russert also managed to note Annan's lack of awareness on the OFF office failing to turn over crucial contracts and other documentatiuon to the CPA, as ordered by the UNSC:

MR. RUSSERT: The U.S. Government Accounting Office, the GAO, testified before Congress on Wednesday and said this: that "U.N. Resolution 1483 requested the Secretary General...to transfer to the"--"[Coalition Provisional Authority]"--in Iraq--"all relevant documentation."

And that only 20 percent of the contracts had been transferred to them. Why?

SEC'Y-GEN. ANNAN: First of all, let me say that the GAO, in preparation of this report, had very solid support from the United Nations. We cooperated with them very effectively. I do not know what percentage of documentation we gave them, but we've been quite open with our documentation. In fact, after the war, since the ministries were destroyed, we sent copies of all these documents to the Iraqi Governing Council. And so I cannot get--I don't have the details of what the GAO is talking about. But we are open. We are transparent. Of course, as of now, all these documents are transferred to the group headed by Mr. Volker. And therefore we--to protect the integrity of it and any request for future documentation will have to go to him for them to decide whether they release it or not or it will impede their own investigation.

So on one hand, Annan says the OFF office gave the CPA all relevant documentation, while almost in the same breath he says that they gave it to the IGC -- and then says he's giving it to Paul Volcker's investigation ... all the while admitting that he doesn't know what "percentage" of documentation was actually transmitted.

John Kerry wants to entrust American security to the organization that Annan leads, while Annan continually demonstrates the UN's lack of fitness to even run its humanitarian programs. Kerry better hope that Annan stays off the television for the next six months and that Volcker takes a very long time in investigating UNSCAM, because a few more appearances like this will convince Americans to not only discount UN assistance in Iraq but to question our continued membership in the organization itself. Even if it isn't corrupt from head to toe, as UNSCAM revelations make more and more evident, it clearly lacks any sort of managerial competency.

Harvard Academic Work Not Difficult Enough

Apparently, the scholastic work at Harvard must be a breeze these days, as the student body and the administration has plenty of time to wrangle with issues such as these during the run-up to finals:

Harvard’s lack of gender non-specific bathrooms has caused transgender and gender-variant students to alter eating and drinking habits and suffer severe cases of dehydration, according to a report released yesterday by the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA). ...

Members of BGLTSA issued four major requests in connection with the study: the neutralization of all gender-specific, single occupancy bathrooms; proper labeling and designation of all bathrooms; inclusion of at least one acceptable gender non-specific bathroom in any future buildings; and immunity from disciplinary action for using a bathroom that a student deems appropriate for his or her gender.

Twenty years ago, this article would have appeared in the Lampoon instead of the Crimson, but now the critical gender-neutral bathroom issue takes up the efforts of not just the reporter, Evan M. Vittor, but also the editor of the Crimson, Stephanie M. Skier, who also co-chairs the BGLTSA. How difficult is it to find a bathroom at Harvard, for crying out loud? And how many "transgendered" students are there? I think I speak for all reasonable people when I say that I don't really care who walks into a men's room or how they're dressed, especially if they use a stall.

If this is the biggest issue that faces students at Harvard, then I regret not submitting an application in 1980 when I had a chance. I was under the mistaken impression that the academic programs there were so stringent that it took a large amount of effort to succeed. Now I find out that the primary concern is finding a place to relieve oneself. (via Memeorandum)

Telegraph: The Nazi Eisenhower Assassination Plot

Today's London Telegraph relates one of the untold stories of World War II, nearly sixty years after it happened. The few survivors of uber-commando leader Otto Skorzeny's final secret mission have decided to tell the story of how they were recruited to impersonate American soldiers, go deep behind enemy lines, and capture or assassinate the Supreme Head of the Allied Expeditionary Force -- Gen. Dwight Eisenhower:

They were the decisive days of the Second World War and the Nazis faced defeat. Allied troops were on French soil and Hitler, desperate to prevent an invasion of Germany, hatched a final extraordinary plan: infiltrate the US army and take Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, dead or alive. The German leader entrusted Operation Greif to the Austrian SS Obersturmbahnfuhrer Otto Skorzeny, who had rescued Mussolini from imprisonment by the Italian government in 1943, flying him off a mountaintop in a tiny aircraft.

Skorzeny assembled a "crack unit" which would pose as GIs to launch their attack on Eisenhower at Fontainebleu, the Allied headquarters near Paris.

Yet, as one of the mission's survivors has now revealed, Operation Greif rapidly descended into farce. Of the 600 men who were to masquerade as Americans, only 10 could speak fluent English. Scores were caught by the Americans, exposed as Germans, and shot.

For amateur historians of WWII such as myself, this intriguing story fits right into the pattern of Nazi delusional patterns that came to the surface during the latter half of 1944, after the successful invasion of Fortress Europe by Eisenhower and the Allies. By the time this operation went into effect (October 1944), the Germans had been pushed back almost all the way out of France and the Low Countries and faced the prospect of fighting on German soil for the first time since Napoleonic times. (Germany collapsed in WWI before any ground fighting occurred there.) Operation Greif was launched in tandem with the preparations for the secret Winter Offensive, which was to culminate in the Battle of the Bulge, an equally audacious but unavoidably suicidal strategic mistake of catastrophic proportions.

The Greif commandos were trained on American speech, American military dress and drill, and even American smoking habits. However, as the few survivors of Greif now admit, their training was hopelessly inadequate and their fallback strategies laughable:

According to Fritz Christ, then a 21-year-old Luftwaffe lance-corporal, many of his comrades were hopelessly ill-equipped.

"Those with no English were instructed to exclaim, 'Sorry', if they were approached by Americans, and then to open their trousers and hurry off feigning an attack of diarrhoea," he told The Sunday Telegraph last week.

Mr Christ was transformed into "Lieutenant Charles Smith" from Detroit. The troops were trained to salute, shoot and even smoke like GIs, but there were fatal gaps in their coaching.

Many turned up at US army supply depots and asked for "petrol" instead of "gas". They mistakenly rode four to a Jeep instead of two, as was standard US army practice.

As Germans out of uniform and mostly wearing American ones, they were quickly apprehended and summarily shot as spies. Christ, fortunately and ironically, survived because he managed to convince his own Luftwaffe that he was American:

L/Cpl Christ survived only because he was attacked by his own side. His lorry, marked with white US army stars, was strafed by Luftwaffe fighter planes shortly after it set out from Belgium towards American army lines on December 16, 1944.

"I jumped off the lorry and hid in a ditch before the vehicle exploded in a ball of fire," Mr Christ said. "Nobody had told the Luftwaffe what was going on."

Those familiar with Third Reich history would know why the Luftwaffe had been left out of the planning, even if you discount the need for secrecy. By October 1944, Luftwaffe Air Marshal Hermann Goering had collapsed into a hedonistic, disinterested, and defeated drug addict, more interested in his stolen art, jewelry, and various playthings stolen from all over Europe rather than face the systematic destruction of his storied air force.

Hitler himself, having barely avoided assassination himself less than three months earlier, had allowed his megalomania to overwhelm him, believing that he alone could command the armies of Germany to victory over both the Eastern and Western fronts. In fact, Hitler implemented his Western winter offensive by stripping the Eastern front of its reinforcements and reserve units, and thought that by giving the Allies a bloody nose on the frontiers of Germany, he could force them to a negotiated peace -- and then ally with them to push the Russians back into Russia.

Small wonder that such thinking generated the "strategy" of capturing Eisenhower as a means to halt the Allied advance. Unlike the hidebound Nazi command structure, Eisenhower's loss would simply have meant another American general would have taken his place -- probably Walter Bedell Smith or Omar Bradley -- and strategy recalculated for the possibility of Eisenhower's knowledge falling prey to Gestapo interrogation techniques. Eisenhower, while brilliant, was not the only key to victory, which he himself would acknowledge freely.

In fact, one of the great questions of the fall and winter of 1944 is why Eisenhower held up his lightning offensive and switched to defense, making the Allies much more susceptible to the Nazi Winter Offensive than they otherwise might have been. Had the Nazis been successful in their ludicrous mission, they may have wound up hastening the Nazi collapse by another four months. But in the fantasy world of Nazi leadership in 1944, the notion of pulling 600 men off the already too-thin battle lines to participate in a playground-mentality mission must have made more sense than reaching political solutions, as German generals had been urging since July of that year.

Read the whole article, and if you haven't yet read the lengthy but fascinating account of Nazi Germany, William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, be sure to do so soon.

Kerry Hypocrisy Writ Petty

The Boston Globe has an unintentionally hilarious piece on John Kerry this morning, which covers his efforts to wring as much political juice as he can by continued griping about Bush's National Guard service and the "Mission Accomplished" banner anniversary yesterday. Raja Mishra starts his report by noting the Senator's scattershot thinking:

John F. Kerry walked into a diner here yesterday morning for a breakfast with fellow veterans, old soldiers gathered for a quiet discussion of war, death, and suffering on a day charged with political significance.

He sought a low profile, but in a rare, unscripted conversation with those gathered, the Massachusetts senator questioned President Bush's wartime moral authority, suggested that Vice President Dick Cheney would face harsher scrutiny for potential war-profiteering if Democrats were in control of Congress, and vented about the tone of the presidential race [emph mine - Ed].

And all that was before he finished his pancakes.

Let's see ... he implied that President Bush lacked morality, called Dick Cheney a war profiteer, and then complained about the tone of the campaign?

Is he running for President, or America's Funniest Home Politician?

UPDATE: The official Bush re-election campaign blog picks up this post. Welcome, all Bushblog readers, and I hope you bookmark and/or blogroll Captain's Quarters!

NY Times Lauds Americans' Efforts In Iraq, But It's Not News

After unrelenting negative coverage, especially over the past month while spot insurgencies flared up and the discovery of distasteful mistreatment of prisoners came to light, the New York Times attempted to give a more balanced look at American efforts in Iraq today. George Vecsey reports on American efforts to rebuild Iraq and to provide safety, security, education, and childhood back to Iraqi children:

You rarely see smiles like these on the 6 o'clock news or on the front page.

Alex Fyfe gets to see Iraqi children with a happy look on their faces, as they kick soccer balls on the dust and rocks. He thinks of the green soccer fields of Long Island and the lacrosse fields at the United States Military Academy. ... As the civil affairs officer for his battalion, based near Mosul, Fyfe's job is to improve conditions in one small corner of Iraq. With the help of many friends back home, Fyfe was able to take soccer equipment to the children. ...

Although there are disagreements over the United States' role in Iraq, a civilian back home can make this positive perception via the news media's "embedded" access: With a few odious exceptions, the troops over there are a fair representation of the best and the brightest, of what we like to think we are.

Vecsey does a fine job of profiling the efforts of Fyfe in encouraging contributions from home and in squeezing the most out of what he gets in order to build schools, playgrounds -- and relationships -- in Iraq. He notes that the children named their new school after Fyfe's unit, the Striker Brigade, indicating that Fyfe is making a difference in Iraq. He even tells a story about Fyfe's lacrosse teammate, John Fernandez, who lost two legs in Iraq during the initial military invasion, and who won't be playing lacrosse any more, giving a poignant twist to Fyfe's heartfelt efforts.

Only one problem: the New York Times buried this article in its Sports section, apparently thinking that an American helping Iraqi children and rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure wasn't News-worthy. It's not even headlining the Sports section -- it's stuck in the Other Sports subsection, just above the story "United States Edges Russia at Hockey Worlds".

Pathetic.

UPDATE: I hope Glenn Reynolds is right and more people read the Times' Sports section ... it certainly has the best journalism at the paper, although I realize I'm damning Vecsey with faint praise.

UPDATE II: I forgot to mention that I've crossposted this at the media watchblog, Oh, That Liberal Media, which has several fine bloggers contributing to it. If you don't already have this blogrolled/bookmarked, be sure to do so soon.

Hamill Escapes

The American contractor held hostage by Iraqi insurgents escaped from captivity, found an American convoy, and led them back to his captors, according to the AP:

American hostage Thomas Hamill, kidnapped three weeks ago in an insurgent attack on his convoy, was found by U.S. forces Sunday south of Tikrit after he apparently escaped from his captors, the U.S. military said. An official said he was in good health.

Hamill, 43, of Macon, Miss., was discovered when he approached a U.S. patrol from the 2nd Battalion 108th Infantry, part of the New York National Guard, in the town of Balad, 35 miles south of Tikrit, a spokesman for U.S. troops in Tikrit said. ... Hamill identified himself to the troops, then led the patrol to the house where he had been held captive. The unit surrounded the house and captured two Iraqis with an automatic weapon, said the military spokesman, Maj. Neal O'Brien.

Hamill, a truck driver working for a subsidiary of the contractor Halliburton, had a gunshot wound to his left arm that appeared to be infected, and was flown by helicopter to Bagdad, O'Brien said. Video images of Hamill released by his captors a day after his abduction showed his left arm in a sling, suggesting he was wounded during the attack on his convoy.

Hamill will receive treatment for his infected gunshot wound, and then it isn't clear what he will do. General Kimmit said that he's ready to "get back to work," but he's a private contractor, not an enlisted man or officer in the military. I hope that Halliburton, his employer, has the good sense to send the man home to his family for an extended vacation. I'd say the man has some serious comp time coming to him.

Sometimes, prayers are answered.