Vatican To American Bishops: No Communion For Kerry, Pro-Choice Politicians

In a secret memo to American Catholic bishops, papal doctrinal advisor Cardinal John Ratzinger has firmly stated that pro-choice politicians are to be refused Communion, even at the altar rail if necessary. The strongly-worded instructions appear to be aimed at renegade Catholic John Kerry, who last weekend attempted to head off this controversy by claiming to believe that life begins at conception -- a stance that may hav worsened his position with the Church hierarchy:

The memo was sent to the US Catholic Bishops' conference last month. With formidable clarity and force, it states that pro-abortion Catholic politicians should be warned by priests that they are not eligible for Communion. If the politician then "shows an obstinate persistence in grave sin", writes Cardinal Ratzinger, he or she should be turned away at the altar rail. Mr Kerry has consistently voted in favour of maintaining abortion rights during his 30-year senatorial career.

The tone and content of Cardinal Ratzinger's memo, which was leaked to an Italian magazine last week, leave little room for misunderstanding. Some passages appear to have been drafted specifically with Sen Kerry in mind.

"Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia," writes the Cardinal, "when a person's formal co-operation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his pastor should meet with him, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist."

Pro-choice Catholic politicians have long presented a problem for the Catholic Church, which has always believed that since life begins at conception, abortions amount to murder. Such politicians have argued that Vatican II allow them to pursue their own consciences in following the doctrines of the church, but that is patently false. Vatican II does allow for more personal choice in following the traditions of the church, but doctrine is absolute. The Church presents its doctrine within its Catechism, and while some issues such as the death penalty are nuanced, opposition to abortion and its status as a mortal sin are crystal clear.

Finally, the Church has moved to make its position clear and to provide consequences to those who claim membership but campaign against its doctrine. For those who truly believe that life does not begin at conception, they need to decide whether Catholocism represents their faith and either leave, change their position, or simply stop participating in the Eucharist, which amounts to the former. Politicians who use Church membership to attract voters but fail to support Church doctrine are somewhat hypocritical.

However, in Kerry's case and where he stirred up the hornet's nest, he actually claims to believe in the doctrine but consistently acts to thwart it. That goes into apostasy and requires a strong response from the Vatican in order to make clear that such an approach is unacceptable. If the Church makes no effort to rein in public figures who trade on their Catholicism while openly campaigning against one of its core beliefs, it underscores the myth that Vatican II allows anyone to believe whatever they want and still partipate in the Eucharist, which will lead to the Church's irrelevance and destruction.

Ratzinger and the Pope have sent a message: you can be pro-choice, or you can participate in the Eucharist. You can no longer do both.

Senate Report: Wilson Lied

One of the supposed martyrs of the Left in the war on terror, former Ambassador and newly-minted author Joseph Wilson, lied to the public about how he got that questionable assignment to Niger, according to a Senate report:

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

So Joe Wilson came back from Niger and actually confirmed the intelligence regarding uranium sales, instead of debunking it, as he claimed. Of course, that's not what Wilson has been saying since his return; he's taken every opportunity to claim that he found nothing to support claims from British intelligence, and he's said it on the Kerry campaign trail and on his own book tour. So much for "Bush Lied!" Someone lied, and now we know who.

Saint Joe may have even more trouble than just this crucial point regarding his credibility, as the Washington Post report continues:

The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him. ... The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.

Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger. "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."

For the moment, Wilson stands behind his denials that his wife used improper pull within the CIA to get him the Niger assignment. However, as has long been discussed, the decision to give Wilson the assigment makes sense no other way. Wilson had no particular experience in non-proliferation intelligence, and he gave no inclination that he had much interest in finding anything out for the US. Further, Wilson had been employed with a foundation that primarily had been funded by Saudis, making an assignment for counterespionage against Iraq very suspect.

The Senate Intelligence Committee also leaves open the possibility that the British (and now the French) were entirely correct about the attempted purchase, and scolds the CIA for bungling the investigation. Read the entire article. Anyone who believes that Wilson or Plame were simply innocent bystanders will be sorely disillusioned.

UPDATE: Please read Power Line's excellent post on this article.

UPDATE II: For those relying on Josh Marshall to defend Joe Wilson, check out the Belgravia Dispatch's deconstruction of TPM, via Instapundit.

Senator Flip-Flop Lectures Bush On Values?

I guess it didn't take me too long to find my post for the day -- in today's New York Times, Jodi Wilgoren and Richard Stevenson report on the "full-throated battle" between the major party nominees after Thursday evening's Democratic fundraiser:

A day after a $7.5 million Democratic fund-raiser in New York at which an array of stars harshly ridiculed President Bush, the Bush campaign criticized Senator John Kerry for what it called a "star-studded hate fest." Mr. Bush's campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, demanded that the Kerry campaign release a videotape of the event at Radio City Music Hall, which featured performers including Chevy Chase, Whoopi Goldberg and Jessica Lange.

Although Mr. Kerry had told the crowd at the New York fund-raiser that "every single performer" on the bill had "conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country," his campaign on Friday sought to distance Mr. Kerry and his running mate, Senator John Edwards, from the anti-Bush jokes, lyrics and statements of some of the entertainers.

But it declined to release a videotape of the performance at which Ms. Goldberg, a bottle of wine in hand, made an extended sexual pun out of the president's surname.

In other words, Kerry and Edwards laughed at the jokes before they frowned at them. Even Howard Dean had the good sense to state at a similar event for his campaign his dissatisfaction with the tone of the evening, and to do so immediately. Events like this fundraiser actually do quite a bit of public good; they separate Hollywood fools from their money and puts in the hands of working people, like ad agencies and so on. Even better, these public displays demonstrate just how out of touch, tacky, and downright gross Hollywood celebrities have become and dilutes their political impact.

Their refusal to make the performances available on videotape is also telling. They know that outside of the true believers gathered in New York for that hatefest, the material would tend to disgust the centrists they desperately need. All of this played well enough in 2000, when many people thought choosing a president to be somewhat irrelevant to their daily lives. In 2004, that's changed. People have become serious while Hollywood wants to convince people it's still just one big party.

Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager, said that the candidates "do not approve of some of the remarks" but that "the performers had a perfect right to say what they said."

Thank you for the complete non-sequitur. No one disputes they have a right to say what they did; what people question is their judgment. Why is it that every time the Left is critized for what they say, they wrap themselves in the First Amendment, as if it gave them some protection from the folly of their lips and pens? Whoopi had the right to stand up and compare Bush's name to female genitalia. We have the right to call her a bloody idiot for wasting time on such puerile and obvious "jokes", and to question the character and bearing of Kerry and Edwards for countenancing it at an official event for their Party.

Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards in turn intensified their own attacks on Mr. Bush, saying that his "values" on issues like Iraq, how much vacation time he takes and the Justice Department's prosecution of Kenneth L. Lay, Enron's former chairman and a former top Bush fund-raiser, showed him to be out of step with the American people.

Oho, this is just too rich. The two Senators who have missed the most votes over the past two years -- Kerry has missed 90% of the votes in the Senate during that period -- are critizing Bush for taking four weeks' vacation? Working vacations, at that, as Presidents are on the job 24x7? This has to be a Karl Rove plant, right? Bush has initiated more legislation (through proxies) in three years than Kerry has in his entire 19-year Senate career. As far as Lay's prosecution goes, it demonstrates that Bush will prosecute anyone who breaks the law, instead of issuing pardons for big-time contributors like Marc Rich. Too bad the Democrats don't have that kind of track record.

If Kerry and Edwards want to take Bush on over values ... well, you know the three words we're thinking.

Hugh Hewitt is my hero

I just placed my order on Amazon for Hugh Hewitt's new book If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat. But for Hugh's emails to a discouraged young attorney, Ed would still be manning this great blog all by his lonesome. Thanks, Hugh!

To order your own copy from Amazon click here. If you are a Barnes and Noble shopper, then click here.

Since I'm in Asia, I expect I won't have my copy for several weeks but will post a review when I finish it.

UPDATE: Hugh's book is already #78 on amazon.com's top seller list. It's rated smack in between The Catcher in the Rye (a longtime favority of yours truly) and The Thyroid Diet, which I haven't read. It beats out Richard Clarke's former bestseller Against All Enemies, which only rates 81.

ICJ to Israel: Tear down that wall

The International Court of Useful Idiots . . . I mean the International Court of Justice ruled on Friday that Israel's security fence is a violation of international law and must be torn down. The court also demanded Israel compensate “natural or legal persons having suffered any form of material damage as a result of the wall’s construction.”

Exactly what international law did the wall violate? I suffered through the court’s opinion (linked above) and am still trying to answer that question. The court gives a laundry list of treaties and conventions and even cites letters from Israel to Yasser Arafat in its wordy but mostly incoherent discussion. Apparently, the fools . . . I mean jurists . . . consider the wall a threat to the self-determination of the Palestinians and a pseudo permanent border between the hoped for Palestinian state and Israel.

The court takes note of the argument that the wall is necessary for its defence but dismisses it with no real analysis stating the “measures taken are bound nonetheless to remain in conformity with applicable international law.”

The real barriers to the self-determination of Palestinians are Yasser Arafat and his bomb-happy thugs who enjoyed free access to the Jerusalem public transportation system. If the security fence was torn down, terrorists would resume their one-way excursions into Israel and the “roadmap” would be stamped out forever.

Of course, the ICJ has no interest in necessity or reality and certainly no interest in supporting Israel’s right to self defence. Instead, the ICJ understands its mandate as just another tool for terrorists everywhere (especially of the Arab persuasion) and will continue to rule accordingly.

Notaí Beaga ón gCeardlann Gaeilgeoirí (Small Notes From The Irish-Language Workshop)

As you'll see by the time on this post, I'm getting back to my room at a pretty late hour -- and I discovered I'm buried in e-mail. I can read everything people send me, but for some really strange reason, I cannot send outbound e-mail. If you've sent me e-mail and haven't heard back, that's why. (Kenneth -- LOL!)

The Irish language workshop is terrific, the poitín is tremendous (Irish moonshine, and I ain't kidding), and the people are all having a blast. If you're curious about the Irish language, our organization's website is a good place to read a bit about it, and we have links to plenty of other resources. I have missed most of today's news, but I plan on posting a couple of items in the early morning tomorrow.

A couple of items to note tonight:

* Hugh Hewitt is celebrating 22 years of marriage and 4 years on the air this weekend. Give your congratulations to Hugh and the Fetching Mrs. Hewitt, and while you're at it, give mine as well (damned outbound e-mail!). You can express your sentiments more concretely by ordering Hugh's new book, and sooner rather than later.

* James in Sacramento informed me that the Bill Jones for Senate website can be found here. Do what you can to rid the Senate of Barbara Boxer. Let's consider her political career a "rail accident", and one not to be repeated.

* For those of you in the Twin Cities, don't forget that the Northern Alliance Radio Network continues in my absence at noon Saturday. We're testing some streaming and trying to resolve some legal issues so we can include everyone into our audience.

Keep checking back -- keep up the great work on the caption contest -- and have a terrific weekend.

Boxer: Madrid Bombings 'Rail Accident'

Continuing our series on the unseriousness of Democratic leadership, last night our friend and mentor Hugh Hewitt played a clip of California Senator Barbara Boxer delivering a speech on ... whatever Boxer happened to bloviate on. In the middle of this speech, Boxer referred to the al-Qaeda bombings in Madrid not as an act of war, not even as a crime -- but as a simple mistake:

Today, on the floor of the United States Senate, Barbara Boxer referred to the Madrid bombings as a "rail accident." Honest. A rail accident. Boxer is a Senate accident. What an embarassment.

A caller got us all laughing when he said that had Boxer been in the Senate in 1942, she would have demanded that the US apologize to the Japanese for overreacting to a mishap at a boating and flying exhibition off the shores of Pearl Harbor. I'm surprised she hasn't asked the NTSB to change the determination of cause for 9/11 to "pilot error".

If you're in California, you have to ask yourself why this intellectual lightweight still represents the Golden State. After that, donate to the Bill Jones campaign to unseat Boxer. No web link so far, but you can contact them through the California GOP.

Kerry: I Don't Have Time For Briefings

On CNN last night, Larry King interviewed John Kerry on the status of his campaign for president. On literally the first substantial question of the interview, Kerry demonstrated why he is unfit for the presidency during a time of war:

[KING:]Let's get to, first thing's first, news of the day. Tom Ridge warned today about al Qaeda plans of a large-scale attack on the United States, didn't increase the -- do you see any politics in this? What's your reaction?

KERRY: Well, I haven't been briefed yet, Larry. They have offered to brief me; I just haven't had time [emph mine -- CE]. But all Americans are united in our efforts to defeat terrorism.

I believe that John Edwards and I can wage a far more effective war on terror than George Bush has. I think we can do a better job of making America safe. But in these days ahead, we all join together no matter what.

I'd say it's hard for Kerry to know what he can do in waging war on terrorists if he doesn't even have time to be briefed on our progress and the threats arrayed against us. Is he kidding? What could possibly be more important to a nation at war, and to its leadership, than to maintain a constant pulse on intelligence and military operations? The Bush administration even offered to get him in for a briefing, and apparently he refused.

Expect to see this on a Bush campaign ad really soon. It demonstrates that the Democratic nominee does not take this issue seriously, especially when you see where he happened to go after his interview with King ended. Here's the briefing that Kerry and Edwards felt was more important than a national-security briefing:

Whoopi Goldberg delivered an X-rated rant full of sexual innuendoes against President Bush last night at a Radio City gala that raised $7.5 million for the newly minted Democratic ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards.

Waving a bottle of wine, she fired off a stream of vulgar sexual wordplays on Bush's name in a riff about female genitalia, and boasted that she'd refused to let Team Kerry clear her material. ...

Singer John Mellencamp sang a specially written song that called the president "just another cheap thug" and ridiculed him as the "Texas bambino." ...

Also on the Bush-bashing team was comedian Chevy Chase, who claimed the president is dumb as "an egg-timer" and said Edwards will make Vice President Dick Cheney look "as bright as a bundt cake" when they debate next fall. Latin comedian John Leguizamo said he refuses to believe there are any Hispanic Republicans, claiming that's "an oxymoron," because "Latins for Republicans - it's like roaches for Raid." ...

Kerry could be seen laughing uproariously during part of Goldberg's tirade - and neither he nor Edwards voiced a single objection to its tone when they spoke to the crowd. They hailed the fund-raiser as a great event. Edwards said it was "a great honor" to be there and insisted, "This campaign will be a celebration of real American values."

So this is the Democratic ticket -- they feel that vulgar "comedy" and stuffing money into their pockets from Hollywood elite take a higher priority than determining the safety and security of our country. If you agree with Edwards that this celebrates "real American values," you have your dream ticket right here. For the rest of us with functioning cerebral cortexes, this shows without a doubt that the Kerry/Edwards ticket is a fiasco for America.

Still At War

The Bush Admninistration warned yesterday that intelligence services have received a stream of non-specific data indicating that al-Qaeda intends on disrupting the upcoming election with a "catastrophic" attack -- perhaps more than one:

Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenants, operating from hideouts suspected to be along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, are directing a Qaeda effort to launch an attack in the United States sometime this year, senior Bush administration officials said on Thursday. ...

Counterterrorism officials have said for weeks that they are increasingly worried by a continuing stream of intelligence suggesting that Al Qaeda wanted to carry out a significant terror attack on United States soil this year. But until the comments of the senior administration officials on Thursday, it was not clear that Mr. bin Laden and top deputies like Ayman Zawahiri were responsible for the concern.

Another senior administration official said on Thursday that the intelligence reports - apparently drawn partly from interviews with captured Qaeda members and partly from other intelligence - referred to efforts "to inflict catastrophic effects" before the election.

I'm sure you have all read about this briefing, and normally I wouldn't bother to post about it -- after all, the warning is rather straightforward and doesn't include a lot of specifics. However, it's apparent from the reactions of other elected officials, the media, and the punditry, that plenty of people have forgotten that we're still at war.

Take Congress, for example. Yesterday, the Patriot Act barely survived an amendment that would have emasculated investigative abilities to track terrorists operating Internet stations in libraries -- despite the requirement of a warrant from a federal judge. The Republicans struggled to defeat the bill by extending the vote to get to a 210-210 tie. Vermont's Bernard Sanders, the only Independent in Congress and the bill's author, had this to say:

"All of us want to support the law enforcement officials going after terrorists, but we can defeat terrorism without allowing the government to get a secret order from a secret court without any showing of any evidence that the person whose reading records are sought is engaged in any kind of illegal conduct."

Sanders says we can defeat terrorists by having intelligence agents appear in open court and disclose their sources and their methods. Do you think that it works that way? Of course not. Sanders and the other 209 Representatives who voted for this bill have reversed course and now live in a perpetual September 10th, where the only threat to the US was from its own jack-booted law-enforcement organizations and where terrorists only attacked other countries ... like Israel.

But Sanders and his brother ostriches have their counterparts in the media as well, although that fact will surprise no one who reads blogs or even more than one newspaper a day. The New York Times regularly runs Paul Krugman's column, an economist who used to discuss economics several years ago, but now uses his column to reflexively bash the Bush administration. In today's entry, Krugman accuses Bush of issuing updates on the war to distract people from what's really important ... health care:

Will actual policy issues play any role in this election? Not if the White House can help it. But if some policy substance does manage to be heard over the clanging of conveniently timed terror alerts, voters will realize that they face some stark choices. Here's one of them: tax cuts for the very well-off versus health insurance.

Krugman apparently prefers that the Administration remains silent on any uptick in threat reports and not brief the public on progress in the war. Somehow he thinks that reminding Americans of the threats they face makes them happier with the current Administration. Otherwhise, what he's decrying is that people understand that while we need to still work on domestic policies, there's a war on, and that has to remain the central focus. And he doesn't much like it, mostly because he has nothing to add to that effort.

The news sections of the various broadsheets and broadcasters are not much better. Forget the fact that they can't even get the news right when it's handed to them on a silver platter, such as when the LA Times claimed that Paul Bremer had left Iraq without having the decency to speak to the Iraqis before he slunk out of town -- only to discover that not only had he given a valedictory speech, CNN broadcast a significant part of it. This week we've seen the media completely ignore two significant stories. Two Iranian intelligence agents were arrested by a joint Iraqi/American patrol building car bombs, and only Fox bothered reporting the development. The second was the Financial Times report on the result of the British investigation into the claim that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Niger -- and confirmation that he had, in fact, done so. But you wouldn't know that from reading your local newspapers.

There seems to be an active effort to deny that the US is at war, and not a war of our choosing, but a war that was thrust upon us. It's part of the reason why people object now to DHS warnings from Tom Ridge; in the absence of any more attacks, some people now believe that equates to no more attempts. Unserious people like Rep. Sanders and Paul Krugman would have us stand down, lower our defenses, and focus on important but lower-priority tasks instead.

This election will provide a referendum on the seriousness of the American electorate. If we elect more people like Sanders because we listen to Krugman more than Ridge, then we will reap what we sow, and quickly. And then we'll wonder why no one warned us that attacks were coming, more commissions will be formed, fingers pointed, and we'll get serious again. It's just that there will be significantly fewer people among the "we" to get serious the next time.

Riordan Embarrasses California, Dymally Embarrasses Everyone

While partisan politics occasionally inspires some raw remarks from elected officials, such as the Cheney-Leahy contretemps last month, the venom stays between the principals and usually avoids outsiders. Former Los Angeles mayor and current California Education Secretary Richard Riordan scored some collateral damage last week, insulting a schoolgirl over her name and giving Governor Schwarzenegger a headache he didn't need:

The conversation, videotaped by KEYT-TV, took place Thursday at a promotional event for summer reading at Santa Barbara's central library. The unidentified girl, who appeared to be a preschooler, asked Riordan if he knew that her name meant "Egyptian goddess."

Riordan replied, "It means stupid dirty girl."

After nervous laughter in the room, the girl again told Riordan the meaning of her name.

"Hey, that's nifty," he said.

Not as nifty as sticking his foot squarely in his mouth on television, and not surprisingly, Riordan and Schwarzenegger are taking some heat for his stupidity. Politicians around the state have called for Riordan's resignation, even after Riordan publicly apologized. The Sacramento Bee called for his removal, saying that Riordan's comment shows that California "shouldn't have an education secretary who makes offensive, damaging remarks to young children for no apparent reason."

Even more interestingly, the NAACP added its voice to the fray, demanding Riordan's removal. The NAACP had decided to lead a coalition of civil-rights groups in a demonstration at the capitol, and Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally had organized the event. Yesterday, his office issued a scathing broadside at Riordan:

His office issued a statement Wednesday calling Riordan's remarks to the girl "outrageous and irresponsible," ... Dymally was quoted in the San Jose Mercury News Thursday saying the child was "a little African-American girl. Would he (Riordan) have done that to a white girl?"

Well, in fact, he did. Isis, contrary to the conclusions to which the eternally clueless Dymally jumped, is a blond-haired, white girl with a cool Egyptian first name. Dymally and the NAACP is so desperate for a public issue that they immediately assumed Riordan is a racist instead of just a fool, and were all ready to accuse him of everything short of being the Grand Kleagle of Sacramento.

Ironically, Isis' race made no difference to Riordan, but it made all the difference in the world to Dymally and the NAACP:

[T]he organizer, Democratic state Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, canceled the protest after an apparent mix-up over the girl's racial background. ... [Dymally] then issued another statement Thursday saying, "To err is human; to forgive is divine."

"Race is not a factor in this issue," Dymally said, adding that Riordan had apologized a second time. "It is time for us to move on."

So Dymally has no problem leaving Riordan in office as long as he's only insulting white kids? Who's the racist here, anyway?

AP: Polls Bumped Upwards -- For Bush

A new poll of registered voters conducted earlier this week shows new movement in the polls as John Kerry selected John Edwards as his running mate -- but the momentum went to George Bush (also here):

The AP-Ipsos poll found Bush leading Kerry just outside the margin of error, with the president's support at 49 percent, Kerry at 45 percent and independent candidate Ralph Nader at 3 percent. The Bush-Kerry matchup was tied a month ago, when Nader had 6 percent.

The three-day survey began Monday, the day before Kerry tapped Edwards as his running mate, and asked registered voters about the newly minted ticket on Tuesday and Wednesday. Half supported the Republican tandem of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney while 46 percent backed the Kerry-Edwards ticket, just within the question's margin of error.

AP/Ipsos showed some boost in Kerry's support in the South after the selection of Edwards, but not enough to overcome Bush's strength in that area. Bush gained strength on the economy as well, which may demonstrate that public opinion may be the most lagging indicator of a recovery. His approval rating has recovered to 50% for the first time since January, and picked up 11 points among suburban women -- so-called soccer moms who now support Bush at 52%.

All of this adds up to a remarkable turnaround since the last AP/Ipsos poll in June, which had a hypothetical Kerry/Edwards ticket leading Bush/Cheney, 47-44. Bush has added six points of support in a month, even with the focus on Kerry and his selection of a running mate. Kerry may have already peaked, especially with most of the bad news in Iraq heading into the rear-view mirror now that sovereignty has been successfully transferred and some perspective can be gained by the electorate. Nader has been hammered, losing half of his support in a month and appearing to have almost faded out of sight.

For Democrats who assumed the Edwards selection would boost their popularity, it appears it only impressed the faithful. Democrats should be concerned that even with the news breaking Kerry's way. most of it positive, he lost ground.

UPDATE: Read Hugh Hewitt's take on this -- he attributes the trend to Michael Moore.

No Genocide For Oil

During the run-up to the Iraq phase of the war on terror, while France actively undermined US efforts to create a unified coalition of Western nations, people throughout Europe and the US protested against the war, chanting, "No War For Oil". The BBC now reports that the Sudan, like Saddam's Iraq, is experiencing genocide while the global community dithers. The US and British are working the UNSC for a resolution that would try to stop the Sudan from becoming another Rwanda, but have run into a familiar stumbling block:

France says it does not support US plans for international sanctions on Sudan if violence continues in Darfur. The UN Security Council is debating a US draft resolution imposing sanctions on militias accused of "ethnic cleansing" against non-Arabs. ...

Some one million people have fled their homes and at least 10,000 have been killed in what the UN calls "the world's worst humanitarian crisis."

A rebellion broke out in Darfur early last year, when two groups took up arms, accusing the government of ignoring the region. ... France led opposition to US moves at the UN over Iraq. As was the case in Iraq, it also has significant oil interests in Sudan.

Mr Muselier also dismissed claims of "ethnic cleansing" or genocide in Darfur. "I firmly believe it is a civil war and as they are little villages of 30, 40, 50, there is nothing easier than for a few armed horsemen to burn things down, to kill the men and drive out the women," he said.

Human rights activists say the Janjaweed are conducting a genocide against Darfur's black African population.

While Saddam brutally oppressed Iraqis for over a decade, practicing annihilation against the Marsh Arabs and filled mass graves with at least 300,000 victims, the French opposed efforts to enforce sixteen UNSC resolutions. In fact, the French (and other Iraqi oil-client states Russia, China, and Germany) actively led efforts to cancel or weaken economic and military sanctions against Saddam.

Now France pursues the exact same policy to the exact same end in the Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of non-white deaths mean little to the French as long as they get their oil, and yet the people of Europe have the gall to protest the US? And let's not forget, the Europeans begged us to intervene in the genocide occurring in the Balkans, which happened on a much smaller scale than either Iraq or the Sudan. If the Sudanese were white, Europe would have a much different take on the matter.

I say we need to start counterdemonstrating the fools and fellow travelers who tote "No War For Oil" signs at these rallies. We should prepare banners exclaiming "No Genocide For Oil," "Stop The Racism -- Sanctions For Sudan," and "Chirac Lied -- Africans Died." At least our signs would have the elegance of truth. (via Instapundit)

The DNC Channels John Kerry In Credentialing Bloggers

Bill from INDC Journal was surprised to receive a letter from the Democratic National Convention credentialing him as a journalist under its blogger program. Bill openly speculated that they hadn't really checked out his website and wondered whether to spend the money on travel, especially since the DNC waited until the last minute to inform him of his acceptance, but decided to go despite the added expense the delay cost him.

That's when the other shoe dropped ...

Last night, I received the following e-mail:

Dear William:

Last week you were sent a credential allocation letter not properly authorized by the DNCC for press coverage of the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Upon further review of the overall site capacity at the FleetCenter, we are no longer able to issue your organization a DNCC Press Gallery Credential. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. ...

If my guess is correct, an after-action review of the content of my site (for an example, see post directly before this one) caused them to disinvite me after they invited me, after I made travel arrangements that carry a significant cancellation fee. If my suspicions about content rejection are incorrect, then their planning is simply clumsy and merciless towards independent journalists that don't have expense accounts.

In other words, the DNC voted for INDC Journal, before they voted against it. Apparently, nuance is contagious.

Bill still hopes that they will reconsider and has asked them to reinstate his credentials. I wish him luck, but I rather doubt they'll be inclined to do so. It does demonstrate that the DNC seems to be as incompetent as their candidate; after all, they only had sixty-something applications to vet from bloggers. How long does it take to browse through that many web sites? Three hours, tops?

Rall And Ehrenreich Guard The Plantation Perimeters

Michelle Malkin erupts in fury to the latest Ted Rall outrage, in which he calls Condi Rice George Bush's "house n***a" and has another African-American character demanding that she surrender her hair straightener. Rall, whose idiocy is so well-documented that it's almost not worth this much commentary, takes it upon his own lily-white tucchus to determine the authenticity of Rice's blackness, simply based on her political point of view. He calls her a hypocrite, which is pretty damned funny coming from an unreconstructed Marxist who nevertheless makes himself a good living selling his intellectual property. In Rall's world, apparently African-Americans are only honest if they adhere to the radical-leftist line.

Michelle gives Rall both barrels:

Show us more of your assininity, Ted. Keep dropping your rhetorical pants. Which other minority public figures do you want to mock for having straightened hair? Colin Powell's wife? Beyonce? Coretta Scott King? Which other independent-thinking, unorthodox minorities do you want to defame for not thinking "white" enough? You wanna send Bill Cosby to "racial re-education camp," too, huh? Which other minority conservatives are you just itching to tar as "HOUSE NIGGAS" or "HOUSE CHINKS" or "HOUSE SPICS?"

(It's also valuable, by the way, to see Rall's mainstream media clients such as the Washington Post continue to stand by him...while at the same time, moan about the lack of civility in public discourse.)

No, Rall won't have to challenge Cos, because equally Euroethnic Barbara Ehrenreich at the New York Times has taken her turn at the plantation gate:

It was such a dog-bites-man story that I almost skipped right by: Billionaire Bashes Poor Blacks. The only thing that gave this particular story a little piquancy is that the billionaire doing the bashing is black himself. Bill Cosby has been attacking the poor of his race, and especially the youthful poor, for a range of sins, including using bad words, "stealing poundcake," "giggling" and failing to give their children normal names like "Bill." "The lower-economic people," Cosby announced, "are not holding up their end in this deal." ...

As for the black youth who so exercise Cosby, their pregnancy rates aren't "soaring," as he reportedly claimed; in fact, they're lower than they've been in decades. Ditto with crime rates. And if Cosby's worried about poor grammar and so forth, why isn't he ranting about the Bush 2005 budget, which would end a slew of programs for dropout prevention, recreation and school counseling?

Or, if he's looking for tantrum fodder, what about the fact that a black baby has a 40 percent chance of being born into poverty? You can blame adults for their poverty — if you're mean-spirited enough — but you cannot blame babies, and that's, in effect, what we're talking about here.

Uh, no, it wasn't what Cosby was talking about; he specifically talked about the parents not taking responsibility for their children. Cosby doesn't support Bush, but his point was that plenty of resources go wasted by families (and not just black families) in favor of the cult of victimhood and anti-intellectualism. Had Ehrenreich actually listened to Cosby, she would have heard him speaking to the black community about a corrosion of culture that has spread across all lines in our society, and exhorting parents to assert themselves to reverse it, primarily by spending time with their children, for fathers to remain with their families, and to set boundaries for teens from which an entire generation has shrunk in either fear or ennui.

Why do leftists react so harshly whenever anyone from the so-called protected classes have the nerve to think for themselves and hold a different set of political values? Why do they save their most vicious attacks for these few with courage to dissent? Because it challenges their position as protector of the downtrodden. So instead, they set themselves up as the arbiters of true race identification, a patronizing and ludicrous position for Rall and Ehrenreich to assume.

Michelle also comes up with an ironic method of protest: she's inspired the creation of T-shirts and other merchandise to spread the message that liberals can't keep minorities on the political plantation much longer. She provides links to Cafe Press, which already has merchandise ready to sell, and pretty inexpensively, too. Smacking down Ted Rall with a healthy dose of capitalism? Priceless.

UPDATE: Michelle also posts an example of more bigotry and crudity on the left. (Caution: workplace-unfriendly language.)

How Much Does This Add To Kerry's Tuition "Burden"?

College admissions offices have begun courting high-school counselors in new -- and expensive -- outreach programs that appear to border on corruption, if they don't cross the line entirely. The New York Times looks at some of the efforts made by more obscure universities to attract the "best" candidates:

Though the image of the admissions process is often one of high school guidance counselors sidling up to colleges in hopes of gaining an advantage for their students, the reality is sometimes the other way around.

Colleges are so intent on getting not just enough applicants, but the best ones, that some are lavishing perks on guidance counselors, raising questions about the difference between merely promoting a university and currying favor with those who speak directly into the ear of students and parents trying to evaluate it. ...

When Centre College in Danville, Ky., invites counselors to visit, for example, it puts them up in a bed-and-breakfast and takes them golfing at a country club and to the racetrack. It even gives them a small stake - around $50 - so the counselors can gamble on the horses. ... The University of Southern California took more than a dozen counselors to the Orange Bowl last year, also out of gratitude and to create what it called a "lifetime memory." ... Some colleges in vacation areas like the Adirondacks or Vermont invite counselors to bring their families and stay free for a few days in the summer. And the University of Denver used to fly in counselors to ski Vail but ultimately stopped because it cost the university too much.

The same institutions that gripe about the pharmaceutical industry paying for expensive junkets for prescribing doctors now want to corrupt guidance counselors into pushing their product. With federal aid comprising a much-bigger slice of incoming tuition, one has to wonder whether these colleges see graduating high-school students as the key to big paydays, making the extra effort profitable in the long run. But as these schmoozefests escalate, as they surely will (sort of like the academia equivalent of gas wars), the cost will make themselves felt in the pocketbooks of American parents and taxpayers.

Parents now have to ask their students' counselors whether or not they've accepted junkets to the schools towards which they push their students. Wasn't it bad enough when this type of kickback scheme only emanated from the Atheletics departments? Instead of fixing the problem there, universities have allowed it to spread. That's the nature of corruption, of course; it rarely stays compartmentalized.

Gee, Thanks, But I Have To Wash My Hair That Night

The AP reports that George Bush has turned down an NAACP invitation to speak at their annual convention, making Bush the first president since Hoover not to attend at least one during his term in office:

Bush spoke at the 2000 NAACP convention in Baltimore when he was a candidate. But he has declined invitations to speak in each year of his presidency, the first president since Herbert Hoover not to attend an NAACP convention, John White, a spokesman for the group, said Wednesday. ...

Democratic challenger John Kerry accepted an invitation to speak next Thursday on the final day of the convention, the NAACP said.

I expect this story will get more play in the media than, say, the arrest of two Iranian intelligence agents building car bombs in Iraq or the confirmation that Saddam tried to buy uranium from Niger. However, what they won't report, and which the AP manages to leave out of the story, is its context.

As mentioned, Bush the candidate appeared at the NAACP Convention in 2000, something rarely done by Republican presidential nominees, in order to stimulate a dialogue between the GOP and the nation's oldest civil-rights group. The result was a vicious, slimy political attack by the NAACP to tie Bush to the drooling bigots that dragged James Byrd to death in Texas in 1998, while Bush was governor. The TV ad had the dead man's daughter narrating over the image of a truck bumper trailing a chain:

I’m Renee Mullins, James Byrd’s daughter.

On June 7, 1998 in Texas my father was killed. He was beaten, chained, and then dragged 3 miles to his death, all because he was black.

So when Governor George W. Bush refused to support hate-crime legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again.

Never mind that "hate-crime" legislation goes far further towards establishing thought crime than the Patriot Act's supposed fascist inclinations by allowing library records to be subpoenaed for terrorism investigations. Never mind that a Texas court found these lunatics guilty in short order. Never mind that they received the death penalty -- which, I believe, the NAACP opposes. What does being charged with a hate crime add to a Murder 1 conviction that results in a death penalty? Lip service. Which, by the way, is all that the NAACP's invitation to Bush amounts to.

The NAACP should get used to lip service, by the way, in accepting John Kerry's invitation. So far he's stood up his hometown mayor and fellow Democrat, and blown off the NEA's convention as well. Perhaps they should check with Governor Mitt Romney to see if he'll be free ... just in case.

The Hassoun Hoax?

MS-NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports tonight that the Pentagon is now investigating what exactly happened to Cpl. Wassef Hassoun, a Marine supposedly kidnapped by Islamofascist terrorists. Now, however, military sources say Hassoun may have hoaxed the world:

Late Wednesday, FBI agents showed up at the Hassoun family home in West Jordan, Utah. And Pentagon officials tell NBC News that the Navy has now launched a criminal investigation into Hassoun's disappearance, and the possibility that his kidnapping may be part of an elaborate hoax.

Hassoun disappeared from his Marine unit on June 20. He showed up a week later in a hostage-style video, with a sword held over his head and his alleged captors threatening to kill him. Terrorist experts say, however, the group said to have held Hassoun is unknown.

"We don't know whether this group is simply an Internet address. ... We don't know if they were simply fabricated. We have no idea what's going on here," says terrorism expert Steve Emerson.

A second group later claimed Hassoun was beheaded — then retracted that claim. Pending the investigation, military officials refuse to say Hassoun's kidnapping was a hoax, but they point out he had reportedly talked openly about leaving his Marine unit to join his family in Lebanon. Whether he was kidnapped and then released along the way remains a mystery.

This opens all sorts of possible explanations of Hassoun's motivations and connections. Assuming that he constructed this hoax, it could have not been done without outside help to get the video onto the Internet -- after all, it's not like Iraq has wall-to-wall broadband available. When he first disappeared, people spoke about friendships he made with local Iraqis; it was presumed that Islamofascists used his naivete to grab him while he thought he was safe. It could have been a reverse fake instead, with his friends providing the convenient and plausible support for a fake Islamofascist kidnapping while he got out of Iraq. Or -- and this could be a very big problem -- Hassoun hasn't left Iraq at all but is collaborating with the people who claim to have kidnapped him, a scenario that could endanger all the Marines in his unit.

It will be interesting to see this develop over the next few days. (via Drudge)

Filipinos Take The Spanish Approach

Islamofascist terrorists abducted another foreigner in Iraq today, a Filipino civilian working for a Saudi company. In an action certain to encourage the kidnapping of more foreigners, the Filipinos have run up the white flag, at least for the moment:

Armed Iraq insurgents threatened to kill a Filipino hostage if his country does not withdraw from Iraq, according to a video that aired Wednesday. ...

Three armed and masked men stood behind the seated hostage, threatening to kill him if the Philippines doesn't pull out within three days. A banner on the wall behind them identified the captors as a previously unknown group, the Iraqi Islamic Army-Khaled bin al-Waleed Corps.

Thursday, the Philippines government suspended further deployment of Filipinos to Iraq. Philippines officials did not provide details but said the Cabinet would meet later in the day to discuss the situation.

I understand the need to review policy as situations develop, but what Manila has done is to reward the terrorists and guaranteed more kidnappings of its citizens. Even if the Filipinos restart their deployment, its lack of consistency has signalled the Islamofascists that they can influence Manila's policy, a lesson that certainly will not be lost on the native Islamofascist Abu Sayyaf insurgency in the Phillipines. Just as with the Spaniards, the Filipinos have given terrorists a public victory and made the struggle against these lunatics harder on the rest of us.

Financial Times: Iraq Tried To Get Uranium From Niger

In a further repudiation of the "Bush Lied!" meme, the Financial Times in London reports that Lord Butler's investigation into prewar British intelligence confirms that Iraq did attempt to get uranium from Niger in defiance of cease-fire agreements and UN resolutions:

A UK government inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq is expected to conclude that Britain's spies were correct to say that Saddam Hussein's regime sought to buy uranium from Niger. ... The UK government has remained adamant that negotiations over sales did take place and that the fake documents were not part of the intelligence material it had gathered to underpin its claim.

The Financial Times revealed last week that a key part of the UK's intelligence on the uranium came from a European intelligence service that undertook a three-year surveillance of an alleged clandestine uranium-smuggling operation of which Iraq was a part.

Intelligence officials have now confirmed that the results of this operation formed an important part of the conclusions of British intelligence. The same information was passed to the US but US officials did not incorporate it in their assessment.

Let's recap what we've found since the fall of Saddam Hussein. We've discovered WMD that the UN demanded to be destroyed, including more than a dozen shells with sarin and more with mustard gas that dated back before Gulf War I, part of the stockpile for which Saddam never accounted. The CPA has found mass graves with at least 300,000 bodies in them, and even the National Geographic now estimates that as many as 7 million Shi'ites have disappeared over the twelve years the UN sat on its hands and allowed Saddam to defy the sixteen resolutions demanding his verifiable disarmament. Intelligence files discovered by independent sources such as the Los Angeles Times shows that Saddam thwarted the arms embargo that supposedly "contained" him with the active help of UNSC member Syria. ABC reported that Saddam's IIS supplied Abu al-Zarqawi, an al-Qaeda operative, with shelter and weapons.

Now we find out that the Brits correctly reported Saddam's efforts to get his hands on uranium, in defiance to the neat little storyline constructed by the Left that Bush's reliance on that information equates to a lie used to mislead the US into war. And to what purpose would Iraq put that uranium had it successfully concluded that transaction? Does anyone suppose that Saddam simply wanted to make his palaces glow in the dark -- or perhaps make Tel Aviv or DC do so instead?

I'll wait, along with Instapundit and QandO, for the onslaught of media coverage and apologies from the left-wing pundits that have accused the President of everything from fascist falsehoods to selling America out to foreigners.

I just won't hold my breath.

It's Lonely In That Crowd On The Left

My friend and colleague John "Rocket Man" Hinderaker at Power Line notes that Robert Byrd, the most senior Senator in years and tenure, has a new book coming out titled Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency. The Amazon listing for the occasionally coherent West Virginian's lonely challenge to the Bush administration includes this classic from the book publisher:

In the months and years following September 11, Senator Robert C. Byrd has viewed with alarm what he considers to be a "slow unraveling of the people's liberties," when all dissenting voices were stilled and awesome power swung suddenly to the president to fight a "war on terror."

"Awesome power swung"? I assume that Byrd's publisher may refer to the Patriot Act and the authorization for the use of force in Iraq. In both cases, power didn't "swing", Congress voted both bills into law. The Patriot Act simply allowed law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to share information and to use the same techniques that were already legal for child-porn and organized-crime investigations. As for the latter, Congress had already demanded regime change in 1998, and voted for the authorization based on the same intel that the both the current and previous administrations saw.

As for all of that stifling of dissent going on in Bush's America, Byrd certainly will bravely use his voice as a solitary beacon of freedom ... or, maybe just join the ever-expanding chorus:

New York Times Hardcover Best-Sellers:

1. My Life - Bill Clinton
6. Plan of Attack - Bob Woodward
11. Against All Enemies - Richard Clarke
14. Worse Than Watergate - John Dean [he wishes -- CE]
16. Battle Ready - Tom Clancy and Tony Zinni
22. A Pretext for War - James Banford

New York Times Paperback Bestsellers:

2. Living History - Hillary Rodham Clinton
5. Stupid White Men - Michael Moore
10. Bushwhacked - Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose

Amazon Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers:

3. Plan Of Attack
6. Living History
10. Against All Enemies
12. Worse Than Watergate
15. Lies and the Lying Liars - Al Franken
22. A Pretext For War
24. House of Bush, House Of Saud - Craig Unger

Amazon Paperback Bestsellers:

1. Bushwhacked
10. Living History

Byrd gets to join the largest crowd of lonely people in literary history. There hasn't been a top seller list this crowded with duplications since the Beatles occupied the first five positions on Billboard's Top 10.

How Many Johns Do They Need, Anyway?

The Admiral Emeritus sends me this question from the golf course regarding John Kerry's choice of running mate:

I just heard that Kerry has picked Edwards for his running mate. They were saying on the news that it would be John-John in the White House. I don't understand their thinking. We currently have several johns in the white house and they all function quite well. At least the current johns don't change directions when confronted by people from different parts of the country.

Although it would work pretty well as a campaign motto: "What this country needs is two Johns for every houshold".

Dad

And with that biting wit, its hard to understand why he isn't blogging himself ...

Ask A Question, Get An Answer

Jon Henke at QandO sends me this humorous heads-up this morning. What happens when you google "liberal media"? Well, at least today, you get a question and an answer:

What Liberal Media? --Eric Alterman Continue... "'What Liberal Media' is bold, counterintuitive and cathartic." --The New York Times Book Review. ... What Liberal Media? ... www.whatliberalmedia.com/ - 23k - Cached - Similar pages

Oh, That Liberal Media
Oh, That Liberal Media! ... Allawi at least demonstrates much more intelligence than the empty suit Brokaw has become, parroting this liberal-media urban legend. ...
www.thatliberalmedia.com/ - 90k - Cached - Similar pages

The second entry is a blog to which I occasionally contribute. If you haven't checked it out yet, you should do so often, as it contains media critiques from Xrlq (who first noted this Google result), Patterico, Shark, and many other excellent bloggers. Be sure to blogroll it!

Iranians Building Baghdad Carbombs Apparently Not News

Yesterday's revelation that US and Iraqi joint patrols had captured two Iranian intelligence officers with explosives and building car bombs sounded to me like important news. Here, after all, is proof that the so-called insurgency is not only supported by outside forces but contains active elements of official outside governmental agencies. As the Bush Doctrine states, any government engaging in terrorism or supporting terrorism against the US has made itself a target in the war on terror -- and this shows that Iran does both.

Big news, right? Not in America, apparently.

The World section at the Los Angeles Times: nothing.

The World section at the Boston Globe: nothing.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune (AP) reports the story with the headline, "Iran treading lightly in trying to influence Iraq," which contains the following assertion:

Monday's announcement of the arrests by the Iraqi Interior Ministry was a rare instance of tying Iranians to a particular attack.

But there was no indication that the two men were Iranian agents, and they might have been working on their own. Iranians enraged that Shiite shrines in Iraq were damaged in fighting between U.S. troops and Iraqi insurgents have volunteered to join the battle against the Americans.

None except their confessions, of course, that they are Iranian intelligence agents. That's probably immaterial to the story if the AP ignores it.

Washington Post World section: nothing.

The New York Times -- the "paper of record" -- International and Middle East sections: nothing.

MSNBC, CBS News World, ABC News World: nothing.

CNN doesn't carry anything on its front page either, although it has breaking news on Australian killer kangaroos and the legal claims of men dining nude.

I guess a foreign government attacking American troops just doesn't qualify as news. Thank God I found out about those killer kangaroos, though.

The names are in

While the rest of us celebrated our nation's independence, nine congressmen collaborated to secure UN involvement in the November presidential election. I promised to post the names of these representatives but was unable to find any mention of them in the relevant news articles. Thankfully, the National Review's Jed Babbin did the research, and here are the names:

Eddie Bernice Johnson (Tex.)
Joseph Crowley (N.Y.)
Raul Grijalva (Ariz.)
Danny Davis (Ill.)
Corrine Brown (Fla.)
Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.)
Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.)
Michael Honda (Calif.)
Elijah Cummings (Md.)
Julia Carson (Ind.)
Edolphus Towns (N.Y.)

They are all Democrats. (So much for the "bipartisan" aspect of the group which was originally reported.) Mr. Babbin finds the notion of UN involvement just as ridiculous as I did:

America — in our Constitution and in every state —
has laws that protect the voters from interference
with their right to vote. Any U.N. monitoring would
violate those laws, and more. Neither the U.N. nor any
other foreign organization has any legal or moral
authority to enter American voting halls or to be
present when votes are tabulated. If any U.N.
representatives tried to do so, it would be the duty
of state and local officials to show them the door
peacefully or otherwise. Any discussion between U.N.
"election monitors" and, say, members of the Texas
Rangers or Virginia state police would be very brief
and quite conclusive.

Mr. Babbin also believes this is a preemptory attempt to turn a Bush win into an international dispute:

The U.N. debate would be a riotous anti-American orgy.
There would be U.N. commissions hearing testimony about
election abuses from the U.N. observers and their
supporters among the Democrats. Any U.S. Supreme Court
ruling upholding the election would be ridiculed. Every
dictatorship and despotism — and every faux ally such
as France — would be breaking its pick to delegitimize
the election and heap scorn on America. The EU would
scold us for not living up to European values, North
Korea and Sudan would lecture us on human rights, and
few would bother to speak in our behalf. And, once
again, we would be diverted from pursuing the war
against terrorists and the nations that support them
by those self same nations.

The UN continues to provide useful idiots to evil dictators, ambitious mullahs . . . and Democrats.

Economy Poised To Be Best In 20 Years: AP

In a major boost to George Bush's re-election bid, the AP's Martin Crutsinger reports that the economic expansion may be the best since 1984:

The economy appears headed for a banner year despite a springtime spike in energy prices and a recent increase in interest rates. In fact, many analysts are forecasting that the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, will grow by 4.6 percent or better this year, the fastest in two decades.

There were strong 4.5 percent growth rates in 1997 and 1999, when Bill Clinton was president and the country was in the midst of a record 10-year expansion.

But if this year's growth ends up a bit faster than that, it will be the best since the economy roared ahead at a 7.2 percent rate in 1984, a year when another Republican president — Ronald Reagan — was running for re-election.

Kerry and Edwards may have more problems trying to sell the "two Americas" theme that Edwards trotted out in the primaries, while the growth was still new and uncertain. With the economy continuing to expand and creating jobs in all sectors, especially manufacturing, the pressure will be on Kerry and Edwards to explain how they can create a better economy than one that grows at an estimated 4.8%, faster than any year during the Clinton administration. Raising taxes, as Kerry has repeatedly promised (in the guise of "rolling back the Bush tax cuts") will only kill off the capital investments needed to keep the momentum going.

NOTE: This outcome was predicted Saturday on our radio show by my Northern Alliance colleague, King Banian of SCSU Scholars. If you're not already reading King for economics and education issues, make sure you start now. And then drop him an e-mail and tell him to get a real hosting service so he can simplify the URL ...

Iranian Intelligence Officers Captured In Iraq

In a development certain to embarrass the Iranian government and possibly bring the West to the brink of war against the mullahcracy there, Fox News reports that joint US-Iraqi patrols have captured admitted Iranian intelligence officers in Baghdad -- carrying explosives:

American and Iraqi joint patrols, along with U.S. Special Operations teams, captured two men with explosives in Baghdad on Monday who identified themselves as Iranian intelligence officers, FOX News has confirmed.

Senior officials said it was previously believed that Iran had officers inside Iraq stirring up violence, but this is the first time that self-proclaimed Iranian intelligence agents have been captured within the country. ...

The arrest of the two Iranians suspected of attempting to carry out a vehicle bombing has focused new attention on how Tehran is trying to protect its interests in the country it fought for eight years in a devastating war. So far, Iran is believed to have used money, not guns, to influence Iraq — particularly by spreading wealth among Shiite political factions — while avoiding a direct confrontation with its longtime rival the United States.

Infiltration and attacks sponsored by Iran and conducted by Iranian agents constitutes an act of war against Iraq and the Coalition powers. The Iranians will need to do some fast talking to extricate themselves from the response George Bush is likely to deliver, if this checks out. Combined with their instransigence on their nuclear programs and their capture of British sailors just days ago, the Iranians have exhausted the patience of everyone involved. These explosives would have been used against American personnel in Iraq -- in fact, some or most of the attacks on Americans in Baghdad may have already been generated from Iranian intelligence.

Assuming this checks out -- a big assumption -- expect to see missiles flying at known nuclear sites within days in retaliation for preparing attacks on American soldiers, unless the Iranian mullahs offer a complete withdrawal of all forces on the Iran/Iraq border and renounce any further efforts to undermine Iraqi sovereignty.

Leave Iraq or die

In a bit of interesting news from Iraq, the BBC reports a group of masked men publicly accused Abu Musab al-Zarqawi of killing innocent Iraqis and defiling the Muslim religion. They warned he would be hunted down and killed if he did not leave Iraq immediately. According to the BBC, the men called themselves the Salvation Movement and told Zarqawi, "We will do to you what the coalition forces have failed to do."

If true, it seems to represent another element of the Iraqification of the war against the foreign terrorists, which began with the government's offer of amnesty to Iraqi insurgents.

Poll: Bush Gaining Among Minorities

In a poll that will likely go unnoticed today with all of the VP hoopla, CNN reports that Bush has gained in popularity among minority voters since the 2000 election, making headway among demographics that Kerry needs to have any chance of winning:

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry holds wide leads over President Bush among black and Latino voters questioned, but Bush runs slightly stronger among minority voters than he did four years ago and has a double-digit lead among white voters, according to the results of a new Gallup poll looking at racial contrasts in the presidential race.

The poll, released Tuesday, found that in a two-way race between Bush and Kerry, 53 percent of white registered voters supported Bush, while 41 percent supported Kerry. Among black voters, Kerry led Bush 81 percent to 12 percent, and among Latinos, the Massachusetts senator led 57 percent to 38 percent.

Exit polls from the 2000 election showed that Bush received only 9 percent of the black vote, compared to 90 percent for Democrat Al Gore, and 35 percent of the Latino vote, compared to 62 percent for Gore. So Kerry's lead over Bush among black voters in the new poll was about 12 points smaller than Gore's gap in 2000; among Latinos, it was 8 points smaller [emph mine -- CE].

This is tremendous news for the Republicans, and suggests that Kerry may have missed an opportunity to shore up support among minority voters with his selection of Edwards. When any Republican can gain 12 points with the black community and eight with the Latinos, it means that either the Republicans have done something significantly right, or Democrats' neglect has finally come into focus with these voters. Kerry has battled the perception of a lily-white campaign since the Iowa caucuses; this may be the chickens coming home to roost.

Kerry chose John Edwards, a trial lawyer with just six years of experience in national politics and none in foreign policy or national security. Kerry could easily have sewn up these demographics by selecting a VP nominee from one of these constituencies, such as Bill Richardson of New Mexico or even a woman like Diane Feinstein. The fact that his short list included none of these tells these people that the Democrats do not value their support, or at least do not consider its maintenance to be a high priority.

Gallup includes more detail on the polling, including the interesting data that Nader draws off more minority voters from Kerry than from Bush, magnifying the Democrats' vulnerability.

Business To Battle Kerry-Edwards Ticket

Even before John Kerry announced John Edwards as his running mate for this election, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US Chamber of Commerce will go on the partisan attack now that Edwards is on the ticket:

Tom Donohue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has made a public vow: If John Edwards is chosen as John Kerry's running mate, the chamber will abandon its traditional stance of neutrality in the presidential race and work feverishly to defeat the Democratic ticket. "We'd get the best people and the greatest assets we can rally" to the cause, he says.

Other business leaders in Washington have been less public and less precise, but no less passionate. Reviewing the candidates in the Democratic primaries earlier this year, a Fortune 100 chief executive who is active in Washington told me that Mr. Edwards, the North Carolina senator, "is the one we fear the most" -- more than John Kerry, more than Dick Gephardt, more than Howard Dean. ...

Mr. Edwards is a trial lawyer. His campaign for the presidency was financed by trial lawyers. And there is nothing that makes America's CEOs see red these days like America's trial lawyers. "It's visceral," says one person who works with a group of chief executives. "You can feel it in a room." The nation's top executives view the plaintiff's bar as modern-day mobsters, shaking down corporations by bringing endless lawsuits that are too costly and too dangerous to litigate and that result in settlements costing billions to the corporate bottom line. The antipathy, while not new, has never been greater.

While it's probably not news to anyone who follows politics that business favors Republicans, although not to the extent that people assume, the USCC has usually been fairly discreet about its partisanship. Not so in this business cycle, as its members see red whenever the trial-lawyer lobby has gotten involved in any issue. Now that Edwards is on the ticket, primarily through their support, the USCC will view hard partisan campaigning as an investment against expanded plaintiff rights and the loss of any momentum towards tort reform.

The WSJ's Alan Murray notes that Democrats have had a tough time when CEOs organize against them:

To be successful, a Democratic presidential candidate doesn't need the active support of America's CEOs, but he does need to keep them on the sidelines. Jimmy Carter lost his bid for re-election at least in part because business was determined to dump him. Bill Clinton won election and re-election at least in part because the business community, while not strongly supportive, wasn't threatened by him.

Sen. Kerry has accepted this wisdom and has worked since the end of the primary season to moderate the way he's viewed by business. The harsh talk of "Benedict Arnold corporations and CEOs that send jobs and profits overseas" -- a standard line in his stump speech back in January and February -- is gone. Instead, he talks coolly of eliminating tax breaks that encourage companies to send jobs outside the U.S. With Mr. Rubin at his side, he met with the leaders of the Business Roundtable. While there were no apparent converts, he did put the group at ease.

A decision now by Sen. Kerry to make Sen. Edwards his running mate would end that ease, and Sen. Kerry's advisers know it.

Murray suggests that Edwards could take up the cause of tort reform, but with the trial lawyers' lobby pushing Edwards to the pinnacle of the election season, that's about as likely as John Kerry rolling out a proposal for a wide-ranging school voucher system. Nor would anyone believe Edwards if he tried. Kerry will have to rely on a small circle of independently wealthy backers for fundraisers, like George Soros and possibly Warren Buffet, while his VP selection will energize the vast majority of the remainder to throw in publicly for Bush.

Tort reform, as Murray points out, represents the primary concern for the business community, especially since predatory lawsuits seem to be gaining momentum. Fast-food providers look to be the next big target (pun intended) of lawyers looking to get rich like their brethren in the tobacco lawsuits did. While Bush has not had a lot of luck getting meaningful tort reform through Congress, with Kerry-Edwards the business community will lose four years and a lot of ground as their administration will not only not push but probably would actively block such legislation. Expect to see 527s formed in the business community on this issue in the next couple of weeks.

Addendum: For an example of the kind of effort that will disappear under a Kerry-Edwards administration, the Washington Post coincidentally runs an article today on Republican efforts for tort reform:

The bill that will come before the Senate when it returns today from its Fourth of July recess would shift many such suits to the federal judicial system, removing them from state courts that in some cases have become magnets for suits because of their history of big settlements.

In a confrontation of powerful political interests, the battle pits the business groups, which tend to support Republicans, against trial lawyers and consumer, civil rights and environmental groups that work more closely with Democrats. Business interests contribute heavily to Republican campaigns, while trial lawyers are a major source of campaign money for Democrats.

Trial lawyers desperately need to keep class-action suits in state courts, where evidentiary rules and venue shopping are much easier. Federal courts have traditionally been tougher on plaintiffs, especially in class-action suits, and only offer one opportunity to score on an issue. However, the nature of the defendants in these high-dollar class-action lawsuits should require the suits to be heard at the federal level, as the business actions involved cross state lines. Also, the cost of defending a company in fifty different courtrooms put far too much pressure to needlessly settle harassing legal actions.

With Edwards and his IOUs to the trial lawyers, these reforms won't see the light of day.

Kerry Dumps NEA Meeting For Edwards Tete-a-Tete

The incompetence continues for the Kerry campaign. Fresh off of standing up the mayor of his hometown at the national Mayors' Conference and instigating an internecine feud in the city where he will receive his party's nomination, Kerry now has cancelled an appearance with a powerful union in favor of conferring with his new running mate:

Word spread quickly among the NEA delegates that Kerry would not be coming to their annual meeting in the afternoon. The Massachusetts senator revealed earlier Tuesday that North Carolina Sen. John Edwards would be his vice presidential candidate, and the two planned to meet in Pittsburgh later in the day.

NEA President Reg Weaver acknowledged he was angry, but he said it would not distract the nation's largest union from its business. He kept his cell phone on the podium in front of him as the convention resumed in case Kerry called to reschedule.

So not only does Kerry dump the most pro-union candidate for VP (Gephardt), he bails out at the last minute from speaking at the NEA conference just after they voted to endorse him. Kerry seems to make a habit of reneging on his commitments on the stump, and any goodwill that the Edwards selection made with NEA leadership has evaporated in this snub. Weaver gave no word on whether Mitt Romney will appear in Kerry's place, again. And how pathetic is the image of Weaver sitting by the telephone, waiting for Kerry's call?

Does it not seem odd that Kerry has to go to Edwards to confer on the campaign, rather than Edwards coming to Kerry at an important appearance? Kerry had an opportunity to speak in front of an enthusiastic crowd and hammer Bush on his domestic policies, especially the No Child Left Behind Act. Instead, he leaves behind demoralized and angry supporters as he flits off in another direction. This may start to look like a habit if it continues.

Edwards?

This may be the never-ending story, but now the AP reports that John Kerry has selected John Edwards for his running mate:

John Kerry selected former rival John Edwards to be his running mate, picking the smooth-talking Southern populist over more seasoned politicians in hopes of injecting vigor and small-town appeal to the Democratic presidential ticket, The Associated Press learned Tuesday.

Kerry offered Edwards the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket in a telephone call Tuesday morning, and the North Carolina senator accepted, said two senior Democrats familiar with the conversation.

I suppose that the Post may be asking its reporter for its source in the next few minutes, as putting out a massive front-page story on the wrong pick can be just a tad embarrassing. Edwards, of course, may prove more embarrassing in the long run. He's a one-term Senator with no foreign-policy experience, no great ties to labor, and in his previous career was a personal-injury trial lawyer, which as far as running targets go, don't get much better than that. He would inject more excitement into the campaign than Kerry, but almost anyone apart from Gephardt could have done the same thing. If Gephardt's hold on his home state was in doubt, Edwards' is even more tenuous; the Carolinas have been Bush country and likely will continue to be.

Edwards is a lightweight with a handsome face, and while he scored well in Iowa in the caucuses, he will carry no weight in the Midwest, even less than a Gephardt or even Howard Dean. Dick Cheney will shred Edwards in a debate, where Gephardt would have provided a better match.

There's something wrong with a process that elevated the mediocrities to the short list for the VP selection. That problem is the nominee at the top of the ticket.

UPDATE: Again via Malkin, Kerry must have flip-flopped on Edwards since January, since even he said then that Edwards was a lightweight:

"I like John Edwards a lot," Kerry said at a town hall meeting on the Newton campus of Des Moines Area Community College.

"He's a capable, talented person. But I believe the nominee of our party has to be somebody who has the experience necessary to stand up to the onslaught that will come from the Republicans," Kerry added. "If they run this race on national security and you have a nominee who has been in the Senate four years, and that is the full extent of public life -- no international experience, no military experience -- you can imagine what the advertising is going to be next year."

If he's that inexperienced for the presidency, why is Kerry picking him for the VP slot, the position that potentially puts Edwards a heartbeat away from the White House? I guess we can imagine the advertising; it will likely include this anti-endorsement from Edwards' own running mate.

UPDATE II: Our friends at the GOP were prepared for this selection. Yikes. Wonder what they'll find after a few more days:

Kerry Blasted Edwards’ ‘Lack Of Military And Foreign Policy Experience.’ “Kerry took aim at Edwards’s lack of military and foreign policy experience while responding to Edwards’s comment that both candidates shared similar plans to rebuild Iraq. ‘Well, I think he would like it to be that way,’ said Kerry, a decorated veteran, ‘but I think I have 35 years of experience in international security, foreign policy, and military affairs, and I think that makes an enormous difference here. I think that the world is looking for leadership that is tested and sure.’” (Raja Mishra, “Edwards And Kerry Emphasize Contrasts,” The Boston Globe, 2/23/04)

Kerry Mocked Edwards’ “Ambitious” Nature After Only One Term In Elective Office. “The veteran senator also questioned the former trial lawyer’s pursuit of the presidency after less than one term in elective office. ‘And people call me ambitious?’ a Globe reporter once overheard Kerry asking an aide.” (Glen Johnson, “Once a Rival, Edwards Staying Close to Kerry,” The Boston Globe, 6/10/04)

1998: Yitzhak Who? “One evening while he was campaigning for the Senate in North Carolina, Edwards was faced with a choice of several events he might attend. An advance man suggested, ‘Maybe we ought to go to the reception for Leah Rabin’ Edwards responded, ‘Who’s she?’ ‘Yitzhak Rabin’s widow,’ replied the aide. ‘Who was he?’ asked Edwards.” (Charles Peters, “Tilting At Windmills,” Washington Monthly, 6/1/03)

Edwards Sought “Dramatic Revision Of The PATRIOT Act,” But Cited Portions That Aren’t Part Of The Act. SEN. EDWARDS: “I support dramatic revision of the PATRIOT Act. The last thing we should be doing is turning over our privacy, our liberties, our freedom, our constitutional rights to John Ashcroft. Let me speak about this quickly. First, the very notion that this administration can arrest American citizens on American soil, label them an enemy combatant, put them in prison, keep them there indefinitely -- they never see a lawyer, never see a judge, never even get an opportunity to prove that they’re innocent and they did nothing wrong – this runs contrary to everything we believe in this country. (Democrat Presidential Candidates Debate, Baltimore, MD, 9/9/03)

-- A Year Earlier Edwards Praised PATRIOT And Said Broadening Surveillance Was “Correct Thing To Do.” SEN. EDWARDS: “[I] think the director of the FBI actually believes we’ve made progress in this area, partly, I might add, as a result of some of the work that Senator Hatch and others have done on the Judiciary Committee, on the Patriot Act, on the intelligence legislation which both of us were involved in which was passed earlier in the year. We broadened the extent to which this kind of surveillance could be done and gave the FBI and the CIA more authority to do it. I think that was right. It was the correct thing to do, and now we need to make sure that what’s – what can be done is, in fact, being done.” (CNN’s “Late Edition,” 7/14/02)

And so on. Looks like a pretty good start. Expect to see more of these examples in campaign advertising.

WaPo: We Still Don't Understand Blogs

The Washington Post reports today on the official inclusion of bloggers at the national conventions this election cycle by both Democrats and Republicans, and reporter Brian Faler manages to miss the point of blogging almost entirely:

The Web sites, which are essentially online journals, have become a prominent campaign tool this election season -- ever since former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's official blog caught on. Since then, scores of other candidates have developed similar sites. Some candidates have begun advertising on other independent blogs -- especially sites that feature commentaries, usually partisan, on the political news of the day.

But neither party has ever allowed bloggers to cover one of its presidential conventions firsthand -- and the decision seems to promise a clash of two very different cultures. The conventions have become carefully staged productions intended, primarily, to reintroduce the parties' nominees to the general public. Independent blogs -- especially those focusing on politics -- are far more freewheeling, their authors mixing fact with opinion and under no obligation to be either fair or accurate.

Well, the point of blogging is to have a point of view, a fact that escapes Faler altogether, even after Kos bluntly tells him the same thing in a later quote. No one expects blogs to be balanced and unbiased, unlike expectations for reporters of national media outlets. Unfortunately, they usually don't meet expectations in this regard, either becoming cheerleaders for a candidate (Jodi Wilgoren from the New York Times) or distortion providers against a candidate (Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank from the Post). Michelle Malkin notes some fairness and accuracy issues from the Post's past that he conveniently omits from his critique.

Political parties have chosen bloggers to cover the conventions in order to get their message out, relatively unfiltered, to the mass of their base. It's especially important now, since the networks plan to scale back live coverage to just the major speeches at both conventions. Bloggers can help fill in the gaps that the media misses, and bloggers can be relied upon to be enthusiastic in doing so.

I did note that Faler says the Democrats are currently reviewing the 60 bloggers who applied for credentials and expect to have decisions made on which to approve in the "next few weeks". Since it's only three weeks to the convention, those approvals should have been made much earlier. Bloggers do not have expense accounts and will need to make the least expensive arrangements possible. Waiting until the last minute on this decision will not endear the Democrats to the blogging community, pro-left or not. I hope the Republicans note this and expedite their vetting process. [Full disclosure: I applied for one of the blogging credentials at the Republican convention. Feel free to write them in support of an early credentialing process as well as for my inclusion.]

Addendum: Only 60 bloggers applied for credentials for the convention? Is that all the excitement the port side of the blogosphere can muster for the chance to cover the Democratic National Convention? That's a pretty pitiful response. I hope that the Republicans got more applicants than that.

Gephardt's First Choice

All of this VP speculation reminds people of the big effort that John Kerry made to woo maverick Republican Senator John McCain to run as his VP. The Republicans are poised, reports the New York Times, to ensure that people remember that his final selection will be nothing but a consolation prize:

President Bush's campaign strategists say they are planning to attack Senator John Kerry's running mate as a second choice no matter who it turns out to be and are preparing a commercial asserting that Mr. Kerry has made clear that his first choice was a Republican who still stands at Mr. Bush's side, Senator John McCain.

"We think it's important that people understand that this is a ticket of John Kerry and his second choice," Nicolle Devenish, the Bush campaign's communications director, said.

The effort to turn Mr. Kerry's flirtation with Mr. McCain against him is part of a multipronged strategy to offset what the Bush campaign assumes will be a sharp swing in the polls for Mr. Kerry. That, Mr. Bush's aides say, will come once Mr. Kerry announces a running mate, which could come as early as Tuesday morning, and presumably accepts the Democratic nomination in Boston at the end of this month.

Of course, this is why campaigns tend to keep VP selection processes quiet; it minimizes embarrassment for those who do not get selected, as well as for the presidential nominee who makes an offer that gets refused. Kerry's campaign and the rest of the Democratic Party forgot this in 2004, making a months-long public effort to convince McCain to jump ship and climb aboard the Kerry ticket. However, except for the initial reaction in March when McCain said he'd be obligated to discuss it with Kerry if asked, McCain has been unequivocal in his refusal to join the Democrats. He even co-chairs the Bush re-election campaign in Arizona and starting last month has made campaign appearances with the President.

The Times reports that the Republicans are readying ads for release as early as today using McCain's campaign appearances to remind voters of Kerry's desperation to get McCain's endorsement. Instead, McCain's endorsement of Bush will be made clear. While McCain appears in support of Bush, the Republicans could also dig this up in order to make clear that both halves of the Democratic ticket think that McCain is the ultimate authority:

Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the Missouri Democrat who has often been mentioned as a running mate for Senator John Kerry, is talking kindly about another choice: Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. Asked after a speech in California on Monday what he thought of Mr. McCain's potential for the Democratic presidential ticket, Mr. Gephardt described him as a "very attractive figure in American politics" who "would be accepted by the Democratic Party," according to CNN.

Mr. McCain is "someone a lot of Democrats could get interested in," Mr. Gephardt said at the Leon Panetta Center in Monterrey.

Now that the Post has announced Gephardt as Kerry's running mate this election, the longtime Missouri Congressman's word could come back to haunt the Massachussetts Senator. As I blogged when this article first appeared at the end of May, going on the record for attribution in support of McCain in the middle of the VP search was amazing, and very troubling for Kerry. It suggested that, along with other Democrats going on the record for chasing McCain such as Hillary Clinton and Bob Kerrey, no one really wanted the VP slot, and even worse, no one thought that a Democrat would do as well as a Republican.

The Republicans should have no trouble driving this point home in their new ads; even Gephardt made himself a second choice. What does that tell you about the Democratic duo this year?

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin reviews Gephardt's positions and notes a certain inconsistent consistency between the running mates.

Gephardt?

The New York Post has taken the first unequivocal leap for the mainstream media and claimed an exclusive on John Kerry's VP choice. In an unsigned article, the Post claims that it has learned that Kerry has selected Rep. Dick Gephardt for his running mate:

John Kerry has chosen Rep. Richard Gephardt, the veteran congressman from Missouri, to be his running mate, The Post has learned. Gephardt, 63, a 28-year veteran of the House of Representatives, could be named by the presumptive Democratic nominee as the party's vice-presidential candidate as soon as today.

The Massachusetts senator was set to announce the winner of the veep-stakes at a rally this morning in Pittsburgh, according to several reports last night. With the July 26 Democratic convention in Boston looming, Kerry is looking for some advantage in the polls, and is hoping his choice of running mate will be the answer.

As I blogged a few weeks ago, he could do worse, although without a doubt he could have done better. Gephardt has long been known as the darling of organized labor, and also was one of the few candidates on the stump this year who supported the war in Iraq while campaigning for the Democratic nomination. Gephardt, unlike Howard Dean, is an adult and a veteran of national politics.

That's about as far as the good news will take Kerry. Gephardt reminds one of Lloyd Bentsen without the electric personality. He's a functionary, a bit more than a nonentity but far from dynamically attractive. In fact, he may be the only candidate who could inspire less enthusiasm than Kerry himself once they begin campaigning. Lest anyone forget, Gephardt has run for the top job at least twice and bombed both times. The highest office he's ever held is House representative, which only requires a majority in the smallest slice of electorate in national politics.

Which, of course, brings us to strategy, and it's apparent that no one in the Kerry campaign has thought strategically about this choice. Supposedly Gephardt will bring in the Midwest, but Gephardt couldn't even finish in the top 3 in Iowa this year, coming in behind two Northeasterners and a Southerner, not quite in that order. A recent Missouri poll -- sorry, can't find the link -- showed that Missourians favor John Edwards for VP over Gephardt. Gephardt has never tested his credentials outside of his own safe district in Missouri, choosing to remain in his House seat for his entire career. It's unlikely that Gephardt will be changing many minds outside of Missouri, and taking his home state is no cinch, either.

You can expect a minimal bounce in the polls with this selection, assuming that the Post has it correctly, but the Deaniacs will hit the roof at the Convention, as they widely and passionately detest Gephardt for his character assassination on Howard Dean in the Iowa primaries. That floor fight the Deaniacs promised may well erupt in Boston.

Long Weekends, Short Blogging

I hope all of you had a great, long weekend this Fourth. I've had Monday off, and while I spent part of my day doing some follow-up on the First Mate's medical stuff, I've spent most of the weekend relaxing and taking it easy. (The FM is doing well and thanks all of you for your prayers and thoughts.) After the NARN broadcast Saturday we spent some time with our son, daughter-in-law, and the Little Admiral, which is always good for the soul. She's learning what "tired" means, and she doesn't much like it.

Neither the First Mate nor I are much into fireworks these days -- of course, for her, all she gets to experience is one very loud explosion followed by the next. On the Fourth, we have fallen into the habit of going to the movies. Last night, however, her energy level was a bit off, so instead of taking the FM to the movies, we took the movies to the FM. Blockbuster Video had a sale on yesterday on "pre-viewed" videos, and we bought three movies for $25: Cheaper By The Dozen (Steve Martin version), Big Fish, and Peter Pan. We watched the first two as the fireworks went off yesterday, with a big bowl of kettle corn and our own soft drinks. A double feature! And we're about to watch Peter Pan next. If you get the chance, you should definitely see Big Fish and Cheaper By The Dozen -- very enjoyable, and both are family-friendly. (Big Fish has nudity in silhouette, but that's about the only thing objectionable.)

More blogging later tonight, or perhaps tomorrow, but I decided to take some time off for the holiday, and I hope you all had the same chance. Our best to you and your families from Captain's Quarters.

Caption Contest Winners -- All Of Us!

What a great caption contest we had this weekend! Even on the new abbreviated schedule, we had 91 fantastic entries ... close to a record here at CQ. Bill from INDC Journal has finished judging all of your suggestions -- and speaking of judging, even Uncle Saddy pointed out a couple of excellent captions:

Here are the winners:

Captain's Award (Have We Heard This Somewhere Before?) -- Kris:

"We're going to invade Iran... and Kuwait... and Syria... and Saudi
Arabia... and then we're going to Israel to take back the Holy Land...
YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAARGH!"

You Have The Conn #1 (Off His ZZ Top) -- Thief:

"They come a-runnin' just as fast as they can,
Baby go crazy 'bout a Sharp Dressed Man!"

You Have The Conn #2 (Like No Business I Know) -- Retired Military:

"What do you have to say to the charges levied against you Mr. Hussein?"

"That's SHOWBIZ!!!!"

You Have The Conn #3 (I Didn't Get My Bread) -- Mango:

"No WMD for you! Come Back! One Year!"

Jack Nicholson Special Villain Award (Put It Between Your Knees) -- Villain:

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!

Report To Sick Bay (I Don't Care What You Say, This Is My Life) -- JBlake:

I did it simply...because...I...could. And really ...it was a short
cigar.

But more than these fine entries, the readers of CQ, INDC Journal, and the Eggers family are the big winners. We started out Friday morning with a donation total of just under $2800. When Bill looked Sunday evening, the donations had totalled up to more than $4,000, with checks and pledges not counted in that total. You guys are simply the best blogger readership on the Internet. Let's keep it going -- that tip jar is still open, and the Eggers family needs to know that Americans care about them.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and congratulations to the winners! Remember, here at CQ, everyone's a winner -- just some of us have higher winning percentages than others. Comments on this post will remain open, as usual, in order for the winners to gloat, the others to disparage Bill's intellect and/or my parentage, and for any other entries submitted just for the sheer enjoyment of amazing your friends and confounding your enemies.

Send me a photograph or an e-mail with a link to a great picture you think should be the subject of our next Caption Contest, and let me know if you'd like to be the guest judge! I'll have another picture for Friday -- so be sure to come back then for the next contest.

You should also check out this poem by I Love Jet Noise, which claims bragging rights over the Caption Contests so far this year. It's actually just a bit ... scary!

Kerry Flip-Flops On Life

Despite having a more consistent record on abortion than any other issue in his career, John Kerry yesterday tried to have it both ways again, flip-flopping on the definition of human life. Kerry tried to pander to Catholics and strict Christians but instead raised far more questions than he answered:

But even as he tried to avoid making news Sunday, Kerry broke new ground in an interview that ran in the Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph Herald. A Catholic who supports abortion rights and has taken heat from some in the church hierarchy for his stance, Kerry told the paper, "I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception."

Spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said that although Kerry has often said abortion should be "safe, legal and rare," and that his religion shapes that view, she could not recall him ever publicly discussing when life begins.

"I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist," he continued in the interview. "We have separation of church and state in the United States of America." The comments came on the final day of a three-state Midwest swing, during which Kerry has repeatedly sought to dispel stereotypes that could play negatively among voters there.

Not only does this completely belie every vote Kerry has ever taken on the subject of abortion, including his support of the late-term abortion procedure sometimes called partial-birth abortion, but it demonstrates the intellectual and philosophical bankruptcy of the Democratic nominee. It is true that Catholics and a large segment of Christians overall believe that life begins at conception, which is why these groups oppose all abortion altogether. Other people believe that life begins at "viability", the moving target of when a baby can survive outside the mother's womb. Others still believe that life cannot be defined until birth itself and separation from the mother.

These beliefs and definitions lead to one purpose: to define life so as to protect it. After all, only the lunatic fringe wouldn't try to defend innocent life, once established. Catholics wish to protect life from conception forward, and others seek to protect it from their definition of its inception. John Kerry, in his remarks to the Iowa newspaper, comes up with a completely different raison d'etre -- he seeks to define life so as to protect his political career. Kerry now admits he practices hypocrisy on a scale so monstrous, it boggles the mind.

If life begins at conception, why then does Jon Kerry not only agree to allow abortion, but campaigns on its behalf? Does he care so little for human life and the souls of the unborn that he cheerfully sells them out for political gain? John Kerry was one of only 14 Senators who voted to continue the practice of partial-birth abortions, which take a fetus past the point of viability into the birth canal and kills it by sucking out its brain. How does that match up with a belief in life at conception?

No. Unlike those who define life differently, and who therefore have a consistent philosophical argument to support abortion, Kerry's actions do not equate with these professed beliefs. Either Kerry has trotted out a new lie in order to shore up his Catholic support, or he has opened the window into his heartless, calculating political soul. Not only that, but even those who support abortion must be scratching their heads, wondering if Candidate Kerry will toss them under a bus with as much alacrity as he has his principles.

And that really gets us to the crux of this statement. Kerry not only has voted to support abortion, he openly campaigned for it, up to the point that he found himself running for national office. Now he says he personally opposes abortion but felt as though he could not impose his "beliefs" on others. If true, Kerry also never felt the need to argue for his beliefs, to try to convince others of the truth of his own beliefs. Many others, including George Bush and a whole Party of politicians, have managed to stand up for what they believe is right and still be successful. What other beliefs will Kerry find as easy to sell out for political expediency?

My Position On Abortion

In order to clarify my post above on John Kerry's eye-popping statment in the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald yesterday, I will explain my position on abortion so you know where I sit.

I believe that life begins within minutes of conception, and that belief is based on science, not faith, although they intersect. Eggs and sperm carry 23 chromosomes, half of the genetic blueprint for human life. Even if other primates have the same chromosome count, the DNA encoding on human eggs and sperm is uniquely human. When the sperm fertilizes the egg, the separate DNA strands combine into 23 pairs of chromosomes and a unique blueprint for a unique human being. Once the cell divides on its own -- usually within a half-hour -- that being is alive, unique, and separate from, though dependent on, its mother.

Some have argued this point for decades. Phil Donahue, years ago, once said on television that a human being in the womb passes through stages where it becomes a fish, then a dog, and so on; this argument arises amongst the ignorant often. Science teaches us that this is folk-tale nonsense. Vertebrates in the womb all pass through similar stages of development, but we are encoded at conception as human, and human we remain from the moment of conception until our death. Our DNA and genetic composition is a fact, not a belief, and cell division demonstrates life, as any biologist will tell you. Facts. Not beliefs.

What to do with this life then becomes a question more of values than of faith. Do we sacrifice innocent human life for the sake of convenience or economics? Throughout the history of Western civilization, we have answered that with a resounding NO. We enact laws, construct family structures, and develop moral and social structures in order to protect and to nurture it. When we have devalued innocent life, Holocausts have resulted, such as the Nazi atrocities (even apart from the Final Solution) of forced abortions and euthanasia of the so-called undesirable elements, such as the sickly, the less intelligent, the handicapped, and the simply different.

Those who support abortion either don't recognize life at this stage, in defiance of the science, or simply bypass the question in order to focus on a woman's "right to choose". However, that argument supports a freedom from the responsibilities of choice in the vast majority of abortions (over 40 million abortions since 1973). The choice was whether to engage in sexual activity without effect contraception or not; the pregnancy results from a poor choice. Like so many other areas in our society today, adults campaign for the right to be considered children and take no responsibility for their own actions. Libertarians usually argue for legalized abortion, which amuses me no end, because they also argue that people can be responsible for their own choices and that they stand for the rights of the individual -- forgetting that the one function of government they support is the protection of the weakest citizens, which unborn children certainly must be.

Even having said all that, if America's elected representatives came together and legalized abortion, I would accept that, even while arguing against it. After all, as Kerry himself said, no one person or organization should be allowed to impose its beliefs on the majority. However, the majority has never been heard on this issue, because nine men in robes imposed their beliefs on the United States without benefit of debate or vote. The Supreme Court relied on emanations from penumbras of a Constitutional amendment against illegal search and seizure in order to proclaim that the founders really meant that women had an absolute right to abort babies, removing this issue from the reach of the American people for a generation and stoking the domestic hostility that the legislative structure was designed to keep under control. Roe v Wade is an abomination in law and morality.

I do not oppose abortion because I am Catholic; I'm Catholic because it comes closest to my beliefs on life and morality, and their consistent stand on abortion underscores that beautifully.

Remembering on Independence Day

I was going to write something inspirational for Independence Day, but instead, I found this at Auterrific, a great blog run by Linda, a CQ reader who often disagrees with me here. However, her post today reminds us that even though we may all disagree with each other on politics, we are all still Americans, and we stand together in the last instance.

Thoughts For The 4th

I could have posted something profound.

I could have posted something fun.

What I am posting, is a request that when you are enjoying all of your barbeques and swim parties today, that you take a moment to remember those who can't.

The recently beheaded...they won't be with their families today.

The people in the twin towers...they won't be with theirs either.

The people in the flights that went down in the Pentagon and PA...nope, not theirs either.

The countless soldiers who have given their lives for the war in Iraq and to keep our country free so we can enjoy those steaks on the grill, and the fireworks that will be so spectacular this evening...they understood how important this all was, but alas, they will not be with their families either.

In remembering them...remember that either willingly or unwillingly, they did it for all of us...democrats, republicans, moderates or libertarians.

They did it for LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

Be sure to visit Auterrific and give Linda thanks.

Captain's Caption Contest #17: The Mother Of All Caption Contests/Benefit Edition

It's Friday, so it must be time for another edition of the Captain's Caption Contest! John Kerry's taking a couple of days off, se we're going to give him a break. After all, it's been a long week, a trial, if you know what I mean. You don't? I think this guy does:

Yes, here's your opportunity to caption the Master of Disaster, The Mother of All Mother******s himself, Uncle Saddy! Our guest judge this week will be Bill from INDC Journal, an excellent blog that mixes humor with some terrific on-the-ground photojournalism (and regular journalism, too, for that matter). But there's a catch this week ...

Bill is currently raising funds for the family of Captain Dan Eggers, a Green Beret that Bill knew in high school who lost his life in the effort to free Iraq from the genocidal maniac pictured above. His PayPal tip jar has stalled out at $2,793.41, and before he closes it up altogether, I want to give everyone here at CQ a chance to help out the family of a true patriot who gave his life in service to our country.

So leave your comments on the comments page, and as always, put your best caption entries in the comments section -- NO e-mail, please! (E-mailed entries will be sealed in an empty French wine bottle and placed under the rear tires of Barbra Streisand's hybrid limousine.) The contest will remain open until 8 pm Sunday, July 4th, at which point the comments will be closed and Bill will pick the winners. You don't have to donate anything to enter or win, but let's remember who's judging, okay? I've always said that bribes are most welcome for the CQ caption contests -- this time I'm serious. Let's show the Eggers family how much the blogosphere supports them, regardless of your position on the war itself.

Have fun, and drop something in the tip jar -- anything you can spare will help the Eggers. Let slip the captioners of war!

(And don't forget -- commenters registered with Typekey get their entries immediately posted, rather than wait for approval!)

UPDATE: I'm offering a guest spot -- one post, any subject, any point of view -- to the CQ reader who donates the most between now and July 4th. Minimum donation: $50. I'll only edit it for grammar, formatting, and to protect myself from libel or copyright liability. Make sure you let Bill know that you're a CQ reader when you donate so you can claim your prize!

UPDATE II: Bill's calling this the Mother Of All Caption Contests. Damn! Why didn't I think of that one? (You'll notice it's not too late for me to steal it, however ...)

UPDATE III: Check out this funny separated-at-birth comparison between Uncle Saddy and a well-known celebrity at Irreconcilable Musings -- after you've hit the Eggers' tip jar, that is!

COMMENTS CLOSED: Great job, everyone! The comments are now closed. Don't forget to hit the Eggers' tip jar one more time at INDC Journal, and have a great 4th! Winners will be announced later on tonight or early tomorrow morning ...

Libyans Finds Al-Qaeda Base, Informs West

Proving again that the Bush approach on Iraq integrates into the wider war on Islamofascist terror, the newly repentant Libya has discovered an al-Qaeda operations base near its border with Chad:

Libyan secret services have found a desert operations camp belonging to an al Qaeda-linked group called the GSPC after "intercepting" members of the group near the border with Chad, a French newspaper said on Sunday.

The paper, Le Journal du Dimanche, said that a source close to the counter-espionage services of a European country told it of the discovery by Libyan agents 10 days ago in the mountainous region of Tibesti that spans Libya's southern border with Chad. ...

The French newspaper said that the GSPC -- the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat -- was recruiting actively in the Tibesti region and buying arms and vehicles with German ransom money paid for the release of tourists in the Sahara in 2003. The GSPC, whose acronym is based on the French spelling of its name, is a militant group founded in 1998 in Algeria which is now regarded to have eclipsed the renowned Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria.

Instapundit has often linked to stories regarding Islamofascist activity in North Africa, specifically Algeria. Libya, which joined the West in its war on AQ after Moammar Gaddafi watched Saddam Hussein pulled out of his Tikriti rathole, now has scored an important victory against the terrorists and has demonstrated why taking Saddam out as an object lesson to the other dictators in the region was so important.

People seem to forget the strategic importance of geography in any war, and especially this one. The first phase had to be Afghanistan, to dislodge and disrupt the AQ network and remove the Taliban after their defiance. Toppling Saddam and freeing Iraq cut a huge hole in the transit corridor between Iran and Syria and isolated bothe countries militarily, especially Syria, which is now bordered on three sides by representative democracies (in Iraq, a nascent one). With Libya now acting on behalf of the West in the war, the North African transit corridor is now compromised as well.

Terrorists are running out of territory in North Africa and Southwest Asia and have fewer secure means to relocate when pressured, meaning that eventually they will be easier to spot and to target. In less than three years of war, we've managed to liberate 50 million people and removed three main state supports of Islamofascist terrorism. In case people can't recognize it for all of the silliness of our national media, this is progress.

Where Freedom Can't Be Taken For Granted

The London Guardian reports on a story that Americans should be reading on Independence Day, to remind us that the job isn't over in Afghanistan yet and that the freedoms we take for granted can still be denied to others who crave it:

Mahadad was resting on a cushion in her sitting room, with a thick bandage covering the burns on her legs. "I'm never going back," she said. "Look at my leg. How can I go back? In my heart, I never want to go again."

Mahadad, 38, is one of the 12 survivors of last week's bomb attack by Taliban on a bus that was carrying women election workers and a child near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. Two of the women and the child were killed in the explosion.

They had been on their way to a registration site to hand out identification cards to women which would allow them to vote in the coming autumn elections. Despite the Taliban claiming responsibility, questions are still being asked about how such an atrocity could have happened.

If you think this can only happen in Southwest Asia, then you have not been paying attention to the attacks that these same Islamofascist terrorists have conducted in places like Spain and France, and in the US as well. What do you suppose the purpose of those attacks are? They intend on frightening entire civilizations into knuckling under to Shari'a the same way they've terrorized Mahadad into silence. While people continue to shriek about how a little criticism somehow equates to Naziism, these terrorists are busy spreading true fascism and oppression.

Today would be a good day to remember that.

Not Yet, At Any Rate, We Think

After reports came out yesterday that captured US Marine Wassef Hassoun had been beheaded by the Islamofascist terrorists holding him, the group taking responsibility for his kidnapping now says those reports were false:

An Islamic extremist group denied in a statement posted on its Web site Sunday that it had killed a U.S. Marine taken hostage last month. The Ansar al-Sunna Army issued the statement in response to reports by the Lebanese Foreign Ministry that the group killed Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, an American of Lebanese descent. ...

"The media have published, quoting the Lebanese foreign ministry, that the Ansar al-Sunna Army has killed the American hostage, from Lebanese origin, who was kidnapped in Iraq (news - web sites)," the statement said.

"In order to maintain our credibility in all issues we declare that this statement that was attributed to us has no basis of truth," the statement said. It added that any statement in its name "that any statement that is not issued through our site doesn't represent us."

All of this points out the difficulty in reporting on these shadow groups, of course; the media had no choice but to report the earlier story, but until someone can confirm statements like these, we should be careful to consider them preliminary.

On our Independence Day, we can pray that this latest message is correct and that Hassoun is still alive. However, even if he is, he likely will still be slaughtered by the butchers holding him, unless the Iraqis can find their miserable hiding place and free him first.