Dowd: Teresa the "Stepmoney"

Normally, Maureen Dowd writes nearly incoherent and largely pointless screeds against Republicans, and normally I only give her columns a brief scan to see how many dippy names she can call Bush or Cheney this week. However, Dowd marks her return to the Times' editorial page by turning her sights on John and Teresa Kerry, and it's clear she's less than pleased with the Democratic nominee and his wife:

And campaigning in Boston, her compliment for the new ticket was backhanded. "I have to say that John Edwards is very beautiful," she said in her soft accent, adding, "and my husband is very smart." Welcome to the campaign, pretty boy. ...

Even in a place where everyone is constantly reinventing, people are a little stunned at the way Teresa casts herself as a "third worlder" and "daughter of Africa," a wretched-refuse-of-your-teeming-shore sort of immigrant rather than a "White Mischief" émigré, the daughter of a prosperous Portuguese doctor in colonial Mozambique who met John Heinz when they were studying in Switzerland. When Mrs. Kerry presents herself as an African-American or says, "I'm an immigrant, too," and when her son Chris Heinz says he's looking forward to the day when there is a "first-generation American" in the White House, it doesn't always strike the empathetic chord with Hispanic and black audiences that the campaign hopes for.

Some Hollywood contributors want to censor any Teresa tidbits, including any mention of her nickname among some in the Kerry circle — "the Stepmoney."

Early on in the campaign, Republicans thought that Teresa could wind up being a liability, but no one wanted to come out and make her an issue. First, it's not very fair -- Bill and Hillary campaigned on getting "two for the price of one," while Kerry has never implied that Teresa would have anything to do with policy development. More than that, though, no one wanted to point out Teresa's oddities for the record, mainly because they would become self-evident soon enough.

However, I don't think anyone expected a leftist columnist to go out of her way to out Teresa's eccentricities. Dowd scores point after point against Heinz-Kerry in ways that would elicit screams from Down had a conservative columnist gone half as far as she does. As it is, I expect that Dowd will receive an avalanche of criticism for this column, for both the personal attacks on Teresa as well as the poor writing and structure of the piece itself. After wandering from Bush and Cheney to the Stepmoney, she then drifts towards Kerry himself without any unifying theme except her displeasure:

Surely, the reason the town known as the Democratic Party's wallet is so focused on the candidate's spouse is that the candidate himself has given it nothing to get excited about. People here are amazed that John Kerry does not even have a soaring stump speech yet, either in terms of the arc or music of the words, or the passion of the ideas. John 2 came up with the theme of two Americas in the primaries, and John 1 still hasn't articulated his vision for one.

Usually, it's President Bush and Mr. Cheney who engender the feeling of, "Just how stupid do they think we are?" But last week, it was the Kerry campaign, which tried to make the claim that Hillary Clinton preferred a silent cameo in a non-prime-time chorus line of female Democratic senators to a top speaking slot.

"Senator Clinton, along with all the other women senators — I think nine of them in the Democratic Party," Tad Devine told Judy Woodruff Thursday on CNN, "agreed that they wanted to appear and speak together and ask Senator Mikulski, the senior member, to speak on their behalf."

And I am Marie of Romania.

It looks like the Democrats may tear themselves to pieces long before the Republicans get the chance. If this is the tenor of the commentary from the established opinionmakers on the Left less than two weeks before the nomination, the Kerry campaign had better hope that Teresa gets laryngitis for the next four months -- and gives it to her husband as well.

Northern Alliance Close To Streaming Deal

For those of you who have not been in the Twin Cities area during one of our Saturday afternoon Northern Alliance Radio Network shows on AM 1280 The Patriot, we may have good news in the next few days for you. We have started negotiations with a sponsor to pay the cost to retransmit our show over Internet streaming, meaning that the NARN will be heard worldwide in a short period of time. We will all announce this as soon as the deal materializes and the streaming service contract is signed.

In other NARN news, we have a couple of key dates coming up. Next Saturday, July 24th, we're calling all bloggers to meet us at Keegan's, a Minneapolis pub often patronized by the Fraters Libertas gang, at 5 PM. We want to meet all of our fellow Upper Midwest bloggers, regardless of political affiliation. If you can make it, drop us a line at party@northernallianceradio.com.

The following Saturday, July 31st, we will be doing our first live remote from The Estates at Diamond Bluff, our new Patriot sponsor. We'll have free barbecue, some beautiful homes to tour, and of course all of the Northern Alliance guys will be out there to meet you. You can find the site directions here. We hope to see all of you out there!

Palestinian Authority Losing Steam

In a move that looks deliciously like chickens coming home to roost, Islamists have begun a string of kidnapings in the Gaza Strip, forcing Yasser Arafat to sumbit to their demands and pushing the territory Israel plans to abandon towards anarchy:

Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president, has rejected the resignation of the prime minister Ahmed Qurie, according to a cabinet minister. Mr Qurie submitted his resignation this morning after complaining of "unprecendented chaos" following series of kidnappings in the Gaza Strip. ...

Earlier, the Palestinian Authority declared a state of emergency in the Gaza Strip after four French aid workers captured on Friday were released by militants. The kidnappings are linked to demands for anti-corruption reforms from Arafat.

These reforms are similar to those the Egyptians demanded in return for continuing its guarantee of Arafat's life from Israeli attack. Egypt gave Arafat a deadline that quietly expired almost a month ago to agree to the changes and begin their implementation. Arafat finally agreed and started to make some minor changes in structure, breaking security down from eight organizations to three, although he put his nephew in charge of them, continuing his control in defiance of Egypt and the road-map Quartet.

As it turns out, events have forced Arafat's hand where an ailing Hosni Mubarak could not. After Arafat's security chief in Gaza was released by his captors, Arafat sacked him, apparently to meet the demands of the surprise insurgency in Gaza. Arafat's surrender may signal an inability to get on top of the security situation in Gaza, giving Hamas and Islamic Jihad the opening they need to seize control themselves at the head of a popular uprising and deliver the de facto terrorist state that both Israel and Egypt fear in Gaza. If that happens, Arafat's position in the West Bank will also become untenable and he may have to bug out without any encouragement from Israel or the US to abdicate.

Unfortunately, this scenario may well be the worst possible outcome for Israel. The elements of Palestinian society that could grab power quickly in the West Bank all come from the Islamist-terrorist organizations. Instead of the orderly transition from Arafat to the somewhat democratic Parliamentary system envisaged by the powers involved in the peace talks, an Iranian-style coup will take over Israel's eastern border and destabilize the entire area (even more than now). As these elements have consistently stated that peace will only come with Israel's destruction, a high probability exists that only a ground war in the West Bank will resolve the conflict.

As usual, Yasser Arafat blew it. He tried to play all sides against the middle, and instead has created a disastrous situation for himself and his people rather than negotiate in good faith to reach a final resolution of the West Bank/Gaza Strip status. Unless he can bring Gaza under control -- and very quickly, as anarchy tends to expand exponentially -- he's either an exile or a dead man, the first of many to come.

McCain Steps Up Again

Uberpolitician John McCain, the darling of the Democrats until they finally decided he couldn't be swayed onto a Kerry/McCain ticket, hit the stumps again yesterday, appearing with Dick Cheney in a key battleground state:

He called Vice President Cheney "indispensable and very debonair." The vice president called him "one of the great Americans of our generation." Standing before an enormous American flag and balloons, the two white-haired politicians wrapped their arms around each other.

McCain is the only Republican in Congress so far who has accompanied President Bush or Cheney to a campaign event outside his or her home turf. Even Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) and one of Bush's closest friends in Congress, Rep. Rob Portman (Ohio), have traveled only to Bush-Cheney '04 fundraisers, not rallies.

In Lansing, McCain gave a lengthy introduction of Cheney, calling him "one of the most capable, experienced, intelligent and steady vice presidents this country has ever had." Adopting one of the central selling points of the Bush campaign, McCain said that Cheney "is, in effect, deputy commander in chief in the greatest test of our generation . . . this long, tough fight to vanquish international terrorism."

That McCain and Bush disagree on policy is in no dispute. However, John Kerry and his colleagues on the other side of the aisle had to be kidding themselves if they thought they could leverage that into steering McCain into the Kerry camp. If McCain disagrees with Bush, he's almost antithetical to Kerry, especially to Kerry's policy vagaries. As tenacious as Kerry is evasive, McCain has never built his political views by sticking his finger into the wind. In fact, temperamentally, McCain has always been closer to Bush.

The effusive praise heaped on McCain by Dick Gephardt and Bob Kerrey has helped raise his profile and credibility even further, and McCain has put it to good use on the campaign trail. He's shown no reluctance to stand beside Cheney, who despite his current popularity woes has been a consistent and steadying influence in American government for almost a quarter-century. The Senator and the VP have worked together for many years and probably make a better road team than Bush and McCain do -- and Cheney could probably use the boost more than Bush, too.

McCain found the time to dig at Kerry's eventual replacement for McCain on the ticket:

For his part, McCain, who traveled with Cheney only as far as Lansing, took subtle digs at Edwards. Without mentioning the Democrat by name, McCain implicitly contrasted Edwards's one term in the Senate with Cheney's long government career. Alluding to Edwards's reputation as a sexy politician, McCain said of Cheney, "In short, he is not just another pretty face."

Expect this to be the message regarding Edwards through November. John Edwards can appear in People Magazine. Dick Cheney can be president.

CBS/NYT Poll: No Bounce For Edwards, Better Reporting, Same Old Methodology

The New York Times improved its polling reporting this week by having Richard Stevenson and Janet Elder write the article instead of Adam Nagourney, and the result is a more balanced look at a still-imbalanced poll. The overall result shows Kerr/Edwards leading nationwide by five points, an outlier of recent polling showing the race still a dead heat after the selection of John Edwards gave no momentum to the Democrats:

But naming Mr. Edwards did not immediately win over any substantial number of voters for the Democratic ticket, and the campaign between Mr. Kerry and President Bush remains statistically deadlocked as Mr. Kerry heads toward the Democratic convention and his best opportunity to make a strong impression on the country, the poll found. ...

While Mr. Kerry's selection of Mr. Edwards did not substantially alter the race, it corresponded with a deepening of the support for Mr. Kerry, though that support remained less intense than that for Mr. Bush. Forty-one percent said they strongly favored Mr. Kerry, up 10 percentage points from last month. Also, the percentage of people who said they were backing Mr. Kerry because they disliked the other candidates fell to 27 percent from 37 percent.

Among Mr. Bush's backers, 60 percent said they strongly favored him, up from 56 percent last month. Eight percent said they supported him because they disliked the other candidates, down from 11 percent last month.

The Times posts a PDF file of the poll analysis, but unfortunately, it's the poll analysis from the end of June, and not this poll. It shows the totals from each question, but one question in particular appears to call the results into question. When asked, participants responded that 35% were registered Democrats, 29% Republican, and 29% independent. As I've pointed out before, that doesn't represent the electorate properly, and if CBS/NYT weights it out as they've done in the past, they'll likely have made the situation worse, not better:

The CBS poll, on the other hand, uses only 1113 registered voters, broken down in an unusual manner: 346 Republicans, 390 Democrats, and 377 independents. Since when are there that many more Democrats than Republicans? The poll then shows its "weighting" (although it doesn't explain what it means), and the numbers get even worse: 330-R, 401-D, 381-I. According to the University of Pennsylvania in 2003, Republicans accounted for 32.5% of the registered electorate, while Democrats accounted for 33.7%. In a sample of 1113 voters, you would then expect to see 361-R, 375-D, 376-I. The result of CBS's sample is to throw off representation for Republicans by 8.6%, while bolstering Democrats by 7% and independents by 1.3%, using CBS' weighting.

In this case, the numbers appear to be only slightly closer to reality, and since neither outlet has released their methodology this time -- a highly suspicious omission -- it looks as though we have another skewed poll from the Tiffany Network and the Paper of Record. Undersampling GOP voters by 4% and oversampling Dems by a shade over 1% just about equals the gap between Kerry and Bush in their poll.

If CBS and the Times get around to releasing the methodology and raw data from this poll, I'll update you. The results are interesting as a trend, but I wouldn't put a lot of stock in the specific data as a prediction of voting behavior.

UPDATE: Longtime reader/commenter Gerry from Daly Thoughts has the link to the proper PDF for this study. As in the June PDF, no methodology of weighting is provided, but as Gerry notes in the comments, the gap in Dem/Rep representation is wider than first thought:

Despite a 2-point increase in the percentage of Democrats in the sample, the results were the same as the late-June result: Kerry 49, Bush 44 among registered voters. This time, CBS/NY Times included 29% Republicans, 37% Democrats, and 30% independents (4% did not know or refused to answer). In June they included 35% Democrats.

So we have 4% underrepresentation of the GOP and 4% overrepresentation of the Democrats, and still the Kerry/Edwards ticket only leads by five points. This can't build much confidence in the Democratic ticket.

Boston Labor Dispute Worsens

In a city controlled by Democrats for decades, with its close ties to labor unions, the debacle on the horizon for the Democratic Nominating Convention continues to grow. The Washington Post reports that Republican Governor Mitt Romney had to step in to replace the head of the arbitration board, fearful that the high-risk convention would become vulnerable to attack due to police unions focusing on picketing rather than security:

Both sides of the labor dispute have been meeting with the state's Joint Labor Management Committee, a mediation body, which was seeking to broker an agreement and had voted to appoint an outside arbitrator.

But this week, Gov. Mitt Romney (R) intervened by replacing the acting head of the management committee, citing a concern that the dispute would not be resolved before the convention. "Public safety personnel during the Democratic National Convention should be focused entirely on security, not manning a picket line," he said.

National labor officials are pressuring both sides to reach a quick conclusion, but so far neither side has budged. Mayor Thomas Menino has offered an 12% increase to the police and firefighters over the next four years -- about 3% a year, about what you'd expect in the private sector. The unions insist on 17%. Menino has said he wants the dispute resolved before the convention, but he won't mortgage the city budget to do it.

As you might imagine from the labor-friendly Democrats, the paradox of crossing picket lines to support the working class is an irony they do not long to experience. Already, the largest delegation (California) has announced that they do not intend on crossing picket lines, and several more look to follow suit:

When Mayor Thomas M. Menino (D) welcomes delegates to the Democratic National Convention here, the chairman of the California delegation plans to stand up and walk out.

Art Torres has asked the rest of his state's 541 delegates, alternates and committee members to leave with him as a show of solidarity with Boston police and firefighters, who are locked in a bitter contract dispute with Menino that threatens to disrupt the convention. "I don't know what other message to give to this mayor that workers who protect our lives deserve a contract," Torres said. ...

The unions have written to all the state delegations asking them not to cross their picket lines. The leaders of at least six -- North Dakota, Maine, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and California, the nation's largest -- have said they will avoid picketed events and will encourage their delegates to do likewise, which has led organizers to contemplate cancellations. Ohio delegation chairman Dennis L. White wrote the police union this week that he and his staff are prepared to join the walkout on Menino.

Thanks to John Kerry's last-minute cancellation at the Mayors' Conference last month in Boston, embarrassing his ally Menino, the unions are unlikely to demonstrate on the night that Kerry receives the nomination, helping him to avoid the difficult choice of either crossing a picket line or creating the singular image of a candidate accepting his party's nomination by satellite linkup. However, Kerry and Edwards and other high-profile Democrats will need to enter the convention hall early and often to fire up the troops and try to build the momentum needed for a convention boost. If they have to cross picket lines to do it, they will infuriate some of the rank and file and generate divisiveness in the midst of their unity festival.

As I noted earlier, national labor leadership wants this resolved quickly before it embarrasses all parties involved:

About 12 percent, or 500 of the 4,352 delegates to the convention, are union members, according to the AFL-CIO. The top brass of the AFL-CIO will be in Boston and will not cross the lines, said Lane Windham, spokeswoman for the AFL-CIO.

But the labor federation does not want the convention's events to be interrupted. AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney has spoken to the police and firefighters' unions and to the mayor, Windham said, in an effort to resolve the labor dispute.

And to top off the angst, key demographic groups within the party have begun to complain that the inability to get a deal done will harm them as well as the convention:

But if resolution is not reached, Jeff Zack, a spokesman for the Firefighters International Union, said some union-sponsored events that Menino planned to attend might be postponed or canceled. Concerned about that possibility, a number of women- and minority-owned businesses doing work for the convention warned Friday at a news conference that any picketing would be damaging to them.

"The truth of the matter is: By boycotting these parties, they really are hurting some of the core people who are part of the Democratic Party," said Colette Phillips, whose communications company is planning a $100,000 jungle-themed party for the California delegation in the Franklin Park Zoo.

This situation used to be funny. Now it's just another demonstration of how the Democrats get tied up in the competing demands of their special interests and wind up producing little but gridlock and animosity. Fortunately for Bostonians and the Democrats, a Republican governor is on hand to actually take action to push for a resolution.

What a great microcosm of our current political state!

UPDATE: Expect to see some temporary outward migration from Boston during the convention. Captain Chaz (how many captains are out there, anyway?) plans on fleeing the mayhem with family in tow, and hopes everyone doesn't have the same idea. Only the sane ones, Chaz, only the sane ones.

If You Think You're Having A Bad Day ...

I won't lie to you. I've had a tough week, managing to cap it off by throwing my back out. Just when I was ready to pack it in, though, I stopped by Auterrific, which put my week in perspective:

A Romanian surgeon who underwent a fit of madness while operating on a man's testicles proceeded to amputate his penis and cut it into three pieces.

Yikes! Jeez, I feel pretty guilty about my petty gripes now. Read the rest of the article and Linda's post for an attitude adjustment. However, if you don't feel like that's given you enough of a lift, try Linda's other suggestion and check out this unlikely duet on "This Land Is Your Land" by George Bush and John Kerry. Take a moment out from the campaign to have a great laugh.

Good night, and we'll be back tomorrow!

Liberal Media, Uncloaked

Capital Eye, the newsletter of the Center For Responsive Politics, last year published a chart of political contributions from the 25 largest media companies in the last two major election cycles, and the percentage of their support that went to each political party. The general results will not shock too many people, but the extent of the bias surprised me, and might surprise you too.

Capital Eye based its report on public filings with the FEC in April 2003, and it shows that twice as many of the top 25 corporations gave more to Democrats than Republicans, 16-8; in fact, only one company (Hughes Electronics) managed to split their donations 50-50. Even apart from the number of companies on either side of the divide, the companies that tend to give more to Democrats tend also to do so more dramatically.

Most companies (with one notable exception) managed to give some significant percentage of their donations to both parties, although the difference between what was given each varied widely. The gap between percentage of donations given to each party for Dem-leaning companies was 35.1, while GOP leaners had a narrower gap of 27.1 points. Not surprisingly given that analysis, those companies with the widest gaps leaned Democrat. The top 5 gap companies all leaned Democrat, as did eight of the top 10, more than the 2-1 ratio that we see overall:

* New York Times - 92 D (94%/2%)
* Discovery Communications - 81 D (90/9)
* Viacom - 62 D (81/19)
* USA Interactive - 60 D (80/20)
* NBC - 54 D (77/23)

In comparison, the oft-reviled News Corporation, owned by Rupert Murdoch and the parent of Fox Broadcasting, only has a gap of 24 R (38/62) and comes in 13th, just past halfway down the list. AOL Time Warner, parent of CNN, comes in just ahead of News Corp at 27 D (63/36). Except for Disney (ABC's parent) with its gap of 10 D (55/45), all other television broadcasters have larger gaps than News Corp -- and all lean Democrat.

Of the companies that had the largest amount of contributions, the top six all leaned Democrat. These six corporations donated almost $20 million during the last two election cycles with an average gap of 25.5 (in millions of dollars):

AOL Time Warner** - 6.2
Vivendi Universal - 3.4
Viacom - 3.2
Disney - 2.7
EchoStar Communications - 2.0
Cablevision Systems - 1.9

The next four positions are held by half of the Republican-leaning corporations, but only two of them spent more than a million dollars (News Corp and Comcast). Comcast only barely leaned GOP, with a gap of 6 R (47/53).

Of the print parents, most of them leaned Democrat to the extent they contributed much at all. Six out of ten listed lean Democrat, but interestingly, the Washington Post (Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus notwithstanding) isn't one of them. The Post gives slightly more to the GOP, with a gap of 16 R (42/58), but since they only gave $8200, it hardly made much of a dent. Ditto for the solid-Dem New York Times, whose atrocious 92 D gap (94/2) is only mitigated by its parsimonious $11,683 in political donations. Gannett, Hearst, and Tribune all run large dailies in scores of American cities, and all go Democrat. In fact, if you leave out News Corp, which owns the New York Post and several overseas newspapers, no primarily print-media corporation gave over $200,000, and the average contribution total is just $71,307. In other words, newspapers are cheap.

When people tell you about how liberal-media bias is just an urban legend, just refer them to this study. And if you wonder why people like Joe Wilson can suck up all of the media oxygen when he's making allegations but suddenly disappears from the media when proven wrong, these political donations should remove any doubt about the motivation behind story selection. (Thanks to reader William S. for the link!)

Terror In The Skies?

I have been asked why I have been silent on the "Terror In The Skies, Again?" story from Womenswallstreet.com. It's a harrowing account by Anne Jacobsen, one of WWS's regular writers, and supposedly well-vetted by their editorial staff. Here's a typically chilling excerpt of Jacobsen's experience with a flight where Arabic men acted in a highly unusual manner:

Suddenly, seven of the men stood up -- in unison -- and walked to the front and back lavatories. One by one, they went into the two lavatories, each spending about four minutes inside. Right in front of us, two men stood up against the emergency exit door, waiting for the lavatory to become available. The men spoke in Arabic among themselves and to the man in the yellow shirt sitting nearby. One of the men took his camera into the lavatory. Another took his cell phone. Again, no one approached the men. Not one of the flight attendants asked them to sit down. I watched as the man in the yellow shirt, still in his seat, reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small red book. He read a few pages, then put the book back inside his shirt. He pulled the book out again, read a page or two more, and put it back. He continued to do this several more times.

I looked around to see if any other passengers were watching. I immediately spotted a distraught couple seated two rows back. The woman was crying into the man's shoulder. He was holding her hand. I heard him say to her, You've got to calm down. Behind them sat the once pleasant-smiling, goatee-wearing man.

I grabbed my son, I held my husband's hand and, despite the fact that I am not a particularly religious person, I prayed. The last man came out of the bathroom, and as he passed the man in the yellow shirt he ran his forefinger across his neck and mouthed the word No.

At first reading, I felt that cold nugget of fear in my guts, telling me that this flight was fortunate to have arrived at its destination. However, several details about the story bother me. For one, the flight attendants shouldn't have acted the way the did in Jacobsen's account, especially divulging the air marshals' presence on the plane. I also doubt that there were "several" air marshals on one flight. Lastly, if the pilots knew of the disturbances early in the flight, they should have put the plane on the ground immediately, not risked the long journey to LAX (especially LAX, as the potential for ground destruction is more pronounced). Supposedly, the men turned out to be Syrian musicians, but that doesn't mean they weren't something else, too.

I don't know whether Jacobsen may be exaggerating some of the aspects of the story or completely accurate, never having read her material before. I'd like to think she's blowing something out of proportion, but I suspect that's just because friends and family regularly get on airplanes. I'd advise caution in both directions, and as before, small digital cameras or cellphone cameras could be tremendously helpful if you find yourself in suspicious circumstances or higher-risk areas. Don't think of yourself as a non-combatant in this war. I guarantee you the terrorists don't see you that way.

I would encourage CQ readers who want to follow this story as it develops to read Michelle Malkin's entries, Redstate, and of course Instapundit has several links as well.

MAJOR UPDATE: Michelle Malkin reports that the Washington Post sat on this story for a week (thanks to my good friend King at SCSU Scholars):

I have been speaking with Brendi Rawlin of Porter Novelli (PR rep for Womens Wall Street). According to Brendi, the Washington Post has been sitting on the true story of Annie Jacobsen's "Terror in the Skies" account since last Friday, when WomensWallStreet.com approached him. Dave Adams, the air marshal's spokesman, not only confirmed the story, but has also apparently supplied witness statements and other corroborations of Jacobsen's account. NBC Nightly News, ABC, and Dateline NBC are now on the story as well.

Unless they were asked to hold the story by DHS investigators working an active investigation, the Post has some splainin' to do. Withholding this information from the public is the antithesis of the entire raison d'etre of a free press. It makes you wonder what side the Post is on.

UPDATE: Check out Donald Sensing. He's a skeptic, although he's not accusing the writer of a hoax at all. He fleshes out some of the same reservations that I had, although mine were much more vague and instinctual than Sensing's. (Not Daniel Drezner, like I first wrote. D'oh!)

What's your state of mind?

Slate has a fun quiz for you to determine whether you hail from a red or blue state. According to the author, the test will classify your state of mind, not physical location, the premise being that red/blue isn't about geography but your thought process. Take it and see for yourself.

Happily, even after going to law school in New York and spending a year in Asia yours truly is still a Red State girl!

Wilson Fires Back With A Water Weenie

Ambassador Joseph Wilson has fired back across the funeral pyre of his reputation after the release of the SIC and Butler reports make clear that Iraq had approached Niger and that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, pushed for Wilson's assignment despite his earlier denials. Salon's Mary Jacoby carries Wilson's water (annoying ad required for reading) in attempting to counter the "choreographed editorials" supposedly libeling Wilson:

Choreographed editorials and Op-Ed pieces on Thursday in the Wall Street Journal and National Review and by conservative columnist Robert Novak signaled the revving up of a Republican campaign to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his claims that President Bush trumpeted flimsy intelligence in the drive to invade Iraq. ...

The dispute over the committee report centers on its interpretation of two facts. One is that Wilson told his CIA debriefers that during his Niger trip, he spoke to the country's former prime minister, who told him that members of an Iraqi delegation in the late 1990s expressed interest in expanded commercial contacts with Niger. The former prime minister told Wilson that he interpreted the comment to mean that Iraq was interested in buying uranium, although the word "uranium" was not mentioned in the Iraqis' conversation, he said. The prime minister, fearful of United Nations sanctions that prevented trade with Iraq at the time, dropped the subject, Wilson reported.

But because the ex-minister believed the Iraqis were seeking uranium, the Senate report concluded that whether Iraq sought uranium in Africa remains an open question -- a conclusion Wilson disputes.

The problem with Wilson's dispute is that you can't pick anything else that the Iraqis would have been interested in importing from Niger, a poor country with few excess resources. Niger has only four principal exports: uranium ore, livestock products, cowpeas, and onions. Not to oversimplify this, but even a small child watching Sesame Street could tell you 'which of these items doesn't belong'. Why would the Iraqis start covert negotiations with Niger to buy cowpeas?

The report also quotes an internal CIA memo written by Wilson's wife, Plame, stating: "my 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." Based on Plame's internal memo and other evidence, three Republicans -- Roberts and Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Kit Bond of Missouri -- wrote additional views appended to the report, concluding that "the plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested" by Plame. The three GOP senators criticized their Democratic counterparts on the panel for refusing to endorse this conclusion.

In his letter to the committee, Wilson disputed the Republican senators' characterization. "There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip," he wrote. A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment. In an interview, Wilson said that his wife was stating facts about his background, not pushing that he go to Niger.

Take a look at the quote that Jacoby uses in her defense of Wilson. How can that be interpreted as anything else but a recommendation for assignment? If he already had the job, Plame wouldn't have been writing missives ex post facto. How often have you had a reference send in a letter of recommendation after you've been hired for a job?

Mary Jacoby tips her hand here as a rabid partisan in this battle from the start, accusing the vast right-wing conspiracy of putting a massive PR campaign together almost overnight. (We all sleep in the same house, apparently.) Jacoby can wail about "choreographed editorials" all she wants, but the truth is that the media reacted to the release of two important investigative reports, and both showed Wilson to be incompetent and, in one, a liar as well. Jacoby attempts to spin out from underneath the facts by smearing the messengers, but that will only work amongst the equally rabid radical left.

If this is the best that Joe Wilson can do, it's small wonder why he's suddenly curtailed his once-full television schedule.

UPDATE: A well-placed source who wishes to remain anonymous informs me that Mary Jacoby was Wesley Clark's press secretary. Interesting ...

UPDATE II: I went back and double-checked the Salon article -- and they never mention Jacoby's connection to the Democratic party. Double-plus-good interesting ....

UPDATE III: Big thanks to Instapundit and The Corner for their links today. Welcome to Daily Kos readers as well who found me through Lush's challenge to see if you can "stomach" my opinion. Hope your digestion goes on uninterrupted ...

Taxpayers must eat the cost of obesity

The Department of Health and Human Services now considers obesity as an illness, and Medicare and Medicaid will cover the treatment, according to the Washington Times.

The change means Medicare participants may ask for reimbursement for treating excessive weight.

Anyone with a body mass index of 30 or higher is considered obese, and those with an index of 25 to 29 are considered overweight. A healthy body mass index is 19 to 25.

Patients are not guaranteed automatic coverage for treatment.

Medicare will review the requests, which could range from joining a weight-loss or fitness club to surgeries and counseling, and their rates of success before granting coverage.

Of course, the cost of these benefits will be passed on to taxpayers and small businesses.

Small businesses probably would see the largest rate increases, said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, a Washington nonprofit for about 219 businesses and health care insurers. Although unions and companies with more than 500 employees are big enough to decide which health options they will cover, small businesses must buy insurance packages that have minimum coverage requirements specified by the states, Ms. Darling said.

More small businesses could drop health plans altogether if states required additional obesity coverage that push up overall rates, she said.

"Unfortunately, regulators love to put in mandates they are not stuck paying for," Ms. Darling said.

Washington taxpayer advocacy group Citizens Against Government Waste called the decision "groundbreaking" in its implications. "We can expect Medicare costs to be even more obese and out of control than they already are while the taxpayer is footing the bill," said Elizabeth Wright, health and science division director.

Taxpayers and employers should not have to pay for anyone's poor eating habits and sedentary lifestyle. It's enough that we bear the burden of the illnesses which can be attributed to obesity, but we ought never have to pay for fitness club for someone who doesn't exercise. Hello, that's why they are overweight!

A rational employer would now think twice before hiring an overweight employee, and of course, when refused a job, said overweight job-seeker will pick up the phone and call his local trial attorney who will then sue the poor small business owner straight into bankruptcy. And "obesity" will be added to the already long list of factors which indicate "discrimination," as if bad health habits were an immutable trait. Which puts us back where we began because it makes no sense for the government to offer a treatment for an "illness" that can't be treated, right?

Finding Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer, who wowed the world as a teenage Grand Master of chess and who beat Boris Spassky in one of the lamer Cold War cultural confrontations, has been arrested in Japan and will soon return to the US to face charges:

Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, wanted since 1992 for playing a tournament in Yugoslavia despite U.N. sanctions, has been detained in Japan, clearing the way for his extradition to the United States. ...

Fischer became a Cold War hero in 1972 when he defeated Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union to become the first American world chess champion. But the chess prodigy, long know for his eccentric ways, stunned the chess world by refusing to play again, and had slipped mysteriously in and out of public view in the years since.

"Mysteriously" is certainly one way of putting it. In 1972, when Fischer beat Spassky in 1972, I was nine years old and already a chess fanatic. My father had taught me to play when I was very young, and when Fischer's star rose, I followed his every move. I read the newspaper accounts of the Spassky match and replayed all of the games from the notation. My parents even bought me Fischer's book on chess, and I read it over and over again.

By the time I got to high school, I had mostly stopped playing the game (who knew chess wasn't cool? I was shocked!), and so apparently had Fischer. Fischer went off into the wilderness and lost his mind, or at least he seemed to. When he returned, he met Spassky in Yugoslavia in defiance of US economic sanctions and beat the Russian again, netting over $3 million for his trouble. He necessarily went into hiding again, only resurfacing briefly after 9/11 to heap praise on the attackers, saying (as the AP reports here) that America should be "wiped out" and despite his Jewish mother, declaring all Jews to be "thieving, lying bastards."

I suppose Mother's Day wasn't one of the Fischer family's annual high points.

Now that he's been recaptured and will be returning to the US, Fischer will remind us of the odd vagaries of fringe political celebrity -- hailed in his youth as a Cold Warrior and reviled in his old age as a terrorist sympathizer. What a long. strange trip it's been for a strange and delusional man.

Because They've Been So Helpful Before

Germany has apparently been lobbying to have their country receive a permanent set on the UN Security Council since earlier this year, but have struggled to get enough support. First China gave them only a tepid response, and now the US has privately told them to pound sand:

The United States opposes Germany becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a German newspaper Friday quoted a U.S. diplomat as saying. "Now is not the time that Germany should apply for a permanent seat," the unnamed diplomat was quoted as telling the Financial Times Deutschland.

Germany's stints as a non-permanent member of the Security Council had been "very problematic," indeed there were "more problems than ever," the diplomat said.

Germany's push to remove immunity from prosecution in the International Criminal Court for U.S. peacekeepers was cited as an example. The Pentagon said earlier this month it was pulling small numbers of troops out of two U.N. peacekeeping operations because they now can be prosecuted in the court at The Hague in the Netherlands.

That example is only one of the problems with adding Germany as a permanent member, with its attendant veto power. The much larger problem occurred in the run-up to the Iraq war, when Germany dug its heels in and refused to vote to enforce the UNSC's own resolutions. It didn't go the full weasel and try to strongarm other member nations like France did, but Gerhardt Schroeder categorically stated that it would not support any efforts to remove Saddam Hussein even if the UNSC approved a new resolution calling for armed force in Iraq. In effect, Germany pledged that had it had the veto at that point in time, it would have used it against the US and the UK.

The Anglo-American alliance had been tasked with the military containment of Saddam while France, Germany, and Russia all cheated on the economic containment that was meant to force Saddam to cede power peacefully, or at least have the Iraqis handle things on their own. Instead, the trio of nations lined their pockets and (perhaps) inadvertently propped Saddam up far longer than he otherwise would have survived. After we sank billions into a twelve-year quagmire that wound up harming an entire generation of Iraqis but only strengthened Saddam, Germany -- who hadn't even participated in the military containment -- had the gall to tell us what they felt was necessary in terms of military options.

And they still expect our support? What exactly goes into German beer, anyway?

Speaking of their military, the Germans offer little in terms of security to the Security Council. The US, UK, Russia, and China all maintain significant military structures, and at least can project power outside their own borders if needed. (In the latter two, the question is whether that's desirable.) Germany, on the other hand, has relied on the US to meet their security needs for decades, allowing them to underfund their own forces. Germany, like France, now has little to offer when troops are needed to address global security issues. Why should they then have a permanent seat and veto power at the UNSC? It's bad enough that France has its seat, given its equally miserable military capability.

Instead of discussing who else should have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, thought should be given as to whose seat can be removed.

Afghans Overwhelmingly Satisfied With Country's Direction

The London Telegraph reports more good news resulting from American military intervention in the war on Islamofascist terror. A poll conducted in Afghanistan by an American charity finds that Afghanis far prefer the current direction of their country:

In the most comprehensive survey to be held in Afghanistan 64 per cent of those polled said they were satisfied with the direction the country was taking, two and a half years after the American invasion removed the Taliban. Only 11 per cent said they were dissatisfied.

The survey, commissioned by the Asia Foundation, an independent, privately funded American charity, showed that 81 per cent of people planned to vote in the presidential election in October, with 77 per cent of them believing the vote, and a parliamentary poll next April, would "make a difference".

So much for the argument that American indifference is causing Afghanistan to slide back into anarchy. When was the last time the US had an 81% turnout for a presidential election? More than three-quarters of all Afghanis believe in the vote and its ability to build a new life for themselves. I bet we'd be hard-pressed to match that here.

In terms of security, the picture also appears less bleak than painted recently. Over half of Afghanis think that security is good or excellent in their area, and security ranked as the highest electoral priority for only slightly more than a third. It sounds as though the Afghanis feel remarkably safe in going to the polls, considering the ongoing issues with Taliban holdouts. Their confidence also speaks to the work that the US and NATO have done in keeping the Taliban remnants suppressed while the country rebuilds its political infrastructure.

More good news seems to be seeping into the media of late, although mostly through foreign news services like the Telegraph. Eventually, the American mainstream outlets will be forced to provide coverage. Let's hope it happens in time to show Americans that the forward strategy of engaging terrorists and their primary support structures is successful and should be continued.

Kerry: Let The Little Lady Introduce Her Hubby

Really, the contretemps over the Hillary Clinton snub at the Democratic National Convention has become more humorous than anything else, especially given John Kerry's solution. The Kerry campaign announced this afternoon that it finally found a way to squeeze the Senator from New York into its speaking schedule -- she can introduce her husband:

John Kerry has asked Hillary Rodham Clinton to introduce her husband, former President Clinton, on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, giving her a speaking role that Democrats had sought for the New York senator.

The Kerry campaign unveiled its first set of speakers for the convention early this week, including former Presidents Clinton and Carter, Al Gore and others, but the absence of the former first lady drew criticism from Democrats, particularly women.

Well, this certainly will set minds at ease among the Democratic Ladies Auxiliary! It's nice to see that Kerry has found a gender-appropriate role for the current Senator. Obviously, she has no standing on her own to speak at the convention, in Kerry's mind, so it's a darned good thing her husband happens to be an ex-President. Otherwise, she'd have to go back to the Hospitality Committee and help out with the cookie-baking and cake-cutting duties, like all the other wimminfolk.

Are they serious? Can they be this tone-deaf? And people think Republicans are old-fashioned! God help Hillary if she shows up in a pantsuit.

Meanwhile, the most senior woman in the Senate expressed her displeasure with the Kerry campaign's bumbling through her campaign manager:

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., expressed disappointment Wednesday with the way the Kerry campaign handled the release of convention speakers, her campaign manager Mike Morrill said. Mikulski told Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill that the strategy of releasing only a few names each day minimizes the importance of some speakers, Morrill said.

"The senator was very clear that the way they did this botched it," Morrill said. "By doing it as the One-A-Day vitamin strategy, they missed the picture that they have a whole shop of vitamins."

From the way that the Kerry campaign has handled this, I'd say they're at least a couple minerals short of a recommended daily allowance.

NRO: The Wilson Plague On All Their Houses

Now that the the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-war intelligence and the UK's corresponding Butler report both point to the uncomfortable conclusion that Joe "Restore Honesty" Wilson lied about his wife snagging him the Niger gig and the efforts of the Iraqis to buy uranium there, you would expect the mainstream media outlets that gave Wilson his bully pulpit would be issuing retractions, or at least covering the collapse of his story.

You would be wrong:

NBC was the most aggressive Wilson promoter on TV, beginning with a Meet the Press appearance on July 6, 2003 hyping Wilson's original breakout in a New York Times op-ed. On July 22, Katie Couric promoted a Today interview: "Still to come this morning on Today, a man who says he's become the target of a White House smear campaign for blowing the whistle on the president's State of the Union address." Wilson appeared on Meet the Press again on October 5.

NBC also gave the warmest reception for Wilson's book, with three days of bookings on Saturday Today, Meet the Press, and Monday's Today on May 1, 2, and 3. Couric promoted Wilson again on May 3: "Another book critical of the Bush administration hits stores today, this one by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. He says he told the truth about the evidence against Iraq, and his wife paid the price."

So now that Wilson has been caught in a lie, how much Wilson coverage is there on NBC? None, as of this writing. That's too bad, since Wilson misled Tim Russert on October 5:

RUSSERT: Was there a suggestion that this was cronyism, that it was your wife who had arranged the mission?

WILSON: I have no idea what they were trying to suggest in this. I can only assume that it was nepotism. And I can tell you that when the decision was made, which was made after a briefing and after a gaming out at the agency with the intelligence community, there was nobody in that room when we went through this that I knew.

Tim Graham has plenty more in his piece at NRO on the media failures surrounding l'affaire Wilson. Instapundit has more links in the midst of his well-earned gloating, especially to Tom Maguire, who has done a great job following this story. (And note who Glenn discovers as the owner of Wilson's web site ... none other than Honest John Kerry!) Also, my friend Patterico is all over the LA Times, as usual, for burying the stink emanating from Wilson.

Some people wonder out loud why the Bush administration did not defend itself in a more muscular fashion earlier in this supposed scandal. One reason, I'm sure, is that some of the necessary resources may have been classified, and for good reason. Another may have been because, knowing the full story all along, they decided the best way for it to come out would be through independent investigations, giving the data more credibility than had they trumpeted it themselves on Meet The Press. Plus, the sandbag strategy has the extra elegance of smearing egg all over the Kerry/Edwards ticket after allowing them to bloviate all of the paranoid "Bush Lied" slogans.

It makes you think that perhaps the Bush team knows its stuff more than people give them credit ...

LA Times: Reporters Don't Need No Stinkin' Visas

In an unsigned editorial today, the Los Angeles Times demonstrates its lack of seriousness regarding security. Any other time, laxity in visa management would raise the ire of its editorial board, but when it involves people who identify themselves as journalists, the Times inveighs against Customs officials who have the nerve to actually enforce border laws:

When British journalist Elena Lappin arrived in Los Angeles in May, on assignment for a British newspaper, little did she know she would end up being the subject of her story. By her own account in The Times later that month, Lappin was interrogated for four hours, subjected to a body search, fingerprinted, photographed, handcuffed and forced to spend a night in a cell in downtown L.A. and a day as a detainee at the airport before being deported to London. Lappin's crime? Admitting to customs officials that she was a journalist.

Quite frankly, that's a load of crap, as the next paragraph makes clear:

Tourists and businesspeople from 26 countries, including Britain, are allowed to visit the United States for 90 days or less without a visa. Those who enter the country for other reasons — like journalists covering a story — usually just claim to be tourists in order to avoid hassles. Lappin, who hadn't realized she needed a visa, paid the price for honesty.

Lappin's crime wasn't honesty, it was willful ignorance. Most countries require visas from foreign nationals wishing to work in their country, and the US is no different. I don't know if the Times implies that journalists are less intelligent than normal people, but apparently the process of researching the requirements of entry are much too overwhelming for reporters. (In fact, this goes a long way to explaining the poor performance of many on the Times' staff, such as the assertion that Paul Bremer left Iraq without addressing the Iraqi people -- after CNN carried the speech here in the US.)

I also find it interesting that the Times is so blithe about reporters lying to get into the country. How many of these are the Times employing, and how long have they been here?

She wasn't the only one. Since March 2003, 13 foreign journalists without visas have been detained and deported from the United States. Since May, at least two other journalists have suffered treatment similar to Lappin's.

How strange that must seem to the editorial board at the LAT! Enforcing immigration law ... what will Customs think of next?

As a result of the scandal surrounding the Lappin affair, Robert C. Bonner, the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, announced recently that journalists arriving without a visa would be allowed a one-time entry and be advised of the regulation. That's an encouraging first step, but not enough.

Why should journalists be more heavily restricted than tourists in a nation that purports to honor freedom of the press? The immigration law should be amended to include journalists among those who can enter the U.S. without a visa for a short-term assignment.

Because, you idiots, people who enter the country to work aren't tourists, a point that I would have thought even the Times could understand. Visas are issued to regulate the amount of work that goes to foreigners inside the US, and also to track the revenue and taxes they generate.

And why should someone who shows up at a port of entry without a necessary visa be treated like a criminal?

It could be because they're breaking the law.

No terrorist with any brains is going to pose as a journalist without a visa when the alternative is waltzing through as a tourist.

For that matter, any reporter with a modicum of sense should check out the entry requirements -- or, I suppose the Times argues, we should treat all reporters as brainless jackasses who can't be bothered to read. (Again, it would explain their hiring practices.) So we should just mothball border security and head home, according to the Times. Forget enforcing the law, no matter what purpose it serves!

People who don't meet U.S. immigration rules should not be let into the country. But they can be treated civilly until the carrier that brought them in transports them back out — as carriers should be required to do. Unless customs authorities have evidence they are dealing with a criminal or a terrorist, no visitor should be handcuffed or thrown into jail.

Ahem. Criminal, according to Merriam-Webster: One that has committed or been legally convicted of a crime. Entering a country without proper paperwork is a crime.

Unbelievable.

More Iraqi-AQ Connections In Butler Report

The Washington Times' Bill Gertz reports that the Butler Report of the British investigation into its pre-war intelligence shows previously undisclosed connections between Iraqi intelligence services and Al-Qaeda, including in chemical arms and training (via Memeorandum):

A British government report made public yesterday provides new information showing that al Qaeda terrorists had contacts with Iraqi intelligence in developing chemical arms and that the group worked with a Pakistani nuclear weapons scientist.

The special report by former top civil servant Robin Butler on British prewar intelligence found gaps in reporting on Iraq's weapons and also disclosed new details of terrorist activities of al Qaeda associate Abu Musab Zarqawi, who is leading attacks in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

I noted the Zarqawi connection earlier, from a Washington Post article. Gertz has more specific details about the chemical-arms trade between Iraq, Pakistan, and AQ:

British intelligence assessments of connections between al Qaeda and Saddam's government were similar to U.S. intelligence assessments, the report said, adding that there were "contacts between al Qaeda and the Iraqi Directorate General of Intelligence since 1998."

"Those reports described al Qaeda seeking toxic chemicals as well as other conventional terrorist equipment," the report said. "Some accounts suggested that Iraqi chemical experts may have been in Afghanistan during 2000."

The British concluded that the contacts did not lead to "practical cooperation" because of mutual distrust.

"Intelligence nonetheless indicates that ... meetings have taken place between senior Iraqi representatives and senior al Qaeda operatives," the report said. "Some reports also suggest that Iraq may have trained some al Qaeda terrorists since 1998. Al Qaeda has shown interest in gaining chemical and biological expertise from Iraq, but we do not know whether any such training was provided."

So now we have British intelligence that the connections between Saddam and AQ continued past the 1995 timeline that the CIA established, and that those contacts were at a "senior level". This means it wasn't just a couple of agents getting together over iced tea in Niger; the contacts were between people who could actually have fashioned a strategic alliance between the two organizations. AQ felt comfortable enough to push for WMD training from Iraq in 1998, belying the notion that Saddam was out of the unconventional-arms market by that time.

Post-9/11, it's clear why the British and the US executives, looking at this data, understood Iraq to have significant connections to AQ. After ejecting the Taliban, Saddam's government would have been the next likely resource for bin Laden, as Saddam was skimming billions from the UN Oil-For-Food program and could have used AQ as a proxy for attacking the West. In fact, only an idiot could have seen all of this and concluded that Saddam presented no specific danger to Western security in regards to Islamofascist terrorists.

All of the weapons inspectors in the world would not have gotten to the bottom of this relationship between the terror network and the defiant tyrant. Only his removal would have cut the ties, and any extension of the twelve-year delay in dealing with Saddam only increased the likelihood of a successful, coordinated attack on the West by the combination. The media can't spin this one away, so again, I expect they'll ignore it again.

Kerry Campaign Pulling Ads In Key States

In an interesting reversal of their stated strategy of expanding the map, the Kerry campaign has instead ceased advertising in several key states, including most of the South (via Drudge):

Despite promises to expand the election playing field, John Kerry has reduced his ad spending in Missouri, Arizona and throughout the South in the run-up to the Democratic presidential convention.

Kerry's advisers said they were not shrinking their political map, only saving resources for later in the campaign and redirecting ad money to hotly contested states like Florida and Ohio. President Bush's campaign called the strategy a sign of weakness in GOP-leaning territory. ...

In his new round of advertising, Kerry has significantly increased his spending in several key states while slightly lowering buys for Missouri and Arizona. Voters in both states will still see plenty of ads, just relatively few compared to other battlegrounds. In Virginia, the Kerry campaign dramatically reduced its ad buy. Last month, he pulled his ads out of Louisiana and Arkansas.

Kerry strategist Tad Devine said the states are still competitive and called the shift a part of the natural ebb and flow of ad strategies.

Devine is spinning. Kerry has to spend the money he raised during the primary season before receiving the nomination at the convention, which is just two weeks away. Once he has the nomination, he gets $75 million in federal funding, and the primary cash can't be spent on anything other than debt relief from the primary season. Resource redistristribution only makes sense if Kerry can use these resources later, which he can't.

Something tells me that Democratic pollsters have decided that Missouri, Arizona, and most of the South will be out of Kerry's reach. The South is no surprise; even Southerner Al Gore couldn't carry any of the South in 2000, not even his home state of Tennessee, and it cost him the election. Giving up on Missouri appears premature, as polling still shows Bush only up by a couple of points there. Arkansas is also close (two points), and Bill Clinton's home state, so either they're seeing something significantly more pessimistic than has been released to the general public or they're running a bit scared.

Or, possibly, Kerry/Edwards is running out of cash. Nothing in this report addresses the campaign's cash position, although they just raised the most expensive $7.5 million they'll ever see at Radio City Music Hall last week. It would explain their abandoning competitive states this close to the convention, because quite frankly, nothing else but incompetence could.

'Sex' Comes To Singapore

Agence France-Presse notes the upcoming release of HBO's six-season paean to liberated single women, Sex And The City, in the ultraconservative city-state of Singapore. The Asian state, which made headlines in the US when authorities caned a young American teenager for defacing a car and which still prohibits selling chewing gum, seems an unlikely venue for the sexual adventures of four sophisticated New York ladies:

US cable channel HBO took out full-page newspaper advertisements to announce the premiere of Season 5 in the late evening slot on the city-state's sole cable operator StarHub. Season 6 will premiere in August. ...

The showing of 'Sex and the City' came after the government regulator introduced a new television rating system which allows programmes with mature content and themes to be aired from 10:00 pm for viewers aged 18 and over.

Singaporean fans of 'Sex and the City', which has a worldwide following, have previously had to resort to buying DVD and VCD copies of the show during overseas trips in order to catch the series.

One of the blessings/curses of subscribing to HBO (and other pay services) is the never-ending cycle of repeats, which means I have seen most of this series by default. I highly doubt that it will be aired in its original form; more likely, Singapore will get the TBS version. Nonetheless, its broadcast seems a bit incongruous with Singapore's straitlaced reputation. It could bring a more relaxed attitude towards social conventions -- or it could just solidify America's reputation there as a land of hedonistic whiners.

AFP does win the Best Subtle Double-Entendre Of The Day award for this passage, though:

Singapore has been dubbed a "nanny state" because of strict social controls, but the government has sought to loosen up the apron strings to add vibrance to city life as it seeks to promote a more cosmopolitan image.

Well, if they want to add "vibrance", they've picked the right show. About every third episode has specific references to "vibrance." If I recall correctly, one particular model of boudoir appliance saw its sales explode after a mention during SITC.

You suppose they'll be getting The Sopranos any time soon?

Lefty lunatic still digging

If you thought the lunatic left hit rock bottom with the “cartoon” depicting Condoleezza Rice proclaiming herself Bush's "HOUSE NIGGA,” you are in for an unpleasant wake-up call with his new piece of sludge encouraging all Americans to boycott the military.

His thesis, such as it is: “There was a time when service in U.S. military was honorable and professionally rewarding. But because of politicians who use the military to pump up corporate profits instead of defending us, that was a long time ago.”

Therefore, Rall doesn’t just want conscientious objectors to avoid military service, rather, his goal is that “Americans personal integrity” not volunteer and “discourage everyone they care about to do the same.”

But he doesn’t stop there and instead continues to smear those who have given up their freedom to join our nation’s legion of protectors. Americans don’t volunteer out of patriotism or desire for public service because "They come from parts of the country where jobs are hard to find." Where these mysterious parts are, Rall does not say. But he won’t be accused of this patriotism, whatever that is, claiming, “I'd rather sleep under a bridge, eating trash out of a Dumpster, than murder human beings for Halliburton.”

Rall also wants you to know that military service is not particularly lucrative and therefore no good can come of it:
“Not only is working as a hired gun for the U.S. government bad for your soul, it's a bad deal financially. Starting pay in the U.S. armed forces runs about $12,000 per year, about the same as working at McDonald's. The much-vaunted tuition benefit is a joke: at a time when college costs an average of $20,000 per year, a two-year active-duty stint in the army gets you a maximum $7,500. And if some insurgent draws a bead on you, you'll be treated in shabby, overcrowded Veterans Administration hospitals until you end up on the street, out of work and out of luck.”

First of all, it is a ridiculous notion that anyone, whatever his or her financial circumstances, would consider military service a “get rich quick scheme,” but Rall’s monetary information is flat-out wrong. There is no such thing as a “starting salary” for military service. True, first year enlistees will only earn about $12,000 in basic pay, but this does not take into account a allowances for food and housing and medical care, along with the other numerous benefits the hardworking taxpayers provide for our men and women in uniform. As for those who enter the service as commissioned officers, the first year salary is twice that amount. For many career fields however, there are generous bonuses, even for enlisted troops. And if one is deployed, there are hazardous duty pay, family separation allowances, tax free zones, etc, etc. If Rall had just taken the time to click here instead of mouthing off, he would know these things.

Rall is also way wrong on his tuition argument (yeah, I know, wonders never cease). Has he ever heard of the G.I. bill or 100% tuition assistance? I didn’t think so.

Finally, this useful idiot of the angry left insists the last time our nation was attacked by a “foreign power” was in 1941. Unless OBL has been hiding in the Arkansas foothills all this time, neither he nor his organization can be considered a domestic enemy.

Rall thinks WWII was our last "honorable war," so I guess we know how much he loves North Korea and thinks Saddam should have kept Kuwait.

If you want to join the military just to spite Rall (a patriotic duty in my opinion), click any of these links for recruiting information: Air Force, Navy, Army, Marines.

UPDATE: OK, so above is my rational rebuttal of Rall's "opinion." I had to take a break so I could give my own "opinion" of his piece without using language that could be inappropriate.

Rall is clearly unhinged, and that wouldn't be a matter of interest except for the fact he is a mouthpiece for the Democrats. He write what they are thinking, and they won't rebuke him. Instead, the leftish response will be he's just taking advantage of his right to free speech. But it's not free speech, it's free filth.

So many brave men and women have given their lives and their freedom so that slime such as Rall can enjoy full First Amendment protection. What a waste.

Before Rall shouts too loudly for a boycott of military service, he should consider what it would be like to have the business end of a scimitar raised over his head.

UPDATE: Reader Monkeyboy just reminded me not to forget the Coasties, who protect us at home and carry on the good fight abroad. Click here to join up.

A New Vision Of Shi'ite Islam From Iraq?

This report from the AP looks suspiciously like progress in the war on Islamofascist terror, if subtle progress:

Now, with Shiites empowered in postwar Iraq, the gloves are off again. But this time, the antagonists are the Shiite ayatollahs of Iraq, a mainly Arab country, and Iran, formerly Persia.

At stake is the leadership of the world's estimated 170 million Shiites — and the outcome will have profound consequences not only for the two nations but the entire Islamic faith.

At the heart of the conflict is a rivalry between the holy cities of Najaf in Iraq and Qom in neighboring Iran.

A victory by Najaf's "quietist" school of thought, which places a cleric's spiritual calling ahead of involvement in politics, could deal a serious blow to the claim of legitimacy by Iran's ruling clergy. It could also provide a counter-ideology to the militant political Islam adopted by some Sunni Muslim groups in the region and which are behind the terrorism of recent years.

Najaf suffered for decades under the brutal, Sunni Saddam Hussein dictatorship, allowing the spiritual and intellectual lead of Shi'ite Islam to pass to Qom in Iran. Qom's mullahs bred the deadly hybrid of radical Islamist thought, rabid anti-Semitism, and the demand for temporal imposition of shari'a, the rigid fundamentalist Islamic code of justice. Najaf's mullahs traditionally have urged a less temporal form of Islam, focusing more on spirituality and eschewing (for the most part) political entanglements. With this history in mind, it is easy to see why Moqtada al-Sadr could never command much of a following in Najaf and why the imam Ali Al-Sistani insisted that he leave the holy cities of Shi'a.

With the removal of Saddam Hussein, Najaf now wants to assume its historical place as the intellectual and theological center of the Shi'a, a move that the Iranians see as potentially destabilizing. After all, their entire government runs on the basis of the absolute political authority of the mullahs in the Supreme Governing Council, which already causes widespread disaffection with Iranians, especially the younger citizens. Rebellion against their authority during Najaf's oppression amounted to little more than a rejection of Islam, in the eyes of the Iranians, therefore causing more than a little reluctance. With Najaf's renaissance, more and more Shi'a will see an alternative vision of Islam -- and the key strut to the SGC's stranglehold on political power in Iran will have been kicked out from underneath them.

The good news is that Sistani presides over the Najaf shrine and, as has been seen during the occupation, only involves himself reluctantly in political issues. One of the major fears after Saddam's collapse was that the Shi'a would rise in the south and present the CPA with an unstoppable uprising, overwhelming the Kurds and Sunnis in the center and north of Iran. That Sistani chose not to do this is less surprising given the context of his beliefs, but also reflects the wisdom (questioned at the time) of respectfully soliciting his input in the development of the interim government.

Sistani turned out to be the stabilizing influence we needed in the South, postwar, and Najaf may well wind up being the moderating influence Islam needs in the 21st century.

Wouldn't This Be Collaboration?

The Butler Report states that Abu Zarqawi began establishing terrorist cells in February 2003 in advance of the Iraq war, to fight a rearguard action in Baghdad against the invading Coalitions forces, according to the Washington Post:

In February 2003, a month before the United States and coalition forces invaded Iraq, British intelligence received reports that Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi was establishing sleeper cells in Baghdad that would attack U.S. forces after they occupied the city, according a report on British prewar intelligence released yesterday in London.

In a prediction that has proved deadly accurate, the British Joint Intelligence Committee in March 2003 wrote, "These cells apparently intend to attack U.S. targets using car bombs and other weapons," according to yesterday's report by the Butler Commission. In the past year, Zarqawi has publicly claimed to have put together an Iraqi network that has committed dozens of bombings and killings, including the beheading of a Bulgarian truck driver that was revealed yesterday.

The March 12, 2003, JIC report also warned that "al Qaeda-associated terrorists continued to arrive in Baghdad in early March." Summarizing this information, the Butler panel noted that the JIC "did warn of the possibility of terrorist attacks on coalition forces in Baghdad."

A senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday that the CIA was made aware of the reporting "simultaneously." The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency passed on warnings to Bush administration policymakers that U.S. forces would probably be attacked by "stay behind" Iraqi forces and Islamic terrorists who would be drawn to Iraq by the invasion, officials said.

Perhaps I'm not the world's foremost expert on intelligence, but if al-Qaeda operatives were flooding into Baghdad and conducting joint operations with Iraqi security forces prior to the invasion, doesn't that demonstrate ... collaboration? It cannot possibly be argued that in the runup to the war, all of a sudden Saddam and AQ made all the necessary connections from a complete cold start to complete coordination of forces in preparation for a rearguard guerilla action. Besides, in February when this infiltration occurred, the final action was still in debate in the UNSC.

This information should silence all of the nonsense being tossed around about no connections between Saddam and al-Qaeda. If people think a bunch of armed lunatics could just show up in the capitol city of a state preparing for war without government cooperation, then it only demonstrates ignorance of both sieges and totalitarian states that disqualifies them as analysts.

She's A Loser

The fundraising debacle last Thursday night at Radio City Music Hall has claimed its first rolling head. Slim-Fast has terminated its relationship with Whoopi Goldberg, Reuters reports (via Memeorandum):

Comedian Whoopi Goldberg will no longer appear in ads for diet aid maker Slim-Fast following her lewd riff on President Bush's name at a fund-raiser last week, the company said on Wednesday.

Florida-based Slim-Fast said it was "disappointed" in Goldberg's remarks at last Thursday's $7.5 million star-studded fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York. "Ads featuring Ms. Goldberg will no longer be on the air," Slim-Fast General Manager Terry Olson said in a statement, adding that the company regrets that Goldberg's remarks offended some customers. ...

The New York Post said of Goldberg's appearance at the event: "Waving a bottle of wine, she fired off a stream of vulgar sexual wordplays on Bush's name in a riff about female genitalia."

Shortly, we will hear howls of protest from Hollywood about chill winds and McCarthyism and political repression. However, Slim-Fast took action in response to (or more likely anticipation of) consumer reaction to Goldberg's commentary, not because of government edict. It doesn't even qualify as political pressure. It's market pressure, and people who run around saying outrageous things shouldn't act surprised when other people decide that they no longer want to do business with them.

Whoopi Goldberg had every right to say what she did at the fundraiser, and no one's stopping her from saying it again. Equally, Slim-Fast has every right to keep its business from being damaged by its association with Goldberg. Even more so, consumers have the right to spend their money on products not associated with Goldberg. Any gripes about Goldberg's financial loss should be addressed to Goldberg's judgement and sense of proportion, both of which seem in need of serious adjustment.

UPDATE: I'm not sure if anyone else is experiencing this, but I'm getting a slew of search-engine referrals for Whoopi Bush, Whoopi Comments, and so on. If you're finding this blog off of that search, drop a note in the comments to this post and let me know what you think.

UPDATE ON GOOGLANCHE, 7/15 noonish: I'd really like to know if anyone else is experiencing this. I'm getting the most Google hits I've gotten since the tragic Nick Berg beheading. Fortunately, at least this time no one died.

He Was Against Reading It Before He Was For It

John Kerry challenged George Bush earlier today to reveal whether Bush had read an NIE intelligence estimate before basing his request for war authorization on it. Within hours, Kerry's aides had to admit that Kerry himself never read the document before voting to authorize the war in Iraq (via Drudge):

Democratic candidate John Kerry, whose campaign demanded to know on Wednesday whether President Bush read a key Iraq intelligence assessment, did not read the document himself before voting to give Bush the authority to go to war, aides acknowledged.

"Along with other senators, he was briefed on the contents of the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) by (then-CIA Director) George Tenet and other administration intelligence officials," said Kerry spokesman Phil Singer.

Kerry's campaign has challenged Bush to say whether he read the complete intelligence report before deciding to go to war, or whether he just read a one-page summary, which Democrats say gave him none of the dissenting views included in the full version. The Kerry campaign stepped up the attack on Wednesday, sending out an e-mail with the headline, "Did anyone in the White House read the full National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq?"

In a conference call organized by the campaign, Senate Intelligence Committee Democrat Richard Durbin said Bush should have read the 90-page report issued in October 2002. Asked if Kerry read it, Durbin responded, "I don't know."

Flip, meet flop. It sounds as though Kerry couldn't be bothered to personally read even the single-page summary of the NIE report, relying on aides to brief him on it instead. And yet he has the gall to challenge Bush on whether he used the same methodology that suited Kerry at the time. The Kerry hypocrisy knows no bounds, apparently.

Minneapolis-AQ Connection, Cont'd

Local television station KSTP-TV, our ABC affiliate, broke the news story that the FBI detained a traveler at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on immigration violations, finding evidence of terrorism connections in his personal belongings (via my friend Big Trunk at Power Line):

Federal sources told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the man was arrested last Wednesday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Sources in the Twin Cities and in Washington D.C. said the man arrived on a flight and was taken into federal custody. Along the way, customs agents found disturbing items in his possession.

The U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that Ali Mohamed Almosaleh is in federal custody in the Twin Cities. He was being detained on an immigration law violation, but federal sources confirmed there is much more than that to this investigation.

Sources confirm Almosaleh was carrying a suicide when he was arrested. They say that note indicated a specific time and date for carrying out some sort of public suicide. He was also carrying CDs and DVDs, which federal sources say contained anti-American material. A source also confirms Almosaleh had something with him indicating a connection with at least one known terrorist. ...

A federal source would not say where Almosaleh's final destination was, but that source did indicate it appears Almosaleh had plans to travel beyond the Twin Cities.

I think in this instance, the phrase "final destination" is somewhat unfortunate. Something tells me his final destination had more to do with 72 virgins, or white raisins, or black sheep, or what-have-you.

MSP is part of the string of Midwestern airports that comprise the so-called "fly-over land", where major airlines maintain their hubs for national flights. It's not surprising that federal authorities are keeping a close eye on these international airports, and it's not surprising that they caught someone here. It does seem that an inordinate number of captures have occurred here in the Twin Cities, although that may just be due to my proximity to the media. Has any other major metro area seen seven or eight announced terror arrests over the past year?

Once again, I'm reminded of the very large and well-known tourist and shopping center located just minutes from my house, and its obvious value as a target for Islamofascist terrorists. Perhaps those of us with digital cameras and camera-equipped cell phones should routinely take them to the Mall just in case we see anything suspicious. If we wind up taking useless pictures of strangers, no harm done; however, if we capture something significant, we can easily transmit them to law enforcement with a description of our suspicions. Any thoughts on this idea?

Hugh's Adopt-A-Journalist Program

Hugh Hewitt, who has been a great friend to this blog and its two authors, writes in his WorldNetDaily column about his new book and the "adopt-a-Lefty-journalist" program he's launching with it:

Is it possible to penetrate the cocoons that Dowd, Krugman, Dionne, Hunt and most reporters at the bigs live within? Not if we rely on their own intellectual curiosity. They don't get out much, and when they do, they don't talk with the red state folks.

So adopt a couple and begin to send them the books they need to read. Start with mine. Track down an address via the Web – most major papers have their mailing addresses pretty accessible, as do most studios – and have a book or two or 10 sent off to a national name and to a local reporter as well. Send a gift card with a note encouraging these people to broaden their horizons, and ask for some demonstration that the book has been received. Try and get them interested through persistence and patience in the half of the two Americas they disdain to recognize much less understand.

It's not a bad idea, although I'm less optimistic than Hugh about turning around the chattering class. Why not expand the program beyond journalists? I plan to give my second copy to my daughter-in-law, who will already be somewhat receptive to the message. (I'd give it to my son, but if it's not about physics or calculus, his eyes glaze over rather quickly.) Once I'm done reading my first copy, I plan on giving it to someone on the fence, someone who could go either way in the next election.

I'm going to suggest this to CQ readers: First, buy the book and read it yourselves. Highlight the key passages and flag them with little Post-It page markers. Hand the book off to a friend who, even if they don't want to read the whole thing, can at least hit the couple of dozen passages you think will be key to their understanding. Then, buy another copy and do it again.

Earlier in the column, Hugh notes the impact that the blogosphere has had on the media and the electorate as a whole, and he recommends sixteen blogs for daily reading:

# WorldNetDaily
# FreeRepublic
# Instapundit
# Lileks
# Powerline
# RealClearPolitics
# EvangelicalOutpost
# FratersLibertas
# OutsideTheBeltway
# RedState
# Tim Blair
# RogerLSimon
# InfiniteMonkeys
# DaschlevThune
# Captain's Quarters
# ShotInTheDark

Whiskey and I both extend our thanks to our good friend for such a gracious recommendation.

Addendum: It occurs to me that one way of addressing the journalistic imbalance would be to hire more columnists from the right into syndication, especially those who regularly point out media bias issues. Any syndicators should feel free to drop me a line anytime to discuss compensation and promotion ...

UPDATE: Joe Carter has a spot-on tribute to Hugh's influence and generosity. George Bailey, indeed! (via Fraters Libertas)

Swift Boat Veterans Aiming Low?

It seems to me that this is a bad idea:

Opponents of John Kerry have hired a Dallas-area private investigator to gather information aimed at discrediting his military service, say several veterans who served with the Massachusetts Democrat in Vietnam.

Several veterans who have been contacted in recent days accused the private investigator, Tom Rupprath of Rockwall, of twisting their words to produce misleading and inaccurate accounts that call into doubt the medals Mr. Kerry received for his service. ... Mr. Rupprath was hired by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on the recommendation of Merrie Spaeth, a Dallas public relations executive assisting the anti-Kerry group.

The investigator declined to discuss his work, but Ms. Spaeth said he is a former FBI agent assigned to produce an accurate and objective account of how the Democratic presidential candidate earned his combat medals.

SBVT can do whatever they like with their money, and inasmuch as any other 527 can, they're free to advertise how they like in the upcoming campaign. In my opinion, they'd be better served focusing on Kerry's activities after he returned from Vietnam than his record under fire. Perhaps Kerry exaggerated his injuries in a combat area to invoke the three-wounds-out policy, perhaps he didn't, but he undoubtedly served in combat. The SBVT's efforts will only reinforce that point and generate sympathy against this low-handed attack -- the very kind of attack we decried earlier when the Democrats attacked Bush's National Guard service.

Speaking of which, while I agree this is a destructive tactic for the Swifties, the Daily Kos just can't help overreaching:

Dirty Tricks 'R Us are at it again.

Yeah, sure. A Google of "National Guard Bush service" at the Daily Kos comes up with 233 hits. Just remember, Kos, while Bush served his country flying jets in the TANG and Cheney raised a family, your buddy Bill Clinton was busy deceiving his draft board and hiding out in England. Using your logic, you should have voted for Bob Dole in 1996. But sauce for the gander never did taste very good to Democrats...

Clinton: No Government Could Have Avoided Iraq, Post-9/11

The BBC reports that Bill Clinton, speaking on tour while promoting his autobiography, not only says he agreed that action had to be taken against Iraq after 9/11, but that the UN Security Council's failure to approve a final resolution threatening war left no choice to Tony Blair:

Bill Clinton says that no government could have failed to act against Iraq after the 11 September 2001 attacks in view of intelligence provided. The former US president told the BBC that UK intelligence on the activity of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was more "aggressive" than Washington's.

He added that the world was right to demand weapons inspections in 2002. But he said war could have been avoided if the UN had passed a resolution threatening military action. ...

He said that while containment of Iraq was working the situation regarding Saddam Hussein was different after the 11 September attacks. ... UK intelligence presented more compelling reasons for action than US intelligence, he said.

"The British intelligence, whatever Lord Butler says about it, was clearly even more forward-leading than the American intelligence in believing that Saddam was trying to get nuclear materials, in believing that Saddam had some kind of relationship with al-Qaeda," he said.

So Clinton supports the Iraq war, and rather unequivocally, as opposed to the Democratic ticket for the White House this year. Unlike John Kerry, Clinton lays the blame for the lack of UN support on the torpedoed final resolution, which died as a result of French and Russian intriguing. That's a far cry from Kerry, who reflexively blamed Bush and the American government for alienating its allies at the UN and building a "fraudulent coalition", which excluded only those nations getting rich off the UN Oil-For-Food program.

I wonder how Kerry will square his rhetoric with Clinton's interview? More likely, he won't have to worry about it; I doubt the BBC story will get a lot of play on this side of the Atlantic.

Predictably, Clinton also rehashes the canard that he was poised to strike at al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, but the CIA held him back:

Turning to Afghanistan, Mr Clinton said he had been ready to send in special forces to defeat the former Taleban regime at the end of his time in office, but the operations had been called off at the last minute because the CIA did not trust its own intelligence.

It had not yet been confirmed that al-Qaeda, whom the Taleban was accused of harbouring, was in fact responsible for the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

Of course, this doesn't mention the fact that the CIA had been held to a law-enforcement standard in presenting its intelligence -- a standard still being applied today by the Left, for whom only a certainty beyond all doubt justifies any action. Most of us know better after 9/11, and Clinton's (and previous administrations') inaction on terror unfortunately enabled the lesson to occur.

Kerry's Analysis Paralysis Plan

The proverb, "Too many cooks spoil the broth" comes to mind while reading the Washington Post article on the Kerry campaign's policy structure. While intending on casting a broad net to display inclusiveness, the nominee instead teeters on the edge of an unmanageable mess:

From a tightknit group of experienced advisers, John F. Kerry's presidential campaign has grown exponentially in recent months to include a cast literally of thousands, making it difficult to manage an increasingly unwieldy policy apparatus.

The campaign now includes 37 separate domestic policy councils and 27 foreign policy groups, each with scores of members. The justice policy task force alone includes 195 members. The environmental group is roughly the same size, as is the agriculture and rural development council. Kerry counts more than 200 economists as his advisers.

In contrast, President Bush's campaign policy shop is a no-frills affair. Policy director Tim Adams directs about a dozen experts who make sure the campaign is in sync with the vast executive branch that is formulating policy. Adams's group also analyzes Kerry's proposals and voting record. Fewer than a dozen outside task forces, with five to 10 members, also help out on education, veterans' issues, the economy, and energy, environment and natural resources, said campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel.

Perhaps it is this structure more than any other external factor which accounts for the notorious Kerry "nuance" displayed time and again during this campaign. When you have thousands of voices, each with their own pet causes and projects, coming together to develop coherent policies, you will wind up with either no product at all or long-winded and self-contradictory policies that look more like legal papers instead. Early on in our history, we were wise enough to limit the House of Representatives to 435 members for this very reason. Any body much larger than that increases policy inertia to a point where it is too difficult to overcome.

While the entire article is interesting, it fails to ask one key question: why does John Kerry, after having spent over 30 years in public office -- the last twenty at the federal level -- need thousands of people to decide what he thinks? One of the selling points of his campaign is supposed to be his long experience in government and foreign policy. Shouldn't that mean that Kerry has his core principles already staked out, and if so, shouldn't a smaller group of people be able to use them to build policy papers?

This overgrown and unwieldy organization not only looks like a throwback to Great Society-level bureaucratism but also demonstrates that Kerry has few core principles on which to build his policy. We already know that John Edwards is pretty much an empty suit from his legislative track record during his only term in office, but Kerry was supposed to be ready to take the reins right now. Candidates choose staff carefully to ensure that they match up with their already-expressed beliefs and principles, making large numbers of people for policy development unnecessary.

If Kerry needs a cast of thousands to make up his mind what he thinks at this late stage in his career, why should anyone vote for him?

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt has some good thoughts on this article (and you should buy his book, If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat), and also points to another Post article that dovetails with the above:

Democratic Party leaders said yesterday they plan to make their nominating convention in Boston later this month a four-day reintroduction of Sen. John F. Kerry, enlisting his wife, children and former war comrades in Vietnam to make the case for a man they acknowledge remains an opaque figure for millions of Americans.

"Stronger at Home, Respected in the World," is the theme of the Boston event, said Democratic National Committee Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe. The phrase is designed to underscore the centrist and forward-looking image Kerry wants to present to voters -- an implicit attack on President Bush and a rebuttal to Bush's argument that Kerry would be a weak and irresolute commander in chief.

Not that there's anything weak or irresolute about needing a few thousand sign-offs on your policy statements.

Hillary Snub Sparks Outrage

The Kerry campaign's ham-handed attempt to shove potential rival Hillary Clinton into the shadows during the nominating convention may be backfiring already. The AP reports that Democratic officials are voicing "outrage" that Sen. Clinton has been denied a speaking role at the convention, while Gov. Tom Vilsack's wife -- not an officeholder -- has been given time instead:

The former chairwoman of the New York State Democratic Party on Wednesday called it "a total outrage" and "very stupid" that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has not been offered a prominent speaking role at the Democratic National Convention.

"It's a slap in the face, not personally for Hillary Clinton, but for every woman in the Democratic Party and every woman in America," said Judith Hope, a major party fund-raiser.

Hope said she would appeal to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to "correct this omission" and would send an e-mail message to more than 1,000 New York women — "many of them major donors to the Kerry campaign" — complaining about the slight.

The Kerry campaign had no immediate comment.

This report confirms that the Kerry campaign generated the list of speakers and therefore decided at some point that Hillary was a liability to their effort. Why this might be so is not entirely clear, although Democrats have their own theories. What's clear is that Kerry/Edwards intended to exclude Sen. Clinton. If the inclusion of Christie Vilsack wasn't meant as a slap in the face, it obviously comes across as such -- and Clinton loyalists are just as obviously not going to sit quietly and let it pass.

Let's review, for just a moment, the competence of the Kerry campaign so far this year. In the past several weeks, Kerry has managed to antagonize:

* The Democratic mayor of his hometown, as well as a number of his counterparts from around the nation
* The NEA
* The Deaniacs, who have yet to respond to the Edwards selection
* Clintonites

Of those four, the latter will be the most worrisome. The Clintons may not control the fundraising, but they do exert a strong influence among key money people in the party. Judith Hope is just one example, and when you have Judith Hope calling your campaign decisions "frankly, very stupid" for attribution, you have a problem. For that matter, when you have Thomas Menino calling you "incompetent", you have huge problems.

By the time the convention rolls around, the Democrats and their interest groups will do their best to present this as just a minor flap that received way too much attention from the [ahem] conservatively-biased corporate media. Maybe they really will kiss and make up. However, if Candidate Kerry and his team run a campaign with this level of obvious incompetence, why should anyone trust him with the White House?

You know, just asking ...

UPDATE: TalkLeft's Jeralynn Merritt notes that the Kerry campaign has added the Illinois candidate for Senate, Barack Obama, as the keynote speaker for July 27th. But, alas, no one at Kerry/Edwards has room for Hillary. Does this mean a state Senator outranks a federal Senator at the DNC?

Profiles In Political Courage

The New York Times reports this morning that the Democrats have left Hillary Clinton off the speaker list for their nominating convention, even though she plans on being in Boston:

The Democratic National Committee released on Tuesday its lineup of the big-name politicians speaking at the convention this month, and it included every major Democratic star except one.

There were Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, near the top of the list. Al Gore was there, too, and so was Edward M. Kennedy. Even the wife of the Iowa governor made the cut. But Hillary Rodham Clinton, the junior senator from New York and one of the most prominent names in the party, was nowhere to be found. ...

"She never asked," said Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for the Kerry campaign. "Obviously, Hillary Clinton is a leader in the party and is working hard to elect John Kerry." But Ms. Cutter said she did not know whether each speaker, including Ms. Clinton's husband, had formally requested time.

"She never asked"? It seems to me that using one of your most recognized and (unfortunately, these days) moderate faces on the podium would have so much value that the Democrats could have picked up the phone and asked her. According to conventional wisdom, supposedly the Bush/Cheney ticket is vulnerable with women, even though recent polling shows surprising strength among suburban women for the Republicans. How better to exploit that vulnerability than to have your most well-known female politico on the stump for national TV?

Apparently not. The plan for Mrs. Clinton, former First Lady and Senator of the nation's second-largest state by population, will be as a chorus girl for Barbara Mikulski, the senior female Senator from Maryland, and only on opening night. After that, the men take over -- Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and even Ragin' Al Gore.

Raymond Hernandez and John Files report that, privately, Democrats are just as puzzled:

Some wondered if the Kerry-Edwards campaign was worried about being upstaged by a woman who has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, most likely in 2008. Others speculated that the campaign was worried that Mrs. Clinton may be too polarizing a political figure to showcase during an event intended to appeal to the broadest political audience.

The speculation about Mrs. Clinton's political future has heated up since Mr. Kerry's announcement last week that his running mate would be John Edwards, the youthful and charismatic senator from North Carolina. Many Democrats say the decision means Mr. Edwards could present an alternative to Ms. Clinton in 2008, if President Bush is re-elected this year.

Some Democrats wondered whether this potential rivalry was behind the decision to keep Mrs. Clinton off the list of convention speakers.

Hillary lovers need not despair entirely. As Hernandez and Files report, the conventions are long affairs, with plenty of spots for fill-in speakers:

Lina Garcia, a spokeswoman for the convention, said there was still a chance that Mrs. Clinton could land a role as a speaker. "There's a possibility she could," she said. "There's a possibility she couldn't." Ms. Garcia indicated that there would be a need to fill up some air time during the heavily choreographed four-day event. "There are obviously going to be other speakers to fill up the day," she said.

In other words, don't call us -- we'll call you. And we'll use your silence as an excuse to treat you like a consolation prize.

Democratic Fundraiser/Panderer Has Friends In High Places

Some people consider politics to be little more than prostitution -- the selling of one's self for campaign financing and the votes of the electorate. Unfortunately, when faced with a federal investigation of his campaign contributions, real-estate entrepeneur Charles Kushner relied on his political pimping skills for Democrats, attempting to thwart the probe by literally screwing the feds out of a witness:

Real estate developer and political fund-raiser Charles Kushner of Livingston, New Jersey, was charged by federal prosecutors Tuesday with conspiracy, obstruction of justice and interstate promotion of prostitution. ...

In February 2003, Christie's office began investigating Kushner for alleged violation of federal tax and fraud statutes and for purported violation of federal campaign contribution laws. According to the indictment, two of the cooperating witnesses in the investigation -- a married couple described as close relatives of Kushner -- provided information against him to federal investigators.

The indictment alleges that Kushner initiated "a scheme to orchestrate a covert videotaped seduction" of the cooperating male witness in an attempt to thwart the investigation. The indictment says Kushner recruited two individuals to hire a woman to have sex with the male witness and later instructed them to mail the videotape to the man's wife, who was the other cooperating witness in the investigation.

Nor is this Kushner's first time in trouble with the law. The FEC levied a half-million-dollar fine against him last month for laundering contributions to political candidates through his corporations. Kushner apparently decided to exercise some professional courtesy by hiring people from the world's oldest profession and bring them into his efforts at the world's oldest pastime -- covering one's butt. Unfortunately, Kushner appears to be somewhat of a loser; not only does his own family rat him out, but he can't even hire two hookers without the feds tumbling to the scheme.

And this is a Jersey guy?

Meanwhile, Kushner's client list must be feeling some heat from this arrest. The amateur pimp procured vast amounts of money for some high-profile pols, including Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, New Jersey governor James McGreevey (who nominated Kushner to run the Port Authority in 2003) ... and John Kerry, a guy whose name people might also recognize.

So Kerry is involved in yet another campaign-finance scandal! At least this time no evidence exists that Kerry did anything unusual to foster the relationship, at least not yet. But I find it interesting in the extreme that CNN held that little nugget of information out until the 13th paragraph of the story. Had Kushner been a Republican fundraiser, do you think that would have been an afterthought in this story? Or would you suppose that instead of running this article in its "Law Center" section with the headline, "New Jersey fund-raiser charged,", it would have run in the Politics or News section with the headline, "Bush Backer Indicted In Prostitution-Blackmail Attempt"?

Mexican Anti-Kidnapping Technology -- Why Not In Iraq?

CNN reports on a new development for Mexico's war on internal terror, as it has started inoculating its political class against abductions:

Mexico's attorney general said on Monday he had had a microchip inserted under the skin of one of his arms to give him access to a new crime database and also enable him to be traced if he is ever abducted. ...

"The system is here and I already have it. It's solely for access, for safety and so that I can be located at any moment wherever I am," he said, admitting the chip hurt "a little." The chips would enable the wearer to be found anywhere inside Mexico, in the event of an assault or kidnapping, said Macedo.

And kidnapping is a huge problem here. From 1992 to 2002, Mexico saw some 15,000 kidnappings, second only to war-torn Colombia, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.

The article doesn't get into technical explanations of the implant or the tracking system which locates it when necessary, but that isn't really the point. Mexico has decided to implement a human Lo/Jack system for its most vulnerable citizens, mostly because so many kidnappings occur and also because the police are so corrupt that the likelihood of them actively searching for the victim apparently equates that of them being in on it, or at least paid to not look very hard.

Putting aside the inevitable, paranoid "mark of the Beast" arguments, this technology could prove very valuable in an area where we face our own vulnerabilities to abduction -- in Iraq. I don't know what the cost might be, and cost would be a consideration given that we have hundreds of thousands of troops and support personnel in Iraq now. But tagging each person with a unique locating device, one that can't be found or removed, would prove invaluable for immediately discovering an abductee and the terrorists who perpetrate these crimes. In fact, once the technique became widely used, the kidnappings would just stop althogether. After catching and killing a couple of gangs of lunatics, word would get around.

And here's another use. Those detainees who cannot be held for one reason or another, but are considered to be higher-risk suspects for terror, could be tagged and tracked. Discovering their movements would give the Iraqis and the Coalition tremendous intelligence on the movement of terrorists in and out of the country. It would also allow security forces to grab terrorists whenever and wherever they gather. Even if there wouldn't be enough to charge them at the time of arrest, such gambits would disrupt planning and preparation for attacks. Foreign terrorists would probably quickly leave the country to avoid being tagged by the Coalition.

It occurs to me that the second scenario may already be in play. If not, we should look to our southern neighbor to determine if this technology couldn't give us the edge we need to destroy the terrorists and their networks.

Not A Moment Too Soon, Apparently

This afternoon, the Washington Post reported more good news from their pollsters. Bush has worked back to a tie with Kerry in the WaPo poll, 46-46, erasing a four-point gap in the same time period when John Kerry selected John Edwards as his running mate. Bush has also reclaimed his advantage in fighting the war:

Despite growing fears that the United States is losing the war on terrorism, President Bush has reclaimed the advantage over his Democratic challenger John F. Kerry as the presidential candidate best able to deal with the international terrorist threat, according to the latest Washington Post poll.

The survey found that 55 percent of all Americans currently approve of the way Bush is handling the campaign against terrorism, up 5 points in the past three weeks. Slightly more than half -- 51 percent -- also said they trust Bush more than Kerry to deal with terrorism, while 42 percent prefer the Democrat. Three weeks ago, the two were tied on this crucial voting issue, which ranks with the economy and the situation in Iraq as top concerns this presidential election.

The polling took place before Bush's address at Oak Ridge, in which he not only defended his efforts but made an impressive case for continuing his prosecution of the war. According to the poll, Americans need to hear more about the victories, such as liberating almost 50 million people and elimination of the AQ Khan network, as well as stripping Libya of its WMDs. Only 46% think we're making progress, a reflection of the administration's passivity in making its case and a media that can't bring itself to cover the news properly:

For the first time in Post polls this year, fewer than half of the country -- 46 percent -- say the United States is winning the war on terrorism, down eight points since April. Thirty-eight percent say the United States is losing the terrorism fight, a new high in Post surveys and up 11 points since March.

At the same time, the proportion of the public who say the war with Iraq was not worth fighting has grown to 53 percent, a record high, while 45 percent say it was worth it. Still, a 53-percent majority say the conflict with Iraq has contributed to the long-term security of the United States.

The last part is puzzling; are we to believe that eight percent of the electorate think that the security of the United States isn't worth fighting for?

More interesting is the results of the Edwards selection. Only 46% said that it made them view the Kerry campaign more favorably, the same percentage that supports Kerry in this poll. 49% said it made no difference or made them view him less favorably. It appears that Edwards has brought nothing to the ticket except a bit more passion to the already committed. Comparatively, the Post notes that in 2000, Gore's selection of Lieberman got a 53% favorable and Bush's selection of Cheney managed 50%.

The shift back so soon towards Bush shows that the Kerry/Edwards ticket not only received little bounce, but that it has already lost some of its steam. The debacle of the Thursday-night fundraiser may have contributed to the fall, but it may also just be the Edwards selection demonstrating Kerry's lack of seriousness on security. At any rate, the Republicans have been given a window earlier in the summer than first thought. It's time to throw it open with more of the Oak Ridge approach.

Dana Milbank, King Of The Non-Stories

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank continues his ongoing sniping at the Bush administration today by revealing the salaries of the entire White House staff and attempting to spin them into a gender-bias story:

The president's men are doing very well. The president's women are doing slightly less well, but still not bad.

With new White House salary figures leaked to The Washington Post and an Excel spreadsheet, crack researcher Margot Williams determined that men in the Bush White House earn an average of $76,624 a year. Women earn $59,917 on average. That means Bush women earn about 78 percent of what Bush men earn.

Wow -- Bush's White House must hate women, right? They only pay them 78% of what they're worth! However, if you read the next paragraph, the picture changes somewhat:

As it happens, that's almost exactly the national average for the gap in pay between the sexes, although it's a good bit below the 88 percent for the nearly 1 million professional and administrative employees in the federal workforce. Also, the White House has the advantage of making all its hires from scratch after the 2000 election.

Well, this puts the differences into a bit more context. Okay, so the White House pretty much reflects the composition of the overall workplace, if not the federal bureaucracy. But still, the disparity proves that the Bush administration discriminates against women -- right?

Not so fast; read the fourth paragraph:

At the White House, the gap has nothing to do with wage discrimination: Women and men with similar titles receive similar pay. Rather, it comes from the dominance of men in high-end jobs; of the 17 White House staffers earning $157,000 -- the top of the pay scale this year -- 12 are men. That's roughly comparable to the 26 percent representation of women in the federal government's 7,000-person Senior Executive Service, according to the Partnership for Public Service.

So there is no gender discrimination in the White House. The hiring pattern reflects that of the federal government as a whole and the private sector.

Two questions:

1. Why write the story in the first place?
2. Why the snide innuendo that discrimination exists, just to deny it in the fourth paragraph?

Milbank ran with the story, I suspect, mainly to publish the Excel file that contains the salary information of all White House employees, probably to annoy the staff and cause management headaches. The second question can easily be answered by reviewing Milbank's intellectually dishonest hit pieces on the Bush administration over the past year.

Addendum: In analyzing this list and making my best assumptions on gender, it would appear that the Bush White House does a better job than Milbank suggests on its hiring practices. Bush employs 236 women and 192 men, and the average overall salaries are $60,759.45 and $74,612.76 respectively, a difference of 19.6%. The overall average salary at the White House is $67,230.78. For those earning above the mean, 67 are women and 83 are men, roughly a 20% gap, or 44.7% representation, not 26%.

It looks like "crack researcher Margot Williams" doesn't know how to do too much analysis ...

UPDATE: Big thanks to Kathryn Jean Lopez at NRO's The Corner for the link, and welcome to NRO readers! Have a look around, and I hope you bookmark/blogroll CQ for future visits.

Edwards Bounce Deflates In Home State

USA Today reports (via Drudge) that John Edwards has actually damaged John Kerry's standing in Edwards' home state of North Carolina, negating one of the supposed advantages of selecting the single-term Senator as his running mate.

Among likely voters in the poll, Bush/Cheney outpaces Kerry/Edwards 56-41, and even among registered voters the President outpaces Kerry by seven points. USA Today does not provide any historical context for these standings, as Edwards wasn't on the ticket until last week. However, if you check out question 4B ("Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the following people?"), you see where Kerry has dropped significantly in the last two weeks:

Date............Fav.Unfav..Unk..No Op
2004 Jul 9-11....49....43....2....6
2004 Jun 21-23..58....35....2....5

Kerry has lost nine points off of his positives and gained eight points on his negatives in two weeks where he has blitzed the area with campaign advertising. The only significant changes during that time have been the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq and picking Edwards as his running mate. Edwards' positives run at 63%, but all that means is that people like him; they may like him better as a retiring Senator than as the man one heartbeat away from the Presidency.

George Bush, meanwhile, has surged in Edwards country:

Date.............Fav.Unfav..No Op
2004 Jul 9-11.....55..40.....5
2004 Jun 21-23...53..45.....2

Bush has made a slight gain in positives, but has driven his negatives down significantly. If Kerry and his advisors expected some help from Edwards in the South, it won't emanate from his home state. It appears the Kerry/Edwards ticket is a dog that won't hunt down there.

Bush Makes The Case, WaPo Develops One (Of Amnesia)

George Bush, in remarks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, gave an impassioned defense of the Iraq war, arguing that the result has made America and the world safer due to subtraction:

Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq. We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. In the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take.

Today, the dictator who caused decades of death and turmoil, who twice invaded his neighbors, who harbored terrorist leaders, who used chemical weapons on innocent men, women and children, is finally before the bar of justice. Iraq, which once had the worst government in the Middle East, is now becoming an example of reform to the region. And Iraqi security forces are fighting beside coalition troops to defeat the terrorists and foreign fighters who threaten their nation and the world.

Today, because America and our coalition helped to end the violent regime of Saddam Hussein, and because we’re helping to raise a peaceful democracy in its place, the American people are safer.

Bush inspected the detritus of what had been the Libyan WMD program, now stored at Oak Ridge, reviewing the equipment that Moammar Gaddafi voluntarily gave up after the capture of Saddam Hussein. Bush reminded the gathered reporters that the Libyan concession was only made possible through the implementation of a foreign policy that promised serious consequences when defied. Only after watching the US and UK remove the Taliban and Hussein government did it become clear to Gaddafi that we had become serious about ensuring our security:

I’ve just had a close look at some of the dangerous equipment secured in this place. Eight months ago, the centrifuge parts and processing equipment for uranium were 5,000 miles away in the nation of Libya. They were part of a secret nuclear weapons program. Today, Libya, America and the world are better off because these components are safely in your care.

These materials are the sobering evidence of a great danger. Certain regimes, often with ties to terrorist groups, seek the ultimate weapons as a short cut to influence. These materials, voluntarily turned over by the Libyan government, are also encouraging evidence that nations can abandon these ambitions and choose a better way.

Libya is dismantling its weapons of mass destruction and long- range missile programs. This progress came about through quiet diplomacy between America, Britain and the Libyan government. This progress was set in motion, however, by policies declared in public to all the world.

The United States, Great Britain and many other nations are determined to expose the threats of terrorism and proliferation and to oppose those threats with all our power. ... Every potential adversary now knows that terrorism and proliferation carry serious consequences and that the wise course is to abandon those pursuits [emph mine -- CE].

The coverage from the Washington Post on this point seems to indicate an odd sense of amnesia from reporter Amy Goldstein, matching the charges and countercharges made by both campaigns towards each other yesterday after this appearance. On this point, however, both the Kerry campaign and Goldstein seem to have the diagnosis confirmed:

The Kerry campaign accused Bush of traveling here to create an erroneous impression that Libya's decision resulted from the Iraq war. ... There are substantial differences of opinion over what motivated Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to decide eight months ago to stop trying to develop nuclear weapons, allowing Western inspectors to verify its actions and agreeing to destroy some materials and ship others here to Oak Ridge. Inspectors have discovered that Libya's weapons program was disorganized, short of critical components and years away from producing weapons.

Many specialists say the decision grew out of diplomacy with the United States and Britain that began during the 1990s when Bill Clinton was president. Bush did not acknowledge that history on Monday, saying instead that the decision was the result of a determination of the United States, Britain and other allies to "expose the threats of terrorism and proliferation -- and oppose those threats with all our power."

Even the Post's editorial board didn't buy the 'long years of diplomatic persuasion' argument when it first addressed the Libyan capitulation. Back last December, the Post wrote:

Moammar Gaddafi, a model rogue dictator and sponsor of international terrorism in the 1980s, has been trying to rehabilitate himself for the better part of a decade. He dispatched two of his henchmen to be tried at The Hague for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner, agreed to pay reparations to families and renounced terrorism. Yet it was only last March that Mr. Gaddafi chose to approach Britain and the United States to discuss giving up his weapons of mass destruction. That he did so, and that nine months of secret negotiations with him yielded an agreement, marks a major success in the effort by the United States and its allies to prevent the spread of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and to make such containment a focus of international affairs. Mr. Gaddafi's timing, just as the invasion of Iraq was beginning, speaks for itself: The Libyan dictator chose to comply as it became clear that Saddam Hussein's pursuit of illegal weapons would no longer be tolerated.

And of course, the Libyan strongman himself acknowledged to Italian diplomats that seeing Saddam dragged from his rathole convinced him to do whatever the Americans asked. I suppose all of that background escaped Goldstein's attention, either through laziness, incompetence, or bias. However, despite the spin from both the Post and the Kerry camp, Bush has been proven right on the Iraq war, over and over again. It's about time he came out and said so.

Winning The Peace

The AP makes a rare report of some good news from Iraq, filing a story today on the hard work of the civil affairs soldiers in the US Army and their function in rebuilding the nation, one piece at a time:

Sgt. Abubakar Senge walks through the secondary school with his rifle slung across his chest, his helmet hanging off his arm and a notebook in his hand, inspecting the work he hired an Iraqi builder to perform.

Checking every room, he wants to make sure everything is perfect before the students return at the end of August. "I'm not that much older than the guys going to school, so I know how they feel," said the 21-year-old college student from Portland, Ore. ...

The Army has assigned a civil affairs team to almost every battalion to take charge of reconstruction projects and set up neighborhood councils to get Iraq (news - web sites) back to normal. All civil affairs soldiers are reservists and excluded from combat operations. ... Senge's team is assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Battalion, which is responsible for Baghdad's Mansour district. The battalion has more than 170 projects worth about $7.5 million.

While the report is a bit brief, only focusing on one soldier in one unit, the acknowledgement of any of this Army's good work is encouraging. Soldiers like Senge have received little credit for the efforts they have made in making life easier for Iraqi civilians, even while they remain targets for the cowards and lunatics that torment both the CPA and the Iraqis themselves. The Pentagon certainly has received no credit for making these efforts, let alone for the results they have achieved in the civil-affairs units.

Check your local newspaper to see if they carried this AP report -- to be fair, it would have to be their Wednesday editions -- and where it wound up. Front page? Or A-36, behind the ongoing exposé of the mayor's psoriasis?

Iran: It's The Yahoods, We Tell Ya

The Iranian mullahcracy injected a little conspiratorial nonsense into the diplomatic debate over terrorism this morning with an assertion that Muslims couldn't possibly be capable of kidnapping and beheading foreign nationals in Iraq. However, they do claim to have solved the mystery:

Iran's Supreme Leader said on Tuesday he believed the United States and Israel, rather than Muslims, were behind the kidnapping and killing of foreign nationals in Iraq.

"We seriously suspect the agents Americans and Israelis in conducting such horrendous terrorist moves," the official IRNA news agency quoted Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying in a meeting with visiting Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong.

"(We) cannot believe that the people who kidnap Philippine nationals, for instance, or beheaded U.S. nationals are Muslims."

That must be it! The Jews and the Americans --who, after all, are nothing but puppets of the Jews -- must secretly be forming their own beheading squads, invoking the name of Allah and posting snuff films to well-known Islamist web sites, so that they can undermine the Iraqi government that we installed ... no, wait ...

OK. We're actively beheading the citizens of countries that wouldn't support our efforts in Iraq -- no, wait, that's not right ...

Ah! Beheading Americans and citizens of friendly countries helps America and the Jews because it convinces more countries to send help to Iraq ... nah, that can't be it ...

Now I've got it. Iranian mullahs are lunatic, paranoid liars who probably could be convinced into thinking that the Jews secretly control everything, including themselves, and have a lower collective IQ than the first OJ jury.

Somehow I think the last suggestion is closest to the truth.

A White Flag, Followed By Some First-Class Asskissing

The Philippines ran the white flag up to Islamic terrorists today, caving in to the demands of kidnappers to expedite their scheduled withdrawal from Iraq:

The Philippines said on Monday it would withdraw its troops from Iraq as soon as possible to save a Filipino hostage threatened with death by militants. CNN quoted unidentified Philippine officials as saying they expected truck driver Angelo de la Cruz to be released on Tuesday, but no independent confirmation was available.

Al Jazeera broadcast footage of Philippine deputy foreign minister Rafael Seguis reading out a statement, which the television station translated into Arabic, shortly after the expiry of a new execution deadline set by the militants.

"In response to your request, the Philippines ... will withdraw its humanitarian forces as soon as possible," Seguis said according to the translation of the statement, addressed to the Islamic Army in Iraq group holding 46-year-old de la Cruz.

And so the Filipinos have guaranteed that the Islamofascists will continue its kidnap-and-behead strategy, undermining the efforts not only of the US but also those of the nascent Iraqi government. While their new security forces train to find and eliminate these lunatics, the Filipino government accedes to their "requests" as if they have diplomatic standing. It's a dispiriting display of political cowardice on behalf of the Arroyo administration, who would have been much better served by standing fast.

As if this statement wasn't bad enough, the Arroyo government managed to press their noses even further up the crack of the butchers and lunatics as it continued:

"I hope the statement that I read will touch the heart of this group," said Seguis. "We know that Islam is the religion of peace and mercy."

That stink, my friends, is the aroma of abject surrender and humiliation. It is the same smell that emanates from the Left in this country, and their intention is to bring America to the same low state as that of the Arroyo government. The radical Left will not be happy until we start apologizing for deciding not to be victims and to take the fight the terrorists -- the fight they started -- and to sing hosannas to the hearts of the very same people who chopped the heads off of their hostages and put the videos on the Internet.

Women Progress In Iraq, Still Prey To Radicals Elsewhere

While the new Iraqi nation progresses by including women in its security infrastructure, radicals reminded the world today why the Iraqis are so singular in this accomplishment. The AP reports that "guerillas" -- assuredly Islamofascist militants -- have mutilated a teenage girl for cooperating with authorities in the disputed Jammu-Kashmir state in India:

Guerrillas on Monday chopped off the ears, nose and tongue of a teenage girl they suspected of helping police, while at least nine other people were killed in separate violence in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The girl was held captive for eight days before the rebels abandoned her in a field outside the village of Manoh, 190 miles southwest of Srinagar, the capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, police said.

It's helpful to understand the type of people who wish to impose their radical version of Islam on others. Regardless of motivation, people who would commit such an act on a teenager -- or anyone -- are nothing more than bloodthirsty monsters, not people with whom one could reach any accommodation. They cut off her ears, nose, and tongue, and then dumped her like trash to die. I'd call them animals, but no animal I know could act with such malicious cruelty.

And while we're talking about this, why did the AP shy away from identifying the "guerillas" as anti-Indian Muslim radicals? Could it be that the reporter, Mujtaba Ali Ahmad, has some reason to protect the reputation of Islamists in Kashmir?

MoveOn Lies, Credibility Dies?

MoveOn's contest for political commercials generated a submission that used Hitler imagery to imply Bush is a Nazi. After the storm broke, MoveOn issued a statement disavowing any responsibility for the ad, saying it was an open contest, and claiming to have removed the ad from their servers. Matt Drudge reports that not only was the offending file never removed, it was renamed to keep it hidden from prying eyes:

Bush Haters worldwide are still watching the famed 'Bush is Nazi' add on MOVEON.ORG -- despite repeated claims by the site's founders the short had been removed more than six months ago!

As of Monday morning [11 am Eastern] -- the ad was still carried on MOVEON's website -- under the curious file name "renamed.again.renamed.mov.FKbxnT3hzaHCcOR7vWvRYmZpbGUtMTM4OQ--.mpg"

The ad shows images of Bush with text saying, "God told me to strike at al-Qaida," before turning to images of Hitler with the words, "And then He instructed me to strike at Saddam." The ad ends with the words, "sound familiar?" on a black and white screen.

Last year, MOVEONE Executive Director Eli Parser claimed the ad was promptly taken off the Internet after its submission, as part of a contest, by a member of the public.

Here's the link to the film, if you feel the need to watch it, while it still exists. I can't access it myself at the moment, but I plan on checking to see if the link is still viable by the time I get home from work. I suspect it will be dead once again. But all of this points out that MoveOn has no trouble hauling out Hitler and then lying about their participation in and hiding of such material. Coming from the biggest proponent of the "Bush Lied!" meme, this should demolish MoveOn's credibility.

Caption Contest Winners!

The entries have finally been judged, the winners have been chosen -- and let me tell you, it wasn't easy for Saint Paul from Fraters Libertas. He wound up having to check in with John Fogerty, who finally gave him the approval sign on his slate of winning entries:

Here are the John Fogey Fogerty-endorsed winners:

Captain's Award (Manly Men Doing Manly Things) -- Kimmber:

It's been 5 minutes since I've hugged a caucasian male with great hair. Come here little fella........."

You Have The Conn #1 (Can't Find Good Help) -- King:

When is the butler going to come get this thing off me?"

You Have The Conn #2 (First Things First) -- CCWBass:

". . . and I figured, the hell the terrorists! I'm not going to let them keep me from rockin' on, and so I ditched the briefing and grabbed my guitar, and here I am!"

You Have The Conn #3 (Keanu Reeves Career Award) -- Kris:

Kerry: "Be excellent to each other."

Report To Sick Bay (To Air [Guitar] Divine) -- Scotty:

"...and, as a demonstration of how committed I am to the gay / lesbian / transgender / bisexual vote, I am going to let this guy, who I don't know, fondle my junk!"

Next Gurney Over (Judge's Entry) -- Paul Saint:

For my next trick, I will perform the drum solo from Wipeout using only my groin and the back of this guitar.

A big thank you to my Northern Alliance friend and colleague Saint Paul from Fraters Libertas! Don't forget that even though the in-line skate rally is over, you can still contribute to the Fraters Libertas fundraising effort for MS. (Kimmber, drop Saint Paul an e-mail to make arrangements for the bumber sticker he's offered to the winner.)

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 Saint'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.

Women See Progress In New Iraq

One of the subtexts of the war on terror is the liberation of women from the oppression to which radical Islamists wish to condemn them. Even in more open-minded Muslim societies such as Egypt, women have faced increasing pressure to cover themselves while in public and curtail their efforts towards economic independence. In Iraq, meanwhile, the new interim government has hired over one hundred women into highy public roles -- as police officers:

Whipping out her handgun and slamming a magazine into the grip, 20-year-old Hadeel Alwan can't wait to start catching criminals. "My biggest wish is to destroy terrorism," said Alwan, one of the youngest of Iraq's new women police recruits. "I want to go out on the streets and do everything a man does." ...

Iraq has not hired women recruits since the force experimented with the idea in the 1960s, according to senior officers, but that changed with the fall of Saddam. The U.S.-led administration, which handed powers to an interim Iraqi government on June 28, encouraged the police to start employing women when it began training the force, notorious for corruption and human rights abuses under Saddam.

About 115 women recruits have passed through the academy since U.S. forces took control of training after last year's invasion, keeping their 1,200 male counterparts on their toes.

"They shoot better than some of the guys," said U.S. Army Spc. David Dunn, 26, from Buffalo, New York.

Again, women obviously have a long way to go in Iraq to achieve equal status, but the actions of the interim government in their inclusion are admirable, and rather unthinkable under Saddam or an Islamofascist state. For one thing, they may provide a stabilizing influence within the security forces themselves, although as the abuses at Abu Ghraib proved, not necessarily. It also shows women that more possibilities have opened up for them under the liberated government, giving them a large stake in its survival. Having women enforcing the law also demonstrates Iraq's commitment to broadening its approach to human rights, a key concern among critics of the war. And note that the women are paid the same salary as the men.

Again, this looks suspiciously like real progress. I hope it receives the coverage it deserves, but I suspect most of our media will treat it as a non-event.

Uh, Go Back To The Drawing Board, Please

I understand the need to think out of the box in terms of national security in time of war. I know that terrorists would like nothing better than to disrupt our elections this November, and maybe some other events previous to that as well. Given all of that, you can understand why this idea would be inevitable -- and it's still tremendously foolish (via Power Line):

U.S. counterterrorism officials are looking at an emergency proposal on the legal steps needed to postpone the November presidential election in case of an attack by al Qaeda, Newsweek reported on Sunday. ... The magazine cited unnamed sources who told it that the Department of Homeland Security asked the Justice Department last week to review what legal steps would be needed to delay the election if an attack occurred on the day before or the day of the election.

The argument that "if [X] happens, the terrorists will have won" has become incredibly trite, but it applies here. We just had a controversial presidential election in our last cycle. Can you imagine the outcry if this election got postponed? Democrats would scream that Bush did it to bolster his political support or to somehow disadvantage poor and minority voters. The papers would talk about Reichstag fires and how even the Civil War didn't delay a federal election -- and they'd be right. Besides, any delay would have to be announced in advance, and all that would do would postpone any attack right along with it. We're not gaining anything from a delay.

The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November is Election Day, and that's when Americans vote for President. We understand the risks. We are at war to protect this very right, so let's show the world that nothing keeps us from exercising the freedom for which we've fought for over 200 years.

UPDATE and BUMP: Several people have raised the question of disenfranchisement after a massive attack either on or just before Election Day, including Shark, who went through this on 9/11 -- which was a primary day in New York:

That's nice. Remember 9/11? That was primary day in NYC. It was sorta impossible for people to vote that day. Am I to be disenfranchised in case of an attack?

Others have posted similar comments. If the planning at the Pentagon and White House is limited to regional contingencies, then I support their efforts. The article itself makes some reference to this. However, it also says that a wholesale delay on the election nationwide is on the table, and I think that's an extremely bad and destabilizing idea.

Kerry Campaign Keeps Shooting Itself In The Foot

The USA Today, in an analysis of the Kerry/Edwards campaign, concludes that their consistent gaffes have given the Bush campaign plenty of material from which to attack them, underscoring their lack of competency at running national election campaigns. Readers of this blog will hardly be surprised at this analysis, but Jill Lawrence puts a number of recent stumbles into a broader context, as well as reports on some that haven't quite made it into the mainstream yet:

Amid a series of feel-good events that would have made Cecil B. DeMille proud, Kerry said on national TV that he hadn't had time for a national security briefing on a new al-Qaeda threat. He praised celebrities who had made nasty, vulgar remarks about President Bush. His wife offered feminist musings at the North Carolina finale of the new ticket's "mainstream values" tour. And while voters wondered about John Edwards' experience and foreign policy credentials, the Kerrys talked about his good looks.

"He's better-looking in person than in photographs. Look at him, he's blushing," Heinz Kerry told about 25,000 people at a rally Saturday in Raleigh. Kerry delivered his usual line about what they have in common: "He was named by People magazine sexiest politician of the year. And I read People magazine."

Kerry reads People? Maybe both halves of the ticket are intellectual lightweights. Kerry's comments certainly underscore what analysts have said all along about Edwards as the running mate: he was chosen for his pretty face. He certainly wasn't chosen for his political skills; his only resumé entry is a single term in the Senate, half of which he missed in order to run for President. He passed on a re-election bid for his Senate seat mostly because he probably couldn't have won a second term anyway. He has an even more anemic legislative record that Kerry's, a difficult feat to accomplish.

Lawrence also discusses the more notorious Radio City fund-raising event that Kerry and Edwards both attended while claiming to be too busy to get a security briefing:

The New York celebrity concert Thursday night was never supposed to be part of the Democrats' meet-the-ticket tour. It had been postponed from June because of Ronald Reagan's death. But the timing and crudeness of the attacks on Bush gave Kerry an opportunity for what's known as a "Sister Souljah moment." ...

After various artists had called Bush a "cheap thug," compared him to a criminal and made off-color jokes about his name, Kerry said, "Every performer tonight, in their own way, either verbally or through their music, through their lyrics, have conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country."

The next day, Kerry's campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, said, "He does not approve of some of the remarks that were made last night." But she had no answer when asked why he didn't say so at the time.

Lawrence notes that the Bush campaign wasted no time getting the word out after that fiasco, drawing comparisons between American values and Hollywood "hate-fests," giving the Republicans yet another great fund-raising opportunity. Nor is it just the candidates that are the problem. At that same fund-raiser, Teresa Heinz Kerry complained that women should be called smart and not just opinionated "just like men", and while I agree with her about women being smart, I've never noticed opinionated to be associated with just one gender. (I mean, hell, I'm opinionated -- I use that word frequently in reference to myself.) However, THK sung a different tune later on:

The next, she was saying she and Elizabeth Edwards keep track of dates "because women generally do those things, and the guys just think about big things."

I don't know, but it seems to me that the Kerry/Edwards campaign can't carry its own water. It has the feel of amateur hour there, with one misstep followed by another. Even subtracting all of the personalities from the mix, the air of incompetence that has arisen from their effort hardly inspires confidence in their ability to run the country.

Ron Reagan To Speak At DNC, Rip Van Winkel Surprised

To anyone who actually remembers the Reagan presidency, the news that President Reagan's youngest son Ron disagreed with his policies and his political philosophy will hardly be shocking. However, Knight-Ridder newspapers and some apparently young punditeers are squealing with delight to have Ron the Lesser speaking at the Democratic National Convention as an expert on stem-cell research:

In a move sure to embarrass Republicans, Ron Reagan will address the Democratic National Convention this month.

Reagan, son of former President Ronald Reagan and an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, will be at the podium on the second night of the four-day event in Boston, July 27, in support of stem-cell research, he said Sunday in an interview here. ... "This gives me a platform to educate people about stem-cell research," Reagan said. "The conservative right has a rather simplistic way of characterizing it as baby killing. We're not talking about fingers and toes and brains. This is a mass of a couple hundred undifferentiated cells."

Reagan, who will cover the Democratic and Republican conventions for "Hardball," said he expected criticism from many Republicans for his five-to-eight-minute speech to the Democrats.

"The Republican Party now is not the Republican Party of my father, not that it would be of great concern to me, one way or the other," he said. "I'm not a Republican and I never have been. My father wouldn't expect me to be a Republican just to emulate him. He raised his kids to be independent thinkers. ... I'm not terribly popular, apparently, with a lot of Republicans. I imagine some of them are pretty angry about what I've said about the Bush administration."

Should he be asked, Reagan said he would not attend the planned tribute to his father at the Republican convention, which is Aug. 30-Sept. 2 in New York.

I suppose we can assume that Ron Jr. doesn't share Kerry's opinion that life begins at conception, but then, Ron's never been the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, either. He's taking the "opportunity" to speak out on stem-cell research, but in fact will be nothing more than a Democratic side-show geek at the nominating circus. Reagan speaks to no constituency other than those who want to rub some of the Reagan lustre from his death and state funeral onto John Kerry's campaign. Regardless of whatever he thinks of George Bush, Ron Jr has to know how his father would have felt about that, and certainly how his father would have viewed Kerry's politics -- after all, Kerry served in the Senate during Reagan's second term of office.

I hope Ron Reagan enjoys his time in front of the cameras at the DNC. He's buying it with his father's political capital, even though his father would have hated what this Democratic party has come to represent -- the Stalinist apologists, the Michael Moore contingent of America-haters, and those who would sell out our national security policies to the whims of "friends" like France, who lined their pockets with Saddam's money.

The DNC should remember one thing: Ron the Lesser isn't Zell Miller. If that's the best they can do for a crossover, it explains a lot about their party.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman asserts that "if you weigh Miller against Reagan the one who is most certainly to have greater impact on independent voters (they still exist and experts say they will be important) it most certainly will be Ron Reagan Jr." Yeah, sure. Zell Miller has stood for numerous elections, has a political following, and has managed to build up his own reputation as an independent-minded politician, with wide appeal in the South. Ron the Lesser has ... the same name as his father. If Gandelman thinks that will have the greater political impact, I'd submit that either Gandelman engages in wishful thinking or he's allowed his partisanship to completely delude him.

UPDATE: James Taranto was kind enough to e-mail me that Kerry didn't serve in the House during Reagan's first term; he was the lieutenant governor under Michael Dukakis during that period. I've updated my post accordingly.

Stefan who?

The AP jubilantly reports that key conservatives have become critical of the Bush administration. Reading the article, one learns that it is really only one “conservative” who has joined the Bush bash, some former bureaucrat named Stefan Halper who made a few “blistering” comments about the situation in Iraq in front of a crowd of 150 (150!) Washington insiders.

Lack of evidence doesn’t prevent the AP from smugly “reporting” that “anger is simmering among some conservatives.”

Who are these conservatives who are just smoldering with ABB anger? Well . . . . there is a Mr. Hutchinson from Sturgeon, MO, a retiree who might just not cast a vote come November. And wait . . . there’s another: a Mr. Walters from Columbia, MO who calls himself a “classical conservative” but hasn’t made his presidential pick. (BTW Mr. Walters served in Vietnam.) There you have them, two more “key” conservatives absolutely “simmering” with anger at our president. Or maybe not.

(I’m beginning to notice the AP uses an inventive form of journalism: you make up a topic, then call someone from a flyover state who really doesn’t support your argument but you quote them anyway. These guys actually get paid for doing this, whereas most of us bloggers toil away at our keyboards, searching the Internet for relevant facts, and provide this service at no cost . . . )

Oh, and don’t worry if you haven’t heard of Stefan Halper. Apparently he is another long-time bureaucrat who has served under just about everybody and has . . . . I hope you are sitting down when you read this . . . a new book! Mr. Halper’s chosen topic how neoconservatives have hijacked American policy, a stunningly original theme in this election season.

Genocide, the UN, and "unbiased reporting"

More than 20,000 mourners gathered in Srebrenica on Sunday bury the remains of 338 victims who were exhumed from mass graves and identified. The AP reminds us that more than 5,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serbs in the worse case of genocide in Europe since the Holocaust.

Actually, the AP refers to the murders as a “massacre” and never mentioned the Holocaust. The “unbiased” description used: “Europe's worst massacre since World War II.” One wonders whether the AP intended a reference to the Holocaust or was instead commenting upon Stalin’s infamous purges. Or perhaps the AP reporter was merely alluding to the Second World War in a general sense meaning that a lot of people died . . .

Who knows what the AP really meant since everything is so politically neutral except when it’s not. Case in point: UN duplicity in the Bosnian genocide. It is a well known fact that Srebrenica was designated as a “safe zone” by the UN, and yet the Dutch “peacekeepers” stood by while Serbs separated the women from the men and boys over the age of 12 and then murdered all of the males over a period of three days in July 1995. The Dutch commander’s only attempt to prevent the slaughter was a request for a NATO air strike on the Serbs which was denied by the UN Commander General Bernard Janvier because it was on the wrong form. (BTW, Janvier is French but you probably guessed that.) A photo posted here even shows the Dutch commander having a little drink with Serb Commander General Ratko Mladic before the genocide got under way. (Mladic remains at large.)

Genocide is the only appropriate definition of the murder of more than 5,000 unarmed Muslims in Srebrenica. The UN failed to prevent it and instead contributed to the genocide by luring the Muslims to the so-called “safe zone” in an offer of protection the organization never intended to act on. No one, not even an AP reporter, should forget the crucial facts of this tragedy or else some hapless refugee may someday mistakenly place his or her trust in soldiers wearing blue berets.

Calling All Upper Midwest Bloggers ...

If you're a blogger in Minnesota (or anywhere within driving distance of the Twin Cities), we really should get together sometime.

There are a lot of cool people writing blogs - or even just reading them - in the Upper Midwest, and we should definitely try to meet sometime. So the Northern Alliance is throwing a shindig - a non-political, ecumenical one - for bloggers in the area, and we'd like all you bloggers to be there!

Here's the deal: We'd like to meet at Keegan's Irish Pub in Northeast Minneapolis, on Saturday, July 24, at 5PM. We'd like to spend a few hours hanging out, meeting other bloggers, and just having some fun. Cash bar? The whole place IS a cash bar!

By the way - this is not a "Northern Alliance" event, just a random social thang.

Interested in being there? We'd love to get a headcount. Please drop us a line at

party *at* northernallianceradio *dot* com

Tell us who you are and what blog you write, if any. We'll send the details right back.

Hope to see you all there! Oh - and spread the word among any other bloggers you know!

The Whole Northern Alliance

NAACP Pleads For Relevance

Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP, publicly re-invited George Bush to speak at their annual convention, promising that he will be treated with respect if he returns. Bush, so far, isn't biting at the bait:

Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP, said it was "unbelievable" that Bush had declined an invitation to speak at the organization's annual meeting for the fourth consecutive year.

"When you are president, you are elected to be president of all the people," Mfume said at a news conference as the convention opened. "You won't do that if you refuse to talk."

He asked Bush to change his mind and promised that the Republican president would be treated with respect at the Philadelphia event this week even if many delegates oppose his politics.

Mfume sees his organization losing its relevance in electoral politics under his leadership, and he's panicking. Bush went out of his way to make an appearance in 2000, after which Mfume and the NAACP paid him back by running ads accusing him of being a racist for not supporting hate-crimes legislation. They used the dragging murder of James Byrd (and Byrd's daughter) to campaign against Bush, even though Texas convicted all three perps for first-degree murder and sentenced two of the three to death.

Of course, Bush managed to win without the NAACP's support in 2000, even though he only scored 9% of the African-American vote -- a bloc-voting habit that effectively demonstrated that the Republicans could win without pandering to radical-left leaders like Julian Bond and Mfume. The NAACP continued its attacks throughout the Bush administration even though Bush has promoted more people of color into higher positions of power than any preceding president, and has spent more on education than any other administration. Bush has wisely decided that nothing he does will cause NAACP leadership to change its mind about his presidency, and therefore appearing at their convention is a waste of time all the way around.

Bush's refusal to appear has been excoriated by Mfume and Bond, saying that Bush has taken race relations back to the Warren Harding administration -- the last sitting president to not appear at an NAACP convention during an entire term of office. But given Bush's track record, such a charge is ludicrous, and obviously so. The truth is that Bond and Mfume have allowed the NAACP to make itself nothing more than the Democratic Party's subsidiary, and have wound up marginalizing a once fiercely independent organization.

Mfume now finds himself begging Bush to attend the convention to maintain an illusion that they have not made themselves subordinate to Terry McAuliffe. Failing to have a sitting president address their members is a terrible failing, I agree, but the failure is not Bush's. This failure belongs to Mfume and Bond, and the membership should consider how radical and partisan these two leaders have made their group.

UPDATE: McQ from QandO has a few words to say on the subject, too, and also notes the NAACP's marginalization.

UPDATE II: The Left Coaster, in a fairly typical response, holds up Mfume's line about Bush being obligated to speak to the NAACP, because they represent 500,000 voters and Bush's refusal supposedly shows his uncaring attitude towards its membership. This argument is laughable; MoveOn.org claims millions of members, but Bush won't be accepting any invitations there, either. Bush's status as a leader does not hinge on his appearance at the NAACP convention, and if the NAACP wants to make itself the kind of organization where any politician can come to address its membership, the responsibility for that is the NAACP's leadership, not George Bush.

Since when is it a requirement for Presidents to address organizations of 500,000 people or more?

Ag Seol Abhaile ón gCéardlann Gaeilge

Alas! Our weekend workshop for the Irish language has come to an end, along with the embargo on outbound e-mail. I'll be heading home shortly, after having taken upon myself the role of official historian of this year's event. When I have some time, I'll put together a slide show for the participants, complete with music and the 100+ pictures I took with my digital camera.

The workshop itself was a blast, even if I have neglected my language studies due to my blogging of late. I found I hadn't lost much from my skills ... not that there was that much to lose, of course. I even led a halting and somewhat off-key rendition of 'Whiskey In The Jar' (no offense to my partner here, of course) and a somewhat more confident version of 'Molly Malone' at the traditional Saturday-night céilí.

I found time to go on a couple of trail walks during the weekend, and even though I got eaten alive by the bugs, the scenery here is beautiful. Here's a good picture of the early-morning view of the hills right behind St. Mary's (and right behind me, in this picture):

My shirt, BTW, reads 'Tír na Gaeilge Reoite', or Land of Frozen Irish.

More later, when I return. Lá deas a bheith agaibh, agus beannachtaí Dia dhaoibh!

Captain's Caption Contest #18: The Unserious Edition

We take a break from all of this serious talk to get down to serious Friday business -- the relentlessly unserious Captain's Caption Contest! Yes, we all have to take a break from the rigors of our daily, serious tasks ... but in some cases, it's really hard to tell the difference:

Guest judging this weekend will be my good friend and colleague from Fraters Libertas, the seriously unserious Saint Paul. The Fraters guys are raising funds for a worthy cause -- an inline skate rally for Multiple Sclerosis. (They're against it.) If you can drop a few coins in the jar, they'd certainly appreciate it.

As always, 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 Saint Paul will pick the winners.

As a final note, I will be going out of town for an Irish-language workshop -- more serious business -- and while I probably will have some limited Internet connectivity, I don't anticipate doing too much blogging until Sunday evening. Keep checking back for the great captions we'll get and for new posts by my partner, Whiskey! (I'll probably put up a couple late-night and early-morning, too.)

BUMP 7/11: Great entries so far! Let's keep it up ...

COMMENTS CLOSED: It's going to the judge! Stand by for some serious consideration of the entries ...

Even The Washington Post Isn't Buying The Kerry Line

In an article headlined "Kerry Vows To Restore 'Truth' to Presidency," the Washington Post manages to highlight at least two lies Kerry and Edwards push in just this one story:

President Bush has governed in a dishonest fashion, trampling values on every issue except fighting terrorism and leaving voters "clamoring for restoration of credibility and trust in the White House again," John F. Kerry and John Edwards said in an interview. ...

"We have not stood up and attacked our opponents in personal ways," Kerry said.

This week alone, Kerry has criticized Bush personally in speeches for lying, professional laziness, waiting until right before the election to indict Enron Corp.'s former chief executive, Kenneth L. Lay, lacking values and even having worse hair than the two Democrats. Some advisers are privately counseling Kerry to tone down his attacks on Bush.

Kerry can't even get out of an interview about honesty without telling a whopper. Not only did Jim VanderHei and Dan Balz catch him in that fib, but no observer can honestly say that the Democrats and their proxies have not waged one of the most bitter and personal sustained attacks on a president in at least a century of campaigning. Take, for instance, the fundraiser from last Thursday -- which Kerry managed to squeeze into his schedule despite claiming to be too busy to receive a security briefing. At this official campaign event, with both Kerry and Edwards in attendance, the fundraiser produced this rhetoric:

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."

Yes, I've quoted this before, but now take a look at what John-John says about the fundraiser (emphasis mine):

The Democratic nominee and his running mate said it was that kind of anger toward the president that prompted entertainers at Thursday's Democratic fundraising concert in New York to attack Bush as a "cheap thug" and a killer. "Obviously some performers, in my judgment and John's, stepped over a line neither of us believes appropriate, but we can't control that," Kerry said. "On the other hand, we understand the anger, we understand the frustration."

They can't control what happens at their own campaign events? No one spent a lot of time checking out what remarks these loose Hollywood cannons would say, plainly because no one really cared. Kerry and Edwards had not one negative word to say about these tasteless performances until word leaked out to the general public about what was said -- and now they claim that they disapproved of it all along. They laughed only up to the point they frowned.

If they want to start debating truth and honesty, once again ... those three little words ought to cover it.

Palestinians Prove ICJ Irrelevant

Just two days after the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel had to tear down its wall between Israel and the Palestinians, a terrorist group with ties to the Palestinian Authority has bombed downtown Tel Aviv, proving the ICJ irrelevant at best, and dangerous:

Palestinian militants detonated a bomb near a Tel Aviv bus stop early Sunday, killing a woman and wounding more than 20 other people, police and Israeli media said. The explosion shattered a period of relative quiet inside Israel and came two days after the U.N. world court ruled that Israel's West Bank separation barrier is illegal. Israel says the barrier is meant to block Palestinian attackers.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a Palestinian militant group loosely linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility, saying the attack was in revenge for Israeli army operations in the West Bank city of Nablus. Israel recently killed the group's top commander in the city.

Note the AP weasel phrase "loosely linked"; in truth, the AAMB has long been linked to the highest levels of Fatah leadership, and that connection has never been a secret. Fatah organized the terrorist group in fear that other militant groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad had demonstrated too much popularity through indiscriminate bombing of Israeli civilians, and feared losing political power to these foreign-funded groups (Iran, Syria, and Iraq).

Claiming "loose links" allows the AP and its clients to adhere to the fiction that the Palestinians want peace through a two-state solution and that Israel has no choice but to work with Yasser Arafat. The ICJ decision is of a piece with this same thinking. The international community refuses to recognize that the Palestinians have waged a war not of liberation but of annihilation, to which their tactics obviously attest.

To render judgement on Israel for building a wall in its own defense while remaining silent on Arafat's complicity in bombing Israeli civilians is not only an abdication of all responsible thought, but amounts to little less than judicial pornography. Had the ICJ existed in 1941, no doubt it would have promulgated a ruling chastising Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto for its armed defiance of genocidal maniacs.

Put simply, the IDF wall/fence kills no one, bombs no civilian into chunks, drives no nails at three-digit speeds into the eyes and torsoes of women and small children. As demonstrated in Tel Aviv this morning, the Palestinian government does all of those things. The ICJ's decision to prosecute Jews for defending themselves unfortunately upholds a grand European tradition we thought had passed with the liberation of Auschwitz, and speaks to the wisdom of the US in withdrawing from its jurisdiction.