Newsweek: Kerry/Edwards Gets Smallest Bounce Ever

Newsweek did some polling late this week to determine the effect of the convention for John Kerry's candidacy. They report that even using the loosest possible polling for Democrats -- adults, rather than registered voters or likely voters -- that Kerry received the smallest bounce in the history of the Newsweek poll:

Kerry’s four-point “bounce” is the smallest in the history of the NEWSWEEK poll. There are several factors that may have contributed to the limited surge, including the timing of the poll. On Thursday, Kerry had just a two-point lead over Bush (47 percent to 45 percent), suggesting that his Friday night speech had a significant impact. Additionally, Kerry’s decision to announce his vice-presidential choice of John Edwards three weeks before the convention may have blunted the gathering’s impact. And limited coverage by the three major networks also may have hurt Kerry.

Kerry made one of his better speeches of the campaign Thursday night, which may well have provided the lift described by Newsweek. However, the poll shows that the convention essentially fired up Kerry's base, which may have earlier been less enthusiastic and more inclined to consider Nader or no vote at all. The minibounce has to be a major disappointment for the Democrats, who predicted a swing of double or more what Newsweek shows they got. Moreoever, the Newsweek poll uses a sample which traditionally skews leftward. Had they restricted their sample to likely voters, I think that the bounce may have been smaller yet or entirely nonexistent.

I'd wait for Pew polling or perhaps another Gallup poll to determine the drift, if any, the convention provided Kerry. Even at that, I would guess that he's already negated much of it with his two stumbles out of the gate on putting Osama on a trial tour and buttonholing the Marines at Wendy's. Now that his campaign will officially "go dark" and stop its advertising, whatever momentum he has will slip away until after the RNC -- when it will be far too late to regain it.

UPDATE: Power Line points its readers to the Rassmussen daily tracking poll, which surveys voters and not the broader "adults" sample. Today's result shows Kerry leading Bush by one point, having actually lost ground from earlier in the week. Hindrocket points out:

The candidates have been more or less tied for a long time, with the lead going back and forth within three points either way. For the last three days, Rasmussen has shown Kerry with a three-point lead, which could be considered a slight bounce, since the candidates were tied going in. On the other hand, you could say that it wasn't really a bounce at all, since Kerry also recorded a three-point lead shortly before the convention started. Or you could say it wasn't really a lead at all, since the poll's margin of error is, I believe, 3%.

In any event, Rasmussen uses a three-day rolling total, and today was the first day that would reflect (albeit only in part) any reaction to Kerry's acceptance speech and the wrap-up of the convention. The result: Kerry's lead dropped to one point. Which means, I guess, that yesterday's polling had to be pretty bad for him.

UPDATE II: Gerry at Daly Thoughts has more on the Newsweek sampling. I think we'll see this more and more as we get closer to the election; it's the same thing the LA Times did with its sampling in the recall polling, and wound up a huge embarrassment to the Tribune Co.

Franks: Even Muslim Nations Warned Of WMD Attacks

Matt Drudge reports on an interview which will appear tomorrow in Parade Magazine with General Tommy Franks, who led the effort in Afghanistan and Iraq. Franks talked with Parade to promote his new book, American Soldier, and has a few surprises for readers:

* The biggest surprise for him was that they've found no weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the "reason we went to war." He says multiple Middle Eastern leaders, including Jordan's King Abdullah and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, told Franks that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. In January 2003, Mubarak said point blank to Franks, "Saddam has WMD - biologicals, actually-and he will use them on your troops."

* Franks singles out White House Counter-terrorism Czar Richard Clarke as never providing him with "a single page of actionable intelligence" and of engaging in mostly wishful thinking. Franks also believes the U.S. invested too much in electronic spy surveillance and not enough in spies. "We can't send a Princeton-educated New York lawyer to infiltrate al-Qaeda. To get information, we have to marry the devil or at least employ him. You have to deal."

Franks also thinks that the world is "far safer" with Saddam in custody and out of power, and he believes that the US should stick it out in Iraq for at least five years. It may not play well during a presidential election, but the Iraqis will not be able to provide effective security for quite some time to come, and we cannot afford to leave Iraq to return to chaos. Franks claims "disappointment" with the Iraqi response to the fall of the Ba'athists. He though Iraqis would seize the moment and rise to the occasion, taking it upon themselves to secure vital functions. Instead, they chose to loot and pillage in the aftermath of Saddam's fall, and Franks understandably does not much trust them now.

The charge against Richard Clarke is intriguing, because it's the second time in two weeks that the long-term counterterrorism apparatchik has come under fire for his job performance. The 9/11 Commission noted that Clarke blew the cover on an operation in the late 1990s that might have allowed the CIA to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, by warning the United Arab Emirates to get its diplomat out of the camp where Osama held court. Now Franks, who was in the best position to know, says that Clarke couldn't come up with anything actionable, a damning statement of his effectiveness across two wars.

It's certainly a much different portrait of Clarke than we got in March, especially from Viacom, the parent of CBS, when both were shilling his book shamelessly. I doubt they'll be as interested in Franks at 60 Minutes, unless HarperCollins happens to be another Viacom subsidiary.

Northern Alliance -- Live Streaming To The World!

Tomorrow marks two big firsts for the Northern Alliance Radio Network -- our first live remote and our launch of Internet streaming! (It requires IE 6.0 to work ...)

Yes, for the first time, people around the world will be able to hear the Northern Alliance show live. We've promised it for months, and thanks to the Minnesota Taxpayer's League, it's finally here. We'll be appearing live at The Estates At Diamond Bluff, which has sponsored the First Annual Patriot Picnic, where we'll hopefully get lots of audience participation. I know the Fraters guys have something special cooked up for the third hour, especially, so if you're in the area, come on by! The food and soft drinks are free. If you're elsewhere, be sure to tune in!

UPDATE: Hey, a time would be nice, wouldn't it? Sorry -- it's noon to 3 PM, Central Time.

BUMP: It's today at noon, CT -- be sure to tune in using the link on this post!

UPDATE II: I got a number of messages saying that the stream kept cutting out. I'm not sure why. We were doing our first remote and the problem may have been in the studio, or perhaps we had too many people trying to access the feed. We'll pass it along to the streaming service and ask them to check it out on their end. In the meantime, we had a great time at the Estates of Diamond Bluff, and what a gorgeous view we had on the Mississippi! We even saw a trio of golden eagles flying overhead late in the day, and I've never even seen one before. The Fraters Libertas gang did a great job in Hour 3 with the Name The Newsmaker game, and finally, the crowd was outstanding. I can't wait for the rebroadcast on the stream, which starts Monday at 3 pm and cycles every six hours.

UPDATE III: Chumley Wonderbar has pictures of the event at Plastic Hallway! None of me. Hmmph. The Little Admiral made it into one, though ...

Marines Left Unimpressed By Kerry Reporting For Duty

John Kerry and John Edwards dropped by a Wendy's to celebrate the Edwards' 27th wedding anniversary, campaign reporters in tow, and happened upon a group of Marines having lunch at the same time. Ever the pol, Kerry took the opportunity to chat up the Marines and get a couple of pictures taken with the young men. Unfortunately for Kerry, he left them unimpressed -- and willing to say so:

Kerry was treating running mate Sen. John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, to a Wendy's lunch in Newburgh, N.Y., for their 27th wedding anniversary — an Edwards family tradition — when the candidate approached four Marines and asked them questions.

The Marines — two in uniform and two off-duty — were polite but curt while chatting with Kerry, answering most of his questions with a "yes, sir" or "no, sir."

But they turned downright nasty after the Massachusetts senator thanked them "for their service" and left.

"He imposed on us and I disagree with him coming over here shaking our hands," one Marine said, adding, "I'm 100 percent against [him]."

A sergeant with 10 years of service under his belt said, "I speak for all of us. We think that we are doing the right thing in Iraq," before saying he is to be deployed there in a few weeks and is "eager" to go and serve.

Not exactly an auspicious start to the post-convention Kerry campaign. First he endorses the Johnnie Cochran approach to fighting terror, and now he antagonizes Marines who just wanted to have a bite to eat. The quartet of servicemen all opposed Kerry and resented his using them as a campaign prop, which just underscores his already-tarnished reputation among the vast majority of the people who have served in the military. While Kerry can make a mocking salute and report to duty to a group of people who are largely hostile to the military and get a cheer from that base, other bases around the world remember that Kerry stabbed his "band of brothers" in the back when he returned from his tour of duty and helped force the US to abandon its allies in Southeast Asia.

One of the more humorous assertions made at the Democratic convention was that Kerry could win a majority of votes from veterans and active-duty military. This episode belies that notion and shows that sticking one's hand to one's forehead and mouthing words that these men and women live every day does not give Kerry the credibility he lacks. (Via Marc from Cranial Cavity, and Bill at INDC Journal has a picture and more comments.)

Bipartisan Opposition To Key 9/11 Proposal

The 9/11 Commission recommendations took a surprise hit from bipartisan criticism of a key component -- a centralized intelligence center under the control of the White House. Not only has the Bush Administration quietly opposed it, but now key senators from both parties have voiced their concerns. Even the ACLU appears to back Bush:

The White House and senators from both parties raised objections yesterday to one of the key reforms recommended by the Sept. 11 commission, even as the panel's leaders warned that the nation would remain at greater risk of terrorist attack unless the changes are enacted quickly.

The criticisms from Capitol Hill and the Bush administration represent the first significant challenge to a central recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission, which argues in its 567-page final report that a single intelligence director should work out of the president's office to coordinate the war on terrorism.

During the first congressional hearing on the issue yesterday, several GOP and Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about that idea, saying that placing an intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center inside the Executive Office of the President could increase the potential for misuse of information and could threaten the independence of U.S. intelligence analysts.

At the White House, where officials are formulating their own package of reform proposals, a senior official, speaking on background to reporters, indicated that the administration will oppose any such arrangement. The official said Bush "wants to protect intelligence agencies from any undue influence" and "ensure that intelligence analysts maintain their autonomy."

One of the criticisms of the Bush administration's handling of the intelligence from Iraq was the pressure supposedly put on analysts to overstate the threat from Saddam Hussein. That turned out to be false, as the SSCI report explicitly stated. However, pushing all of the nation's intelligence services under one person reporting directly to the President does seem to make such an occurrence more possible, if not more likely. In this regard, competition between the agencies may benefit the President as it forces more opinions to the table.

Several lawmakers suggested that the location of the center, at least, be changed from inside the White House to somewhere more neutral, a middle ground between Congress and the Executive, but so far the commission insists that its recommendations be accepted in total. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton have both expressed concern that any delay in implementing the changes formulated by the commission will unnecessarily leave America vulnerable to a new attack. However, the panel's mandate was to review the data and make recommendations to Congress and the White House, not a complete bypass of the legislative process. No one elected them to pass laws, and it's entirely appropriate for lawmakers to debate the wisdom of the panel's product, especially when Congress has expressed so much concern in the past over the autonomy of intelligence analysts.

Oddly, the Bush administration has led the opposition to the expansion of executive influence. Although they have done so quietly, the White House has repeatedly both praised the work of the commission and stated that its recommendations would be carefully considered. The Kerry campaign has attempted to leap in front of the commission's bandwagon, criticizing Bush for not submitting the recommendations without thinking. It's a strange position for a Democrat to criticize a Republican for attempting to limit executive control, and it's made even stranger by support for Bush coming from partisans like the ACLU and Carl Levin:

While many of the panel's proposals have proved popular, its call to place the war on terrorism more firmly under presidential control has produced an odd alliance of detractors inside and outside the intelligence community. In addition to spurring opposition from the Bush White House -- which has zealously guarded executive power during its tenure -- the idea has prompted criticism from some Democrats and from the American Civil Liberties Union.

"If we act hastily to appease partisan pressures, we could create a surveillance society with an intelligence czar in the hip pocket of the president," Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU's executive director, said in a statement yesterday.

Some of the sharpest questioning about the intelligence-director proposal came from Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who sits on the governmental affairs, intelligence and armed services committees, all of which will play major roles in crafting reform legislation in the Senate. Levin told Kean and Hamilton that "a top priority of reform must be greater independence and objectivity of intelligence analysis" that is "not tainted by the policies of whatever administration is in power."

"How does putting the director even closer to the policymaker do anything other than to make this problem even more difficult?" Levin asked at one point.

One point should be crystal clear to the American public: the commission's recommendations are not the Word of God handed down from Mount Sinai. They reflect a good effort by a group of people who had some expertise, and a few with axes to grind. Their recommendations are worthy of serious review and contemplation, but not all of them will work the way the commission intended, and some are completely counterproductive -- such as adding two layers of bureaucracy between the President and the intelligence analysts. Congress and the Bush administration should not be pressured into blindly giving the commission a carte blanche, and candidates who want to be viewed as serious thinkers should not propose to abdicate their responsibility to investigate the long-term effects of the panel's recommendations.

Maybe John Edwards Could Represent Him

John Kerry followed up a fairly successful acceptance speech at the nominating convention with a stupendously silly statement on Friday that again reveals the nature of the Democrat's thinking on terrorism. Rather than calculating the value of interrogating Osama bin Laden or the security requirements that would necessitate a military tribunal for his disposition, Kerry instead proposes to put Osama on public trial -- several times:

John Kerry said Friday he would put Osama bin Laden on trial in U.S. courts rather than an international tribunal to ensure the "fastest, surest route" to a murder conviction if the terrorist mastermind is captured while he is president.

"I want him tried for murder in New York City, and in Virginia and in Pennsylvania," where planes hijacked by al-Qaida operatives crashed Sept. 11, 2001, Kerry said in his first interview as the Democratic presidential nominee.

So Kerry wants to create the traveling Osama Bin Laden Road Show and Legal Circus, complete with Johnnie Cochran for the defense and Judge Lance Ito expressing his pain at anyone who impugns his wife's integrity. We all want to see intelligence and military officials forced into revealing surveillance techniques and covert operatives in order to assure bin Laden's right to a fair trial. Kerry wants to do this three times, maybe more, plus then have the appeals process grind on for several years afterward, all giving bin Laden himself a perfect platform from which to preach his murderous homilies to an enraptured world. Geraldo can have the first exclusive interview, and Fox will have Greta van Susteren prattle on ad nauseum regarding proper court procedures.

Is Kerry on another planet? Unfortunately, no. Statements like these clearly demonstrate that Kerry wishes to hearken back to the failed policies of the past, when presidents treated terrorists like criminals and agonized over legal strategies to incarcerate them, having first abandoned the death penalty in order to have suspects extradited. Suggesting that Osama get tried in criminal court shows Kerry to be a 9/10 candidate.

The Captain Sails Into San Diego

For CQ readers in Southern California, you get a sneak peek (or soundbite) of Captain Ed ahead of tomorrow's Northern Alliance launch of its live Internet stream tonight at 6:30 PM. I have been asked to appear on Stacy Taylor's radio program on KOGO. Stacy wants to talk about bloggers, the Democratic convention, and John Kerry's acceptance speech.

This call surprised me somewhat -- I haven't met Stacy Taylor or spoken with him before, and I'm not sure where they found me. I'm happy they did, and I hope San Diego gets its money's worth from my segment. If you get a chance to listen, drop a comment on this post and let me know what you thought of it.

UPDATE: It was fun, and Stacy was a gracious host to both myself and TalkLeft's Jeralynn Merritt, who talked over both of us. I'd have been more combative, but frankly, I'm too tired to start sniping at people. Jeralynn certainly had an interesting point of view, but it would have been nice if she had let me finish answering the questions I was asked before disagreeing.

The Arabian Rumor Mill: US Got Zarqawi

We've been down this road before, but what the hell -- Arab newsline Al-Bawaba reports that Abu Musab Zarqawi has been captured along the Syrian-Iraqi border:

Reports in Kuwait on Friday said a man assumed to be Al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi has been captured near the Syrian border.

Zarqawi, whose Tawhid and Jihad group has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in Iraq, was captured during a joint operation by US forces and Iraqi police, Al Siyasah newspaper, quoting informed Iraqi sources, said Friday.

The US and Iraqi investigators are trying to identify the captive and has sent his DNA sample for testing, the unconfirmed report indicated.

So far, that's all we have on the capture, but I suspect that an announcement one way or the other will be made within a few hours. If it turns out to be correct, you can expect to hear a lot more about "July surprises", as if we just started looking for these guys after the Independence Day parades.

On Second Thought, Maybe They're All Cheap

After the largest party that Boston's seen in decades, the Los Angeles Times reports that the hangover may be arriving -- and unfortunately for the Democrats and Mayor Thomas Menino, it will be much larger than first anticipated:

In a full-page ad in the city's two major newspapers, Mayor Thomas M. Menino offered residents a weekend of free parking, free concerts, discounted shopping — even reduced rates on Boston's quirky duck tours, amphibious vessels that are a quintessential tourist attraction. ...

The goodwill gesture came in response to bitter complaints about disappointing revenue and angry questions about the benefits of bringing 35,000 people to town for the Democratic National Convention. Officials Thursday stood by predictions that the first national nominating convention in the city's history would bring $154 million to Boston in a year's time. Experts on urban economics also said political conventions could be windfalls to the cities that hold them.

But the rosy long-range forecast and the mayor's appreciative missive felt hollow to restaurateurs whose convention-week business plummeted by 70% or more, hoteliers who had more empty rooms than they bargained for and residents who fled rather than endure transportation and security headaches.

When bargaining to hold events like this in cities, local politicians like to impress voters by promising them millions in revenue from the multitudes that travel to be part of them. However, with political conventions, the only throngs one sees are delegates (who have long days inside the arena), media (who have to cover all of the events), and protestors (who don't exactly toss money around anyway). The nature of a convention requires vast amounts of security, which impacts local budgets as well as state and federal. In this case, it will continue to impact Beantown as the timing forced the city to arbitrate its labor dispute with police and fire personnel in order to avoid security gaps as well as embarrassment.

Throw in the traffic nightmares that an influx of 35,000 people create, and you have a recipe for disaster, as locals go elsewhere for entertainment and visitors go to the Fleet Center. Boston merchants certainly understand it now:

Gretchen Chauncey, general manager of the Chandler Inn in Boston's South End, said that in daily calls to fellow innkeepers, he found that hotels were averaging about 70% occupancy despite the crush of visitors. Usually at this time of year, she said, "you would expect to be running in the 80% to 85% range."

On Newbury Street, the most fashionable address in the city's chic Back Bay, Don Cannon was so enthusiastic about the convention that he hung a giant sign that read "Art is Democratic" in front of his gallery, the Copley Society of Art. But "even the normal flow of traffic" failed to materialize, Cannon said, as local customers bolted to avoid crowds, closed roads and a law enforcement presence that gave Boston the air of a police state.

The empty parking spaces on Newbury Street "tell you everything you need to know about the effect of the DNC," he said.

New York has to look at this with some concern. If anything, local security will be even costlier. The Big Apple has to hope that traffic woes don't keep the locals from their shops and that Republicans spend a bit more freely than their Democratic counterparts.

I plan on helping in any way I can ...

Minnesota DFL Upholds Midwestern Values

Well, you can't say that the Minnesota delegation to the Democratic convention did anything to hurt the reputation of Midwesterners, although they may have reinforced a couple of stereotypes while in Beantown. The Star-Tribune's Kevin Duchschere reports that the Party apparatchiks were hardly party animals:

Boston is one of the nation's most historic cities -- and it's apparently gone largely unseen by members of the Minnesota delegation.

Unlike at other recent national conventions, it seems that most of them spent their time attending campaign training workshops, interest-group caucuses and forums, DFL spokesman Bill Amberg said.

"The stakes are sky-high and people are amazingly focused," he said. "Half the delegates come back to the hotel, have a beer and go to bed."

Probably at 8 pm, because Lord knows, those cows ain't gonna milk themselves.

Transgendering: No Evidence It Works

The London Guardian, normally a booster of liberal thought, reports this morning that British scientists warn that transgendering -- the act of surgically changing the sex of a person -- has no evidence of efficacy and that up to one-fifth of all sex-change patients commit suicide:

There is no conclusive evidence that sex change operations improve the lives of transsexuals, with many people remaining severely distressed and even suicidal after the operation, according to a medical review conducted exclusively for the Guardian.

The review of more than 100 international medical studies of post-operative transsexuals by the University of Birmingham's aggressive research intelligence facility (Arif) found no robust scientific evidence that gender reassignment surgery is clinically effective.

It found no evaluation of whether other options, such as long-term counselling, might help transsexual patients or whether their gender confusion might lessen over time without treatment. The potential complications of taking sex changing hormones and undergoing genital surgery, which include deep vein thrombosis and incontinence respectively, were not thoroughly investigated either.

One physician disputed the report by saying that one-fifth of untreated transsexuals commit suicide anyway. However, all that demonstrates, according to the data uncovered by this review, is that the surgical option has no overall benefit on psychological states. If one-fifth commit suicide without surgery, and one-fifth commit suicide after surgery, and all of the available information shows that patients still remain deeply unhappy after the operation even if they're not suicidal, any reasonable scientist would conclude that the procedure was ineffective.

Ah, but that's the real issue: reason has little to do with transgendering issues. For the last 40-odd years, the psychiatric and medical communities have dispensed with reason and embraced political correctness, as our guest on the Northern Alliance Radio Network, Steven Rhoades, detailed in his book on gender politics, Taking Sex Differences Seriously. In other words, the Arif review determined that politics has trumped science in transgendering, and that research has been carefully tailored to meet predetermined results. It's so bad that some call proper research models "unethical," which would only be true if they withheld proven medical treatment from a control group:

Urological surgeon James Bellringer, who has performed more than 200 sex changes over the past four years, claimed that trying to carry out research that involves studying a control group of transsexual patients who were denied hormones and surgery would be unethical.

Mr Bellringer, who works at the main NHS gender identity clinic at Charing Cross hospital in west London, said: "I don't think that any research that denied transsexual patients treatment would get past an ethics committee. There's no other treatment that works. You either have an operation or suffer a miserable life. A fifth of those who don't get treatment commit suicide."

Why the problem in allowing the scientific method to determine the efficacy of transgendering? The GLBT lobby has become poweful beyond its numbers in terms of media and academic influence, and any notion that transsexualism is anything other than a plumbing problem begs the conclusion that the problem has a significant psychological component, rather than physiological. Apparently, the possibility of that conclusion has kept researchers from doing an honest job of evaluating these procedures. It's time to insist on proper studies based on science and not political correctness.

The Main Event

OK, I may be taking most of the evening off, but I'm not going to miss a chance to live-blog this. Kerry just hugged a bunch of guys who look like they prefer handshakes, and now he's thanking the crowd. Here we go (all times CT):

9:12 - I'm reporting for duty? With a salute? Out of uniform? That was lame ...

9:14 - So far, he's no Barack Obama. He's home. We get it.

9:15 - Cute joke about the West Wing. Made me smile.

9:15 - "Trees as the cathedral of nature". Hug a cathedral today.

9:18 - Those of you who had the 6-minute square in the Jack Kennedy reference pool just won the kitty. So far, not too bad. He's got some energy and a bit of humor, although he just hit the trust and credibility meme.

9:21 - Now he's going senatorial ... "I will have a [blah blah blah]" ... that style may work in the Senate, but it sounds like a haughty lecture. He learned nothing from Obama or even Edwards. He's not talking with people, or even to people, but at people ...

9:23 - A bit better now, especially when he talked about the 90's and balancing the budget. Oh, and for all of you conspiracy theorists, Kerry just accepted the nomination, so no fake-out for bigger bucks forthcoming ...

9:25 - "This son of a millworker is ready to succeed" ... as opposed to "That son of a bitch knocked me down." Well, he's nuanced ...

9:28 - Not bad, really, so far. Long on theme, short on anything specific, other than the reflexive Bush hatred. Now he's evoking 9/11, something that his party will scream at when Bush does it...

9:29 - He wishes that there were no Democrats and Republicans? Fighting a war on the cheap?? This, from the guy who voted against the funding for the troops? Oh, please. Take two steps backwards...

9:30 - "We only go to war because we have to." After twelve years of failed containment, I suppose this means Kerry would have waited until the sanctions utterly collapsed, Saddam re-armed, and actually did catastrophic damage before doing anything about him ...

9:33 - "Conduct terrorist operations ... er, anti-terrorist operations." Paging Dr. Freud to lingerie ...

9:35 - "Strength is more than just tough words." Something we learned the hard way while we tried to ignore the terrorist attacks on American assets all during the 1990s, mostly with the foreign-policy team Kerry uses for his campaign ...

9:36 - Sounds like Kerry has a good plan for homeland security. Too bad he wasn't in the Senate where he could have introduced legislation to push that plan ahead. Oh, wait ...

9:40 - Enron made its way into Kerry's speech, followed by drug companies.

9:42 - "Help is on the way" - now it's help? Last night it was "hope." No wonder they have trouble staying on message.

9:44 - He's getting better at his delivery as he goes along. He's talking a bit faster, but still mostly delivers in a stentorian monotone...

9:50 - Wow, we're going to fit all the moonbat theories in tonight, throwing in the Saudi royal family. Once again, great, let's not rely on them. Why did you oppose broader drilling in the US, then?

9:52 - Kerry's got a nerve -- implying that Bush sells out to the Saudis and then, one minute later, urging him to take the high road! Now he talks about eliminating division! You gotta be kidding me!

9:54 - And now he makes a point of saying that he doesn't wear his religion on his sleeve. Way to be a uniter and keep that positive message going, pal. Bush hatred keeps him going and going and going ...

9:57 - Wound up his speech by getting wound up. Obviously the crowd loved it; he pretty much fed them the red meat they wanted and managed to get shots in at Bush despite the Kerry/Edwards insistence on maintaining a positive tone. Most of where Kerry defined himself relied on comparing himself to Bush, a sure sign that Kerry fears his ideas only stand up in opposition, not in leadership.

So endeth the convention. It remains to be seen whether Kerry did anything except excite the base with the four days that made up his fourth introduction to the US. I predict that in seven days, he'll still be tracking even at best with Bush.

I'm Still Here, But ....

I apologize for the significant downtime today. Big issues, hardware changes, and other things (not health related). May do some blogging later, but am definitely watching the convention on C-SPAN.

Be sure to keep up with Power Line tonight for great convention coverage. Hope to be back with you later.

Sticks And Stones Will Break My Bones, But Names Will Be Reported

In a genuinely silly piece on supposed discrimination against our beleagured Muslim population, the Washington Post reports on the results of a survey among American Muslims which indicate that their feelings have been hurt at slightly higher than the national average:

Fifteen percent of Arab Americans in the Detroit area said they have experienced harassment or intimidation since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and a significant number wish other Americans understood them better, according to a University of Michigan report to be released today.

Derogatory comments -- "Go back where you came from!" or "Ooh, are you a member of al Qaeda?" -- were the most common form of abuse. Others alleged job discrimination and a small number reported physical assaults, researchers said. Forty-two percent of Muslim Arabs interviewed for the survey in Detroit -- an area with one of the largest concentrations of Arab Americans in the nation -- feel their religion is not respected by mainstream society. Nearly 60 percent said they worry more about their families' future than before the attacks.

Well, excuse me, but no s**t, Sherlock! I guarantee you that 60% of all Americans worry about the future of their families since 9/11. I worry about it every time I see my granddaughter, the Little Admiral. In terms of respect for their religion, it would help if groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other such organizations would worry less about namecalling and more about urging American Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement. Instead, we mostly hear how our foreign policy led to 9/11 and our need to listen to the terrorists rather than hunt them down and kill them.

And now we have this ridiculous study that claims 15% have received serious harrassment, only to find out that tasteless jokes count in the survey. Gee, can I start a survey among Irish-Americans that count every alcohol-related wisecrack I ever heard? How about having the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League ask their members if they've ever been asked, "What do you hear from the mob these days?" (On second thought, let's not. They'd actually take that suggestion seriously.)

You want our respect? Suck it up, buttercup, and quit whining when people dislike you. Idiots existed before 9/11, and they'll be around after we beat the Islamofascists, too. You're alive and overwhelmingly unharmed, which is more than I can say for 3,000 people in New York who made the mistake of going to work on 9/11.

The survey actually demonstrates how remarkably level-headed Americans have been in separating Islamofascist lunatics and their activities from the Muslims who live amongst us, despite the fact that some of the lunatics hid rather successfully within those communities prior to the attacks. That, however, does not qualify as news to the Washington Post or the University of Michigan, who conducted the study, and it doesn't fit within the "Americans are closed off loners" meme that the press has pushed during this electoral cycle, hoping that voters conclude that John Kerry is the cure for the disease.

Conason, Teresa's Waterboy

Joe Conason has always believed the best defense is a good offense, and so this morning Conason goes on the attack against the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a newspaper owned by (cue Toccata in D-Minor) Richard Mellon Scaife in defense of Teresa Heinz Kerry. This follows the "shove it" kerfuffle that Conason twists into a feminist manifesto, rather than her crude attempt to bully her way out of a lie:

In the case of Teresa Heinz Kerry, many in the media determined that she was trouble long before they even had a glimpse of her. Smart and dedicated, wealthy and opinionated, globally conscious and foreign-born, Ms. Heinz Kerry isn’t the typical political spouse our parochial press is accustomed to covering. So they were waiting for her to say something like what she said on July 25, after a reception for Democratic delegates from her home state of Pennsylvania.

That was when she told an editorial writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review to "shove it."

Now the use of such direct language by a politician’s wife is no doubt shocking to the sensibilities of most journalists, especially the older male contingent. It’s one thing for the Republican Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates to berate a reporter as an "asshole" when they think nobody is listening, as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did four years ago, or for the Vice President to growl "Go fuck yourself" on the Senate floor, as Mr. Cheney did a few weeks ago. Boys will be boys, even into late middle age, but girls must ever remain passive and demure.

Conason then goes off into the deep weeds by rehashing a laundry list of supposed Scaife excesses, as if that had any bearing on the issue at hand. It's a dodge that Conason and the left routinely use when Democrats do something embarrassing, like, say, take highly classified documents home in their pants and socks and then say that the dog must have eaten them. Instead of defending the act, they attack the messenger with dark conspiracies of media owners and the "timing" of news leaks. Conason uses the feminism card here as well, which allows him to resonate with an important special-interest group and energize them to Teresa's defense as well.

But the problem isn't that Heinz Kerry told someone to get stuffed, it's that she lied about her speech, lied again, and then rudely shut down a reporter trying to determine why she inferred that the Bush administration was un-American. Conason never bothers to give his readers that context in his article. CNN, in a contemporaneous news story, gives its readers what Conason tries to hide:

Heinz Kerry's comment came Sunday after she told a group of voters, "We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics."

As she was leaving, Colin McNickle, the Tribune-Review's editorial page editor, asked her what she had meant by, in his words, "un-American activity."

According to an exchange posted on the paper's Web site, she denied having said "activity" and also denied saying "un-American."

After stepping away and speaking briefly with Democratic organizers of the event, she returned and asked the reporter whether he worked for the Tribune-Review. He said he did.

"Understandable. You said something I didn't say, now shove it," she told him.

I've heard the tape, and she called her opponents out for using "creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits," something that even CBS confirms. She deviated from her prepared speech, obviously, and just as obviously knew she blew it when Colin McNickle caught her at it. Rather than answer the question, however, she attack McNickle for actually covering her speech rather than giving her a pass just because she's a woman, and a well-known crank on top of that.

So which reporter treated Heinz Kerry like an equal, and which one treated her like a shrinking violet in need of the protection of men?

Conason aptly demonstrates the hypocrisy of the left when it comes to feminisim and free speech. They're all for free speech as long as only the Republicans are criticized or even questioned about their content. Conason would have no problem with the New York Times insinuating over and over again that Republican criticism on Max Cleland's voting record in the Senate equates to an attack on his patriotism instead of legitimate concern during a re-election bid, but heaven forbid someone ask the delicate Teresa what she means when she calls her opponents "un-American".

Don't fall for Conason's sleight of hand. If Conason wants Teresa on a pedestal, he shouldn't use feminism as an argument for the heavy lifting required.

Allawi Endorses Powell Effort To Build Muslim Coalition

Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi voiced his approval for the diplomatic efforts of Colin Powell to bring together a coalition of Muslim nations to provide security for Iraq, especially for a UN delegation to oversee elections in the winter:

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi called on Arab and Muslim nations on Thursday to join a proposed force of Islamic troops in Iraq that the United States said could provide protection to the United Nations.

Allawi and Secretary of State Colin Powell met in Saudi Arabia and embraced a Saudi proposal for Muslim nations other than Iraq's immediate neighbors to contribute troops to help secure Iraq in the face of a fierce insurgency.

No one doubts the brief analysis at the end by Reuters that such a coalition could boost the Bush administration's standing in global diplomacy, which is one of the reasons I think that the Islamic nations will give this a pass. However, I wonder why Allawi is so sanguine about letting other Arab mullhacracies and kleptocracies into Iraq. It seems like an inordinate risk, which is why Powell and Allawi propose limiting their scope to UN security, at least at first.

Why would the other Islamic nations agree to the task? None of them, with the exception of Turkey, promote democracy at home and probably fear that a successful transition to democracy in Iraq could destabilize their own regimes. Turkey can't participate anyway due to tensions with the Kurds; it would spark riots and worse in western Iraq. The only motivations would be that ignoring Iraq and allowing it to dissolve into chaos would be even more destabilizing, and that Allawi's invitation gives them an opening to plant boots on the ground to increase their intelligence assets and connections to groups that want to kill democracy in its tracks. Since the former doesn't appear to be happening -- the violence is sporadic and no longer strategic in nature -- I assume the latter would provide the only incentive.

Allawi needs to reach out to Islamic nations in order to maintain his position in Iraq, where I would presume any politician that excludes contacts with Muslims in preference to those outside the Ummah would not have a long career. He has been rather successful in establishing diplomatic relations with most of them within a short period of time, and Jordan had even offered to send troops, if invited (but they are not part of this effort, which specifically excludes bordering states). However, Allawi should tread very carefully; having armed men from countries like Saudi Arabia patrolling the streets sounds an awful lot like what he has now in Fallujah. The question would be whether they would fight the foreigners in Fallujah or join with them.

Here's Another Guy Who Got His RNC Credentials

CNN reports on another new-media kind of guy who got credentials to the Republican National Convention next month in New York City:

[CNN's Tom] Foreman: Are you going to go to the Republican convention?

[Michael] Moore: Yes, I am. I already have my credentials.

Foreman: How do you think you'll be received there?

Moore: I think it will be fine. Are you implying that Republicans are not nice people?

Michael Moore, the auteur who brought you Fahrenheit 9/11, has been credentialed as a columnist for USA Today, who earlier felt that Ann Coulter was too incendiary for publication. I suppose they feel no reservations about Moore's well-known track record for making things up and pulling facts out of context and twisting them to his own purposes.

Perhaps I'll get a chance to interview Moore. I have my copy of Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man; I'll be sure to bring it.

Edwards Blinks -- A Lot

I'm watching the John Edwards speech, having missed the first few minutes of it, and am not terribly impressed. He's a good speaker but not terribly energizing. He takes a more conversational approach, and the constant cheering seems a bit strained to me. Only at a few points was it matched by a high point in his speech.

"Hope Is On The Way" -- are they implying that Clinton will replace John Kerry? After all, he was the Man From Hope. Maybe that's what they're hoping for from John Jr, but while he speaks more naturally than John Sr, I just don't think it's much more than a typical smooth politico's voice. And I don't know if the stagehands put a spot directly behind the camera, but whenever Edwards looked straight ahead, he either blinked constantly or squinted his eyes. It got to be distracting, as though he was either light-sensitive (migraine?) or trying too hard to look analytical.

He has a lovely family, and from some of the descriptions of his wife's intro floating around the blogosphere, she will be a real asset and possibly an antidote to Teresa, and Lord knows the Dems could use one. Best I can say is that he did no damage, but the populist "Two Americas" speech seems a bit tired -- and let's not forget it was ultimately a loser in the primaries.

Hey, but hope is on the way -- Clash Of The Titans comes on at 10 CT on HBO Family. Isn't that where I came in this morning?

UPDATE: It's the next morning, and John Edwards' address to the convention has mostly slipped my mind. It was weightless, a sort of rehash of his primary speech with a dash of John Kerry endorsement thrown in. However, if you want a hilarious live-blog take on the Edwards speech and the reasons you may want to think twice about Edwards' "Two Americas" bandwagon, check out Deacon's post at Power Line:

10:28 Edwards predicts that the Republicans will have the audacity to criticize the Democratic ticket this fall. ...

10:33 Under Kerry-Edwards, we'll have only one school system. Sounds like Communism to me. The best teachers will be moved to where they are most needed. Sounds like Chinese Communism to me.

10:34 We'll also have only one economy, not the two we have now consisting of people who do well and people who don't do that well. Sounds like, oh never mind. ...

10:48 If you have stubbed your toe, hope is on the way.

10:49 If you're a soldier in Iraq, hope is on the way. But funding wouldn't be, if Kerry and Edwards had had their way.

Read the whole thing -- there's plenty more analysis. One thing for which Edwards deserves credit: he actually introduced John Kerry to some extent, something that the rest of the lineup didn't bother to do tonight.

Bob Graham Cools Them Off

Bob Graham has killed all the momentum that Al Sharpton provided with his emotional and raw attack speech on George Bush. His problem is part content and part delivery. He's almost as exciting as John Kerry, and that's no compliment.

First, he compared the first 1000 days of WWII to the War on Terror, saying we have not even established a beachhead. Perhaps that's because this isn't an amphibious war, Senator. We've managed to liberate 50 million people, though, something we couldn't claim in WWII until far later. Then he said that proposals to fix security holes still haven't been implemented 1,000 days after 9/11, but he failed to mention that the bipartisan commission insisted upon by the Democrats only delivered those recommendations last week.

I was going to live-blog his speech, but it's very hard to do that when I keep falling asleep. He's managed to stomp out all of the energy at Fleet Center. Why do they have this guy on in prime time?

Al Sharpton Fires Them Up

I guess Al Sharpton didn't get the memo from the Kerry/Edwards campaign that he was supposed to stay positive on the stump. Sharpton gave a fiery speech intended to answer George Bush's overture to the Urban League earlier this month. After giving only a cursory mention to the ticket's public policy aims, Sharpton aimed instead squarely at Bush. At one point, Sharpton screamed into the mike:

"Mr. President, read my lips -- our vote is not for sale!"

Sure seems that way to me, Al ... they've been sold out to the Democrats for decades. Sharpton even worked in a reference to reparations, which probably caused John Kerry to have kittens backstage.

Way to be uniters, guys ...

UPDATE: CBS Market Watch has the prepared text of Sharpton's address to the DNC tonight (via Drudge). If you watched him speak, you can see how far Sharpton drifted from the speech the Kerry/Edwards campaign vetted. None of the votes-for-sale theme was part of the original speech Sharpton submitted, including the "read my lips" reference, nor the statement that the black vote had been bought by the "blood of four little girls in Selma," a nod to Spike Lee, who is in attendance.

Kerry apparently can't keep his party on message, and the Bush bile-o-meter keeps on a-rising...

Kerry: A Candidate You Can't Refuse

ABC News identifies Stephen Bing, a wealthy California film producer last seen running away from his pregnant girlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley, as the single biggest contributor to Democratic candidates. ABC did a bit more digging into Bing's background than the Democrats and discovered a nasty skeleton in his closet -- or, more accurately, in federal prison:

As Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards arrived in Boston today for the Democratic National Convention, so did the California man who is their single biggest contributor. He is Stephen Bing, a wealthy film producer who, with little fanfare, has managed to steer a total of more than $16 million of his money to Democratic candidates and the supposedly independent groups that support them. ...

In fact, Democratic Party officials said they knew nothing about the man who law enforcement officials tell ABC News is Bing's friend and business partner — Dominic Montemarano, a New York Mafia figure currently in federal prison on racketeering charges.

Montemarano has a long criminal record and is known to organized crime investigators by his street name, Donnie Shacks.

"Donnie Shacks' main activity was murder. No question about it. That was his main function for the Colombo family and for organized crime in general. He was one of the top hit men in the New York area," said Joe Coffey, a former NYPD investigator.

It turns out that Bing paid all of the legal fees for his business partner on the way to Club Fed for racketeering and murder. How much of that money actually belonged to Donnie Shacks in the first place? And how much mob money has gone to Democratic candidates?

I applaud ABC for running this story. I doubt we'll hear much about it after this. (via The Corner)

UPDATE: Tom Maguire jumps ahead of the meme.

If I Was President, All Of You Would Kill Me

I'm watching the Democratic convention right now, and although I can hardly believe it, the Dems have presented a film ("If I Had A Minute With The President") in which children give George Bush advice on policy. It's like asking Amy Carter her advice on the most pressing issue of the day about 100 times over. No wonder they invited Jimmy Carter back to the convention this year!

No, none of them identified nuclear proliferation as the biggest problem in the world, but we got to hear about animal habitats, racism, the homeless, and so on. If you're inclined to take your political advice from 12-year-olds, the Democrats are the party for you!

As if that weren't bad enough, former Denver mayor Wellington Webb then introduced singer Wyclef Jean to sing a song as a companion piece. Now, I haven't paid a lot of attention to the sideshow acts at the convention, but this one was just appalling. Who sings about being assassinated by Americans if they got elected at a nominating convention? Howard Dean's favorite singer, that's who. Wyclef Jean broke some sort of record by squeezing in as many tired political cliches as possible in a four-minute song. Try these insipid lyrics on for size:

Yeah...shout out to children, United Nations, [unintelligible],
John Kerry support foster children,
[spoken]Right about now, if you're Democrat, let me see your hands in the sky right now...

[chorus]Yeah ... yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ...
If I was President, I get elected on Friday,
call a peace treaty Saturday, stop the war Sunday,
Send the troops back home Monday,
If I was President, if I was President, if I was President, yeah ...

[chorus]

[shouted]If you feel me, stand up on your two feets right now!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
If I was President, I'd get elected on Friday,
assassinated on Saturday, buried on Sunday,
send the troops back on Monday, If I was President,
If I was President.

The entire song was appalling, but the last chorus predicting that Americans would assassinate him has no place in a national convention. Will the Democrats embrace this message of hate?

Stupid Blog Tricks (Updates & News)

First things first -- I will be rearranging my work schedule for the next two weeks in order to free up my days to get the First Mate back and forth to the hospital for some treatments. I'll be working swing shifts, which may mean a bit less blogging, although I had curtailed some of the nighttime blogging of late anyway. The FM has experienced some temporary reduction in kidney function, and the doctors want to have her in for outpatient treatment for several days. We started it today, and we'll go every other weekday for the next week or so. At any rate, I'll still be blogging, but the number of posts might be a bit lower while I work swing shift.

In a more enjoyable development, the Washington Post jumped on the blogging bandwagon by taking nominations for a blog contest. INDC Journal has directed his readers to go there and nominate his excellent blog in as many categories as possible. But hey, there are plenty of categories, so why not nominate Captain's Quarters, too? Just put the URL of your favorites in the form fields and submit the form. You may want to nominate guys like Hugh Hewitt and Power Line and others on my blogroll, too. (Fraters would be custom-made for Class Clown, for instance.) I've added the WaPo Best Blogs graphic to the left sidebar.

On the RNC fund-raising front, I am happy and grateful for your generous donations! So far you've raised about 20% of the cost of accommodations (plane plus hotel), and it keeps coming in. For those of you who haven't seen it, I've been credentialed as a blogger for the Republican convention, and I'm asking for donations in order to fund the trip. You can donate through PayPal, or through Amazon, which doesn't require donors to set up an account in order give money. The clickable buttons are also on the left sidebar, and I certainly appreciate any donations, no matter the amount. Another way to donate is to buy a Blogad on the right sidebar. Today, the John Kline campaign bought a one-week ad and told me to make sure I buy myself a drink on them -- which I will gladly do!

Did Kerry Fake His Combat Films? Does It Matter?

Just when you thought this election could not get much weirder, somehow the Democrats find themselves further into the Twilight Zone. Matt Drudge reports that members of John Kerry's "band of brothers" claim the soon-to-be nominee faked combat footage while on tour in Viet Nam, and that his staged exploits will be presented to the country as actual combat footage in a Spielberg-associated short film:

A bombshell new book written by the man who took over John Kerry's Swift Boat charges: Kerry reenacted combat scenes for film while in Vietnam!

The footage is at the center of a growing controversy in Boston. The official convention video introducing Kerry is directed by Steven Spielberg protégé James Moll. ...

"Kerry carried a home movie camera to record his exploits for later viewing," charges a naval officer in the upcoming book UNFIT FOR COMMAND.

"Kerry would revisit ambush locations for reenacting combat scenes where he would portray the hero, catching it all on film. Kerry would take movies of himself walking around in combat gear, sometimes dressed as an infantryman walking resolutely through the terrain. He even filmed mock interviews of himself narrating his exploits. A joke circulated among Swiftees was that Kerry left Vietnam early not because he received three Purple Hearts, but because he had recorded enough film of himself to take home for his planned political campaigns."

If true, and so far the Swiftees have been pretty rabid partisans, it makes the decision to include this footage rather questionable, especially if the film passes it off as actual combat film. It seems pretty unlikely that Kerry's crew would have toted a Super 8 camera into battle, as one presumes they would have been too busy with (a) shooting back, and (b) attempting to survive. I can't imagine that anyone other than a journalist would have had time during an actual battle to shoot film of John Kerry, and had this come from a journalist, we'd have already heard about it.

Even if this footage isn't presented as the real deal but merely to show a young John Kerry serving his country, it will come across to many as shallow and self-promotional to re-enact battle scenes with oneself at the center of the action, especially given Kerry's description of war crimes on his return from action. If he, as he testified at the Senate hearings in 1971, witnessed ongoing and systemic war crimes under fire, why would he be so anxious to film himself at the center of that activity in either case? Kerry pronounced himself disgusted with America's conduct under fire in Viet Nam, but felt sufficiently enamored of combat during his four months in the Swifties to film himself participating in it, real or re-enacted? It doesn't make much sense.

The Swiftees may have Kerry's number on this even if their re-enactment charges don't mean much, depending on how the material is presented. In fact, if he had his "band of brothers" carrying cameras trained on him during actual combat conditions, it speaks rather ill of his judgement as an officer and of his self-absorption as a person. Re-enacting the action on film, as the Boston Globe asserted in 1996, demonstrates a pride in combat that he renounced on his return.

In short, it doesn't add up, and neither does John Kerry.

Will His Performance Lack Energy?

During most of his professional life, the world hailed Lord Laurence Olivier as one of the greatest actors on stage and screen, and Olivier remained remarkably prolific right to the end of his life. Now the London Guardian reports that he will launch a great comeback, a neat trick for a man who's been dead for fifteen years. First-time filmmaker Kerry Conran cast the dead actor in support of Jude Law and Gwenyth Paltrow as a holographic villain:

In September, however, Olivier will break much more remarkable ground. Fifteen years after his death, he is due to feature as one of the billed stars of the Paramount film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. ...

Law is quoted by the AP news agency: "He plays my nemesis. And he's referred to throughout the movie so you know eventually you're going to get to see this bad guy. It builds up, and you only see him in the last minutes, and he's in hologram form."

New dialogue was recorded by another actor for Olivier's voice. Images of him come from assorted films and archive footage.

In a sick twist, the character played by Olivier is named "Totenkopf", which means "death-head" in German and was used by the Nazis as a name for one of its SS divisions. I'm sure that this was meant as irony by the director, but the Guardian makes no mention of that decision.

It does seem a bit unusual that a director would choose to cast a dead man in the role. Couldn't he find a live actor to do the movie? And how exactly will Olivier's estate be compensated for the hijacking of his image? His widow, the eminent actress Joan Plowright, chose not to comment on the story. It raises ethical questions as well, since Olivier didn't choose to be included in this film, and I'm surprised that actors of the stature of Law and Paltrow would have agreed to this. (Of course, Olivier's judgment on project selection was known to be somewhat suspect, as anyone who's watched the so-bad-it's-laughable Clash Of The Titans can attest.)

The Guardian upholds the fine tradition of Fleet Street bitchiness in its lead paragraph, which makes it worth the read:

Towards the end of his pioneering career, Lord Olivier was the first actor to materialise in the West End theatre as a hologram, in the musical Time in 1986. For one of the greatest classical players in history, it had an advantage: he did not need to appear in the flesh with the show's star - Cliff Richard.

Ouch!

Today's Star-Tribune Breaking News Award Winner Is ...

... the Associated Press, whose crack staff came up with this headline:

Republican, Democrat Win Okla. Primaries

No kidding? Who would have expected a Republican and a Democrat to win Republican and Democratic primary contests? Everyone but the AP, I guess.

Playing The Smear Card Once Too Often

The Kerry campaign flamed out again yesterday after pictures showing John Kerry looking, well, geeky were released by NASA after a Kerry visit to one of their facilities. The blogosphere pounced on the photographs -- one of them will likely be our Caption Contest photo this week -- and the Kerry/Edwards campaign went into full offense, trying desperately to keep the comparisons of Michael Dukakis and tank-riding out of the public consciousness. This effort led Mary Beth Cahill, Kerry's campaign manager, to tell Fox's Brit Hume that Kerry had been set up -- by NASA!

HUME: i must ask you about this photograph that suddenly turned up and fell in our laps last night nobody thought it was come. nobody had reported on the event which led to-t but there he was, the senator, on all fours in this very peculiar outfit, which i guess nasa had given him. how did that come about?

CAHILL: well, yesterday senator john glenn, obviously he was an astronaut in his previous life sexrvings senator carr took a tour of a bio facility at nasa. it was just the two of them, and the nasa staff, and all of a sudden this is a leaked photo.

HUME: it was leaked?

CAHILL: yes.

HUME: it was made by nasa, right?

CAHILL: yes, it was.

HUME: so the campaign had no idea there would be any photographs.

CAHILL: none.

No idea that they took any photographs?

None at all?

Perhaps this was just a meeting to discuss rocket science. Too bad they were all smiling into that hidden camera, including those long-time Republican operatives, Senators Bob Graham and Bill Nelson (D-FL) and former Senator John Glenn (first on left, hat tips Leather Penguin and Dr. A. Mark Gambee):

The Left likes to talk about how paranoid Nixon was, but these days Nixon almost seems like Pollyanna compared to the Democrats. According to Mary Beth Cahill, John Kerry is so stupid that he doesn't realize that when someone points a camera at him and asks him to smile, he doesn't know they're taking a photograph, even when the flash goes off, and even when he's asked to pose with three other Democratic politicians. Is that what Cahill wants us to believe?

Or, perhaps, it's more likely that John Kerry and his campaign continue to blame his own missteps on others. He didn't fall, that son-of-a-bitch pushed him. They weren't his medals, they were Some Other Guy's, and besides they were ribbons, which mean the same thing as medals, except when they don't. He didn't vote for war, Bush misled him into voting for the war. He voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it. He didn't smile, those NASA bastards used a camera to fool him into thinking that his visit was a secret.

If Kerry isn't man enough to take responsibility for his own actions, why should anyone vote to give him responsibility for leading and protecting the free world?

UPDATE: Noted all of the people in the final picture, thanks to IDs from Leather Penguin and reader Dr. Gambee.

Maybe He Was 'Da Bomb'

Yesterday a United Airlines flight out of Sydney, Australia returned to the airport in mid-flight because of a bomb threat. The AP reports this morning that the problem may have been more that a bombshell was on board:

A note indicating the most attractive person on board may have triggered an aviation alert that forced a Los Angeles-bound flight to turn back to Sydney, Australia on Tuesday.

United Airlines Flight 840, carrying 246 passengers including a senior U.S. diplomat was turned around 90 minutes after takeoff Tuesday and returned to Sydney after a flight attendant found the letters "B O B" written on an air sickness bag in one of the Boeing 747's toilets. Flight crews commonly use the letters as an abbreviation for "Bomb On Board," and the captain decided to go back after learning of the find.

However, police who searched the plane found no bomb and flight attendants in Australia have said the letters are also commonly used for "Best On Board," referring to the most attractive passenger.

Color me uninformed in the ways of socialization among flight attendants, but if they use one particular abbreviation for life-and-death emergencies, why would they also use it for sexual rankings while in flight? If indeed this turns out to be the cause -- and one would think that UAL wouldn't release a story this embarrassing unless they were pretty sure it was -- then they should immediately implement an intelligence test for its flight attendants to weed out the mouthbreathers. Of course, such a after-hire test would certainly raise the ire of their labor union, and as it turns out, their representative knows all about sexual rankings:

"A BOB could mean both things . . . I certainly can understand it could be taken as bomb on board as well," said Michael Mijatov, from the Flight Attendants Association.

He understands that it could be taken as "bomb on board" as well? I'm not sure what frightens me more: that the union considers the "bomb on board" explanation to be secondary, or that "best on board" apparently is so widespread that union spokespeople feel well-versed enough to comment on it. How often do the stews run around writing "B.O.B." on puke bags, anyway? And are they all required to chug their beers if one of them greets the winning passenger with "Hi, B.O.B.?"

It's great to see the airline professionals take security so seriously. It truly inspires me ... to take the train whenever possible. Plenty of people in Sydney probably feel that way today, after finding out that the lockdown through which their city struggled yesterday was necessary only because flight crews lack the imagination to pick different nomenclature for their adolescent goldbricking.

AP: Republicans Won't Name Credentialed Bloggers

The AP reports on what they say is the first wave of bloggers to be credentialed for the Republican National Convention next month. Anick Jesdanun writes that the GOP plans to limit credentials to 20 or less bloggers:

Republican convention spokesman Leonardo Alcivar said his party plans to give media credentials to 10 to 20 bloggers. ... Though Alcivar said he did not know how many bloggers got invitations this week, he expected additional ones will be invited based on how many accept by Thursday.

Alcivar refused to provide a list of invited bloggers, saying the party does not disclose traditional media who are approved for credentials, either. He said the list reflected a mix of ideologies and consisted of "those who we believe are moderate in their tone."

Actually, as one of the first few bloggers to receive a credential and confirm it, the GOP reticence to disclose our identities seems a bit unusual. No one told us to keep it quiet -- at least no one told me -- and I assume the GOP won't mind the promotion. In fact, getting out the first wave of credentials during the Democratic convention makes for a pretty good counterstrategy against the attention that DNC bloggers will receive this week. Had I been handling the press corps, I would have released the names of the bloggers, a few each day, as they confirmed, just to keep the suspense and attention away from the Democrats' hate-in at Fleet Center.

The slow roll-out accounts for the lack of blogosphere proclamations of acceptance, something I found puzzling. I had assumed that the RNC made all of the decisions regarding blogger credentialing at once. Michele at A Small Victory even gets a mention in the report (shame on the AP for not providing the hyperlink!), as does Brian Reich, a former Gore operative that perhaps the GOP chose for balance. (Again, no hyperlink, and I don't recognize the name.) But the GOP says that they need to see how many from the first round confirms before the deadline on Thursday to determine how many more they can invite on the second round:

Democrats approved credentials for about three dozen bloggers out of some 200 applicants. They rescinded approvals for another 20, blaming a computer gaffe. To avoid such problems, Alcivar said, Republicans opted to invite bloggers in smaller waves.

Because of time constraints, staffers sought out bloggers to invite rather than initiating an open application process, he said.

This explains a few puzzling things about the process. Because I also contribute to Blogs For Bush, I received notice of the GOP effort at the beginning of last month and an invitation to apply for one of the spots. This did not get publicized, and some blogs felt slighted by the lack of an open application process. However, the DNC's effort taught the GOP a few lessons, first of which was that bloggers don't have expense accounts and need at least three weeks lead time in order to make reasonable travel arrangements. Bill at INDC Journal got stiffed on both the failure to that that through and the second lesson learned by the GOP, which is to make sure you've vetted your invitees prior to extending the invitation. The DNC rescinded his invitation the day after Bill -- an excellent blogger -- spent hundreds of dollars on non-refundable accommodations to get to Boston.

So the GOP had to create a process where they could make sure that they knew who they invited, their content, and their viewpoint, while waiting to see how many people would express an interest. Given the time constraints (they launched this effort at the time when the DNC announced their own blogger program), they opted for a closed selection process. In 2008, they will have plenty of time for a more open process in which all bloggers interested can throw their hats in the ring, but they made a reasonable decision under a lot of time pressure. And since they've apparently not completed their invitation list, perhaps some bloggers can still send in letters of interest.

Many thanks to those of you who have sent donations using the PayPal and Amazon links on the sidebar. For those who don't want to go through the effort of opening a PayPal account just to chip in for the CQ coverage, the Amazon tip jar just uses a credit card or virtual check -- no account required. Your donations just in the last 24 hours have covered about 15% of the estimated flight and hotel costs for the event, a very generous response indeed!

UPDATE: Bloggers so far are the biggest story of the convention, it appears. USA Today's Mark Memmott writes a long feature article just to tell us that the story is overrated:

The arrival of the bloggers is perhaps the most overcovered media story of the convention so far. Chosen by party officials from about 200 bloggers who applied for media credentials, those now here have been welcomed by organizers as full-fledged members of the press. It's the first time online commentators and diarists have been admitted to a political convention. Republican officials are considering doing the same at their convention in a month.

The LA Times takes a different tack -- if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. It won't be long before every major news outlet has its own blog, although most will have editors to turn them into mush. In fact, Lisa Stone's blog at the LAT already resembles that, combining the pointless arcanity of the worst of live-blogging with hardly any attempt at analysis.

Hugh Hewitt's Site Down, Will Return Momentarily

The Lord High Commissioner of the Blogosphere, Hugh Hewitt, has experienced some technical difficulties this afternoon and his site is down. I'm assured that his crack technical staff is already working on the solution and will resolve the problem very soon, so keep checking back.

In the meantime -- you should buy his book!

UPDATE: It's back up!

Iran Defies World Community, Breaks Seal On Equipment

Iran has broken the seal on its proscribed nuclear equipment and started rebuilding the centrifuges needed to enrich uranium into weapons-grade material, according to the London Telegraph. The move comes despite the intense negotiations that European countries have used to keep the issue from coming to the UN Security Council:

Teheran's move, revealed to The Daily Telegraph yesterday by western sources, breaks a deal with European countries under which Iran suspended "all uranium enrichment activity". ...

America has in recent weeks renewed its call for Iran to be referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

However, diplomats said senior officials from the "EU-3" - Britain, France and Germany - would try to coax Teheran back to the path of co-operation at a secret meeting in Paris on Thursday.

Anton La Guardia writes in his analysis that the Iranians have chosen this moment to press its luck as it sees America as "paralyzed" during the presidential elections. One can only wonder why they would think that. Could it be that one of the two candidates has spent the past month denouncing the other for taking action with a coalition of the willing instead of holding America hostage to the whims of the Security Council? This attack has put pressure on Bush to follow the EU-3's lead on Iran and not force the issue to the UNSC for action. Otherwise, we'd hear more wailing and gnashing of teeth about 'unilateralism'.

Now we need to move past that. If Iran remains defiant, then the EU-3 needs to defer to the Security Council before Iran builds itself a fissile weapon and it's too late. And the irresponsible rhetoric from the left needs to be rebuked by their party leaders if they want to be taken seriously on national defense, but unfortunately it's the party leaders who indulge themselves in the irresponsible rhetoric.

UPDATE: The Watcher's Council has nominated this post for the best of the week. Make sure you read all of the other blogs that will kick my rear end in the weekly contest!

CQ Cited In IBD Article Demanding More Wilson Coverage

An anonymous commenter pointed me towards an article appearing today at Investor's Business Daily, reviewing the abdication of the mainstream media on the Joe Wilson story once it became apparent that Wilson lied:

Media Bias: When ex-diplomat Joseph Wilson said President Bush lied, it set off a media stampede. When he turned out to be wrong, the hoofbeats fell silent.

In fact, as the chart below shows, that might be an understatement. The coverage is so one-sided that you might think something was at work here — something like, say, extreme media bias. ...

But in the past month, two reports — one from the Senate Intelligence Committee, the other from Britain's so-called Butler Report on intelligence leading up to the Iraq War — both concluded Bush was right. Saddam sought uranium in Africa to make WMD.

Big news, right?

It wasn't treated that way. It got cursory treatment by the big media. Worst was CBS. It broadcast some 30 stories on Wilson's initial charges, according to Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz. It still hasn't done anything on the undoing of this big story.

That's right, nothing. For those keeping score: lies 30, truth 0.

It's great to see a well-established periodical address this case of obvious media bias, and the title on the report says it all: "Finish The Story." But best of all, IBD includes a handy little chart that you will have seen here first -- and credits Howard Kurtz (who collected the data) and captainsquartersblog.com! They don't have a hyperlink back to the post, but I'm pretty happy just to get the mention.

Now -- will someone in the boardrooms of these media corporations finally wake up, now that potential investors appear restless about their obvious bias? We can only hope.

ABC: Kerry Losing Momentum

As a follow-up to the post I wrote last night on the Washington Post report on the WaPo-ABC poll, ABC's analysis goes even further in clearly defining the results as a potential disaster for the Kerry/Edwards campaign. Unlike the Babington article, Gary Langer's report points out all of the weaknesses that Kerry's campaign now shows precisely when they should be riding a wave of enthusiasm leading to his anointment on Thursday:

The critical convention season begins with John Kerry losing momentum at just the hour he'd like to be gaining it: President Bush has clawed back on issues and attributes alike, reclaiming significant ground that Kerry had taken a month ago.

Kerry has lost support against Bush in trust to handle five of six issues tested in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, including terrorism, Iraq, taxes and even health care. And Kerry's ratings on personal attributes — honesty, strong leadership, consistency, empathy and others — have softened as well. ...

Head-to-head, the Massachuestts senator has slipped from a slight lead in late June to a dead heat today, with 49 percent support for Bush and 48 percent for Kerry among registered voters. Including Ralph Nader, it's 48 percent-46 percent-3 percent.

Not only has Kerry not gotten a pre-convention bounce, but as I reported last night, it appears that the selection of the blow-dried Edwards as his VP candidate may have hurt the campaign. People are now taking this election seriously, and choosing a single-term politician for his looks and his hair doesn't communicate that Kerry takes it anywhere near as seriously.

Langer also reveals the underlying shifts in the past month that have caused Kerry to fall behind Bush, and the numbers there look worse than the overall polling indicates. Kerry has lost ground to Bush in six crucial issues: terrorism, taxes, health care, Iraq, education, and the economy. Kerry now only leads in education and health care, both within the margin of error for the poll. On terrorism and Iraq, Bush has vaulted out to a double-digit lead where one month ago the two men were virtually tied.

Terrorism has been a talking point of the Kerry/Edwards campaign for the past several weeks, as their strategists have tried to cut Bush off at the knees. Instead of weakening their opponent, Kerry seems to boost Bush the more Kerry talks about it. Bush now enjoys an eighteen-point gap over Kerry on terrorism and a twelve-point gap on Iraq, extremely bad news for an election that necessarily focuses on both issues.

The demographics for terrorism loom as bad as the overall numbers here; the Edwards selection has done nothing to keep women from wiping out a sixteen-point lead to a three-point Kerry deficit, and so-called moderates have reversed a twelve-point lead to a seven-point deficit. Independents have also broken out to a significant Bush lead on this issue, which should press the Kerry campaign into silence on terrorism and a greater focus on domestic policies.

However, even though Kerry has a slim advantage on two issues, the one they've chosen to drill into the ground has twisted back on them. Last month, Kerry led Bush on the issue of taxes by a whopping twelve-point margin. Now Kerry trails by six as the economy heats up and tax cuts have received the lion's share of the credit.

Now Kerry's campaign proposes to "go dark" during the month of August in order to save advertising dollars for the main battle after the Republican convention. It may work out, as Kerry's main drag on the campaign seems to be Kerry: every time he highlights an issue, he loses ground. However, if the convention fails to reverse these trends, Kerry will likely watch the momentum and the election swing decisively to George Bush and could well author a McGovern/Mondale electoral disaster. Such an outcome would be fitting for a campaign that has combined in its rhetoric the worst of 1972 and 1984.

Captain's Quarters Invited To Republican Convention!

I am thrilled to announce that I received an invitation from the Republican National Convention to represent the blogging community when George Bush is nominated for a second term!

The Committee on Arrangements sent out the invitations this evening:

For the first time, bloggers will hold an on-site presence at the Republican National Convention called "Bloggers Corner." Positioned near Radio Row, credentialed bloggers will have the opportunity to connect with delegates, guests and other surrogates for interviews, and to provide original content, including multimedia, to their audiences. Through this behind-the-scenes look at the convention's proceedings and events, bloggers will play an important role in telling the story of the 2004 Republican Convention.

Bloggers Corner will be located in Madison Square Garden's Theater Lobby in the corridor adjacent to Radio Row. Electrical outlets, tabled work stations and necessary hook-ups for laptop and other portable computers will be available for high-speed Internet and Intranet access. Main TV monitors will also be accessible in all convention common areas including Bloggers Corner and will carry closed circuit coverage of all floor activities.

The First Mate and I discussed the opportunity to do this, and she supports my decision to go 100%, even though she has some security concerns. (She won't be able to accompany me, as she won't get accredited for the floor and probably wouldn't be up for sitting in a hotel room all day and all night long.) However, we both feel that political activity has become even more important in the war on Islamofascist terror, and if I backed away from this extraordinary opportunity, it would constitute little more than a Spanish-style surrender to fear.

Besides ... what could be more fun, and more meaningful, than being part of the most crucial presidential election in a generation?

I've already booked my flight, and have asked for some guidance from the COA on finding a room (which they offered as a courtesy to the bloggers invited). As accommodations can be rather expensive, I've added a PayPal tip jar to the left sidebar to defray some of my expenses for the trip. I can guarantee you that I will be going regardless of what funds I receive, but if you think you'll enjoy my coverage of the convention and you have a few bucks to toss in, I'd certainly appreciate it.

And even if you don't have a few bucks, let me tell you, it was you folks who got me credentialed for the RNC. You've made this blog far more successful than I ever dreamed possible, and I'll never be able to tell you just how much I appreciate it. Thanks for everything!

UPDATE: Fixed PayPal button ... Hat tip to Pete at One Big Swede!

UPDATE II: Wizbang and Slant Point are also invited. Looking forward to meeting you all there! And if you aren't comfortable with PayPal but you'd still like to donate (bless you!), drop me an e-mail and I'll let you know where you can send a check.

UPDATE III: More bloggers get credentialed -- Michele at A Small Victory, and Matt Margolis (a no-brainer -- he does run Blogs for Bush, after all). (Hat tip: Mind of Mog)

UPDATE IV: Added an Amazon donation option, per your requests!

UPDATE V: Big thanks to This Blog Is Full Of Crap, which has suggested sending money to CQ rather than Andrew Sullivan, since Sullivan has decided to endorse John Kerry. At least one of his readers has already put that plan into action.

Democrats Run From Their Own Convention

Despite the fact that the Democratic Nominating Convention reaches its planned climax on Thursday night, with cheering crowds hailing John Kerry as their standardbearer, some Democrats will have already skulked out early, the Washington Post reports -- and some may not even have come at all. Rather than be seen with their nominee, some Democrats want to put as much distance as possible between themselves, Kerry, and the people surrounding him on the dais:

Boston is the place for Democrats this week, but some will be conspicuous by their absence Thursday night, when John F. Kerry accepts the presidential nomination. The top Democratic candidates from seven of the eight most competitive Senate races will be back home, as will dozens of House candidates. ... The list of who's going and who's not is telling: Democratic candidates from states that look strong for Kerry generally plan to attend the convention, while most of those in tight races in states leaning toward President Bush are staying away.

In the eight Senate races seen as virtual tossups, the Democratic nominees or front-runners from North Carolina, Oklahoma and Alaska are skipping Boston altogether. Inez Tenenbaum, the Senate nominee in South Carolina, mingled with her state's delegation Sunday night but goes home Monday, when the four-day convention begins.

Rep. Chris John, the Democrats' top contender for a Senate seat in Louisiana -- and a "super delegate" by virtue of being a House member -- will be here Monday and Tuesday. Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle of South Dakota and Senate candidate Betty Castor of Florida will attend Monday through Wednesday, but not Thursday.

Tom Daschle, the party's leader in the Senate, will skip out on John Kerry's nominating speech? I'm sure this is without precedent, but it does point out the pusillanimous nature of these Democrats. They're willing to bloviate about the Bush "regime" away from home, but when public scrutiny is certain, they scurry back to the darkness. In Daschle's case, locked in a tight race for the first time in many years, he may be afraid that Michael Moore will hug him again, and this time on national television. (Come to think of it, it is a frightening notion.)

Out of eight Senate candidates facing tough elections in November, only one of them has the courage to stand up with John Kerry. In the House, only one out of five candidates from Texas in contested districts will bother to attend their party's convention. Jim Jordan, the Kerry campaign manager fired three weeks into Kerry's candidacy, points out that the convention is not merely a pep rally to the presidential nominee, but also a fund-raising effort for lower-ticket races. After all, all of the donors will be in Boston this week. Having people locked in tight races skipping out on fundraising opportunities demonstrates palpable fear.

So why do Democrats fear the Kerry juggernaut? Could it be that they know their candidate will tank their own campaigns? If that is the case -- and sources tell the Post's Charles Babington they fear linkage to John Kerry and Ted Kennedy most of all -- it shows that despite the polling from the liberal media, the Democrats have huge problems in the swing states. Most Senate and House candidates count on coattails during presidential elections. Running away from the top of the ticket equates to rats abandoning a sinking ship. That should tell you all you need to know about the enthusiasm for the Kerry/Edwards ticket among the electorate.

Christie Vilsack Responds

Howard Kurtz notes the laughable response of Christie Vilsack, wife of Governor Tim Vilsack of Iowa, to the surfacing of a column she wrote complaining of the way minorities and regional populations in America speak English. In her column, the Boston Herald noted that Mrs. Vilsack tore into African-Americans as hypocritical:

"I am fascinated at the way some African-Americans speak to each other in an English I struggle to understand, then switch to standard English when the situation requires,'' Vilsack wrote in a 1994 column in the Mount Pleasant News, while her husband, Tom, was a state senator.

She also took "non-Midwesterners" to task for their slang and loose enunciation, complaining that well-meaning Southerners during the 1992 Olympics could not make themselves understood for all their "slurred speech". So what did Mrs. Vilsack have to say for herself when confronted with her column?

Vilsack, who is slated to address the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, said in a statement that "these are attacks by people who want to divide us and not bring us together [emph. mine -- CE]."

What? Making fun of the way people speak, and accusing African-Americans of speaking in a certain way to make themselves deliberately obtuse, brings people together? Only in the fourth grade, Mrs. Vilsack.

No wonder John Kerry picked John Edwards for his VP candidate rather than Tom Vilsack. One spousal embarrassment is more than enough, and Teresa paid good money to take that role in this election.

George Bush: Dances With Bears

Instapundit and Memeorandum both point out a strategy analysis from Asia Times published yesterday, which claims that sources reveal that George Bush and Vladimir Putin have made a deal to bring 40,000 Russian troops into Iraq. The Russians would be given the free hand in Fallujah that domestic politics withheld from American Marines, and in return, Putin plans to pay back the architects of the war on Serbia:

Do not be surprised to see three or four divisions of the Russian army in the Sunni triangle before year-end, with an announcement just prior to the US presidential election in November. Long rumored (or under negotiation), a Russian deployment of 40,000 soldiers was predicted on July 16 by the US intelligence site www.stratfor.com, and denied by the Russian Foreign Ministry on July 20. Nonetheless, the logic is compelling. Russian support for US occupation forces would make scorched earth of Senator John Kerry's attack on the Bush administration's foreign policy, namely its failure to form effective alliances. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the chance to make scorched earth of Fallujah is even more tempting.

In exchange for a troop presence in Iraq, Russia would obtain a free hand in dealings with the countries of the former Soviet Union. It would gain leverage against a weakening Turkey in the Caucasus and Central Asia. And it would vastly enhance its leverage in negotiations over the placement of oil pipelines. Most important, perhaps, it would assert its old status as a global military power against the feckless Europeans. In short, the arrangement would benefit everyone, except of course the population of Fallujah.

The article doesn't mention yet another benefit to Putin, one that should be obvious given the near-bankruptcy of Yukos: commerical access to Iraqi oil fields. It's no secret that Putin opposed the war in Iraq because of the billions of dollars Russia stood to lose if Saddam Hussein was forced from power. The Russians need those oil concessions, and the only way back in is to make nice with Ayad Allawi and the rest of the Iraqi interim government, which now looks like it's succeeding. That means putting boots on the ground to help eliminate Iraq's internal and external enemies, and the Sunni Triangle is the best way to prove their seriousness. Besides, Russia holds no love for Islamofascists, and since they've decided to congregate in Fallujah, Putin may feel it hygienic to assist America in cleaning it out.

Asia Times does mention another, more political and personal reason to ally with George Bush at the eleventh hour, besides his personal friendship with the US President. A John Kerry win will likely bring back to power the same people who defied Russia and went to war against the Serbs (without UN approval!), a population closely related and allied with Russia. Richard Holbrooke, Asia Times predicts, will probably be Secretary of State or Defense in a Kerry administration, and Holbrooke delivered the ultimatum to the Serbs which immediately preceded the bombing campaign.

Spengler's analysis of the Serbian war is that Clinton attempted to bolster American standing with Muslims by intervening in a centuries-old civil war on their behalf. [I supported the action at the time, but criticized the lack of resolution inherent in its planning -- and time has proved me correct -- CE.] Obviously this won us few friends in the Muslim world, and even the Bosnians have been radicalized, as the Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend. Putin saw this as a cynical trade-off, especially since he had Muslim radicals using terror in places like Chechnya and hardly felt that the US should be intervening to strengthen them. Now, with a Kerry candidacy hiring most of the old Clinton team, Putin sees a real danger of another four years of Muslim appeasement. Small wonder that even despite his opposition to the war in Iraq, Putin made Russian intelligence available to the President on Iraqi plans to hit American targets using terror tactics.

What does George Bush gain? Two big and obvious wins. First, Russia's addition of 40,000 troops to Fallujah will make them the second-largest contingent in Iraq, taking pressure off of the US to extend deployments and cycling Americans out of the zone with the most danger. Second, the alliance with Russia will, as Spengler notes, make hash out of the argument that Bush cannot attract allies. A third, more subtle win for Bush is the pacification of Fallujah, which will immeasureably strengthen the new Iraqi government, set Shi'ite minds at ease about the upcoming elections, and devastate the emotional momentum for Islamofascists worldwide.

What does Bush lose? Perhaps the introduction of Russian scorched-earth tactics, such as those used in Grozny, will backfire with a segment of the American public, but I tend to think that will only be limited to the rock-solid Kerry supporters. More troublesome will be the free hand in the former Soviet republics that the US would have to allow Putin to get him to sign off. It would mean a retreat, to an extent, on human-rights issues with the Russians. However, we are at war, and war means setting priorities -- and Bush has consistently made American security his overriding priority all along, and appropriately so.

We shall see if the Asia Times prediction bears out, but the fact that the deal makes a great deal of sense for both sides certainly indicates a strong probability of its veracity. Both Fallujah and John Kerry should prepare for the shock.

Bush Steps Ahead Of Kerry Even As Convention Opens

More bad news from the Washington Post for the Kerry/Edwards campaign -- the Democrats have fallen behind the Bush/Cheney ticket for the first time, 48-46, in the WaPo/ABC poll (via Hugh Hewitt):

A growing proportion of voters say Bush and not Kerry is the candidate who most closely shares their values, and four in 10 believe the Democrat is "too liberal." Bush has even narrowed the gap on which candidate better understands their problems, an area in which Kerry has led. ...

The survey found that Kerry and Bush remain virtually deadlocked, with 48 percent of registered voters supporting Bush and 46 percent Kerry. Independent candidate Ralph Nader claims 3 percent of the hypothetical vote. Kerry held a four-point lead over Bush in mid-June and was tied with Bush in a Post survey two weeks ago.

So much for the Edwards bounce. In fact, another finding of the poll may explain why Edwards not only hasn't helped John Kerry but may actually be dragging anchor on the Democratic ticket, despite some still-high negatives for the President:

Although the electorate remains deeply divided, the survey found one area of broad agreement: Two in three voters say this election is one of the most important of their lives.

They're right -- this is the most significant presidential election in a generation, and the fact that Kerry chose a single-term politician who can't even count on carrying his home state demonstrates Kerry's lack of seriousness for the challenge. Serious candidates don't select VP nominees for their pretty-boy looks and great hair. Now that Teresa has sabotaged the run-up and Andrew Stern stuck his knife in Kerry's back, he'd better hope for a miracle to get the bounce he needs from the convention, because the way it looks now, he hit his high-water mark last month.

Labor Bailing On Kerry/Edwards At Opening Of Convention?

The Washington Post files the kind of report that the Kerry/Edwards campaign didn't anticipate at the start of their four-night love fest. The head of the largest AFL-CIO union, representing government workers, openly speculated that unions would be better off if the Democrats lost in November, sharply criticizing the party for its intellectual bankruptcy:

Breaking sharply with the enforced harmony of the Democratic National Convention, the president of the largest AFL-CIO union said Monday that both organized labor and the Democratic Party might be better off in the long run if Sen. John F. Kerry loses the election.

Andrew L. Stern, the head of the 1.6 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), said in an interview with The Washington Post that both the party and its longtime ally, the labor movement, are "in deep crisis," devoid of new ideas and working with archaic structures.

Stern argued that another four years of Bush policies might be less damaging than the stifling of needed reform within the party and the labor movement that he said would occur if Kerry becomes president.

If Stern had wanted to deliberately stick a knife in Kerry's back, he could hardly have chosen a better time. Nor did Stern stop there. He accused Kerry of aiming to use unions solely to bolster his own political ambitions, comparing him to Clinton in this regard. Stern also claimed that the Democrats were nothing more than a "hollow party" and that despite sticking $65 million in its coffers this cycle, he is pessimistic about Kerry helping to energize and modernize the labor movement.

Make no mistake -- Stern is an old-school labor radical, one that wants government to control major aspects of the market, so his criticism may have a silver lining for Kerry amongst centrists. Expect to see the spin go in that direction. However, Stern's timing puts Kerry back on the defensive at the precise moment that he needs to push the positive aspects of his vision for America to the nation. It may not do a lot of damage, but it does speak to the profound lack of enthusiasm that affects a substantial proportion of Kerry backers. Voter ennui, combined with pessimistic commentary from constituency leaders that explicitly deliver the message that they support Kerry only as the non-Bush, will result in a lackadaisical response at the polls in November.

His Uncle Would Have Been Proud

Tom Burnett, Jr died on 9/11, fighting to regain control of a jet from lunatic terrorists, and his efforts and that of the heroic passengers on Flight 93 saved the lives of many more Americans. The patriots on 93 made the ultimate sacrifice in order to foil al-Qaeda's plans, even though they were unarmed civilians and didn't even know the nature of the enemy they faced so bravely.

Now, Burnett's nephew is about to pay homage to his uncle by entering public service, right here in the Twin Cities:

A family tragedy means a call to action for one young Minnesota man.

Devin Burnett O'Brien is Tom Burnett Jr.'s nephew. Tom Burnett Jr. grew up in Bloomington and died when United Airlines Flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11

Nearly three years later, Devin O'Brien is running for the Minnesota Legislature. He says his sense of civic duty has changed since Sept. 11.

The 21-year-old is an English major at St. John's University. Within hours of Gov. Tim Pawlenty nominating Alice Seagren as education commissioner last week, O'Brien entered the race for her House seat.

O'Brien faces three Republican opponents in the September primary -- among them Neil Peterson, a former mayor of Bloomington.

I have no idea what O'Brien's politics are, nor do I live in his district, and so I have no endorsement to make in this race. However, even while American cynicism seems to have triumphed once again over the sense of mission that public service had after 9/11, it's refreshing to find out that this young man will honor his uncle's memory by making a difference to citizens of Minnesota.

Best of luck, Devin. You've made a difference just by showing up. Hopefully, more people will follow your lead and participate in the system that your uncle gave his life to defend, even though he never expected the call.

First Mate Update

I had to take the First Mate in for outpatient surgery this morning as she has developed some complications with her kidney transplant. The details are pretty technical, but essentially what happened is that fluid began to build up around the kidney and at the same time, the doctors suspect that an obstruction may have formed inside the kidney. It isn't a rejection episode, as we originally feared, but she has to go back to having the kidney shunted to the outside, probably for the next six weeks. We're hoping that the shunt will take some of the pressure off the kidney and reverse some of the suppressed function we've been seeing in the lab results.

She's also fighting a CMV infection, which is not uncommon for transplant patients, especially in the first couple of months. That causes flu-like symptoms, exhaustion, and a lack of energy, and it takes a while to shake off. She's asleep now, of course, as she just had the surgery. I'm home watching her, so I'm out of the office again.

Thank you for those who keep asking about her progress. I wish I had better news for you. This isn't bad news -- it's actually fairly common, although we wish the FM could have avoided this. It's apparent that this transplant will probably have a number of complications in the first few months, and we will just have to be flexible enough to handle them. My bosses have been terrific and patient, but at some point, I may need to make new arrangements that will allow me to be home more during the day without shortchanging my office, which is what I feel I'm doing now.

One day at a time ...

Say It Loud, I Aborted And I'm Proud

Bill at INDC Journal rescues this notable web page from the depths of Google that demonstrates the political idiocy of Planned Parenthood leadership. Until earlier today, the fine folks at PP promoted this t-shirt ($15) with the slogan "I Had An Abortion":

They have finally arrived!

Planned Parenthood is proud to offer yet another t-shirt in our new social fashion line: "I Had an Abortion" fitted T-shirts are now available. These soft and comfortable fitted tees assert a powerful message in support of women's rights.

I understand that some people do not consider an embryo to be human life, although any understanding of science leads to that conclusion. I know people who honestly believe that an embryo does not become human until viability or birth. While I disagree with them, I respect their integrity. However, this sloganeering does nothing but repulse me, as it celebrates the destruction of embryos as if it were little more than visiting Niagara Falls. (As Bill put it in his title, "... And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.")

Even if one doesn't consider an embryo to be human life -- and Bill is no pro-lifer -- the decision to abort would, presumably, only be made with sober reflection and a sense of regret that a child would not be practical for the mother at that moment in her life. Making into a cheerleading opportunity does not "assert a powerful message for women's rights," as PP would have these women believe. It underscores the superficial and selfish motivations that the most ardent pro-lifers assign to abortion seekers as a stereotype.

This promotion shows the extent to which Planned Parenthood occupies the extreme, rather than representing the majority support that they claim abortion rights have.

UPDATE: Apparently, the 404 was merely a way to dodge the Drudge traffic after he linked to this. The PP Yahoo! store page is still active, which means that the shirt is still on sale.

PETA-Endorsed Speaker Urges Murder Of Scientists

The British newspaper The Observer reported yesterday that a prominent animal-rights activist called for the murder of scientists as a means to end scientific research using animal test subjects:

To the fury of groups working with animals, Jerry Vlasak, a trauma surgeon and prominent figure in the anti-vivisection movement, told The Observer: 'I think violence is part of the struggle against oppression. If something bad happens to these people [animal researchers], it will discourage others. It is inevitable that violence will be used in the struggle and that it will be effective.'

Vlasak, who likens animal experimentation to the Nazis' treatment of the Jews, said he stood by his claim that: 'I don't think you'd have to kill too many [researchers]. I think for five lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives.

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (Shac), which campaigns for the closure of Huntingdon Life Sciences, has close links with Vlasak. He has also advised Speak, the organisation that last week forced out the contractor building an £18 million primate research laboratory in Oxford. ... Other animal rights groups have distanced themselves from him. Until recently he was a member of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a group funded by the powerful lobbying group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and endorsed by Shac.

But a PCRM spokeswoman told The Observer: 'He is not a member of the organisation.' Vlasak confirmed he was not working with the PCRM 'at the moment'.

One wonders how much coverage this will receive in the US, although I am impressed that the Observer covered it in the UK. (The Observer is a subsidiary tabloid of the Guardian, the Labourite broadsheet.) PETA has hid behind its quiet endorsement and financial support of terrorists like the Animal Liberation Front and Vlasak for far too long, and a complacent media has allowed them to escape scrutiny. They've managed to make themselves into a sort of Sinn Fein for the nutcases that bomb research facilities and attack people wearing fur on the street, but only because the investigative media have given them a pass.

When anti-abortion nutballs made similar statements, developing hit lists that enabled a few lunatics to promote their version of pro-life stances by murdering doctors, the American media screamed it in headlines and Hollywood followed suit using the lamest weapon in their arsenal -- the Lifetime made-for-TV movie. So far, we hear nary a peep from the same folks who supposedly decry political violence. It's time that someone takes a long, hard look at PETA's books to see where their money comes from and where it goes to -- before their associates finally kill someone.

Good News/Bad News

The good news for today is that we have an Arroyo who is willing to fight. The bad news: it's the wrong Arroyo:

A bench-clearing brawl broke out between the Yankees and Boston Red Sox yesterday after Bronson Arroyo hit New York's Alex Rodriguez with a pitch in the top of the third inning.

Rodriguez stared down Arroyo as he started walking toward first. Catcher Jason Varitek, still wearing his mask, got between them as the AL MVP walked up the baseline and, after some jawing — of the distinctly unprintable variety — pushed the Yankees star in the face. The dugouts emptied.

On the other hand, perhaps A-Rod merely put into practice what Teresa Heinz-Kerry urged from all of her fellow Beantowners -- a little more %$#@*&% civility, damn it!

We're Here To Restore Civility, You %$#*&@%

Teresa Heinz-Kerry strkes again! The woman who wants to replace Laura Bush at the White House urged her home-state Massachussetts delegates to help the Kerry/Edwards ticket replace the "un-American" Republicans and restore civility to politics, and then within minutes told a reporter to "shove it":

"We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics," the wife of Sen. John Kerry told her fellow Pennsylvanians on Sunday night at a Massachusetts Statehouse reception.

Minutes later, Colin McNickle, the editorial page editor of the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, questioned her on what she meant by the term "un-American," according to a tape of the encounter recorded by Pittsburgh television station WTAE.

Heinz Kerry said, "I didn't say that" several times to McNickle. She then turned to confer with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and others. When she faced McNickle again a short time later, he continued to question her, and she replied, "You said something I didn't say. Now shove it."

No matter how much her husband or his campaign staff display their tone-deafness on the stump, Teresa Heinz-Kerry can always outdo them. Teresa is shaping up as the biggest embarrassment for Kerry/Edwards, a time bomb waiting to go off every time she wanders from prepared speech. She talks about restoring civility, and even before she told the reporter to "shove it," she inferred that her party's opponents were un-American. Way to restore that civility!

(As an aside, do you notice that when Republicans criticize Democrats' voting records, the Democrats screech about their patriotism being questioned, while Democrats have no problem calling Republicans Nazis and un-American?)

Michelle Malkin notes a striking similarity between Teresa and Howard Dean, pointing back to a prediction she made in January.

The Biased (Or Attention-Deficit) Media

Howard Kurtz notes a disconnect in the coverage of Joe Wilson's disintegrating credibility. In a secondary article of his Media Notes column, Kurtz has the numbers to demonstrate either a leftist bias or simply lousy and lazy journalism in the mainstream media, especially broadcast outlets:

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's allegations that President Bush misled the country about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium from Africa was a huge media story, fueled by an investigation into who outed his CIA-operative wife. According to a database search, NBC carried 40 stories, CBS 30 stories, ABC 18, The Washington Post 96, the New York Times 70, the Los Angeles Times 48.

But a Senate Intelligence Committee report that contradicts some of Wilson's account and supports Bush's State of the Union claim hasn't received nearly as much attention. "NBC Nightly News" and ABC's "World News Tonight" have each done a story. But CBS hasn't reported it -- despite a challenge by Republican Chairman Ed Gillespie on CBS's "Face the Nation," noting that the network featured Wilson on camera 15 times. A spokeswoman says CBS is looking into the matter.

Newspapers have done slightly better. The Post, which was the first to report the findings July 10, has run two stories, an editorial and an ombudsman's column; the New York Times two stories and an op-ed column; and the Los Angeles Times two stories. Wilson, meanwhile, has defended himself from what he calls "a Republican smear campaign" in op-ed pieces in The Post and Los Angeles Times.

In case you can't track Kurtz's numbers, here's a handy scorecard for you:

Outlet.........Wilson Before....Wilson After
CBS....................30...............0
NBC....................40...............1
ABC....................18...............1
Washington Post.....96.............2
New York Times......70.............3
Los Angeles Times...48.............2

Either this demonstrates a severe liberal bias in the media, or a mass epidemic of attention-deficit disorder amongst American journalists. Howard Kurtz reports, y'all decide.

Saddam Hussein Poetry Festival

The London Guardian reports on the captivity of Saddam Hussein in tomorrow's edition, a "dejected" and dispirited prisoner of the US military that holds him for the new Iraqi government. Michael Howard notes Saddam's new routine in his more modest digs:

Mr Amin, a longtime Iraqi human rights campaigner who had family members killed by the former regime, said he could not bring himself to speak to Saddam but observed that he was "in good health and being kept in good conditions".

However, Mr Amin said the former president "appeared demoralised and dejected".

Saddam is being held in a white-walled air-conditioned cell, three metres wide and four metres long, Mr Amin said. He is kept apart from the other prisoners, who can mix freely with each other during the daily three-hour exercise periods.

Lest anyone think that it's all bad for Saddam, he also has access to a library of 145 books, but in a bitterly ironic twist, they're mostly either novels or travel books, the latter of which Saddam is unlikely to ever need again in what's left of his life. He also gets to tend his garden during his outdoor exercise periods. He eats well, probably better than a good percentage of other Iraqis, and after losing a good deal of weight during his fugitive days and early captivity he's again putting some weight back on.

He also has taken up another hobby:

Since appearing in court, Saddam had taken to reading the Qur'an and writing poetry, Mr Amin said. "One of the poems is about George Bush, but I had no time to read it."

Saddam the Poet! Well, wonders never cease. Who knew that under all that genocidal lunacy beat the heart of a poet? In honor of the artistry of this misunderstood bard, Captain's Quarters invites you to submit poems you think Saddam would write, either about George Bush, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, America, the UN ... pretty much anything. I'll post the winners later on this week. We'll call it the Saddam Hussein Poetry Festival, and whenever Uncle Saddy comes up in the news, we'll trot out one or two of the poems to commemorate the event.

Caption Contest Winners!

I know it's still Sunday evening, but we've already received the list of winners from this weekend's Captain's Caption Contest! You may think that with results this quick that guest judge Chumley Wonderbar from Plastic Hallway has jumped the gun. Well, if so, he's not the only one:

Here are Chumley's picks:

Captain's Award ("I'm Perfect" Kerry) -- Steverino:

I didn't miss that clay pigeon. I don't miss. That son-of-a-bitch Secret Service agent got in my way.

You Have The Conn #1 ("Whiny Bitch Injury Faker" Kerry) -- Jim S:

Ouch! Hammer hurt my thumb. Purple Heart! Purple Heart!

You Have The Conn #2 ("Flip Flop" Kerry) -- Duke DeLand:

I actually DID vote for gun control... Before I voted against it!

You Have The Conn #3 ("Vietnam Hero" Kerry) -- Thief:

News Media: "How can you shoot women and children?" Kerry: "Easy! You just don't lead 'em as much!"

Kofi Annan Special Award For Political Bravery -- Rightwingduck:

I'm not sure if I can shoot. Let's call the United Nations. If they say "Go" then I shoot.

Report To Sick Bay (But Your Eyes Appear Fine) -- Pat Curley:

Yeah, I know you want to see if the gal behind me has a face to match those killer boobs, but I'm doing a photo op right now, so quit yer yapping!

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 Chumley'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.

The Trojan Berger -- What Did Sandy Bring To The Archives?

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review gives a new twist to Trousergate today, reporting that Sandy Berger may have not only taken top-secret information out of the National Archives, but also may have acted as a Trojan Horse for disinformation getting in (via Instapundit):

What was Sandy Berger up to when he "inadvertently" removed versions of a classified National Archives memo that critiqued Clinton administration intelligence and security efforts regarding the millennium celebrations? We still don't know. But a bigger question is being posed by some of the well-sourced wags with whom we regularly converse. In fact, one says the thrust of the federal investigation now looking into Mr. Berger's actions should center not necessarily on what was taken from the archived files but what was placed in them [emph in original]. ...

And adding an entirely new layer of intrigue to the story is word that telephone calls made by Berger during those latter two visits may have been monitored by an "unauthorized agency."

One of the stories widely reported this week was the discovery that Sandy Berger had blocked four different efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, in one case because the US did not have him under indictment. Could it be that Berger attempted to replace the memo with his handwritten objections to these operations with a new version without the notes? Or, even more possible given the authorship of the draft memos he stole, could Berger have tried to replace the stolen documents with forgeries rewritten in order to coincide with the testimony that Richard Clarke later gave the 9/11 Commission in public hearings? John Lehman blasted Clarke for the changes in his testimony between the closed sessions and the open sessions of the commission hearings in an interview this week. Coult this be related?

The phone calls are even more disturbing, as any kind of electronic communications while reviewing highly classified documents are strictly forbidden, for obvious reasons. It appears that Berger and at least one other person conspired to get information out of the National Archives and possibly to get fraudulent information into it as well. Why didn't the Archives staff confiscate the phone at the time the calls were made?

The window of innocent explanations has closed on these incidents. It's clear that Berger knowingly broke the law in a number of different ways. The House investigators and the FBI need to find out why Clinton's NSA would take such a dangerous and stupid risk, and on whose behalf.

NOTE: The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review doesn't disclose its sources for this editorial, but it does note that the information comes from sources within the investigation. Are they reliable? Maybe, maybe not; we'll find out eventually. As Sean Hackbarth notes in the comments, it's good to be skeptical, but the information about telephone calls comes from multiple sources now -- and that troubles me most, as it indicates a conspiracy to either take information out or to plant information within the National Archives.

Edwards Returning Tainted Donations From Longtime Trial-Attorney Supporter

In a pre-convention embarrassment, John Edwards announced that he will return over $40,000 in donations bundled by longtime supporter Pierce O'Donnell, who faces election-fraud investigations by federal and California law enforcement:

John Edwards is returning $44,035 in contributions raised by a wealthy Los Angeles lawyer for his presidential primary campaign. The decision to return the money was made because the fund-raising activities of lawyer and longtime Edwards supporter Pierce O'Donnell are being investigated by federal and California elections officials, the Kerry-Edwards campaign said Sunday. Newsweek first reported the story. ...

Some of the suspect contributions were made in the name of persons associated with O'Donnell's law firm, including one person who was not registered to vote and two who had filed for bankruptcy, Newsweek reported.

The magazine said that some of the same purported contributors were listed as $2,000 donors to the Edwards' campaign.

It appears as though O'Donnell ran a money-laundering operation for contributions to Democrats, like Edwards and James Hahn. Will this be the kind of activity we can expect from the trial-lawyer lobby as the presidential campaign wears on? And if O'Donnell has supported Edwards in the past, we should ask how much he's brought to Edwards and under what conditions. After all, it's not as though O'Donnell could possibly have been ignorant of the law.

History Repeats Itself In Palestine

Yasser Arafat faces even more questions in his reign as Palestinian dictator, as a Palestinian legislative analysis shows that the cement for the Israeli security wall came from Palestinian sources. Arafat himself saw the contracts even as he called for demonstrations against the construction:

Palestinian businessmen have made millions of pounds supplying cement for Israel's "security barrier" in the full knowledge of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader and one of the wall's most vocal critics. A damning report by Palestinian legislators, which has been seen by the Telegraph, concludes that Mr Arafat did nothing to stop the deals although he publicly condemned the structure as a "crime against humanity".

The report contains testimony that the cement originated with the Egyptians, who sold it at a discount to the Palestinians in order to help rebuild the homes of those displaced by Israeli demolitions of terrorists' houses. Instead of making use of the cement, the Palestinian businessmen instead war-profiteered themselves into millions of dollars by selling the cement to the Israelis, inflating their profits with huge mark-ups. These companies realized millions of dollars through the redirection of the cement even while their fellow Palestinians protested the construction of the wall to the global community.

And what of Yasser Arafat? Well, while he urged his people onto the streets to demonstrate against the wall, he personally reviewed the contracts and made sure that plenty of those profits went to the well-connected in his administration:

According to the report, on November 9 last year a letter was sent to Mr Arafat by the Palestinian Authority comptroller, revealing that open-ended import licences for the cement had been signed by Maher al-Masri, the economy minister. ... The letter was allegedly received and seen by Mr Arafat on the same day that he urged people to demonstrate on the first international "Day against the Wall". According to Mr Khreishe, Mr Arafat took no action to stop further imports, which continued for another five months. ...

One of the report's three authors, Hassan Khreishe - an independent legislator and long-term critic of Mr Arafat - last night called for the Palestinian cabinet to resign. "Wealthy Palestinians with connections at the highest levels have been making millions helping Israel build this wall while Arafat and the Palestinian Authority have been urging people to fight against it," said Mr Khreishe, a council member from the West Bank city of Tulkarm.

One cannot help but be reminded of how Jewish refugees established themselves in the Holy Land in the first place. What is now known as Israel used to be a vast wasteland, where nothing much grew and land was next to worthless. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Zionists from America and Europe began buying up this seemingly pointless real estate from Arab landowners, who charged far more than the land was worth. The Arabs thought that the Jews were insane, but that didn't keep the Arabs from exploiting them ... or so they thought.

Using a form of Western communism, the Jews formed kibbutzes (farming communes) and established modern irrigation systems and spent decades turning the once-arid land back into a fertile base for a revitalized Jewish homeland. Where nothing but sand and a few oases barely existed, the Jews of Palestine built cities such as Tel Aviv -- even while the Arabs perpetrated genocide in places like Hebron, where a community of 20,000 Jews were either killed or driven out in the 1920s. Once the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the British governed the Palestinian Mandate until 1947, when the United Nations recognized the Jewish homeland as the sovereign state of Israel.

Now we see that the Palestinians have once again sold the means of establishing Israel to the Israelis, this time literally building their security wall to prevent any further terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens. Can one come up with any historical precedent for a people so self-defeating and self-contradictory as the Palestinians?

But We're Appeasers!

Kenyans have reacted in shock to find out that their pro-appeasement stance regarding Saddam Hussein and Iraq has not shielded them from terrorism, as Islamofascists kidnapped three Kenyan hostages:

The capture of three Kenyan hostages in Iraq has bewildered newspapers back home, who demand to know why the insurgents have picked on a country that refused to join the US-led invasion.

"Spare Kenyans, we were not in the war," the East African Standard cries in a headline, and says Iraq is now "scary" even for those not directly involved in the conflict.

Unfortunately, Kenyans have not taken the proper lesson from this, nor from the 2002 Mombasa bombing that destroyed an Israeli-owned hotel. Their media now urges their government to negotiate directly with the terrorists in order to magnify their appeasement policies:

Pointing out that Kenya was one of the first to condemn the decision to invade Iraq, the paper [People's Daily] urges the government not to be shy of negotiating with the kidnappers.

"Kenya should initiate dialogue to save the lives of the hostages", it says, adding: "The Philippines yielded to similar demands to rescue its citizen Angelo de la Cruz, this week."

Kenya Times agrees. It acknowledges that giving in to the demands of "terrorists" could encourage them, but also compares Kenya's predicament with that of the Philippines over Mr de la Cruz.

So let's recap, for the recalcitrant and obviously dense Kenyans. Kenya gave no support to Israel and yet got bombed two years ago. Kenya spoke out against the removal of Saddam Hussein and publicly scolded the United States for fighting terrorism and putting an end to the twelve-year Saddam quagmire. Kenya has opposed the establishment of a democracy to replace the brutal tyranny of the Ba'athist regime. What have they received in return? A respite from terrorism, a free pass from Islamofascists? No. All they got was a bombed-out hotel and their citizens kidnapped by bloodthirsty lunatics.

So now they propose to not only appease, but to surrender abjectly in the same manner as the Arroyo government. That not only puts more Kenyans at risk, but everyone else as well. It's time to cut off aid and put diplomatic pressure on appeasers before they get us all killed.

Gray Lady Is A Liberal: Okrent

In an admission that only shocks because it was made, the New York Times' ombudsman, Daniel Okrent, came out and told us what we already know:

Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?

Of course it is.

Okrent's confession provides a relief to those of us who have chronicled its overtly leftist bent in every section of its newspaper. In this case, Okrent also delivers, as he has a quip for almost every department:

In the Sunday magazine, the culture-wars applause-o-meter chronically points left. On the Arts & Leisure front page every week, columnist Frank Rich slices up President Bush, Mel Gibson, John Ashcroft and other paladins of the right in prose as uncompromising as Paul Krugman's or Maureen Dowd's. The culture pages often feature forms of art, dance or theater that may pass for normal (or at least tolerable) in New York but might be pretty shocking in other places.

Same goes for fashion coverage, particularly in the Sunday magazine, where I've encountered models who look like they're preparing to murder (or be murdered), and others arrayed in a mode you could call dominatrix chic. If you're like Jim Chapman, one of my correspondents who has given up on The Times, you're lost in space. Wrote Chapman, "Whatever happened to poetry that required rhyme and meter, to songs that required lyrics and tunes, to clothing ads that stressed the costume rather than the barely clothed females and slovenly dressed, slack-jawed, unshaven men?"

In the Sunday Styles section, there are gay wedding announcements, of course, but also downtown sex clubs and T-shirts bearing the slogan, "I'm afraid of Americans." The findings of racial-equity reformer Richard Lapchick have been appearing in the sports pages for decades ("Since when is diversity a sport?" one e-mail complainant grumbled). The front page of the Metro section has featured a long piece best described by its subhead, "Cross-Dressers Gladly Pay to Get in Touch with Their Feminine Side." And a creationist will find no comfort in Science Times.

Not that creationists should expect to find comfort in Science Times. Newspapers have the right to decide what's important and what's not. But their editors must also expect that some readers will think: "This does not represent me or my interests. In fact, it represents my enemy." So is it any wonder that the offended or befuddled reader might consider everything else in the paper - including, say, campaign coverage - suspicious as well?

Unfortunately, Okrent doesn't answer that question, nor does he even bother to ask about the war coverage, making his admission somewhat less than comprehensive. He never mentions the Augusta Masters kerfuffle, which the New York Times tried its best (under previous managing editor Howell Raines) to create a controversy where none really existed, rather than focusing on, oh, reporting the news. Instead, Okrent focuses on the issue of gay marriage, noting that the Times' headlines on the subject could be combined with pleasant pictures and made into a life-insurance commercial. It makes the point, but it's hardly the matter in which readers have been the most poorly served.

Okrent attempts to pass this off as merely a reflection of the city in which the paper lives, but that's a cop-out. If the Times merely represented itself as a city newspaper, I'd buy that. But the Times holds itself out as "The Paper of Record", a national newspaper with national coverage and impact. If the Times truly wants to be that, then the editors need to quit relying on The Big Apple as The Big Excuse and position the paper to reflect its market. Otherwise, with Okrent's admission, it can no longer claim to be the Paper of Record, but the Paper of the Liberal Mindset, analogous to the fine but overtly slanted London Guardian, the mouthpiece of the Labourites.

Admitting one has a problem is the first step towards recovery. The Times needs to take more steps to either restore its credibility among all readers, or to act with more honesty and declare its loyalty to liberalism.

A Blognote For All You Whiskey Fans Out There

I just received a hot news flash from my partner, Whiskey -- she will be outside of the reach of the Internet most of the next month or so. When she returns to normalcy, she will make the Internet access her first priority (so she says) and will start posting again. In the meantime, you're all stuck with the Captain.

All right, all right, pipe down ... I said she's coming back.

I'm not at liberty to explain her absence in detail, but she will be traveling most of this period, and through some fabulous areas. I, on the other hand, will be ... here.