A few weeks ago, Senator George Allen, mildly exasperated with the Democratic political operative shadowing him from speech to speech, acknowledged him with a mild epithet that caused the journalistic sky to fall on him, at last proving Chicken Little right.
Result: Daily—we repeat, DAILY—scheduled and relentless attacks on Senator Allen in the Washington Post, nearly always on page A-1 for the first weeks of this classic Story That Would Not Die (STWND). In addition, the STWND spun off numerous hellspawn, including Allen's "secret" Jewish identity, "proven" racist past, "shady" financial dealings, you name it. Thus, this popular former Virginia governor and potential presidential candidate in 2008 has been wiped out of that race in advance and is in some danger of losing the seat he was once favored to win.
Comment: The problem with being a Republican today is that your religious and personal purity has to be roughly on a par with Pope Benedict's (see previous post) or you, your name, and your family will be disgraced forever for something you might have said when you were 16, or for experimenting with marijuana while inhaling at college. Folks wonder all the time why we "can't get better candidates" to run for public office. The 24/7 assault by the Post on the fundamentally decent Senator Allen, lashed on in turn by the Pot's pals on the Democratic left, offers a compelling answer to this question.
Fear: If this dirty trick succeeds, the Dems will be tempted to keep this sort of thing up with potentially disastrous results for both parties. Already, it's difficult to get any politician to say honestly what's on his or her mind, given that one slip of the tongue could be the end of the campaign. It's no wonder you can't get a straight answer out of these people anymore. This sort of thing just makes it worse, especially for Republicans who never get a break. We recall a relatively recent TV appearance by WV Senator Robert Byrd (D), who patronizingly used the "N-word" (the word that dare not say its name) on a cable talk show. The resulting flap lasted all of one day and was quickly buried, since Byrd is a Democrat, and being a Democrat is never having to say you're sorry.
Second Fear: The Post is replicating, in a small way, the undying, relentless crusade it carried out against Richard M. Nixon once they got hold of the story of a petty burglary by minor political operatives at the Watergate. (And, of course, Nixon helped them out by covering up what amounted to an amateurish incident of political spying.) Realizing that increasingly urbanized Northern Virginia (where Wonker lives) is doing the predictable and skewing Democrat, they are pitching the region's large number of fence-sitting voters and hoping to create just enough of an anti-Allen bandwagon to demoralize his supporters and break the hold the Republicans have on the rest of the state. If they succeed, they'll then start trumpeting a Democratic bandwagon for the 2008 presidential sweeps. They probably already have a series of articles on this waiting in the editorial wings.
It's not helped, indirectly, that Virginia's Republican-controlled legislature has made asses of themselves for two years running by failing to deal seriously with Northern Virginia's Santa Monica Freeway-style traffic issues.
Additionally, as a general side note, one observes with horror that—as leftist politics completely ruins states like Masachusetts and California by raising taxes and excusing high rates of crime that result the ensuing impoverishment of workers who lose jobs as companies flee elsewhere—fed up Democratic ticket punchers abandon the ruin they've caused and flee for once reliably Republican states like New Hampshire (and even Vermont) and Colorado. Once there, they begin to skew the demographic once again, endangering Republican seats once thought safe, clamoring for more services, higher taxes, and better benefits for those who don't like to work.
Like a plague, these people have been infesting Northern Virginia lately like a relentless tide. Areas like Arlington (actually once part of the District of Columbia until just after the Civil War) and Alexandria, long fully or relatively urbanized, were the first to succumb. But now Fairfax and Loudoun Counties are going down. This is an alarming trend to watch, and it could, along with the Post's assault aimed precisely at these Democrats, bring George Allen down.
Frankly, we tend to think that Allen will win, although not with a comfortable margin. The Dems, in control of the media and how it reports and distorts the news in their favor, have tended to overplay their hand recently. But the Northern Virginia Democratic menace is growing, and the state's Republicans had better get serious about countering this alarming trend. They might start by sending some of the state's revenue surplus up here to do some serious work on the transportation infrastructure. They might think this suggestion is a joke, but they're up for election and the multitudes are pissed. Ask Senator Allen what it means when the state gets swarmed by lefties and when the Post goes 24/7/365 to put their pals in power.
Post-Script: Virginia "Political Analyst" and professor (of course) Larry Sabato claimed, in absolute language on the reprehensible Chris Matthews cable-screed "Hardball (for Republicans)" that he absolutely knew Senator Allen, a University of Virginia college classmate, had used the N-word back in undergraduate days. This created quite a stir and Sabato remained tight-lipped for a time, eventually admitting, with weak defiance, that he'd never actually heard Allen use the word, but that super-reliable people had told him this was true. Since they were all Democrats, it was, therefore, true. Sabato's bogus claim had begun to grow legs, until it was proven patently dubious if not outright false. (Read here and here.)
The main problem here is that Sabato has passed himself off for years as nonpartisan, when it has long been obvious that he was anything but. (The fact that he makes a taxpayer-supported living as an academic should have been your first tip-off. The second is his political prognostication website which cites only reliably lefty newslinks.) Nonetheless, he has actually "moderated" televised political debates in the state in recent years. Now that Sabato has been exposed as a Democratic hack, maybe Republicans will stop being patsies the next time he's scheduled to moderate a political debate. It's high time to bring in someone who's nonpartisan to serve in that role. Like, maybe, Sean Hannity.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Pope vs. Islamofascists: Score One for Benedict
My first "catch-up" entry involves the Pope's recent (and ongoing) brouhaha with the Islamofascists.
In a speech, the scholarly Pope Benedict XVI cites and obscure medieval reference to a senior clergyman who notes that adherents of Islam seem to be more than usually violent when people disagree with them.
Result: Islamofascists violently demonstrate around the clock, raising a ruckus, offing a nun, and more recently beheading an Orthodox priest in Iraq. A priest who, to anyone who knows anything about Christianity, has no allegiance to the Pope whatever.
Comment: Guess this proves that Islam is a Religion of Peace and never resorts to violence. Fallout: The Vatican has "apologized" several times. But read the apology. The Vatican is "sorry" that so much violence has happened as a result of the Pope's remarks. Which has nothing to do with retracting them. Folks these days are so jaded with the antics of the academic left that they fail to perceive the palpable intellectual superiority of this particular theologian who has his argument precisely right and who planned his remarks (although not the extent of the violent extremism) well in advance. Game, set, and match to Benedict.
Fear: If Benedict persists in heading for Turkey as scheduled, he'd better take along a phananx of U.S. Army Rangers. Ask the assailant who attacked his predecessor, John Paul II. Agca has already warned him. Stay tuned.
In a speech, the scholarly Pope Benedict XVI cites and obscure medieval reference to a senior clergyman who notes that adherents of Islam seem to be more than usually violent when people disagree with them.
Result: Islamofascists violently demonstrate around the clock, raising a ruckus, offing a nun, and more recently beheading an Orthodox priest in Iraq. A priest who, to anyone who knows anything about Christianity, has no allegiance to the Pope whatever.
Comment: Guess this proves that Islam is a Religion of Peace and never resorts to violence. Fallout: The Vatican has "apologized" several times. But read the apology. The Vatican is "sorry" that so much violence has happened as a result of the Pope's remarks. Which has nothing to do with retracting them. Folks these days are so jaded with the antics of the academic left that they fail to perceive the palpable intellectual superiority of this particular theologian who has his argument precisely right and who planned his remarks (although not the extent of the violent extremism) well in advance. Game, set, and match to Benedict.
Fear: If Benedict persists in heading for Turkey as scheduled, he'd better take along a phananx of U.S. Army Rangers. Ask the assailant who attacked his predecessor, John Paul II. Agca has already warned him. Stay tuned.
To Hell in a Handbasket
Well, why not start out our first post in a longtime with this swell cliché? It sure seems to describe the compelling weirdness that has dominated the news scene since Wonker took an extended hike to take care of making $$ for awhile—always a clear and present danger for bloggers who still have to earn a living. Let us count the ways in a succession of entries, each of which will roll up to the top.
Friday, October 13, 2006
The Return of Wonker
Wonker still lives! But thanks to the intrepid Luther, HazZzMat has been bristling with plenty of brilliant commentary on the weird and wacky times in which we live. Wonk has been so buried in business activities and travel over the past 3 weeks (like all good capitalists, he believes in holding a job) that there's been scarcely time to compose brilliantly reasoned critiques on today's lefty wackos who are doing a pretty good job hammering the hapless Republicans without having to define their own positions.
During Wonk's absence, he's missed opportunities to comment on this, on the neverending attempt by the Washington Post to destroy Virginia Senator George Allen, and, perhaps most importantly and least understood, the violent (literally) attack by the Islamofascists upon some scholarly citations uttered a few weeks back by Pope Benedict XVI. (Note: Islamofascists are NOT violent, and they kill nuns to prove their point!)
Hopefully, I can catch up on some of this stuff this weekend.
Meanwhile, an immense thanks to Luther for keeping the festivities going at such a high level. Now we can get back to some tag-teaming, which will be pretty necessary for deciphering the newspeak that even now clogs the political airwaves and threatens to bring the Brainless to power in less than a month. Stay tuned.
During Wonk's absence, he's missed opportunities to comment on this, on the neverending attempt by the Washington Post to destroy Virginia Senator George Allen, and, perhaps most importantly and least understood, the violent (literally) attack by the Islamofascists upon some scholarly citations uttered a few weeks back by Pope Benedict XVI. (Note: Islamofascists are NOT violent, and they kill nuns to prove their point!)
Hopefully, I can catch up on some of this stuff this weekend.
Meanwhile, an immense thanks to Luther for keeping the festivities going at such a high level. Now we can get back to some tag-teaming, which will be pretty necessary for deciphering the newspeak that even now clogs the political airwaves and threatens to bring the Brainless to power in less than a month. Stay tuned.
Covering Naked Ambition: The "Community" Fraud on the Left
The great moral difficulty with communitarianism is that, if taken to extremes, it treats individuals as though they were little more than cells of a larger organism. Just as when doctors kill cells to prevent cancer from spreading, communitarianism readily justifies state intrusion into the private sphere in the name of some communal good...Worse yet, communitarian societies require a standard of behavior more demanding than most members of an unredeemed society are unable or unwilling to meet most of the time, and that all are unable to meet all of the time. Hence, it is hardly surprising that world history is littered with the failures of communitarian utopia. The communitarian agenda simply cannot be attained without invoking the state's monopoly on coercive force....The Communitarian Conundrum, Stephen Bainbridge, TCS Daily, 10/13/2006
It is rare that such an excellent philosophical & ideological review of the conflict between the Left and the Right appears. Bainbridge's article in TCS Daily deserves careful study. The observation on the Left and the abuse of state power for "the good" is hardly a new insight. Ask any survivor of Stalin or Hitler. But it bears repetition. Sometimes repeating the truth over and over again as, for example, that men and women are NOT the same sex, will get through to a readership.
Luther
Multiculturalism: Another Triumph in Britain
A teenage schoolgirl was arrested by police for racism after refusing to sit with a group of Asian students because some of them did not speak English. Codie Stott’s family claim she was forced to spend three-and-a-half hours in a police cell after she was reported by her teachers. According to Codie, the five – four boys and a girl – then began talking in a language she didn't understand, thought to be Urdu, so she went to speak to the teacher...“I said ‘I’m not being funny, but can I change groups because I can’t understand them?’ But [the teacher] started shouting and screaming, saying ‘It’s racist, you’re going to get done by the police’.” Codie said she went outside to calm down where another teacher found her and, after speaking to her class teacher, put her in isolation for the rest of the day...'Racist' Schoolgirl (14 Years Old) Arrested in al-Brittania, The Brussels Journal, The Voice of Conservatism in Europe
As anyone who's experienced this firsthand knows, the multicultural "ethic" primarily serves the interests of thugs, i.e., teachers and officials who are more interested in controlling populations of citizens than in doing any real justice. If you don't like what someone says in your class, accuse them of bias toward some benighted group; bring in the Feds to investigate. Get rid of the "problem" of free-speaking citizens.
The less control the authorities have with Muslims, the more control they want to exercise over non-Muslims. This strange mix of powerful censorship of public debate, yet little control over public law and order, has by some been labeled anarcho-tyranny. The reason why European authorities are becoming increasingly totalitarian in their censorship efforts is to conceal the fact that they are no longer willing or able to uphold even the most basic security of their citizenry...Fjordman, in Brussels Journal.
Indeed. Anyone who flies in the United States knows about that. A 90-year-old grandmother in a wheelchair is more likely to be strip searched than an Arab carrying a large, ticking package.
Brussels Journal is a very interesting site. I've added them to my own list and will go back often.
Luther
Double Standard Democrats: Libby/Berger
Imagine for a moment that Bush National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley or, say, Scooter Libby, had intentionally exploited his security clearance to steal top-secret documents out of the national archives. Is there any chance that would not be daily front-page fodder for the New York Times? ...Of course, as it turns out, Berger was not content merely to conceal the drafts of the after-action report. He has admitted deliberately destroying some of the documents he took. Unauthorized destruction of classified information...is yet another felony violation of federal law, carrying a potential ten-year penalty...Sandy Berger needn’t worry about ten-year penalties, though...No, Berger is home-free. Next year, when Scooter Libby starts trial on false-statement and obstruction-of-justice allegations that carry potential decades of jail time, Sandy Berger will be starting the second half of his two-year term of probation....The Culture of Obstruction, Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review Online, 10/13/2006
What McCarthy discusses in today's NRO is what drives serious people on the right into a frenzy, the rank prejudice from prosecutors and judges regarding imagined crimes by people on the right and confessed crimes by people on the left. Scooter Libby is being tried on charges related to a crime that was never committed by people who have been openly chastised and ridiculed by the very MSM that can't get enough in its stories about the horrors of the Bush Administration. Sandy Berger is a confessed felon.
Luther
Treason: Aiming Too Low?
"Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States." —18 United States Constitution
The Justice Department's announcement that it has obtained an indictment for treason against Adam Gadahn ups the ante on the legal front of the war against terror. The move is a long overdue warning for any frivolous American youths who are tempted to join the war against their country. Treason is not child's play. It's a deadly serious matter for the country, the traitor's fellow citizens, and, now, for the traitor himself...., Times of Treason, NY Sun Editorial, 10/13/2006
Let's look at that Constitutional provision again: "Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason." Pretty blunt and, as the NY Sun editorial makes clear, treason was carefully considered by the authors of the Constitution, the basis of all law in the United States. One wonders how much of this concept that leaders of the Democrat party are aware of, or the editors of The NY Times. One also wonders why the Department of Justice is aiming so low in its first effort to prosecute a traitor. It's a lot shorter walk to court from Capitol Hill than it is from California, and not much further by train from New York.
Luther
Harvard Twist? Immigrants and Black Unemployment
Immigrants have been accused of debasing our culture, overcrowding our schools and hospitals, and lowering our wages. Now a Harvard professor is blaming them for sending African-Americans to jail....The Borjas Blame Game, By Diana Furchtgott-Roth, The New York Sun, 10/13/2006
George Borjas is in an interesting position. A cynic might say that he's playing quite a few sides. He's Cuban, so that covers a diversity goal. And he takes the blame for black incarceration as an immigrant, a position remarkably similar to a white professor gaining favor (and tenure) by basking in the guilt of "skin privilege." NY Sun reporter Diana Furchtgott-Roth is impatient with that.
The major problem with Mr. Borjas's argument is that young black men began withdrawing from the labor force in the 1960s, when the share of immigrants in the labor force was less than 1%....(Blame Game, Furchtgott-Roth, continued)
This latter statistic, first noted in the early 1970s by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in his essays on the effect of welfare on black families, probably won't be reported in MSM coverage of this immigration "scandal."
Immigration is a problem but it isn't helped by people of highly skewed motivations offering even more skewed analyses.
Luther
Why Teachers All Think Alike
Columbia's Teachers College - one of our nation's most prestigious education schools - has policies that go beyond telling students what they can or can't say; it tells them even what they are required to believe...At Teachers College, students are required to have a "commitment to social justice" - a requirement so subjective and politically loaded that it can only be enforced in a way that judges students on whether they have "acceptable" political views...And just in case the "social-justice" requirement was not a sufficiently blatant political litmus test, Teachers College gets more specific: Students are also expected to recognize that "social inequalities are often produced and perpetuated through systematic discrimination and justified by societal ideology of merit, social mobility and individual responsibility."....Litmus Test: Teachers' College Political Tests, Greg Lukianoff & Robert Shibley, NY Post, 10/12/2006
If you can't convince some students to believe in lies, exclude them from college? That's where it's headed folks. Want it to stop? For alumni, it's easy: stop giving money to colleges unless you know what their faculties stand for.
Luther
Democrats Run On Hypocrisy: Par for the Course
n 1983, Massachusetts Congressman Gerry Studds was found to have had sexual relations with a 16-year-old male page (No mere cyber-stalking for the Bay State perv.) He was censured by the House, then repeatedly reelected by his ethically-challenged constituents, with the blessings of the Democratic Party...In 1989, Barney Frank admitted to shacking up with a male prostitute, who he met through a personal ad in The Washington Blade (“hot bottom plus large endowment equals good time.”) Senor Large Endowment ran a prostitution ring out of the congressman’s D.C. condo. Frank was censured, then re-elected, with Democratic support. Today, he’s one of his party’s senior statesmen....Democrats Find Their Values Issue, Don Feder, Frontpagemagazine.com
As with the Reid section in the Senate and its offkey playing about Korea, there's nothing quite so brazenly hypocritical as a Democrat running on domestic moral issues. We're used to this in New York. When the author was living in uptown Manhattan, he observed a former city official doing a work-release job, the sort of employment reserved for white collar felons. In this case, it was tax evasion. The former official? David Dinkins, a Democrat who later became Mayor of New York, whose two terms were marked by the biggest crime wave New York had seen in a hundred years...liars don't stop telling lies. They just tell bigger ones.
Luther
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Saudi Arabia-Osama and Falcons: Charles McCarry a Seer?
It was supposed to be one of those international “ho-hum” conferences, dedicated to endangered species...But in a surprise move, the government of Saudi Arabia turned it into an international confrontation, using its veto power to prevent an American conservationist group from presenting what it called “actionable information” that tied top Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders to al Qaeda...The conservationist group, the Union for the Conservation of Raptors (UCR), said it was prepared to present “new evidence” of ongoing smuggling operations that tied top Saudi and United Arab Emirates leaders to al Qaeda...The UCR said that it would present evidence of bribes paid to UN officials by UAE and Saudi officials in order to allow the smuggling of hunting falcons...The month long falconry camps are “al Qaeda’s boardroom,” Parrot said in his letter to the CITES secretariat....The Saudi-Osama Connection, Kenneth R. Timmerman, Frontpagemagazine.com, 10/12/2006
In Charles McCarry's last novel, The Old Boys, 2005, critics noted of the plot that it was a story cooked up as a merry farewell by a master spy novelist, a fanciful funfest for fancied spies. The objective of the old, retired spies pursuit just happened to be -- you guessed it -- Arab falconry camps. Let's hope the rest was made up. In McCarry's novel, the falconry camps contained atomic bombs.
Luther
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Judge Green, McDonalds, Trial Lawyers, Clinton's "Cause"
The judge has given the green light to a lawsuit against McDonald's by two teenaged girls who claim the popular fast-food chain tricked them into eating food that made them fat and sick. At first it looked as if this lawsuit was going to be pushed down the garbage disposal, but now it's back....McDonalds Didn't Make Them Fat, John Stossel, Townhall.com.
Ever wonder why Ex-President Bill is so up in arms about transfats and fat food? Could it be that, as during his eight years in office, Bill is rustling up business for the Trial Lawyers Association? It looks like one of the judges friendly to the Clintons is helping out. Birds of a feather....
Luther
FBI, Soros, Foley, Not a Pretty Picture
THE SCANDAL over Congressman Mark Foley’s sexual misconduct has generated some unexpected blowback. It has pitted George Soros’ Shadow Party against the FBI....Soros, Foley, and the FBI, Richard Poe, Frontpagemag.com, 10/11/2006
Our modern Aaron Burr just won't stop. This is something every reporter should read for background on an incredible effort by Soros's surrogate group, CREW, to undermine the FBI. A classic Left gambit is to sabotage established legal frameworks and law enforcement. Read the whole piece by Poe.
Luther
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Iran, Korean Nukes
We would do well to take the Iranian president seriously, for he is proving himself a charismatic and clever leader. As he demonstrated recently at the United Nations, Ahmadinejad is adroit at putting aside Islamist themes when convenient and joining secular dictators like Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe in their Marxist cant protesting American imperialism and economic hege mony. Like many totalitarian rulers, including Hitler and Stalin, he professes a love for mankind and world peace. In these ways, Ahmadinejad reflects the Iranian revolution's assimilation of traditional Islamic categories of faith to a Marxist lexicon of violent revolution. It is therefore more important than ever to realize that the Iranian revolution's brand of jihadism has close structural similarities to--and is historically descended from--strains of European revolutionary nihilism, including that of the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks, and the Nazis, and extending to later third world offshoots like the Khmer Rouge...Why is Ahmadinejad Smiling, Walter P. Newell, The Weekly Standard, 10/16/2006
The warnings come and nobody listens. Careless headlines draw the eye, but what does a headline know?
It is logical, and now confirmed, that Iranian agents were present at the [North Korean atomic] test site, since they both ordered and paid for the test. It is logical, though not confirmed, that the agents were the same mix that was present at the July 4 missile exercise, either Pasdaran officers or Iranian Nuclear Energy Agency ops or Iranian intelligence ops, or all of the above. It is logical, though not confirmed, that the same device that was detonated is the miniaturized warhead that Iran needs to mount atop its rebuilt Taepodong-2 missile, a version of which Tehran calls the Shahab-3. It is logical, though not confirmed, that Iran wanted the American national security apparatus to see that the two critical elements in a mutually assured destruction scenario are now in place: a launch-on-warning missile offensive and a nuclear warhead for the outgoing strike...Persian Hands, by John Batchelor, The New York Sun, 10/10/2006
Newell directs the mind's attention to the ideological background for Ahmadinejad, who is no madman but a disciple of an apocalyptic, end of history ideology. Batchellor directs the mind's attention to the means that Ahmadinejad, with his mad North Korean ally, is already using toward that apocalypse.
Is anybody listening in Washington? Paris? Bonn? Rome? Madrid? Moscow?
It is evident that someone is in Beijing.
Luther
The Reid Section Off-Key Again
(CNSNews.com) - Reacting to the announcement that North Korea successfully conducted a nuclear test, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called Monday for an investigation of the Bush administration's "failed North Korea policies."..., Reid: Investigate Bush Over North Korea Nukes, 10/9/96, Discover the Networks,
Hey, great idea, Senator Reid! Maybe, when your favorite President was engaging in what federal law describes as sexual harassment of an employee, the Justice Department should have investigated Mayor Giuliani. Or, maybe, when your favorite Vice President was bagmanning nuclear secrets to the Chinese in exchange for campaign funds in 1996 the Justice Department should have investigated the presence of UFO's in Nevada.
Expecting a Democrat on the Left to be on tune is about like expecting a five-year-old to sing the basso part in Aida.
Luther
FBI: Soros Group Withheld Evidence on Foley
A leftist group with strong ties to the Democratic Party and to radical
billionaire George Soros may have engaged in criminal obstruction of
justice in the Foley case. FBI investigators have accused the group
CREW of concealing evidence of Rep. Mark Foley’s sexual misconduct over
a period of several months...George Soros’ Open Society Institute contributed $100,000 to CREW in January 2006....Soros and Foley, Frontpagemag.com
The hypocrisy of liberal/Left organiztions boggles the mind, or should. The whole Foley affair has smelled odd since its beginning. The get-the-queer approach, used by blackmailers, extortionists and intelligence agencies for decades before gay liberation brought gay men and women out of a very dark closet indeed, is an odd tactic for a left/Liberal organization. Odd, that is, unless you pay attention to their primary objective, which is the destruction of all authority but their own....
More and more, George Soros looks like the Aaron Burr of the 21st century.
Luther
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Never-Ending War, The Left, Islamists
In this era of violent intimidation, it is crucial for the continued life of our free society that we speak out, and do so fearlessly....A Time To Speak Out, Robert Spencer, Frontpagemag.com
When the founder of the Minutemen, a nonviolent organization devoted to informing border patrol and National Guard units when and where illegal immigrants are coming across the American border, tried to speak at Columbia University last week, he was shouted at, booed, and the stage from which he spoke was overrun by friends of the Left and of Islamist terrorists among students. The Minutemen's founder smiled throughout, and finally left. He was not able to finish a speech which he had been invited to give.
It never changes. In Europe, in America, wherever someone tries to tell an inconvenient truth about either the Left or about Islamists, violent intimidation is the instant response. The irony of this in the face of the Pope's remarks on Islam and violence is not very subtle. Not to put too fine a point on it, but every time someone tries to engage Islam in a dialogue, Islamists perfectly demonstrate what they're accused of, as does the Left. Reason, dialogue, compromise and peacemaking are alien to both. Both are unremittingly opposed to a world of varied, compex human beings; both insist that only one model need apply.
Spencer's article is about the second Truth Forum conference, held this past past April in Washington, DC. But what he targets is a paradigm of the current struggle for sanity in the world. Only one side operates on a basis of reasoned dialogue. And that will remain the dominant truth until a point of view emerges on both the Left and among Islamists that the only future for their faiths, one secular and the other religious, is that they accept another face in the picture besides their own. Another big truth is that doesn't seem very likely.
Martin Buber put it simply. You cannot converse with evil but, for the sake of our self-esteem and our civilization, we have no choice but to try.
Luther
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Another Triumph for British Multi-Culturalism
A hardline Muslim teacher who caused a furore by denouncing pupils for celebrating Christmas has been made a Government schools inspector...Israr Khan’s Ofsted appointment was described by a former colleague as ‘absolutely astonishing’....Islamist School Inspector, from The London Daily Mail, cited on Frontpagemag.com
Hey, a Jewish Mayor of New York thinks it's fine and dandy for Islamist priests to indoctrinate prisoners on Rikers Island. Why should we be surprised when a British bureaucrat names an Islamist to look after the mores and curriculum of secondary schools? Lemmings are easy to identify, eh?
Luther
Meanwhile, back at Terror Ranch and the Jackass Surrender Party
Democratic majorities in the House and Senate -- including all the presidential aspirants -- voted against the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which authorized military tribunals to try terrorist suspects and established guidelines for their aggressive interrogation. Then, late last Thursday, 177 House Democrats voted to thwart the passage of the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act, which expanded electronic surveillance of terrorists on foreign soil...Civil liberties dogmatists like the ACLU applauded these obstructionist efforts, but they came to naught. Both pieces of legislation ended up passing -- though the latter act awaits approval by the Senate -- and the only political defeat was borne by the Democratic Party, which was left looking, not for the first time, like a calculating horde of anti-Bush partisans more concerned with frustrating the War on Terror for political gain than fighting it....The Democrats' War Against The War, Jacob Laksin, Frontpagemag.com, 10/5/2006
Laksin nails it. Comment is unnecessary. The Moll Flanders Party never stops trying to break America's will and America's heart.
Luther
It Won't Help, Ann. Foley's Sunk the GOP in Congress
At least liberals are finally exhibiting a moral compass about something. I am sure that they'd be equally outraged if Rep. Mark Foley were a Democrat...The object lesson of Foley's inappropriate e-mails to male pages is that when a Republican congressman is caught in a sex scandal, he immediately resigns and crawls off into a hole in abject embarrassment. Democrats get snippy....Who Knew Foley was a Closeted Democrat, Ann Coulter, Townhall.com, 10/5/2006
In the general state of hypocrisy in Washington, it doesn't matter that Democrats have always gotten off Scot-free in sexual scandals. The last President of the United States to wear the Democrat's jackass as a party label was an accused rapist, a known sexual harasser while serving as President, and a two-timing husband who used the Air Force to distract Congress and the media from impeachment hearings. Nothing happened to him. Representative Drinnon's pecadillos yielded nothing. Trouble is, Ann, that Foley was a secular politician passing himself off as a priest. Nobody was ever fooled by Bill Clinton or by Representative Drinnon. All Clinton did was act like a pig and lie, activities he'd been carrying on for decades. All Drinnon did was act on his impulses. Foley, however, is a special monster for Americans, a moralist who's immoral, a Joan of Arc who turned out to be a slut. He's also going to destroy the GOP's chances to keep the House and probably the Senate. In Roman times, nobody would have much minded if he had been cut to pieces and left for dog food in the Forum.
It's clear to anyone on the right that the present GOP's leadership is not representative of anything we stand for. It's time for a change. If we lose both Houses for a couple of years, it would rid of us of a lot of bad apples, Republicans passing for liberals and libertines passing for moralistes. Then maybe Newt or Rudy can lead a revivified GOP, i.e., one devoted to republican ideals, back to power.
Luther
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Former Spook On Bad Guys' Friends In High Places
Montaperto apparently applied for an analyst position at the CIA. His pre-employment polygraph reportedly raised serious questions about his conduct, and suggested that he may have posed an esiponage threat. The CIA decided not to hire Montaperto and passed their concerns to DIA, which failed to follow up. Montaperto remained on the government payroll for another 13 years; there's no telling what he might have passed to Beijing in the years that followed. According to Scarborough and Gertz, prosecutors are convinced that he passed sensitive reports on Saudi and Iranian missile deals to Beijing. His information may have also allowed the Chinese to plug leaks that prevent us from tracking key Chinese arms deals...And for all this, Montaperto will spend three months in jail. Moreover, according to the Times, a number of current/former government employees wrote letters of support for Montaperto. There is something very distressing about the sentence Montaperto received, and his continued support in certain federal circles....Unfinished Business, Spook86, Formerspook.blogspot.com
We shouldn't be surprised, and I suspect Spook86 isn't either. Denmark isn't the problem nowadays; something's rotten in the District of Columbia and environs. Some of the political ops we used to run in the East might be better suited nowadays to Washington and its satellites. What he has to say about the National Intelligence Estimate cherrypicking is illuminating too.
In one of its early paragraphs, the estimate notes progress in the struggle against terrorism, stating the U.S.-led efforts have "seriously damaged Al Qaida leadership and disrupted its operations." Didn't see that in the NYT article...Or how about this statement, which--in part--reflects the impact of increased pressure on the terrorists: "A large body of reporting indicates that people identifying themselves as jihadists is increasing...however, they are largely decentralized, lack a coherent strategy and are becoming more diffuse." Hmm...doesn't sound much like Al Qaida's pre-9-11 game plan...The report also notes the importance of the War in Iraq as a make or break point for the terrorists: "Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves to have failed, we judge that fewer will carry on the fight." It's called a ripple effect...More support for the defeating the enemy on his home turf: "Threats to the U.S. are intrinsically linked to U.S. success or failure in Iraq." President Bush and senior administration officials have made this argument many times--and it's been consistently dismissed by the "experts" at the WaPo and Times. (More Of What You Won't Read In The New York Times, Spook86 -- italics the author's)
You might link to Spook86's site daily. He's onto something and he's got the background to follow up.
Luther
A Democrat's Qualifications?
Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s possible pick of Alcee Hastings (D-FL) to become Chair of the House Select Committee on Intelligence if Democrats win control of the House in the November 7 elections is a sure sign of Democrats’ true attitude toward the War on Terror. Pelosi is apparently planning to hand leadership and even more dangerous--access to America’s most sensitive secrets--to a man who has shown that he is a criminal who can be bought...The best evidence for that conclusion comes from Hastings’ articles of impeachment. Alcee Hastings is one of only 13 Federal Judges to be impeached in the entire history of the United States. In 1988 Nancy Pelosi joined in supporting the 413-3 impeachment vote by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives. Hastings was convicted in a Senate trial the next year —finally forcing him from the bench....Hastings: American Secrets For Sale?, Andrew Walden, Frontpagemag.com, 9/27/2006
Apparently, betraying clients or your country are standard qualifications for the "leadership" planned for us by the Democrats should voters be so stupid as to put them back in power in Congress in November.
Wise up, America.
Luther
Sabato's Secondhand "Eyewitness" Slander
On Tuesday, political analyst Larry J. Sabato said he didn’t personally hear Allen use the epithet when they were classmates at Virginia. In a television interview a day earlier he had said he knew Allen had used the word....Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press: “I didn’t personally hear GFA (Allen’s initials) say the n-word. My conclusion is based on the very credible testimony I have heard for weeks, mainly from people I personally know and knew in the ’70s.”...Va. Racial Politics Still Brewing, Bob Lewis, AP, 9/27/2006
As of yet, MSM has yet to pick up on the credible accusations (and associated lawsuit by women affected) against Jim Webb, Democrat, that he encouraged an atmosphere extraordinarily hostile to midshipwomen at Annapolis when he headed the institution. Instead, he and his organization have put this fantastic story in play, where a political "analyst" (one may fairly read Jim Webb supporter) has made wholly unfounded accusations against Jim Webb's opponent in 2006, Senator George Allen, Rep., of Virginia, claiming at first to have seen and heard the Senator make nasty racial remarks and do nasty racial deeds when he was at university. Oh, wait, he didn't actually see and heard those things. He heard tales about them from reliable friends (it's fair to read people who agreed with him politically).
In New York, we have the spectre of HillBill Clinton, the Liars Duet, haunting the electorate. In Virginia, it looks like HillBill's friend Jim is playing the same phantoms game. If at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again.
Luther
Liars Duet: The Clintons On Stage Again
Responding to the HillBill Clintons and their charge that the Bush Administration hadn't done anything, and the carpetbagging Senator's charge that the 9/11 Commission report showed that her husband had a lot to do, the editors of The New York Post, the NYC heartland's newspaper, and what every NYC firefighter reads, had the following to say:
I'm guessing that was Bill's only flaccid response in eight years in office.
Liars never stop lying. You only have to ask Argentinians who survived decades of the fascist Perons and their heirs among the Argentine military. The lies are bigger than a stain on a dress; they flood everyone who listens. As anyone who's had a toilet overflow knows, such floods require more than deodorant and looking the other way. Secretary of State Rice looks up to the task, as does the President, as does the editorial board of The NY Post.
Luther
As the 9/11 Commission report details: Despite irrefutable evidence of the threat from Islamic terrorists, "there was no National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism [undertaken] between 1995 and 9/11. There was no comprehensive review of what the intelligence community knew [about al Qaeda] and what it did not know and what that meant."...Indeed, the report concludes, Clinton's flaccid response may have led bin Laden to make the "inference that such attacks, at least on the level of the Cole, were risk-free."...In contrast, Bush - almost immediately upon taking office - "began developing a new strategy with the stated goal of eliminating the al Qaeda threat [to America] within three to five years."...Hillary's Hasty Rejoinder, The Editors, The NY Post, 9/27/2006
I'm guessing that was Bill's only flaccid response in eight years in office.
Liars never stop lying. You only have to ask Argentinians who survived decades of the fascist Perons and their heirs among the Argentine military. The lies are bigger than a stain on a dress; they flood everyone who listens. As anyone who's had a toilet overflow knows, such floods require more than deodorant and looking the other way. Secretary of State Rice looks up to the task, as does the President, as does the editorial board of The NY Post.
Luther
NY's Bloomberg: Democrat in Republican Suit
Thousands of city eateries may have to revise their recipes for French fries, doughnuts, cookies, and other baked goods under a proposal by the Bloomberg administration to ban the use of trans fats in all restaurants across the five boroughs....City Wants to Ban Some Fatty Foods In Restaurants, Russell Berman, The NY Sun, 9/27/2006
Sanctimonious buffoons dominate the airwaves, Leftist politics, and New York City. The suit that the Marx brothers used to put on a pompous, WASP hotel manager in their comedies has become the standard cut for liberal politicians and their cohorts, such as Bill Gates, among businesspeople. Mayor Bloomberg, the billionaire who flies his own helicopter to work on occasion, is a perfect example. His disdain for working people, revealed by a housing policy that favors the development of million dollar condos but not affordable rental apartments, suggests that he thinks a typical income is in the high six figures. His various public morals campaigns against cigarette smoking have sponsored the highest level of bootlegging (and associated crime) since the 1920s, not to mention cigarette prices almost double what they are in adjacent states. He publicly admits to disobeying federal law on illegal immigration, saying not quite the truth when declaring that enforcement would wreck NYC's economy. What's actually true is that people at his level would have to pay competitive wages to Americans for such services as nanny, gardener, chef, driver, nurse, etc. It's clear that Mayor Bloomberg's friends would rather fly helicopters than pay service people competitive wages, or pick up the employer tab for Social Security. His campaign to bar all citizens from 2nd amendment rights is well-known. His latest moral progress to bar what his class of people consider unhealthy food is just another slice of Waiting for Lefty Pie, a confection cooked by an arrogant chef. This is not a Republican's entree, except in New York. It's not surprising, coming from Bloomberg, who was a big money man in Democrat/liberal politics for years before he discovered the Republican light (i.e., he would be electable). Given a lot of money and considerable power, he's showing his roots, with a signature and vastly expressed sense of superiority, seemingly unable to understand why everybody isn't just like him. This kind of sanctimonious jerk is the paradigm of Left/liberal politics, the perfect personality for a politics that prefers controlled populations over free citizens. Why anybody would consider this person, or anyone like him, as a Republican candidate for President in 2008 is beyond me. Condi Rice would clean his clock in a primary or a general election. So would John McCain, if he would just let go of his fondness for George Soros's money.
Luther
Shocking Fact: Aggressors Fight
The summary did not reach a sweeping conclusion about the impact of the anti-Saddam invasion...Instead it said Iraq was "shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives."...The increased role of Iraqis in running al Qaeda in Iraq might lead foreign veterans of the insurgency to focus on targets abroad, it said...But if the terrorists "leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight," the report concluded...The document, prepared in April, is out of date in one dire warning...
It said if Abu Musab al-Zarqawi continued to evade capture, the terrorist chief "could broaden his popular appeal and present a global threat."...But Zarqawi was killed when his safe house was blown up by U.S. jets in June....Secret Intel: Iraq War Not Only Reason For Surge In Terrorism, Niles Lathem, The NY Post, 9/27/2006
If the terrorists perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired. Okay, basic question: does this suggest that the Iraq war is the cause of terrorism? Did the Japanese fighting back when we retaliated for their 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor suggest that if only Americans had not counter-attacked all would have been well? The sophistry of the blank-faced idiots in MSM never ceases to amaze me. Of course, the terrorists are fighting like mad in Iraq. That's why our troops are there, to draw them in. The President and his administration associates have been saying this for three years. I hope someone else besides a NY Post reporter covers this story, but don't count on hearing it out of Katie Couric's well-paid mouth.
Luther
President Adopts Attacker's Own Strategy
President Bush on Tuesday said it is naive and a mistake to think that the war with Iraq has worsened terrorism, disputing a national intelligence assessment by his own administration. He said he was declassifying part of the report..."Some people have guessed what's in the report and concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake. I strongly disagree," Mr. Bush said...He asserted that portions of the classified report that had been leaked were done so for political purposes, referring to the Nov. 7 midterm elections...Mr. Bush announced that he was ordering parts of the report declassified during a White House news conference with President Karzai....Bush to Declassify Part of NIE, Barry Schweid, The NY Sun, 9/26/06
If the enemy uses quotes against you, provide your own, including your enemy's source. I'm not sure that's in The Art of War but it's possible that the President is adding a chapter of his own. Kudos to the White House! We sometimes go for long stretches in this administration where every liar, con artist, and thug is allowed to go on unrestricted by argument, where it seems that they have more rights than their target. This suggests that the President doesn't feel that way today. It's good to see Rudolf Giuliani's thesis of law enforcement applied by the Oval Office.
Luther
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Making Hillary Disappear?
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday accused Bill Clinton of making "flatly false" claims that the Bush administration didn't lift a finger to stop terrorism before the 9/11 attacks..."The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false - and I think the 9/11 commission understood that"....Rice Boils Over At Bubba, Ian Bishop, NY Post, 9/26/06
I'd hate to be Senator Hillary Clinton if Secretary of State Condi Rice were running against her in New York. The Secretary of State is not shy and retiring, unlike most of the "opponents" dished up for Hillary to gobble up by the chefs of the New York State GOP. I can imagine a lady-like shootout at a debate between these two. Both are very bright. The Senator's a tough character -- who wouldn't be after twenty-five years of husband Bill, not to mention six years of New York? -- but the Secretary of State looks a lot more like Harry Truman than Senator Clinton does. She also believes in defending the country from its enemies. As long as the wind is the right direction, so does the Senator, but that wind can change, in case nobody's noticed what's happened to other Democrat "leaders." The Secretary of State is more likely to increase the pressure on Islamic terrorists than negotiate for a meaningless peace. I can't say the same of Senator Clinton, especially with her friends in Hezbollah and Hamas. All of this might bode well for the United States in 2008 if the Secretary of State weren't so fond of football.
Luther
Those Spend-Crazy Republicans May Change
Republicans continued to blame the Clinton administration for the breakdown in budgetary discipline, but with Bush in the White House there are no more excuses left. With the GOP in control of the executive and legislative branches, government growth has only gotten worse...Slivinski detects patterns that might suggest potential cures for the Republican majority's Potomac fever. Reagan's popularity was partly a reaction to the spending habits of Nixon-Ford Republicans while Gingrich's rise was fueled by George H.W. Bush's 1990 tax increase. The current wave of big-government conservatism may spark the next budget-slashing insurgency....What Is The Cost Of Compassion, W. James Antle, III, TCSDaily.com
Americans don't like hypocrites. We make television entertainment out of them. Trouble is that the opposition is a known quantity in Washington's urge to grow and spend. We know that Democrats desperately want power back so they can increase the number of agencies, the amount of money spent, and level of control exercised over citizens. There are a good many House Republicans, and not a few in the Senate, who are sick and tired of their colleagues on their side of the aisle trying pass for Liberal. There may be many surprises ahead on this score. W. James Antle, III, a senior writer for The American Conservative has a thoughtful piece here and you should look at the whole thing.
Luther
Intelligence Betrayal Turning a Professional's Stomach
I`ve been a member of the Intelligence Community (IC) for just under 30 years. I too noticed the fact that individuals from the IC put their personal political views before the oath they took when the were hired....From 1993 through 2001, there were issues I was aware of that might have been embarrassing had they come to light. I did not feel compelled to find a reporter...Were I D/CIA General Hayden, I`d take a page from the Left`s book and conduct a rather exhaustive purge....Comment from the intelligence community, letter to David Horowitz, Frontpagemag.com
Perhaps national intelligence officers with a leftist bent (many, according to this letter at Frontpagemag.com) have been reading too many John Le Carre novels. You know the basic plot: bored, tragically-minded, sensitive, and spiritually weak intelligence agent falls in love and, to save his sense of himself, betrays his country. At least in Le Carre novels it's about loving another person, although it's fair to point out that standard NKVD practice was the "honey-trap", something not lost on a great novelist like Charles McCarry. In the case of the new national intelligence report and its reporters, however, it looks more like adoration of mirror images. This is the most likely picture today: a not-so-youngish, if fairly good looking, agent, stands nude before a mirror with a copy of The New York Times covering the part he or she is most ashamed of, the face.
Luther
Friday, September 22, 2006
Red Guards With An Academic Face? The Persecution of Mike Adams
Mike first made national headlines not long after 9/11, when he landed himself in some very hot water for daring to respond to a student’s e-mailed criticism of U.S. foreign policy...he forwarded it with a note that is worth reproducing in full:
"I will certainly forward this to others and I hope they will respond. My response will be brief as your “statement” is undeserving of serious consideration. Your claimed interest in promoting rational discussion is dishonest. It is an intentionally divisive diatribe. The Constitution protects your speech just as it has protected bigoted, unintelligent, and immature speech for many years. But, remember, when you exercise your rights you open yourself up to criticism that is protected by the same principles. I sincerely hope that your bad speech serves as a catalyst for better speech by others."
The student...threatened to sue. UNCW, Adams's university, launched a chilling investigation of Mike, including prying into his e-mails. In the wake of that imbroglio, Jonathan Garthwaite, the editor of Townhall.com, offered Mike a regular column on his very well-read site..He writes weekly or more, detailing the incredible political correctness emanating from his campus and others...His columns are funny, biting, and (not surprisingly) a big hit on Townhall...they are not such a hit among his colleagues. UNCW denied Mike a promotion to full professor last week, without explanation.Mike Adams, Campus Heretic, Charles Mitchell, Frontpagemag.com, 9/22/2006
If you read Mike Adams regularly on Townhall.com, you know he's feisty, is unashamed to be both a Christian and a demanding scholar, and that he doesn't hesitate to share his views. This is anathema to good, sophisticated Leftists, who tend to hide their true opinions behind elaborate rationales. This kind of Red Guard, unlike his or her counterpart in China 30-40 years ago, doesn't use bats, guns, and gangs to enforce its political views; instead, it uses shunning and denial of promotion. It is sometimes easier to recover from a physical assault than from either. Mike Adams, keep fightin'.
Luther
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Hope for Ahmadinejad?
Human embryonic stem cells can partly restore vision in blinded rats, and may offer a source of transplants for people with certain eye diseases, researchers at a U.S. company reported on Thursday....Human stem cells help blinded rates, Maggie Fox, Reuters, 9/20/2006
Great news. If we could get a few rats to see where they're going, maybe we'd have a lot fewer of them at the UN.
Luther
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
PR, TV, War and Tyrants
It's a horror to imagine what would have happened had Hitler had the UN, modern PR, and TV reporting to assist him in the 1940s.
Chavez's remarks were greeted, as were the rants and ravings of the President of Iran, with thunderous applause. Imagine an alternative history where friends of Hitler came to a huge public forum, with a potential TV audience of hundreds of millions, to declare that the Allies were unfair to attack Hitler. Of the Holocaust, such a friend, such as the Prime Minister of Bosnia (then an ally of Germany), might say that Uncle Adolf was only cleaning house, pretty much what the President of Iran feels about nuking Israel. In the interests of objectivity, few MSM reporters noted these things.
As with conspiracy theories, the lies of politicians (and their ambitions) are spread like a prairie fire fanned by the hot winds of an unquestioning press whose reporters seem to be more concerned with their hairdos, their poltitical correctness, and their clubability with the Left than with telling the truth.
Luther
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the U.N. in its current system "doesn't work" and is "antidemocratic." Chavez called for reform, saying the U.S. government's "immoral veto" had allowed recent Israeli bombings of Lebanon to continue unabated for more than a month...At UN, Chavez Calls Bush 'The Devil', Breitart.com
Chavez's remarks were greeted, as were the rants and ravings of the President of Iran, with thunderous applause. Imagine an alternative history where friends of Hitler came to a huge public forum, with a potential TV audience of hundreds of millions, to declare that the Allies were unfair to attack Hitler. Of the Holocaust, such a friend, such as the Prime Minister of Bosnia (then an ally of Germany), might say that Uncle Adolf was only cleaning house, pretty much what the President of Iran feels about nuking Israel. In the interests of objectivity, few MSM reporters noted these things.
As with conspiracy theories, the lies of politicians (and their ambitions) are spread like a prairie fire fanned by the hot winds of an unquestioning press whose reporters seem to be more concerned with their hairdos, their poltitical correctness, and their clubability with the Left than with telling the truth.
Luther
Intelligence in Short Supply?
The FBI, the CIA and other intelligence agencies continue to struggle to plant agents in, or recruit them from, deadly Islamist terror organizations here and abroad.
The FBI, for example, did not have under way a single active investigation this past spring of al Qaeda or any Islamist group anywhere in the United States...Enemies, by Bill Gertz, , Washington Times, 9/20/2006, an except from Enemies, How America's Foes Steal Our Secrets -- And How We Let It Happen
It's no wonder Charles McCarry's latest book, Old Boys, depicts the retired generation as the heroes, and the new generation in American intelligence as more interested in protecting their asses than winning the intelligence war. He must have taken his lede from stories like Bill Gertz's, a depressing excerpt from the investigative reporter's new book.
The FBI and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community was woefully unprepared after September 11 to track down terrorists by penetrating the dark world of al Qaeda.
The nation had extremely limited capabilities in human intelligence-gathering -- the real stuff of spying. These shortcomings remain five years later...(Gertz, continued)
Satellites and drones are amazingly proficient technologies, but you can't substitute for an agent inside. Of course, that might muss somebody's hair, and someone might have to learn another language.
Luther
Socialists in Europe: 5th Columnists for Islamists
Nothing changes. Socialists then and now seem to love allying themselves with tyrants and terrorists.
Much the same kind of thinking prevails among Leftists in the United States. Seeing a tyrant (of the variety they would like Hillary Clinton to be) overthrown in Iraq, they came out against the war. They didn't say that of course. They said instead that the United States and Britain and our other allies were engaged in evil practices, a few dozen sexual insults at a prison, a few people shot. They neglected to recall that their favorite Socialist Tyrant, which Saddam was, managed to kill half a million Iraqis, not to mention several million others in various wars. But of course they were Iraqis and foreigners who hadn't seen the Socialist light.
Luther
Moratinos (of Spain) and Donner (of Belgium) are part of a large group of leftist politicians who—it could be argued—have joined forces with the enemies of the West. British MP George Galloway is the most well-known of those cheering for the other side. To Saddam Hussein he once said, “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.” He has accused Prime Minister Tony Blair of “waging a war on Muslims…at home and abroad.” Such rhetoric is a blessing to radical Islamists who seek to divide the West. American al-Qaeda operative Adam Gadahn said in his latest message: "Escape from the unbelieving army and join the winning side. As for those who have expressed their respect and admiration for Islam, and acknowledged that it is the truth and demonstrated the support and sympathy for the Muslims and their causes like George Galloway, Robert Fisk, and countless others, I say to them, isn’t it time you stopped sitting on the fence and came over to the side of truth?"
The support and sympathy Gadahn seeks are not lacking. In June 2003, historian Lin Silje Nilsen defended a proposal to establish a Shari’a court in Norway....Allah's Socialists,Aaron Hanscom, Frontpagemag.com, 9/20/2006
Much the same kind of thinking prevails among Leftists in the United States. Seeing a tyrant (of the variety they would like Hillary Clinton to be) overthrown in Iraq, they came out against the war. They didn't say that of course. They said instead that the United States and Britain and our other allies were engaged in evil practices, a few dozen sexual insults at a prison, a few people shot. They neglected to recall that their favorite Socialist Tyrant, which Saddam was, managed to kill half a million Iraqis, not to mention several million others in various wars. But of course they were Iraqis and foreigners who hadn't seen the Socialist light.
Luther
WTC Paranoid Theory: Barnum Was Right
Is there a sucker born every minute? With TV, it might be faster.
Feser goes on to spell out the truly fantastic convolutions required for 9/11 theories to approach the truth. And it's not unique to that story. A Pope is misquoted in a lecture to a university and a million Muslims start screaming about a Catholic Hitler. A document describing a wacky theory about Jews, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is written by the Czar's Secret Police in the 1890s, is published by their press, and by the start of the 21st century, half the world starts blaming the Jews for trying to rule the world. Like the Czarist Cheka, though, Feser has a pretty good idea why these hallucinatory, transparently false, and, in his words, "mind-numbingly stupid" stories are seized upon by the press, by gang leaders, by religious fanatics, by Art Bell listeners, as the secret truth. It's not surprising. Why?
The world's an intricately complicated, mysterious place, even with the advent of mass media (perhaps even more so because of MSM). A lot of us, maybe most of us, would like to believe that all of the amazing complexity of even a single event is explicable by a simple answer. Human beings are astoundingly smart, but on this, we are depressingly, mind-numbingly stupid; and politicians and terrorists exploit this relentlessly.
Wise up!
Luther
Conspiracy theorists allege that the events of 9/11 are not adequately explained by the "official story" fingering Osama bin Laden and his network as the culprits. What really needs explaining, though, is not 9/11, but the existence of such conspiracy theorists themselves, whose by now well-known speculations about what "really happened" that day are - not to put too fine a point on it - so mind-numbingly stupid that it is mystifying how anyone with a functioning cerebrum could take them seriously even for a moment..."We The Sheeple? Why Conspiracy Theories Persist", Edward Feser, TCSDaily.com, 9/10/06
Feser goes on to spell out the truly fantastic convolutions required for 9/11 theories to approach the truth. And it's not unique to that story. A Pope is misquoted in a lecture to a university and a million Muslims start screaming about a Catholic Hitler. A document describing a wacky theory about Jews, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is written by the Czar's Secret Police in the 1890s, is published by their press, and by the start of the 21st century, half the world starts blaming the Jews for trying to rule the world. Like the Czarist Cheka, though, Feser has a pretty good idea why these hallucinatory, transparently false, and, in his words, "mind-numbingly stupid" stories are seized upon by the press, by gang leaders, by religious fanatics, by Art Bell listeners, as the secret truth. It's not surprising. Why?
The world's an intricately complicated, mysterious place, even with the advent of mass media (perhaps even more so because of MSM). A lot of us, maybe most of us, would like to believe that all of the amazing complexity of even a single event is explicable by a simple answer. Human beings are astoundingly smart, but on this, we are depressingly, mind-numbingly stupid; and politicians and terrorists exploit this relentlessly.
Wise up!
Luther
Thursday, September 14, 2006
One of Bill Clinton's Proteges?
[Jim] Webb’s bad week just got worse and it is only Wednesday...Five female graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy have come forward to accuse Jim Webb of creating a pervasive air of sexual discrimination at Annapolis in the early 1980s...Not really surprising since Jim Webb did write that admitting women to Annapolis would turn the dorm into “a horny woman’s dream” and he referred to the Tailhook sexual harassment scandal as a “witch hunt.”....Female Annapolis Alums Blast Web,The A-Team, by Riley not Reilly
Jim Webb is the Democrat candidate for the US Senate from Virginia. It's good to know that hypocrisy isn't a problem only in New York and California! Sadly, Senator George Allen, with his 'macaca' moments, has made a race out of what should have been an easy victory.
Luther
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Colonel Fries Clinton, Berger
But retired Air Force Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson says his former boss had several chances to nab terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. 'In fact, Clinton did sign the presidential finding saying that we needed to either kidnap him or kill him," Patterson recalls. 'But just signing a piece of paper didn't result in any kind of action, because every time it came down to it and we had a chance to get bin Laden dead or alive, President Clinton chose not to.'...Former Clinton Aide Critical of Attempts to Shut Down ABC 9/11 Special, Chad Groening, Agape Press
Maybe Hamburger Bill was just doing PR for ABC.
Luther
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Light Blogging for a Bit
Since Wonker still has to work for a living, blogging will be light for a day or two more. But I plan to return as soon as possible to aggregate some interesting info that's appeared in the blogosphere that tries to consolidate various thoughts on the Post 9/11 era as it continues to unfold. Most pertinent are commentaries on how frivolous and childish the contemporary left has become and how it is weakening us badly against a relentless and determined foe.
Stay tuned.
Stay tuned.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Hardball: Chris Matthews Whiffs on Plame-gate
I just discovered a site called NewsBusters which seems to be in business to expose leftist bias in the MSM. Good gig. These days, it's full time employment. NewsBusters has an interesting bit today on TV's most obnoxious gasbag, MSNBC's Chris Matthews.
Matthews has been fulminating for what seems like years about the perfidious Bushies and their vicious outing of the not-so-secret Valerie Plame, who in turn has been promoted 24/7 by blabbermouth hubby Joe "Face Time" Wilson—when he's not busy trashing the Bushies, anyhow. In the past, Wilson was a frequent feature on Matthews' inaptly-named "Hardball," providing lively (and false) information as he fed Matthews' (and others') feverish interest in flogging the fake-but-accurate Plame-gate scandal. Who knows? Maybe Matthews, a former Tip O'Neill flack, thought he could help the Dems by piling on and destroying another Republican presidency, a la The Trickster.
But now, the fun is over. Plame-gate has been exposed as nothing more than a crock of crappola, a scandal based on precisely the same kind of manufactured "facts" that got Mary Mapes and Dan Rather canned.
So, is Hardball's pit-bull interested in pursuing the "rest of the story" as feverishly as he fed the media frenzy that was built on lies? Matthew Shepherd of NewsBusters had a chance to ask Chris just that. Here's what he got:
But when it's exposed as essentially a pack of lies, all interest dies and the MSM moves on.
Remember: Being a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry.
Matthews has been fulminating for what seems like years about the perfidious Bushies and their vicious outing of the not-so-secret Valerie Plame, who in turn has been promoted 24/7 by blabbermouth hubby Joe "Face Time" Wilson—when he's not busy trashing the Bushies, anyhow. In the past, Wilson was a frequent feature on Matthews' inaptly-named "Hardball," providing lively (and false) information as he fed Matthews' (and others') feverish interest in flogging the fake-but-accurate Plame-gate scandal. Who knows? Maybe Matthews, a former Tip O'Neill flack, thought he could help the Dems by piling on and destroying another Republican presidency, a la The Trickster.
But now, the fun is over. Plame-gate has been exposed as nothing more than a crock of crappola, a scandal based on precisely the same kind of manufactured "facts" that got Mary Mapes and Dan Rather canned.
So, is Hardball's pit-bull interested in pursuing the "rest of the story" as feverishly as he fed the media frenzy that was built on lies? Matthew Shepherd of NewsBusters had a chance to ask Chris just that. Here's what he got:
Q: So I've noticed you haven't done anything on the whole Valerie Plame story since the Armitage story broke. Why not invite Joe Wilson on the show to defend himself?When it feeds BSD (Bush Derangement Syndrome), any story is HOT HOT HOT.
A: Because he'd say basically the same thing he always says. 'My wife had no involvement in getting me the mission.' He'd just repeat it over and over.
Q: Maybe, but isn't it at least worth showing your viewers that this guy has no credibility considering how much you talked about the story before? Shouldn't he be held accountable for wasting all our time? Why not invite one of his representatives or defenders on the show?
A: Well, the story's just gotten so complicated. I mean, it's just such a mess. Because what if it's true that Armitage was the source, but those other guys [presumably Rove and Scooter Libby], also were leakers, what then?
Q: Isn't that a question worth exploring on your show?
A: It could be but the problem is that Dick Cheney has so many apologists it's ridiculous. So many journalists like Bob Woodward will say or do anything just to get access to him. And then all the people in the administration too.
Q: I don't see why this is stopping you from mentioning the story at all. The viewers at least need some sort of closure don't they?
A: Hey listen I need to get out of here. I have to get back home.
After that remark, Matthews left the conversation. He stuck around for about 15 minutes before leaving.
But when it's exposed as essentially a pack of lies, all interest dies and the MSM moves on.
Remember: Being a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry.
Scott Ott on Dems and ABC
If you don't know about Scott Ott's Scrappleface.com, you might want to try him. For years he's hammered the weird Left with satires. Click here to read Scott Ott's latest on the Reid/Schumer Gang and ABC.
Luther
Luther
Democrat Senators Show Their Courage re 9/11
Who in the press will stick up for ABC's right to air this miniseries without having its broadcast license threatened?...National Review,"Senate Dems Threaten Disney's Broadcast License," Stephen Spruiell Reporting, 9/8/2006, National Review Online
What's he talking about? Showing perhaps a preview of their plans for foreign policy, Democrat Senators Schumer, Durbin, Reid, and Dorgan sent a message to ABC with a thinly veiled threat.
"We write with serious concerns about the planned upcoming broadcast of The Path to 9/11 mini-series on September 10 and 11. Countless reports from experts on 9/11 who have viewed the program indicate numerous and serious inaccuracies that will undoubtedly serve to misinform the American people about the tragic events surrounding the terrible attacks of that day. Furthermore, the manner in which this program has been developed, funded, and advertised suggests a partisan bent unbecoming of a major company like Disney and a major and well respected news organization like ABC. We therefore urge you to cancel this broadcast to cease Disney’s plans to use it as a teaching tool in schools across America through Scholastic. Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation....The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest....("Senators Threaten..., continued)
So, heroic Senators Reid, Durbin, Schumer, and Dorgan have a new foreign policy: censor anyone who disagrees with their version of the truth. We've had experience with people like this in the past, such as George the Third, not to mention Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, the usual lot. There's a marvelously classic use of the word "free" in the Democrat Senators's broadcast.
"We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program..."(Senators Threaten..., continued)
To Lefties, of course "free" has only to do with money. Freedom is an alien concept to the Left, as it presupposes the autonomy of citizens.
There's no reason to discuss the cowardice of ABC in already caving in to the fatuous lies of Bill Clinton about this program; that's the norm in network television. But this kind of threat, if ABC folds, tells us all we need to know about the Democrat Party's notion of national security: better not to know an inconvenient truth.
Luther
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Scholastic Publishers' Cowardly Cave to Clintonistas
ABC's upcoming documentary film on 9/11 is generating a ton of "controversy" because it doesn't assign the entire blame for that day's terrorist attacks entirely to Chimpy BushMcHitler. In fact, the Clintonistas, who largely ignored the growing Islamofascist threat throughout the 1990s, have been leading the charge. Apparently, it's okay to whale on Bush, but to dump on the Clintonistas for their not inconsiderable sins of omission, not to mention their evisceration of the military throughout the previous decade.
The Scholastic publishing enterprise has just decided to cave to the Clintonistas' propagandists, according to a report viewed on the Web today:
Meanwhile, the heroes at Scholastic have apparently pulled an all-nighter to create new "study guides" geared toward completely ignoring the serious implications that, by all indications, will be aired in this broadcast.
If Dick had substituted the term "high standards" in his statement above with the phrase "always pro-Democrat, pro-left standards," his statement might have been a bit more honest. Can we seriously imagine that any mainstream publisher of educational material, already beholden to the lefty, all-Democrat teachers' unions, would have been equally industrious in censoring anti-Bush material at the administration's request?
But wait, Dick has more:
Covering their collective tush further,
This incident also highlights the relentlessness of the left in its continuing effort to weaken American culture by destroying any attempt by educators, artists, writers, or filmmakers to articulate objective truth over anti-American, leftist propaganda. It will be interesting to see if ABC caves over the next 24 hours and re-edits the program—to be aired Friday—to exonerate the very individuals who, by their political cowardice, opened the way for 9/11 to occur.
Can you imagine the MSM howling if the Bushies ever tried anything like this?
BTW, note the source of this largely approving report: CNN. Or, as Rush Limbaugh would have it, the "Clinton News Network." Indeed.
UPDATE: ABC has apparently edited out at least a portion of its 9/11 film under pressure from the Clintonistas:
Say, what ever happened to First Amendment Rights? Guess some animals really are more equal than others.
The Scholastic publishing enterprise has just decided to cave to the Clintonistas' propagandists, according to a report viewed on the Web today:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Children's publishing company Scholastic said that it is removing materials from its Web site originally created for use in conjunction with ABC's "The Path to 9/11" amid growing controversy over the docudrama.A thorough review, eh? Who reviewed it? Let's find out:
The company said it will create a new classroom discussion guide for high school students that focuses more specifically on media literacy, critical thinking, and historical background.
Scholastic is removing materials from its site that were created for classroom use in conjunction with ABC's docudrama, "The Path to 9/11."
"After a thorough review of the original guide that we offered online to about 25,000 high school teachers, we determined that the materials did not meet our high standards for dealing with controversial issues," Dick Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO of Scholastic said in a statement.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Clinton Foundation head Bruce Lindsey and Clinton adviser Douglas Band all wrote in the past week to Robert Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Co. (Charts), to express concern over "The Path to 9/11."Ah, let's see. The complainants were, in order: the most embarrassing and ineffective Secretary of State ever to occupy the office, who embarrassed the nation by cozying up to nice, peace-loving guys like non-nuclear proliferator Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il and Palestinian thug-ocrat Yasser Terrorat in the process; the former National Security Advisor who recently made off with, and destroyed, priceless (and probably incriminating) pre-9/11 documents from the National Archives by stuffing quantities of them in his pants before illegally carrying them out; and two of the Billmeister's most partisan advisors. Might this obviously nonpartisan quartet not be interested, like all doctrinaire lefties, in altering historical truth just a bit? Perish the thought.
Meanwhile, the heroes at Scholastic have apparently pulled an all-nighter to create new "study guides" geared toward completely ignoring the serious implications that, by all indications, will be aired in this broadcast.
If Dick had substituted the term "high standards" in his statement above with the phrase "always pro-Democrat, pro-left standards," his statement might have been a bit more honest. Can we seriously imagine that any mainstream publisher of educational material, already beholden to the lefty, all-Democrat teachers' unions, would have been equally industrious in censoring anti-Bush material at the administration's request?
But wait, Dick has more:
"At the same time, we believe that developing critical thinking and media literacy skills is crucial for students in today's society in order to participate fully in our democracy and that a program such as 'The Path to 9/11' provides a very 'teachable moment' for developing these skills at the high school level. We encourage teachers not to shy away from the controversy surrounding the program, but rather to engage their students in meaningful, in-depth discussion."What a nifty sidestep. One major "teachable moment," we'd imagine, might involve developing student's "media literacy skills" by pointing out how this film might be in error if it implies anything nasty about a do-nothing Democrat administration that could have knocked off Bin Laden before he even had a chance to put 9/11 into motion.
Covering their collective tush further,
Scholastic's new guide states that it had no involvement with developing the ABC docudrama and that the company is not promoting the program.In a way, this whole episode of self-censorship, lashed on by the always vigilant history re-writers on the Clinton team, is highly instructive. The Democrats' earnest desire in the Global War on Terror is, in the end, to "cut and run." Just the way Scholastic cut and ran when the now-emeritus but always alert Clintonistas cranked up their negative PR machine and who knows what else. Hopefully, voters will finally begin to notice this kind of historical whitewashing before they start showing up at the polls this November. Folks need to buckle down here vote for their own self-preservation and not for the interests of the value-less and cowardly party situation-ethicists that feels they should be in power now, well, because they should.
This incident also highlights the relentlessness of the left in its continuing effort to weaken American culture by destroying any attempt by educators, artists, writers, or filmmakers to articulate objective truth over anti-American, leftist propaganda. It will be interesting to see if ABC caves over the next 24 hours and re-edits the program—to be aired Friday—to exonerate the very individuals who, by their political cowardice, opened the way for 9/11 to occur.
Can you imagine the MSM howling if the Bushies ever tried anything like this?
BTW, note the source of this largely approving report: CNN. Or, as Rush Limbaugh would have it, the "Clinton News Network." Indeed.
UPDATE: ABC has apparently edited out at least a portion of its 9/11 film under pressure from the Clintonistas:
After much discussion, ABC executives and the producers toned down, but did not eliminate entirely, a scene that involved Clinton's national security advisor, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, declining to give the order to kill Bin Laden, according to a person involved with the film who declined to be identified because of the sensitivities involved.In other words, ABC is caving, just like the Scholastic Press. Meanwhile, the lefties are now clamoring for the entire film to be spiked. I'll lay 50-50 odds right now that the project gets scrubbed. The left has been unable to stand up for Amerikkka after 9/11. But when their own do-nothing cowardice is exposed, they sure as hell have the guts to stand up for their own collective and worthless tushes. Citizens, take note. And remember this the next time you hear another anti-Bush fusillade from the usual suspects.
"That sequence has been the focus of attention," the source said, adding: "These are very slight alterations."
In addition, the network decided that the credits would say the film is based "in part" on the 9/11 commission report, rather than simply "based on" the bestselling report, as the producers originally intended.
ABC, meanwhile, is tip-toeing away from the film's version of events. In a statement, the network said the miniseries "is a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews."
Say, what ever happened to First Amendment Rights? Guess some animals really are more equal than others.
Balky Blogger
FYI. Over the last 2-3 days it's been difficult at times, at least at HazZzMat, to access and/or put up posts on Blogger. We see that the Blogger dudes are apparently beta testing a new version of the user interface, so perhaps that's part of the problem. In the meantime, don't be surprised to see the occasional late post, or the occasional duplicate post which happens when the Blogger software craps out and hangs in mid-blog-upload. Irritating, but it's part of the cost of doing business with Blogger. Which, of course is free. Which is why it's probably churlish to complain. But we thought you'd like to know.
More Plame for the MSM
The Washington Post, no bastion of conservatism, continues to score points against the NYTimes and their fantasy world, fessing up about the Plame-gate non-event that has unfolded over the past week. Vociferous and obnoxious in its hyping of lies and half-truths as they searched for another Watergate to bring down Bush and satisfy their Bush Derangement Syndrome cravings, the MSM has been very timid with the mea culpas you'd think would be necessary at this point to reclaim at least some credibility. But generally, that's not been the case.
On the other hand, Post columnist David Broder, an absolute and longstanding liberal with no love for this administration, jumps on his colleagues today with some telling criticism, in a column entitled "One Leak and a Flood of Silliness":
Broder concludes his piece with two similar citations from other sources and offers his final conclusion:
(BTW, links to Post sites often require a free log-in.)
On the other hand, Post columnist David Broder, an absolute and longstanding liberal with no love for this administration, jumps on his colleagues today with some telling criticism, in a column entitled "One Leak and a Flood of Silliness":
For much of the past five years, dark suspicions have been voiced about the Bush White House undermining its critics, and Karl Rove has been fingered as the chief culprit in this supposed plot to suppress the opposition.Broder, whom I read regularly and sometimes with distaste (although he's vastly more of a gentleman than his fellow columnist, the virtual Marxist E. J. Dionne), establishes quickly that he didn't get much involved in this obvious non-brouhaha—stirred up by an obnoxious, self-serving former ambassador looking to discredit Bush, gain a slot on the Kerry campaign staff, and, Jesse Jackson-like, grab a chunk of undeserved face-time on the cable talkfests:
Now at least one count in that indictment has been substantially weakened -- the charge that Rove masterminded a conspiracy to discredit Iraq intelligence critic Joseph Wilson by "outing" his CIA-operative wife, Valerie Plame.
I have written almost nothing about the Wilson-Plame case, because it seemed overblown to me from the start. Wilson's claim in a New York Times op-ed about his memo on the supposed Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger; the Robert D. Novak column naming Plame as the person who had recommended Wilson to check up on the reported sale; the call for a special prosecutor and the lengthy interrogation that led to the jailing of Judith Miller of the New York Times and the deposition of several other reporters; and, finally, the indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff -- all of this struck me as being a tempest in a teapot.Broder unfortunately lumps all the players, including Rove and Libby, into a relativistic and unfortunate observation:
No one behaved well in the whole mess -- not Wilson, not Libby, not special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and not the reporters involved.And he next serves up a brief, somewhat self-serving commercial for his own integrity:
The only time I commented on the case was to caution reporters who offered bold First Amendment defenses for keeping their sources' names secret that they had better examine the motivations of the people leaking the information to be sure they deserve protection.Yecch. Yet, I can verify that this observation is true in my reading of Broder's columns over the years, although I reject the moral relativism of his previous statement. Broder next arives at his preliminary, and excellent, initial conclusion:
But caution has been notably lacking in some of the press treatment of this subject -- especially when it comes to Karl Rove. And it behooves us in the media to examine that behavior, not just sweep it under the rug.Indeed. Broder next goes onto describe trash-talking administered to the Bushies by the despicable Sidney Blumenthal, who rivals and generally exceeds James Carville in sheer partisan obnoxiousness and demagoguery. One would expect no less from the Prince of Darkness who once tried to drive Matt Drudge out of business.
Broder concludes his piece with two similar citations from other sources and offers his final conclusion:
Blumenthal's example is far from unique. Newsweek, in a July 25, 2005, cover story on Rove, after dutifully noting that Rove's lawyer said the prosecutor had told him that Rove was not a target of the investigation, added: "But this isn't just about the Facts, it's about what Rove's foes regard as a higher Truth: That he is a one-man epicenter of a narrative of Evil."And so, a reluctant but well-deserved hat-tip to Tom Broder. At these troubled times it's almost a relief to see that one can still occasionally find an honest liberal. We thought you'd like to know.
And in the American Prospect's cover story for August 2005, Joe Conason wrote that Rove "is a powerful bully. Fear of retribution has stifled those who might have revealed his secrets. He has enjoyed the impunity of a malefactor who could always claim, however implausibly, deniability -- until now."
These and other publications owe Karl Rove an apology. And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.
(BTW, links to Post sites often require a free log-in.)
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
More Plame to Go Around at the NY Times
Instapundit steers us today to a few choice words on Plame-gate over at the Captain's Quarters. Unlike the Washington Post, which—though equally guilty in trumpeting this phony story for what seems like forever—fessed up like an adult in its editorial comments a couple of days ago. Not so the New York Times (or, the New York Slimes as Mark Levin likes to say on his radio show). Captain Ed quotes a bit of the paper's latest smarminess:
It’s time for Mr. Fitzgerald to provide answers or admit that this investigation has run its course. Otherwise, he risks being lumped in with the special prosecutor who spent a decade investigating the former Clinton cabinet member Henry Cisneros, and wound up with nothing more than his conviction that he had yet to get to the bottom of things.Whereupon the Captain observes:
Well, it's a start, as is the Gray Lady's avoidance of Joe Wilson's lies in this latest editorial. For the first time in memory, it states that Plame did get Wilson his assignment, which they have not admitted until now, and they also stop themselves from claiming that Wilson found no evidence of an Iraqi attempt to buy uranium...Well, yeah.
[Richard] Armitage's role in providing the information to Novak has sucked the life out of the Times' jeremiad against Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. It has begun to dawn on the editors that the failure to indict either man on any charges, let alone anything related to the actual revelation of Plame's identity, strongly suggests that their assumptions about vendettas and conspiracies have been exposed as baseless. It also may occur to them that their lack of support for Judith Miller may reflect badly on them. Small wonder that they want Fitzgerald to come clean and get this story buried as quickly as possible.
The Times scolds Fitzgerald for his lack of response, but they still have not taken responsibility for their own role in this witch hunt. These men and women led the public charge for the investigation to be wrested from the DoJ and assigned to a special prosecutor accountable to no one except a panel of judges, also accountable to no one but themselves. They reversed their own stand on special prosecutors taken during the Clinton administration and demanded this appointment, and they made sure enough Democratic politicians spoke up to get it. Now that the case has utterly collapsed, the Gray Lady acts like a prim schoolmarm, wagging her finger at little Patrick for mischief she thoroughly endorsed.
Plame Game in Flames; or, Never Mind...
Luther reported here on the Washington Post's unusual editorial about-face on the rapidly fizzling Plame-gate non-controversy so beloved of Amerikkka's non-patriotic leftists. Well, leave it to America's REAL paper, the Washington Times, to give the full, sordid history of this scandalous smear campaign. The opening grafs provide a nice summary:
These people like to brag about their "patriotism." But they never tell you where this "patriotism" is directed. But we will. Like their Marxist forbears, their "patriotism" is not directed toward their own country, but toward some vague world order that will supplant Amerikkka and the Republicans and bring about (somehow) world peace and justice. (And publicly-funded dachas for the Marxists.) Too bad these clowns forgot about the Islamofascists just around the corner who have pretty much the same idea, except that it involves a lot more beheadings.
Isn't it funny? Now that Plame-gate has turned out to be a non-event, we are already hearing orchestrated calls from lefty Dems for the firing of Rummy as Secretary of Defense. And over-eager Dems in the House are already assembling a committee to impeach President Bush the moment they win control of the House. That's today's Democratic left. Serial political terrorists, always ready with another manufactured smear campaign to roll out the moment the current one collapses. Always full of themselves, as usual, or perhaps full of something else.
The terrorists might as well take a holiday. Their leftist stooges in the West continue to do their work for them. Blissfully unaware that their godless, infidel heads are the next ones on the chopping block.
The expectation on the left that the Valerie Plame affair would blossom into another Watergate, bringing down a second Republican presidency, has fizzled.For those wanting a dense, detailed recap of this "scandal," this article, by Rowan Scarborough, will do the trick. Yep, there was a "scandal," all right. A scandal involving the MSM, the Democratic Party, and the vile leftwing blogosphere (along with the usual suspects, like Howard "The Duck" Dean) in an attempt to bring down a sitting, duly elected Republican president. Already drunk with re-living the glory days of the Vietnam debacle, whose embarrassing and tragic ending they did much to bring about, the American left thought they'd manufacture another dubious triumph by toppling Chimpy BushMcHitler and his evil crew, just the way they torpedoed Nixxon. Too bad it didn't work. (But they're still working on trying to get us defeated in the Middle East.)
Liberals expected that convictions of one or more persons in the Bush administration for leaking or confirming to columnist Robert Novak that Mrs. Plame, the wife of Bush critic Joseph C. Wilson IV, was an undercover CIA operative. Echoing Mr. Wilson's claims, prominent liberals and leftists, most of them in the press, accused the White House of orchestrating a smear, and sought to drive Karl Rove either out of office or into prison, or both.
Three years on, none of that has happened, and the "scandal" is played out.
These people like to brag about their "patriotism." But they never tell you where this "patriotism" is directed. But we will. Like their Marxist forbears, their "patriotism" is not directed toward their own country, but toward some vague world order that will supplant Amerikkka and the Republicans and bring about (somehow) world peace and justice. (And publicly-funded dachas for the Marxists.) Too bad these clowns forgot about the Islamofascists just around the corner who have pretty much the same idea, except that it involves a lot more beheadings.
Isn't it funny? Now that Plame-gate has turned out to be a non-event, we are already hearing orchestrated calls from lefty Dems for the firing of Rummy as Secretary of Defense. And over-eager Dems in the House are already assembling a committee to impeach President Bush the moment they win control of the House. That's today's Democratic left. Serial political terrorists, always ready with another manufactured smear campaign to roll out the moment the current one collapses. Always full of themselves, as usual, or perhaps full of something else.
The terrorists might as well take a holiday. Their leftist stooges in the West continue to do their work for them. Blissfully unaware that their godless, infidel heads are the next ones on the chopping block.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
AP Endorses Abortion in Style Guide
The Language Police in the MSM are always careful to craft messages that favor their leftist political leanings and their Gramscian desire to undermine common decency in the U.S. Take, for example, this subtle piece of news, buried in the AP style book, the stylistic "bible" of most American print media:
Abortion: Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice. Avoid abortionist, which connotes a person whoperforms clandestine abortions.RedState explains it all for you, with great clarity:
So what exactly have the folks at Associated Press done? In the firstplace, they've done a great "framing" favor to the pro-choice side by casting the pro-lifers as the "anti-abortion" side in the debate. As any "framing" person will tell you, labeling any cause as "anti-" anything will make it less appealing than labeling it "pro-" something else, even if they are functionally equivalent(pro-freedom sounds more attractive than anti-slavery; even the Democrats are slowly understanding that just being "anti-Bush" is an electoral loser; almost nobody votes for anyone whose main claim on your vote is being against something.) By contrast, the new AP style manual does the pro-choice side a huge favor; being associated with "rights" is an even greater boon than being the "pro-" side in a debate; the concept of "rights" strikes a powerful chord in the psyche of the average American. The AP could not have created a greater "framing" disparity if they had tried. I sort of gather that that's the point.And further, how about their little two-step around the term "abortionist?" RedState sorts it all out for you:
The other ridiculous portion of this "guideline" is the treatment of the word "abortionist." Personally, it seems like a handy word to describe someone who performs abortions, but even if I were to grant that the word has pejorative qualities, the AP's explanation of why it should be avoided is laughable: it connotes someone who performs clandestine abortions?? In case the good folks at the Associated Press haven't been paying attention, there is, as far as I know (and I follow this issue pretty closely) no such person who exists in the United States. Given that current Supreme Court precedent mandates the legality of abortion at literally any stage of pregnancy, the AP has apparently concluded that the use of the most common word for someone who performs abortions connotes a person who doesn't exist and for whom there is no demand. Notably, the Associated Press does not offer a substitute word for "person who performs abortions" as there simply isn't one. I guess that we're all just supposed to forget that there are people in this country who perform abortions. There are people out there fighting for "abortion rights" (notice how they still avoid implying that anyone is pro-abortion per se) but no one actually performing them.This is one of the best posts we've yet seen on the manipulation of language to favor anti-U.S., anti-Western positions. This is the kind of verbiage we see every day, 365 days a year in the leftie media. Once it's repeated long enough, whether true, or valid, or no, it starts becoming the perceived truth. And in such a manner, again and again, in issues ranging from abortion, gay marriage, and Bush Derangement Syndrome, the left chips what's left of our proud national heritage and cultural traditions away. Which precisely plays into the hands of our current enemies in the volatile Middle East.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Quote of the Day: Plame Flamed Out
It now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously....,End of an Affair, The Washington Post, September 1, 2006
Readers of Hazzzmat knew this two years ago. Now, the newspaper that gave credence to Ambassador Wilson's charge reports that it was all untrue. Enough said.
Luther
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