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September 30, 2004
Oompa-LoompaGate Update
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There isn't a woman alive who won't sympathise with Democrat John Kerry for doing what he did this week.Kerry is experiencing what all women have experienced. He must truly be "metro". I thought he may have donned the tan to attract women, but I guess he is going for either the sympathy vote or just trying demonstrate that he identifies with them. Somehow I doubt that is going to work. Overington concurs:Who among us has not done the same thing? That is, made a stupid, stupid decision regarding our appearance right before a Very Important Event.
Like everybody, Senator Kerry knows that this morning's debate won't be about issues. It will be about image. Important topics will be treated in a superficial way. But, if he thinks a tan will help him woo women, he is wrong. Surveys show they are concerned about terrorism, and wonder whether he can handle the heat. And they don't mean from sun lamps.It does look as if the shine is wearing off so maybe by debate time Kerry will be presentable.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:13 PM | Comments (0) |
Bye Bye, Air America
Al Franken is bringing his show into my hometown today but that is not going to change the very basic fact that Air America is not long for this world.
The station has been cancelled in one of the top liberal markets in the country, Portland, Oregon Maryland. In a last ditch effort to keep it on the air, supports have 'flooded' the local affiliate with phone calls and e-mails:
Managers at Portland radio station WLVP (870 AM) have gotten so many complaints about their decision to drop the Air America talk network that they've decided to discuss the subject publicly.One may assume many of those phone calls and emails must have come from people who are outside the Portland market....the event is being held in response to about 100 phone calls and 400-plus e-mails the station has received since announcing on Sept. 20 that Air America would be dropped.
Collins did not rule out the possibility that Nassau could reconsider its decision and keep Air America on Portland's airwaves. Collins said he sent e-mail invitations to the event to at least 425 people who had protested the Air America decision.
Collins said on Sept. 20 that Nassau would replace the liberal talk network Air America, which has been on WLVP since April, with the ESPN sports radio network beginning Oct. 4. Two days later, after a swell of public protest, Collins announced Nassau would keep Air America on through the November elections, then replace it with ESPN.
Collins has said the decision to replace Air America was based on the fact that management believed a sports station had more potential for advertising sales and ratings.
The station's little meeting is a nice gesture but their statements indicate there is little chance it will keep a money loser such as Air America when the very profitable ESPN is waiting in the wings.
On the flip side, Air America did score a small victory this week as it began broadcasting in undoubtably the most liberal city in the nation, San Francisco. This is a make-or-break opportunity for the network. If they cannot be successful in San Fran, they might as well pack up their bags and go home.
Update: There are relevant facts I missed in the comments to this post. Read 'em.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:20 PM | Comments (0) |
A Whale of a Ride
Wow:
A surfer says the swell he was riding on a recent trip turned out to be more than just a wave -- it was a whale.Spyros Vamvas, a 60-year-old San Clemente therapist, felt the ocean swirl under him and was lifted up by the giant mammal.
"All of a sudden I just felt, wow, this huge noise and bump," said Vamvas, "and it lifted my board up. I'm looking down, and there's just swirling water and I see barnacles on the back of the whale. I'm used to dolphins. This was different. It was huge."
Posted by bubba138 at 12:02 PM | Comments (0) |
Just Making Stuff Up
John Kerry has been saying recently that "George Bush refuses to confront reality." I am not so sure he is right on that count, especially considering Kerry's habit of making reality up as he goes along:
John Kerry in a press conference last week repeated his accusation that Gen. Eric Shinseki was "forced out" as U.S. Army chief of staff because he wanted more troops for Iraq. The trouble is that the Democratic presidential nominee was spreading an urban myth. The bigger trouble is that it was no isolated incident.Let us not forget his natural tan that wasn't, his late at night $87 billion dollar blunder that occurred in a noontime speech, and his frequent covert trips to Cambodia.Sen. Kerry last week also said the Bush administration may push reinstatement of the military draft, when in fact that idea comes only from anti-war Democrats. At the same time, he said retired Gen. Tommy Franks complained that Iraq was draining troops from Afghanistan, when the truth is he never did. Over a week earlier, Kerry blamed Bush for higher Medicare premiums when in fact they are mandated by law (one that Kerry voted for).
Posted by bubba138 at 10:32 AM | Comments (0) |
No More Excuses
In the 2000 campaign soon-to-be President George Bush coined the term "soft bigotry of low expectations." Here is a glaring example of it:
An African-American civil rights spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines "terrify" her, and that blacks are "afraid of machines like that."Joanne Bland, the director and co-founder of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma, Ala., told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines are going to intimidate black voters in Florida and elsewhere and suppress their vote in the November presidential election because many blacks are not "technologically savvy."
"The computers really terrify me. The electronic voting -- the new machines -- I think it will turn off a segment in my community, particularly the elderly. We are not as technically savvy, and we are afraid of machines like that, and they (African-Americans) probably won't go [to the polls] and they probably won't ask for assistance, said Bland, who spent the last week in Florida.
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I wonder if Mz. Bland was handed an ATM card for an account that had one million dollars in it, would she or any of her friends still be so frightened of the technology that they wouldn't ask any questions?
I thought not.
Bland continues:
There have been lots of changes in the United States, but if you look at the statistics, our biggest block of voters would be between 40 and 80, so when did those people have access to any kind of technology?I turned forty years old just last month. I grew up with the TRS80, the Apple computer, the advent of the IBM PC, mobile phones, fax machines, etc. I work with dozens of people in the 40 to 60 range that are daily pounding on computer keyboards using all kinds of technologies. Mz. Bland asks, "when did those people have access to any kind of technology?" Over the last forty years, that's when. Mz. Bland may have just recently crawled out of a cave to marvel at the wonder of electric light bulbs, but most people her age are comfortable with today's technology. Even so, her mention of age deflates her argument that this is a racial issue.
Syd Dinerstein, the chairman of Republican Party of Palm Beach County, is right:
"If there was ever proof positive that the black community needs a different set of leaders, statements like [Bland's] are exactly it," Dinerstein told CNSNews.com .Update: More on this from Mike King and Booker Rising (read this too -- and this -- aw, heck read the whole blog). And LaShawn Barber muses, "Man, if Trent Lott were to say that...""I wish the Democrats thought as highly of the black community as Republicans do. We trust black parents to pick the right schools for their children, the Democrats don't. We trust black people to make informed electoral choices, the Democrats don't," Dinerstein said.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:06 AM | Comments (0) |
Those Dirty Republican Attack Ads
For months the Democrats have whined about awful, dirty, negative campaign ads. We should be more civil they say. They are right, some campiagn ads just go too far:
In one of the ads, a pink-clad actress with a purse climbs over rubble to rob a U.S. soldier.Wait a minute, Marilyn Musgrave is a Republican. That means this ad must have been produced by her Democrat opponent."Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave claims nobody supports our troops more than she does, but she voted to slash veterans' benefits by $14 billion," the narrator says. The new ad also says Musgrave voted against a $1,500 bonus for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. In another ad, the woman in pink creeps up to a corpse and takes off his watch. A voiceover says that while she served as a state senator, Musgrave opposed a bill that would have prevented nursing homes from billing patients after they are dead.
The natural (and acceptable) conclusion is that dirty, rotten, attack ads are only wrong when Republicans run them.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:07 AM | Comments (0) |
Shut Up About the Draft
Part of the left's reasoning for scaring people about the draft is that we need to replace all the people who are fleeing out of the military in a time of war. As the flyer in this post says:
You already blew it: You didn't vote last time, or voted for Nader or Bush, and now you're gonna get drafted. There's no way around it now, the draft is almost a certainty.They loudly scream about the smallest hitch in recruitment levels as proof their paranoia is founded. Fortunately, the truth is military recruitment is doing just fine, thank you very much:You're hearing about Reserve and National Guard units being called up, and about people not allowed to leave the military even though their term is up. Have you thought about what this means to you? You KNOW this means they're having trouble finding enough soldiers to go to Iraq, right? Of course Bush doesn’t want to start the draft BEFORE the election. Duh! But what do you think happens the day AFTER the election?
The U.S. Army, which has done some of the toughest and longest fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, has met its recruiting and retention goals for active-duty soldiers in the fiscal year that ends today.Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, all are exceeding their goals and having to turn people away, partly because of a high level of patriotism. The only recruitment goals at risk are for the National Guard and reserves and that is because more of our brave people are re-upping in active duty. Only the most pessimistic of people can see this as bad news.The Army did suffer setbacks in the government's fiscal 2004. The National Guard will miss its recruiting goal of 56,000. It had signed up only 43,827 by Aug. 31. Critics say frequent call-ups and 12-month deployments are driving prospects away, but the Army cites the fact that more soldiers are being kept on active duty, which means they are not available for Guard recruiters. On new recruits heading to basic training, the target of 77,000 was exceeded 10 days ago by a margin of 47 inductees.
The Marine Corps, whose amphibious units have fought in Afghanistan and patrol the notorious Anbar Province in Iraq, says it is on track to meet a goal of 36,773 recruits this fiscal year.
The Air Force three months ago exceeded a goal of retaining 55 percent of first-termers, garnering 68 percent. In fact, the branch is 20,000 over its budget-authorized personnel strength and is transferring some airmen to the Army.
Air Force spokeswoman Jennifer Stephens attributed the sign-up rate to patriotism, the civilian job market and job satisfaction.
Edgar Castillo, spokesman for Air Force Recruit Services at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, said the branch actually is slashing accessions from 34,080 this year to 24,000 next year.
"There are people right now that want to join that we can't accommodate," Mr. Castillo said.
The Navy will meet its marker of 39,700 enlisted recruits, as it has for every year in recent memory, except 1998. The branch might miss the goal for 11,000 new naval reservists, partly because active duty retention rates are so high the pool of available recruits is shrinking for certain skills.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) |
Poll Watch
The number of polls and consistancy of results confirm that New Jersey is truly in play:
Tuesday's Strategic Vision poll of the state, which supported Democrat Al Gore by a 16-point margin in 2000, put the race at 44 percent for both President Bush and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.That there are different polls with similar results indicate that the New Jersey numbers from earlier this month were not outliers.A Quinnipiac poll last week showed a 48 percent split, and a Rasmussen poll released Monday gave Mr. Kerry a 49 percent to 46 percent lead over Mr. Bush, well within the five-point margin of error.
Pollster and New Jersey resident Scott Rasmussen thinks one poll is a fluke, two polls are intriguing, but three polls show a trend.
Bush's lead is growing stronger in Florida:
In Florida, Bush leads Kerry 52%-43% among likely voters in a poll taken Sept. 24-27. Bush leads 49%-44% among registered voters.The President has also taken control in Pennsylvania, a state Gore won in 2000:That is a gain for Bush from a poll taken Sept. 18-22, when he led 49%-46% among likely voters and 47%-45% among registered voters.
In Pennsylvania, Bush leads 49%-46% among likely voters in a poll taken Sept. 25-28. Kerry leads 49%-45% among registered voters.Sporting 21 electoral college votes, Pennsylvania is a nice prize. Losing it to Bush could be devastating to Kerry.In a poll taken Aug. 23-26, Bush and Kerry were tied at 47% among likely voters. Among registered voters, Kerry led 49%-43%.
By contrast, Bush's lead in Ohio is tightening:
In Ohio, Bush leads 49%-47% among likely voters in a poll taken Sept. 25-28. That is a smaller lead for Bush than he had in a poll taken Sept. 4-7, when he led 52%-43% among likely voters.A look at Real Clear Politics plainly shows Kerry trending up in Ohio while Bush has maintained numbers in a 48% to 52% range since the end of August.Among registered voters, Kerry leads 49%-46%. Bush led 47%-46% among registered voters in the Sept. 4-7 poll.
MSNBC/Businessweek has a look at the electoral college which is rather optimistic for Bush:
Bush is clearly ahead in 30 states with 284 electoral votes, 14 more than the 270 necessary to capture the White House. Kerry leads in 13 states and the District of Columbia, which account for 196 electoral votes. Seven other states with 58 electoral votes are toss-ups.But there are warning signs for the President. Kerry has a deeper base of Electoral College support, mainly due to his lock on three of the largest states: California, New York, and Illinois. Kerry strongly leads Bush in states with 164 votes, while the incumbent has a wide lead in states with 152.
The New York Times electoral map is less generous (and probably a little more accurate).
Posted by bubba138 at 08:20 AM | Comments (0) |
Divisive Ducking Republicans
Republican leaders in Congress are postponing politically thorny votes on overtime, imported prescription drugs, and other issues until after the November elections.I love the catch-22 here. If the Congress brings these issues up they are being divisive during the election season, if not they are ducking the issues. It is a no win situation.GOP leaders say they are not motivated by a desire to sidestep difficult showdowns on disputes, some of which have pitted Republicans against one another or drawn veto threats from President Bush. With the House and Senate aiming to adjourn Oct. 8 for the presidential and congressional campaigns, they say they are running out of time.
''You're creating a story that ain't there," House majority leader Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, said yesterday.
Democrats said the GOP wants to avoid election-season votes on delicate issues like raising the federal debt limit, lifting trade restrictions with Cuba, and financing veterans' health care.
''They don't want to vote on them; they want to duck them," said Representative David R. Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin.
Whatever the motivation, the political impact is significant.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:39 AM | Comments (0) |
An Empire of Wealth
John Steele Gordon's new book is on its way to me, too.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:25 AM | Comments (0) |
September 29, 2004
Stop Picking On Our Dad
Bill Burkett's kids have started a blog and they want the nation to lay off their dad:
There's a war going on in America."Free Republic terrorists".The result will define whether America remains a Democracy. The prize is the heart and soul of our country, the Constitutional freedoms and Bill of Rights we cherish and depend upon.
And someone has decided that our Dad is the enemy. George Bush, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the FreeRepublic terrorists would have you believe our Dad is a criminal.
The fruit does not fall too far from the tree, does it?
Posted by bubba138 at 03:54 PM | Comments (0) |
John Kerry: A Liability We Cannot Afford
The "we" in this case refers to other Democrat candidates:
Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle hugged President Bush from one end of South Dakota to the other this summer -- in his own campaign commercials.The brief embrace might seem an odd claim on re-election for the man Republicans depict as obstructionist-in-chief for the president's congressional agenda. But Daschle is one of several candidates with a common political problem as Democrats nurse fragile hopes of gaining Senate control this fall.
From the South to South Dakota and Alaska, they are running in areas where Bush is popular -- and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry not so much.
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Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson joined the campaign of Sen. John Kerry on Wednesday as a poll showed support for the presidential candidate slipping among black Americans, a critical Democratic constituency.John Kerry has been adding people left and right to his campaign over the last sixty days each designed to shore up leaking support. This last move further illustrates the that the Kerry is flailing about for anything that can help him. He has lost control and does not {gasp} "have a plan" (not even a secret one) to win this election.The Pew Research Center said Tuesday its latest poll showed 73 percent of blacks supporting Kerry compared to 12 percent supporting President Bush. In 2000, Al Gore won 90 percent of the black vote.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) |
John Kerry is Your Candidate
Really, he is (sound).
Posted by bubba138 at 01:06 PM | Comments (0) |
Sentenced to Death
The wheels turn slowly and sometimes freeze altogether but once in a while justice does prevail:
A Yemeni judge sentenced two men to death and four others to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years Wednesday for orchestrating the 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole, an attack blamed on Osama bin Laden's terror network.Absolutely no one can convince me that this would have happened had we not waged war in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Our military actions serve not only the goals for those countries, but also as a constant, undeniable warning to all other countries in that region that the United States means business. Yemen knew it had to prosecute those involved in the Cole bombing or it would suffer the same fate. Such is effective motivation indeed.Saudi-born Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location, and Jamal al-Badawi, a 35-year-old Yemeni, were both sentenced to death for plotting and involvement in the bombing, which killed 17 American sailors as their destroyer refueled in the southern Yemeni port of Aden.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:54 AM | Comments (0) |
Drowning Horse Syndrome
When your horse is drowning, it's a good time to change horses in midstream," John Kerry declared this week. Maybe he got this line eavesdropping on his staff.OUCH.The Kerry Syndrome is a rare variant of the Stockholm Syndrome. The latter phenomenon is the condition under which hostages — Patty Hearst, for example — grow to sympathize with, and in extreme cases become like, their captors. The Kerry variant, first diagnosed in the junior senator from Massachusetts, works along similar lines, prompting the patient to ape his enemies. The Democratic nominee, for example, seems to have been captured by George W. Bush and, to a certain extent, by Richard Nixon.
Strangely enough, however, Kerry has become the most thoroughly Nixonian candidate since, well, Nixon. From his blatant pandering and fear-mongering (yes, yes, the Bush campaign plays on people's fears, too) to his constant changes in policy based on polls and tactics, Kerry comes across as a Democratic version of Nixon — with McGovern's foreign policy.
Because Kerry Syndrome can cause dementia, it's not always clear whether Kerry thinks he's running as Nixon or against Nixon.
And other times it seems he's running as George W. Bush. It's hard to remember a time when one presidential candidate so completely controlled the agenda of the other. If they were cellmates, Kerry would be doing Bush's laundry by now.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:36 AM | Comments (0) |
Politicizing 9/11
Months ago, we read this:
Some of the families of September 11 victims have criticized the decision to use images of the wreckage of the fallen twin towers in two of the spots.And this:"When I look at the ads and I see Bush speaking over the pictures of Ground Zero, I know in my heart that President Bush failed the 3,000 Americans that died there on that day," Patty Casazza, whose husband died in the attacks, told CNN.
In a written statement, Kerry called it "astonishing" that the Bush ad would feature a shot of the wreckage when, Kerry said, many fire departments lack adequate equipment. Democrats charge the administration is not providing enough funds for first responders.
"It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people," said Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the twin tower attacks. "It is unconscionable."and this:
"I'm disappointed but not surprised that the President would try to trade on the heroism of those fire fighters in the September 11 attacks. The use of 9/11 images are hypocrisy at its worst. Here's a President that initially opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and now uses its first anniversary as cause to promote his re-election. Here is a President that proposed two budgets with no funding for FIRE Act grants and still plays on the image of America's bravest. His advertisements are disgraceful.and this:
Even more telling than Cheney’s remark however, was the reaction of the Democratic campaign. John Edwards indignantly accused Bush and Cheney of politicizing 9/11, but that was about it.Reading all that one would get the impression that politicizing 9/11 is disgraceful. It makes one wonder what each of these people have to say about this:
Before Sept. 11, 2001, all Kristen Breitweiser wanted in the way of worldly responsibility was to tend to her garden and care for her infant daughter, Caroline."After watching my husband get murdered on live worldwide television," she said, everything changed.
On Tuesday, the 33-year-old New Jersey widow was stumping in swing states with Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards for the second day in a row. It's here that Breitweiser's fresh face and emotional story are becoming an integral part of an effort to convince "security moms" that the Democratic ticket of Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Edwards can make them safer and that four more years with President Bush is dangerous.
[Sheesh. I just read this post and realized I'm starting to sound like this. Not that that's a bad thing!]
Posted by bubba138 at 09:49 AM | Comments (0) |
Fear the Draft
All this talk about the possibility of a draft is nothing short of daft. What is really making me the most angry about this subject is that the only ones talking about re-instating the draft are Democrats, yet everytime it is brought up it is made to look as if this is George Bush's idea. The hype has become so unavoidable the Selective Service had to post a message about it on their home page:
Notwithstanding recent stories in the news media and on the Internet, Selective Service is not getting ready to conduct a draft for the U.S. Armed Forces -- either with a special skills or regular draft. Rather, the Agency remains prepared to manage a draft if and when the President and the Congress so direct. This responsibility has been ongoing since 1980 and is nothing new. Further, both the President and the Secretary of Defense have stated on more than one occasion that there is no need for a draft for the War on Terrorism or any likely contingency, such as Iraq. Additionally, the Congress has not acted on any proposed legislation to reinstate a draft. Therefore, Selective Service continues to refine its plans to be prepared as is required by law, and to register young men who are ages 18 through 25.
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They neglect to state, however, these are the exact same reasons their predecessors used to abolish draft in the first place. In other words, the sponsors of the draft are outright liars.
Those who are vocal in their opposition the draft, as exampled by Students for Kerry who are distributing the lying propaganda pictured right, are using it as a reason to vote against President Bush. That the President has not asked for, nor does he want a draft has no bearing on their argument. Niether does the fact that every major military commander interviewed by the media has unreservedly stated that they do not want the draft and the volunteer system has produced the finest fighting force in all history. In other words, the detractors who insinuate that bush is bringing back the draft are outright liars.
One would think that the obvious political nature of this the press would debunk the talk and America could be done with it. Instead, they have only served to fuel the controversy that wasn't with article after article filled with inuendo and speculation. CBS ran a piece on the draft on last night's evening broadcast. Instead of doing straight reporting on it, who, what, where, etc., they had to make it a human interest story, focusing not on the draft or the Democrats who introduced the legislation, but on a mother who has been scared by the Democrat hyperbole about a draft:
But Beverly's not buying it. She's a Republican, but also a single-issue voter.Tomorrow the President has the opportunity to put this subject to bed. I hope he comes right out and says without question, there will be no draft.Would she vote for a Democrat? "Absolutely," she says. "I would vote for Howdy Doody if I thought it would keep my boys home and safe."
Update: Cox and Forkum are on the draft issue as well, with great links to boot.
Update II: It looks like the source of the flyer is this blog post.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:29 AM | Comments (0) |
Debate Advice
It is the day before the debates and everybody wants to give John Kerry advice on how to handle George Bush:
My advice to John Kerry is simple: be prepared for the toughest debates of your career. While George Bush's campaign has made "lowering expectations" into a high art form, the record is clear - he's a skilled debater who uses the format to his advantage. There is no reason to expect any less this time around. And if anyone truly has "low expectations" for an incumbent president, that in itself is an issue...Because everyone knows Jon Stewart is a fount of political wisdom. If quoting the host of a comedy show is not a rhetorical trick I do not know what is.The debates aren't a time for rhetorical tricks. It's a time for an honest contest of ideas...
Senator Kerry can also use these debates to speak directly to voters and lay out a hopeful vision for our future. If voters walk away from the debates with a better understanding of where our country is, how we got here and where each candidate will lead us if elected, then America will be the better for it. The debate tomorrow should not seek to discover which candidate would be more fun to have a beer with. As Jon Stewart of the "The Daily Show'' nicely put in 2000, "I want my president to be the designated driver.''
Then again, seeing as how this advice comes from Al Gore, the man who lost all three of his debates against the President, perhaps John Kerry would be better off just ignoring it.
Update: Hugh Hewitt as well has some good suggestions for Kerry's debate prep:
Goo tips, all, but doesn't looking like a pumpkin qualify as being "made up like a saloon girl with small pox?"
- Don't get made up like a saloon girl with small pox;
- Don't fidget and sigh like a second grader in time-out;
- Don't make up travel adventures to disaster sites with FEMA directors;
- Don't stalk the president in a way as to alarm the Secret Service;
- Don't suddenly go passive as though you'd been hit by a dart gun containing a paralyzing agent.
- Don't bring up anything with "dingle" in the title.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:59 AM | Comments (0) |
Late At Night
On the radio this morning they played a clip from today's "ABC's Good Morning America" in which Kerry tried to explain away his statement, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
"It was a very inarticulate way of saying something and I had one of those moments late in the evening when I was tired in the primaries and didn't say something clearly. But it reflects the truth of the position, which is, I thought, to have the wealthiest people in America share the burden of paying for that war. It was a protest. Sometimes you have to stand up and be counted."Listening to that I wondered, just how late could it have been? Not very:
Just one problem: Kerry made the statement at noon. Maybe his watch was set on Paris time.
Update: Washington Post, Wednesday, March 17, 2004:
"I actually did vote for his $87 billion, before I voted against it," he told a group of veterans at a noontime appearance at Marshall University. He went on to explain that he preliminarily backed the request, so long as it was financed not by deficit spending but with a tax surcharge on the wealthy that Bush opposed.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:46 AM | Comments (0) |
Fear Sells, But Who's Buying?
The Kerry campaign wants the voters to believe the Republicans have only one strategy, fear:
Edwards renewed his charge that the Republicans are "fear-mongering" by suggesting that al-Qaida would prefer that the Democrats win.Meanwhile, Ted Kennedy had this to say:"Let me say this in very simple language. For them to exploit one of the greatest tragedies in American history for personal gain is wrong."
Meanwhile, he said, the administration continues to insist that the country is safer now because of the war. But Americans "deserve to hear more from our president than happy talk like that," said Kennedy. "The war in Iraq has made the mushroom cloud more likely, not less likely.And then there is Kerry himself, stirring up fears of a draft under George Bush:
Answering a question about the draft that had been posed at a forum with voters, Kerry said: "If George Bush were to be re-elected, given the way he has gone about this war and given his avoidance of responsibility in North Korea and Iran and other places, is it possible? I can't tell you."Oh, and let us not forget the Kerry campaign's constant warnings about George Bush's secret plans.
Is this a coincedence? Not at all:
In a dramatic strategic shift that two of his top advisers called "high-risk," Kerry and his campaign are using a string of speeches, statements and television ads to argue that the United States will be more susceptible to higher casualties in Iraq and future terrorism threats at home if Bush is reelected.The Kerry campaign has used this strategy before. I am not referring to the strategy of promoting fear, but the one that blames the opponent for practices that one's own campaign has and is wielding with great prowess.At the same time, Kerry's friends, surrogates and financial supporters are using ominous language to warn of catastrophes, including the potential of a "mushroom cloud," if Bush wins. "It's definitely riskier, because Kerry is making people think about what we see in polls people are reluctant to think about," Democratic consultant Bill Carrick said. "Nobody wants to think about beheadings, casualties or fatalities."
Virtually every day, Kerry has warned that if Bush is reelected, the situation in Iraq will worsen and continue to divert attention from nuclear threats and terrorism.
One Kerry ad appears to hold the president accountable -- and paint him as out of touch -- for "over 1,000 U.S. soldiers dead, kidnappings, even beheadings of Americans." It continues: "Still, Bush has no plan what to do in Iraq. How can you solve a problem when you can't see it?" Another spot blames Bush for "the Iraq quagmire" and points out that "the Pentagon admits terrorists are pouring into Iraq" -- suggesting that the war has actually made Americans less safe.
Soon after Kerry became the presumptive nominee, he and his team loudly trumpeted about the negative campaign that George Bush and the Republicans were planning to run. The charges fell flat on the general public because all the Democrat nominees had been bashing Bush for months, and on this count John Kerry was in no way the least of them.
We again saw this strategy when the Swift Boat ads came out. In that instance Kerry tried to paint the Swifties as Bush surrogates. All the while 527 organizations supporting Kerry had already outspent the Swift Boat Vets 60 times over, yet they were somehow not to be considered Kerry surrogates.
Somehow John Kerry thinks that if he accuses the other side of dirty tricks it insulates him when he participates in the same tricks -- even if his campaign is the first off the block with such tricks. Instead his expectation that he can play by different rules than everyone else makes him look foolish and elitist.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:10 AM | Comments (0) |
September 28, 2004
Oompa-loompagate?
Posted by bubba138 at 05:16 PM | Comments (0) |
That's Why!
Here is why Dan Rather will not admit the memos are fakes.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:37 PM | Comments (0) |
Enough Comedy Jokes
On the way out of the gym this morning one of the TVs was showing BUsh as he made the comment that, "I think he can spend 90 minutes debating himself." I was struck by the unfortunate reality that Kerry's positions have made it so easy to make fun of him. Apparently, he is getting tired of being the butt of Bush's jokes:
Responding to the jibe, Kerry said, "When U.S. soldiers are in harm's way, the American people don't want jokes and fantasy spin from their president, they want to hear the truth."Actually, what the American people do not want is to have a joke as a presidential candidate.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:41 PM | Comments (0) |
Secret Plan Update
Cal Thomas notices something about Kerry's accusation of Bush's "secret plan" to call up more reserves:
You recently accused the president of planning a post-November surprise of calling up more reservists (and your wife predicts Osama bin Laden will be captured before the election). But you have repeatedly faulted the administration for not sending enough troops. Why would the president be wrong in sending more troops -- assuming he will -- when you have criticized him for not doing what you now say he plans to do?It is a good question that I completely missed.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:00 PM | Comments (0) |
Disenfranchisement Debunked
That "statesman" Jimmy Carter says it happened does not make it so:
Headed by a fiercely partisan Democrat, Mary Frances Berry, the Commission was very critical of Florida election officials (many of whom were Democrats). For example, "Potential voters confronted inexperienced poll workers, antiquated machinery, inaccessible polling locations, and other barriers to being able to exercise their right to vote." But the report found no basis for the contention that officials conspired to disenfranchise voters. "Moreover," it said, "even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred," let alone racial discrimination.Which leaves the "stolen election" crowd with these inconvenient facts: In 24 of the 25 Florida counties with the highest ballot spoilage rate, the county supervisor was a Democrat. In the 25th county, the supervisor was an Independent. And as for the "felon purge list," the Miami Herald found that whites were twice as likely to be incorrectly placed on the list as blacks.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:59 AM | Comments (0) |
Iran: Spys and Nukes
Iran is one of the primary reasons violence continues in Iraq. Knowing that elections in are right around the corner in both Afghanistan and Iraq scares the crud out of them. The biggest threat to them is having representative Democracies, free of the mullacracy on two of it's major borders, so they are motivated to keep things stirred up in Iraq:
Iraqi security forces have arrested a spy working for Iranian intelligence, local newspaper AlFurat reported Tuesday. The arrested Nashaat Abd Ali Al Husseiny is accused of spying for Iran, said a top Iraqi intelligence official who declined to give his name.The pro-Iran campaign has already started in the press. Today Reuters trumpets that Iran is nuke free:Al Husseiny confessed serious things that would incriminate the Iranian intelligence and its interference in Iraq's internal affairs, said the source.
The analysis of soil samples taken by U.N. inspectors at Lavizan, a site in Tehran that U.S. officials suspect may be linked to an atomic weapons program, shows no sign of nuclear activity, Western diplomats said..."The environmental samples taken at Lavizan have come back negative so far," a Vienna-based diplomat who follows the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told Reuters. Negative means the samples contained no traces of nuclear materials...
Washington accused Iran of removing a substantial amount of topsoil and rubble from the site and replacing it with a new layer of soil, in what U.S. officials said might have been an attempt to cover clandestine nuclear activity at Lavizan...
But another diplomat close to the IAEA told Reuters that on-site inspections of Lavizan produced no proof that any soil had been removed at all.
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As an example of Iran's chutzpah, hardliners have recently submitted a bill that gives the IAEA a deadline for getting out of their faces:
Iran's hardline lawmakers could try to force President Mohammad Khatami's government to follow North Korea's example and quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the official IRNA news agency said on Tuesday.There is only one reason to want to pull out of the NPT and that is to produce nuclear weapons. To the credit of Iran's government, their Foreign Minister said it is not their policy to pull out of the NPT, "We are sticking to NPT". However, not many months ago we observed that while it was not the government's policy to throw out hundreds of reform candidates it happened anyway because it was what the hardliners decreed.Leading conservative parliamentarian Hassan Kamran has prepared a bill for submission to parliament that would force the government to set a November deadline for the U.N. nuclear watchdog to take Iran off the agency's agenda, IRNA said.
"The bill obliges the government to pull out of the NPT if the International Atomic Energy Agency does not meet the deadline," IRNA quoted Kamran as saying.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:20 AM | Comments (0) |
al-Qa'eda's Goal: Disrupt the Democratic Process
al-Qaeda's threat to attack the United States before the Nov. 2 election is geared less toward affecting the outcome of the presidential race than toward making a violent statement to Islamic extremists worldwide, senior counterterrorism officials said Monday.For the most part this is a clear thinking assessement of al Qa'eda's intentions.
The officials said the network's aim in the United States, and in other countries as well, is mainly to disrupt the democratic process in a more general sense.
I have tried to stay away from who al Qa'eda would prefer in the White House because Kerry's stance differs from Bush's only in details and degrees. I entertain no delusions that Kerry has plans to coddle terrorists. My concern is that, unlike Bush, Kerry will not be proactive to them and will be too quick to run from adversity as he has promised to do.
That being said, it is clear that al Qa'eda considers it a triumph if it is perceived that it can change the outcome of an election as we saw in Spain. If on October 31st terrorist violence is able to transform a solid Bush lead into a Kerry victory, al Qa'eda will be only too happy to take credit. But make no mistake, less than thirty days later Kerry will be no less the great Satan in there eyes than Bush was.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:28 AM | Comments (0) |
al-Qa'eda Going Down, One at a Time
What ever it takes, I guess:
A suspected al-Qaeda leader arrested in Lebanon last week has died of a heart attack, officials say.I hope it is contagious.
Ismail Mohammed al-Khatib was among 10 people held after security forces said they foiled an attack against the Italian embassy in Beirut.He was rushed to hospital from jail - apparently suffering from chest pains - where doctors were unable to save him, hospital officials said.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:12 AM | Comments (0) |
September 27, 2004
It Takes a Thief
This looks like a movie in the making:
Thieves stole two diamonds worth more than $14.2 million from a display case at a Paris antique show near the Louvre on Monday, police said.The mid-afternoon theft occurred at the 22nd "Antiquary's Biennial" trade show at the Carrousel du Louvre after a worker stepped away for a break, police said. The stand was operated by Swiss watchmaker and jeweler Chopard, show organizers said.
The suspects made off with a 47-carat white diamond worth $7.4 million and a 15.74-carat blue diamond valued at $6.8 million, police said.
An initial police investigation found no alarm system or surveillance cameras at the display window. There was no sign of a break-in, police said.
"It happened in a few seconds, surely. The two stones disappeared," show president Christian Deydier told reporters. "Everything is in the hands of the police."
Posted by bubba138 at 09:23 PM | Comments (0) |
Bush/Cheney Needs Your Help
I just got this from the Bush/Cheney campaign:
We're writing to ask for your help.I just gave, you should too.But not for the campaign.
This time we're asking our volunteers and supporters, those who have been so helpful to the President, to help our friends and neighbors around the country who have been battered by a series of weather events.
From hurricane damage to flooding, we've seen our nation hit again and again by Mother Nature's fury. When disaster strikes, the American Red Cross leads relief efforts and helps communities by providing food and shelter.
You can help by contributing to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.
American Red Cross
http://www.redcross.org/
1-800-HELP-NOWThere is a time for politics, and a time to set partisanship aside and come to the aid of others. Now is the time to help our friends, family and neighbors in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
Please give all you can.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0) |
Judge Me By...
In his acceptance speech on July, 29th 2004 John Kerry appealed, "I ask you to judge me by my record."
Talking to dairy farmers today, John Kerry asked them to judge him by anything but his record:
Kerry tried to convince voters in this rural community, where he is practicing for Thursday's debate, that he would look out for dairy farms here even though he hadn't always in the past.Update: I can't believe I missed this before. In the lede, Kerry accuses Bush of having a "secret plan that would hurt milk producers after the election." We will have to add this one to the list.In the 1990s, Kerry supported the Northeast Dairy Compact, a regional pricing program that propped up prices for Northeastern dairy farmers over objections of their Midwestern counterparts.
"We've had a difference between the Midwest and the Northeast," Kerry said. "I'm going to be very upfront with you about it.
"As a senator representing Massachusetts, I fought for the dairy compact and fought to have our dairy farmers get help," he said. "I'm running for president of the United States now and I intend to represent all the farmers of America."
Posted by bubba138 at 04:00 PM | Comments (0) |
"Despicable" Campaign Ads
The Kerry campaign is not happy about some recent ads:
The Kerry-Edwards campaign has issued its response to an "appalling new ad from the Bush attack machine."Of course, it makes no difference to the Kerry camp that these ads are run by an organization completely independent of the Bush campaign. Kerry supporters argue that Progress for America Voter Fund are Republican backed and therefore a part of the "Bush attack machine," but all credibility is lost in this argument when the Kerry camp will not take responisbility for the dozens of false ads run against Bush by the Media Fund, MoveOn.org and America Coming Together.Supporters of President Bush are now running an ad that shows images of Osama bin Laden, 9/11 terrorist Mohammad Atta, wreckage of the World Trade Center and other terrorist attacks around the world.
The ad, produced by the Progress for America Voter Fund, asks, "Would you trust Kerry against these fanatic killers?"
Two Democrats, Sen. Max Cleland and former Sen. Bob Kerrey, also released statements criticizing the new 'Progress for America' ad:
"I am appalled by this ad from the Bush attack machine and the way it plays right into the hands of the terrorists, helping them achieve their goal of dividing the nation," said Cleland. "This ad is un-American and the president should condemn it in no uncertain terms."
No one in the Bush campaign and no ad approved by the President has sunk to the levels that Kerry's camp has. In the last week alone John Kerry, John Edwards, and campaign adviser Joe Lockhart have all come out against key U.S. ally Iraqi leader Alliwi, calling him nothing but a shill for Bush.
And then we have Kerry's mentor and top adviser to his campaign, Ted Kennedy, saying that Bush has made the U.S. more vulnerable to a nuclear attack from terrorists.
Kerry's campaign has run ads that blame the war in Iraq on Cheney's ties to Halliburton, has fueled inuendo about the President's National Gaurd Service, has politicized the war in Iraq and in the process called the President "juvenile."
Somehow we are to believe that Kerry's campaign is less muddy than the President's?
Posted by bubba138 at 12:51 PM | Comments (0) |
Talk About Planning Ahead
Jay Leno is retiring:
NBC announced Monday that Conan O'Brien will take over from Jay Leno as host of the "Tonight" show. But he'll have time to write his jokes -- the planned succession won't happen until 2009.Five years is long time to wait for a promotion. Perhaps Conan should consider switching networks. He could have a nice gig come spring.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:23 PM | Comments (0) |
Preemptive Diplomacy
Posted by bubba138 at 10:53 AM | Comments (0) |
New Players On the Block
527 organizations are just kid's play in the scam that is campaign finance reform:
A 501c (3) group can register voters, and donations to it are tax deductible, but it is prohibited from engaging in partisan or electioneering work. A 501c (4), (5) or (6) group can be involved in elections, but the cost of doing so must be less than one-half the group's total budget. Public Citizen, in a report last week titled "The New Stealth PACs," contended that many of the politically active 501c (4) groups regularly spend more than half their budgets on political activities in violation of IRS rules.The key problem here is not that 501c organizations want to support or oppose particular candidates or issues. It is that they are not required to disclose who their donors are and how much they are donating. Being able to determine just who is behind the advertising is crucial to knowing how to weight the information coming from such material.IRS rules also stipulate that electioneering by 501c (4), (5) and (6) groups cannot be "express advocacy" -- that is, telling people to vote for or against specific candidates. But such groups can run ads that address public issues such as immigration or taxes and that refer to the stands of candidates in ways that help or hurt them.
In the 2004 campaign, these legal distinctions have translated into two specific roles for these groups. One is to mobilize voters for Election Day. The other is to articulate criticism and orchestrate attacks that candidates and their parties may not want to launch themselves. That is the role assumed by Citizens United, whose president, David N. Bossie, is no stranger to hardball conservative politics.
Asked whether he would provide the names of his donors, Bossie said, "No, we follow the rules that are in place for 501c groups."
Some board members, consultants, lawyers and staff members of many of these nonpartisan 501c organizations are, in fact, active partisans, separately working for campaigns, political parties and groups.
Perhaps no one better illustrates the host of interlocking roles than Carl Pope, one of the most influential operatives on the Democratic side in the 2004 election. As executive director of the Sierra Club, a major 501c (4) environmental lobby, Pope also controls the Sierra Club Voter Education Fund, a 527. The Voter Education Fund 527 has raised $3.4 million this election cycle, with $2.4 million of that amount coming from the Sierra Club. A third group, the Sierra Club PAC, has since 1980 given $3.9 million to Democratic candidates and $173,602 to GOP candidates.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:59 AM | Comments (0) |
Ads That Work
In California where everyone has written the state off to Kerry, we do not get to see many campaign ads. I do not know if that is good or bad, but I would like to see the Republicans do more to get their message out here. Ohio viewers on the other hand have been served a double portion of this year's campaign ads. Here is what they think:
While the voters said they disliked negative ads, the commercial that had the most effect on whom they might vote for was an attack ad. That Kerry commercial takes a jab at Vice President Cheney for his ties to Halliburton, the company Cheney once headed.That last comment certainly falls in Bush's favor. After all, John Kerry is the only candidate running ads that have anything to do with Vietnam era service.Three-quarters of the group said the ad made them at least slightly more likely to vote for Kerry. The result seems to confirm what researchers have said in recent years: While voters say they don't like negative ads, the commercials can be effective...
None of the 35 want to see any more ads about either Kerry's or Bush's military records.
"I don't really see what that's got to do with who could lead the country the best between the two of them," said James Welsh, 67, another undecided voter.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:43 AM | Comments (0) |
Jimmy Carter: Florida Election Officials are Partisan
Jimmy Carter in the Washington Post:
When I describe these activities, either in the United States or in foreign forums, the almost inevitable questions are: "Why don't you observe the election in Florida?" and "How do you explain the serious problems with elections there?"Jimmy is asked why his organization (the same one who "verified" Hugo Chavez's election in Venezuela) won't monitor the election in Florida and all he can come up with is that Florida's election officials are partisan? Nowhere does he mention the possibility that his own partisanship disqualifies him from being a valid observer.The answer to the first question is that we can monitor only about five elections each year, and meeting crucial needs in other nations is our top priority. (Our most recent ones were in Venezuela and Indonesia, and the next will be in Mozambique.) A partial answer to the other question is that some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida.
The most significant of these requirements are:
• A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during and after the actual voting takes place. Although rarely perfect in their objectivity, such top administrators are at least subject to public scrutiny and responsible for the integrity of their decisions. Florida voting officials have proved to be highly partisan, brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process.
Mr. Carter goes on to illustrate his partisanship just a few paragraphs later:
Four years ago, the top election official, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney state campaign committee. The same strong bias has become evident in her successor, Glenda Hood, who was a highly partisan elector for George W. Bush in 2000. Several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000, and a fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons.1. Was it Karen Harris who "selected" Bush or the Supreme Court? Partisans such as Carter need to make up their mind.
2. The canard about disenfranchised African Americans has been bandied about by the Democrat partisans it is now accepted as truth. That no one has actually been able to confirmed these charges is inconsequential. In like fashion, by repeating this fairy tale, Carter lowers himself to inconsequential status.
3. Hispanics in Florida are not "likely Republicans" as Carter infers. In 2000, 49% of Hispanics voted for Bush while 48% voted for Gore: hardly an advantage.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:05 AM | Comments (0) |
Mission Accomplished
I was on the docks when the USS Lincloln came steaming into San Diego just hours after Bush's onboard speech. This I know, in the minds of those young sailors "Mission Accomplished" was right on target.
The President certainly thought it appropriate, and still does:
"I'm saying to the troops, on this carrier and elsewhere, thanks for serving America," Bush told Fox News. "And by the way, those sailors and airmen loved seeing the commander in chief. . . . These kids had been on a very long cruise. They'd been on a cruise to both, in two theaters of war now, Afghanistan and Iraq. I flew out there and said thanks. Thanks on behalf of a grateful nation. You bet I'd do it again."
Posted by bubba138 at 08:28 AM | Comments (0) |
September 24, 2004
Macho Men?
Jill Lawrence and Judy Keen are trying to convince the readers of USA Today that this year's presidential race is pumped up with testosterone on both sides:
Political analysts say they've never seen anything quite like the tough-guy competition between President Bush and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. They point to two reasons: Millions of hunters and fishermen live in the battleground states each candidate needs to win, and voters everywhere are haunted by 9/11.Are they serious?The images from the 2004 campaign certainly bear that out. There's the Everyman series: Bush cutting brush, Kerry tossing a football, the pair aiming rifles and falling off their bikes. And the aristocracy series: Bush fishing in his own lake in Texas and off his father's dock in Maine, Kerry windsurfing and snowboarding near his wife's vacation retreats. And the military series: Bush with troops all over the world, Kerry with veterans all over the country, both of them with generals galore.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:24 PM | Comments (0) |
Forbes 400
The headlines blare "Most Billionaires Ever in Forbes 400." One would think that a ripe invitation for lefty blogging on how the gap between rich and poor continues to grow. Yet Talk Left, Atrios, Kos, and Drum are curiously silent on the subject. Maybe their silence is because of this:
Returning after a year's absence was Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry; her $750 million tied her for last place.It is kind of hard to explain how you feel the pain of the poor and downtrodden when your fortune is the 400th out of more than 105 million households.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:51 PM | Comments (0) |
Bush Strength Growing
Contrary to Kerry campaign bluster, Bush's convention bump is holding strong. The latest AP/Ipsos poll has him up seven point, and over the 50% mark. More important is Bush's strength in the internals of the polling:
Bush's strength is increasing among women, his rating is over 50% the the overall job, Iraq and economy categories, and the closer we get to election day the better polling looks for him.Bush has a 7-point lead over Sen. John Kerry - 52 percent to 45 percent among likely voters - in the AP-Ipsos survey less than six weeks before the Nov. 2 election...
With time running out, Kerry has much important work to do in his campaign, the AP-Ipsos poll suggested.
Since the Republican convention, Bush's job approval is up, 54 percent among likely voters, and just over half of them approve of his handling of the economy and Iraq. His approval in all three areas is as high as it's been all year in the polling conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.
...Bush and Kerry are tied among women, a traditionally Democratic group that now favors Bush on protecting the country. Democrat Al Gore won the women's vote by 11 percentage points in 2000, while Bush won men by a similar margin.
Betsy Bodenhamer, a 33-year-old teacher's aide and mother of two from Galesburg, Ill., says she has always voted for Democrats in recent presidential elections. This year, she's leaning toward Bush.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:01 PM | Comments (0) |
The Iran Dilemma
George Will says nukes in Iran is all but a done deal:
Iran may well have tactical nuclear capability within this decade. Knowing that there is a U.S. presence on both her borders should give one no small sense of comfort.Until 1994, Nafisi says, Iran's chief film censor, who previously had been theater censor, was nearly blind. He would sit in a theater with an assistant who explained what was transpiring on stage and took notes on the cuts the censor required. The showing on television of "Billy Budd" was condemned because it supposedly promoted homosexuality -- although the television programmers chose it because it had no female characters. After the 1979 revolution, the regime lowered the marriageable age of women from 18 to 9. Since 2002 -- this is Iranian moderation -- a court's permission is required to marry younger than 13.
President Kennedy could not have imagined that such a backward-facing regime would be among those that would acquire the most modern of weapons...
It is unlikely, but possible, that China's weight, properly applied in the context of North Korea's desperate material needs, can prevent North Korea from crossing the threshold. However, Iran is almost certainly going to cross it...
Iran can negotiate in bad faith while it continues its progress toward development of such weapons...
On Tuesday, four days after a U.N. agency told Iran not do it, Iran announced that it has begun processing 37 tons of yellow cake (milled uranium) into a gas as part of a process to produce a compound that can be used in nuclear power plants, but also can be a precursor of highly enriched uranium for weapons...It is surreal to cast this as a question of what anyone will "allow" Iran to do.
Some think it more important to have troops stationed in Europe where the nuclear threat posed by anti-American communist governments no longer exists. Some think the highest priority over the next four years should be to bring our troops home from Iraq where the nuclear threat is growing. Some think we can do a deal with the same regime that took sixty-six Americans hostage, that actively sponsors terrorism, and that sends its agents into Iraq to oppose stablization.
Others think differently, and I am glad they do.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:30 AM | Comments (0) |
Kerry's Deanward Shift
Kerry moved quickly into Dean territory on the final night of the Republican convention and he has squarely stayed there since. Dick Morris says this is a losing strategy:
Liberals will cheer Kerry's new-found decisiveness, but it opens the way for Bush to deal him a counterstroke that can all but end this election and finish off Kerry for good.A "big tent" can only be so big, and if the only unifying factor the party has is "get Bush out," they are bound to be divided on one issue or another.Kerry's right flank is now gapingly vulnerable to a Bush attack. According to Scott Rasmussen's tracking polls, 30 to 40 percent of Kerry's voters disagree with his new leftward tilt on Iraq.
That is, even as the Democrat condemned the war in Iraq as a "diversion" from the central mission of the war on terror, a large minority of his own voters disagrees and sees it as "integral" to the battle to respond to 9/11.
Kerry has moved to the left, leaving about one-third of his vote behind. Bush can now move in and peel off Kerry's moderate supporters.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:24 AM | Comments (0) |
More CBS Backlash
Blatent bias affects the pocketbook and again the market corrects itself:
WNIS, a local news-talk radio station, has dumped CBS News because of listener outrage over the "60 Minutes" report questioning President Bush's National Guard service.Update: Fox News reports:WNIS switched Thursday to ABC News, after at least a dozen years with CBS News.
"We had so much outcry from our listeners. They were calling and complaining and saying they wouldn't listen to a CBS newscast anymore," said Lisa Sinclair, general manager of Sinclair Communications, which owns WNIS and four other stations in the Norfolk area, home to the world's largest naval base.
Station managers at several CBS affiliates said Thursday they appear to be a target of a national e-mail campaign placing pressure on the network to oust Dan Rather as anchorman of the "CBS Evening News."Many e-mailers offer the same message: I will not watch CBS News again until Rather is gone, said Bob Lee, president and general manager of WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, Va., and head of the CBS affiliate board.
"To be honest, I'm most concerned when the e-mail is coming from a local viewer," said Gary Gardner, vice president and general manager of WINK-TV in Fort Myers, Fla.
Lee said he can't recall any other issue getting such a big response from viewers.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:16 AM | Comments (0) |
Someone Is Lying
Either Burkett or Lockhart are being less than completely honest about their conversation:
During a single phone conversation with Lockhart, Burkett said he suggested a "couple of concepts on what I thought [Kerry] had to do" to beat Bush. In return, he said, Lockhart tried to "convince me as to why I should give them the documents."This is simple. Either they talked about the documents or they did not. Burkett has already shown a penchant for stretching the truth. The question now is does Lockhart have that same talent?According to the Associated Press, Lockhart said he listened to some campaign advice from Burkett for a few minutes and does not recall talking about Bush's National Guard records.
Posted by bubba138 at 06:48 AM | Comments (0) |
September 23, 2004
NewsMax Stiring the Pot
It is only very seldom that I link to NewsMax because it is so blatently partisan that all its pieces are tainted. This is a great example why:
The Kerry campaign made an explicit reference to information in at least one of four forged military documents broadcast 14 days ago by CBS's "60 Minutes" - in a detailed campaign press release attacking President Bush's National Guard service dated months before the Sept. 8 "60 Minutes" broadcast.NewsMax's implication is that this release from the Kerry campaign is quoting one of the forged Killian memos.
The reality is, however, that Kerry's release directly quotes from and references "Aeronautical Orders, Number 87, 29 Sept 72; AFM 35-13, Para 2-29m," not the Killian memo.
Truth is important in this campaign. Using CBS' own dishonest tactics to further any political agenda, left or right, demeans us all and should not be tolerated.
Posted by bubba138 at 06:00 PM | Comments (0) |
Bush's Secret Plans
According to Democrats, Bush has "secret plans" to:
- Privatize Social Security
- Bring Back the Draft
- Call Up More Troops
- Wage Nuclear War
- Cut Social Services
- Create Jobs By Blowing Stuff Up
- Manipulate Oil Prices to Benefit the Saudis
- Cut VA Benefits
- Cut Education Funding
- Send Jobs Overseas
Judging by all these people who know all about his "secret plans," the President should work a bit on keeping his secrets, well, secret. The next thing you know everyone will find out about his secret plan to invade the moon.
Ooops. Did I let that slip out?
Welcome, KerrySpot readers. Not only does Bush have secret plans, he's responsible for all the 527 organization's "Dispicable" campaign ads.
Update: Believe it or not, Bush has a secret milk plan too. Really, I am not joking.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) |
There Is More to the CBS Story
Gene Grant says the story on CBS is not over yet. I especially like his confidence that other organizations will get to the bottom of it:
How in God's name do you take the word of Bill Burkett, the retired National Guard officer who supplied the documents to CBS producers, when he once had a serious enough falling-out with senior officers that he ended up suing the Guard? Are you kidding me? Suing a branch of the armed services? In addition, he had announced publicly his bitterness toward President Bush for his perceived lack of support for Guard reforms.Now there's a personality I'd trust with the biggest news story of my career. Yes, indeedy.
First, Burkett claimed he "found" these documents in a trash can in Austin - the grown-up's equivalent of "the dog ate my homework." Later came a phone call and a manila envelope handed over at a Houston livestock show. Give me a break.
Now we are told Burkett had what the Bush spokesman Scott McClellan called "contact" with high-level John Kerry people. This is not an unexpected charge. It runs right beside the charge two weeks back, from Democrats, that this scandal actually was an extraordinarily clever plot by Bush campaign honcho Karl Rove.
You know what? One of these charges is probably right.
As of this writing, it was still unknown who in fact supplied the documents to Burkett. But there's a Pulitzer Prize being polished now for the reporter who finds out. And, trust me, someone will.
I have all the faith in world in the hallowed tradition of news organizations stomping a competitor once it's down, as CBS is now.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:11 AM | Comments (0) |
Gift Horse Syndrome
Some are whining about the free car Oprah gave them:
By adding $28,500 to someone's income, it can push them into a higher tax bracket -- which means they will have to pay about 25 percent or more of the car's value in taxes. And for a nearly $30,000 car, that probably means, for most of the recipients, shelling out $7,125 for the "free car."My heart bleeds. Here is an idea: sell the car and pay your taxes out of the 100% profit.And if you live in Illinois, you can expect to tack on another 3 percent or so in state income taxes.
"It's not really a free car, it's more of a 75 percent off car," said Susan Nelson, who was one of three Wheaton College public relations staffers at the show. "Of course, that's still not such a bad deal."
Some of the winners, contacted by the Chicago Sun-Times on Tuesday, said they were thinking about the taxes as soon as the announcement came that they would be getting the new cars.
"Some of the people who knew me, my smile looked a little bit forced when I was up there [on the show]," said William Toebe, a suburban Green Bay resident who was at the taping. "That's because paying the taxes was the first thing that popped into my head."
"As I was standing up there, the responsible portion of me said, 'This is very nice, but where am I going to get the money for the taxes.'"
Oh, and shut up, too.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:38 AM | Comments (0) |
Homeland Security
Sometimes it works, sometimes not:
Undercover investigators were able to sneak explosives and weapons past security screeners at 15 airports nationwide, according to a government report on aviation security.The tests were done during the second half of 2003. But they highlight ongoing vulnerabilities in the nation's aviation security system, particularly in detecting explosives such as those that Russian authorities say were used to bring down two airliners last month.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) |
The Battlefield Shrinks
The number of states in which Kerry is competitive is shrinking, and his campaign knows it:
Bowing to political realities, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has canceled plans to begin broadcasting television commercials in Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana and the perennial battleground of Missouri.Of course, with Kerry backing off in those states, Bush camp resources are also freed up and can be used in other places like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Such are states that Gore won in 2000 and Kerry must have in order to have any chance in 2004.The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Arizona, Arkansas and Louisiana are unlikely to see Kerry ads unless there is a major shift in the campaign's dynamics. Missouri is still the subject of debate inside the campaign, with some advisers pushing to advertise in the traditional swing state.
Kerry ads are running in 14 of the 20 states in which he reserved commercial time. His schedule calls for ads to begin airing next month in Maine and North Carolina.
Update: Are Oregon and Maryland in play now?
Posted by bubba138 at 10:29 AM | Comments (0) |
Channeling Dean?
Who says Kerry is sounding like Howard Dean? No one I know.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:44 AM | Comments (0) |
Colorado: The Next Legal Battleground
Colorado is entertaining a proposition that would scrap the winner take all system and award the state's nine Electoral College votes for president proportionally, based on the popular vote. If passed (and it is likely it will), it will apply to this year's presidential election.
Colorado is also a swing state where until recently poll numbers between Bush and Kerry have been tight.
Add to these two points the fact that new voter registration has increased so much that county workers face a huge backlog of work processing the applications:
Several Colorado counties face heavy backlogs in signing up a swell of new voters and are scrambling to update registration rolls before early voting starts Oct. 18.
Jefferson County, home to the largest number of voters in the state, has about 15,000 voter registration forms waiting to be processed...Watchdogs fear the rush to input tens of thousands of names and addresses may result in inaccuracies that could affect tight races on Election Day.
Some worry that prospective voters whose forms are processed incorrectly or not at all may not vote rather than exercise their right to cast "provisional ballots" - which will be counted only if verified after the Nov. 2 election...
"There's a lot at stake in this election. It's a real concern that the catch-up they have to do and the errors they could make will disenfranchise voters from the polls," said Steve Adams, president of the Colorado AFL-CIO.
These points all make Colorado ripe ground for legal challenges to the election results. With Democrats already screaming about disenfranchisement one can bet they will be looking closely for any reason to bring suits to bear in order to eek out one or two additional electoral votes.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:14 AM | Comments (0) |
Tax Cuts: A Winning Issue
Some Democrats opposed the newly passed extension on middle-class tax cuts. But those in tight races know what is best for them:
The middle-class tax cut extensions are a priority for Bush, but Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has also called for their passage.Our government is fat, fat, fat. The only way to slim it up is to put it on a diet. In the long term, cutting government revenue will force the legislators to make better choices and to prioritize more wisely.Jason Furman, Kerry's economic policy director, said the senator would have preferred the extension be part of a broader budget package that rolled back taxes on affluent households. But he made it clear Kerry would not stand in the way of the bill, which could come up for a vote today in the Senate.
Many Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, who is in a tight re-election race, have signaled that they plan to vote for the popular tax cuts even without offsets to replace the lost revenue.
That being said, if there is anything with which I disagree with the Bush administration it is on spending. However, the blame for this does not fall squarely upon the President, but more heavily upon the Republican controlled Congress. I understand the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cost money, but that does not mean we keep the purse strings loose for everything else. If I have an emergency in my household I am forced to cut back in other areas, and the Congress should have done the same.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:51 AM | Comments (0) |
There Is A Price
CBS is learning there is a price to dishonesty:
Ratings for Dan Rather's "CBS Evening News" have plummeted drastically in New York since the Bush-documents scandal broke wide open this week. The perennially third-place 6:30 p.m. newscast averaged 135,000 viewers on WCBS/Channel 2 Monday — the day Rather issued an on-air apology for the mess.I cannot help but wonder if this drop would have been so dramatic if CBS and Rather had come clean in the first twenty-four hours and said "Hey, we blew it." I think their credibility would still be intact and the situation would have been completely diffused, and today we would be blogging about something else entirely.That's down 49 percent from the 266,000 viewers who tuned in to Rather's newscast the previous Monday, Sept. 13, according to Nielsen.
On another point, CBS losing half its viewership is excellent example of how the evil, greedy, capitalist system just plain works.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:21 AM | Comments (0) |
September 22, 2004
The Story that Didn't Run
It had all the elements: CBS, forged documents, smears on Bush. It was the story that had to be broadcast. The RatherGate affair? Nope, it was the story that got bumped by RatherGate.
It has one more simularity to the Bush/AWOL story: it had already been done -- ad naseum.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:57 PM | Comments (0) |
Bush Up In Ohio
The poll from the University of Cincinnati shows Bush with 54 percent and Kerry with 43 percent. Ralph Nader has two percent. Just one month ago the same poll showed Kerry and Bush statistically tied. A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Ohio poll earlier this month showed a similar post-convention bounce for Bush.Rasmussen says Bush has a three point lead.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:45 PM | Comments (0) |
Whodunnit?
Larry Sabato on Fox News:
Who ever thinks some small guy in Texas forged these memos on his own is smoking something that can't be bought at the corner store.
Yep.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:27 PM | Comments (0) |
Kerry's Iraq Plan - International Support
I have been looking over the transcript of Kerry's Iraq plan, and a few things stand out. I'll be addressing them over the next few days, the first being his call to increase international support.
Of course, it goes without saying that more comprehensive international support has been Bush's desire all along. He made repeated visits to the U.N. before the war, and sent Collin Powell to do the same. He was stonewalled. Kerry himself points out that the U.N. passed Resolution 1546 in which they committed to "help in Iraq by providing troops, trainers for Iraq's security forces and a special brigade to protect the U.N. mission, and more financial assistance and real debt relief." The U.N. has not followed through on its commitment. Kerry somehow thinks this is Bush's fault, asserting that "the president acts as if it doesn't matter." The President isn't acting as if it doesn't matter, he is acting as if unfulfilled promises is all he can expect from the U.N. And he is right.
Kerry suggests, in order to get countries who have resolutely refused to take any part in Iraq (even after commiting to do so), that we
...give other countries a stake in Iraq's future by encouraging them to help develop Iraq's oil resources and by letting them bid on contracts instead of locking them out of the reconstruction process.In other words, give them a pay-off. As Kerry has so often pointed out, America has taken the brunt of the attacks, has borne the vast majority of cost in both lives and money. Now he says we should give other countries a "stake" in Iraq's future. In other words, Kerry suggests we create a "coalition of the bribed," made up of countries that want nothing to do with Iraq unless they can profit from their efforts.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:24 AM | Comments (0) |
The Counter Comes Down
Kerry actually held a press conference and took real questions from real reporters:
Kerry took 11 questions Tuesday. Ten were about Iraq, and eight of those 10 were requests for Kerry to clarify his position...It looks like, however, Kerry's strategy has worked. After over forty days, the press has completely forgotten to ask, "Were you or were you not, Senator, in Cambodia as you have repeatedly claimed, as recently as last April?"Maybe Kerry wished he was back on Live with Regis & Kelly that morning, when the questions had been easier: You're very handsome, senator. How do you stay in shape? Do you have a routine? Don't you think that Tom Cruise could play John Edwards in the movie? Who would play you? (Kerry's answer: "I don't have any idea." Kelly Ripa interjected, "Harrison Ford.")
Still, he did take questions, so I have removed the Kerry Counter from the sidebar.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:55 AM | Comments (0) |
Mapes Taking the Fall
It looks like Mapes is set to take the fall:
CBS News said yesterday that the producer of its flawed report about President Bush's National Guard service violated network policy by putting a source in touch with a top aide to Senator John Kerry.I'm going to put my tin-foil hat on for a moment and entertain a possibility."It is obviously against CBS News standards and those of every other reputable news organization to be associated with any political agenda," the network said in a statement.
The rebuke of the producer, Mary Mapes, also broadcast last night on "The CBS Evening News," served to underscore the change in Ms. Mapes's status in the last week.
We know CBS got the memos from Burkett. We also know Burkett had contact with the Kerry campaign through both Max Cleland and Joe Lockhart. CBS says its producer, Mary Mapes put Burkett in touch with the Kerry campaign, but what if that is not what happened?
Keep in mind, I am wondering out loud here. As the heat intensified over the memo flap, CBS knew it was going to have questions asked about its sources. It also knew smart people would be asking questions about who talked with whom. CBS knew other organizations would soon be finding out about a three way partnership between themselves, Burkett and the Kerry campaign.
CBS wants us to believe that Mapes contacted Lackhart on Burkett's behalf. What if the exact opposite were true? Is is possible that Lockhart, acting on information he received from Cleland, contacted Mapes and pointed her to Burkett instead?
What we need is to firmly establish the timeline of phone calls and contacts. Can Mapes document that she was in contact with Burkett both before she contacted Lockhart and before Lockhart contacted Burkett?
I am not at all saying this is what happened. But we do know CBS has been less than forthright on this affair from the very beginning, so we should not buy their story about who talked with whom and when without checking into it.
We also know that Lockhart has not been completely honest about the memos either. On Good Morning America, George Stephanopolis said this:
Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign denies that the Kerry campaign had anything to do with these documents. Another Kerry researcher says they learned about them on television.Lockhart has later said he did actually have a conversation with Burkett, but they did not discuss the memos. That Burkett would not at all mention these memos to Lockhart is beyond the pale of belief.
This kind of collusion between a campaign and the media is highly suspect, and if the Kerry campaign fed this story to Mapes we need to know about it.
I am taking off my tin-foil hat now.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:19 AM | Comments (0) |
September 21, 2004
Give Him Some Prozac and Then Hang Him
Deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is depressed and has begged the Iraqi government for mercy, Iraq's Prime Minister Iyad Allawi says.Also in the article is this interesting bit:"He is distraught and depressed," Allawi said of Saddam, the man who was Iraq's president for 24 years and is awaiting trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
"Saddam and his colleagues are not the giants that the media sometimes talks about. Saddam sent us an oral message in which he begged for mercy. He said that they were working in the public interest and did not mean any harm," Allawi said in an interview with the pan Arab al-Hayat newspaper published on Monday.
He also said he had survived four assassination attempts since his interim government came to power in June, the last just five days ago when his guards became suspicious of a car outside Baghdad's Green Zone compound housing the government and the U.S. and other embassies.This is not a battle between Iraqis who hate Americans and Iraqis who put up with them. It is a battle between freedom-loving Iraqis and foriegn fighters who kill in the name of Islam and in the manner of their prophet.The car then blew up and a battle between gunmen and his guards ensued. Two non-Iraqi Arabs were arrested, he said.
Allawi would not give their nationality, but said they belonged to Islamist militant groups.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:45 AM | Comments (0) |
527 Organizations
The Globe has a report on 527s today:
Peter B. Lewis is one of America's most colorful billionaires. He is chairman of Cleveland's 26,000-employee Progressive Insurance Corp., owns one of the world's largest yachts, and is a major backer of efforts to decriminalize marijuana.It is lovely how "Texas oilman" T. Boone Pickens is grouped right in there with Peter B. Lewis and George Soros. It is not until the very last sentence of the article that we find out Pickens gave all of $500,000 -- mere chicken scratch compared to the combined $27 million given by Lewis and Soros.Lewis is one of thousands of Americans from across the political spectrum who have contributed to independent political committees, known as 527s, in this election cycle. But Lewis's contributions -- like those of a handful of other wealthy activists, including billionaire George Soros and Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens -- are not typical.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:18 AM | Comments (0) |
Kerry's Four Point Plan
Bush responds to Kerry's brilliant four point plan for Iraq:
President Bush yesterday ridiculed his Democratic opponent's latest position on the war in Iraq, saying "43 days before the election, my opponent has now settled on a proposal for what to do next — and it's exactly what we're currently doing.""Incredibly, he now believes our national security would be stronger with Saddam Hussein in power and not in prison," Mr. Bush said. "He's saying he prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy. I couldn't disagree more, and not so long ago, so did my opponent."
Sounds familiar.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:10 AM | Comments (0) |
Iran Gives World the Middle Finger
Iran is continuing with its nuclear program no matter what the world says:
President Mohammad Khatami said Tuesday that Iran will continue its suspect nuclear program even if that means an end to U.N. oversight.Some people think we can make deals with such regimes.
"We've made our choice: yes to peaceful nuclear technology, no to atomic weapons," Khatami told a military parade in Tehran."We will continue along our path even if it leads to an end to international supervision" of our nuclear activities, he said.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:04 AM | Comments (0) |
Who Said This?
Shortly after NBC News suffered the worst scandal in its history more than a decade ago, admitting that it had rigged a General Motors truck to explode in an accident staged for "Dateline," a longtime network news anchor offered cautionary words."There's no rejoicing that a terrible, unusual journalistic practice has been caught, punished and eradicated," the anchor said. "Because we all know that with only a slight relaxation of vigilance and a slight increase of fear, those journalistic sins could be visited upon us."
Prophetic words from Dan Rather.
OUCH.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:00 AM | Comments (0) |
RatherGate Update
CBS says they are going to name an independent panel to find out how they blew it so badly:
Now CBS opens its doors to an outside panel that will assign blame.The key word here is independent. What are the chances they will bring John H. Hinderaker, or any of a half-a-dozen bloggers who originally broke this story open onto the panel?"I think it will be helpful, given the attention this story has received, for cool, collected, independent voices of unchallenged integrity to examine the process," CBS News President Andrew Heyward said.
Yep, Nil.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:57 AM | Comments (0) |
September 20, 2004
It Is Official
CBS admits they blew it:
Bill Burkett, in a weekend interview with CBS News Anchor and Correspondent Dan Rather, has acknowledged that he provided the now-disputed documents used in the Sept. 8 "60 Minutes Wednesday" report on President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard.Burkett, a retired National Guard lieutenant colonel, also admits that he deliberately misled the CBS News producer working on the report, giving her a false account of the documents’ origins to protect a promise of confidentiality to the actual source.
Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret. Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable, and independent reporting. We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust.
Even Dan Rather has apologized:
And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.Notice the bolded portions of both statements. These are a far cry from the "fake but accurate" position that both CBS and Dan Rather had previous taken.Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where-if I knew then what I know now-I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.
It is good that CBS finally came to its senses, but their credibility remains unquestionably damaged, perhaps permanently. What speaks more to the character of CBS is not this apology, but that they completely stood by the initial report without reserve.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:46 AM | Comments (0) |
Kerry's Plan for Iraq
Kerry is attacking Bush on Iraq. He says he has a better plan:
Kerry said Monday that Bush's invasion of Iraq has created a crisis that could lead to unending war and has raised questions about whether Bush's judgment is up to presidential standards. He offered his own four-point plan starting with pressing other nations for help.Let's take this point by point.Get more help from other nations. Provide better training for Iraqi security forces. Provide benefits to the Iraqi people. Ensure that democratic elections can be held next year as promised. "If the president would move in this direction ... we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring all our troops home within the next four years," Kerry said.
Get more help from other nations:
This has been one of the few points on Iraq on which Kerry has been consistant. The problem is that he has offered absolutely no evidence that he would be able to acheive more cooperation than has the President. His campaign even offered to drop their drawers to Iran and was summarily dismissed by the theocracy as silly. George Bush has repeatedly gone to other nations and asked for help only to be snubbed time and again. So just how does this point of Kerry's plan distinguish him from the President?
Provide better training for Iraqi security forces:
Better than what? What new team of trainers is Kerry going to bring in to do this? Currently our military is already training Iraqi forces, is Kerry saying they are not doing an adequate job? More importantly, how does this point of Kerry's plan distinguish him from the President?
Provide benefits to the Iraqi people:
We are already providing new economic benefits to the Iraqi people, building schools and hospitals, building infrastructure for the internet, modernizing utilities that Saddam left unmaintained, providing new opportunities to Iraq's women, restoring poluted marshlands, providing medical equipment, and a score of other things (more here, here, here). So just how does this point of Kerry's plan distinguish him from the President?
Ensure that democratic elections can be held next year as promised:
Again, just how does this point of Kerry's plan distinguish him from the President?
Kerry is trying to look equally strong on Iraq and build support for the U.S. getting out as soon as possible. The problem is, Kerry cannot logically complain about spending $200 billion and also say, "I'll stop at nothing to get the terrorists before they get us." Doing so implies he would have stopped at a lesser amount.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) |
Crowning a New King
Someone new has taken the dictatorial reigns in China:
China's president, Hu Jintao, replaced Jiang Zemin as the country's military chief and de facto top leader on Sunday, state media announced, completing the first orderly transfer of power in the history of China's Communist Party.Hardly a move in the right direction.Mr. Hu, who became Communist Party chief in 2002 and president in 2003, now commands the state, the military and the ruling party. He will set both foreign and domestic policy in the world's most populous country, which now has the world's seventh-largest economy and is rapidly emerging as a great power...
"Use power for the people, show concern for the people and seek benefit for the people," Mr. Hu said in remarks early in his term as party chief. He has allowed state media to refer to him as a populist, though his rise through the ranks has not depended on popular support.
Little is known about Mr. Hu personally beyond a few random facts offered by the propaganda machine, including his enthusiasm for Ping-Pong and what is described as a photographic memory. In official settings, he is a much less colorful figure than Mr. Jiang, who crooned "Love Me Tender" at an Asian diplomatic gathering and was fond of quoting Jefferson and reciting the Gettysburg Address to visiting Americans.
It seems highly unlikely that Mr. Hu is a closet liberal. Editors and other journalists say he has tightened media controls. He has presided over a crackdown on online discussion by jailing people who express antigovernment views on the Internet.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:06 AM | Comments (0) |
Cruel and Unusual Punshiment
CNN:
A judge slapped a man who played a role in a fatal road rage crash with two jail sentences and a string of restrictions meant to publicly humiliate him after jurors decided only on probation.It tells you something when humiliating someone who participated in a crime in which one's life was taken is news. We all know, of course, that humiliation has no role in proper discipline.State District Judge Keith Dean ordered Frank Dorsett to serve two 180-day terms, drive a car with no more than 130 horsepower, carry a photo of the wreckage, take daily medication that will make him sick if he drinks alcohol and put a bumper sticker on his vehicle asking other motorists to call the probation department if he's driving recklessly.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:37 AM | Comments (0) |
Saint Clinton
This is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Clinton as a saint? That is side-splitting humor. People ought to lighten up.With news of the artwork spreading online, comments are finding their way onto Internet messageboards. Among them:
"This is the most sickening and revolting thing I've ever seen. It is the basest form of sacrilege – not to mention nauseating, literally! How sick does someone have to be to condone such trash; but more importantly, how sick and perverted does one have to be to have created such cold and perverted cr--?" (Pam) "President Clinton did both good things and bad things during his tenure as president and he had human failures as do we all. Only time will tell whether Mr. Clinton is remembered as a great man in is own right, but he is not a saint nor is he Jesus Christ, just human like the rest of us. I would hope that if you have any conscious, or sense of decency at all, you would reconsider selling this merchandise." (Kathy and Jim) "I realize you are an artist, but I think this is absurd. I would be upset with anyone's image other than Christ himself. ... I wouldn't like George Bush's image as Christ either. ... I guess if you are a Clinton fan perhaps you find this amusing but he's a serial adulterer." (Martinez Boyle)
Posted by bubba138 at 08:31 AM | Comments (0) |
CBS Out of the Closet?
The news of CBS coming out about the memos is now ancient (ie: a couple of hours old) around the blogosphere. It makes one wonder why, after two weeks, they have decided to come out now. The New York Times gives a clue:
But officials decided yesterday that they would most likely have to declare that they had been misled about the records' origin after Mr. Rather and a top network executive, Betsy West, met in Texas with a man who was said to have helped the news division obtain the memos, a former Guard officer named Bill Burkett.The question must be asked, why did CBS wait until now to interview the primary source of the memos? One would like to conclude that this is merely an matter of sloppy journalism, but such is difficult to do since CBS ran with the story ignoring the opinions of three of four document experts, Killian's family, etc.Mr. Rather interviewed Mr. Burkett on camera this weekend, and several people close to the reporting process said his answers to Mr. Rather's questions led officials to conclude that their initial confidence that the memos had come from Mr. Killian's own files was not warranted. These people indicated that Mr. Burkett had previously led the producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, to have the utmost confidence in the material.
Another question: Did Rather's inteview probe deep into Burkett's connections to the DNC? Will he "break the story" that Burkett is a Bush-basher to the extreme, even grouping the President with Hitler and Napolean? We shall see, but at this point my confidence in Rather's investigative skills (or motivation, you pick) leave a lot to be desired.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:12 AM | Comments (0) |
Reading Kerry's Mind: It Is Not Serious
William Safire does the Vulcan mind-meld with John Kerry. It is not pretty:
Duck all the gotcha! news conferences. I'll get away with Imus and Oprah and Larry King and let the hard-news media holler about softballs.Not to mention Letterman.
This brings to mind something that has been bouncing back and forth in the cavern I call my skull for a couple of days. John Kerry is just not serious about this election. Observe:
- Instead of coming up with serious policies, Kerry concentrates on coming up with pithy slogans: "'W' is for wrong", "Let America Be America Again", "Stronger at Home, Respected in the World." This week it is "Wrong Choices, New Direction." Next week it will be something else. This is the nation's -- the world's -- highest office for which he is running, not the local high school ASB.
- Senator Kerry remains Senator. If he was serious about the campaign he would have resigned by now. That he has not shows he is leaving his options open and speaks to his lack of confidence in himself and his campaign.
- Kerry has now gone fifty days since he last faced a serious reporter in an unscripted interview or held a press conference in which he took unqualified questions. Instead he appears on the Comedy Channel's Daily News, the Late Show, and Don Imus. This may score points with the 18 to 25 year old group that hardly votes, but not with serious voters.
UPDATE: My apologies, I did not see that Kerry also is scheduled to appear on hard hitting shows like "Live with Regis and Kelly" and "Dr. Phil".
If Kerry cannot, or will not, take his campaign seriously, how can we expect him to take his job as president seriously?
Update: One more: Kerry's flip-flopping on Iraq shows he is not serious about terror. For or against the war, the president must take a principled stand and Kerry's "nuance" is nothing but a mask for saying exactly what he thinks people want to hear. Pandering and principled are mutually exclusive terms.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:39 AM | Comments (0) |
Gotta Love NPR
From a report on NPR heard on the way to work this morning:
US Forces are trying hard to change the image of the prison at Abu Grhaib, the site of widespread prisoner abuse...
WIDESPREAD?
ARRRRG!
Posted by bubba138 at 07:34 AM | Comments (0) |
Yes I Am A Geek
Finally! The reason for buying DVD and a home entertainment system is a single, short day away:
Never mind that director George Lucas diminished his legacy with the last two Star Wars clunkers, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Never mind that everyone has seen the trilogy - Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi - on VHS. Never mind that Lucas keeps fiddling with the movies, adding scenes and actually erasing an entire actor, and the DVDs won't include the original versions.This is Star Wars. On DVD. Must . . . buy . . . it.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:22 AM | Comments (0) |
September 19, 2004
With Friends Like These...
QandO is right:
Yes we’ve made ’serious mistakes’ and yes we need to "recalibrate", but other than handing your political opponent a tremendous talking point, what in the world is going to be done about this in the next 40 days?Do we need to have this conversation?
Yes. Of course we do.
But is now the time to do so?
Posted by bubba138 at 03:50 PM | Comments (0) |
What Is Next
Vietnam blew up in Kerry's face. Bush/AWOL is hurting him too. Roscoe says Halliburton is up next. He also says it will not have traction either:
More to the point, does anyone really think that this Halliburton thing is going to convince anyone to vote for Kerry? The Democrats claim that they have real issues on their side; why don't they try campaigning on them?
Posted by bubba138 at 03:36 PM | Comments (0) |
Media Bias
Like Goldilocks and the three bears, some stories never get too old to tell:
Between 33% and 39% of Americans believe that each of the five major broadcast news outlets is unbiased. On balance, four of the five are believed to be helping the Kerry campaign. One, Fox News, is believed to be helping the Bush campaign.Four networks helping Kerry to one helping Bush? It looks like a severe mismatch. Kerry better get some more networks.CBS is seen as the most biased--37% believe that network news team is trying to help the Kerry campaign. Only 33% believe it presents the news in an unbiased manner. This may be a reaction to the recent flap over memos aired by CBS--38% believe that Dan Rather used his broadcasts to help the Kerry campaign.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:35 PM | Comments (0) |
Gay Marriage Rejected
Louisiana voters have spoken:
Louisiana voters on Saturday overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriages and civil unions.Missouri, Louisiana, California...everywhere such a proposal is put on a state ballot traditional marriage is upheld by a wide margin. There are olny two segments of the population in which gay marriage is popular: the GLBT community and the mainstream media.
With most of the state's 4,124 voting precincts reporting, the amendment was passing by a margin of 80 percent to 20 percent.Supporters hailed the vote as a victory for traditional marriage.
Update: Kip is in the least bit not happy about the vote:
The key word there is "voters," because, we read later: "Turnout statewide appeared to be about 27 percent of Louisiana's 2.8 million voters." So we have a fraction of a puny fraction of people voting for a measure being described as "overwhleming." Hardly. And this is somehow a preferable way to govern?You can't make people vote, so I am not sure I see his point. Some people voice their opinion by not casting a vote. Call me dumb, but I also am not following his "fraction of a puny fraction" line of thinking. Is he saying that the registered voters are a tiny fraction of the population?
As far as a "preferable way to govern," is there a better way than what we have? Perhaps we can hire armed thugs to force people to the polls?
I agree with him completely that not having machines in the polling places on time is unforgivable. But calling eighty percent of Louisiana's voters "bigots" takes the conversation exactly where it does not need to go.
The pro-gay marriage groups have condemned the President for calling for a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage. They argue, I believe rightly, that this should be an issue left up to the states. If that is the case then, for crying out loud, let the states decide. The nation is not is not ready for gay marriage. The gay lobby has forced this issue onto several state ballots already and lost overwhelmingly every time. If they push it into the federal courts to undo the will of the people in the states, the FMA will gain strength, and that would not be good for the country.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:20 AM | Comments (0) |
The Road Less Graveled
Reader Russ Vaughn gets guest writer status today. Enjoy.
(A down home message for Dan Rather in the colorful Texas idiom he so loves)
Y’all know what we all been thinkin’ out here in Texas, Dan, since you started all this foolishness? We think y’all been pissin’ down our necks an’ tellin’ us it’s rain for so long that you boys done got to believin’ it yourselves. Heck, we think maybe you been back East so long you got yourself thinkin’ us folks out here couldn’t hit sand if we fell off our horses; couldn’t hit water if we fell outta the boat. Danged if you ain’t been treatin’ us like you think we got squirrels swimmin’ in our gene pools or sumthin.’ You need to remind yourself that a tree don’t ever get too big for a short dog to lift his leg on, Dan.
Bout them documents bein’ genuine; well, hells-bells, Danny Boy, Grannie’s glasses are so thick, when she looks at a bare wall she see’s folks wavin’ at her, an’ even she can tell them memos are bout as phony as hips on a rattlesnake. We’re startin’ to think your brain done got harder than a woodpecker’s lips if you can’t see that. As far as that story bout George an’ his National Guard duty, looks to us like you’re tryin’ to put wheels on a cow an’ call it a dairy truck. Then you go pokin’ up her butt hopin’ you’re gonna find ice cream. Besides, ever time you durn fools put that picture of young George in his flyboy outfit on the TeeVee, ol’ Jane Fonda loses another herd of her Vagina Voters. Hell, Charlene says that sweet boy’s purtier than my new tangerine metalflake bass boat.
Well, Danny, you still ain’t lost all your redneck habits; you boys took one pickup load to the dump an’ come back with two. Dadgummit, Dan, where you gittin’ all this stuff? You been callin’ some kinda mystery numbers that ol’ boy, whatsisname, Kenneth, is bringin’ you offa bathroom walls at truck stops? Somethin’ you oughta be worryin’ about, Danny Boy: you know how the boys say when you go on a hunt always make sure to save a round for your huntin’ guide? Like if he don’t find nuthin’ else for you to shoot? You suppose any a them rich, fancy-shmancy, New York dudes you work for ever been on a hunt and heard that, Dan, hmmm?
You know how you always been fond a sayin’ you feel like a long tailed cat in a room full a rockin’ chairs? Well, seems to us like you’re startin’ to look more like the ground floor tenant in a two-story outhouse. Yeah, for sure you ain’t lookin’ like the tallest hog at the trough no more. Why, we bet you got yourself wired so tight right now that if we stuck a chunk a coal up your butt it’d come out a diamond in about five minutes. Last time we seen you on TeeVee your smile looked like Charlene’s little ol’ chihuahua dog that time he bit down on one a them ol’ yeller-jacket wasps; you know, kinda like that look a feller gets when he squats with his spurs on.
An’ about your boss, that city slicker fella, Johnnie Klein, the one said somethin’ bout all us sittin’ out here in our long johns? Well we’re gonna give him some advice so good he can take it out back an’ bury it in a Mason jar. You see, the fact is, Danny Boy, now that all us earthworms is gittin’ guns, you big birds is gonna have to be more careful bout where you’re peckin.’ Somebody needs to tell that dude, Klein, that his cage may still be turnin’ but his squirrel’s done died. Course, maybe the boy can’t help hisself; it might run in the family, you know, generic. We heard tell when he was born his ol’ momma carried the little feller around upside down for a whole year wonderin’ why he only had one eye.
Yeah them ol’ boys up there at Power Line done gone an’ slapped you dudes nekkid an’ hid your clothes. Them blogger cats watched you fellers jump in that ol’ litter box an’ they just flat covered you up, quicker ‘n slicker than WD 40 on a doorknob. Yeah you boys done gone skinny dippin’ in a pond full a snappin’ turtles. Looks like them broadcastin’ geniuses at CBS done let them yeller-dog Democrats talk you inta sellin’ your mule so you could buy a plow. When you crawled into the sack with little Miss McCauliffe you done got yourself a real ugly bed partner there, Dan, like a real three-bagger, I mean. You know the drill: one bag over her head, one over yours and one over the dog’s so’s at least he’ll have some respect for you come mornin.’
Before all y’all up there at CBS go tryin’ to saddle up another hog for a quarter horse race, you need to think about this: us ol’ boys out here know a keyboard ain’t where you hang the pickup keys and a byte ain’t what Bubba’s pit bull did to Cousin Billy; we know modem ain’t what we did when the weeds got up to the porch and digital ain’t countin’ on our fingers, least not any more. Yeah, we done got ourselves a dog in this fight, a bloggin’ pit bull, Dan Boy, an’ he’s justa slobberin’ for another big ol’ bite of Liberal blubber butt. Didn’t your ol’ daddy ever tell you that you ain’t never gonna be the brightest bulb on the tree if you go huntin’ bobcats with a BB gun?
But cheer up, Dan, maybe one a these days all you pointy-headed, liberal, media fellers will see the light. Course, seein’s where y’all seem to be keepin’ them pointy heads, it’ll prob’ly be one a them there things the doctors use.
Whatcha call ‘em, proctoscopes?
P.S. Charlene says to tell you don’t even think about comin’ back to Texas. Way folks out here feel, you’d have to tie a pork chop around your neck just to get a dog to play with you. Well, and maybe Mollie Ivins
Posted by bubba138 at 10:38 AM | Comments (0) |
September 18, 2004
Electronic Voting
It can be done right:
Many computer scientists insist that electronic voting machines will be trustworthy only when they produce paper receipts that can be audited. But supporters of electronic voting have long argued that doing so would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. Nevada proved the naysayers wrong this month, running the first statewide election in which electronic voting machines produced paper records of votes cast. Election officials across the country now have no excuse not to provide systems that voters can trust.Kudos to Nevada. Let's hope the nation can follow through.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) |
The Difference That Splits
What is really behind the national divide:
While it's a stretch to say that the nation is splitting apart over politics, it is divided in a new way over morality and religion. These issues are a growing source of tension, according to experts, polls and interviews with Minnesota voters.It is a long read, but well worth it. Read it all.The friction starts when President Bush and Sen. John Kerry talk about religion and morality.
"We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name," Bush said in a speech to West Point cadets two years ago. In his acceptance speech at the Republican convention last month, he declared that America has "a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom," which is "Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world."
Kerry strikes a different note. "I don't want to claim that God is on our side," he said in his July acceptance speech. "I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side." At another point he said, "I know that there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities -- and I do -- because some issues just aren't all that simple."
Your response to statements like these may predict whether you will vote to re-elect Bush in November or to replace him with Kerry.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) |
Bush Seen Vulnerable
The independent vote is breaking Kerry's way. At least that is what Reuters wants you to believe:
Polling results from the Pew Research Center, the Christian Science Monitor and the Gallup Organization suggest independent voters are favoring Kerry as concerns about the economy and Iraq re-emerge as top campaign issues, despite a surge of support for Bush following the Republican convention.I find this to be a very interesting take considering just last month the same Gallup poll had the race virtually tied, with Bush slightly ahaed 50% to 47%."At this point, it seems that Kerry's doing slightly better than Bush among independents," said Jeff Jones, managing editor of the Gallup Poll.
A new Gallup survey released on Friday showed the Democratic presidential nominee leading Bush 50-43 percent among independents, even though the Republican incumbent held a 13-percentage-point lead among voters overall.
Now, the President is ahead by 13 points. Certainly that means many of the independent voters have moved into the Bush camp. These were probably independent but leaning Bush, so the pool of independents is of course now more heavily weighted to Kerry leaners. But that is not the whole story. Not only did Bush's support grow five points over the last month, but Kerry's support dropped the same amount to 42%. That means Kerry voters moved out of the Kerry column and into either the independent or Bush columns.
Reuters thinks the news is that Bush is vulnerable among independents. It seems to me that the real news is that Kerry is vulnerable among Kerry voters.
Whether the latest Gallup poll is an outlier remains to be seen. However, CBS News just released the results to their latest poll and it lends support to the possibility that Bush is opening a significant lead:
The contest between President George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry looks much as it did in a CBS News Poll conducted last week, after the Republican convention. Bush's post-convention bounce remains intact, if even slightly larger in this poll; Bush now leads Kerry 50 percent to 41 percent among registered voters, giving the President a 9-point margin.And then there is this from the CBS poll: "As they did last week, Independents favor Bush by 8 points."
Bush-Cheney
Now50%
Last weekKerry-Edwards
Now
Last weekNader-Camejo
Now
Last week
Eat your heart out, Reuters.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:32 AM | Comments (0) |
Stem Cell Success
At one German university, for example, 30 heart attack patients were injected with stem cells from their own bone marrow and 30 others given placebo injections. Those with the real McCoy had a 6 percent to 7 percent improvement, while the others had virtually none.Note: No unborn babies were harmed in the process.At another German school, 34 heart attack patients were injected with their marrow stem cells and soon their hearts were measurably improved and the recipients observably healthier than untreated counterparts. "Even patients with the most seriously damaged hearts can be treated with their own stem cells instead of waiting and hoping for a transplant," the lead researcher told reporters.
Studies in many other countries have borne similar results. In all cases a catheter was used to inject the stem cells into an artery – no sawing or cracking required.
Perhaps the best example of growing new blood vessels, called "angiogenesis," comes from a Japanese study of 45 men with severe leg circulation problems. In fact, almost half had gangrene.
All subjects had their own marrow inserted into one leg, with the other leg receiving a placebo. Strikingly, all 45 recipients showed improvement in the stem cell-receiving leg. Toe amputations were avoided in three-fourths of those awaiting the chopping block.
(Hat tip)
Posted by bubba138 at 08:58 AM | Comments (0) |
September 17, 2004
CBS' Experts
Three of four of CBS' experts have come out saying the network's documents could not be verified. The last, James Pierce, is not happy with CBS either:
- The key point: Pierce seemed upset that CBS is using his ‘Professional Opinion’ memo of 9/14 to prop up their defense about the Killian memos being authentic. Pierce said “CBS is wrong, CBS is wrong” to portray it that way, saying it twice for emphasis. He said that his PO memo was only a preliminary judgment, “not a final conclusion” on all the documents.- The (for me) stunner: Pierce said that the reason he hadn’t rendered a final conclusion yet was that he was only “midway through his analysis” of all the documents - speaking as though there were many docs. CBS gave you other documents besides the four that 60 Minutes used in the story? “Lots more documents” were his exact words.
So it seems like CBS News is - again - misrepresenting what their own experts have told them about the Killian documents. Indeed, given that “lots of documents” are involved, who knows whether the documents that he referred to in his PO actually concerned the four that 60 Minutes used in the story.
Posted by bubba138 at 04:41 PM | Comments (0) |
U.N. Funds Osama's al-Qa'eda Terrorist Organization
France, Russia, and Germany are not the only ones who profitted from the U.N.'s infamous Oil for Food scam.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:57 PM | Comments (0) |
LOTR: Late To The Party
Hugh Hewitt is trying to shoe-horn the Kerry campaign into a Lord of the Rings motif. He's late to the party, as Slings and Arrows began calling the Nine Democrat primary candidates the Nazgul long ago.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:39 PM | Comments (0) |
Action Against Rather Not Far Away
A local CBS affiliate responds to an email complaining about RatherGate:
You are one in a line of many who have written with concerns and I’m responding to all of them. I must say I am disappointed, however, at your last statement – that you would indeed throw out any integrity that [this station]has strived to build with this incident. Of course we would not and WILL not stand by the network or Dan Rather. This is an embarrassment. If you think you are disappointed, you should be a station that has played a part in making CBS America’s most watched network. You should be in my shoes knowing that we actually pay for some of their services.All I can say is that you are right. For what it is worth, a directive went out from my office that no more promos containing Dan Rather are to air on [this station], nor is the network tease during the 5:00 newscast to air. That promotes stories on the CBS Evening News. It will not run.
We can only express our grave disappointment and consider preemption of CBS PrimeTime programming. Believe me, our affiliate reps both regionally and nationally are listening to our concerns and in my heart I believe action against Dan Rather on the part of the network is not far away.
I was embarrassed by the 60 Minutes program Wednesday night. We would NOT have approved running the story nor would we have ignored expert. Dan violated a rule from Journalism 101 – and that is to never, yourself, become the focus of the story.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:22 PM | Comments (0) |
527 Orgs and the Kerry Campaign
John Kerry suggested Saturday night that Republicans may try to keep black voters from casting their ballots to help President Bush win in November."We are not going to stand by and allow another million African American votes to go uncounted in this election," the Democratic presidential nominee told the Congressional Black Caucus. "We are not going to stand by and allow acts of voter suppression, and we're hearing those things again in this election."
A liberal group backing John F. Kerry is accusing President Bush of opposing civil rights and trying to suppress black voter turnout in a multimillion-dollar ad campaign targeted at young African Americans.There is absolutely nothing illegal about 527s putting together and broadcasting ads UNLESS that group coordinates with a candidate's campaign.The Media Fund, a "527" independent group that has poured $43 million into anti-Bush advertising, plans to air the new television and radio spots in major urban markets in swing states. (The "527" reference is to the section of the tax code that governs such organizations.)
Of course, it is just by coincedence that John Kerry and the Media fund both come out with the same message directed at the same target market within twenty-four hours of each other.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:02 PM | Comments (0) |
General Staudt Speaks
BUZZ! Sorry, Dan, wrong answer:
Retired Col. Walter Staudt, who was brigadier general of Bush's unit in Texas, interviewed Bush for the Guard position and retired in March 1972. He was mentioned in one of the memos allegedly written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian as having pressured Killian to assist Bush, though Bush supposedly was not meeting Guard standards.Two things. First notice that ABC News was comprehensive in their reporting and actually asked and reported the General's affiliation. Second, why did Dan Rather and CBS look up the good General when putting their story together? Obviously it is because he did not fit their pre-decided conclusions."I never pressured anybody about George Bush because I had no reason to," Staudt told ABC News in his first interview since the documents were made public.
"He didn't use political influence to get into the Air National Guard," Staudt said, adding, "I don't know how they would know that, because I was the one who did it and I was the one who was there and I didn't talk to any of them."
Staudt said he never tried to influence Killian or other Guardsmen, and added that he never came under any pressure himself to accept Bush. "No one called me about taking George Bush into the Air National Guard," he said. "It was my decision. I swore him in. I never heard anything from anybody."
Staudt said he continues to support Bush now that he is president. "My politics now are that I'm an American, and that's about all I can tell you," he said. "And I'm going to vote for George Bush."
Posted by bubba138 at 02:12 PM | Comments (0) |
Black Voters Disenfranchised By 527s
The Democrats love them, but black voting groups are getting the short end of the funding stick:
The 527 groups -- tax-exempt, private political groups named for their Internal Revenue Service filing code -- have positioned themselves as powerful players and are siphoning contributions from black voter mobilization organizations that historically have enjoyed a boost during presidential elections.Adding to the tension is that many of the 527 groups are run by white organizers, such as Harold Ickes at the Media Fund and Ellen R. Malcolm, who is the president of Emily's List and runs America Coming Together (ACT) with former AFL-CIO political director Steve Rosenthal.
Earlier this month, coalition board member Ronald Walters, in a letter to Mr. Ickes, said the competition and lack of coordination have bruised some egos in black organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Urban League and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. He also referenced ACT in the letter and said the two largest Democratic 527 groups are "taking the black vote for granted."
He said the 527 groups are collecting contributions in the name of delivering the black vote, something Mr. Walters said they have no business doing and no knowledge of how to do.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) |
Kerry's Campaign is Changing
The Clintonistas are consolidating their power:
In recent weeks, an influx of talent has transformed the top leadership of the campaign: Joe Lockhart, a Clinton White House spokesman, is now overseeing Kerry's efforts to shape his themes against Bush and sharpen his defense against Republican attacks. John Sasso, a sharp-elbowed operative with long ties to Kerry, is running a large part of the daily operation from Kerry's campaign plane. Michael J. Whouley, whom Kerry has described as a "magical" strategist, is making the calls on where to spend the party's money and the candidate's time, according to a half-dozen campaign sources.Questions remain, however. Is it too little too late? Is Kerry as a candidate even salvagable?Robert Shrum, the most powerful voice inside the campaign for much of the year, has seen his influence diminish significantly in the shake-up, they said. Mary Beth Cahill, the campaign manager, remains in charge of day-to-day operations at headquarters, but some Democrats say her strategic influence has been somewhat diluted by the elevation of other advisers.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:02 AM | Comments (0) |
Kinko's New Slogan
Tobias has it.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:55 AM | Comments (0) |
CBS Memos Not Fake
They were "reassembled:"
So we have Burkett writing this rant on August 25 -- and within two weeks, the memos are faxed to CBS from a Kinko's 21 miles away from Burkett's home. It appears very clear that Burkett "reassembled" the memos and passed them off to CBS as genuine, and that CBS simply took his word for it despite Burkett's history as a Bush-hater and his discredited testimony regarding document-shredding at the TANG offices in Texas.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:41 AM | Comments (0) |
A New 527
Move over MoveOn.org, there is a new 527 on the block:
Two Washington-based lawyers supporting President Bush’s re-election have registered an advocacy group, Football Fans for Truth, as a Section 527 organization allowed to accept unlimited political donations. They plan to publicize Kerry’s recent sports misstatements such as his reference to the home of the Green Bay Packers as “Lambert Field” instead of Lambeau Field.THEY. COULD. GO. ALL. THE. WAY!Other gaffes they hope to bring wider attention to include Kerry’s talk of the Buckeyes — the nickname of Ohio State University’s team — while campaigning in University of Michigan Wolverine territory.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:00 AM | Comments (0) |
Terrible Economy
This is what John Kerry calls a miserable economy:
U.S. household wealth swelled to a new record in the second quarter of 2004, while borrowing outside the financial sector grew at a slower pace, the Federal Reserve said on Thursday.Households are making more and borrowing less. The is drastic. Bush has obviously destroyed the economy.In its quarterly Flow of Funds report, the Fed said household balance sheets increased 1.4 percent to $45.907 trillion in the second quarter, compared to an upwardly revised $45.270 trillion in the first quarter of this year.
First-quarter household wealth was initially reported at $45.153 trillion.
Update: The Bureau of Labor Statistics released their monthly "Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary" today:
Unemployment rates were lower than a year earlier in 45 states, higher in 4 states and the District of Columbia, and unchanged in 1 state. Louisiana recorded the largest over-the-year unemployment rate decrease (-1.8 percentage points), followed by Oklahoma (-1.7 points) and Hawaii (-1.6 points). Sixteen additional states recorded over-the-year rate declines of 1.0 to 1.5 percentage points. No state posted an unemployment rate increase from August 2003 larger than 0.4 percentage point...It does not hurt the President that the employment growth has happened in several key battleground states, including Wisconsin. Unfortunately, Ohio's unemployment numbers have increased half a point since June, and have also gone up slightly in Michigan and Minnesota.From July to August, total nonfarm employment increased in 30 states and the District of Columbia and decreased in 20 states. The largest employment increases occurred in Florida (+16,600), Georgia (+15,000), Texas (+14,400), Arizona (+10,200), and Colorado (+8,200).
Posted by bubba138 at 08:46 AM | Comments (0) |
Past the WMD Headlines
The headlines read "U.S. Weapons Inspector: Iraq Had No WMD." Big news. Big news indeed. Until you actually read the article that is:
President Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but left signs that he had idle programs he someday hoped to revive, the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq concludes in a draft report due out soon.Think back to pre-9/11. The inspections in Iraq had completely ceased. Saddam had kicked UN workers out and was completely non-cooperative. The U.N. had completely lost the backbone to impose its will on Iraq. There was even a growing feeling that we should remove sanctions on Iraq because, after all, they were killing the children.According to people familiar with the 1,500-page report, the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, will find that Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of U.N. agreements and maintaining a dual-use industrial sector that could produce weapons.
As Duelfer puts the finishing touches on his report, he concludes Saddam had intentions of restarting weapons programs at some point, after suspicion and inspections from the international community waned.
After 9/11 inspections resumed in earnest. But the longer they went, the more resistance they received from Saddam's regime. The same pattern was returning because Saddam knew that all he had to do was make the inspections a tedious process and the U.N. would eventually lose their will to pursue further action.
All Saddam had to do was wait out the U.N. and then he could return to his old ways.
Now, Duelfer's report completely confirms "Saddam had intentions of restarting weapons programs at some point, after suspicion and inspections from the international community waned." In 2002/2003 suspicions were already waning. It is only because we went to war that Saddam never realized his intentions.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:25 AM | Comments (0) |
"Don't You Hate It When..."
Even an ultra-partisan hack like Andy Rooney admits the memos are forgeries:
CBS curmudgeon Andy Rooney indicated yesterday he believes the controversial documents on President Bush's National Guard service are fake and said it could cost Dan Rather down the road.It should say something to CBS when Rooney is more objective than their main anchorman.
"I'm surprised at their reluctance to concede they're wrong," Rooney said, referring to CBS brass.Despite praising Rather as "a good, honest newsman," Rooney added, "I'm unsure if they're whistling in the dark instead of apologizing."
Posted by bubba138 at 07:16 AM | Comments (0) |
CBS News Fairer and More Balanced Than Fox
It could happen!
Posted by bubba138 at 06:39 AM | Comments (0) |
September 16, 2004
An Unbroken Thread
Stop. Rewind thirty years.
A young man, fresh from four long, hot, dirty, dangerous months in Vietnam sits in front of one of the most prestigious political bodies ever assembled. Behind him, both physically and in spirit, are his brothers in arms, his comrades who are bound to him and he to them through unique shared experience.
Confidently, clearly, concisely the young man scoots up to the microphone and speaks:
They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.The country is stunned. Politicians are outraged. Young people nationwide are energized by the righteousness of their cause. After all, the vets themselves say our own military is no better than the conquering hordes of a dictatorial mongul barbarian.
Anti-war sentiment grows. The country pulls out of Vietnam. Millions die under the communist hammer. The killing fields of Cambodia and North Vietnam run red with the blood of those we once protected.
Not long after, people get curious and begin to look closer at the claims of this young man and his friends. Inconsistancies abound. Even after being offered immunity, many of this young man's friends refuse to be officially questioned. Others turn out not to be who they say they are. Even more, many of them have never even served in Vietnam and several have not even served in the military at all. The stories of these men don't check out, and some we find were even coached to lie.
The lying was justifiable, though. You see, even if the specific details were made up, the thrust of the stories was true. That made it alright to lie.
Stop. Fast-forward to the present.
A respected journalist faces a nation that is aghast at his and his network's complete disregard for well established journalistic standards. He reminds his fellow country men that he is the authoritative voice of the network news world and his judgement is not to be questioned. There will be no investigation, he assures the country, nor should there be.
After all, the most important thing is the story. All this talk about forgeries is getting in the way of the truth. Even if the documents are forged, the thrust of the story is true. That makes it alright to lie.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:38 PM | Comments (0) |
Famous Quotes
Marie Antoinette: "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche.
Teresa Heinz-Kerry: "Let them go naked"
Posted by bubba138 at 09:02 PM | Comments (0) |
Mean People S...
AP:
Three-year-old Sophia Parlock cries while seated on the shoulders of her father, Phil Parlock, after having their Bush-Cheney sign torn up by Kerry-Edwards supporters on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004, at the Tri-State Airport in Huntington, W.Va. Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards made a brief stop at the airport as he concluded his two-day bus tour to locations in West Virginia and Ohio.It is hard to say whether or not this dad was using sound judgement when he took his daughter into a potentially confrontational situation. Still, one would think the Kerry supporters would be civil enough not to rip a sign up right out of this little girl's hands.
It is not only Kerry people, either:
An unidentified member of the audience pulls the hair of a demonstrator as he forces her out of an auditorium where President Bush was addressing a crowd of supporters at Byers Choice in Colmar, Pa.I mean, really, people. Do we have to take it back to elementary school, "let's keep our hands to ourselves, children."
Posted by bubba138 at 07:29 PM | Comments (0) |
Sign the Form 180
Kerry has released all of his military records. Except, of course, the ones he has not:
The Navy, responding to a Freedom of Information Act request from the legal watchdog group Judicial Watch, also referred interested parties to Kerry's campaign web site for government military documents.I know Dan Rather will be getting right on this tonight. He is sure to phrase it something like this:Navy Personnel Command FOIA Officer Dave German wrote in an e-mail to Judicial Watch that the Navy "withheld thirty-one pages of documents from the responsive military personnel service records as we were not provided a release authorization."
A "release authorization" would have to come from Kerry filling out and signing a Standard Form 180, something he has yet to do. A Standard Form 180 would authorize the complete release of all his military records. Judicial Watch filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in August to obtain Kerry's military records.
The official U.S. Navy response was received by Judicial Watch on Wednesday, the same day that Kerry told syndicated radio and MSNBC TV host Don Imus that "We've posted my military records that they sent to me, or were posted on my website. You can go to my website, and all my -- you know, the documents are there."
When Imus pressed Kerry as to whether all of his documents were in fact included on the campaign website, Kerry responded, "To the best of my knowledge. I think some of the medical stuff may still be out there. We're trying to get it.
"With respect: answer the questions," Rather said, adding, "We've heard what you have to say about the documents and what you've said and what your surrogates have said, but for the moment, answer the questions."I won't be holding my breath.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:14 PM | Comments (0) |
Tin Foil Hat Alert
When Maureen Dowd says you are being paranoid, you are really in trouble:
But it speaks to the jitters of the Democrats that they're consumed with speculation about whether Karl Rove, the master of dirty tricks and surrogate sleaze, could have set up CBS in a diabolical pre-emptive strike to undermine damaging revelations about Bush 43's privileged status and vanishing act in the National Guard, and his odd refusal to take his required physical when ordered.Of course, Maureen has her own flight of fantasy working:In this vast left-wing conspiracy theory, Mr. Rove takes real evidence on W.'s shirking and transfers it to documents doomed to be exposed as phony (thereby undermining the real goods), then funnels it through third parties to Dan Rather, Bush 41's nemesis on Iran-contra. A perfect bank shot.
The Democratic paranoia is a measure of the intimidation the West Wing is wielding in a race where John Kerry can't seem to take advantage of any of the Bush administration's increasingly calamitous blunders.In Maureen's fevered reasonings the Democrats are inexcusably paranoid, but it is not their fault because the evil, mean Republicans have badgered the media so bad the paranoia is excusable. It seems to me she has just traded one paranoia for another.The administration has been so dazzling in misleading the public with audacious, mendacious malarkey that the Democrats fear the Bushies are capable of any level of deceit.
Posted by bubba138 at 02:34 PM | Comments (0) |
Isn't That Sweet
Go to http://www.swiftboatvets.com. Isn't that nice?
Posted by bubba138 at 01:52 PM | Comments (0) |
Bill Burkett's Brain
Bill Burkett, the lead contender as the source of the forged RatherGate memos, published an interesting article in 2003 on the Veterans for Peace website. It gives one a look into his mindset:
I have forecasted the actions that have taken place in great detail. I know GW Bush and his inner circle very well.1. For being such a crack prognosticator, Burkett sure missed with the body count and finding WMDs.As I said, a UN vote would not stop GW Bush from attacking Iraq. Nor will anything else. And weapons of mass destruction will be discovered in great quantities; but the entire affair will stink to high heavens because it will be as staged as the White House press conference you just viewed.
The human death toll will publicly not be mentioned, yet in truth, it will far exceed 120,000...
But there is a difference from any phenomenon previously faced by a spoiled American populace. With Teddy Roosevelt, we badgered and dented him into listening; with Franklin Roosevelt, we tenaciously talked until he listened; with William Jefferson Clinton, we crippled him through deceit and his own frailties. But none were anointed as king.
We must now revert to the history of Europe to discern what to do. We must study the nemesis of France and how Napoleon was felled before understanding the damage a tyrant does to a nation and society. We must examine the ruthless and dictatorial rise of yet another of the three small men—one whose name is not spoken out of fear of reprisal, but his name was Adolf. We must examine history, in order to not repeat it, and to understand the mesmerism of a public to a murderous scheme. Three small men who wanted to conquer . . . and vanquish. Each created a need for a balancing throng; history then recorded the damage from a far better perspective.
More than one French or German household now sits watching the US expending her virtue through the tools of greed, anger and vengeance. And they caution us. They caution that out of this strong arm tactic will bring about the rise of a United Europe or Asia to counterbalance an arrogant superpower...
Yes, we are on the edge. But there is no one who says that we have to help push this nation over the cliff. Instead, we must redouble our efforts.
2. Bush is the same as Hitler and Napolean. Where have we heard that before?
3. Burkett advocates redoubling efforts. One wonders if he is now writting CBS press releases.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:40 PM | Comments (0) |
Talk About Insensitive
I saw this over at Powerline. It is an ad for a Mexican Spanish newspaper.
The ad reads, "A lot can happen in a day. Imagine what can happen in three months. Subscribe to El Pais now and get it free for three months."
A friend who has spent years south of the border says, "this Mexico's version of the New York Times." In more ways than one, I suspect.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:06 PM | Comments (0) |
The Crucial Platonic Vote
Bush is going to win because he is cute in uniform. Kerry is funny looking.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:56 AM | Comments (0) |
Looking For Karl Rove
I linked to this article yesterday but I missed this line in my first reading:
“What I’m looking for is a Karl Rove and I don’t know where our Karl Rove is.” Coelho says. “I think Sasso is a Karl Rove. I’m very high on Sasso because I don’t think he plays Machiavellian games. I think he very sincerely wants to win. I think he is very big on Kerry. And I think he’s tough enough to say, ‘Goddammit, come together.’"The Democrats do have a Karl Rove, they just do not know it.
His name is Zell Miller.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:57 AM | Comments (0) |
Global Warming and Hurricanes
It is cause and effect, of course. Um, no:
"First is the erroneous claim that hurricane intensity or frequency has risen significantly in recent decades in response to the warming trend seen in surface temperature. Second is the claim that a future surface warming trend would lead to more frequent and stronger storms. We believe that both of these are demonstrably false," the scientists wrote.They noted the National Hurricane Center reports in the last century the decade with the largest number of hurricanes to hit the U.S. was the 1940s, and the frequency of hurricanes has gone down since then.
According to the United Nations Environment Programme of the World Meteorological Organization, "Reliable data ... since the 1940s indicate that the peak strength of the strongest hurricanes has not changed, and the mean maximum intensity of all hurricanes has decreased."
"Recent history tells us that hurricanes are not becoming more frequent," the climate researchers wrote in the letter to McCain.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:52 AM | Comments (0) |
Seeing Red
J.R. Labbe says he is seeing red because of Kerry:
Not red as in "red state, blue state," but red as in the blood of three U.S. contractors who were killed last week when their headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, were bombed...There is a reason Kerry's campaign says to judge him by his record and then focuses exclusively on four months in Vietnam over thirty years ago.But what cannot be forgotten - or, for millions of veterans, forgiven - was his decision to align with communist sympathizers and make accusations that sounded as if every man in a uniform was cutting the ears off Vietnamese civilians when troops were still in-country.
One of those troops was my husband, who in 1971 was patrolling the Vietnamese jungle around Cam Ranh Bay with nothing but a dog and an M-16 between him and the enemy.
Many veterans will forever see red when they look at the junior senator from Massachusetts...
Unfortunately, America has heard more about Kerry’s Vietnam-era escapades than it has about his 19 years on Capitol Hill. And his campaign wants it that way. If you want to see world-class shuckin’ and jivin’, ask a Kerry supporter: “So what did your candidate do during almost 20 years in the U.S. Senate?”
Borosage, whose Web site touts “information you need to challenge the latest outrages from the Bush administration,” answered the caller with a monologue about Kerry’s plans once in the White House. He offered not a word about Kerry’s Senate record, which is conspicuous for its absence of any major legislation bearing the Kerry name.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:48 AM | Comments (0) |
Congressional Hearings
Some have called for Conressional Hearings to investigate the CBS Bush memos scandal. I think they are a bad idea because this is a case where I have full faith in the market place to police their own. With the blogosphere firestorm spilling over onto CBS' competitors, especially ABC, we have seen self-policing in action over the last eight days.
Further, such hearings would politicize this to the point that the subject will change from CBS' misuse of forged documents to a partisan battle of rhetoric, no more effective than the 9/11 hearings. As a matter of fact, the politicization has already begun:
Two Republican lawmakers, Rep. Christopher Cox of California and Rep Roy Blunt of Missouri, are formally complaining about CBS News's reporting on George W. Bush's National Guard record.I have no words of condemnation for Pelosi in this case. Cox and Blunt's move plays right into the Democrat's hands and fuels the fire of their ever growing paranioa. "After all," their thinking goes, "look at how the Republicans have destroyed our civil rights with the Patriot act. It is just like them to attack the freedom of the press."According to Thursday's Washington Post, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has rejected Cox's call for a congressional probe of CBS.
So has House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who -- according to Thursday's Washington Times -- lashed out at Republicans for going after CBS.
"The Republicans' latest attempt to intimidate the news media is a waste of taxpayer money and an egregious example of how this Republican House only exercises its oversight responsibility for partisan political reasons," the Washington Times quoted the California Democrat as saying.
"Clearly, Republicans will stop at nothing to distract the public from their miserable record," Pelosi added.
While feeding the fires of their paranoia may sound fun, in this case it only serves to take the focus off the main point: CBS based its reporting on documents they knew to be suspect and they should be called out onto the carpet because of it.
Blurring the issue is exactly what CBS wants.
So let's focus, shall we?
Update: Here is proof the market works.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:23 AM | Comments (0) |
Plame Source Identified
Well, sort of:
A Washington Post reporter's confidential source has revealed his or her identity to the special prosecutor conducting the CIA leak inquiry, a development that provides investigators with a fact they have been pursuing in the nearly year-long probe.So the special investigator knows who the source is but so far he is not saying and neither are the news hounds to whom the source leaked the information.Post reporter Walter Pincus, who had been subpoenaed to testify to a grand jury in the case, instead gave a deposition yesterday in which he recounted his conversation with the source, whom he has previously identified as an "administration official." Pincus said he did not name the source and agreed to be questioned only with the source's approval.
Eventually the special prosecuter is going to have to name the leaker(s). Keep an eye out...
Posted by bubba138 at 09:05 AM | Comments (0) |
For The Record: Bush Documents
CBSNews concludes their recap of last night's interview with Marian Carr Knox thus:
Are those documents authentic, as experts consulted by CBS News continue to maintain? Or were they forgeries or re-creations, as Knox and many others believe?CBSNews says they will continue to report credible witnesses. They say Marian Carr Knox's story is credible, except the part about the memos. They say they "continue to report credible evidence and responsible points of view," yet they have yet to put on Hodges, Mrs. Killian and Killian's son. They say Bush "failed to satisfy the requirements of his service" and that "If we uncover any information to the contrary, that information will also be reported" yet they put no emphasis on the fact that he was discharged honorably.We will keep an open mind and we will continue to report credible evidence and responsible points of view as we try to answer the questions raised about the authenticity of the documents.
Having said that, 60 Minutes feels that it's important to underscore this point: Those who have criticized aspects of our story have never criticized the major thrust of our report -- that George Bush received preferential treatment to get into the National Guard, and once accepted, failed to satisfy the requirements of his service. If we uncover any information to the contrary, that information will also be reported.
This is, pure and simple, a hack job.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:55 AM | Comments (0) |
Kerry's Ever Changing Moods
Are you having a hard time keeping up with Kerry's position(s) on Iraq? You are not alone, even his supporters are having trouble:
Bush aides said Mr. Kerry is trying to have it all ways on Iraq, seeking to please both the anti-war and anti-Hussein factions within his party.I think it is interesting that the author of this article made the distinction between anti-war and anti-Hussein elements of the Democrat party. I guess it is inconceivable [You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Ed.] that there is a pro-war faction."Today," said Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt, "John Kerry's position on Iraq descended into complete incoherence."
Mr. Imus seemed to agree.
"I was just back in my office banging my head on the jukebox," Mr. Imus said. "This is my candidate, and ... I don't know what he's talking about."
(Note: Sorry about the header thing. If I do not specifically type in a title my blog tool automatically takes the first four or five words of the post and makes them the title. In this case it came out a little, um, racey)
Posted by bubba138 at 08:05 AM | Comments (0) |
Htting the Nail...
The San Francisco Chronicle's Debra Saunders has written the clearest, most concise deconstruction of the RatherGate affair I have read so far. Most striking is her conclusion:
The most desperate part of the anti-Bush mud-throwing is that it tells people what they already know. Americans already know that Bush was not the Guard's Man of the Year. As Retired Maj. Gen. Paul A. Weaver told the Washington Post, Bush was "a young lieutenant who was very aggressive, a good participant in the program for 3 1/2 years" who near the end of his term "was a minimally satisfactory participant."It is sad really that CBS and the Democrats are spending so much time and effort on something that simultaneously does not matter in the minds of the voters and also makes them look like fools. My heart almost goes out to them.Not that voters necessarily care. I'll posit that voters care more who George W. Bush is today than who he was 30 years ago.
Ditto John Kerry, who in Boston at his convention so overplayed his laudable service in Vietnam that his Senate record disappeared as Kerry relived glory days decades old.
Simply put, the network didn't have the story nailed, but ran with it anyway. Its credibility suffers, as it should.
CBS looks the worse for it, not Bush. With this story, the mud sticks most to the slingers.
Almost.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:59 AM | Comments (0) |
September 15, 2004
Minnesota In Play
Polls show that Minnesota is firmly in battleground state mode. First, the heavily Democratic leaning Star Tribune Minnesota Poll shows Bush is making up ground:
The poll, released Wednesday, found that Kerry has the support of 50 percent of likely voters in Minnesota, while Bush has the support of 41 percent. The president's support has increased by 3 percentage points since a Minnesota Poll in March, while Kerry's support remained unchanged.Keep in mind the Star Tribune poll is the same one that said Mondale was going to handily beat Coleman in the 2002 elections and that Gore was going to win the state by nine points. Neither happened (Gore did win Minnesota, but by only three).
CNN/USA Today/Gallup also released a Minnesota poll:
Bush and Kerry each garnered 45 percent support from likely voters in a three-way race in which independent candidate Ralph Nader got 5 percent, according to a poll of 675 likely voters conducted Sept. 11-14. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Without Nader in the race, Bush got 48 percent to 46 percent for Kerry.
Update: MPR has Bush up by two as well. Money quote:
And for the first time in this poll, slightly more Minnesotans think Bush would do a better job on economic issues than Kerry. Poll respondent John Young of Eyota in southeastern Minnesota says he didn't vote for Bush four years ago, but he recently decided to vote for Bush this year."I don't think Kerry has really done too much in the 20 years that he's been in Congress. He seems to want to talk about the war 30 years ago, and bring up what they did 30 years ago, and I don't think that has much relevance on today," he said.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:47 PM | Comments (0) |
Rather Now Has Doubts?
CBS anchor Dan Rather acknowledged for the first time yesterday that there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents he used to question President Bush's National Guard record last week on "60 Minutes." [...]Actually, the people did not learn it from Dan. They learned it from Instapundit, Morrisey, Powerline, and other bloggers who read it in the Dallas Morning News and broadcast it to the world. This is exactly the point. CBS could have shown this to the public but they were not at all interested in doing investigative reporting. Instead, their goal was to do a hit piece on Bush and that is exactly what they did."I know that I didn't type them," Knox said of the Killian memos. "However, the information in there is correct," she said, adding that Killian and the other officers would "snicker about what [Bush] was getting away with."
Rather said he was "relieved and pleased" by Knox's comments that the disputed memos reflected Killian's view of the favorable treatment that Bush received in the military unit. But he said, "I take very seriously her belief that the documents are not authentic." If Knox is right, Rather said, the public "won't hear about it from a spokesman. They'll learn it from me."
If Bush had run the war in Iraq the way Rather and CBS ran this investigative piece, we would be in a modern day Vietnam.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:25 PM | Comments (0) |
CBS' Longer Memo
DRUDGE has posted a longer memo from CBS. It is ripe for a fisking:
The CBS News report was based on a preponderance of evidence: many interviews, both on- and off-camera, with individuals with direct and indirect knowledge of the situation, atmosphere and events of the period in question, as well as the procedures, character and thinking of Lt. Col. Killian, Lt. Bush's squadron commander in the Guard, at the time.The propblem with the "preponderance of evidence" argument is that it completely ignores the preponderance of opposite evidence, namely the experts that did not authenticate the documents, Killian's co-worker that outright said the documents are fake, and Killian's family. Yet none of these people, nor their viewpoints made it into the 60 minutes report.
The report also included the first television interview with Ben Barnes, a Democrat and current fundraiser for John Kerry, who said he helped get Mr. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard at the request of a Bush family friend.Dan Rather interviewed Barnes about this, yes, but Barnes own story conflicts with earlier sworn testimony on the subject. Barnes is also a major fund-raiser and player in the Kerry campaign. The man Barnes says asked him for the favor is conveniently dead. General Rose, to whom Barnes passed on the request is conveniently dead. Strangely, so is Lt. Cnl Killian. The fact that Barnes story has changed only after all these men have passed on should have raised questions of credibility.
Numerous questions have been raised about the authenticity of the documents. CBS News believes it is important for the news media to be accountable and address legitimate questions.The documents have been shown to be patent forgeries. Since that is the case, the source has lost all credibility and should be outed. Even so, CBS has been unable, or most likely, unwilling to identify the primary source for these documents. I am not refering to a person so much as a place. Originally, CBS said these memos came from Killian's personal files, but Killian's own family has said that is not the case. From what set of "personal" files did these memos come?Procurement of The Documents
The 60 MINUTES Wednesday broadcast reported that it obtained six documents from the personal files of Lt. Col. Killian, four of which were used in the broadcast. In accordance with longstanding journalistic ethics, CBS News is not prepared to reveal its confidential sources or the method by which 60 MINUTES Wednesday received the documents. CBS News' reporting determined that the source of the memos had access to the documents he provided and an opportunity to obtain copies of them.
Our sources included individuals who had first-hand knowledge of the events in question.Mapes authority as a respected member of the press is not the question. If Mapes vetted and screened them memos as CBS had said, one would think she would have listened to the experts and opinions that refuted the report's conclusion.Additionally, Mary Mapes, the producer of the report and a well-respected, veteran journalist whose credibility has never been questioned, has been following this story for more than five years. She has a vast and detailed knowledge of the issues surrounding President Bush's service in the Guard and of the individuals involved in the story. Before the report was broadcast, it was vetted and screened in accordance with CBS News standards by several veteran 60 MINUTES Wednesday senior producers and CBS News executives.
Four independent individuals with expertise in the authentication of documents were consulted prior to the broadcast of the story regarding the documents 60 MINUTES Wednesday obtained: document examiners Marcel B. Matley, James J. Pierce, Emily Will and Linda James. As CBS News has publicly stated, the documents used in the report were photocopies of originals.Marcel Matley has said all he did was verify the signature. That means little on a photocopy; a fact I am sure he shared with CBS. Will and James have both come out to say they raised doubts about the documents.
Two of the examiners, Mssrs. Matley and Pierce, attested and continue to attest to their belief in the documents' authenticity. (see attachments 1 and 2)This is an outright falsehood. The LA Times reported that Marcel Matley "vouched for only one signature, and no scribbled initials. The Times reports he has no opinion about the typography of any of the supposed memos."
Two others, Ms. Will and Ms. James, appeared on a competing network yesterday, where they misrepresented their conversations and communication with CBS News. In fact, they assessed only one of the four documents used in the report, and while one of them raised a question about one aspect of that one document, they did not raise substantial objections or render definitive judgment on the document. Ultimately, they played a peripheral role in the authentication process and deferred to Mr. Matley, who examined all four of the documents used.As document examiners, Will and James both said they could not verify these documents as authentic. James said, "I didn't feel I could give an opinion, and I certainly would not authenticate." Will said she "had serious questions" about their authenticity, although she did not reach a definitive conclusion about whether they were fabrications. As a reporting agency it is CBS' duty to ensure the truth of what they are reporting. The burden of proof falls squarely upon them. If they are to report on something as serious as these memos, Rather and company are responsible assume they are fakes and prove them true, not the opposite. Ethical reporting, especially when it comes to the presidential election, is soundly based in scepticism.
Additionally, two more individuals with specific expertise relative to the documents - Bill Glennon, a technology consultant and long-time IBM typewriter service technician, and Richard Katz, a computer software expert - were asked to examine the documents after the broadcast for a report in the Sept. 13 CBS EVENING NEWS. They, too, found nothing to lead them to believe that the documents did not date back to the early 1970s. They strongly refuted the claim made by some critics that there were no typewriters in existence in the early 1970s that could have produced such documents. (see attachments 3 and 4)Glennon is not a technology expert, he is a typewriter repair man. Glennon and Katz have only said that there were typewriters that had the mentioned features. Neither of them have identified a single typewriter that had all the features in question, nor have they been able to reproduce a matching document on any piece of legacy equipment. Further, Killian's own secretary has stated that the memos did not come from him.CBS News Experts' Conclusions About the Documents
- Katz believes the documents were written on a typewriter and not a computer. (attachment 3)
- Glennon confirms that the superscript "th" and proportional spacing of the typeface of the four documents were definitely available on typewriters as early as the late 1960s. (attachment 4)
- Pierce believes that the documents in question are authentic as best as he can determine, given that they are copies and not originals. (attachment 2)
- Matley says the signatures are, indeed, Killian's. (attachment 1)
Matley's opinion that the signatures are Killian's is completely without merit because (as CBS is about to remind us) these are copies of original documents. Matley can only confirm that the signature matches known Killian signatures. He cannot (and does not) confirm that Killian signed the document in question.
Again, the documents used for the 60 MINUTES Wednesday report were copies, and most of the analysis fueling the current controversy is based on scanned, downloaded, faxed or re-copied copies. For now, the disagreements among "dueling experts" have not been resolved.There are dozens and dozens of experts that have unequivocally stated these documents are fake. CBS has produced one that says otherwise. This is a slaughter, not a duel.
Other IssuesHodges is hardly a trump card for CBS, since he says CBS misled him, "Without seeing them, I assumed that they were hand-written notes from a personal file that Lt. Col. Killian may have maintained without anyone's knowledge."Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, who was group commander of Lt. Bush's squadron, has stated to The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, among others, that he believes the documents are not real, but also told The New York Times, in an article that appeared on Sept. 12, that the information in the CBS News report "...reflected issues he and Col. Killian had discussed-namely Mr. Bush's failure to appear for a physical, which military records released previously by the White House show, led to a suspension from flying." That is consistent with what he told CBS News off-camera as part of the research for this report.
A reference in one memo to Gen. Buck Staudt applying pressure on behalf of Lt. Bush raised questions because Staudt had left his job 18 months before the memo was written. But CBS News' background reporting determined that Staudt remained a powerful figure in the Guard for years after his retirement, a fact that is confirmed by Ms. Knox in a newspaper interview. More importantly, the same memo referred to unhappiness in Austin, an obvious reference to Staudt's successor at the Austin, Texas, headquarters of the Texas Air National Guard.The idea of post retirement influence is weak at best, but I'll give this one to CBS. However, CBS is close to channelling Lt. Cnl. Killian when they say it is obvious what he meant by "unhappiness in Austin." It is more plausible that Staudt was the easiest name to use since the tin foil hat crowd had already made that connection.
ConclusionsNumerous credible sources now numbers one: CBS' unnamed source.The editorial content of the report was not based solely on the physical documents, but also on numerous credible sources who supported what the documents said.
Through all of the frenzied debate of the past week, the basic content of the 60 MINUTES Wednesday report - that President Bush received preferential treatment to gain entrance to the Texas Air National Guard and that he may not have fulfilled all of the requirements -- has not been substantially challenged.Like most of America, I will give CBS the point that Bush received preferential treatment in getting into the guard. Also like most of America, I do not care. The last President dodged military service altogether, and that did not seem to be a problem for CBS at all.
On the second point, George Bush's honorable discharge says he did fulfill his duties, and the entirety of his record (not just the little parts Dan Rather wants to cherry pick) bear that out.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:17 PM | Comments (0) |
CBS Statement: You Have Got to Be Kidding Me!
The CBS statement has finally been released:
We established to our satisfaction that the memos were accurate or we would not have put them on television. There was a great deal of coroborating [sic] evidence from people in a position to know. Having said that, given all the questions about them, we believe we should redouble our efforts to answer those questions, so that's what we are doing.This is what took them ALL DAY to release?
Notice, however, they did not say the memos were authentic. They said they were accurate. In other words, they are backing off to the Knox position:
Memos on Bush Are Fake but Accurate, Typist Says
The secretary for the squadron commander purported to be the author of now-disputed memorandums questioning President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard said Tuesday that she never typed the documents and believed that they are fakes.But she also said they accurately reflect the thoughts of the commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, and other memorandums she typed for him about Mr. Bush. "The information in them is correct," the woman, Marian Carr Knox, now 86, said in an interview at her home here. "But I doubt,'' she said, pausing, "it's not anything that I wrote because there are terms in there that are not used by Guards, the format wasn't the way we did it. It looks like someone may have read the originals and put that together."
Of course, what we see is CBS again relying on only selected "experts," namely the ones that agree with Dan Rather's biased position:
Mr. Killian died in 1984; his widow and son have said that they did not find any memorandums among the private effects they cleared from his office after his death. Mr. Killian's son, Gary, who also served at the squadron and who initially thought that the signatures on the documents matched his father's, has come to believe they are fakes, and said he doubted Mrs. Knox's account, though he recalled her fondly."She's a sweet old lady, but she's wrong and it didn't happen," he said. "I always thought well of her, and I know my dad would have also, but she's a sweet old lady."
Update: Morrisey:
We presented America with fraudulent materials, for which Dan Rather personally vouched. Having spent the past four days desperately seeking anyone to back us up, we've now given up, but you should still believe us when we tell you that these forgeries accurately support our smear on George Bush. The search for better forgeries will continue.Powerline:
CBS has played its cards; it holds none. CBS now undertakes the effort to discover evidence bolstering a story that has blown up in its face. The efforts it needs to redouble should be directed to facing reality and acknowledging culpability. It is now at the least complicit in a fraud of monumental proportions.Whizbang:
Lemme sum up the CBS defence: Those evil Republicans are picking on us. Oh and Bush sucked.Nick Queen:More KoollAid on 60 Minute tonight..
This statement was extremely weak, and took 5 hours from the original time to release. Why?He has some possible answers.
Chuck says, "Well, they’re certainly redoubling something."
Yep, and it smells like a cow farm in Massachusetts.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:32 PM | Comments (0) |
Picking Your Battles
ABC's Noted Now says the Economist poll has determined that 64% say Bush's National Guard service is "not very" or "not at all" important.
This is the hill that Dan Rather, the Democrat National Convention, and the Kerry campaign have chosen to die on.
It tells one a little about their wisdom, doesn't it?
Update: The poll is here.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:21 PM | Comments (0) |
Arnold For President?
I hope this dies...quickly and painfully:
A California Republican congressman introduced a constitutional amendment Wednesday that would allow Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president. But he insisted the candidate he really wants to see is a 76-year-old House Democrat from Hungary."There are those here today who will interpret this constitutional proposal permitting naturalized citizens to serve as president as a political ploy," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, an early supporter of Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial bid, said in remarks prepared for the House floor.
"This is no ploy. I honestly believe that Tom Lantos should be able to seek the highest office in the land, just like any other elected official."
Posted by bubba138 at 03:08 PM | Comments (0) |
Check Your Watch, Dan
17:30 EST and no word...
Hopefully Dan and company will not be late for this:
"Despite the growing abundance of evidence that CBS News has aided and abetted fraud, the network has declined to reveal the source of the disputed documents," Cox wrote to the chairman of the House Energy Committee's subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet.The letter asks Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., to "commence a subcommittee investigation into the continued use by CBS News of apparently forged documents concerning the service record of President George W. Bush intended to unfairly damage his reputation and influence the outcome of the 2004 presidential election."
Posted by bubba138 at 02:32 PM | Comments (0) |
They Love G.W.
Much to Dan Rather's (and the DNC's) chagrin, the President was warmly received yesterday:
Judging by the reception he received Tuesday at the annual convention of the National Guard Association of the United State, President Bush is clearly viewed as one of its own.Thousands of present and former members of the Guard gave Mr. Bush a thunderous and prolonged standing ovation at the cavernous Las Vegas Convention Center.
All that effort, gone to waste. It is sweet to see.
In the same piece:
When In Doubt, Get A Quarterback: It’s clear that the Bush campaign loves to get a prominent sports figure to introduce the president at his political rallies.Strike "sports figure" from that last sentence and replace it with "Hollywood celebrity" or "aging rock star," and ask yourself if you have ever seen the mainstream media comment thusly.In the Denver suburb of Greenwood Village, Colorado, former Broncos’ star quarterback John Elway did the honors on Tuesday. While he would probably get more votes than any politician, Elway used a number of football metaphors in his introduction. He said Mr. Bush knows a thing or two about quarterbacking.
In Michigan last month, another football giant was called upon to introduce the President: retired coach and Michigan icon Bo Schembechler. And a couple of days later in Ohio, it was golf legend Jack Nicklaus who introduced Mr. Bush at a rally in Columbus.
It’s hard to believe a sports figure would mean more votes for a candidate. But it couldn’t hurt.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:40 PM | Comments (0) |
What Bob Schieffer Thinks is Important
CBS News' Bob Schieffer said Tuesday he hopes the network does more reporting to definitively prove the authenticity of memos 60 Minutes II received about President Bush's service in the Air National Guard.Bob Schieffer's words show exactly what is wrong at CBS. Instead of working hard to prove the memos are authentic, they should be working hard to get to the truth of the matter -- authentic or not."I think we have to find some way to show our viewers they are not forgeries," Schieffer, CBS' chief Washington correspondent and host of the network's "Face the Nation," said at a news conference in Sioux City. "I don't know how we're going to do that without violating the confidentiality of sources."
Science employs a model of experimentation called the scientific method. In this model the scientist develops a hypothesis -- an assuption about what he believes according to a certain set of circumstances. He then sets out to do his best to disprove his assumption. Only when he has exhausted the possibilities the assumption is false can a scientist pronounce thathis hypothesis is valid.
CBS has taken the exact opposite tack in determining the truth of these memos. Instead of trying to determine their authenticity in the face of critical review, they chose only to look at evidence that supported Dan Rather's biased, pre-determined hypothesis. This is borne out in Rather's repeated assertion that the memos must be real because they support what he knows to be true. Such are not the statements of a seasoned journalist, but that of a hack propaganist.
CBS would do well to change their model to something closer to the scientific method. Only then will they have the smallest chance of recovering their integrity.
Bob is right about one thing. Before this is over CBS is going to have to reveal its source. I doubt, however, that doing so will aid Schieffer's stated goal "to show our viewers they are not forgeries." To the contrary, the greater possibility is that the identity of this source will support their reputation as fakes of the basest nature.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:32 PM | Comments (0) |
Losing Count
Glenn writes, "THE BOSTON GLOBE has retracted its erroneous Bouffard headline, which misrepresented his views on the authenticity of the CBS documents. This marks a success for Bill at INDCJournal."
I was going to post a "Blogs 1, Media 0" comment, but I realized something. With Cambodia, Swiftboats, Cambodia, et al., the blogs have scored so often over the last couple of months I can no longer keep count of the victories.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:17 PM | Comments (0) |
The Slippage Continues
Yesterday I wrote about Kerry slipping in states in which he should have no worries. Today we might be close to adding New York to that list:
The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute said Kerry led Bush 47 percent to 41 percent, with independent Ralph Nader at 4 percent. In a poll released Aug. 13, three weeks before Bush's speech at Republican National Convention, Kerry led by 20 percentage points, 53 percent to 35 percent, with Nader at 4 percent.Kerry's campaign cannot be happy about this at all.A second statewide poll, from Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion, had Kerry leading Bush, 48 percent to 40 percent, with Nader at 4 percent. An April poll from Marist had Kerry leading Bush, 54 percent to 37 percent.
Looking again at Wisconsin, Bevan of Rel Clear Politics makes this observation:
Note to future candidates: Wisconsin voters do not think highly of people who think the Packers home stadium is called "Lambert Field."
No, they do not indeed.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:05 PM | Comments (0) |
Still No Word from CBS
Kerry Spot says that the CBS statement will come at 3:30.
I guess they did mean West Coast time.
Update: DRUDGE is now reporting that the time has been pushed back to 5pm EDT.
Update II: 5pm has now come and passed without word. We are listening, Dan.
<sound of tumbleweed blowing across a dry, deserted, dirt road>
Posted by bubba138 at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) |
Under No Circumstances
Kerry has come completely full circle on Iraq:
In an interview early Wednesday, Kerry said no circumstances have existed under which he would have favored going to war in Iraq and said Bush continues to make the goal of a stable Iraq difficult to achieve because he pursues the wrong policies there.One short month ago Kerry affirmed that he "would have voted for the authority" to go to war even if he knew there were no WMDs.
Somehow, Kerry thinks this is a winning strategy? The President and Rudolph Guliani were strangely right when they said:
He even, at one point, declared himself as an antiwar candidate. And now he says he's pro-war candidate. At this rate, with 64 days left, he still has time to change his position four or five more times.He has the time and the will, it seems.
Update: Bill Kristol has more:
Even more directly, on May 3, 2003, Kerry had said that "it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him."No longer. Kerry does not now "support[s] that fact." He is now the anti-war candidate, this time presumably for good.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:34 AM | Comments (0) |
CBS is Full of...
...itself:
CBS News was had. It's hard to reach any other conclusion about documents that CBS and anchor Dan Rather have defended as revealing the truth about George W. Bush's military service.Their existence is all the more puzzling in light of today's Times story quoting the onetime secretary of Bush's commander as saying that she recalled typing similar memos questioning Bush's service, but as casting more doubt on the ones that were obtained by CBS.
Who said this? InstaPundit? Morrisey? Powerline? Nope. None other than the left-leaning Los Angeles Times. Dan is done.
(Hat tip)
Posted by bubba138 at 11:23 AM | Comments (0) |
Kerry and Vietnam
The Captain notices the Kerry campaign's response to Dick Cheney's speech yesterday:
...no matter what the issue or the debate, they find a way to throw in Vietnam as their rebuttal, usually in a hysterical shriek that could serve as a parody in and of itself...
Like a cocaine addict Kerry just cannot break the Vietnam habit. Observe:
Bush says Kerry is weak on defense. Kerry says I was in Vietnam:
The Bush-Cheney campaign even has the gall to call into question John Kerry's support of troops in combat or in the reserves-which is a ludicrous assumption considering Kerry WAS one of those service members when he fought in combat in Vietnam and spent 6 years in the Naval Reserves when he returned from war.
Vietnam is a part of Kerry's energy policy.
Kerry looks at Iraq and he sees Vietnam.
Kerry spokesman says painting Kerry as a liberal will not work because he was in Vietnam:
[Kerry spokesman Tom Eisenhauer] predicted that the Bush effort to portray Kerry as just another Northeast liberal will fail because the senator is a decorated Vietnam War veteran, a hunter and a candidate with specific proposals "to reduce the debts from the Bush polices that will be passed on to our grandchildren."
Kerry's time in Vietnam boosts his civil rights credentials:
And when I joined so many other veterans of Vietnam for a return without welcome to America I saw first hand how those on the front lines of combat, black and brown, who had been casualties in greater numbers than the representation of our population, were shunned even after service. Their unemployment numbers were higher. Their opportunities were less than those with whom they had served and the ravages of post-war trauma fell even more heavily on their families and their lives.
When Kerry talks about the environment, Vietnam is there too:
Then, standing at the edge of that disappearing shore, Kerry presented himself as at one with the state's concerns and culture, a northern politician with a Southern heart and a taste for fishing, hunting and conservation.It was a Louisiana pitch in a place where bayou, marsh, and Gulf come together, an emblematic backdrop recognizable to the most distant television audience. Kerry said it reminded him of the Vietnam he saw as a young Naval officer.
...and his service in Vietnam makes him a better environmentalist:
“He is a passionate advocate for our planet. He brings the same level of energy to advance stewardship and fight the polluters as he did to ending the Vietnam War. His fight to save the environment is one he continues to wage every day of his public life.”-- Sally Yozell, Former Kerry Environmental Advisor, Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere
When speaking on domestic issues, Kerry emphasizes Vietnam.
When preaching his political message in church [hey, isn't that illegal? Ed.] Vietnam is at the core of his life's spiritual lessons:
He said he had learned during his service in the Navy that Americans from all walks of life can work together. And as he has many times on the campaign trail, he referred to a Vietnam War comrade to make his point.
When talking about Native American issues, he can relate because he was in Vietnam.
Throughout history, the Native American community has demonstrated that it shared this belief in the ideals this nation was founded on. I learned about that first hand in a place far from home. In Vietnam, I served alongside so many Native Americans who fought for this nation with courage and honor.
John Kerry's health care qualifications are buttressed by his valor in Vietnam:
Kerry repeated his commitment to veterans' health recently during a trip to Iowa: "Co-founder of the Vietnam Veterans of America and a lifetime member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Kerry made frequent reference to his war service. Thousands of veterans are now being denied promised health care benefits, he said. "I'm particularly sensitive that we keep faith with those who have worn the uniform of their country." [Senate Roll Call Vote 1999, #285, #286; 2001, # 84; AP 5/30/03; The Hawk Eye, 6/1/03]
His Contract with America's Middle Class is centered on his service in Vietnam:
So much of what I know about being an American I learned in Vietnam. I didn't have to go, but the tug of duty and country compelled me. The lessons our band of brothers learned have been with us ever since. On that tiny boat, we no longer came from different races, regions, or religions. We were Americans, together under the same flag, stronger for giving ourselves to a cause bigger than ourselves.
It really seems as if he carries a little bit of Vietnam (or is that Cambodia) around with him everywhere he goes.
A close associate hints: There's a secret compartment in Kerry's briefcase. He carries the black attaché everywhere. Asked about it on several occasions, Kerry brushed it aside. Finally, trapped in an interview, he exhaled and clicked open his case."Who told you?" he demanded as he reached inside. "My friends don't know about this."
The hat was a little mildewy. The green camouflage was fading, the seams fraying.
"My good luck hat," Kerry said, happy to see it. "Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia."
There are dozens more, all from Kerry's own campaign site. Kerry cannot get away from Vietnam because his entire identity is Vietnam. It scares me that we could actually have a president who will always see the world through that lens.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) |
Nothing Yet
CBS has said they were going to make a statement at noon. Nothing has come through yet.
I cannot imagine they meant noon, West Coast time.
Update: The blogoshpere is earily quiet while waiting for this announcement. Rick Roberts on the local CBS radio affiliate says common belief within the station is the network is going to continue to circle their wagons.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:14 AM | Comments (0) |
Unfit for Duty
Who is unfit? Bob Schieffer:
Until CBS cleans its own house, it cannot be considered just another news organization, in good journalistic standing. Which brings us to the presidential debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates has scheduled a debate on foreign policy for October 13 at Arizona State University. The moderator the commission has seen fit to anoint for this encounter is Bob Schieffer of CBS News.Schieffer should be replaced by someone from some other organization. This is not to say that Schieffer himself is not a decent guy or a professional, nor it is to suggest that he personally had any role in the National Guard story. But the CBS controversy is about more than one stubborn icon, Dan Rather. The credibility of the entirety of CBS News is at stake. If outsiders are being stonewalled, it is up to insiders who care about the reputation of CBS to step up — insiders like Schieffer.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) |
I Lied About Atrocities
Winter Soldier re-re-re-debunked:
Steven Pitkin, an Army combat veteran, told FOX News that Kerry coached him and others to say they had witnessed war crimes, even after Pitkin told Kerry that he had not."Before they started the camera, they told me, 'We need you to speak about the atrocities that happened over there.' The whole company line that I initially came out and said, I was coached to say that over and over again," Pitkin said.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:39 AM | Comments (0) |
"It Is a Lot Over Money"
There is a civil war going on in the Kerry camp:
“There is nobody in charge and you have these two teams that are generally not talking to each other,” says Coehlo, who ran Al Gore's campaign early in the 2000 presidential race. As Coelho and other detractors see it, there is a civil war within the Kerry campaign.Sen. Ted Kennedy’s former staff members, Mary Beth Cahill, the Kerry campaign manager, and veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum are at odds with recent additions who served under President Clinton.
“Here are two groups that have never gotten along and have fought, and it is a lot over money,” says Coehlo. "Because in the Democratic Party the consultants get paid for the creation and the placement of [advertising]. Republicans only pay you for the creation.”
It is clear who Tony Coelho thinks is the problem:
“In 1988, Dukakis: Shrum is involved. In 1992, Clinton: nothing to do with Shrum. They don’t want Shrum in any way,” Coelho says. “In 1996, they do not want Shrum in any way. In 2000, Gore doesn’t want Clinton people. We go forward, 2004, all of a sudden it’s the Shrum/Kennedy people.”
Posted by bubba138 at 08:26 AM | Comments (0) |
September 14, 2004
Everything Is Bush's Fault II
The Great Divide blog:
But global warming --- an enemy whom Bush has refused to acknowledge --- may well be the culprit. Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic are 5C over recent averages, and are directly responsible for the intensity of recent hurricanes. Scientists predict that this recent warming is likely to last for a couple of decades.Bush's refusal to accept that global warming exists threatens our planet's existence. In the case of increased hurricane activity, his ignorance is deadly.
I am not going to say I told you so, but...
Posted by bubba138 at 09:55 PM | Comments (0) |
Only the Right Experts
CBS says their experts confirmed the Killian documents were authentic. Of course, what CBS means is only the experts they wanted to showcase:
ABC's Brian Ross interviewed the two experts who CBS hired to validate the National Guard documents and reports they ignored concerns they raised prior to the CBS News broadcast. "I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply," Emily Will told Ross. "I did not authenticate anything and I don't want it to be misunderstood that I did," Linda James told Ross. Ross reports 2 experts told ABC News today that even the most advanced typewriter available in 1972 could not have produced the documents. Ross also reported that Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's secretary says she believes the documents are fake but that they express thoughts Killian believed.Dan Rather and CBS producers had expert cast a HUGE SHADOW of doubt on the documents before they went on air and they chose to completely ignore them.
This demonstrates that Dan Rather and CBS used for this reports techniques previously reserved for the likes of Michael Moore. To completely leave out relevant facts because they do not favor your predetermined hypothesis is beyond dishonest, it is outright deception. This is no better than showing the peaceful streets of Baghdad in all its bliss and harmony under the benevolent rulership of Saddam Hussein.
Update: CBS gets bottom up pressure:
I am informed that the head of a CBS affiliate in a large East Coast city is telling viewers who call in that he wants Rather to apologize on 60 Minutes and then resign. This local network official reportedly plans to present the flood of critical emails he has been getting to the network heads in New York.I suspect this gentleman is not alone.
Update II: More details here:
Two of the document experts hired by CBS News now say the network ignored concerns they raised prior to the broadcast of 60 Minutes II about the disputed National Guard records attributed to Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.Will found problems with the handwritting but Rather chose instead to completely ignore her concerns and totally swallow Matley's opinion:Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.
"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter," she said.
Will says she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.
"CBS News did not rely on either Emily Will or Linda James for a final assessment of the documents regarding George Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. Ms. Will and Ms. James were among a group of experts we consulted to assess one of the four documents used in the report and they did not render definitive judgment on that document. Ultimately, they played a peripheral role and deferred to another expert who examined all four of the documents used," the network said in a statement.Translation: Will and James did not support the story we wanted to present so we just ignored them.
Update III: The Captain again has full commentary.
Posted by bubba138 at 05:42 PM | Comments (0) |
Just Where is This Guy Going?
His wife must have forgotten something. (Link)
Posted by bubba138 at 04:38 PM | Comments (0) |
No Christians Allowed
No Jews either. No Kufr. Nobody but Muslims. No, we are not talking about an Arabic Holy Site. We are talking about a theme park in Jackson, New Jersey, in the good ole U.S. of A.
I am speechless. Get your tickets here. Here is an application to be an Islamic vendor on that day. It reads in part:
This event is designed to provide Islamic entertainment for the entire family!Alhamdulillah, the entire park is reserved for Muslims only!
Here is more.
Update: Dhimmi Watch:
I just spoke with Kristin Siebeneicher, the public relations manager for Six Flags/Great Adventure, and she tells me that the "Muslims-Only Day" that has gotten some attention here and at WND is not actually that at all: non-Muslims will be allowed to buy tickets if they choose to do so.But this wasn't always the case, at least in the mind of the Islamic Circle of North America. The event in question is the "Great Muslim Adventure Day," scheduled for this Friday, September 17. The ICNA originally stated on its website that "Alhamdulillah, the entire park is reserved for Muslims only!" But according to Siebeneicher, "Six Flags prevailed upon the ICNA to change that notice." And sure enough, now the ICNA website has been amended to say: "Alhamdulillah, the entire park is reserved for this event!"
Posted by bubba138 at 04:16 PM | Comments (0) |
Who Did It
Lt. Cnl. Killian's family says he did not type. If he was to have authored a memo to himself he would have handwritten it. I suppose it is possible his secretary typed them up? Then again, maybe not:
The former secretary for the Texas Air National Guard colonel who supposedly authored memos critical of President Bush’s Guard service said Tuesday that the documents are fake, but that they reflect real documents that once existed.The Dallas Morning News practiced a discipline that CBS no longer wishes to pursue: investigative journalism.Marian Carr Knox, who worked from 1956 to 1979 at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, said she prided herself on meticulous typing, and the memos first disclosed by CBS News last week were not her work.
"These are not real," she told The Dallas Morning News after examining copies of the disputed memos for the first time. "They’re not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him."
Mrs. Knox also delivers the knock-out blow to all of CBS's arguments about the possibility of these memos being typed up on a National Guard machine:
She said the typeface on the documents did not match either of the two typewriters that she used during her time at the Guard. She identified those machines as a mechanical Olympia, which was replaced by an IBM Selectric in the early 1970s.Case closed.She spoke fondly of the Olympia machine, which she said had a key with the “th” superscript character that was the focus of much debate in the CBS memos. Experts have said that the Selectric, and mechanical typewriters such as the Olympia, could not produce proportional spacing, found in the disputed documents.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:42 PM | Comments (0) |
Unexpected Bonus
No one predicted it, but letting the gun ban expire has been good for the economy.
But of course, Kerry is spouting out about how Bush should have fought for it:
John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, said President Bush had failed tests of character and leadership. But the National Rifle Association lauded the demise of what it called a "misguided law, which had no effect on the actions of criminals, but penalized law-abiding citizens."As I understand the structure of our government bills such as this are the responsibility of the legislature, not the executive branch. Had Kerry really been concerned he could have written and sponsored an extension and lobbied to get it passed in the Senate. Instead he was too busy to take time out from the campaign trail to actually do his job.Bush said in the 2000 campaign that he would sign an extension of the 10-year ban on the semiautomatic weapons. However, he did not press Congress to send him such a bill, and its Republican leaders never did.
"Why didn't you ask, Mr. President?" Kerry asked, surrounded by police officers and gun violence victims at a community center here. "Why didn't you fight for it?"
Here again we see John Kerry's penchant to blame his own failings on others. Just as he blamed the Secret Service guy for knocking him down while skiing ("that son of a ----- cut me off"), Kerry is blaming Bush for not demanding legislation that Kerry himself could have sponsored.
Posted by bubba138 at 02:54 PM | Comments (0) |
A Couple of Questions
1) Does this constitute "politicizing" 9/11 and will Kerry condemn it?2) If 5 widows of soldiers come forward and endorse Bush, will they get the same coverage?
Posted by bubba138 at 02:31 PM | Comments (0) |
Checking the Numbers
Who is outspending whom?
$106,124,400: Estimated amount spent on TV ads by President Bush's campaign and pro-Republican groups since March.The Democrats are spending 70% more than the Republicans and airing twice as many spots and Kerry is still sliding. Guess who is going to have more money to blitz the airwaves in the final weeks of the election.$181,792,922: Estimated amount spent on TV ads by the Kerry campaign or pro-Democratic groups in the same period.
127,628: Number of Bush campaign or pro-GOP spots that have aired since March.
244,435: Number of Kerry campaign or pro-Democratic spots that have aired in the same period.
Source: Campaign Media Analysis Group
(Hat tip)
Posted by bubba138 at 01:50 PM | Comments (0) |
Why Is CBS Digging Their Heels?
Goldberg at the Corner has an idea:
Protecting sources who tell the truth is honorable (though not as sacrosanct as some in the press think). Protecting sources who gave your news organization an umbrella enema and then opened it, is nuts. You have no obligation to protect a source who lies to you. Indeed, you have an obligation to out such sources. The only plausible motive I can think of for why Rather et al would protect the source of these documents -- once they admit the truth -- is that the source of these docs is even more embarassing than the fraudulent nature of the documents themselves. If it's Chris Lehane or Ben Barnes or someone else tied to the Kerry campaign, CBS News will have actively aided and abetted a partisan smear. And they can't afford to admit that.No they cannot. That would be bad.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:25 PM | Comments (0) |
The Shakeup Continues
Kerry is has brought another Clinton guy on board:
Kerry desperately needs someone to "make sure the traveling press corps knows what Kerry is doing and why" since Kerry is afraid to face them himself. It is also telling that even though the the press corps is travelling with, watching and listening to everything Kerry says and does, the campaign needs someone to tell the press corps that what they have seen and heard is not exactly what they have seen and heard.Sen. John Kerry on Tuesday hired Bill Clinton's former press secretary, Mike McCurry, adding yet another adviser who worked for the two-time Democratic presidential winner.
McCurry will travel with Kerry as a senior adviser for the final weeks of the campaign. One senior Kerry aide said McCurry will help keep the candidate's comments focused on his daily message. Another said his role will be to make sure the traveling press corps knows what Kerry is doing and why.
Update: The Cap'n wonders:
It would appear to me that these were the same tasks for which they selected Joe Lockhart, and the same duties that Cutter should have had as communication director. Does Kerry really need that many minders in order to stay on message? Do they plan on tackling him at the knees if he starts to mention Iraq or Viet Nam again?Good questions.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:29 AM | Comments (0) |
Connecting the Dots
The American Patriot is connecting the Democrat dots:
This week John Kerry claimed George Bush was responsible for the Assault Weapons ban expiration. He failed to realize that it was the responsibility of congress to renew any bill whether it be tax relief or assault weapons. The president signs bills into law, he does not create them or renew them. Apparently Mr. Kerry needs to take a remedial course in constitutional law.Yesterday, Florida's election chief ruled that Nader would appear on the Florida ballot because he had more than enough signatures. Who do you think Democrats blamed for it? Governor Jeb Bush of course. It's not the fault of the election chief, this is Jeb Bush's doing! Sorry Democrats, but Governor Bush does not have the power to make that ruling.
"I'm in disbelief," said Scott Maddox, chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. "This is blatant partisan maneuvering on the part of Jeb Bush to give his brother a leg up on election day."I guess trying to get Ralph Nader off the ballot because he might hurt your candidate should be considered bi-partisan according to Mr. Maddox... The left's excuse for getting Nader off the ballot is that the signatures in every state are all forgeries.As the Church Lady would say: How conveeeeeeeeenient!
Posted by bubba138 at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) |
Leading Indicators
In economics, there are leading indicators that give experts a general idea as to the future direction of the economy. Such indicators include the stock market, building permits, inventory changes and changes in the volume of factory orders.
There are leading indicators in presidential elections as well. Perhaps the most telling of these indicators is strength of a candidate in the states in which he should have a lock. For Kerry, one such state is New Jersey, and the picture is not looking too good:
Poll results issued last week showed that President Bush's surge after the Republican National Convention also swept over New Jersey. The 20 percentage-point lead that Kerry had amassed in the state after his convention at the end of July virtually evaporated, with Bush trailing by only 4 percentage points in the latest Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll.With 15 electoral votes, New Jersey is a decent prize that John Kerry cannot afford to lose. The Kerry slide is also happening in Connecticut (7 electoral votes) in which Gore won by 17 but Kerry is polling over Bush by only 7 after being up by as much as 18 in June.Many remain dubious that Bush will collect New Jersey's 15 electoral votes; the state, which Bush lost to Al Gore by 16 points in 2000, has not gone Republican in a presidential election since 1988. But keeping the state in play would signal serious problems for the Kerry campaign.
"If John Kerry is fighting for his life in a Democratic state, he can't win the election," said Stuart Rothenberg, a Washington political analyst. "John Kerry needs to win New Jersey, no ifs, ands or buts, and he needs to win it comfortably."
Most striking about the latest poll is that voters indicated they were not shifting from Kerry to undecided - a typical reaction during the ups and downs of a long campaign - but were falling into the Bush camp. The erosion of Kerry support was broad, crossing demographic lines to include independents, who make up the majority of New Jersey voters, and core Democratic constituencies such as women.
This forces Kerry to make more tough decisions about where and when to use resources that were once reserved for other states. With Pensylvania's 21 electoral votes hanging by a thread, Wisconsin (10 votes) trending Bush, and Minnesota (also 10 votes) well within the margin of error, pulling ads, people, and money from those markets could well be devastating.
Update: DRUDGE has also noticed Kerry's slide:
In last week's WASHINGTONPOSTWABCNEWS Poll, John F. Kerry was viewed favorably by 36 percent of registered voters, down 18 points over the past six months.Only one up from Joeseph McCarthy. OUCH.But just how low Kerry's standing has fallen cannot be appreciated fully without comparing his standing with that of other household names in GALLUP polls over the years, the POST's Dana Milbank reported on Tuesday.
Michael Jordan: 83 (2000)
Tony Blair: 76 (2003)
Pope John Paul II: 73 (2003)
Democratic Party: 54 (2004)
John Ashcroft: 49 (2003)
Michael Dukakis: 47 (1988)
Prince Charles: 45 (2003)
Herbert Hoover: 43 (1944)
Jesse Jackson: 38 (2003)
Vladimir Putin: 38 (2003)
John Kerry: 36 (2004)
Martha Stewart: 36 (2004)
Joseph McCarthy: 35 (1954)
Posted by bubba138 at 09:48 AM | Comments (0) |
Rather-Gate Update
Marcel Matley, CBS' "document expert" has now admitted the scope of his examination was very limited:
The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush's former squadron commander in the National Guard said yesterday that he examined only the late officer's signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves."There's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them," Marcel Matley said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. The main reason, he said, is that they are "copies" that are "far removed" from the originals.
This, of course, is right in line with his specialty being on handwriting analysis, not document analysis.
Further, Matley is known to stray into some pretty interesting waters:
In "Spirituality in Handwriting," Matley assesses a woman's "libidinal energy" based on her handwriting."She has an excellent and rich animate nature with a healthy, instinctual libidinal energy which, when integrated, will propel her into dynamic and fruitful activity and self-fulfillment," Matley wrote in 1989.
In "Female/Male Trait in Handwriting," the San Francisco-based Matley said he could analyze a woman's handwriting "to show her how she can have her womanly qualities fully realized."
The article continued: "For your male client, you will be able to recognize the facade of machismo - and also recognize the hurt boy- child who uses that as a defensive hiding place.""
Now document experts are flooding the media and they are all saying the same thing:
A prominent expert in Microsoft typography yesterday said he has concluded that the CBS News documents about President Bush's National Guard service are forgeries.Still, I think CBS and Dan Rather are going to just wait this one out. After a week it will no longer be newsworthy and by January everyone will have forgotten it.
"The people who are the real experts, like myself, just laugh," Joseph Newcomer, co-author of a book on Microsoft technology, told The Post yesterday. "In my mind, there is no doubt this is a forgery . . . It is a hoax."
Update: Fake, real, don't care? Vote on it.
Posted by bubba138 at 05:50 AM | Comments (0) |
Real Equality
For the first half of my adult life, I was a Democrat. Today, I serve in the Cabinet of President Bush. The long road that brought me to the GOP began in March 1965, when I headed to Alabama to join Martin Luther King Jr. in registering voters and taking part in a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.Despite our peaceful intentions, more than 200 state troopers met us at the Pettus Bridge with whips, nightsticks, tear gas, dogs and electric cattle prods, ordering us to leave. They successfully blocked our march and injured more than 50 of us. The day became known as Bloody Sunday, and I still carry a scar on my leg as a permanent reminder of it. I don't bring up this story to reopen the wounds of the civil rights era, but rather to recall the lessons from that time.
In 1965, I marched for equality. After all, King shared the vision of our nation's Founders that "all men are created equal." As I settled into adulthood, I took an honest look at the Democratic Party, and I came to believe that it had strayed from that ideal. I was soon drawn to the Republican Party because I realized that it truly, not just rhetorically, believed in equality.
For the past four decades, the Democratic Party has tried to convince us that being black and of modest means is a dead-end road. In that vein, America's "black political leaders" have built their careers on an ideology of black victimization. They tout the belief that if blacks want to succeed in this country, there is only one path: reliance on the government.
They're wrong. America is a place where you can be born into a low-income household but still lift yourself up, and it doesn't matter what color you are. I'm living proof.
Bush received only 9% of the black vote in 2000, but his policies have done more for the black community than those of any other modern-era president.
His plan for an "ownership society," for example, has translated into record home ownership in America — and the highest level in history for blacks, too. For the first time, more than 50% of black Americans own a home.
Progress for black Americans depends on good schools because education is the last great equalizer. This administration guided No Child Left Behind into law, reversing the "soft bigotry of low expectations" that was pervasive before Bush came into office. Now, test scores are on the rise.
Republican policies are good for black Americans. With an honest look at our party, perhaps the facts can drown out the boos.
Posted by bubba138 at 05:37 AM | Comments (0) |
Zell Miller's Best Line
Daniel Sterman is right:
In the midst of all of Zell"s righteous anger was one line, one brilliant line that went unnoticed not only in the entire media response to his speech, but by the convention-goers themselves, for whom this line was partially swallowed by enthusiastic cheering.That line goes as follows: 'It is not their patriotism, but their judgment, that is so sorely lacking.' This one line encapsulates the Republican view of John Kerry"s voting record. It encapsulates everything that is wrong with Kerry"s faltering campaign. It encapsulates everything that has been wrong with Democratic protestations over the past three years.
Republican spokesmen limit themselves to attacking specifics. They attack Ted Kennedy"s history of voting to slash defense and intelligence funds. They attack John Kerry"s history of failing to show up to Senate Intelligence Committee meetings, even after Sept. 11, 2001. They attack President Clinton"s history of ignoring the growing threat of terror during eight years of presidential complacency. But not once have they ever described these people as being unpatriotic. This is because, under the official view of the Republican Party, it is not the Democrats" patriotism, but their judgment, that is so sorely lacking.
Posted by bubba138 at 05:32 AM | Comments (0) |
Removing Arafat
Arafat's days seem to be numbered:
"We operated against Ahmed Yassin and Rantisi and some other murderers at a time that seemed right to us," Sharon told the paper. "On the subject of expelling Arafat, we will behave according to the same principle: we will do it at a convenient time for us."It could not happen to a nicer guy.When asked if he saw a difference between Yassin and Rantisi on one hand and Arafat on the other, Sharon replied, "I don't see any difference."
"This [one] and this [one] and this [one] have adopted a policy of murder. As we behave toward other murderers, so we will behave toward Arafat," he was quoted as saying.
Posted by bubba138 at 05:25 AM | Comments (0) |
September 13, 2004
Armani Blogging
I don't wear pajamas, so having two growing girls in the household, I never blog in my bed attire. I also never blog in Armani.
With money like that, no wonder Chuck is a Republican.
Posted by bubba138 at 04:16 PM | Comments (0) |
Missing the Point
(Note: This one is especially for the Thinklings)
Just why is this a problem?
Burley High's Karen Christenson said she was trying to illustrate a point about censorship, as her sophomore students read Ray Bradbury's novel "Fahrenheit 451," which is set in a future society that commands all literature be burned.If you are believer in Christ, Karen Christenson's behavior should cause you absolutely no distress at all. There is nothing holy or sanctified about the compilation of leather and paper and ink that she destroyed. To believe that the book she ripped up was more than a book is to delve into idolatry.Principal Jeff Harrah said Christenson isn't a Bible hater. He said she tore up the Bible in an effort to get her students to think about how it feels to have something they consider sacred destroyed.
He added the idea behind the controversial lesson was a good one, but with a bad result.
Christenson was disciplined but officials would not say what action was being taken against her.
Harrah called Christenson a "great teacher."
What is sacred is the truth which that book contained. Mrs. Christenson did absolutely nothing to destroy that truth, nor the dissemination of it. She did, however, graphically display the horrid nature of censorship and how it could very possibly affect us as a civilization.
Does anyone else see the idiocy of this teacher being disciplined for destroying the very same book out of which she is forbidden to teach? Which is the worst evil, the destruction of paper and ink or the destruction of the right to spread the ideas and teaching that come from the same book? Again which is worse, destroying a single physical book in the material world or destroying the Word of God in your heart by rejecting its truth in all its wholeness?
I recently read "Fahrenheit 451" and was flabbergasted at how close we have come to the world that Bradbury imagined. In his story, censorship was not a matter of controlling people's minds, but a matter of political correctness:
"Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog lovers, cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians...Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico...the bigger your market...the less you handle controversy, remember that! [...]"There you have it...it didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God."
Posted by bubba138 at 03:36 PM | Comments (0) |
The WHAT of America?
Kieth at Fear Biters notices something Jeff Jarvis missed:
naturally I am wondering when "niggerization" became an acceptable word in polite circles. Oh wait, he's a black Leftie, so it's ok, right?
Posted by bubba138 at 02:27 PM | Comments (0) |
A More Sensitive War on Terror
This is what happens when the international community decides to "give the inspections a little more time":
Germany, France and the UK have drawn up a deadline of November for Iran to abandon all parts of the atomic fuel cycle, particularly uranium enrichment.In other words, it is too late to close those barn doors because the horses have long ago left the stable.The proposal is due to be raised at a meeting of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog in Vienna on Monday.
The Iranian foreign ministry said the idea was "out of the question".
"If the Europeans and the international community want assurances that nuclear technology will be for peaceful purposes, we are ready to give assurances," ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters in Tehran.
"But if the issue is that we cannot master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, that is out of the question because we have already reached that point."
Posted by bubba138 at 02:14 PM | Comments (0) |
Easy There, Partner
Several right-wing news sites as well as more conservative bloggers are saying the source of CBS' alledgedly forged documents has been outed. To this I have to say, "Hold your horses."
In a case such as this, it is imperative the blogosphere do its best not to earn its reputation as pajama journalists. Holding off for a little while until credible evidence is presented will not hurt in the least. Using Talon or NewsMax as primary news sources is no more wise than depending on Mother Jones.
Posted by bubba138 at 02:07 PM | Comments (0) |
Tired of Dukakis
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| "I know Michael Dukakis. Michael Dukakis is a friend of mine. I tell you, I am no Michael Dukakis." |
The post election analysis of the Dukakis defeat generally falls into one of two very thinly sliced camps. The first says Dukakis was defeated because of some stupid Army tank photo, and the second says that dirty advertising on the part of Republicans destroyed his campaign. The reality is that neither is true.
Dukakis lost the election because his ideas and ideologies did not resound with the American public. He was (is) an East coast liberal and the majority of the country's voters, including most Democrats, were far more to the right of him on the socio-political scale.
John Kerry's big problem on the other hand has little to do with his liberal leanings. That is not to say he is any less liberal than Dukakis, rather he is more so. Yet large portions of the country are also more liberal than it was in 1988. No, Kerry's difficulties stem from his inability to maintain a clear and focused position on any issue and his complete lack of a positive alternative vision for America.
That Kerry is the quintessential flip-flopper is now cliche, but the reputation does not come without evidence. His conflicting positions on issues like Iraq, European troop deployment, and the environment and SUVs has earned him this singular distinction. To be fair, this is not entirely his doing. Kerry has the misfortune of being the standard bearer for a party that has lost its way. His is the party that simultaneously embraces Jews and anti-semitism, even to the point of showcasing an anti-semite like Al Sharpton, the party that attempts to represent the interests of the common working man and the Hollywood/Broadway elite, the party that says it wants to help minorities but subverts their need for better education to teacher's unions -- and more and more this party has become pushed by the more extreme elements. Trying to please all these disparate interests is a Herculean task and certainly one beyond the capabilities of one John Forbes Kerry.
Kerry (and again the entire Democrat party) has also allowed Bush and the Republicans to define their agenda for the last four years. I have preached this before but it still remains true, the whole message of the Kerry campaign can be summed up in, "if Bush is for it, we are against it." As a majority, American voters -- especially in the presidential race -- have never looked for something or someone to vote against. Instead, we pull the lever for something. John Kerry has not yet convinced America that he is for anything (except maybe higher taxes).
John Kerry is losing this race, and contrary to that which the the press had so gloriously reported, he has been losing it since he became the defacto nominee in January. The Bush people knew all along that Kerry had the ability to suck the air out of his own campaign and they stood back and watched him do it. Kerry's problem -- and that of the Democrats -- is not that he is too much like Dukakis. Kerry's failings are his, and his alone. He is, quite simply, the wrong candidate for the wrong party at the wrong time.
Update: Joe Klien points out another small, but glaringly powerful reason why Kerry is weak: "The real story is quite simple. Bush seems to believe what he says and Kerry doesn't quite."
Posted by bubba138 at 01:06 PM | Comments (0) |
Rather Fisked Rather Thoroughly
Jim Geraghty has given Rather's defense a complete once over. Dan is found lacking.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:14 PM | Comments (0) |
Lybia
Michael Gallaugher has an informative post on Lybia. Check it out.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:51 AM | Comments (0) |
Daschle in Trouble
Thune has taken the lead in South Dakota:
September 13, 2004--In his bid for re-election, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle has fallen slightly behind former Congressman John Thune.It might be time to just paint the whole state red:The latest Rasmussen Reports survey finds the Republican challenger earning 50% of the vote while Daschle attracts 47%. However, the 3-point advantage for Thune is well within the survey's 4.5 point margin of sampling error.
The survey also found President Bush leading Senator Kerry in the state by a solid 54% to 41% margin. This has no impact on our Electoral College projections since South Dakota is already in the GOP column.
Democrat Stephanie Herseth holds a very narrow lead in her bid for a full term in the U.S. House of Representatives. The latest Rasmussen Reports survey found Herseth leading challenger Larry Diedrich 50% to 47%.Herseth won the seat by barely defeating Diedrich (50.6% to 49.4%) in a special election on June 1 of this year. She filled the seat vacated by former Congressman Bill Janklow who resigned after being convicted on charges related to an auto accident in which one person died.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:29 AM | Comments (0) |
Super Protesters
Batman and Spiderman? These guys should know better than to mix Marvel and DC!A protester dressed as Batman scaled the front wall of Buckingham Palace on Monday afternoon, reaching a ledge near the balcony where the Royal Family appears on ceremonial occasions, campaigners and witnesses said.
The protester was identified as Jason Hatch, 33, from Gloucester, a member of the Fathers 4 Justice group, which is campaigning for greater custody rights for divorced or separated fathers.
O'Connor said the protest was timed to coincide with Monday's trial of another group member, Patrick Davis, 48, who is accused of throwing purple flour at Prime Minister Tony Blair in the House of Commons in May. That incident sparked a security alert, and new restrictions on public access to the chamber.
On Saturday, another member of the group who dressed as Spiderman climbed atop the 137-metre-high London Eye ferris wheel beside the River Thames.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:15 AM | Comments (0) |
The Original Pajama Journalists
Pajama journalism -- the origin:
In August 1997, Gates, the chairman of Microsoft Corporation, and his best friend number two, Steve Ballmer, invited a dozen business and technology reporters and editors to spend a night at the Gate's family's summer compound on the Hood Canal southwest of Seattle. Beginning in 1996, the "pajama party" was becoming an annual event...We should have known all along. Evil Microsoft, headed up by maniacal Bill Gates -- who is byt the way only one notch down from Glenn Reynolds on the the evil-maniacal scale -- is behind just about everything.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:10 AM | Comments (0) |
Playing the Race Card
Look for race-baiting, anti-Bush ads to hit the air soon on a TV station near you:
''Bush has a plan for America. But you're not part of it,'' says one television ad being released Monday. Another claims: ''Bush said prosperity was right around the corner, but he wasn't talking about the corners in your neighborhood.''The links between the Kerry campaign and the Media Fund have been concretely established. I expect the New York Times will soon be doing an expose on them. Or CBS.The Media Fund plans to spend a relatively large amount for minority media about $5 million between now and Nov. 2 on television, radio and print ads, mostly in presidential battlegrounds of Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Don't hold your breath.
Update: Not wanting to leave all the race-baiting to others, Kerry pitched in with his own serving of tin-foil hat mania:
Democrat John Kerry suggested Saturday night that Republicans may try to suppress black voter turnout to help President Bush to victory in November.What would the Democrats do if they did not have these outrageous tales on which to blame their own shortcomings?"What they did in Florida in 2000, they may be planning to do in battleground states all across this country this year,'' the Democratic presidential nominee said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Congressional Black Caucus. ''Well, we are here to let them know that we will fight tooth and nail to make sure that this time, every vote is counted and every vote counts."
Posted by bubba138 at 09:26 AM | Comments (0) |
Why the Kerry Will Lose
1. He and the entire Democrat party are stuck in the past.
2. Kerry is -- and always has been -- weak on defense:
The essential difference between Cheney and Kerry is that Cheney wasn't opposed to defense spending in principle. Kerry's opposition was ideological.The People's Republic of Massachusetts is a very liberal place, the only state to go for George McGovern in the Nixon landslide of 1972. On defense issues, Kerry faithfully reflects his constituents' mentality. Here are his biennial NSVI ratings for his first two Senate terms: 1986: 0 percent, 1988: 0 percent, 1990: 20 percent, 1992: 40 percent, 1994: 10 percent.
Would you like some corroboration? The Center for Security Policy is another Washington think tank whose stated goal is "promoting international peace through American strength." Analyzing more than 75 key votes over the past decade, the center gave Kerry one of the lowest rankings in the Senate. In 1995, Kerry's rating was 5 percent; in 1997 it was 0 percent. From 1998-2002, Kerry's rating "soared" to 25 percent, perhaps as he contemplated his presidential run and wanting to shore up his image as a neo-hawk.
3. Kerry cannot focus on issues because the Democrat tent is too big:
The problem for Kerry is that when he tries to change the subject, he seems to change his position. This is partly out of the typical politician's temperament: "Some of my friends are for the bill, and some of my friends are against the bill, and I'm always with my friends." But it also arises because the Democratic constituency that Kerry must rally to vote on Election Day and before (voting starts in Iowa September 23) is deeply split on issues like Iraq. Many think we should leave now. Others think we should persevere. Kerry is with his friends.
4. Kerry continues to rely on failed strategies like this:
Puzzling as well is the Democrats' notion that attacking Bush's National Guard service is going to break the campaign wide open. Haven't they been watching the $60 million worth of anti-Bush ads the Democratic 527s have been running since March? Bush withstood that onslaught and stands, apparently, a little ahead. There's no guarantee he'll still be there after the debates or on Election Day. But, for the first time since January, it wouldn't require a sharp shift in opinion.
6. Kerry continues to rely on failed staff:
The implication is that Kerry is battling not just President Bush, but also the history of his ever-present aide-de-camp. It also underscores the degree to which Shrum's 0-7 win-loss record in presidential elections has become ensconced in the psyches of the campaigns he orchestrates.
5. Even after 9/11, Kerry -- and the Democrats -- think it more important to make and keep friends than it is to keep terrorism from again invading our shores:
After 9/11, I believed--and I still do--that if we exercised the full measure of our power, including our ideas and ideals, we could have united this nation and other nations in common cause. Ultimately, history will judge this administration harshly not for the mistakes it made, but for the opportunities it squandered. Had they been asked, Americans were ready to join a new program of national service, and to spread the cost and hardship of the war on terror beyond our soldiers and their families. Had they been treated with respect, old allies and new friends were ready to join us in a new compact for freedom and security.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:58 AM | Comments (0) |
September 12, 2004
Al Gore is Mad
...and he's not going to take it anymore:
This is, in my opinion, the biggest reason the Democrats are set to lose -- not just in the Presidential race but in many legislative races as well -- in 2004. They are stuck in 2000. They are stuck in Vietnam. They are stuck in the past.Al Gore's stiff jokes are gone now, replaced by recount jokes. The cautious campaigner of 2000 is gone, too, replaced by a fire-breathing Bush basher.
It's red meat for loyal Democrats, to whom Gore is the embodiment of what is at stake on Nov. 2.
"There's a lot of emotion that's wrapped up in the outcome of 2000, which I think he can use constructively in 2004," says Democratic consultant Michael Feldman, a former Gore adviser.
Just ask 76-year-old Jim McNeil, a retired steelworker who turned out to hear Gore speak at the United Steelworkers of America headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh last week.
"There stands the real president," said McNeil, who then made just the sought-after segue into support for Kerry on Election Day.
bin Laden is not looking backward. al-Zarqawri is not looking backward. Neither are American voters. No, they live in the present and look to future and they want leadership that will do the same.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:01 PM | Comments (0) |
CBS To Experts: "SHUT UP"
CBS says they are confident in their expert's analysis of the documents, but they are not confident enough to let anyone else question their experts:
KURTZ: Although I have interviewed Rather and Andrew Heyward, the president of CBS News, and I said, well, look, who are your document experts? So they finally gave me the name of a handwriting expert in San Francisco, and I called him, and he says, I am muzzled, I can't talk, CBS has asked me not to talk to the press.When I was but a young lad it was corporations and politicians that used strong-arm tactics to hold onto power that no longer belonged to them, and it was the bastion of democracy, the free press, that broke that hold. Today, the banner-holder of the press itself is the culprit throwing its weight around and the bastion of democracy, a free people speaking freely is standing up against, and beating it.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton famously said, "the pen is mightier than the sword," and that statement remains true today.
But the pixel is mightier still.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:37 PM | Comments (0) |
I Bring You 15 - (CRASH) - 10 Commandments
Why is he not wearing pajamas?
Posted by bubba138 at 09:00 PM | Comments (0) |
Kerry's Chat with Time
John Kerry had a sit-down interview with Time Magazine recently. This marks the first time since August 1st that he has had a public exchange with a real reporter. However, he still has not faced the corps of reporters that are actually flying with him and covering his campaign.
If one takes a quick look at the questions he was asked one can easily conclude that the interview was kept within tight bounds probably drawn up by the Kerry campaign. There is not a single question about Cambodia, his secret lucky hat, running guns or CIA agents.
Still, even though the Kerry has had an interview with the press, the Kerry counter (left) remains. I have changed the wording [Moving the goalposts? -- Ed. Only slightly! -- Bry] to more accurately express the situation.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:50 PM | Comments (0) |
It Is Getting Harder
There is a reason someone felt the need to create fake documents alledging that Bush had not fulfilled his duties. It is because proving that Bush was AWOL is increasingly getting harder:
Copeland, 65, remembers meeting Bush on two occasions. He does not remember the precise dates. On one occasion, Copeland said, Bush and Lt. Col. John "Bill" Calhoun came to Copeland's office with a question about Bush's pay. Copeland is not sure, but he believes the question had to do with where to mail Bush's checks.(Hat tip)Bush was never a member of the Alabama National Guard, he just did his drills here. For that reason, Copeland thinks he referred the pay question to the paymaster for the Texas National Guard.
The other time Copeland remembers meeting Bush was at the base canteen. Bush was there drinking coffee or a soft drink, Copeland said.
Copeland stressed that Calhoun's account of Bush's service in Montgomery would be accurate because Calhoun was in a position to work with Bush during every drill. Calhoun told The Associated Press last week that he saw Bush every drill time, which was one weekend each month.
Not only was Calhoun in a position to know of Bush's service, Copeland said, but Calhoun "was an ethical and honest officer."
Posted by bubba138 at 08:23 PM | Comments (0) |
Vietnam Vets for the Truth Rally II
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Comrades died because of people like Kerry and Jane Fonda, asserted Larry Bailey, a U.S. Navy veteran and president of Vietnam Vets for the Truth.Of course, Kerry backers were there as well:"We can tell him (Kerry) and spit in his eye while we're doing it, 'we served honorably and compassionately,"' Bailey said to cheers from the crowd of approximately 1,000.
Before the rally, a group of supporters held a news conference nearby to defend Kerry and call for an end to the TV ads attacking the military record of the Massachusetts senator.Perhaps General McPeak should be having this conversation with Terry McAuliffe:"What we ought to be talking about is what's happening today and that includes the best person to lead us out of the mess we've got ourselves in Iraq," Retired Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak, a former chief of staff of the Air Force, told reporters.
Faster than a CBS eye can blink, dogged Dems are set to take to the airwaves anew hoping to keep questions about President Bush's National Guard duty in play, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.Terry McAuliffe: the best campaigner on the Bush team.Candidate Kerry apparently has rejected former President Clinton's advice not to get further locked in a 2004 Vietnam quagmire.
"George W. Bush's campaign literature claimed that he 'served in the U.S. Air Force.' The only problem? He didn't," slams a new DNC press release set for distribution.
The coordinated nationwide effort this week by the DNC has been code-named "Operation Fortunate Son."
"George Bush has a clear pattern of lying about his military service," DNC Communications Director Jano Cabrera blasts in the new release. "From 1978 to the present day, George Bush has refused to tell voters the truth about his service. It's time for the President to come clean."
"Flyers distributed to Texas voters during Bush's failed Congressional race say 'he served in the U.S. Air Force and the Texas Air National Guard.' But according to Air Force officials, Air National Guardsmen are not counted as members of the active-duty Air Force."
Posted by bubba138 at 07:36 PM | Comments (0) |
My Two Favorite Teams
My two favorite teams won today. The Chargers beat the Texans and the team playing the Raiders also won.
That makes for a good day of football.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:26 PM | Comments (0) |
Vietnam Vets for the Truth Rally
Live on CSPAN right now. B.G. Burkett:
"John Kery is responsible for the torture of those men. Now he wants us to stand beside him?
Hell no."
Crowd begins chanting: "HELL NO, HELL NO HELL NO..."
Carol Crawley, daughter of vet, explains that Vietnam Vets are just now beginning to receive the honor they have always deserved. John Kerry's presidency threatens to steal that honor back. "Healing is being undone and scars reopened. This about not letting our men die in vain and standing and saying 'NO, THIS IS NOT THE WAY IT HAPPENED.'"
"[John Kerry] can only blame himself for this fight."
"39 years later we still cry for my father. 39 years later John Kerry still mocks our heros while stealing that title for his own."
I have not seen a full crowd shot yet, but it sounds like a decent turnout.
Sign in crowd says "John Kerry called us baby killers" and "Kerry called us evil"
Full crowd shot? Looks like a couple of a hundred.
Update: Powerline has more.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:49 AM | Comments (0) |
Dan Rather Vindicated
CBS has found a new memo that completely vindicates their claims:
(Hat tip)
Update: Kerry in particular and the Democrats in general are going to lose this election. Here is why.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:35 AM | Comments (0) |
Of Mushroom Clouds and Mistakes
South Korea says the blast was not a nuclear device:
South Korean officials said on Sunday that a massive explosion generating a huge cloud of smoke on North Korea's northern border with China on Sept. 9 was an unspecified accident and apparently not a much-feared nuclear test.North Korea sure seem to be having a rash of highly explosive accidents. I wonder if Kim il Jung had just passed through the area?"We are investigating the size and the reason of the accident but we do not believe North Korea conducted a nuclear test," Kim Jong Min, South Korean presidential spokesman said Sunday.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:27 AM | Comments (0) |
September 11, 2004
This Cannot Be Good
North Korea is up to no good:
A huge explosion rocked North Korea near the border with China three days ago, producing a mushroom cloud that sparked speculation Pyongyang might have tested an atomic weapon, Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday.The South Korean agency said the blast on Thursday in Kimhyungjik county in Ryanggang province appeared much bigger than a train explosion that killed at least 170 people in April.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:32 PM | Comments (0) |
Never Forget
Duncan "Atrios" Black pays his respects in an odd way, "They keep telling us to never forget. Fine."
Somehow to the left's premier blogger, linking Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" is what passes for a fitting 9/11 tribute.
Is there any question as to why the left is seen as morally bankrupt?
Posted by bubba138 at 10:58 AM | Comments (0) |
Happy Birthday
Latino Pundit is one year old. Go say congrats.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:08 AM | Comments (0) |
It Is All About the Talking Points
Friday morning I was hesitant -- no more than that, I rejected the thought -- that the latest Bush/AWOL memo-gate was actually coordinated by Democrats.
Well, it is now half past midnight and I have just watched a couple-a-three hours of Fox, MSNBC and CNBC and guess what, the Democrats on all channels are all saying exactly the same thing.
In essence their position is, "It does not matter if the documents are fake. The real issue is Bush not fulfilling his obligation and that he got special treatment."
Bruce Shapiro and Robert Reich on Hannity and Colmes, the Democrat guest on Scarborough Country (I cannot remember his name), Gephardt's daughter on Dennis Miller all repeated this. Add to that Terry McAuliffe's statements today and one definitely senses a pattern.
What is most interesting about this pattern is not that all the Democrat talking heads are repeating it, but that it also is exactly what Dan Rather said as well:
this story is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don't like the story like to put the emphasis, the more important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the story, which I just gave you earlier.McAuliffe stated on Friday, "I can unequivocally say that no one involved here at the Democratic National Committee had anything at all to do with any of those documents." Yet the coordination between the report and the Democrat reaction is stunningly coincidental. Heck, Terry even fired off a fund-raising email based on the memo the day after Dan Rather's initial report aired.
Fake or not, the memos have put the the Bush/AWOL question (which has been dealt with repeatedly) is back in the media and being forced fed to the watching public -- and just in time for the weekend news programs.
That is no coincidence.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:50 AM | Comments (0) |
Remembering 9/11
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SWEEPING BACK THE TIDE: Schools are tightening up dress codes in a futile effort to fight the bare-skin trend in fashion. Personally, spaghettis straps, off-the-shoulder outfits, and bare midriffs don't sound all that racy to me. Besides, it's a waste of time. When I was in high school they were fighting the same battle, and losing. Then the "preppy" look came in and everyone turned to khakis and oxford shirts, largely eliminating the problem. Cycles being what they are, this will undoubtedly happen again.The world changed dramatically in just a few hours:
TOM CLANCY WAS RIGHT: (Reposted from earlier today) And we're living one of his scenarios right now. Not much is known for sure, but it's obvious that the United States is the target of a major terrorist assault. There's a lot of bloviation on the cable news channels, most of which will turn out to be wrong or misleading later. Here, for your consideration, are a few points to be taken from past experience:
The Fog of War: Nobody knows much right now. Many things that we think we know are likely to be wrong.
Overreaction is the Terrorist's Friend: Even in major cases like this, the terrorist's real weapon is fear and hysteria. Overreacting will play into their hands.
It's Not Just Terrorists Who Take Advantage: Someone will propose new "Antiterrorism" legislation. It will be full of things off of bureaucrats' wish lists. They will be things that wouldn't have prevented these attacks even if they had been in place yesterday. Many of them will be civil-liberties disasters. Some of them will actually promote the kind of ill-feeling that breeds terrorism. That's what happened in 1996. Let's not let it happen again.
Only One Antiterrorism Method Works: That's punishing those behind it. The actual terrorists are hard to reach. But terrorism of this scale is always backed by governments. If they're punished severely -- and that means severely, not a bombed aspirin-factory but something that puts those behind it in the crosshairs -- this kind of thing won't happen again. That was the lesson of the Libyan bombing.
"Increased Security" Won't Work. When you try to defend everything, you defend nothing. Airport security is a joke because it's spread so thin that it can't possibly stop people who are really serious. You can't prevent terrorism by defensive measures; at most you can stop a few amateurs who can barely function. Note that the increased measures after TWA 800 (which wasn't terrorism anyway, we're told) didn't prevent what appear to be coordinated hijackings. (Archie Bunker's plan, in which each passenger is issued a gun on embarking, would have worked better). Deterrence works here, just as everywhere else. But you have to be serious about it.
For now, the terrorists have won. They've shut down the U.S. government, more or less. They've shut down air travel. They're all over TV. But whether they really win depends on how we deal with this; hysterically, or like angry -- but measured -- adults.
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But whenever Americans have been challenged, they have risen to the task. In some awful way, these evil thugs may have done us a favor. America may have woken up for ever. The rage that will follow from this grief and shock may be deeper and greater than anyone now can imagine. Think of what the United States ultimately did to the enemy that bombed Pearl Harbor. Now recall that American power in the world is all but unchallenged by any other state. Recall that America has never been wealthier, and is at the end of one of the biggest booms in its history. And now consider the extent of this wound - the greatest civilian casualties since the Civil War, an assault not just on Americans but on the meaning of America itself. When you take a step back, it is hard not to believe that we are now in the quiet moment before the whirlwind. Americans will recover their dead, and they will mourn them, and then they will get down to business. Their sadness will be mingled with an anger that will make the hatred of these evil fanatics seem mild.I am reminded of a great American poem written by Herman Melville after the death of Abraham Lincoln, the second founder of the country:
"There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand;
Beware the People weeping
When they bare the iron hand."
Dan Rather was also visibly affected (video here):
It's a new... It's a new place now, and we're headed to a new place, David. "Time" magazine had a wonderful essay this week, and said, you know, "we're going now to a new place where, you know, even the songs we sing will have a completely different meaning."For example, you know, "America the Beautiful": Who can sing now, with the same meaning we had before, one stanza of that that goes "O beautiful, for patriots' dream, that sees beyond the years, thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed
by human tears." We can never sing that song...( Sobs )
...Again that way. David, you've been terrific to have me tonight. I'm so sorry for this.
Remember that morning. Never forget.
Update: Blogs of War is doing a round up of 9/11 posts. I imagine there will be alot of that today.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:02 AM | Comments (0) |
September 10, 2004
Kaus on Dennis Miller
Miller: "What do you think of Kerry's proposal for a Dept. of Wellness?"
Kaus: "We've got a war in Iraq, we have health care issues and Kerry wants to talk about about a Dept of Wellness? How about a Dept. of F---ing Perspective?"
Classic.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:14 PM | Comments (0) |
Strange PO Box
A reader has observed the PO Box on one of CBS' Bush memos is interesting. To be sure, PO Box 34567 is suspect. After a quick search, I found Houston PO Box 34567 belonged to Ashland Chemical Company as early as 1991.
I have to go out for one of the kidling number one's birthday so I do not have time to check into it further right now, but there must be a way to verify the owner of that PO Box in 1972-3.
Posted by bubba138 at 05:41 PM | Comments (0) |
Rather's Defense Falls Rather Short
Kerry Spot (again):
This was a weak defense. It clearly picked one or two areas where CBS thought they could muddy the waters, and ignored the other points.Nothing about kerning. Nothing about the paper size. Nothing about the stationary. Nothing about the widow or the son. Nothing about proportional spacing. Nothing about the difference in tone and writing style from other memos by this author. Nothing about the anachronistic language.
They changed the story from coming from his personal files, to admitting that CBS only had a photocopy to work from. The said some typewriters had superscript. Yes, but how common were they? Would they have one of those typewriters in an Air National Guard office?
They said the font Times Roman had been around for many years before the memo. Yes, but could you do it on a typewriter?
Rather said a lot about the criticism of the story is coming from “partisan political operatives.” Like all the forensic experts cited by ABC News and the Washington Post?
Marcel Matley, the expert who CBS cited, seemed to be a lot more focused on the signature (that others have said doesn’t match other documents) than the points cited by others.
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In addition, Matley...
- Is a member of the National Association of Document Examiners
- Is a member of Forensic Expert Witness Association
- Has done work for television programs such as Unsolved Mysteries.
This does not discount Matley's opinion any, but it does limit the scope of his judgements. In other words, the questions about kerning, proportional fonts and centering still remain.
Posted by bubba138 at 04:06 PM | Comments (0) |
How Is This For a Match
If you read the blogs you have by now heard that the CBS memos typeface matches that of Times New Roman when typed up in Microsoft Word. It is one thing to read about it, and quite another to see it for yourself. Thanks to Chronically Biased we can see exactly how well they match up.
The original CBS document.
A current Miccrosoft Word document.
Both images merged
It does not get much closer than that. Chronically Biased also noticed something else:
The new evidence revolves around the fact that Microsoft Word auto-formats its text using the centering function. When the text alignment for "center" is selected each subsequent line will be precisely centered underneath the previous one with each word of the text readjusting to meet this alignment as new letters are entered into the line. Since typewriters mechanically stamp letters onto a sheet of paper one at a time, it is physically impossible to create a mechanical typewriter document that perfectly aligns two or more centered rows of text on top of each other. The address bar on CBS Memo #1 is perfectly centered and perfectly aligned, thus it had to have come from a computer word processor and not a typewriter. The replication experiment in Microsoft Word with an identical match further validates this origin.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:57 PM | Comments (0) |
When Children Turn Against You
Ben Barnes daughter says he is lying:
STITES: I love my father very much, but he's doing this for purely political reasons. He is a big Kerry fund-raiser and he is writing a book also. And [the Bush story] is what he's leading the book off with ... . He denied this to me in 2000 that he did get Bush out [of Vietnam service]. Now he's saying he did.Listen to the audio.CROWLEY: Did he tell you, Amy - and I'm glad I have you on the line with me - did your father tell you that he was prepared to do this on behalf of John Kerry - go after President Bush like this?
STITES: He told me he was going to do it. In fact I talked to him a couple of months ago. He told me he was writing the book. He told me that he was going to be talking about this. And he knows that I - we have very diverse political opinions. He knows my opinions and we get into this debate every time I see him. But, you know, he said that he was going to be talking about it.
CROWLEY: Now you're saying, Amy, that he has had two separate stories on President Bush's Guard duty during the Vietnam era?
STITES: Yes, yes. This came out in 2000 and I asked him then, at the time, if he [helped get Bush into the Guard]. He said, "No, absolutely not. I did not do that."
CROWLEY: So, I hate to put you in this position but I will ask you, do you think your father, Ben Barnes - who was on "60 Minutes II" with Dan Rather last night - do you believe that he lied on the air to the American people last night about President Bush?
STITES: Yes, I do. I absolutely do. And I think he's doing for purely political, opportunistic reasons - trying to get John Kerry elected and trying to make Bush look like the bad person. ... Like I said, he's going to be trying to promote his book that he's got coming out.
Posted by bubba138 at 02:36 PM | Comments (0) |
CBS News Stands Behind the Story
Latest update:
In a statement, CBS News said it stands by its story.1) "Unimpeachable sources" -- What sources? If they are so unimpeachable, why do they remain anonymous?"This report was not based solely on recovered documents, but rather on a preponderance of evidence, including documents that were provided by unimpeachable sources, interviews with former Texas National Guard officials and individuals who worked closely back in the early 1970s with Colonel Jerry Killian and were well acquainted with his procedures, his character and his thinking," the statement read.
"In addition, the documents are backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content," the statement continued. "Contrary to some rumors, no internal investigation is underway at CBS News nor is one planned."
2) "Interviews with former Texas National Guard officials and individuals who worked closely...with Colonel Jerry Killian" -- Again CBS uses unnamed sources.
3) "Backed up...by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content" -- Yet again unnamed. How can the credentials of such "experts" by verified if they remain a mystery? They cannot, which is exactly the way CBS wants it.
Would it be too much to ask if any of CBS' experts belong to any of the following organizations?
- American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS)
- American Society of Questioned Document Examiners (ASQDE)
- American Board of Forensic Document Examiners (ABFDE)
- Midwestern Association of Forensic Sciences (MAFS)
- Southwestern Association of Forensic Document Examiners (SWAFDE)
- Mid-Atlantic Association of Forensic Scientists (MAAFS)
- Southeastern Association of Forensic Document Examiners (SAFDE)
- Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists (NEAFS)
CBS' statement continues:
Friday afternoon, CBS News addressed one of the authenticity issues raised, whether typewriters in the 1960s had the "th" superscript key. "CBS News states with absolute certainty that the ability to produce the "th" superscript mentioned in reports about the documents did exist on typewriters as early as 1968Such typewriters may have existed, but they were far from common. Further, did any such machine have a proportional font, kerning, and a "4" with a closed top and no foot?
Next, Dr. Bouffard began entering individual characters in an attempt to match them to the remaining fonts that were available on proportional spacing typewriters of that era, focusing on numbers. Thus far, one character stood out, the number “4.” In the document provided by CBS News, the number 4 does not "have a foot" and has a “closed top,” which is indicative of Times New Roman, a font exclusive to more modern computer word processing programs. Other characters matched the old proportional spacing fonts...but this number did not.
Posted by bubba138 at 02:11 PM | Comments (0) |
RNC Going Broke?
Keeping up with Kerry is costly:
The Republican National Committee may be in big trouble. The RNC, you see, put video out chronicling John Kerry's many positions on Iraq over time -- the flips and the flops, the zigs and the zags, the waffles.The GOP put out the 11-minute video (www.kerryoniraq.com) during the Democratic convention . . . and had to go back to the editing room after Boston when Kerry said he would still vote for the war knowing what he knows now. Then, the RNC reissued a 12-minute Kerry-on-Iraq video . . . and Kerry changed his position once again. On Monday, he said, "It's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."
At this rate, the RNC may go broke having to edit and re-edit its devastating Kerry video over the next months.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:29 PM | Comments (0) |
Campaign Character
I have written about the difference in the character of the campaigns before. The latest flap over Bush's National Guard service again illustrates the contrast between the Bush and Kerry camps. When Bush was questioned about the various allegations made by the Swiftboat Vets, he asserted without qualification that Kerry had served nobly and that the Democrat candidate should be proud of his service. On the flip side:
Kerry, campaigning in Iowa, refused to talk about the new Bush documents. "That's for the White House to answer," he said.
Kerry could do exactly what Bush did. He could have said Bush fulfilled his obligations and was discharged honorably. This would have killed the issue and the campaigns could then focus on issues that are relevant today instead of inconsequential tin-foil-hat theories that are thirty years old. Instead Kerry chose to keep the issue alive.
The contrast between campaigns is stark. One is acting presidential and the other? School yard.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:10 AM | Comments (0) |
Kerry Needs Help. QUICK!
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Days after Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) and former President Clinton (news - web sites) had a lengthy, late-night telephone chat to discuss campaign strategy, the two were at it again on Thursday. Only this time, politics weren't involved, says a Kerry aide.Yeah. I am convinced they talked about football into the wee hours of the night. I think it is more likely Clinton was telling Kerry that he is losing -- and losing big. That is what happens when you staff your campaign with losers:
In the spirit of camaraderie, the speechwriters discussed making T-shirts for themselves.Shrum is oh-fer-seven and the Democrats call it a curse. Even with such overwhelming evidence they cannot bring themselves to label it for what it is: a performance issue. Kerry is so fond of pointing out Bush's mistakes in every facet of his term -- especially in Iraq -- yet he cannot even run a respectable campaign. That does not instill much confidence that a Kerry presidency will be less marred by bad judgement than Bush's.One suggested a design featuring the slogan "Reverse the Curse" over a picture of Bob Shrum, the Democratic strategist whom many perceived to be presidential candidate John Kerry's closest adviser. "The Curse" referred to Shrum's career-long slump in presidential campaigns, a well-catalogued losing streak that runs from George McGovern to Al Gore.
The shirts were never made for fear of offending Shrum. But the slogan endures as a joke among Kerry staffers. The implication is that Kerry is battling not just President Bush, but also the history of his ever-present aide-de-camp. It also underscores the degree to which Shrum's 0-7 win-loss record in presidential elections has become ensconced in the psyches of the campaigns he orchestrates.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:53 AM | Comments (0) |
Rather Sticks By Story
Dan Rather is staking his reputation on the forged documents. Kerry Spot:
Media source in New York says Rather just did an interview with CNN on the street: "I know this story is the truth...There will be no retraction...When people talk about where we got the story they're only doing it because they don't like the story..."Update: Drudge has more:
DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I know that this story is true. I believe that the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn't have gone to air if they would not have been. There isn't going to be -- there's no -- what you're saying apology?WOW.QUESTION: Apology or any kind of retraction or...
RATHER: Not even discussed, nor should it be. I want to make clear to you, I want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which is where those who don't like the story like to put the emphasis, the more important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the story, which I just gave you earlier.
Update II: The contractor who independently verified the documents for CBS has been found. Scrappleface has more.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:39 AM | Comments (0) |
Single Issue Election
There is one and only one issue this election. Hugh Hewitt:
As the third year of the new century's first war comes to a close, the United States is not anywhere near victory, but is on the offensive and deeply engaged in battles that cannot be avoided in lands just as diverse as Germany and the Phillipines were 60 years ago. The only question is whether American will is sufficient to the task of the many more years of battles ahead, and to the new fronts which seem to be inevitable. We will find out on November 2. A vote for Bush is a vote to continue to wage aggressive war on Islamist fanatics and their nation-allies. A vote for Kerry is a vote to withdraw from that war and hope we don't get hit again.
This is not merely partisan hyperbole. Kerry himself has repeatedly stated that if elected his primary goal for Iraq will be to bring the troops home. Withdrawl is more important to Kerry than victory. President Bush's position is exactly the opposite. He recognizes this is a war and that first, we cannot afford to loose, and second, victory is only possible through aggressive action. We cannot win this war if we try to fight it from a defensive posture. This is not a war that can be won through retaliation. This war must be won offensively, which is something Kerry is not prepared to do.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:26 AM | Comments (0) |
So Much for the "Milestone"
The left has done its best to make hay out of the milestone marks of military deaths in Iraq from the very beginning of the war. They crowed when the number of deaths surpassed those in the first Gulf War. Then it was the 500 mark. When the after the major combat phase body count exceeded the before count, they shouted again about it.
The latest milestone is of course the 1000 mark. We've paid too much, the cost is too high they scream. Unfortunately for the left, however, Americans are still solidly behind Bush on Iraq:
A steady procession of U.S. military deaths, which this week resulted in the passage of the grim milestone of 1,000, has so far not caused an obvious backlash in public opinion against Bush's handling of Iraq. This support has steadily weakened over the past two years, but not in ways that suggest a direct correlation between casualties and political support.The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Bush with a 53 percent to 37 percent advantage over Democrat John F. Kerry when voters were asked who they think would do a better job handling the situation in Iraq.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:51 AM | Comments (0) |
More Inconsistencies With Memos
CNSNews notes more inconsistencies with the memos:
Former military officers and others with knowledge of military correspondence contacted CNSNews.com Thursday to present their own critique. Among the problems they cited:* The documents are not on a standard letterhead. Instead, they feature a typewritten and centered address with a post office box rather than an actual street address of the squadron. The address is P.O. Box 34567, which coincidentally includes five consecutive numbers.
* Dates in the letters - "04 May 1972" and "14 May, 1972" - are inconsistent and do not follow military form. The military prefers the following example, according to ex-officers: 4 May 72. It doesn't include a zero preceding the date or a comma following the month.
* The lines "MEMORANDUM FOR:" and "SUBJECT:" that begin the May 4, 1972, document, weren't officially used in the 1970s. According to one retired military officer, the correct format then was most likely "REPLY TO ATTN OF:" then "SUBJECT:" and finally "TO:" preceding the text of the message.
* Bush's name was listed in the memo as "1st Lt. George W. Bush." But other military documents, including those posted on Sen. John Kerry's website use a different format. Bush's name would have likely appeared as "1LT Bush, GW" or "1LT G Bush."
* There shouldn't be disparities in the May 4, 1972, letter such as, "111 F.I.S." and "111th F.I.S.," according to ex-military officers. Also, the acronym "F.I.S.," which stands for Fighter Intercept Squadron, shouldn't have included periods.
* The signature block with Killian's name lists his rank as "Lt. Colonel," when in reality most military commanders abbreviated that title as "LTC" or "Lt. Col.," according to retired officers. The signature block also includes the word "Commander" when "Commanding" was the preferred reference.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:43 AM | Comments (0) |
Bloggers Did It
Podhoretz credits the blogosphere for outing CBS:
THE populist revolution against the so-called mainstream media continues. Yesterday, the citizen journalists who produce blogs on the Internet — and their engaged readers — engaged in the wholesale exposure of what appears to be a presidential-year dirty trick against George W. Bush.What the bloggers and their audiences did was call into profound question the authenticity of four documents proudly trumpeted by CBS News in a much-heralded investigative report on Wednesday night's edition of "60 Minutes" about the president's National Guard service in the early 1970s.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:36 AM | Comments (0) |
Properly Expressed Outrage
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which issues dozens of press releases every month, had nothing to say about the bloodbath in Russia until I requested a comment on Tuesday -- four days after the mass-murder occurred and nearly a week after the terrorists, shouting "Allahu akbar," first seized the school. The statement CAIR then issued doesn't even acknowledge that the killers were Muslim:The point is, CAIR had to be prompted to release a statement that should have been the result of natural outrage over a barbaric act.No words can describe the horror and grief generated by the deaths of so many innocent people at the hands of those who dishonor the cause they espouse. We offer sincere condolences to the families of the victims and call for a swift resolution to the conflict in that troubled region that will let all people live in peace and freedom.At least CAIR went through the motions of condemning the butchery. Other voices preached a different message altogether.
If the Council on American-Islamic Relations goals are really to improve relations between Americans and the Islamic community, perhaps they should begin identifying more with humanity than with their own narrow interests.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:19 AM | Comments (0) |
The Truth Is Out There and It Does Not Matter
The Whole of the Blogosphere and all of the press now know that the CBS documents that Dan Rather so eagerly reported on are fakes. In this election more than any other I have witnessed, however, the truth has no bearing. Only perception matters. That is how the Democratic National Party can beg for money based upon a complete, obvious lie. Today I received this email from Terry McAuliffe and company:
Back in February, President Bush sat down in the Oval Office for an interview with Tim Russert and spoke about his service in the National Guard. Bush told us, "I put in my time, proudly so." He said, "And I'm telling you, I did my duty."But now we know that Bush dishonored the Oval Office by lying to the American people.
New investigations from multiple media sources have revealed the truth about President Bush's service. New military documents show that Bush disobeyed a direct order from his commander to take a flight physical and "failed to perform to U.S. Air Force/Texas Air National Guard standards" -- and was grounded as a result.
New evidence supports claims that Bush missed months of service and that he never showed up for service with the Alabama National Guard.
New evidence shows that Bush received special treatment. His supervisor wrote that he felt pressured from above to "sugar coat" Bush's records.
In addition the DNC has without shame posted a "BUSH LIED" page with the text of these falsified documents on their site.
The fund raising letter was sent to me at 3:24AM on September 10th. The Killian memos were shown to be fake long before that, yet the Democrats did not care. All they care about is defeating Bush AT ANY EXPENSE. Need more convincing?
We need to hold judgement on reports that CBS received the documents from the Kerry campaign. But the question of their origin must be answered. CBS does not say how they obtained the memos but, and this is vital, if these memos were inserted into official government files a felony has been committed and those responsible should be prosecuted.
Update: Just another day at the office.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:48 AM | Comments (0) |
September 09, 2004
Bump Confirmed
The Washington Post/ABCNews Poll is the latest to confirm Bush's improved standings:
For the first time in the campaign, a majority of likely voters now say they plan to vote for Bush. Among those most likely to vote in November, Bush holds a 52 percent to 43 percent lead over Kerry, with independent Ralph Nader receiving 2 percent of the hypothetical vote. Among all registered voters, Bush leads Kerry 50 percent to 44 percent.The President is up in the general election and in all the battleground states.A smaller sample in 19 battleground states, where strategists believe the election will be decided, Bush holds a narrower lead among likely voters, 50 percent to 46 percent. Among all voters, the two candidates are running even, suggesting that voter turnout again will be the key to victory in November.
In the snapshot of the pre-convention polls, Bush was down one at the beginning of August (49% to 48%) and is now up by nine: a ten point bounce. Very nice indeed.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:02 PM | Comments (0) |
Counting the Cost
Putting it into perspective:
Such comparisons reduce war to a numbers game in which the body count is all that matters. But isn’t one death too many in a war started by a despot merely to increase his power? And how many deaths was it “worth” to stop Hitler? How many deaths would be acceptable to stop the genocide in Darfur? Surely the cause in a war must be factored into the equation. It matters whether the outcome of a war would give the world more liberty or more tyranny, move people one step closer to civilization or one step backward toward barbarity.That’s why one set of numbers being advanced does get us closer to the reality: people lost to terrorism. So far, 1,003 Americans have lost their lives in Iraq in a year and a half. Some 3,000 people lost their lives on 9/11. Nearly 200 died in one day in Madrid. More than 300 died last week in Russia, about half of them children.
If there is a worldwide war on terror, and Iraq is a necessary part of that war, the 1,000 deaths become just one part of a much bigger story. There will be many, many more deaths, not all of them of professional combatants.
But if Iraq is truly a distraction from the war on terror, a mistake that not only diverted us from Osama bin Laden but also helped create more terror, then one death would have been too many and 1,000 is an obscenity.
But it is fair to ask, at this late date: Even if Iraq were a mistake, what difference does that make now? Iraq has become the main theater of operations against terrorism. To leave now would doom a whole people and risk our own futures.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:03 AM | Comments (0) |
You Have Got To Love Her
Teresa Heinz Kerry has been out campaigning for Bush her husband again:
In an interview with the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Intelligencer Journal, Teresa Heinz Kerry promoted her husband's health care plan by saying it would be endorsed by legislators -- even naysayers whom she said will find themselves voted out of office if they oppose the plan."Only an idiot wouldn't like this," she said. "Of course, there are idiots."
With friends like these, who needs the Swiftboat Vets?
Posted by bubba138 at 10:54 AM | Comments (0) |
Kerry Counter
Kevin at Whizbang has inspired me to make a counter of my own. To the right left is the official Slings and Arrows Kerry Counter which tracks the number of days since Kerry actually answered a serious question from a serious reporter.
Just as good lawyers work hard to keep their guilty clients from taking the stand, Kerry's handlers have been keeping him away from anyone who would have the temerity to ask him the slightest question about his service in Vietnam -- the very same service by which his campaign told us he should be judged.
When he finally does face a reporter, he should be asked about his trip to Managua:
On the eve of a major Senate vote on the issue of aid, John Kerry and Tom Harkin jetted off to Managua for a weekend of intensive talks with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. The pair departed after holding a press conference to announce a study which listed dozens of supposed lies that the Reagan administration had told Congress and 15 allegations of law breaking (the study was done by the hard-left Institute for Policy Studies). Kerry and Harkin returned with a three page "peace proposal" given to them by Ortega.After illegally pursuing negotiations with the communist Viet Cong Kerry thought it nothing to illegally enter into negotiations with the communist Sandinistas.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) |
Most Hated Man Since Hitler
Who is it? None other than President George W. Bush, of course:
A bumper sticker from New Hampshire caused a minor ruckus in Minnesota presidential politics Wednesday.To their credit, a higher DFLer did remove the stickers. Still, it says something about the mindset of the party that the stickers were not immediately recognized as repulsive but instead offered to any who wished to spread the hate.It read, "Bush/Cheney — Most Hated World Leaders Since Hitler.'' Produced by a New Hampshire man, it was sent unsolicited to the Democratic-Farmer-Labor headquarters in St. Paul.
DFL officials said a clerk opening the mail put the offensive stickers on the counter at the DFL office late Tuesday.
A Republican staffer noticed the bumper stickers in the DFL office when delivering a letter on Tuesday afternoon, Republican spokesman Randy Wanke said. A second staffer was sent back and was given one of the bumper stickers, he said.
Later that day, the DFL says, a party official saw the stickers on the counter and removed them immediately.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:40 AM | Comments (0) |
So You Say You Want a Resolution
The Arabic Jihadis in Sudan are shaking and quaking with fear:
The United States distributed a draft UN resolution yesterday that threatens consideration of sanctions on Sudan's oil industry if Khartoum fails to stem violence in its Darfur region or blocks the deployment of thousands of African monitors.Which begs the question, "When would be the time for sanctions?" Again Europe shows its mastery over the the moral low-ground.Senior council ambassadors said they expect intense resistance to the resolution, particularly from the council's strongest opponents of sanctions, including China and Pakistan, which both import oil from Sudan.
Even European governments, including Britain, believe the US resolution will have to be watered down to gain broad support in the council, according to a European diplomat. "I think the US approach is what I would call stick-based rather than carrot-based," said one council diplomat. "We feel now is not the time for sanctions."
Posted by bubba138 at 09:35 AM | Comments (0) |
Not Very Smart
For some reason I am not betting on this marriage to last:
A Russian woman who hired a hitman to kill a male friend, has ended up marrying her intended target.Former beauty queen Anastasia Nasinovskaya contacted a hitman to kill businessman Igor Lantsov after a furious row.
Nasinovskaya, who had been seeing Lantsov since 2002, decided to get her own back - and even stole the money from him to pay for the hit.
Police staged a sting operation to trap the Russian beauty, but dropped the charges after Lantsov refused to help them prosecute her. Lantsov even hired one of the country's best lawyers to defend her.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:28 AM | Comments (0) |
NEWS FLASH: Court Upholds Up Constitution
Teachers can also practice their chosen religion:
Wigg, who has been a teacher for 21 years, sued the Sioux Falls School District (search) last year when she was told she couldn't participate in the Good News Club, an after-school national religious program that meets on school property. Wigg had gone to one meeting before being prevented from attending.The school district argued that it could not permit one of its teachers to lead such a class because it might give the impression that the school system favors a particular religion. But the court ruled that the school system had taken a discriminatory position on religion and had violated Wigg's free speech.
"In an effort to avoid an establishment of religion, Sioux Falls School District unnecessarily limits the ability of its employees to engage in private religious speech on their own time. Although SFSD allows access to the club, SFSD impermissibly discriminates by limiting those who can attend based upon the subject matter of the speech."
Posted by bubba138 at 09:19 AM | Comments (0) |
The Root Causes of 9/11
Bob Peterson teaches students that overpopulation and poverty help make it easier to recruit terrorists for attacks like those on Sept. 11, 2001.Looks like Mr. Peterson has been stealing lessons from Ben Cohen.In one of Peterson's lessons, students stand, arranged by population, on a huge world map. Peterson hands out cookies according to gross national products: The 16 students in Asia each get one cookie, and the three in Africa split half a cookie among them. In North America, one student enjoys eight cookies.
Though he doesn't "blame America" for the attacks, Peterson says, even children "can be encouraged to ask deep questions" about the causes of terrorism.
Instead of studying why three students (Africa) must share a single cookie, I wonder if Mr. Peterson has led his students to study how the one student (North America) came about his eight cookies. Somehow I doubt that lesson is in this semester's plan.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:12 AM | Comments (0) |
Battlegrounds Going Bush
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Color 'em red, m'boys.
- Missouri, which was tied in a USA TODAY poll taken just before the Democratic National Convention in July, now shows Bush ahead of Kerry by 55%-41% among likely voters. Bush carried the state in 2000 by 3 percentage points.
- Ohio, where Bush lagged by 6 points in mid-July, now favors him by 9 points. Among the larger pool of registered voters, Bush's lead was just 1 point. He carried the state by 4 points in 2000.
Add to this the fact that Kerry has lost his lock on over sixty electoral college votes in the last two months while Bush has picked up ten and things are shaping up nicely.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:51 AM | Comments (0) |
Bush's National Guard Record
Have you seen Bush's National Guard record? You must have, since the press is all over it. They have covered just about everything, except what he did do:
The future president joined the Guard in May 1968. Almost immediately, he began an extended period of training. Six weeks of basic training. Fifty-three weeks of flight training. Twenty-one weeks of fighter-interceptor training.So Bush did more than his share of time in the service. But don't hold your breath waiting for the new York Times or 60 Minutes to tell you about it.That was 80 weeks to begin with, and there were other training periods thrown in as well. It was full-time work. By the time it was over, Bush had served nearly two years.
Not two years of weekends. Two years.
After training, Bush kept flying, racking up hundreds of hours in F-102 jets. As he did, he accumulated points toward his National Guard service requirements. At the time, guardsmen were required to accumulate a minimum of 50 points to meet their yearly obligation.
According to records released earlier this year, Bush earned 253 points in his first year, May 1968 to May 1969 (since he joined in May 1968, his service thereafter was measured on a May-to-May basis).
Bush earned 340 points in 1969-1970. He earned 137 points in 1970-1971. And he earned 112 points in 1971-1972. The numbers indicate that in his first four years, Bush not only showed up, he showed up a lot...
In June and July of 1973, he accumulated 56 points, enough to meet the minimum requirement for the 1973-1974 year.
Then, at his request, he was given permission to go. Bush received an honorable discharge after serving five years, four months and five days of his original six-year commitment. By that time, however, he had accumulated enough points in each year to cover six years of service.
(Hat tip)
Posted by bubba138 at 08:42 AM | Comments (0) |
Here We Go Again
Sidney Blumenthal could not be any more jubilant:
On Wednesday, the Boston Globe published documents proving that Bush, whose spotty record in the National Guard was always mysterious, "fell well short of meeting his military obligation". Maj Gen Paul A Weaver Jr., who retired in 2002 as the Pentagon's director of the Air National Guard, was quoted: "It appears that no one wanted to hold him accountable."That night, CBS's 60 Minutes broadcast the first interview with former Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes, who explained how he contrived to get young George his safe posting in the "champagne unit" of the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war. The programme also revealed further documents showing he never fulfilled his service.
Abruptly, the Republican marchers stumble as Kerry is galvanised. "His miscalculation was going to war without planning carefully and without the allies we should have had," he said yesterday. Meanwhile in the White House, aides anxiously wonder how to explain the president's haunted past and his long years of hiding it and who will have the task of facing the cameras.
By my count (which may be wrong) the story on Bush's National Guard record has been trotted out by the press more times that the U.N. Security council had resolutions against Saddam Hussein. Why this is news while at the same time the accusations of the Swiftboat Vets was not (and is still not) is a mystery to me. If this does not illustrate the bias of the press, nothing will.
Does anyone else find it interesting that 60 minutes finds time to interview Bill Clinton, Richard Clarke, and Ben Barnes but has not given John O'Neil the time of day?
The question remains, however, how many times do we have to deal with this same issue before we can officially declare it dead? Bush is not now, nor has he ever run on his military accomplishments. He has repeatedly said Kerry's service was distinguished, has never criticized it, and even said Kerry's military record is more noble than his own.
Once again we see the Democrats want to force our focus onto the past. Right here and right now we have...
- People's body parts on the streets of Jakarta
- Genocide running rampant in Sudan
- South Korea admitting they have lied to us since the 80's about nuclear weapons.
- Iran is not far behind.
- People trading nuclear weapons components on the black market.
- Russia reeling from Islamic terrorism, and finding evidence of more to come.
...and the Democrats still want to do what they have been doing for months: talk about the Vietnam era. This proves the Democrats are not in any way serious about national security. Bush has proven that he is serious by his actions as the President. What he may or may not have done thirty years ago is irrelevant. The same would go for Kerry -- except that he has spent the last two years trying to prove that his four months in Vietnam are exactly what qualifies him for the presidency.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:14 AM | Comments (0) |
9/11 Memorial
AP:
A World Trade Center family group announced the launch of a new Web site Wednesday that will serve as a support network for Sept. 11 victims' families and an archival resource for the public.There is not much to the site right now. We will keep an eye on it though.Victims' families and the public can register on the Web site, www.911livingmemorial.org.
Iken said the project would help heal families and children affected by the Sept. 11 attack until the ground zero memorial is completed.
The memorial is slated to open by the end of 2009, said Lower Manhattan Development Corporation President Kevin Rampe, who joined Iken at the press conference. He added that plans were moving on schedule.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:43 AM | Comments (0) |
Cox and Forkum
Posted by bubba138 at 07:25 AM | Comments (0) |
September 08, 2004
Site Redesign
I have not posted today because work has been especially busy and, as you can see, I have been tinkering with a major redesign. It is now time to pick up the kidlings and get them to practice (cheer and tennis). I'll be scanning the blogs later this evening and posting then.
Posted by bubba138 at 04:10 PM | Comments (0) |
September 07, 2004
Never Forget
Again the mantra is never forget. Why must we say this? Because the bane of humanity is that we do forget. We forgot what it was like on 9/11, until we were reminded by the bombings in Spain. Too quickly we forgot that pain, until Beslan reminded us again. Burn these images into your brain so you never forget.
Yes. That is blood on the floor.
The hostages were crammed into rooms, no food or water, no trips to the toilet
Blood, guts, bombs and kids.
This little guy was two years old.
But he wasn't a Muslim, so slaughtering him helped someone get his 72 virgins.
Vasily Reshetnyak, eight years old.
Zaur Gutnov, ten years old.
The signs says "Only cowards fight with kids!!!" That about sums it up.
Does anyone still have anything to say about Abu Ghraib?
Posted by bubba138 at 03:22 PM | Comments (0) |
Canada Considering Sharia Law
BBC:
Over a snack of fried chicken and Indian chutney, he told me about the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice.A Muslim has the right to live as his religion wishes him to, Mr Ali explained, and under Sharia he can finally live like a true believer in his faith.
What is more, Mr Ali pointed out, in Ontario Orthodox Jews are able to settle their civil disputes in religious courts, so why not Muslims?
Why not indeed.
Canada's Globe and Mail asks and answers the same question:
An Islamic court? Here? Why not?Here is why not. The very foundation of Sharia law dictates that no secular law can be above it. As a matter of fact it goes beyond that, positing that the very concept of secular law is invalid. Sharia law and democracy are completely incompatible.
But there is no reason to expect that the Islamic institute will be run as if the Taliban had set up shop in Ontario. Mumtaz Ali, the founder of the Islamic institute, has said that Ontario law will take precedence, and that child-custody cases will not be part of the tribunal's mandate.Imposing a form of prior restraint would be a disastrous mistake. It would tell Canada's 600,000 Muslims, as law-abiding a community as any other, that the country is so afraid of their faith-based norms and values they must be denied the rights that others have.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:25 PM | Comments (0) |
Add Two More
Witnesses told Reuters about 20 men with AK-47 assault rifles and pistols with silencers stopped their vehicles in a busy commercial area of Baghdad and raided a building housing humanitarian organization Bridge to Baghdad.These people pose no threat to Iraq or to Iraqis. They are, however, foreigners, and thereby perfect for the terrorist's appetite for blood.They left with Italian staffers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta and two Iraqis, a women who worked for another Italian organization Intersos and a male engineer who worked for Bridge to Baghdad.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:30 PM | Comments (0) |
WAKE UP
Hundreds of children slaughtered in Russia. It is not the fault of corrupt special forces.
Buses bombed in Israel. This is not the fault of Sharon.
Ongoing genocide in Darfur. This is not the fault of racial tensions.
Hope is running out for the French hostages. This is not the fault of a ban on headscarfs.
The following are not the fault of a few weeks of abuse at Abu Ghraib.
- Twelve Nepalese workers. One beheaded and 11 shot in the head and killed in a video posted on an Islamic Web site Aug. 31. The men worked for a Jordan-based construction company.
- Murat Yuce, of Turkey. Shot and killed in video made public Aug. 2. Worked for Bilintur, Turkish company providing laundry service for Jordanian firm in Iraq.
- Raja Azad, 49, engineer, and Sajad Naeem, 29, driver, both Pakistani, working for Kuwaiti-based firm. Slain July 28. Group calling itself Islamic Army in Iraq said they were killed because Pakistan considering sending troops to Iraq.
- Georgi Lazov, 30, and Ivaylo Kepov, 32, Bulgarian truck drivers. Militants loyal to Jordanian terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are suspected of decapitating both men.
- U.S. Army Spc. Keith M. Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio. He disappeared April 9. Arab television reported June 29 that he was killed but the U.S. military could not confirm that.
- Kim Sun-il, 33, South Korea translator. Beheaded June 22 by al-Qaida-linked group.
- Hussein Ali Alyan, 26, Lebanese construction worker. Found shot to death June 12. Lebanese Foreign Ministry says killers sought ransom, not political goal.
- Fabrizio Quattrocchi, 35, Italian security guard. Killed April 14. Previously unknown group, the Green Battalion, claimed responsibility.
- Nicholas Berg, 26, American businessman. Beheaded by al-Qaida-linked group after being kidnapped in April.
The Towers in New York and the Pentagon in DC are not the fault of U.S. presense in Saudi Arabia.
The killing and burning and brutality that ruled East Timor for months was not the fault of capitalist interest.
The attack on the Olympic Israeli team in 1972 was not the fault of Zionist crusaders.
The killing of Leon Klinghoffer on the Achille Lauro was not the fault of Israel.
The train bombings in Spain was not the fault of that government's cooperation in Iraq.
Those killed daily in Thailand are not slaughtered because there is an economic imbalance.
There is a common denominator.
Figure it out.If you need help, here is the Cliff Notes version:
Islam is not, as some imagine in the West, a religion of the sword nor did it spread primarily by means of war. It was only within Arabia, where a crude form of idolatry was rampant, that Islam was propagated by warring against those tribes which did not accept the message of God--whereas Christians and Jews were not forced to convert.In other words, the spread of Islam was peaceful, except where it was not embraced as the preeminent religion. Sound familiar?
The idea that Chrsitians and Jews were not forced to convert is laughable:
The biographers of the Prophet, followed by later historians, tell us that Banu Qaynuqa.,1 and later Banu al-Nadir,2 provoked the Muslims, were besieged, and in turn agreed to surrender and were allowed to depart, taking with them all their transportable possessions. Later on Khaybar3 and Fadak4 were evacuated. According to Ibn Ishaq in the Sira,5 the third of the Jewish tribes, Banu Qurayza, sided with the Qurashites and their allies, who made an unsuccessful attack on Medina in an attempt to destroy Islam. This, the most serious challenge to Islam, failed, and the Banu Qurayza were in turn besieged by the Prophet. Like Banu al-Nadir, in time they surrendered, but unlike the Banu al-Nadir, they were subjected to the arbitration of Sa'd b. Mu'adh, a member of the Aws tribe, allies of Qurayza. He ruled that the grown-up males should be put to death and the women and children subjected to slavery. Consequentiy, trenches were dug in the market-place in Medina, and the men of Qurayza were brought out in groups and their necks were struck.6 Estimates of those killed vary from 400 to 900.Mass graves. Head chopping. At the behest of the Prophet because they "provoked" the Muslims. Sound familiar?
Want more violence? How about this, this, this, and this?
These accounts were written by Islamic scholars.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:39 AM | Comments (0) |
A Chance Meeting
Rob E. Schantz of Jacksonville, Florida had the unexpected experience of sitting next to a soldier just returned from Iraq on a plane last month:
I asked him several questions and was surprised at some of his answers.The column's author, John Boyce entitled this piece "Another View," which implies the soldier's views are different than his own. That they were different from Mr. Schantz' opinions is evident in that he starts his account saying that the soldier's answers surprised him. Mr. Schantz' final question also makes a point:My obvious first question was would we really ever get the job done in Iraq. No question about it, he said. Since the Iraqi’s have taken over, things are getting done. The U.S. troops are now more of a support role for the Iraq Army (National Guard). There are now 40,000 troops in their Army and 60,000 more being trained, plus police and local militia.
His opinion is we would be starting the withdrawal by January 2006. The Iraqi’s are very upset that the insurgents and non-Iraqi’s are the ones causing problems. He told me the Iraqi people in large part liked the U.S. but wanted the radicals out of their country. Schools are open, power is on, commerce is going, etc. When an Iraqi unit tries to find a suspect, they always “get their man” because their tactics are a bit harsher than ours.
Without getting into politics, I asked him how the troops felt about President Bush. He commented that they totally trusted him because he felt Bush was honest with them. Bush has made mistakes, but admits it.
He was at the Thanksgiving dinner when Bush was there. Nobody knew the President was coming. The sergeant had to “reluctantly” drive 60 miles to get there and was expecting a rah-rah speech from a Senator or Congressman. When Bush came out, it made him proud to be in the Army. His reaction was one he really could not explain. Every soldier there without exception has relived that moment many times. Proud to be an American because they knew Bush had risked his life to be there, even for a short time.
Another subject was the WMDs. His only comment was they obviously had them or had them at one time because they had been used in the past. He also commented regardless of whether they had them, if we had not gone in now, we would have eventually, because Iraq had the potential to make and use them and probably would again. He saw many prisoners of the old regime that had been maimed and had seen several mass graves. No question we should be there.
I asked him if they were all getting in their absentee votes. The answer was a definite yes and they were all being done correctly. It appears the military was not happy after the last election when an attempt was made for many of the votes to not count because of “technicalities.” He said that would not happen again.
One of my final questions was how he felt about the Spanish pulling out. He jumped right back and said, “they are all cowards.” He was with them in April when their compound was attacked. They all ran and hid. The 50 U.S. troops were able to drive back the Iraqis with no Spanish help. It took 12 hours. He had been told earlier that the Spanish were going to be asked to go home anyway.
He had been in many fire fights and commented that the only medal he received was a Purple Heart when a mortar round went off in his compound while he was off duty and he was wounded in the leg. He said medals were hard to come by and very few had been awarded in his unit. But he said nobody he knew was there to get a medal. This was a volunteer Army and they were doing their job.
He also commented that the value of life there is far different than in the U.S. Iraqi soldiers/non-soldiers would attack tanks with rocks. Some of them are fanatical. That used to bother him, but he said when it’s you or them, there is no choice. They also try and recruit small children because they know the U.S. troops will not fire at a child. If a child comes at you with a grenade, fire away. No remorse. However, much has changed since the Iraqi’s have taken over their own government.
My last question was whether he had seen Michael Moore’s movie. I was surprised when he said yes. It was treated as a comedy by all who watched it because it was 100 percent propaganda. His unit wants Michael Moore to come over on a USO Tour so they can “hog tie” him. Had a big smile on his face. I can only imagine what he meant.
I said that some national media should talk with him. He commented "fat chance" because all they like is negative stuff and he would only tell positive things.
Update: Minor editting was done to attribute the account not to the article's author, but to Mr. Schantz, who sent this to Mr. Boyce.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:12 AM | Comments (0) |
A Study in Contrasts VI
 |
In Russia, they demonstrate against terrorism:
Waving flags and banners, tens of thousands of Russians demonstrated against terrorism Tuesday, massing outside the Kremlin in response to government calls for solidarity after a series of deadly attacks that have killed more than 400 people.
The growing crowd stood still for a moment of silence in memory of victims, starting the rally after a clock atop the Kremlin's Spassky Tower struck 5 p.m.
The demonstration, which was organized by a pro-government trade union and advertised on state-controlled television, came as residents of the southern city of Beslan held a third day of funerals for the at least 330 victims of a hostage-taking at a school, which officials have blamed on Chechens and other Islamic militants.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) |
September 06, 2004
The Face of Evil
There are some who confuse ideas with which they disagree with real evil. This is evil. Evil kills schoolchildren in cold blood. Evil murders them capriciously for their own twisted ideologies.There are those who want to argue that we’re no better than they are. There are those who want to argue bullshit like “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.”
Bull****.
Posted by bubba138 at 05:02 PM | Comments (0) |
His Adroit Diplomatic Skill Will Save Us
For months America has been asailed with the canard that Kerry's supreme skill in diplomacy could overcome our enemies' refusal to cooperate with the world in a more peaceful manner. Even if negotiating to the point of giving away the farm is acceptable (which it should not be) one should be willing to recognize that diplomacy only works when both sides are willing to work together, and aggressive nations such as Iran fall into that category:
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi has bluntly rejected a nuclear disarmament plan floated by US vice presidential hopeful John Edwards, calling it "campaigning."This one is simple. Kerry's VEEP candidate himself has said that if the Iranians reject this proposal Kerry's administration would have to admit the Bush administration was right. While his administration does not yet (hopefully will never) exist, the Kerry campaign is now forced to conceed that his diplomacy is of no avail on the likes of Iran.Senator Edwards told the WPost that the proposal would represent a "great bargain" for Iran -- and that should Iran reject it, a Kerry administration would be forced to conclude that Iran actually was, as the Bush administration now contends, actively pursuing the weaponisation of nuclear materials.
"If we are engaging with Iranians in an effort to reach this great bargain and if in fact this is a bluff that they are trying to develop nuclear weapons capability, then we know that our European friends will stand with us," Senator Edwards told the Washington Post.
This is significant because Kerry has repeatedly said that he would have done "everything different" with Iraq, with these differences centered on pursuing a more diplomatic solution. His assumption in this assertion is that his different choices would have been more successful than the current situation. However, his failure to make the slightest headway with Iran illustrates that Kerry has no magic power over our adversaries that makes them kow-tow to him merely because he is willing to acceed to a few of their outrageous (and globally dangerous) positions.
Before, one may have been certain Kerry would have done things different with Iraq. One may have been even fairly confident that his diplomacy may have been effective. What we see now is even with Kerry's diplomacy, the result is the same. The countries that do not want to treat with us will refuse to do so. Kerry has no more power to influence them than does Bush, but Kerry has not now, nor will ever, the backbone to enter into "aggressive negotiations."
Posted by bubba138 at 03:13 PM | Comments (0) |
The Turnout
The turnout in Florida bodes well for Bush:
...consider last week's Florida primaries to pick Senate candidates: More Republicans turned out than in the Democratic primary, even though they're outnumbered by registered Democrats. Enthusiasm for George W. Bush ("you know where I stand") may be greater than for John Kerry ("I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it").I have said that the key to this election will not be so much independents but the turnout. Although the recent polls suggest the "independent" vote is much bigger than the pundits once believed, both that and turnout seem to be breaking Bush's way.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:16 AM | Comments (0) |
Failed Economy?
John Kerry would have us think the country is in its worst economic position in all its history, but as Mark Perry points out, the facts are entirely different:
Since Labor Day 2003, the unemployment rate has declined in all but one state, and the employment picture is so strong that three states set record-low jobless rates this year.Unemployed workers also are finding it easier to find jobs this year – the median number of weeks unemployed is the lowest since 2001, and is two weeks shorter than last year. The number of discouraged workers as a percentage of the labor force is lower now than during the corresponding period of the last economic expansion.
We have had 34 consecutive quarters of growth in real wages, the longest string of real wage increases since the 1960s. Real wages for U.S. workers increased by 5 percent since 2002, and are currently increasing at the highest rate in three years.
The improvements in the labor market have been largely responsible for a surge in consumer confidence since last Labor Day.
Consumer confidence has increased in eight out of the last 12 months, and just hit a two-year high in July – a stunning improvement of 30 points since July 2003, the largest yearly gain since 1996.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:08 AM | Comments (0) |
Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry on Monday called the invasion of Iraq "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" and said his goal was to withdraw U.S. troops in his first White House term.Kerry continues his slide into Deanite mode. Even though less than a month ago he said he would have still voted to authorize the war in Iraq, his famous talent for nuance allows him to hold both positions simultaneously.
He also once again showed his diplomatic expertise in insulting our allies in the fight against terror:
Kerry said Bush had failed on all three counts. He called the president's talk about a coalition fighting alongside about 125,000 U.S. troops "the phoniest thing I've ever heard."Five hundred is considerably smaller than the nine thousand Britian committed to this operation, and the three thousand by Italy, the almost twenty five hundred by Poland, and more than a thousand by Ukraine, Spain and the Netherlands (more here)."You've about 500 troops here, 500 troops there and it's American troops that are 90 percent of the combat casualties and it's American taxpayers that are paying 90 percent of the cost of the war," he said. "It's the wrong war, in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Regardless of whether Kerry believes the Iraq war was right or wrong, however, is immaterial. What is most important about each of the candidate's positions is what is the main priority in dealing with Iraq? Both candidates have articulated clear, unwavering and contrasting positions.
For George W. Bush, the priority is to get the job done, get it done right, and leave a stable democratic Iraq that can take its place as a contributing member in the community of free nations.
John Kerry's priority, one of the few that has not changed one bit during his campaign, is to bring the troops home. Once again today he reiterated that, saying that his goal was to do so in his first White House term.
If you believe that bringing the troops home is more important than finishing the job in Iraq, vote for Kerry. If you believe we need to keep our word and pay the price for freedom instead of turn tail and run like we did in Somolia, vote for Bush. On this point, at least, the choice is clear.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:53 AM | Comments (0) |
Those Israeli Puppeteers
Pop quiz. Who said this:
"What has been happening over the years is a predictable routine of foreign visitation from the head of the Israeli government. The Israeli puppeteer travels to Washington. The Israeli puppeteer meets with the puppet in the White House, and then moves down Pennsylvania Avenue, and meets with the puppets in Congress. And then takes back billions of taxpayer dollars."
A) Al Sharpton
B) Osama bin Laden
C) Ralph Nader
Answer here.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:03 AM | Comments (0) |
A Few Muslims Get It -- Most Do Not
CNN:
However, a prominent Arab journalist wrote that Muslims must acknowledge the painful fact that Muslims are the main perpetrators of terrorism.al-Rashed is a fresh voice, but one that is ever in the minority in the Muslim world:"Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture," Abdulrahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya television, wrote in his daily column published in the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. It ran under the headline, "The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists are Muslims!"
Al-Rashed ran through a list of recent attacks by Islamic extremist groups -- in Russia, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen -- many of which are influenced by the ideology of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born leader of the al Qaeda terror network.
"Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential buildings around the world for the past 10 years have been Muslims," he wrote. Muslims will be unable to cleanse their image unless "we admit the scandalous facts," rather than offer condemnations or justifications.
"The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us."
Mohammed Mahdi Akef, leader of Egypt's largest Islamic group, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, said the siege did not fit the Islamic concept of "jihad," or holy war, but took care not to characterize it as terrorism.Yep, I knew it. This is really the fault of those dirty, rotten Jews."What happened ... is not jihad because our Islam obligates us to respect the souls of human beings," Akef said. "Real jihad should target occupiers of our lands only like the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance."
Ali Abdullah, a Bahraini religious scholar who follows the ultraconservative Salafi stream of Islam, condemned the school attack as "un-Islamic" but insisted Muslims weren't behind it.
"I have no doubt in my mind that this is the work of the Israelis who want to tarnish the image of Muslims and are working alongside Russians who have their own agenda against the Muslims in Chechnya," said Abdullah.
Stateside, the silence has been equally deafening. The Council for American Islamic Relations has yet to specifically condemn the slaughter in Russia, although they have begun a "Not In Our Name" campaign.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Premier, refuses to admit that Islamic terrorism even exists:
"Terrorism has no religion, race or nationality. It has taken up an international dimension. If you call it 'Chechen terrorism', then this would lead a Russian to consider all Chechens as terrorists. Similarly, one can see we Turks are sometimes perceived differently in the West because some people there tend to blame all Turks for a wrong act done by one Turk," Erdogan said in an interview with private ATV television on Friday night.If poverty was the main cause then very wealthy bin Laden would be relaxing in a palace somewhere instead of huddled in a cave wondering when and from where will come the next attack."I do not want to see the word 'Islam' or 'Islamist' in front of the word 'terrorism'," Erdogan said. Instead, he complained there was not yet an international platform created against terrorism, as states were still comfortable with the mentality of "let the snake not harming me live long" and efforts to address "root causes" of terrorism, mainly poverty, were not sufficient.
The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils gets it half right. Its president, Ameer Ali, had this to say:
"They call themselves Muslims, but they are not Muslims. People can say in the name of Jesus they go and do some dastardly act, and then do we call them Christians?I can almost agree with him except for the fact that when Christians commit atrocious acts of violence they are doing the exact opposite of Jesus himself. Islamic terrorists, in their brutality and killing are mirroring the very acts of their prophet, who spread Islam by the use of his sword.It's exactly the situation that we are facing.
To go and commit this barbaric crime in the name of Islam, that is what I just can't accept. They are not in the fold of Islam, these people. They have to be condemned. They are the traitors of the community."
Omar Bakri Mohammed, an Islamic cleric in Britain who is soon holding a conference to celebrate the Islamic victory on 9/11, said the hostage taking in Russia had moral grounds, as long as they staged the killings in such a way as to make it look like it was in the cross-fire:
Omar Bakri Mohammed, the spiritual leader of the extremist sect al-Muhajiroun, said that holding women and children hostage would be a reasonable course of action for a Muslim who has suffered under British rule.To sum up, a few Muslim leaders are appalled, some are concerned, and some outrightly approve of the slaughter. The very fact that there is not a consensus of condemnation from the global Muslim community should blare as a clanging signal in the world's ears that the "root cause" is not poverty, oppression but something else entirely. Until the world is prepared to admit what that something else is, Belsin will increasingly become the norm, not the exception.In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Mohammed said: "If an Iraqi Muslim carried out an attack like that in Britain, it would be justified because Britain has carried out acts of terrorism in Iraq.
"As long as the Iraqi did not deliberately kill women and children, and they were killed in the crossfire, that would be okay."
"The Mujahideen [Chechen rebels] would not have wanted to kill those people, because it is strictly forbidden as a Muslim to deliberately kill women and children. It is the fault of the Russians," he said.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:57 AM | Comments (0) |
Comments Killed
The comment spammers are out in force this week. Some time ago I started using MT-Blacklist to keep the spam cleaned out. It has a feature to remove all comments with a particular IP address, and when it does it scans those comments for URLs and asks if you want to remove any other comments with those URLs. I did just that yesterday without looking closely at the URLs that were being removed. Included in the list of dozens of spam sites were URLs such as yahoo.com, mail.com, hotmail.com and other valid URLs.
Needless to say, this means a ton of valid comments (including mine) have been completely erased.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:09 AM | Comments (0) |
September 05, 2004
Islamic Conventions
There are two large conferences for followers of the Muslim faith this weekend in the Chicago area. One is the annual Islamic convention that is taking place downtown. The goal is to strengthen the Muslim American community.Thirty thousand American Muslims gathered together in one city. This sounds to me like a perfect opportunity for them to stand up and condem in one loud, collective, clear voice Islamic terrorism in general and specifically the latest outrage.Saturday's agenda includes an awards banquet, a youth banquet, and workshops on enhancing personal and business development.
And in Rosemont, the annual Islamic society of North America is holding its 41st convention. They'll encourage Muslims to vote in November.
More than 30-thousand people are expected to attend.
Do not hold your breath waiting for it, though.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) |
VETERANS' DAY, A Poem
How liberals do defy the mind
For nothing in theirs' can we find,
That willingly will look with reason
At how their man committed treason,
Skulked off to Paris this effete
To grovel at the Madame's feet,
Betraying his sworn officer's oath
To become the turncoat we so loathe.
Our law is clear you shall not treat
With America's foes nor their cadres meet;
Give aid nor comfort to enemy forces
Nor espouse a view from hostile sources.
Without a mandate from the state
Wherefrom your right to negotiate?
Was treason, John, and is treason still
To this very day your unpaid bill.
Don't try to hide behind your youth.
You knew the law you knew the truth.
You knew your faux negotiation
Would further tear our war-torn nation
And all for what, John, your career
So you can shameless brazen here,
And claim now that you're fit to lead
The very nation you made bleed?
And yet before us there you stand
With medals blazing you demand
Such treachery we must ignore
Your treason that lost us our war.
But hold on, John, we veterans say,
You had your turn, now comes our day.
You thought we slept, forgot your crime?
Oh no, John boy, it's come our time.
Some say let you apologize
But that won't do it in our eyes.
A man astride of each position
Could we believe your true contrition?
The vindication we'll accept
In settling up this long-held debt,
Is each of us will do his best
To deny you, John, your lifelong quest.
Listen carefully John to what we say, November 2d is Veterans' Day.
Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66
Posted by bubba138 at 02:27 PM | Comments (0) |
Kerry in Hiding
Speaking of Hugh, he is right about this (scroll to end of post):
Notice that John Kerry skipped another opportunity to answer any questions from a big name journalist with cameras rolling? Even as he plummets in the polls? It has been 35 days since Kerry did so with FoxNews Chris Wallace on August 1. That's a candidate in hiding. And that is most definitely not a man who could take the heat of the Oval Office. Every day he hides from hard questions is another day of frank admission that he can't answer the questions.On the surface this might look a little petty but the implications of Kerry's avoidance is huge. What Kerry is showing us is how he acts in adversity, and the picture is not pretty. He says he is ready to fight, he rails at Bush with his, "Bring. It. On." line, he talks of beaching the boat but what he shows us is that he is willing to attack everywhere except where the heat is highest.
When the Swiftboat Vets attacked his record, Kerry did not immediately refute their charges. Instead he tried to knock their legs out from under them by threatening suit against the book's publisher and any outlet that promoted the book or played their commercials. Next he went after the Bush campaign and tried to blame it for things aanother organization had done. Even then Kerry's camp did not answer any of the charges but left it to the old-media to do their work for them.
What Kerry is showing is he does not have the backbone to stand up in front of a sympathetic media corps that is unwilling to ask the hard questions but is now compelled to do so. If he cannot face this small pressure, how then can he, as commander and chief, face the opposition of nations that would be more than happy to plant a nuke in New York, or DC, or Los Angeles?
The answer is, he cannot.
Kerry cannot because he does not have politically expedient answers to the questions which he will be asked. His campaign workers have answered questions about Cambodia, but Kerry has not yet been required to field that one himself. This is a memory that has been seared, seared into him, yet he will not give the opportunity for a single reporter to get the story straight from the horse's mouth.
When Bush ran for this same office in 2000, the reporters hounded him endlessly about drug use. How he handled this is in stark contrast to Kerry in two significant ways.
First, Bush's view on his past was that he had done things in his life that he regretted. He was young and irresponsible and now rejected that irresponsible behavior. The man running for election in 2000 was a different person than the frat boy the press wanted to talk about. What he had done was wrong and he admitted it and had moved on. Kerry on the other hand looks back on the harmful things he had done as a young man -- such as his 1971 Congressional testimony -- and pins them on to his lapel like medals. He does not claim to be, nor is he a different man than he was in that day. There is no recognition of wrong nor repentance of the harm done. There is no moving on.
Second, one thing Bush never did during his 2000 campaign was hide from the press. He went in front of them and handled a myriad questions about the minute details of his personal life. He did not always give the clearest answers and he was always careful how he phrased things. Those who did not like Bush criticized him, maybe rightly, for not coming fully clean. But this he did do, he took their questions. Kerry does not even go that far.
Posted by bubba138 at 02:23 PM | Comments (0) |
A Milestone
Slings and Arrows had its one-hundred thousandth unique visitor today. WOO HOO!
Two interesting things about that:
Half those visitors came in the last two weeks. I credit the increase in traffic mostly to a plug on Hugh Hewitt's blog. I had been linked by Instapundit many times in the last fifteen month, but the traffic from an Instalanche disappears as quickly as it comes. Hugh listeners/readers seem to have latched on and I more than welcome them. Like Hugh, I see the combination of talk radio and blogs as a new age of media that is changing/has changed the face of information dissemination world wide. Someone once said "the pen is mightier than the sword," and to that I add, "the pixel is mightier still." What issues forth from the pen is easily controlled by those with money, position, and power but the relative low cost of the internet creates a completely open market of ideas and only those that make the most sense will survive. I believe right now we are in a season in which the conservative ideas will prevail because they have so long been held at bay by those who controlled the flow of ideas into the public's cognative map. This season will not last -- nor should it. Niether right nor left in the extreme is beneficial for the human race. Control of information has always been at the expense of one side to promote the other. With the blogosphere the reigns have been released and balance will come naturally.
Second, as a testement to the international nature of the blogosphere, the milestone hit came from a user hosted by a company in Canada. For decades the idea has floated around that we live in a global community. As nice as that sounds it has not been an actual reality -- until now. A community is made up of those who interrelate on a regular basis exhanging ideas, feelings, visions, and desires. The internet in general and the blogosphere in particular is begining to bring the world together. Through the blogosphere, or through that into which it evolves, people of the entire world will be united by common values, by the things on which they can agree. These are values such as freedom, liberty, and justice. It is at once humbling and exhilerating to think that we, both bloggers and blog readers, are at the foot of a revolution -- that in thirty years (God willing) we will be able to look back and say "I was there. When the world changed, I watched it."
Thanks guys and gals. I love doing this and I love the encouragement you all give me. Now, BLOG ON!
Posted by bubba138 at 01:40 PM | Comments (0) |
Me Too
Whizbang: "For future reference- If you ever hear me echoing the goofy liberal line of the day, it is only to mock them. It's called sarcasm."
Same here.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:23 AM | Comments (0) |
We Have a Hit
Fellow blogger Marybeth has found something pretty much gets Kerry off the hook:
Following the rally, Kerry visited former Joint Chiefs of Staff (website - news) chairman John Shalikashvili, who suffered a stroke shortly after the Democratic convention and is in a hospital in Fort Lewis, Wash. The retired Army general, an adviser to the Kerry campaign, had endorsed the candidate at the convention.
This pretty much fulfills the requirements. It is a recent visit to a military hospital and although it doesn't specifically say he visited any soldiers from Iraq or Afghanistan, one can reasonably argue that he talked to at least one while there.
Mission accomplished.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:16 AM | Comments (0) |
bin Laden By November
One U.S. State Department official says it is probable that bin Laden will be soon caught:
"If he has a watch, he should be looking at it because the clock is ticking. He will be caught," Joseph Cofer Black, the U.S. State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, told private Geo television network.If bin Laden is caught by November, of course the timing will be questioned.Asked if concrete progress had been made during the last two months - when Pakistan has arrested dozens of terror suspects including some key al-Qaida operatives - Black said, "Yes, I would say this."
Black, who briefed a group of Pakistani journalists after talks with officials here Friday, said he could not predict exactly when bin Laden and other top al-Qaida fugitives would be nabbed.
"What I tell people, I would be surprised but not necessarily shocked if we wake up tomorrow and he's been caught along with all his lieutenants.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:13 AM | Comments (0) |
September 04, 2004
Close But No Cigar: Kerry Still Not Sighted Visiting Soldiers
A reader comments that a LEXIS search turned up a hit:
I found LEXIS references to a visit to the army hospital in his Colorado hometown in late July.He did visit an Army hospital, but it is unlikely there were any soldiers injured in Iraq or Afghanitstan there. The hospital was closed, along with the entire base, in 1999. The building are in the process of being turned into office space.The visit was part of a broader trip the Kerry campaign has dubbed "the freedom trail". It will culminate in the Massachusetts senator's arrival in Boston on Wednesday. The tour began on Friday at a military hospital in Aurora, Colorado, Mr.
Kerry's birthplace, went on to Sioux City, Iowa, before reaching Ohio on Saturday evening. It will also take him through Florida, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:56 PM | Comments (0) |
Why the bounce?
No one, not even the most die hard of Bush supporters, expected such a dramatic pro-GOP bounce so soon after the convention. This is especially powerful when one take into account that all of the results thusfar are based on polling that occurred at least mostly before Bush's speech.
So why has the country reacted so favorably to the convention? Three things:
Swiftboat Vets
That this organization did damage to Kerry is unarguable. But the effect was less a result of people changing their position on Kerry than it was about the Kerry camp's reaction. Kerry went to ground, the media went to ground, everyone went to ground -- except, of course the blogosphere and certain radio personalities. By the time the story filtered into the mainstream media almost every reader already had a sense for it. Whether or not it was the case, the story already felt like a cover-up. And "cover-up" is not a phrase anyone like to have associated with a presidential candidate.
Still, although the Swiftboat Vets did have some direct effect on the voting populace, the real effect was that it tilled the ground for the convention. No longer was Kerry saying anything -- at all -- so the Bush message went out into a vaccuum. The press did not want to report on the vets, Kerry was not saying anything upon which they could report, so Bush had a free pass.
Protesters
Millions of Americans woke up late, or returned from church on Sunday morning to be greated electronically to images of hundreds of thousands of wacky protesters. Although the press did its best to report these as "mostly peaceful," watching a dragon blaze in the middle of a city street bring to mind riots and destruction. Pictures such as these have a markedly greater effect on one's impressions of the goings-on than any verbal commentary. Add to that 900 arrests on a single day and almost two thousand over the four day period of the convention. When viewers see protesters breaking into and disrupting the convention, and even storming the set of Hardball they come to one conclusion: "I might not be in love with the current president, but the last thing I want is to give these protesters more control over my country."
Democrats have often said this was a convention of fear and they were right. America watched what happened in New York and giving the the reigns of this country to the guy the protesters favor scared the crap out of them.
Direction of Vision
In complete contrast to the Democrat's convention, that of the Republicans focused almost exclusively on the future of our country.
Almosot every DNC speech looked backwards at Vietnam -- a war thirty years in our past about which most of us would much rather not be reminded. Its featured speakers included two former presidents (Carter and Clinton), a former vice president (Gore), an aging and completely discounted Senator (Kennedy), and a Jew-hating racist (Sharpton) that was allowed for many months to share the stage with legitimate presidential candidates. Each one of these men are political has-beens. Their careers are dead, gone, kaput. Of all the speakers, the DNC only had one, Barak Obama, who gave any hope for the future of the party -- and he almost sounded Republican at many points in his speech.
Contrast that to the RNC convention. Rudy Guliani, John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger. None of these men have yet reached the zenith of their political career. Each has bright moments both behind and before them. Each inspire hope and vision for America and the youth and vigor to accomplish it. None were bitter. Each was hopeful and excited about America. Each -- and this spoke volumes -- was in complete agreement with each other and with the President on the issue of Iraq. Democrats talked about unity, but they were unified on only one thing -- John Kerry is not George Bush. The Republicans were unified on ideas, positions, and viewpoints. And the chief of these was the war on terror which an umbrella over, not a separate issue from, Iraq.
It is still too soon to say whether the early bounce is going to hold. If it does, the months of November and December will be filled with post-election analysis. When that happens pundits far and wide will look to August as the turning point. They will do well to remember, it was at that time America rejected the hype and hysteria of the left, and chose reason and vision.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:21 PM | Comments (0) |
Did Kerry Visit Injured Soldiers?
Kerry, in his RNC convention-rebuttal speech, said he had visited injured soldiers from Iraq recently, yet no one can remember (or find) anything about such a visit.
This got me to thinking, if Kerry really did make such a visit, why would the press not report it? Perhaps it is because the visit did not go off too well? This is plausible, since the last time he was met by individuals that are active military he was not so plesantly received.
A day after his acceptance speech last week, Mr. Kerry found winning the military vote isn't so easy when he dropped in on a Wendy's in Newburg, N.Y. He walked over to a table where two active duty Marines sat eating. He shook their hands and wished them luck. The Marines responded with short, curt answers. And after he left, they said flat out that they wouldn't be voting for Mr. Kerry. "I'm 100% against" the Democrat, one Marine told a reporter. "We support our commander in chief 100%."
Posted by bubba138 at 02:08 PM | Comments (0) |
LAX Reopened
A local station is reporting that LAX, which had been shut down for security reasons, has been re-opened.
They said there were two separate incidents. A passenger bypassed the security and the batteries of a flashlight exploded inside someone's luggage.
Posted by bubba138 at 12:44 PM | Comments (0) |
Calling a Spade
Ralph Peters is saying what needs to be said more often:
Slaughtering the innocents violates a universal human taboo. Or a nearly universal one. Those Muslims who preach Jihad against the West decided years ago that killing Jewish or Christian children is not only acceptable, but pleasing to their god when done by "martyrs."It isn't politically correct to say this, of course. We're supposed to pretend that Islam is a "religion of peace." All right, then: It's time for Muslims to stand up for the once-noble, nearly lost traditions of their faith and condemn what Arab and Chechen terrorists and blasphemers did in the Russian town of Beslan.
If Muslim religious leaders around the world will not publicly condemn the taking of children as hostages and their subsequent slaughter — if those "men of faith" will not issue a condemnation without reservations or caveats — then no one need pretend any longer that all religions are equally sound and moral.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:14 AM | Comments (0) |
Is the Bounce Real?
Immediately following the Republican National Convention in New York, the latest Newsweek Poll shows that, in a two-way presidential trial heat, the Bush/Cheney ticket would win over a Kerry/Edwards ticket by 54 percent vs. 43 percent among registered voters. In a three-way trial heat, including Green Party Candidate Ralph Nader, the Bush/Cheney ticket would still win 52 percent to 41 percent for Kerry/Edwards and 3 percent for Nader/Camejo among registered voters. That represents a 13-point margin bounce for Bush/Cheney since an August 5-10 poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International for the Pew Research Center.That is an eleven point spread, mirroring that in the Time poll.
Keep in mind this poll is of registered not likely voters. On the one hand that means this poll is not as accurate as could be. On the other hand, classically likely voters have been breaking Bush's way.
Regardless, this is a significant bounce. Earlier this month, the Newsweek poll had the race favoring Kerry 47% to 45%. That means Bush/Cheney has received a thirteen point bump. So much for the accepted wisdom that the country is split right down the middle and only a few have decided for whom to vote.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:47 AM | Comments (0) |
A Blog Fact-Finding Mission
A Retired U.S. Marine sent me this, and we now have an assignment:
I watched Fox well into the night following last night’s acceptance speech and convention closing. At a certain point Fox played a bit from Kerry’s Springfield Ohio speech. I distinctly heard him refer to his recent visits to hospitals to see and talk to wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. It seemed off the cuff and a direct rebuttal to the best parts of Bush’s speech where the Pres got emotional (and I got emotional with him).Are Kerry's hospital visits the same as his visits from foreign leaders? If you find anything on this email me.Something about Kerry’s ‘hospitals’ comment struck me as contrived. At first it was, naw, even he wouldn’t politicize that. Then I wondered why I hadn’t heard about this before, neither from his good-news starved staff nor from the biased MSM. Perhaps he does have some class and has chosen not to publicize these visits just as W does it in a very low key and respectful manner. Hunh?! This is John F. Kerry. Exploiting our folks in uniform for political gain is something he learned a long time ago -- and has practiced with impunity ever since.
So then I tried to picture the event. Kinda like Kerry at the VFW or Kerry at the American Legion, or God help us, Kerry at a US messhall in Iraq. It just wouldn’t go down well. Some soldier or Marine would not play the part for him. It struck me, it strikes me, that he made it up. Not even he would be stupid enough to be confronted by a wounded warrior angry at his presence.
I’ve since checked the www.johnkerry.com website and read the text of his speech. No such off the cuff remark. Could it be that he indeed plugged it in on the fly to show he can relate to wounded troops just like the Pres? And could it be that his staff is content to have a sanitized version of the speech on the internet to avoid the scrutiny that I am now giving the remark?
I believe the answer to both questions is ‘yes’. Kerry invented a reference to visiting wounded troops recently, and only a filmed version of his Springfield OH rant will reveal the ‘smoking gun’. Does John Kerry have the temerity, the BACKBONE, to engage a wounded vet of the Global War on terror? Easy one: NO WAY! Would he invent that he has visited them (plural) recently in order to rebut W’s heartrending comments of just an hour or so before? You betcha!
You guys are the pros. I can’t probe Lexis Nexus or whatever… Fox won’t screen the whopper for me to view it again for myself. I honestly think that there is another Kerry tall tale waiting to be exposed. I hope you can run it down.
Stay tuned here.
Update: Our marine friend was not hearing things:
Our soldiers are doing an extraordinary job. These are the best and the brightest, the most remarkable people in the military that I've ever seen. I visited a hospital the other day, I met a couple of young soldiers who'd been wounded, I've never seen spirit like that. They're amazing.Now, can anyone find a media report that details whether such a visit was actually made? So far, I cannot find a single account of Kerry visiting a hospital, let alone talking to wounded vets. A reader emails that I am not alone in coming up goose-eggs:
I took you up on the information search, and I have determined that it's impossible for it to have been within the last month and a half if it ever happened. He was in the US campaigning that entire time, and I have articles from every day for the past month and a half tracking him across the country.One would think if he visited vets in a hospital it would have made the news. So far, nada.
Update II: I have spent quite some time searching through every reference to Iraq and hospital on JohnKerry.com. There are plenty to go through and I am human so it is possible I have missed something. Barring that, there is not a single reference on Kerry's own website that details a recent visit to injured vets.
On the other hand, there is not a single reference detailing that he did not rob a bank either. In other words, just because it is not specifically mentioned anywhere does not mean it did not happen (the hospital visit, that is -- I am sure Kerry has not robbed any banks).
Final Update: Mission Accomplished
Posted by bubba138 at 10:32 AM | Comments (0) |
Great Minds...
...think alike. MEC2: "Kerry has channelled the spirit of both Al Gore and Howard Dean, yanked the wheel away hard left like Gilligan from the Skipper on the SS Minnow, and is now racing into oncoming traffic."
Posted by bubba138 at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) |
EXPLOSION AT LAX
AP: LAX as been shut today because of a possible security breach, Terminals 6, 7, and 8 have been shut down.
Fox news is reporting a possible explosion is being reported by local radio station KABC.
Ontario airport was shut down as well, but that seems to have been a false alarm.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:17 AM | Comments (0) |
September 03, 2004
Welcome to CA
Megan has moved leftward. Go say "hi."
Posted by bubba138 at 06:51 PM | Comments (0) |
AP Boos a Complete Fabrication
Here is an original version of an AP story today:
President Bush on Friday wished Bill Clinton "best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery."Here is the audio."He's is in our thoughts and prayers," Bush said at a campaign rally.
Bush's audience of thousands in West Allis, Wis., booed. Bush did nothing to stop them.
Calling the AP account a fabrication is as polite as I can put it.
Posted by bubba138 at 06:19 PM | Comments (0) |
Unfit
One of the things Kerry said last night that grated on me most was this:
The vice president called me unfit for office last night. Well, I'm going to leave it up to the voters to decide whether five deferments make someone more qualified than two tours of duty.I did not get to hear all of Cheney's speech on Wednesday, but I was sure the Bush camp would not let him say something as stupid as that. It has not been until now that I have had a chance to double check. Here is what the Vice President really said about John Kerry:
The President's opponent is an experienced senator. He speaks often of his service in Vietnam, and we honor him for it. But there is also a record of more than three decades since. And on the question of America's role in the world, the differences between Senator Kerry and President Bush are the sharpest, and the stakes for the country are the highest. History has shown that a strong and purposeful America is vital to preserving freedom and keeping us safe - yet time and again Senator Kerry has made the wrong call on national security. Senator Kerry began his political career by saying he would like to see our troops deployed "oat the directive of the United Nations." During the 1980s, Senator Kerry opposed Ronald Reagan's major defense initiatives that brought victory in the Cold War. In 1991, when Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait and stood poised to dominate the Persian Gulf, Senator Kerry voted against Operation Desert Storm.Nowhere in his speech does Cheney say Kerry is "unfit." Nowhere does he question Kerry's commitment to this country. Nowhere does the Vice President cast the slightest doubt about Kerry's bravery. What Dick Cheney did was simply question John Kerry's judgement.Even in this post-9/11 period, Senator Kerry doesn't appear to understand how the world has changed. He talks about leading a "more sensitive war on terror," as though Al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side. He declared at the Democratic Convention that he will forcefully defend America - after we have been attacked. My fellow Americans, we have already been attacked, and faced with an enemy who seeks the deadliest of weapons to use against us, we cannot wait for the next attack. We must do everything we can to prevent it - and that includes the use of military force.
Senator Kerry denounces American action when other countries don't approve - as if the whole object of our foreign policy were to please a few persistent critics. In fact, in the global war on terror, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush has brought many allies to our side. But as the President has made very clear, there is a difference between leading a coalition of many, and submitting to the objections of a few. George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people.
Senator Kerry also takes a different view when it comes to supporting our military.
Although he voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein, he then decided he was opposed to the war, and voted against funding for our men and women in the field. He voted against body armor, ammunition, fuel, spare parts, armored vehicles, extra pay for hardship duty, and support for military families. Senator Kerry is campaigning for the position of commander in chief. Yet he does not seem to understand the first obligation of a commander in chief - and that is to support American troops in combat.
Further, even though Kerry also claims, "For the past week, they have attacked my patriotism and even my fitness to serve as commander in chief," I can find absolutely no example of that in any of the convention's speeches.
The Kerry campaign has descended not only into Deanite mode, but also into Clelandism. Bush campaign people talk about Kerry's ever changing positions on the war on terror and Kerry howls, "they are questioning my patriotism." Cheney questions Kerry's commitment to the troops who are in harm's way right now, and Kerry screams, "Halliburton!" This illustrates Kerry's biggest problem, and it is not one that can be quickly fixed (if ever). John Kerry cannot stay on point. This is because, simply, he has none.
Posted by bubba138 at 03:41 PM | Comments (0) |
Now That Is Wierd
Green moths swarmed Yankovic, some nesting in his trademark long curly locks.I did not even know Wierd Al was still performing."My band asked me if I could find a concert where we would be attacked by insects," Yankovic told his audience Wednesday at the Du Quoin State Fair. "I said I would see what I could do."
Yankovic didn't seem bugged by the uninvited guests, though, as he plugged along with songs and costume changes during his self-described "rock and comedy multimedia extravaganza" to support his recent album, "Poodle Hat."
Posted by bubba138 at 03:05 PM | Comments (0) |
Let Them Finish the Job
Captain Hayes, one of our men in Iraq, has this to say about the New York protesters:
But, it really makes me mad when I see people with signs that say things like, “Bring our Boys Home!” There have been several pictures published of protesters carrying flag-draped coffins, and carrying these types of signs.I have news for you
The soldiers in Iraq, and Afghanistan do not want your sentiment, or your voice that would have the lives of those already lost dishonored by not finishing the job.
Regardless of how you feel about why we went to war, America made a commitment. It’s time we see the job through to fruition. Lack of resolve by many U.S. citizens is the main reason for a lack of trust on the part of those being liberated.
Iraqi citizens are waiting for our resolve to crumble, and see us depart before adequate Iraqi security is established. Al Qaida does not have to beat America in a fight in order to win, they just have to get us to go home.
Ask yourself, what would happen to Iraq, if America were to take your misguided advice and went home before finishing the job?
So, put down your coffin … put down your sign, and have some American resolve to finish the job we started. We have brought the fight to those who wish to bring the fight to American soil, and we are making great progress.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:57 PM | Comments (0) |
Bush Bump II
Couple the nine-point Zogby bounce and an an eleven point spread in the Times Poll and there is only one conclusion: the RNC convention was completely worth it. Contrary to accepted punditized wisdom, political conventions are not a useless, dry relic of the past.
Taking into account the fact that both polls were completed before Bush took the podium, one must wonder how much the highly visible protests in New York affected the results. I think it settled more than one person's mind.
BUT today's Times poll is only one of dozens we will see in the next sixty days. It could very well be an outlier and heavy dependence is not advised. Imagine the spin in four weeks when a perhaps more accurate Time poll is released. "Bush's divisive politica has squandered a sizable lead," the pundits will screech. Keep your eyes on the Zogby poll, its history has demonstrated uncanny accuracy. The Harris poll also has done fairly well and absolutely nailed Bush/Gore.
NOW, FOR A COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS POLL, check this out:
First Lady Laura Bush earned higher favorability ratings than any other speaker at the Republican National Convention. The President's wife is viewed favorably by 67% of American voters and unfavorably by just 20%.Meaningless? Probably. But one measure of a person is in the mate they have chosen. Further, it is important to have a graceful, yet powerful First Lady. I think there is a large segment of Americans that just cannot see Heinz-Kerry filling that role.Theresa Heinz Kerry is more controversial. Thirty-nine percent (39%) of voters have a favorable opinion of her while 43% hold an unfavorable view.
Update: Speaking of Laura Bush, she'll be on hannity's show in a couple of minutes. You can listen online here.
Update: Smash says, "I'M EXTREMELY SKEPTICAL about this poll from TIME...Eleven points? No way."
I am inclined to agree.
Posted by bubba138 at 01:12 PM | Comments (0) |
Darfur Rally
 |
Somehow I doubt it.
Update: Reader Bill O. comments:
I read somewhere recently that the same people who drive around with the "Free Tibet" bumperstickers would be aghast if the US actually sent in troops to make that wish a reality. And that's the point, isn't it? Some people would rather wish & hope for a change rather than take or support real action.I could not have said it better myself.All these clowns in NY during the RNC protesting this and that. What did they accomplish? Ridiculous. And while these idiots marched, the people in Darfur were dying because the UN 'body' couldn't find a single goddamn vertibra, much less an entire backbone. Imagine (as John Lennon might say) if all these people surrounded the UN building and protested one of the many real crimes in the world. Imagine if they petitioned their elected representatives to send in the Marines.
But it's oh so much easier to carry an inane sign about how the US is becoming a police state or Bush=Hitler or some other fantasy. That way you're not obligated to do anything but complain. Doesn't cost you anything, no real action need be taken, everybody wins. Everybody except for those poor, poor souls in Darfur. Gosh, somebody really should do something, huh? Anyway, Bush=Hitler and all that.
Fools.
Posted by bubba138 at 11:42 AM | Comments (0) |
Going Dean
In Kerry's response speech last night he swerved violently into Howard Dean territory:
For the past week, they have attacked my patriotism and even my fitness to serve as commander in chief.Kerry's mad and he's not going to take it anymore. I say good.Well, here is my answer to them. I will not have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could've and who misled America into Iraq.
The vice president called me unfit for office last night. Well, I'm going to leave it up to the voters to decide whether five deferments make someone more qualified than two tours of duty.
Let me tell you in no uncertain terms what makes someone unfit for office and unfit for duty. Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead our country. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this country. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care for four years makes you unfit to lead this country.
Letting the Saudi royal family control the price of oil for Americans makes you unfit to lead this country. Handing out billions of dollars in government contracts without a bid to Halliburton while you're still on the payroll makes you unfit lead this country.
I am tired of Kerry's pussy-footing around, trying to take every position to please everyone and obviously, so is he. There is an old saying from back where I don't come from, "Dance with the guy that brought you." Kerry tried nuance in the primaries and Dean was kicking his but. Only when he tried adopting some of Dean's heat and anti-Bush rhetoric did Kerry begin to make a run. His talent was in being Dean, but not too much. Eventually Dean out-Deaned himself.
I welcome this Kerry because putting this Kerry against Bush is more than putting one man against another for president. The more Kerry slides into Dean mode, the more this race become a head-to-head competition of ideologies. If Kerry continues on this track the election will be more than anything else a referendum of the left vs. the right -- winner take all.
Michael Moore says the majority of Americans buy into his ideology and world view. He says he is main-stream. Kerry (at least today) seems to agree, adding that Hollywood types represent the values of America. Kerry believes American military power is inherently evil and should never be used to extend our will or interests.
George Bush says the country is united on family values, the sanctity of marriage and human life. He says the American military is a force for good and extending freedom and liberty to peoples that have never known them is a noble cause.
These are diametrically opposed ideologies. It means nothing to call one set the beliefs of racists or corporate whores or the other set the stuff of left-wing-nut jobs. These labels are inconsequential. But by moving further into the Deanite-Moore ideology, Kerry is presenting this country with a clear choice.
I say good for him. Let the country decide.
Update: Did Kerry tell another fib during this speech?
Posted by bubba138 at 11:12 AM | Comments (0) |
A Vet's Compelling View
Reprinted in full:
There is a reason that some of those veterans turned their backs to Kerry and that many others sat with arms folded, refusing even polite applause. A reason that non veterans can, perhaps, know intellectually but not feel in their guts.Like all veterans of all wars, regardless of branch of service or duty stations, we all lost friends there. Some of those we lost were closer than brothers. Unlike other wars in our history we didn't go over together and come home together, our individual wars ended individually.
Unlike other wars we came home branded by a large segment of our society as war criminals, by another segment as losers. Then, as most of us were already home, one of our own officers branded us all, including the dead that we were just beginning to mourn, as war criminals, murderers and rapists.(hat tip -- and congrats)We later discovered that many of those that he was quoting as witnesses to our 'crimes' had not spent one day in uniform. Others had never served in Viet Nam. None of them, not a single one, would testify under oath, even if granted immunity. Yet our 'crimes' became part of the common knowlege. Our children were given that testimony as fact in their history classes. We all knew soldiers, sailors,airmen and Marines that had died, leaving children behind, we know that those children were taught those same lies as fact. Who sat with those children as we did with ours, explaining that those were lies told for political gain?
It's bad enough that we couldn't mourn our dead then. Now we see the same man that stood over the open graves of our brothers and pissed on their bodies is back. This time he's dug up those bodies and is standing on them to give himself the stature for high office.
I am no famous war hero, just one of the two and a half million guys who wore Uncle's suit for awhile in a place where the same truck would splash red mud on your trousers and throw a cloud of dust on your face at the same time. My service was entirely undistinguished but I stood shoulder to shoulder with some genuine heros. Those heros came home in shiney aluminum caskets, they cannot speak for themselves. I hope someone more famous and more eloquent will speak for them soon. Until they do I can only say that not only is John Kerry not fit to command the young men and women that inherited the uniforms but he is not fit to speak of my comrades, much less speak for them. I shall say this as long as I have a breath left in my body.
This isn't about George Bush or who has a Senate majority for me. It isn't about politics. It's about a bunch of young men who never grew old. It's about the families of some 58,000 men who cannot answer the slander that this War Hee-row has never retracted.
I tried to answer that slander in 1971, I had no one to hear my voice. No way to reach anyone but my family. I have that way now, if only commenting on other people's forums.It isn't about me. It isn't even about politics. It's about restoring the honor to the 58,000 names carved in black granite.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:18 AM | Comments (0) |
Me Too
The most striking thing about Bush's speech was that he not only made audience members cry but teared up himself, here: "And I have met with parents and wives and husbands who have received a folded flag, and said a final goodbye to a soldier they loved. I am awed that so many have used those meetings to say that I am in their prayers--to offer encouragement to me. Where does strength like that come from? How can people so burdened with sorrow also feel such pride?"
So the President almost cried. What is the big deal?
The big deal is that a man with that compassion, a man with obviously genuine concern for those he sends into battle and their families never weighs his decisions lightly. A man such as the one we saw last night does not sacrifice his country's best for a check from Halliburton. He does not send good men and women into harm's way to cover for his buddies in the Royal Suadi family. He does not order American families to give up their loved ones to uphold the generations long evil Bush family empire. In other words, people did not die because he lied.
Instead, his heart broke each time he visited with the family of a Marine that was to never return home. He cried with each infantryman's mom and stood firm for each corpsman's dad. He has shared the pain of a nation, and stood up to the evil of those who would inflict even more.
It took all I had to hold back the tears at that point in the speech. I did not completely succeed. This is a man who can, and does, lead.
Posted by bubba138 at 08:02 AM | Comments (0) |
Good Jobs Report: I Question the Timing
The Labor Department said the economy created 144,000 jobs in August, the strongest reading since May and up from a revised 73,000 jobs in a weak July report. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast 150,000 new jobs.Is it not interesting that the Republicans timed the release of this good news for right after Bush's speech?The unemployment rate dipped to 5.4 from 5.5 percent in July.
Seriously though, I love the wording in the article. "Dipped?" If it was going the other way the word would be "jumped." Also notice last month -- when unemployment went down and jobs were added but just not enough jobs -- the release of this report was trumpeted on the front page of all the news websites.
Key observations:
- In the last sixty days the unemployment rate has fallen two percentage points. The current 5.4% rate is well below the average rate of the last three decades.
- Over 1.7 million jobs have been added since August 2003.
- Almost 100,000 new manufacturing jobs have been created since the begining of the year.
- Although July's gains were not up to expectations, in unheralded news they were revised upward from 32,000 to 73,000. June gains were revised upward to 96,000 from 78,000.
Update: It did not take Kerry long:
Democrat John Kerry cited new government figures Friday showing fewer jobs created than expected as another example of what he called President Bush's "record of failure." "I don't think this is something to celebrate. I think it's something to get to work on," Kerry said to a small group gathered at in Mark and Debbie Bickle's front yard.The actual job creation number missed the estimate of one-hundred-fifty thousand by six thousand. That is a difference of all of 4/100ths. This is what Kerry's holds as a standard of failure.The Labor Department reported Friday that the unemployment rate slipped to 5.4 percent last month, from 5.5 percent in July, with the economy adding 144,000 jobs. Economists, however, had been expecting a net gain of 150,000 jobs.
Bush is at fault because he only hit 96% of the estimate.
Kerry is not at fault when he attends less than 76% 25% of his intelligence meetings.
Bush is at fault because he only releases 100% of his military records.
Kerry is not at fault when he releases substantially less than 100%.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:47 AM | Comments (0) |
Convention Review
But Kevin Kelton says it was a "Catastrophic Success:"
My prediction is, yes, Bush will register a modest bounce of some kind in some poll someplace over the weekend, and everyone will call it a huge success. Mission Accomplished. Then Kerry will come back swinging, the red meat will turn rancid, the gap will narrow again, and suddenly everything will come down to the debates.If I’m wrong, the president’s poll numbers will shoot up, he’ll build on that lead during the anniversary of 9/11, and John Kerry will wish he was back in the jungles of Vietnam.
If I’m right, the RNC may just go down in history as the biggest “self-inflicted wound” of the 2004 presidential campaign.
Posted by bubba138 at 07:18 AM | Comments (0) |
September 02, 2004
Bush Bump Already in Effect
Bush is already enjoying a convention bump:
President George W. Bush opened up a 2 percentage point lead, within the margin of error, over Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry at the end of the Republican National Convention, a Zogby International poll said.He was down by five and is now up by two, that is a net gain of seven even before Bush himself spoke.The telephone poll of 1,001 voters who indicated they were likely to vote this fall gave Bush 46 percent to Kerry's 44 percent. The Aug. 30-Sept. 2 survey had a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points. Kerry led Bush, 48 percent to 43 percent, at the end of July.
Update: Zogby also did a head-to-head just two weeks ago and Kerry was up 50% to 43%. This puts the bounce at nine points.
Posted by bubba138 at 10:06 PM | Comments (0) |
The Independent Vote
The accepted truth over the last several months has been that forty-eight percent of the electorate is solidly for Bush, an equal portion is for Kerry, and both those segments have completely decided how they are going to vote no matter what.
The natural conclusion then is that the elusive five percent of "undecided voters" hold all the power because they will be the ones who decide this election. If either party wants to win, they must channel the vast majority of their energies into courting these middle voters.
That logic is flawed because the foundation of the assumption is flawed.
The foundation for this thinking is based upon the polling that has been done over the last several months. We all know that pollsters separate their results between "registered" and "likely" voters. They identify likely voters by asking about their previous voting habits, whether or not they plan on voting in the upcoming election, and whether they can actually remember for whom they had voted in the past.
The most recent polls indicate that likely voters make up about eighty to eighty-five percent of the polled registered voters.
Here is the rub. On voting day, only seventy percent of registered voters actually show up to the polls. In other words, the various polling outfits are incorrectly identifying ten to fifteen percent as likely voters.
It is not hard to believe that 96% of those polled have decided upon their man for the job of president. It is not even hard to believe that those hold their positions unwaveringly. But the question is not about for whom they would vote, but whether or not they are going to vote.
Adopting this thinking completely changes the strategy of a campaign. Instead of concentrating on the undefinable needs of a population that doesn't know themselves what they want, victory depends upon making sure those that support you get to the polls.
In this election it is turnout that is going to make the difference.
Posted by bubba138 at 09:09 PM | Comments (0) |
Kerry's Reaction
Five words, "This is your wake up call."
Umm, that's six words.
Four words, "All hat, no cattle."
George Bush's hat is a genuine Texas cowboy hat. Kerry has a hat too. It is his "lucky hat," the one his CIA buddy gave to him. For taking him into Cambodia. Yep, four words:
"All hat, no Cambodia."
Update: Someone else is not impressed:
I am completely and thoroughly disgusted. I am sitting here watching a speech that Kerry and Edwards are giving in Ohio. I have never heard so much excrement in my life. Kerry is attempting to rebut a speech t