It'z News to Me

The news of the day...and my own peculiar take on it...

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

CBS Fraud Saves Josh Marshall Embarrassment...

According to the latest story by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball from Newsweek, CBS bumped a story about the forged Niger documents passed through Italian intelligence prior to the start of the war in Iraq in order to air the now discredited report on President Bush's National Guard service.

As we read into the article, we find out that one Josh Marshall was collaborating on that story:

“This is like living in a Kafka novel,” said Joshua Micah Marshall, a Washington Monthly contributing writer and a Web blogger who had been collaborating with “60 Minutes” producers on the uranium story. “Here we had a very important, well-reported story about forged documents that helped lead the country to war. And then it gets bumped by another story that relied on forged documents.”

So the story was meant to embarrass the Bush administration for being taken in by forged documents in the run-up to the war. We're shocked (shocked!) that Josh would be involved in running a hit piece on the president...(did we say, shocked yet?)

Now let's put aside the hilarious irony of bumping a piece about people being taken in by forged documents in order to air a story by people taken in by forged documents, let's focus on the Niger forgery instead...

Let's continue with the reporting from Newsweek on how things are developing with this story:

The delay of the CBS report comes at a time when there have been significant new developments in the case—although virtually none of them have been reported in the United States. According to Italian and British press reports, Martino—the Rome middleman at the center of the case—was questioned last week by an Italian investigating magistrate for two hours about the circumstances surrounding his acquisition of the documents.

Questioned for two hours, you say? What did he say when questioned?

We read all the way through the rest of the article to see if we could find the answer...

Hmmm...

Nothing here....

Still nothing...

All the way to the end, and we've got zilch...

So how do we find out the precious details, do tell?

Let's go back to the article we linked to on Sunday from Saturday's UK Telegraph...

We'll just quote our original post:

French Fraud Exposed...

...French agent admits it to Italian authorities...

The lede:

The Italian businessman at the centre of a furious row between France and Italy over whose intelligence service was to blame for bogus documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy material for nuclear bombs has admitted that he was in the pay of France.

If this doesn't make you understand that:

a) France was never, ever, ever going to back our efforts in Iraq,
b) France never will no matter what lies to the contrary John Kerry tells,
c) France is not our friend, and that
d) France must pay for this act of betrayal,


then you are either a complete fool or French or both.

The only question is: how best do we "express our disapproval"? I'll have to chew on my thoughts for the best U.S. response, what do you think?


Sacre bleu! In the pay of France! Whooooooooopppppssss!

That mean ole Bush administration - you know that evil man who alienated our friend, our ally, our bosom buddy France - lied to us based on documents forged by...

...France!

Messrs. Isikoff and Hosenball who have presumably "extensively researched" this Niger story for their reporting do their best to bury the truth. Their article reads like an indictment of the administration, but they had to know the truth about the interrogation to have reported it. But they deliberately mislead their readers about its conclusions.

Josh Marshall "collaborated" on a hit piece on the Bush administration. Had that story aired on Wednesday, their entire story would have fallen apart by Friday when it was revealed that FRANCE forged the documents...Since it would have been front page news on Thursday, Old Media wouldn't have been able to ignore the confession on Friday...Even if the NYT avoided the story like the plague (which, of course, they would have), the NY Post headlines on Saturday would have been "French Forgeries!"...

But luckily for Josh and the DNC that story never aired, so Old Media was able to bury the story and the American public never heard about it.

What would Josh have done to spin himself out of that story? How would he have explained that the bumblers they portrayed in the administration were letting Italian authorities who were already all over the case like white on rice take the lead?

Those incompetent, unilateralist cowboys!

What would have become of his claims of the Bush administration's "unilateralism"?

What about all those claims about how the Bush administration alienated our ally, the French?

What would his friends have said when he participated in using France's forged documents to expose the lies of all those DNC "talking points"?

Would Josh Marshall have ever been invited to another DNC Happy Hour?

Let's see..."60 Minutes" replaced a story on which they collaborated with a Democratic partisan whose website is actually named "Talking Points Memo" (notice how Isikoff and Hosenball fail to mention that) to put together a smear that attempts to undermine a Republican administration based on forged documents from France with a story on which they collaborated with several Democratic partisans to put together a smear that attempts to undermine a Republican administration based on forged documents from Texas.

He should thank God that this information isn't available on the internet where people could find out how clueless his "collaboration" turned out to be...He'd have really been embarrassed if it was...

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Dan Finally Figures Out...

...what frequency Kenneth is on...

That's the only possible explanation for sticking with this fraud...

Kerry Tries to Get Knocked Out...

John Kerry said again today that he is in "a fighting mood."

If I were a Kerry supporter, I'd start looking for a good cut man...

Let's harken back to the last time Kerry said he was in a "fighting mood" on August 28th...

Woo! That's one combative candidate! I'll bet he must be some kind of terror once he's in a fighting mood. Let's check out his record:

Head-to-Head Polling August 28th? a tie...

Head-to-Head Polling September 21st? Kerry behind by 5.7%

Much more of this kind of fighting, and he may want to think about hiring Roberto Duran as an advisor...

Monday, September 20, 2004

Another Rathergate Kerry Connection...

...this time to Joe Lockhart...

From the AP:

Lockhart, the second Kerry ally to confirm contact with retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, said he made the call at the suggestion of CBS producer Mary Mapes.

Let's look at the two possibilities:

1) Lockhart is telling the truth entirely:

Lockhart, the mouthpiece for a White House whose standard method of defense involved hiring private detectives to dig up dirt on their opponents makes a claim:

Lockhart said he does not recall talking to Burkett about Bush's Guard records.

(Note the use of the weasel words "does not recall" as opposed to the more direct denial phrasing: "did not.")

Yet later in the article, we learn:

Mapes told him there were some records "that might move the story forward. She didn't tell me what they said."

So what are the odds that Lockhart called Burkett yet didn't discuss the precise subject that Mapes talked to him about? How stupid are we supposed to be here?

What are the odds that the DNC's "Fortunate Son" campaign designed around Bush's National Guard service was just coincidentally timed with the "scoop" if the Kerry campaign did nothing with Burkett's information?


After watching the ineptitude rife on the Democratic side of the aisle thus far this year, are we supposed to believe that they "just got lucky"?

2) Lockhart is telling part of the truth:

a) He knows that it will come out that he talked to Burkett before the story aired.
b) Mapes has already been set up as the sacrificial lamb by CBS in order to take the heat off Rather.
c) He claims that Mapes told him to call Burkett so that it looks like some renegade producer at CBS was responsible for the conversation.

What are the odds that Lockhart first heard about Burkett from Mapes after Max Cleland admits that he directed Burkett to the Kerry campaign?

What are the odds that the Kerry campaign would dismiss out of hand the possibility of "smoking gun" memos that make Bush look bad?


Hmmm...

Let's just say the odds aren't exactly in favor of Joe Lockhart, Max Cleland, OR John Kerry...

UPDATE: Ace has Bill Burkett's side of the story...Amazingly and coincidentally enough it coincides with Joe Lockhart's story that completely exonerates the Kerry campaign of any wrongdoing while laying the blame at the feet of the notoriously evil Mary Mapes...

And in late breaking news: gravity-defying pigs with small white wings spotted flying overhead by residents of small Texas town...stay tuned to CBS for further details...

Say a Prayer for Rodney

...he's in a coma following his heart surgery...

It's Time for India...

...to get their seat on the Security Council...

It's a crying shame that countries with miniscule populations have seats on the Security Council while India doesn't have a permanent seat. With a population that exceeds that of the entire continent of Europe which has two permanent members (France and Britain), it has a democratically-elected government that deserves a voice in international affairs.

Personally, I'm for the complete overhaul of the structure and membership of the United Nations. But if it has to continue in essentially its current form, then India deserves a voice in its decisions.

I'm with Tony Blair: the time has come...

RNC Asks The Right Questions...

...let's see if the media will follow-up....

Sorry Dan...This Pig Won't Fly...

The statement:

Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.

Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically.


Why did it take additional interviews? Why did you dismiss the warnings of your own experts? Why did you continue vouching for the documents up until today even though the proof of the forgery has been around since the day after your story aired?

I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers.

How your source got the documents wasn't the key question, the key question was: are they fake? You are still dodging the question.

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.

Tell us what you know that you didn't know then. What "new information" has CBS discovered that suddenly makes the documents less credible than they were yesterday...or the day before...or the week before...?

But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry.

The mistake in judgment was running the story in the first place. The attempted and still-ongoing attempt at a cover-up is not a mistake. It is an intentional act of bad faith.

It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.

No favoritism? Then CBS will have to explain why there was no breathless reporting on the Swift Vets despite their claims being backed up by sworn affadavits...Where is CBS' "tradition of investigative reporting" on Kerry in Cambodia?

Please know that nothing is more important to us than people's trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.

Then why have you been stonewalling? Why has it taken a media and internet firestorm to get you to admit to this much?

Notice what has NOT been said:

- We will tell you who our source is
- We will tell you how our source told us they got the documents
- We will tell you why we don't believe that any longer
- We will tell you where the documents came from
- We will tell you how we found the source in the first place
- We will tell you why we've been stonewalling
- We will apologize to everyone we've smeared including the president, the bloggers, Lt. Col. Killian's family, General Staudt, and our document experts.
- We will hold people accountable for this

Sorry, Dan...This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface...


UPDATE: Prestopundit reads between the lines to come up with the true message from CBS/Rather's statement.

Kerry Avoids a Felony Charge...

...and returns the shotgun...

I have to say that:

It's more than mildly amusing that his campaign staff didn't know the gun laws well enough to know that it was illegal in advance. Their ignorance of both Kerry's position on the legalities of the gun in question and of accepting it made Kerry's obvious attempt at pandering into yet another ad opportunity for Kerry's opponents to use against him. When will this guy learn?

(hat tip to Glenn)

Kerry Undermines Alliance...

...with Australia...

How many ways are there to describe what a disgusting thing this is to do? To send your sister to Australia in a partisan attempt to undermine one of our country's strongest alliances in an attempt to get yourself elected president?

I have avoided saying it, but I will say it for the first time:

John Kerry is unpatriotic...

He doesn't care a whit about this country's future. He doesn't care about making this country stronger. He doesn't care about making us safer. He wants to be elected president. He wants to bring down the president. He wants to win this election at all costs, even if it means that cost is our alliance with Australia.

John Kerry is a liar...

He says he wants to get other countries to help shoulder the burden in Iraq. Then why has he dispatched his sister to convince Australians that their involvement in Iraq endangers them? Because he is a liar...He wants us to cut and run...It was his solution in Vietnam, and he still lives there...He hasn't grown up or grown wiser in the intervening 30+ years....

John Kerry is unfit for the office...

Allah Has More...

...on CBS and Rathergate...

Allah has an interesting revelation from Salon which published on September 1st that Barnes had already sat down for an interview - despite the fact that CBS claims he did not do so until September 7th. Check out Allah for more, but it looks like Burkett isn't the only one involved with the forgeries...

It would be a real shocker - completely out of the blue - that Dan Rather's "unimpeachable source" had direct ties to the Kerry campaign, wouldn't it?

I wish I had thought of that...

Sunday, September 19, 2004

"Goat Fancying" on The Rise...

...in Saudi Arabia...

I wouldn't want to cast aspersions, buuuuuut I think a competition for "Most Beautiful Goat" held by "goat fanciers" should be enough to raise the eyebrows...

It does seem to explain an awful lot about them making it illegal for women to dress provocatively though...Can't have them showing up the goats after all...

Does PETA know about this?

French Fraud Exposed...

...French agent admits it to Italian authorities...

The lede:

The Italian businessman at the centre of a furious row between France and Italy over whose intelligence service was to blame for bogus documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy material for nuclear bombs has admitted that he was in the pay of France.

If this doesn't make you understand that:

a) France was never, ever, ever going to back our efforts in Iraq,
b) France never will no matter what lies to the contrary John Kerry tells,
c) France is not our friend, and that
d) France must pay for this act of betrayal,

then you are either a complete fool or French or both.

The only question is: how best do we "express our disapproval"? I'll have to chew on my thoughts for the best U.S. response, what do you think?

Miss America Makes My Point..

Congrats to Deidre Downs, Miss Alabama, on being named Miss America...

I also want to thank the Miss America pageant for definitively disproving a particularly snarky commenter named Philippe on PoliPundit. He claimed that it was a well-known "fact" that "Blue Staters" are more attractive than "Red Staters" - a point which neither I nor the other readers of Poli's blog were willing to concede.

So let's look at the Top Ten from last night's Miss America:

Miss North Carolina, Kirstin Elrod (Red State)
Miss California, Veena Goel (Blue State with Republican Governor)
Miss Oklahoma, Elizabeth Kinney (Red State)
Miss Georgia, Danica Tisdale (Red State)
Miss Kansas, Megan Bushell (Red State)
Miss New York, Christina Yvette Ellington (Blue State with Republican Governor)
Miss Louisiana, Jennifer Dupont (Red State)
Miss Alabama, Deidre Downs (Red State)
Miss Arkansas, Lacy Fleming (Red State)
Miss Texas, Jamie Story (Red State)


Hmmm...seems to be something of a pattern here: every single one of the Top Ten hails from either a Red State or a Blue State that has a Republican Governor.

So the lessons to be drawn here:

1) Philippe's "facts" usually aren't, and

2) If you're looking for a talented, intelligent, beautiful woman: think RED...

As If the Backlash Weren't Bad Enough...

...but the pictures of Bush in the National Guard are helping Bush with women...

It's not bad enough that the simpletons running the Democratic party have been flogging this non-story about Bush's Guard service, now it appears that they've actually been campaigning for Bush without knowing it.

Talk about the law of unintended consequences! Bush could never have run the pictures of his pilot days in this campaign with the comparison to Kerry having served in Vietnam. He kept the issue quiet during 2000 when Gore touted his service in Vietnam. So what do the Democrats do? They do it for him...

And Bush is the one they think is stupid?

Liberal Hate...

...turns to violence...

A pair of posts on Blogs for Bush:

- A Democrat punches a local Republican because "he's smarter than Republicans." Unluckily for him, he winds up getting his ass kicked and then charged with assault.

- A couple of Democrats advocate killing the president and raping his daughters...

This is what the Democratic party has come to...

...no wonder Roger is pissed....

A couple of quick quotes from Roger:

"The Democratic Party this year is running on fumes and those fumes are equal parts Bush hatred, paranoia and projection."

"I'm a registered Democrat and sometimes I'm so disgusted I think I should get in my car and go register Independent. But what's the point? What would I be leaving? It doesn't even exist."

Max Cleland Implicates Himself...

...after being confronted with evidence...

Back to Ace again, who has been all over this story like white on rice...

From Ace's post, we find out that Cleland was Burkett's contact. Cleland claims that he simply told Burkett to contact the Kerry campaign, HOWEVER, go to the comments on Ace's site for this posting.

Check out cedarford's comments where he lays out the multiple contacts between Burkett and Cleland dating back to 2000. Both of them have been flogging this "Bush was AWOL" since that time, and it looks like they viewed this as their opportunity to do something about it.

Given the integral role that Cleland has played in the Kerry campaign - from introducing him at the DNC convention to making a fool out of himself by delivering a letter to Bush's Crawford ranch, Kerry can't distance himself from Cleland's involvement.

The next link in the chain is finding out who from the Kerry campaign made the call to CBS...

Friday, September 17, 2004

New Bush Guard Documents Released...

...and boy do they make George look bad!

Check out this little tidbit:

In addition to the letter from Bush's father, the latest documents contain news releases that the Texas Air National Guard sent to Houston newspapers in 1970 about young Bush, then a second lieutenant and new pilot. ``George Bush is one member of the younger generation who doesn't get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed,'' the news release said. ``Oh, he gets high, all right, but not from narcotics.''

The cur!

That's not enough? How about this shocker from a letter his father wrote to one of his commanders?

The letter went on to say that young Bush, on his first trip back home, was full of enthusiasm and kept the family up talking about his first instructor, Sgt. Henry Onacki, who had impressed Bush with his love of country and dedication to the Air Force.

``In this day and age when it has become a little bit fashionable to be critical of the military, I was delighted to see him return to our house with a real pride in the service and with a great respect for the leaders that he had encountered at Lackland.''


Throw him in the briar patch again, Brer Kerry!

(short break while your humble host recovers from an extended bout of belly laughter)

OK...my ribs are hurting a little, but I'll go on...

Compare and contrast the quote from his father's letter with what you know of John Kerry's post-Vietnam activities...One trashed veterans while another had "a real pride in the service" and "great respect for the leaders." Which do you think is going to play better with swing voters?

Somebody at the DNC should be kicking Terry McAuliffe's arse for even bringing this up...

Kerry Is a Moron...

...so says The Toronto Sun...

...I disagree with the columnist that Vietnam was a mistake: I believe it was a war that we fought badly, but it was not a mistake in and of itself...Other than that, there's no comment necessary...

"An Army of Pompous Phrases...

...moving across the landscape in search of an idea"

The Guardian finds the perfect phrase to describe the Kerry campaign...

Cool Reception...

...for Kerry at the National Guard convention...

Once more we get the AP trying to prop up the failing Kerry campaign by trying to make it look as if he were more warmly received at the convention than he actually was...

Especially after the "booing" incident and Rathergate, someone needs to explain to me why 527s and private citizens should be restricted in what they're allowed to say prior to an election but the media is allowed to tell outright lies or, to be generous, "shade the truth" right up until the polls close...

Sour Grapes Post of The Day Award...

...goes to ABC's The Note:

The best example of how degrading it can be to be a political reporter: USA Today 's classy Susan Page forced to write up the Gallup poll/joke "showing" the president with a mythical 13-point lead for the front page of her paper — thus suggesting Gallup's 2000 track record of wild swings might be replicated this cycle.

(Question it gives rise to: What's the real margin? A. 5-6 points, with Bush holding small- to medium-sized (surmountable) leads in most of the important battlegrounds.)

On what do they base this? Nothing...Do they have their own poll in hand to disprove it?...No, just their own political leanings toward Kerry and maybe a Ouija board...

It's a Start...

...but there's more work to be done...

Kevin Patrick over at Blogs for Bush has re-posted a graphic that originally appeared on FreeRepublic detailing some of the ties from the Kerry campaign to the Rathergate story. I'm the first to say that these are tenuous at best and not exactly the kind of "smoking gun" evidence needed.

That being said, there are missing pieces here. For example, the DNC oppo researcher cited by the American Spectator who, well before Newsweek article named Bill Burkett as a possible source, had identified the source of the documents as a "retired military officer."

Are there more connections between the players than those identified in the graphic?
Who alerted the researcher to these documents?
Where does that researcher fit into this chart?
Who in the DNC reviewed the researcher's findings?
Who in the DNC passed it on to the Kerry campaign?
Who in the Kerry campaign passed it to CBS?
Who in the Kerry campaign knew about the documents?
Who was the CBS contact for the Kerry campaign?
Was Dan Rather the ultimate authority in deciding to run with the story?


There may be more questions to be asked, but these are the first ones that come to mind in getting to the real bottom of this story.

What questions would you ask?

Bush Crushing Kerry...(and Nader)

...according to Gallup...

54-40-3

A poll in the middle of September is never conclusive about November results, but Gallup has always been the Gold Standard of polling.

Other national polls showed a neck-and-neck race, but their results defy logic. The battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Wisconsin are all red. But the proof that of how wrong those national polls are can be found in New Jersey and Illinois:

Bush is leading Kerry 49-45 in New Jersey
Bush is only trailing Kerry 45-49 in Illinois

These are two of the bluest of the "Blue States" in the country. Gore won each of these states by double-digit margins. If Bush is even close in Illinois and leading in New Jersey, then you know that there is something significant going on the country.

And that something is starting to look like a Bush landslide...


Thursday, September 16, 2004

Burkett Provides the Smoking Gun...

...and further evidence of intentional CBS fraud is exposed...

Let's start with the indispensible Captain from which we learn that Burkett wrote in an August 25th online op-ed that he knows Bush lied because of "files that we have now reassembled"

We also know from yesterday's reporting that the CBS forgeries were sent from a Kinko's 20 miles from Burkett's home...

...So I can think we can safely say that the source of the forgeries has now been definitively identified...

We also learn from the Captain's posting by way of a reader's comment that CBS did not air the portion of Marian Knox's interview that "words in there that belong to the Army, not the Air Guard. We never used those terms." As we know, Burkett was a Lt. Colonel in the Army National Guard.

That quote wasn't inadvertently left on the cutting room floor...It wasn't a mistake...It was CBS intentionally trying to hide the source of the forgeries. This is fraud. They knew that Marian Knox's statement would provide further evidence that the documents were forged, but they intentionally hid it from their viewers.

They had proof of the forgery from their own experts...They suppressed interviews conducted with Killian's wife and son...They suppressed Marian Knox's statement about the terminology being from the Army...

CBS wasn't "duped." This isn't an unfortunate journalistic error. CBS is attempting to defraud the public.

This is deeper than Dan Rather. Dan Rather alone doesn't make these decisions. Given the high profile of this story, the fraud goes all to the top. What is being reported, what is being withheld are all decisions that are being made by the executives of the CBS News Division, and possibly even higher.

No apology. No mea culpa. Just getting them fired isn't enough. This is a blatant attempt to manipulate a federal election through fraud and forgery. They should be prosecuted...all of them.

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Ace Digs In...

...and comes up Spades...

I had read Ace's work on Bill Burkett this afternoon while at the office and had intended to post a link to it this evening, but I got (understandably) delayed by tracking down the Rood story and posting it.

Unfortunately (for Dan Rather) this story is moving too fast for me to keep up, and yet another revelation has broken via Drudge that the documents faxed to CBS were apparently faxed from a Kinko's in Abilene, TX - home of one, Bill Burkett...

The smart reader at this point follows the links to Ace's site and finds out everything you need to know about Bill Burkett...Go ahead...I'll wait...

...

Back? Good...

Now the question remains: who put them together? Burkett has been out there with this story since 1999 and has hardly been a shrinking violet about telling it. So let's "question the timing"...

I refer you to my previous post on this particular topic...

As Ace makes clear in his post, this horsehockey about having to develop the "reportorial trust" that Rather claims doesn't wash. Burkett has always been willing to talk to anybody and everybody who would talk to him. He posted his story on websites and even did an interview with Kevin Drum! This is not a shy man. What happened? Are we supposed to believe he got stage fright when he finally got the national audience he has always wanted for his story? You'll have to color me unconvinced...

NO, NO, and a million times NO...I still believe that CBS/Rather did this story to coordinate with the DNC full-frontal assault on Bush's National Guard story. There are far too many "coincidences" and "convenient accidents" to ignore.

There was no "scoop" here that needed to be rushed before they were beaten by a competitor. The story has been floating around for five years! If no competitor had covered by now, then no one was ever going to...

Where was the news value in repeating a conspiracy theory by a known crackpot? Answer: there was none...The ONLY value in this story was the credibility it lent to the concurrent DNC offensive against Bush's Guard service....

Without this story, the DNC assault on Bush's Guard service was just more negative noise about 30 year old events with more potential backlash against the DNC than possible upside for them.

Buuuttt...if they were attacking Bush's credibility on the Guard issue when a (BREAKING...IMPORTANT...NEW) story with documents proving what they were saying...Well then, it's a whole different story, isn't it?

I'm afraid that Burkett will be revealed as the source of the forgeries, and the matter will be dropped as simply a black eye for CBS generally and for Dan Rather specifically. But the story shouldn't end there. It should ask the tough questions of CBS, and Burkett, about the how, when and why of the story...and it should demand answers...

It remains to be seen if CBS' competitors have the guts to go after the story they have to know is still out there waiting to be told even after Bill Burkett is exposed...

After Action Report Written By Rood - Not Kerry

Since the uncovering of the Silver Star After Action Report, I've been trying (along with other bloggers who have contacted me) to verify the accompanying commentary's assertion that it was written by John Kerry.

It turns out that this is likely not the case...

One of my sharp-eyed commenters, Warren Wetmore, alerted me to a comment on Captain's Quarters, by NavyChief which said that the After Action Report was not, in fact, written by John Kerry but by Bill Rood instead.

I followed up by contacting NavyChief and asking him to elaborate on his comment and provide detail. Rather than interpret his words and possibly get the details wrong, I have posted below (with his permission), the contents of his response:


//////////////LTjg Rood's SILVER STAR Report//////////

You may want to print these for ease at explanation

Documents you need:

281225Z FEB 69 MTSR 28/1/194.5.4.4/2

271545Z FEB 69 MTSR 27/1/CTE 194.5.4.4/1

COMNAVFORV to CTF 115
COMNAVFORV SEALORDS 270 BRAVO ZULU

Chicago Tribune's "This is what I saw that day"
ROOD'S STORY

**Also in left hand column: (1) William Rood's Bronze Star Citation, (2) The After Action Report (which is not an After-Action report -- it is a BRAVO ZULU message).

***Items not yet posted: 28 FEB - 7 MAR Box Score Reports

****Additionally, if you wish -- Kerry's Silver Star citations (plural) and UFC.

Today's report, 281225Z FEB 69

- First thing to note is the ZNY CCCCC ZYO RHMCSAA line. ZNY is a Z code meaning "do not transmit less than classification" followed by CCCCC = Confidential. ZYO code is "message originated from mobile units" This means one of the swift boats generated this message, which was very cumbersome and time consuming. Normally they would wait until they returned to An Thoi or a Coast Guard Cutter before releasing a message. This message was sent to USS KRISHNA (An Thoi) from a swift boat and the KRISHNA sent this message out.

- Message is from CTE 194.5.4.4 *see: ORGANIZATION BREAKOUT

- Normally Officer in Tactical Control (OTC) submits the report for the group, however not always the case as with 13 MAR 69 incident. You must also look at the MTSR line.

- MTSR line: 28/1/194.5.4.4/2 (Date/report number/author of report). In this case, LTjg Kerry was the OTC, his number should be /1. This indicates the second boat in this unit designated /2 for this mission authored the report.

Note that paragraphs in the formatted message 1-4 are missing in this report. para (1) would be the OTC of the mission, para (2) would be the coordinates of the mission, para (3) would be the time of the mission, and para (4) would be the units involved in the mission. This report begins with the para (5) SEALORDS 270. I'm not sure why the mission was numbered "270". This is out of sequence with the other SEALORDS missions but it is important to understand later in COMNAVFORV's message.

Extremely important is in para (6) ..."ambused previous night, (MY 271545Z) ..." **Here is where you know that Kerry didn't author this report. Kerry was not the OTC for the 27 FEB mission, Rood was the OTC, thus he refers "his" message of the previous night's action in this report. Read further: ...OTC called for all units to turn into fire and beach". Again, we know Kerry was the OTC for 28 FEB. The style of writing here is very different from Kerry's. The author uses Vietnamese in the report: "CHIEU HOI (to make surrender) the snipers". Kerry never uses such phrases in his reports.

271545Z FEB 69 MTSR

This was the previous night's action written by the OTC of that mission.

- MTSR 27/1/CTE 194.5.4.4/1

- Same boats as 28 FEB action: PCFs 23, 43, and 94. Rood, Droz, and Kerry.

COMNAVFORV to CTF 115

Note the referenced message VADM Zumwalt is writing a BRAVO ZULU for: under SEA LORDS 270, A. 281130Z FEB 69 **This is the message Kerry sent, 55 minutes before Rood's message went out.

Note the text: "The devastating effects of SEA LORDS 270 reported by Ref A in which PCF teamed with..." Again, Zumwalt is praising them for what was reported in the 281130Z FEB 69 message. This message has not been found yet. We don't know what Kerry wrote. What we see is what Rood wrote. Rood's report doesn't mention GDA and enemy KIA or WIA -- this came from Kerry's report. But VADM Zumwalt mentions it: 10 KIA, 3 CIA (captured in action), 12 tons of enemy rice, 30 Sampans, 15 structures and 7 bunkers... WOW! This doesn't sound anything like what Rood wrote. Kerry's report must have been full of embellishments and "single handedly winning the war". Which is also proof that Kerry didn't write the 281225Z FEB report -- it didn't have enough "victory stuff" in it.


Now you can read Rood's article and look at this report (281225Z FEB 69) with understanding. Zumwalt was very impressed with what Kerry said happened, thus the quick SILVER STAR. This seemed to happened over and over again where the hero of the story was LTjg John Forbes Kerry.


WARNING CHARACTER ANALYSIS FOLLOWS:

In the 28 FEB - 7 MAR Box Score Reports - Captain Hoffman awards Kerry's boat group the "LATCH" award for the week. Again, more greasing of the skids for Kerry's quick SILVER STAR. However, in his BRAVO ZULU message on the SEALORDS 270 operation, Captain Hoffman makes clear that they were lucky because the RF/PF troops were there to prevent them from "falling into a compromising position". In other words, "you're lucky no one was injured for your stupid stunt". However, since VADM Zumwalt had received Kerry's "victory stuff" report, Hoffman was not at liberty to slam the "Admiral's boy".


(Emphasis added by me to highlight the most relevant parts.)

MY COMMENTS:

From what I can see here, his reasoning is sound, and it looks like there is yet another After Action Report which is still out there. We also have a precise document which can be identified as not included:

"...under SEA LORDS 270, A. 281130Z FEB 69 **This is the message Kerry sent, 55 minutes before Rood's message went out..."

This report needs to be released and compared with what Rood wrote both in his report and in his column on the subject, and questions should be asked about discrepancies between the two - especially given that Rood's report is much closer to the Swift Vets' version of events than it is to John Kerry's.

Silver Star AAR Confirmed Authentic

...according to a Navy official...

And you've got to love the Kerry campaign response quoted by today's ABC The Note:

The Kerry campaign's reaction: "It's crap."

Except that the Kerry campaign's position has always been that "official Navy reports" are the final arbiters of truth...

Kerry Disses Cops...

...so they endorse Bush...

It's another day ending in "y," so once again we find ourselves wondering whose side his campaign staffers are on...

This is what passes for "thinking" at the Kerry campaign:

“We would have to shut down the whole campaign if we answered every questionnaire we got,” he said. “We don’t have time to answer every questionnaire. We’re happy to ask for people’s support and talk to them.”

So the genius of the Kerry campaign has produced the first unanimous endorsement in the FOP's history...for their opponent.

It's like the people running the Kerry campaign get up in the morning and map out ways to destroy their candidate. Could it be that even they understand how terrible a Kerry presidency would be and are just doing their part to make sure it doesn't happen?

I know it sounds ridiculous...until you watch them in action....

Syria's WMDs...

...being used...

There were reports of convoys heading over the border to Syria from Iraq in the days preceeding the 2003 U.S. invastion. Those convoys were purported to have been the long-sought-after Iraqi WMDs which were being shipped to the Ba'athist regime there in Syria.

Now we find out that Syria has been reported using WMDs in Darfur. Coincidence? I think not...

Syria's neighbors - Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and now Iraq - are all U.S. allies and none of them have any interest in Syria having WMDs. (Lebanon doesn't count because it is occupied by Syria's troops and the government there is controlled from Damascus.) The regime there should start thinking about the consequences of its actions very soon if it wants to survive...

When Did Alan Beam Stop Beating His Wife?

...inquiring minds want to know....

It is an article of faith with millions of Americans, most of them on the right, that Alan Beam, columnist for the Boston Globe, is a wife-beater. Many reasonable people think his columns are ill-advised, but millions more insist Beam must be a violent man because he writes columns that only a deluded mind could concoct.

The columnists tortured "opinions" are chronicled daily and have been collected for possible referral to the appropriate authorities. Two of the more notorious are "I Like Beating My Wife" and "Why Are the Kids Crying?"

But something doesn't compute. John Doe, the founder of a local lemonade stand and a kindergarten pal of both Beam and his wife, says Beam is five times less coherent than people think he is. Cynics deride what passes for scholarship at Beam's alma mater, but the course work for a journalism major is really easy. A grading curve forces a small number of students to fail, but Beam still barely passed.

So why does Beam sound violent? One doctor thinks he shows signs of "wife-hating," or an early onset of mid-life crisis.

This summer, Bubba Longneck, a self-described "expert on wife-beaters" in Anytown, USA, was reading a long article in Popular Mechanics about Beam's wife-beating style. Author Elmer Fudd alluded to Beam's wild-eyed delusions and to speculation that Beam had a mental disorder or psychosis. But those conditions generally manifest themselves in childhood. Furthermore, Fudd wrote, "through his teens Beam was perfectly normal."

Mr. Longneck's children happened to have given him a daily tear-off calendar of "Wife-Beating Advice" for Christmas. "They are horrible, but they are also instructive," Longneck says. When he read that Beam had not beaten his wife in public and behaved himself while in the company of other adults in 1994, Longneck thought: "My God, the only way you can explain that is by being a closet wife-beater."

In a letter to be published in The Hateful Rumormonger's October issue, Longneck calls wife-beating "a fairly typical sociopathic situation that develops significantly earlier in life. . . . Alan Beam's `mangled' excuses are a demonstration of what physicians call `lying' and are almost specific to the diagnosis of a true dementia." He adds that Beam should be "started on drugs that offer the possibility of retarding the slow but inexorable course of the disease."

Yes, I asked for a second opinion. Bootlick University neurology professor Dr. Yosemite Sam thinks it is pointless to speculate about Beam's condition without a formal neuropsychological assessment. "I think it's unfair to say somebody has or does not have a dementia as an analysis based on his wife-beating," says Sam, who is not a Beam supporter. Noting that Beam did not beat his wife while in public either at a local liquor store or while shopping for "wife-beater" shirts at a discount store, Sam adds that Beam's "peak performances are not in the range I would consider for anybody to be beating his wife publicly in the near future."

Suppose Sam is right. What effect might his observation have on a possible divorce case? Absolutely none. Beam's family isn't going to start speculating about an incipient medical condition that might make him look bad. When I forwarded Sam's comments to his house, they sent me written statements from both 2001 and 2003 from his wife, which shows a normal relationship. "There is nothing to suggest that there has been any change from those statements," says family spokesperson, Olive Oyl.

There is ample precedent for papering over columnists' mental shortcomings. Timbuktu Community College professor Wile E. Coyote and others have argued that William Jefferson Kerry-Edwards was incapacitated from the day he stopped beating his wife in March of 1981 through the succeeding seven years of writing his column. In their 1988 book, "Don't Read This Book," Dick and Jane Spot report that one newspaper staffer considered Kerry-Edwards' condition so bad in 1987 that he suggested invoking the transfer-of-power provisions of the Human Resources department to take his pen away. That idea went nowhere fast.

As for his readers, they have no incentive to medicalize a condition they so enjoy teeing off on: Beam's seemingly violent wife-beating. An anonymous reader suggests that Beam's bicycle has training wheels and he uses them to run over his wife; That reader's wife suggests that people who don't support wife-beating are idiots. The readers would rather feel superior to their wives than beat them, and so far they are doing a very good job.


Turnabout is fair play, Mr. Beam...now answer the question: when did you stop beating your wife? The public demands answers....

UPDATE: PoliPundit has breaking news about the domestic violence problem spreading out of control among the liberal media...Where will it stop?

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

The Future of KerryCare...

...is on display north of the border...

For years, socialized medicine advocates have trumpted the success of Canada's universal health care system as a model for the United States. Here's the problem: it doesn't work...

Reuters is the news agency that refuses to call terrorists by their name, so they're not exactly what anyone would call right-of-center. So when Reuters runs a story saying that things in a socialized world are bad, you can probably bet it's even worse than reported. But let's assume the facts on the ground are as reported in Reuters, then the reality of John Kerry's healthcare proposal is a future of misery for Americans.

Right now, we have the highest quality medical care in the world. People come from around the world to places like Johns Hopkins, or the Mayo Clinic or any number of top-notch world-famous medical facilities around this country to be treated...That all comes to an end if KerryCare comes to the United States. Think I'm wrong? Off the top of your head name even one medical facility in Canada...How about the UK? Exactly...

Read this article, and decide for yourself if this is the medical system you want for your family...

The Captain Spies A Rat...

...sinking the CBS ship....

The Captain clues us in to tonight's ABC report detailing how CBS went "expert shopping" - ignoring the experts who told them the documents were probably forgeries and that they shouldn't run the story.

Like me, he fingers Dan Rather as the villian here, and he says:

Somehow, I think it will lead back to either the DNC or one of the main 527s supporting them. That's why CBS has circled the wagons around the sorry and pathetic figure of Dan Rather.

This fits the pattern I outlined in my comment at CrushKerry and posted here. I'm still of the opinion that it tracks back to either the DNC or the Kerry campaign directly for the reasons I outlined in that post.

Captain also updates with a post from Fraters that provides the list of CBS sponsors. For those of who, like me, think the market should decide the appropriate punishment for CBS' attempted fraud on the public and slander of the president: you know what to do from there...

Let the Markets Work...

...I agree, Congressional hearings on Rathergate are an awful idea...

The core of conservative thought is that, in the end, most situations can be resolved by letting the market decide. This is precisely the prescription for Rathergate...

CBS' competitors may, for the most part, share a common liberal bias; however, they are also competitors. That means they are always competing for the same eyeballs. ABC, NBC, Fox News, etc. all stand to benefit from any perceived loss of credibility at CBS. If people no longer trust CBS but still want daily news, they will choose an alternative: and one or all of those networks will gain viewers. In order to stand out from the crowd, the ideal way to make sure you grab the attention of that potential disaffected CBS viewer is to be at the loudest voice exposing how badly CBS violated its viewers' trust. ABC and Fox News (from my observations) have both been very aggressive at this: it's not bias, it's capitalism...And I'm sure any drop off in CBS viewership will likely benefit one of those two networks as a result.

The market is the ultimate check and balance. In this case, it's the market for dollars. CBS just exposed its soft underbelly by foolishly turning its back to its' latest predator: the blogosphere. It could have remained relatively unharmed by running away from the story, but instead it has foolishly chosen to stand and fight the wolf. Except now it finds the wolf has bigger, badder brothers with even vicious bites: namely its traditional rivals.

There is no need for Congress to get involved here. CBS has lost the public trust and has become a laughingstock. They may not realize it, but their competitors do. Their competitors will beat this drum until they are sure that they have squeezed every pair of eyeballs away from the network. CBS, for its part, will have a natural desire to prevent that from happening. So they will be forced to make a decision: either allow itself to bleed to death or start running.

And run they will at some point because they have the Viacom stockholders to answer to. And they have sponsors to answer to. And, to a lesser degree, they have consumers to answer to. Already sponsor boycotts, complaints to affiliates and other grassroots efforts are taking shape. It won't be long before the bean counters take notice of its effect on the bottom line, and management's hand will be forced.

Congress doesn't need to get involved because the market will fix itself. If you want it to work more efficiently then participate in some of those grassroots efforts to help hurry the process along...

Is MoveOn Responsible for Rathergate?

I doubt it....

CrushKerry has a story today that says sources in the Kerry campaign are claiming that MoveOn is responsible....

I commented there, and I will re-post my comment here for your perusal:

I'm not buying...you're being sold a bill of goods by your "sources"...My reasoning:


1) The Spectator reported several days ago:

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=7096

"More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.

The oppo researcher claimed the source was 'a retired military officer.' According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign."

CBS says "documents that were provided by unimpeachable sources." They're obviously partisans, but do you think that if somebody from MoveOn handed them docs they would call that person an "unimpeachable" source?

To me the Spectator article is more believable. They might be suspicious of a MoveOn operative who is most likely an amateur player without a background on the national stage, but they would be inclined to trust a DNC or Kerry operative with a national reputation to protect. After all, a MoveOn operative might burn them, but a DNC or Kerry operative would have much more to lose...

2) To quote the usual Democratic line: "I question the timing"...

The DNC announces a major initiative to question Bush's guard service. Democratic mouthpiece Susan Estrich publishes a column talking about using every dirty trick in the book to beat Bush. And just by chance CBS comes out with this interview and these documents at the *exact same time*?

Sorry...no way...no how...this was a coordinated attack, and CBS/Dan Rather are hip-deep in it....

3) Ben Barnes is a major Kerry fundraiser - to the tune of half-million dollars or more. He's "a player" at the national level with Tom Daschle having previously called him "the 51st senator." Do you think he appeared for this interview without prior approval from the Kerry campaign? This guy's strings are being pulled from the Kerry campaign and they gave this interview the green light.

4) Tom Harkin, designated attack dog for the Kerry campaign, holds a press conference the very next morning attacking President Bush as a liar....That's a little *too* quickly to be coincidence....

Besides, last I heard Harkin didn't do MoveOn's bidding, but when the DNC/Kerry campaign ask him to jump he asks how high...

5) Would Dan Rather go to the mat to protect MoveOn? Not a chance...Would he risk his entire career and reputation for MoveOn? Not a prayer...What would he stand to gain from such a sacrifice?

On the other hand, would he bite the bullet for the Democratic Party of which his daughter is a big player in Texas? Sounds like Dad's taking one for the team to me....

6) With the documents being proven forgeries, it would provide Kerry with the perfect kind of "Sista Souljah" moment denouncing this attempt to smear President Bush. It would cost him nothing because the story has been disproven already. It would have the additional benefit of making him look like a "big man" who is above the smears.

He has a crowd of Clinton advisors surrounding him now. Even if Cahill and Shrum weren't astute enough to pick up on this, the Clintonistas would have been sharp enough to pull this page out of Clinton's playbook...

As it is, there is widespread speculation his campaign may be implicated. If he could plausibly deny it, why wouldn't he have done so, by today at least, personally? Answer: he can't...

7) The CBS defense and the Democratic talking points on this topic can be overlaid like the forgeries and a Word replica.

CBS keeps pointing out that the questions about the documents aren't the important part - it's the questions about Bush's service they raise.

Democrats aren't running away from the forgeries either - which they would be if they weren't responsible. Their talking points are that Bush needs to answer the questions that the memos raise.

Hmm....

8) The DNC released a new ad today:

http://www.democrats.org/fortunateson/index.html

That ad features, as its centerpiece, the Dan Rather interview with Ben Barnes. If the DNC didn't have anything to do with it, then why on earth would they use the interview? Dan Rather is up to his neck in credibility controversy. Ben Barnes has been exposed as a "liar" and an "opportunist" by his own daughter.

If they were really furious that this story was spinning out of control because of amateurs at MoveOn, the last thing in the world they would do is tie themselves into it by using this interview.


On the other hand, let's assume that my scenario is the accurate one: that the documents came from the DNC/Kerry campaign. Then everything that has transpired to date makes perfect sense:

- Dan Rather can't back off this story no matter what because it's not about protecting a 527 whose funding sources will probably dry up after John McCain gets back into town and proposes significantly curtailing 527 financing. No sir, it's about protecting his political party and his presidential candidate...There's no other explanation that makes any sense....

- The DNC can't back away from the interview because if they did then that leaves Dan Rather's butt hanging out there, and Dan Rather is far too savvy to let himself hang alone. So the Democrats deploy their surrogates to try to spin the topic off the forgery onto Bush's service, and the DNC uses Dan Rather's interview in their ad to reassure Dan that they're not going to back away from him.

- The original "unspun" stories from within CBS talk about the source of the documents being the DNC/Kerry campaign. Nothing new came out until it became clear that the blogosphere was going to get mainstream coverage for their investigative work.

Now that the rest of the major media are feeding on this story like sharks at dinner time, they have to cover their collective rears. So now the story becomes that those "amateurs at MoveOn" are responsible.


When in doubt, Occam's Razor is best: Of all the possible explanations, the simplest one is the most likely one to be true.

The DNC/Kerry campaign is responsible....


Tell me what you think...

The Bush Effect?

You've heard about the "Bush Doctrine"...could the "Bush Effect" be the next phrase to enter our vocabulary?

James Taranto, of OpinionJournal.com, coined the term the "Roe Effect" to describe the long-term effect of the legalization of abortion. Essentially the argument boils down to the thesis that liberals are more likely to have abortions than conservatives; therefore, the long-term effect is for conservatives to have greater population growth and the additional political clout that implies.

A description and quantification of the "Roe Effect" can be found here.

The 2004 election cycle may see the "Bush effect" which could further accelerate that trend. Namely: a number of Leftists/liberals are saying they will leave the country if Bush is re-elected. I posted about this on Friday, and today brings an article about the bleak future for the Kerry campaign in the Boston Globe which ends with this:

At a sold-out Milwaukee performance Saturday night by comedian Bill Maher, famous for ripping into Bush, fired-up patrons who left the show at the Pabst Theater loudly fretting about their prospects in November.

''Oh my God, if Bush wins, people are going to move to another country," said Gretchen Wick, 43, a Milwaukee teacher who went to the Maher show.

A die-hard Democrat, she said she has never felt as worried about politics as she does now.

Now would probably be an appropriate time to repeat my offer from Friday to buy some plane tickets to help the "Bush Effect" refugees...

DNC Ties Itself to Dan Rather...

...by using him in latest attack ad...

The DNC is using the Dan Rather interview with the scandal-plagued, Kerry fundraiser Ben Barnes in its latest attack ad on President Bush. Does this seem like smart politics to you?

Dan Rather has staked his career on the authenticity of documents that are called obvious forgeries by every qualified forensic document examiner and member of the media who has taken a serious look at them. Ben Barnes - amongst his myriad other problems - has been called an "opportunist" and a "liar" by his own daughter.

So some mental giant at the DNC decides they need to establish the comparative credibility of its candidate by questioning that of George Bush. They devise a brilliant plan to build an ad around an interview conducted by a man who may soon lose his job over forged documents with a man who can't buy credibility inside his own family...

So what does Terry McAuliffe think about this masterstroke? Absolutely brilliant! Can't fail! Let's run with it! How soon can we get into production on this?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Thank God for Terry McAuliffe...

This could have been a nail-biter of an election, but it looks like the DNC and Kerry campaign are working together to make sure we don't have to worry about it.

Bronze Star and Silver Star

The Silver Star story has moved to the Swift Vets Forum...

They're also discussing the details of the Bronze Star, and it looks like they've got some documents from the Archives on that one too...

To those who consider the Swift Vets as some kind of fringe right-wing group, take a look for yourself at the thoughtful discussion that's going on there. They're asking the tough questions required to get the story right - checking and cross-checking the details before moving ahead.

From the discussion taking place, initial appearances seem to be that John Kerry authored the After Action on the Bronze Star as well. The kicker? At first blush, it backs up the Swift Vets too!

Stay tuned while they vet the details, but it appears there's going to be some serious breaking news within the next few days...

These folks have been doing yeoman's work trying to get to the truth and fully document in the face of a concerted attack by both the Old Media (and certain bloggers on the Left in the New Media) and the Democratic Party. Take a minute to drop them a donation to show your support for them....

After Action Report Sheds Light on "Cambodia Adventure"?

In looking over the After-Action report, I think it may shed some light on Kerry's "Cambodia Adventure" if my interpretation is correct...

In several places within the After Action report, it appears that there is location designation "VQ 98483X (where X varies depending on location)." If I am correct in assuming that these are location designations and don't mean something else, then it is very specific as to where these Swift Boats were - to a relatively high degree of precision.

Using the excerpt posted at Captain's Quarters as a reference, note that the initial action takes place at "VQ 984831" then the boat returns to "VQ 984830." Two boats later recon up to "VQ 985835."

If the Swift Boats were operating with such a high degree of location precision as this report seems to imply, then Kerry had to have known - with almost no room for ambiguity - whether or not he was in Cambodia...

To date, we have been led to believe that these were kind of free-flowing operations, lines were fuzzy, it was easy to not know precisely where you were, etc. However, the level of detail in this After Action report seems to directly contradict that. The locations cited are very specific with every movement precisely detailed.

It seems to me that if my assumption is correct (and I'm sure someone with more knowledge in this area than I will correct me if I'm not), then Kerry's current explanation of being "near Cambodia" is even further called into question.

Based on what I see, Kerry would have known exactly where he was and the ambiguity as to location that we have been led by the Kerry campaign to believe existed, in fact, did not...

We already know that he wasn't in Cambodia on Christmas, 1968. However, if the above analysis is correct then even the flimsy cover the campaign has provided thus far for his repeated lies about Cambodia just fell apart completely...

UPDATE: Commenter Mark points me to this site which explains the grid coordinate system which nails location to within 100 meters (328 feet for the rest of us).

UPDATE: I love the blogosphere. Commenter Alan Brain pointed me to the comments on FreeRepublic where I found a link to the most detailed maps of Vietnam I've seen. They clarify just how far Sa Dec (where Kerry actually was on Christmas, 1968) is from Cambodia...

To see it for yourself: go here...

The red line visible in the top map quadrants is the border with Cambodia...

Now click on the lower-right quadrant....

Scroll the map all the way over to the right and you can finally locate Sa Dec on the map...

Yep...that's what John Kerry calls "near Cambodia"...

What the map makes clear is that "near Cambodia" could just as accurately be called "near the South China Sea."

Monday, September 13, 2004

Silver Star After-Action Report Found!

Backs up Swift Vets story...written by John Kerry!

One of my local television stations, Fox - Baltimore, just broadcast a breaking news item: they have received a copy of the After Action report from the US Navy Archives and have posted it online. According to the commentary, they say that the after-action report was written by John Kerry.

The After-Action Report Can be Found Here:

Page 1
Page 2


I'm no expert on after-action reports, so at this point I turn this over to the milibloggers and other experts in the field to further analyze.

NOTE: If you link to this post, please make sure you leave a TrackBack so that I can make sure to follow any additional information you develop. If you cannot leave a TrackBack, e-mail me using the link at the top of the sidebar to keep me up-to-date.

Happy hunting, fellow bloggers!

MY SOURCING: I'm basing this post on the editorial/commentary on Fox - Baltimore. It was publicized on their regular commentary titled "The Point" - the link to which can be found on the right-hand side of their home page. Once you reach "The Point" page, use the drop down box to select "Kerry and the Killing - September 13, 2004" from their archives to view and/or read the commentary on which this post is based.

UPDATE: The Captain takes a look at the report and 1) puts it into "layman's terms" for the rest of us, 2) helps put it in context with what the Swift Vets have been saying and 3) compares what the citations said about it. It's a three-fer!

UPDATE: Drudge has picked up the story and links to both the commentary and the report as well.

UPDATE: I've updated the After-Action Report links. Apparently they changed image names. The links should be working again.

UPDATE: It now appears that this report was written by Bill Rood - not John Kerry. Follow this link to see the new post.

Why America Will Vote for George Bush...

...by a foreign columnist...

Poli tracks down a column in the Asia Times by a writer who explains to his compatriots what is surely a surprise to them: that America will vote to re-elect George Bush in November.

The columnist makes too much of the "appearance gap" between Blue and Red States as anyone who has made their way through over-sized bodies in New York City while admiring the latest flower of the South can attest. However, he puts his finger pretty accurately on the difference between Americans' relationship with our government and that of Europeans toward theirs.

Becoming a Punch Line...

...At what point does this cease being a presidential campaign and start being nothing more than a long, drawn-out joke whose punchline will have to wait until November 2nd?

The Kerry campaign is a comedy of errors. John Kerry has yet to come up with a single coherent policy on Iraq. He may have a consistent position, but he can't keep his story straight. Even his backers are not so privately wondering what that position might be. When asked about his plans he claims that he has some, but they have to remain secret until after people elect him....umm....right...

He allowed his military service to become a running joke even though it should have been the strongest point of his candidacy (lacking anything else of substance upon which to base it). He could have made the common sense move of apologizing for lying before Congress in 1971 and claimed youthful indiscretion borne of anger. The American public would have forgiven him because they are forgiving by nature. They forgave George Bush even though he publicly admitted he had a drinking problem for some portion of his life. Instead he foolishly refused, and the Swift Vets (and all the attendant problems for his candidacy) were created. If you can't stand up to a couple hundred 60-year old men, how can you stand up to Iran...or North Korea...or even France?

Add to this the "MIS-Fortunate Son" DNC campaign that attempted to discredit the President's Air National Guard service. From ham-handed forgeries to a scandal-plagued partisan claiming he used an office he didn't have hold at the time to help the President to quickly discredited claims that "Bush Lied!" about having served in the active-duty Air Force, it has been an utter and complete failure. It only served to remind voters that Kerry's time in Vietnam really wasn't that relevant to this election after all despite the DNC having built an entire convention scripted around the ridiculous idea that four months on a boat 35 years ago equalled credentials for Commander-in-Chief.

His wife is an embarassment. She is plainly the beneficiary of the untimely death of her previous husband's fortune but has little of coherence to offer the campaign. Reporters hang on her every word because of her tendency to make wildly ridiculous statements such as "shove it!" (after talking about "un-American" tactics and pleading for a return to civility), "four more years of hell," etc. She is indulged because of the media confusion that having money makes one wise when the truth is that if a woman of lesser means made such statements, she would be advised to seek higher levels of medication to cure the problem.

Zell Miller's speech outlined the weakness of Kerry's post-Vietnam biography. Partisans screeched "foul," but the American public at-large heard and understood: John Kerry has consistently been on the wrong side of history at every opportunity he had. The polls turned decisively against Kerry even before President Bush took the stage on the final day of the RNC Convention. What had been a "margin of error" campaign suddenly encountered that error and swung sharply in President Bush's favor.

The grand ineptitude of the campaign combined with improving economic numbers are quickly turning this election into a game of steadily decreasing expectations for the Kerry campaign. Ralph Nader has even begun countering claims that his candidacy will cost Kerry the election by saying that Kerry can't win anyway.

To be sure there will be a floor under Kerry's weakening support. There is a sufficiently large "Anybody But Bush" contingent that he will receive a significant vote share no matter how badly the slow-motion implosion that is his campaign goes. But that doesn't mean that this election will remain competitive. In fact, I would say that it is already beyond that point...

His willingness to shift positions in the wind. His rambling on the stump. His history of marrying heiresses and living off their largesse. His inability to figure out whether or not he owns an SUV. His inability to accept to personal responsibility on any level - even going so far as to blame a Secret Service agent for his fall on a ski slope. His lack of personal warmth. His self-possessed arrogance. His lack of legislative achievement....All of these things are the stuff of late-night monologues already...and we still have two months to go...

Dan Rather is no longer known for his many years as a journalist. "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" stories are returning. Stories about other hatchet jobs by "60 Minutes" have returned. Parody memos claiming secret e-mails and PowerPoint presentations from the 1970's ridicule his journalistic skills and that of CBS News.

What do John Kerry and Dan Rather have in common? Both have become little more than the long-awaited punchlines of the 2004 Campaign...

Bush Vindicated as DNC is Undone...

...Drudge has the details...

Lie #1: Bush never served in the Air Force...Whoops! He did! And there's a signed document to prove it....

Lie #2: Bush was photographed wearing a ribbon he never earned...Whoops! He did earn it! And the Air Force backs him up...

One after the other, the lies and rumor-mongering of the Democrats and their supporters are falling down...

Perhaps it's time that the Democrats take a page out of their French ally's book and start looking for ways to surrender...(cheese-eating is optional, of course)...

Going for the Hat Trick...

...of bloggy goodness over at Betsy's Page...

She links to three different pieces detailing the problems facing the Kerry campaign from such right-wing stalwarts as:

Time:

The Kerry campaign at times resembles a floating five-ring circus of longtime Democratic operatives who have all sorts of views, allegiances and ambitions. That worked fine when it was up against Howard Dean's homespun Vermont militia. Against Bush-Cheney '04, a disciplined hierarchy run by Karl Rove and manned by fervent Bush loyalists who take no prisoners, it could be a recipe for a landslide. Second-guessing is taboo under Rove, chiefly because Bush trusts him completely. But it's more like a privilege of membership at Kerry HQ, with the candidate himself often joining the debate.

The Washington Post:

At this point, the candidate seems to be trying to give the impression that he is opposed to the war, without actually saying so. He talks about bringing troops home in six months but resists pressure, including within his own campaign, to commit to such a withdrawal. It is to his credit that he resists taking such an irresponsible position. But his stance does not help Americans understand where he would really lead the nation and U.S. troops in Iraq.

, and The Baltimore Sun:

Many of these voters, interviewed in swing counties where Bush and Al Gore essentially fought to a draw in 2000, said they regard Kerry as an unprincipled flip-flopper and don't trust him to protect the country in a time of peril around the world. Some also said that they could not support Kerry because they disagree with his positions on cultural and social issues, such as his support for abortion rights, gay rights and gun control.

Let's add just one more to these:

The American Spectator:

THERE ARE OTHER PROBLEMS with the Kerry campaign. According to several Kerry and DNC sources, Kerry advisers have been furiously holding focus group meetings in an attempt to find some issue of national concern that might cut their way in the coming weeks. But nothing they've looked at seems to be working. Of course, even if they were to find something there is no guarantee their man would run with it.

For example, some media types thought having his old pal John Sasso along on the road would help focus Kerry a bit more on his stump speeches. Judging by Kerry's performance last Thursday in North Carolina, they're not sure anymore. While talking about the economy, health-care policy, Kerry went off speech and began stumbling immediately. Kerry said that he would always tell the public the truth, and if the audience didn't believe him, they could "[g]o to a web site. It can be johnkerry.com or go some other place. Go to truth.com, if there is one, and find out what's really happening," Kerry said.

(All emphasis added are mine.)

Ummm....ouch...

Allah Finds Zell...

...as Zell rebuts the critics...

The shameful (or at least it would be if they had any sense of shame remaining) part of the attacks were indeed calling Zell a racist. It was more race-baiting from the Democrats. Here's the money graf:

But for David Gergen and this newspaper's Al Hunt, among others, to call me a racist was especially hurtful. For they know better. They know I worked for three governors in a row, not just one: Carl Sanders, Lester Maddox and Jimmy Carter. They knew I was the first governor to try to remove the Confederate emblem from the Georgia flag. And by the way, when I called each of Georgia's former governors to tell them what I was about to attempt, Jimmy Carter's first question to me was, "What are you doing that for?" Mr. Gergen and Mr. Hunt also know I appointed the only African-American attorney general in the country in the 1990s and more African Americans to the state judiciary than all the other governors of Georgia combined, including that one from Plains.

Allah further updates with a link to the Corner's bulleted coverage of Kerry's race-baiting at the National Baptist Convention...

So tell me again which party is trying to divide this country along racial lines?

Internals Highlight Problems...

DJ does a breakdown over at his site on the poll internals by gender, race and party affililation...The news is exceedingly bad for Kerry...

Given the demographic changes over the last 40 years (a growing minority population, greater female participation at all levels, party registration levels), I'm not necessarily a fan of trying to draw parallels to previous elections, but I think the broader point he's making about Kerry's multiple problems in getting to an electoral majority is accurate.

The internals are showing essentially that Kerry has half the crossover appeal of Bush, doesn't fire up his minority base, and - even being generous - barely breaks even with independent voters. These poll internals tend to be bear out what we already know about this race empirically:

1) "9/11 Democrats" such as Ed Koch and Ron Silver are a legitimate phenomenon. There is no such thing as a "Kerry Republican" on the other hand.
2) African-American leaders have been complaining for months about the Kerry campaign's lack of outreach to their community. In addition, pictures of him vacations at his resort homes or engaged in high-cost sports are unlikely to endear him to working-class minorities.
3) Kerry has serious credibility and likeability problems. Swing voters tend to vote on who they believe and, on a gut level, who they like. Kerry loses to Bush by big margins on those measures. On the other hand, there is discontent about the War in Iraq and on certain social issues that would lead to an "Anybody But Bush" vote in John Kerry's favor. That the internals would show a near even split is, therefore, hardly surprising.

Any one of these might spell problems in a close campaign. Having all three is an almost certain recipe for defeat...

Sunday, September 12, 2004

Response to 2nd Week of DNC Smears

According to Drudge, the DNC is readying Round Two of "Smear Bush" with revelations that Bush conflated his service in the Air National Guard with service in the Air Force...

"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.'"

Let's take a look at that:

First, big deal...I mean, really, who the frig cares? He made a claim back in 1978 in an unsuccessful run for Congress that even if it were a lie of substance like say, claiming you committed war crimes, it was still made back in 1978. It was an unsuccessful run at that, so it's not like he benefitted from it.

Second, President Bush - unlike his opponent - isn't running on his service from 35 years ago. He's running on his record as Commander-in-Chief. When he ran in 2000 he didn't run on his record as an Air National Guardsman, he ran as a successful and popular Governor of Texas. So this whole discussion is a non-issue for anyone beside the inhabitants of DemocraticUnderground anyway...

Third, the Air National Guard is a "component of the U.S. Air Force", so what the flyers said is technically true. It's not like he claimed to be in Cambodia at a crucial turning point in his life or anything...

Fourth, it appears that he's not the only one who conflates service in the Air National Guard with service in the Air Force. It turns out that quite a few other folks do too:

From the Constitution of the Air National Guard NCO Academy Graduate Association:

Desiring to perpetuate the best tradition of the Noncommissioned Officer Corps of the United States Air Force; (Active, Reserve, and Air National Guard); to promote and maintain morale, discipline, and espirit de corps; and to encourage a feeling of goodwill and mutual understanding among Noncommissioned Officers, the Constitution of the Air National Guard Noncommissioned Officer Academy Graduate Association is hereby published.

From the USAF's "Your Guardians of Freedom" Program:

"As America’s Airmen -- active, Guard, and Reserve - face the great challenges of the war on terrorism, our success will depend on the support of the American people."

Again from the USAF's "Your Guardians of Freedom" Program:

Parent Pin Program - For all Active, Guard and Reserve members in the United States Air Force

Note that the pin reads: "US Air Force"

And someone needs to tell the Air National Guard that they got it all wrong when they named this unit - "First Air Force"....

It doesn't understand that its organization is all wrong too:

"First Air Force has been an Air Combat Command organization since June 1, 1992. Its subordinate units are located throughout the continental United States. Since October 1997, all combat and support elements have come from the Air National Guard."

How could the First Air Force be in existence since 1992 if the Air National Guard didn't start contributing elements until 1997? They must be confused thinking they're not completely separate from the Air Force...There's clearly some muddled thinking going on here - they even kept the same name! Someone at the DNC better notify them quick...thank God we have Democrats who understand the military to straighten out these poor incompetents...

And how wrongheaded are those recruiters at the Air National Guard? They seem to think:

"The Air National Guard is a vital part of the US Air Force."

As if it weren't bad enough that the Air National Guard confuses itself with the Air Force, it turns out that the Air Force itself seems to be under the mistaken impression that general officers of the Air National Guard are actually "Air Force leaders"...

What a mess! Thank God that the DNC is here to clear up all this case of confused and mistaken identity between the Air National Guard and the Air Force...


The point of all this is to show that it is not inconsistent for a Guardsman to conflate his service with that of the Air Force since the Air Force itself makes little distinction between the two. Reasonable people can disagree with his characterization of his service, but it's hardly the stuff of scandal material since "Active Duty" and "Guardsman" are, in fact, two parts of the same whole...

Was there some exaggeration in what Bush said? I think in fairness it should be said that there probably was. It was technically true, but may have implied more service than he actually had. But it wasn't anything atypical for someone making a first run for a local congressional seat. I mean, it wasn't like he claimed in 2004 that he volunteered for "one of the most dangerous assignments in the war", or anything...

President Bush has made it clear he feels that Senator Kerry's service was more heroic than his own...and this attack which attempts to parse words in order to generate a phony "scandal" is how Senator Kerry and the DNC respond...

The difference between the two men couldn't be more stark...


[Note to Kerry supporters: This is a self-defeating line of attack for your candidate and your party...In the space of a single post, you have provided five (5) - count 'em - opportunities to remind voters of Kerry's not-exactly-flattering history on this subject. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that a 5-to-1 return ratio isn't exactly what you're looking for from the investment of your campaign's time, effort and money.]


UPDATE: Beldar has another take on the subject. He cites a 1999 article that not only puts the lie to Ben Barnes' claim, but also points to Bush being in the rather unique position of flying with active duty Air Force pilots in Georgia. This may or may not qualify as "active duty" Air Force in the most technical sense, but it's a distinction without a difference: if everyone around you is "Active Duty" and you're doing the same tasks at the same time with the same requirements, then for all intents and purposes that is what you are.

UPDATED UPDATE: See my latest post on the topic. Bush served in the "active duty" Air Force and there's a signed document that proves it. End of story....

Learning About Elections...

...the Chavez way?

Is this what she's talking about?

That's the trouble with trusting socialists...

Bruce Lee Beats the Pope....

...and Ghandi...

"We finally chose Bruce Lee as both Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats liked him.

"We hope that the good feeling he gives both will encourage communication between two divided sides of the city. He was not associated with any particular political parties.

"We also hope it will be the main attraction in our rebuilt city of Mostar. We expect it to be finished by the end of the year."

Anyone up for a trip to Mostar?

Shameless...

...it's not just a song by Garth Brooks any more...

Out of respect, September 11th has generally been considered off-limits for politics...but not for John Kerry.

First, he accuses Republicans of racism by saying they plan to keep blacks from voting....That's just a hateful thing to say. It's also a lie, and he knows it. That sort of race-baiting has no place in polite society - let alone a presidential campaign...

He doesn't want to start a discussion about which party is known for the election day dirty tricks. Walking-around money, dead people voting, voting in multiple states, trying to disqualify the votes of our military members, manipulating the courts to keep polls open and hand-picked recounts, cigarettes for votes, etc. are just the tip of the iceberg for Democrats...And that's just from 2000...

Is he intent on ripping open every wound on the American psyche before he completely immolates himself and the Democratic Party at the polling booth?

Then, he engages in conspiracy-mongering with his question: "What is the White House hiding?" What's next? When will he claim that Bush was on the grassy knoll, and demand that Bush prove his whereabouts on November 22, 1963? He's gone from ridiculous to absurd without even stopping for a coffee break...

And all this, on September 11th...

September...friggin'...11th...

Bastard...