It'z News to Me

Into the Future...

2005-02-10T13:16:00.000-05:00

...so the natural next question is: what becomes of this blog?

Well, I'm not going to be deleting it but I'm not going to be posting further to this blog. I have two new blog projects right now: Celebrity Pro Blog and JimmyKat Blog. Celebrity Pro Blog will be focused on daily celebrity news, while JimmyKat Blog will take a broader look at the world at large.

So as you can see, my plate is full:

- CelebrityPro.com
- JimmyKat.com
- FilmSafari.com
- Celebrity Pro Blog
- JimmyKat Blog

There will also be three additional websites on the way: InsideJacket.com, 247Player.com, and SoundKink.com. Right now they are empty vessels, but expect to see the best of books, games and music content there in the months ahead.

But in the meantime, feel free to drop by and leave me a note on one of the new blogs or in the forums of one of the websites. Until we meet again, I must be off as my new duties call...

And a Little Bit More...

2005-02-10T13:14:00.000-05:00

In keeping with my "biting off more than I can chew" mood of late...I've been working on The Celebrity Site and JimmyKat.com, and I've also started work on FilmSafari.com.

Right now, Film Safari is a very bare bones site with only movie news and a few movies to show so far. But again, give me a little time here: I only have had a couple of weeks to get this thing going.

But Wait There's More...

2005-02-10T13:13:00.000-05:00

As if I hadn't tackled a big enough project with The Celebrity Site, I've also started work on a full portal site as well: JimmyKat.com. It's basic, but again - judge it in context: I've been working on it during my spare hours when Celebrity Pro isn't occupying my attention.

It's currently in need of a serious style overhaul, but until I find more hours in the day it will have to wait for another day.

Moving on up...

2005-02-10T13:11:00.000-05:00

...for those of you who have read this blog in the past, I must say it is time for this blog to end....

I have moved on to other blogging projects since I last posted here:

Now I'm involved in many celebrity and entertainment projects. The biggest of these is The Celebrity Site. The Celebrity Site features celebrity pictures, celebrity e-cards, celebrity posters, celebrity movies, celebrity music, celebrity news, celebrity forums, celebrity links, and much more.

Things aren't nearly as far along as I'd like. However, after a hiatus of two years it's unrealistic to expect it to go back up overnight. What features exist have all been put together since December 15th, so it's still a few more days before we reach the 60 day mark.

Deal With It...

2004-11-03T11:54:00.000-05:00

...from the Guardian...

The headline seems harsh, but the column is a good one for its' clarity:

Bush won. They lost. It's time for the Democrats to get back to the drawing board.

It's Over...Finally...

2004-11-03T01:50:00.000-05:00

...Bush wins...

Thank God...

One Out of Seven...

2004-10-31T07:16:00.000-05:00

...is all Bush needs...

Mason-Dixon's track record in 2002 is excellent, having called 22 out of 23 state races in 2002 correctly. So if we take a look at the Mason-Dixon polls published at Captain's Quarters, things are looking very good for President Bush.

So I headed over to the handy LA Times flash electoral map. I gave the states to the candidate currently leading outside or on the 4 point margin of error which brings the electoral count to 266-186 in favor of Bush. That leaves only Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Hawaii up for grabs.

If Bush takes any ONE of those states, he will be re-elected while Kerry needs a clean sweep of all seven. These are the key states to watch on election night: you can go to bed if any are called for the president, so it should be a much earlier night than the pundits are anticipating.

IRS Takes on the NAACP...

2004-10-29T01:00:00.000-04:00

...about its tax-exempt status...

It's about time...They've been shilling for Democrats for a long, long time under the pretense of being "non-partisan." I can only hope that their tax-exempt status will finally be revoked once and for all...

Devastating...

2004-10-25T16:28:00.000-04:00

...that's what this ad is...

Considering how many times Kerry has mentioned how "Reagan got it right" and cited him approvingly, this would be utterly devastating...This needs to play everywhere, but we can make sure it makes its' way around the internet. E-mail it to a friend and ask them to pass it along...

Kerry's Winter Soldier Testimony...

2004-10-24T01:46:00.000-04:00

...comes back to hunt him....

Spoons Gets the Flu...

2004-10-19T13:51:00.000-04:00

...vaccine argument just right...

I had read Kevin Drum's piece earlier, but work interfered and I didn't have a chance to post my response. Spoons saved me the trouble...

Ashley's Story...

2004-10-19T13:42:00.000-04:00

...is a powerful one...

Progress for America hits a homerun with this one. It's awfully hard to make attacks about Bush's heartlessness and how is he's like Hitler when the factual evidence so strongly refutes that point.

They're investing $14 million in running this ad across the battleground states, and there's no doubt in my mind the polls will move in Bush's direction as a result.

Better Hair...

2004-10-19T08:25:00.000-04:00

...that's what Edwards brings to the ticket...

The phrase "vain/glorious" comes to mind...

Republicans Like Sex...

2004-10-18T09:22:00.000-04:00

...more than Democrats...

The ABC story says that it has to do with more women identifying themselves as Democrats than Republicans, but I find it hard to believe that there is a large enough gender gap to account for their survey results.

My feeling is that there is a simpler explanation: Republicans are generally better adjusted and happier people, so their sex is better. Democrats are the victim party, the party of grievance, the party of class warfare. If you spend your life feeling victimized by other people, then it's far more likely that you're going to be generally unhappy with your job, your personal life, and your sex life.

Zero....

2004-10-18T01:51:00.000-04:00

...those are the odds that this story will be covered in the New York Times...

They haven't covered how Kerry's promises to hold bilateral talks with the North Koreans have stalled the multi-lateral talks while Kim Jong Il waits for a more favorably disposed administration.

Given the huge Haitian immigrant population in Florida and this story's potential to harm him with those voters, they will bury this story as deeply as their shovel will let them...

Our President in Prayer...

2004-10-18T01:27:00.000-04:00

...via Betsy's Page...

And this is the man whose opponents call 'Hitler'? Spiteful, hateful little people...

Treading on Dangerous Territory...

2004-10-14T13:36:00.000-04:00

...now Elizabeth Edwards decides to stick her foot in her mouth...

For her to stick her piggish nose into the Cheney family business is ridiculous and shameful. She should stick to feeding her face with yet another mouthful of food rather than try to tell Lynne and Dick Cheney how they feel about their family.

Obviously Mary Cheney doesn't feel that way, or she wouldn't be working to get her father re-elected.

Is there no depth to which these people won't sink? Elizabeth Edwards is a disgusting human being for even suggesting that Lynne and Dick Cheney are ashamed of their daughter. I am furious at this small-minded, tub of trash for stepping into their family business to try to score cheap political points.

I shudder to think how much more desperate these people are going to get before it's all over...

Stupid Enough to Put It In Writing...

2004-10-14T13:29:00.000-04:00

...that's the DNC under Terry McAuliffe...

Everybody and their brother knows that the Democrats trot out the race card at every opportunity to keep their stranglehold on minority voting. They know that screaming "voter intimidation" will get out the vote. They all know this without being told. Every Republican in the country has figured this out and can see it coming from a mile away.

So why be stupid enough to put it in writing? This is jackass dumb. This is a level of Democratic stupidity and arrogance that we haven't yet witnessed. It's further proof of just how unhinged and desperate these people have become. They want to make sure that even if Republicans get elected, they will have an ax to grind in future elections.

It's the surest sign yet that their internal polling for Kerry is just awful...

Reason Enough...

2004-10-14T10:57:00.000-04:00

...for four more years...

Admit it, do you really want to have Teresa on your TV for 4 years?

It's not even close...

Bob Schieffer Channels Dan Rather...

2004-10-14T09:16:00.000-04:00

...did John Kerry write the questions?

Bob Schieffer clearly threw a lot of softballs to John Kerry. He even adopted the Democratic Talking Points "backdoor draft" terminology when talking about the military.

"Is homosexuality a choice?" Is that a debate-worthy question? You have 90 minutes with the two candidates for the presidency, and this is the best you can come up with.

More evidence of the bias? Education has always been the president's signature issue, and it should have been a vital one in the debate. It outranks healthcare on the list of "most important" issues to voters. Can you find even ONE question on education?

The question about Catholic bishops saying voting for Kerry amounted to a sin was completely out of bounds. It was designed to give Kerry a national platform to answer a nagging question about his candidacy. How was the question fair to Bush? He's not a Catholic, and in order to have a fair shot at answering the question as phrased he would have had to speak about Kerry's faith (or lack thereof). That's a legitimate interview question, it was inappropriate and biased to ask it in a debate.

Why was Bob Schieffer citing media sources when there are authoritative non-partisan sources? Any question that begins with "The Washington Post says..." or "The New York Times says..." is always followed by asking a Republican to answer the partisan editorial position they put forth. Name me one question Kerry was asked where he was asked to refute a charge put forth by a media organization....That's what I thought...

Bob Schieffer was a disgrace...

The Last Debate...

2004-10-14T08:47:00.000-04:00

...goes decisively to Bush...

Kerry screwed up here...big time...

The gratuitous mention of Mary Cheney was uncalled for. If the issue is obesity is it fair game to talk about Elizabeth Edwards? If the issue is healthcare is it fair to bring up Teresa's need to be medicated? Kerry wasn't debating Cheney last night, and it was a cheap shot to talk about his family. Talking about the candidates' families - on either side of the aisle - is generally off-limits, and it's a measure of the desperation of his campaign that both he and Edwards have felt it necessary to start down this distasteful path in order to win the election. Lynne Cheney had it exactly right when she called Kerry "not a good man" for bringing her family into it. Try punching above the belt next time.

Kerry's answer to the question about "strong women" was simply awful. After the president's charming answer: "Listen to 'em. Stand up straight and don't scowl. 'Love at first sight,'" Kerry reminding people how he chased the billions isn't exactly endearing. The uncomfortable silence in the audience told the tale. Then to follow up by talking about his mother? And who believes her final words were actually "Integrity, integrity, integrity"? And if they were, why did he completely ignore her to toss the Mary Cheney cheap shot?

I won't go into all the detail because it's not really new. If you're for government running your life and government solutions to every problem, then you're voting for Kerry. If you're not, then the president is your choice. We all knew that going into the debate so it came down to who screwed up and who didn't.

Kerry screwed up. He lost the votes of many moms with the slap at Mary Cheney, and he lost many wives with his failure to even talk about Teresa in his answer about strong women. He cost himself votes tonight.

Bush, on the other hand, performed well. He was more effective at cutting through Kerry's obfuscations - even calling him out when Kerry claimed more success in the Senate than he was due. When you can get in a shot about Ted Kennedy being the conservative senator from Massachusetts and have it go unanswered, you can walk off the stage knowing that you owned the night.

The Liberal Label Sticks...

2004-10-11T13:51:00.000-04:00

...according to Rasmussen...

This is not good news for John Kerry. He's fought the "liberal" label with everything in his arsenal, and President Bush is likely to slam it home over and over again in Wednesday's debate. With 55% of the respondents already viewing Kerry as a liberal and previous polls showing that the large majority of voters view him as someone who says whatever is popular, it also shows that the president's campaign themes have been extraordinarily effective in delivering their message.

The president has never shied away from the "conservative" label. He has, in fact, labeled himself as a "compassionate conservative." And herein lies the problem for John Kerry: 61% of conservatives see the president as "one of them" while only 38% of liberals see John Kerry as "one of them." Which one is more likely to turn out his base?

The End Is Near...

2004-10-10T20:43:00.000-04:00

...for the national Democratic Party...

The level of self-delusion evident in this article is astounding. These leftists suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding of America.

The only reason this election is close is because Kerry has confused enough "moderates" that he would be a reasonable alternative. This is the reason for all his obfuscation and flip-flops. He has to appeal to people on the right and the left in order to build a national majority, so he has to bury his liberal record in order to gain national acceptance.

So the answer according to the Leftists, of course, is to drive hard left after the election and completely abandon the middle to the Republican party. That's definitely a recipe for electoral success, doncha think?

The Day In Pictures

2004-10-09T22:10:00.000-04:00

...over at Powerline...

I know he's too modest to use it, but the picture from the theater in Afghanistan should be front and center of every Bush campaign event...

Waiting for the Other Shoe To Drop...

2004-10-09T21:29:00.000-04:00

One thing that I think has been noticeable in its absence from the Bush/Cheney campaign rhetoric has been John Kerry's tenure as Lieutenant Governor to Michael Dukakis.

According to a campaign source who talked to CrushKerry.com, the Bush campaign has long planned on saving the "liberal" card for October. What better way to tie Kerry to the liberal label than to bring out his time in service to the Uber-Liberal Dukakis?

Kerry has deliberately hidden this from the electorate, and I'm sure that the vast majority of voters are completely unaware of it. As far as I know, he has never mentioned it in any way during the campaign and so far the Bush campaign has given him a complete pass on it...Considering how much damage this would do to Kerry, I have to confess to being a bit surprised by it.

I did find an article from the Boston Globe where the current Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey does discuss it. But no follow-up from the campaign, could it be because they didn't want to expend their most potent ammunition too early?

Is the Bush campaign planning on making this their "October Surprise" - a full-frontal Dukakis assault as the month winds down to Election Day?

Only time will tell...

AP Fails Test...

2004-10-09T11:37:00.000-04:00

...message...

AP published a test message declaring Bush the victor in the November 2nd message...

...on October 7th...

I've linked to the message just for the curiosity value...I wonder how close to the actual results it will turn out to be.

Just for reference, the message says Bush wins in 37 states with 367 electoral votes to Kerry with 13 states' 153 electoral votes. It also notes the Republicans picking up 3 seats in the Senate and winning the House 229-201-3. (Yes, I know the numbers don't match up with totals up for grabs.)

Coalition of Bribed and Coerced Wins...

2004-10-09T11:21:00.000-04:00

...in Australia....

Despite Kerry's best efforts, John Howard was re-elected in Australia. I was holding my breath on this one as the loss of Australia from the coalition would have been viewed as a rebuke of Bush's Iraq policy. It's also a strong indicator that Bush will win our own election on November 2nd.

Right up until yesterday, Howard's re-election was in doubt as polls showed a strong possibility of him losing in a tight race. The actual result?

Howard wins 52-47...

That's not even close...and it also happens to be almost identical to the margin which I have been predicting for the Bush victory on November 2nd...

I guess sending Diana Kerry to undermine our Australian ally wasn't such a winning strategy for the Johns after all...

Thank God.

ABC Meets CBS...

2004-10-09T01:34:00.000-04:00

...at Bias Central....

Dan Rather, et al meets Mark Halperin for coffee and doughnuts to discuss how to help Kerry win...

This is ridiculous. Flat. Out. Ridiculous.

I've been noticing the increasing snarky tones at "The Note" (no link because they don't deserve one) as I've read it over the past few weeks. But now there's a smoking gun that clearly says they have no plans to hold Kerry accountable.

I don't mind if they hold Bush accountable. But that's a two-way street. You don't get to give "your guy" a pass if you're a media organization. Media organizations are exempted from campaign finance reform under the farcical assumption that they are dispassionate observers of events. What is becoming increasingly clear in the ever increasing desperation of Democrats everywhere is that they no longer care if people know how biased they are: they just want to beat Bush.

Even if I wasn't going to vote for Bush before, I would be now just to teach these sanctimonious SOBs that we're tired of the lies and double standards. As it is, I think I'll be calling the Bush/Cheney campaign and volunteering to help GOTV and when Kerry loses on November 2nd he can thank Dan Rather and Mark Helperin for all the help they provided.

My Take on Tonight's Debate...

2004-10-08T23:55:00.000-04:00

...A clear Bush win...

It wasn't knockout, but it was a big win on points...

If the criticism of Bush during the first debate was that he was repetitive, then Kerry should have avoided that trap and not repeated the word "plan" 33 times and "the president" 68 times.

Let's see the debate lasted approximately 90 minutes. Of that, half the time was the president's and half was Kerry's - so let's give him 45 minutes. That means Kerry said the word "plan" every 82 seconds and said "the president" every 40 seconds. It doesn't get more repetitive than that.

Kerry spent a lot of the time on the defensive tonight - a product of a more evenly balanced set of questions. He clearly fumbled the "right to life/culture of life" questions by trying to straddle the issues and failing - that's not going to play well in the battleground states when put up against the president's clear advocacy.

Most surpising to me was the question on the environment. The question went to Bush and he went through a long laundry list of moves his administration has made on the environment. Kerry's response was weak and non-specific, and I thought that Bush was actually the winner on the question.

The president missed some opportunities to slap Kerry down, but overall did a very effective job tonight.

Some of the more effective verbal jabs from the president:

"You should have shown up on the floor to vote for it."

"He's been in the Senate for 20 years and hasn't done anything about it."

"...Trying to decipher what that meant"

"Want to buy some wood?"

People will remember those jabs, but Kerry said nothing that left an indelible impression...

Afghanistan...

2004-10-08T13:20:00.000-04:00

...on the brink of democracy...

Despite all the conspiracy theories about mythical pipelines in Afghanistan, Saturday is going to be a cause for celebration.

Are there opium fields? Yes. Is security perfect? No. It's not a perfect world, but the wilds of Afghanistan that were supposed to be another Vietnam are most certainly not. Afghanistan is not Vermont and likely never will be. But that's not an excuse to naysay, it's just the last refuge of the ideologically blind.

Are ancient statues being blown up by religious zealots? No. Are women enjoying rights they have never had? Yes. Is America losing massive numbers of our young people there? No. Are the Afghanis learning the ways of capitalism and democracy? Yes. Are the people there ready to launch another strike on American soil? No.

By any reasonable test, our experience in Afghanistan is a success. Don't forget when our own elections come around in November.

Score Another Voter for Bush...

2004-10-06T23:21:00.000-04:00

...and I'm glad she's on our side...

Stern Gets Sirius...

2004-10-06T10:45:00.000-04:00

...he's moving to satellite radio...

I've argued with Jeff Jarvis over the whole Howard Stern issue. We both agreed that Howard should move to satellite but for different reasons, and the move has been telegraphed well in advance so it's hardly a surprise.

It's a great coup for Sirius over XM and will no doubt lead to a huge increase in Sirius' listenership. Satellite radio has been the wave of the future, but I don't think it will kill broadcast radio any more than FM killed AM or than cable TV killed broadcast. Broadcast and AM lost influence because there were other choices. It will further segment the market, but it's not going to be the death knell that many are predicting.

Witness this: Rush Limbaugh reaches 20 million listeners on AM radio every day despite the fact that FM has been around for seemingly ever. This year it was newsworthy enough to make headlines that a cable news channel (Fox News) beat a broadcast network, and cable has been around for almost 30 years. Subscription-only formats will simply never draw the numbers that a free medium provides until the free medium goes away.

There won't be any more headline-making confrontations with the FCC which is pretty much Stern's major shtick, and many listeners who either won't or can't make an investment in a subscription-only satellite radio will simply find other sources for the daily entertainment.

I predict that this move will actually diminish Stern. The reason Stern is popular is that his audience is listening for that "shock moment" that crosses the boundary of what is acceptable on the public airwaves. On satellite, there is no boundary so the shock value will be gone.

Beaten Like A Drum...

2004-10-05T23:44:00.000-04:00

...That was the fate of John Edwards tonight...

Dick Cheney won that debate going away on both style and substance.

The reasons Edwards would have been a huge mistake at the top of the ticket and has been kept on the sidelines for the better part of this campaign. To put it simply: he's a lightweight.

He was asked point-blank about his qualifications for the office and couldn't answer it. He was asked to differentiate between himself and Dick Cheney without mentioning John Kerry and fumbled...twice...

Halliburton might sell to the Michael Moore crowd, but it doesn't sell to undecided and swing voters: they care about his service as vice-president for the last four years. Cheney got the URL wrong, but citing factcheck.org was a good move.

Edwards tried, but never really got off a good stinging rebuke. On the other hand, Cheney slapped Edwards down several times. "The first time I met you was today" was perhaps the most effective slapdown of the entire debate.

I'll leave it the other bloggers for a line-by-line analysis of the debate, but overall my impression is that Mort Kondracke's comments on Fox News had it about right: Edwards looked like a puppy dog yapping at Cheney's heels.

Favorable News...

2004-10-05T01:00:00.000-04:00

...is on the way...

This story is one more example of why the latest Pew, WaPo/ABC, and Zogby polls showing Kerry still trailing Bush by 3-5 points even in the immediate afterglow of the first debate is such a huge problem for Kerry specifically and Democrats in general.

Let's look at the upcoming schedule:

- Friday's Employment Report: Any reports that show improvements in jobs are going to benefit the president. John Kerry and Old Media can complain how there aren't enough new jobs, but to the average voter there isn't a hill of beans of difference between 100,000 new jobs and 300,000 new jobs if he already has a job or he wasn't one of those people with new jobs. All the average voter hears is "new jobs created" and can equate that pretty readily with a growing economy.

The upcoming report is special though because there will be revisions, no doubt upward revisions, in the employment numbers over the past year. Again, Old Media and lefty bloggers can bitch all they want about the numbers but all the average voter is going to hear is "more jobs created than originally reported."

Trying to paint this economy as some sort of Depression-redux is going to sound ridiculous on a day filled with the news of how many new jobs are being created. I can hear the ammunition being loaded over at Bush-Cheney Central as we speak...

- Saturday's Afghan Election and the offensive in Iraq: The elections in Afghanistan on Saturday - even if they are marred by violence - will remind people that it was the president who led us to free that country, and nothing Kerry can say will change that.

On the offensive in Iraq, I'm of the firm belief that a significant portion of the criticism of our policy there has been the failure to deal strongly with the "insurgency" there. The recent moves in Samarra and Sadr City will change that dynamic decisively in the president's favor provided there is follow-through to Fallujah and other terrorist strongholds.

- John and Teresa: The stream of nonsense coming from these two never ceases to amaze me.

When attempting to defend his "global test" comment in the debate, he makes it worse by expanding it "elsewhere," (I'm assuming he means Martians because the folks from Alpha Centauri are reliably part of the "coalition of the bribed and coerced.") and Teresa is either a complete idiot or completely off her meds - take your pick. They can't keep them silent for another 29 days, and they will continue to give voters reasons not to give them four years on the world stage to continue embarrassing themselves (and us).

- Debate expectations: Bush's lackluster performance in the first debate will inevitably lower expectations for the upcoming debates. In addition, the Old Media considered foreign policy his strongest point while the economy generally favors Democrats and the town hall format was never supposed to be good for Bush. (I would argue to the contrary that Iraq was the president's biggest vulnerability, and Kerry was unable to make his case persuasively enough to move the poll numbers.) But this Friday is going to find Kerry having to make the case for higher taxes and defending over $2 trillion in new spending for which he will have to find additional taxes to cover his campaign promises. I would argue this is Kerry's biggest vulnerability: just ask Walter Mondale how far promises to raise taxes get you on Election Day.

On my hiatus...

2004-10-04T22:13:00.000-04:00

...for those of you who are visiting regularly you may have noticed that I took about a week off and have only been blogging lightly of late...

First, I needed a little break...I was suffering from a bit of "blog overload" after the furious activity of Rathergate and the Swift Vets, and the runup to the debate provided a nice opportunity to take a break myself.

Second, work has picked up...lots of stuff happening there, so I've been busier there as well...

Third, I just didn't have a lot to add to what those on my blogroll were already saying. There's an old saying "If you can't improve the silence, don't speak."

At any rate, I should be ready to go for the stretch run through the election now...

First Rule: When You're In a Hole...

2004-10-04T22:07:00.000-04:00

...stop digging...

This is why John Kerry has always been doomed to lose. I, and others, pointed out immediately after the debate that the "global test" comment was going to wind up hurting him. I joined Hugh Hewitt in saying that although Kerry scored short-term points with his debate style, the debate was going to wind up being a net negative for him because of the "global test" and other blunders he made.

So how does Kerry repair the damage? By digging in deeper, of course! Now it's not enough to meet the "global test" now we have to meet the test not only "in the globe, but elsewhere."

Stop and soak that in for a moment...."elsewhere"...

Ahhh....smells like victory to me....

"A President for the 21st Century"

2004-10-03T16:07:00.000-04:00

I was thinking today about a campaign ad that the Bush/Cheney campaign could run that would absolutely destroy Kerry/Edwards and here's the script I came up with:

John Kerry is living in the past...

He confuses Iraq as a "mistake" and a "quagmire" with his 1960's thinking about Vietnam...

His call for raising taxes and more regulation is pure 1970's stagflation economics...

His call for unilaterally ceasing research into nuclear "bunker busters" is straight out of his nuclear freeze playbook from the 1980's...

His healthcare plan is warmed-over Hillarycare from the 1990's...

His obsession with Enron and awarding of the Halliburton contract under the Clinton administration from the 1990s is more of the same...

In a time of war, is bringing back the failed liberal policies of the past 40 years what the country needs to move ahead?

Our administration has focused on cleaning up the messes left for us from the past and addressing the problems of today with solutions to move the country into the future...

We cut taxes 4 times, freed 50 million people from totalitarianism, prosecuted boardroom misconduct, added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, and we have a plan to continue the progress for the next four years...

Reject the "Back to the Future" thinking of Kerry/Edwards and vote Bush/Cheney on November 2nd...

Tell me what you think...

"We Call That a Target"

2004-10-01T11:58:00.000-04:00

...more good news from Iraq...

This is the fundamental problem with being John Kerry: you can't stop things from getting better in Iraq. There is a fundamental misreading (or misleading?) about the right track/wrong track numbers in this country.

It's true that less than 50% think this country is on the "right track," but a good number of those people - and of those people who in some way express disapproval of the job Bush is doing - are criticizing from the right, not the left.

If Kerry thinks that he's on the right side of the issue by dodging left, he's getting some really bad advice. The best criticism of Bush vis a vis Iraq is that he hasn't been tough enough, that he hasn't insisted on cleaning out those rat's nests like Samarra. Kerry's plan to hold a summit is worse than irrelevant to solve this problem.

The biggest problem for the Kerry campaign is that both Allawi and Bush have realized this, and now they're taking steps to fix it. Major offensives in Fallujah, Samarra and Baghdad are systematically wiping out large numbers of insurgents. The only question that remains is can it be done quickly enough to satisfy the American public before the election.

Debate Impressions

2004-10-01T09:55:00.000-04:00

On North Korea: Kerry was entirely unconvincing on his call for bilateral talks. I thought Bush was effective in explaining the need for multilateral talks with his emphasis on China's influence with North Korea. Bush could have hit him harder on Kerry's call for unilateralism when it came to North Korea.

On Iran: Kerry fumbled this one badly. Bush nailed him on his call for sanctions - we've had them for a while. Then when Kerry tried to rebut with his explanation that he would have gone about it differently, Bush pointed out that it was the Clinton administration who put them in place. Evidently Kerry either screwed up on his Iran preparation or figured that Bush wouldn't call him on it - either way, he lost.

On Homeland Security: Kerry pulled out a whopper - that the NYC subway was closed during the RNC convention. It wasn't. Unfortunately Bush didn't call him on it, but Drudge and the bloggers are all over it and it will be common knowledge soon. So any temporary advantage he gained on the issue will be nullified.

On Russia: Kerry had a "Quayle moment" for which, if we had a fair and impartial press, he'd be rightly crucified. Treblinka Square, Senator Kerry? Confusing the Russians with Nazis? Not exactly diplomatic. He also failed the "Breslan test" of recognizing the deep impact that had on parents of schoolage children everywhere.

Now to the elephant in the room - Iraq: Kerry had absolutely no response to Bush pointing out how ineffective Kerry would be. Bush chastised Kerry for criticizing Allawi, for calling our allies the coalition of the bribed and coerced, and pointed out the unlikelihood of convincing other nations to participate in the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time. Bush also added a couple of rejoinders about Kerry's claim to support the troops being undermined by his vote against the $87 billion and his statement that those who think the world isn't a safer place with Saddam in jail don't have the judgment to be president.

On pre-emptive action: Kerry's "global test" is going to get lots of play - and none of it will be positive for Kerry. Cheney already started last night at his event, and this is probably going to be the memorable line of the debate. Bush's response wasn't as strong as I would have liked, but Karl Rove's ears certainly perked up when Kerry uttered those words and will make Kerry pay dearly for them.

Overall: I think that any number of bloggers could have absolutely decimated Kerry last night. Bush failed to bring up many of the points that are bandied about on the internet and let Kerry escape relatively unscathed. Kerry had a strong performance, but didn't say anything new. For that matter, neither did Bush. I don't think there is going to be any real shifting in the polls because there wasn't any new information added.

I was disappointed in the president's performance: not because I thought he did particularly badly, but because I knew how easily Kerry's debate performance could have been skewered had the president been on top of his game.

This isn't 2000 - style over substance isn't going to win this time. Gore destroyed himself in 2000, and Kerry clearly didn't do that. But people are paying attention to foreign policy this year, and Kerry didn't provide them with enough to significantly move the "who do you trust on Iraq/WoT" questions that would have been necessary to make a real change in the dynamics of the race.

Kerry provided the Bush campaign with some choice cuts: "global test," "Treblinka Square," "NYC subway shut down," "I never said Bush lied," etc. that will come back to haunt him. So I think in the longer run the debate performance will end up being a net negative for him.

Bush's people need to let him have a down day before the next debate. Going to visit the hurricane victims was a nice human touch, but it clearly tired him and negatively impacted his performance. They need to clear his schedule for the day of the next two debates. Granted, he only needs to avoid major mistakes in the next two in order to win, but fatigue can lead to gaffes and a few more hours of campaigning aren't worth the risk of making one.

UPDATE: Check out Hugh's memo. The DNC's response to the debate is a videotape showing Bush reactions. The response from the right is to absolutely destroy Kerry's credibility by comparing/contrasting with previous statements and positions. Which do you think is more likely to change opinions?

CBS Fraud Saves Josh Marshall Embarrassment...

2004-09-22T22:37:00.000-04:00

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...

Dan Finally Figures Out...

2004-09-21T23:24:00.000-04:00

...what frequency Kenneth is on...

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

Kerry Tries to Get Knocked Out...

2004-09-21T21:19:00.000-04:00

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...

Another Rathergate Kerry Connection...

2004-09-20T21:22:00.001-04:00

...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

2004-09-20T21:15:00.000-04:00

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

It's Time for India...

2004-09-20T17:23:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-20T16:34:00.000-04:00

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

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

2004-09-20T13:15:00.000-04:00

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...

2004-09-20T10:26:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-20T07:47:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-20T07:01:00.000-04:00

...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...

"Goat Fancying" on The Rise...

2004-09-19T09:26:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-19T08:52:00.000-04:00

...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..

2004-09-19T08:21:00.000-04:00

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...

2004-09-19T06:24:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-19T06:06:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-19T05:20:00.000-04:00

...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...

New Bush Guard Documents Released...

2004-09-17T18:57:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-17T18:52:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-17T13:29:00.000-04:00

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

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

Cool Reception...

2004-09-17T11:34:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-17T10:59:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-17T10:28:00.000-04:00

...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)

2004-09-17T01:15:00.000-04:00

...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...

Burkett Provides the Smoking Gun...

2004-09-16T23:45:00.000-04:00

...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.

Ace Digs In...

2004-09-15T22:27:00.000-04:00

...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

2004-09-15T20:09:00.000-04:00

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

2004-09-15T14:40:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-15T14:15:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-15T13:46:00.000-04:00

...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?

2004-09-15T01:18:00.000-04:00

...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?

The Future of KerryCare...

2004-09-14T23:19:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-14T22:56:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-14T20:46:00.000-04:00

...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?

2004-09-14T18:13:00.000-04:00

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?

2004-09-14T16:11:00.000-04:00

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...

2004-09-14T15:19:00.000-04:00

...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

2004-09-14T10:03:00.000-04:00

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"?

2004-09-14T01:16:00.000-04:00

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."

Silver Star After-Action Report Found!

2004-09-13T23:01:00.000-04:00

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...

2004-09-13T21:17:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-13T18:37:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-13T16:42:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-13T16:22:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-13T14:12:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-13T13:00:00.000-04:00

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...

Response to 2nd Week of DNC Smears

2004-09-12T23:30:00.000-04:00

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...

2004-09-12T20:54:00.000-04:00

...the Chavez way?

Is this what she's talking about?

That's the trouble with trusting socialists...

Bruce Lee Beats the Pope....

2004-09-12T19:55:00.000-04:00

...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...

2004-09-12T18:31:00.000-04:00

...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...

Bob Shrum...

2004-09-12T18:11:00.000-04:00

...designated fall guy...

The Washington Post does a hit piece on Bob Shrum, basically blaming the struggles inside the Kerry campaign on his long history of running losing campaigns. I don't know why Democrats keep going back to losers. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. Well, by this measure, that makes the Democratic Party absolutely certifiable.

But the problem runs a lot deeper here, and it looks like the Democrats have settled on a scapegoat. I feel badly for Bob Shrum here. In 2000, he was saddled with Al Gore and this time around he's got John Kerry. I'm not sure there have ever been a pair of worse candidates on the national stage. Both are completely lacking in personal warmth, have problems with the truth, and both built their entire lives around an eventual run for the presidency.

The problem here isn't Bob Shrum: it's the candidate. Just like in 2000, the candidate is the source of the problem. The campaign in 2000 had Gore up before the debates, but he couldn't avoid being his arrogant and condescending self in front of a national audience and it cost him the election. This time too: it's John Kerry's shifting positions on virtually every issue that are costing him the election - not the campaign.

Every time Kerry opens his mouth in an unscripted moment, he plants his foot squarely in it. The same goes for his benefactor - I mean, wife. He rambles. He prevaricates. He changes positions. When your campaign has to hire a person whose entire job (Joe Sasso) is to tell you to shut up, you have hoof-in-mouth disease and it's nobody's fault but your own.

I'd look for Bob Shrum to be thrown overboard relatively soon. They may have already made the decision and set a date - hence the article. Or maybe they're waiting to see if the polls start turning around, and if they don't the Kerry people will make a sacrificial lamb out of him. Time will tell, but if I were Bob Shrum I'd start looking for a box to put his personal belongings into....

USA 1, France 0

2004-09-12T17:26:00.000-04:00

...Russia thinks "...it seems easier to find grounds for an understanding with the United States than with some European states."

This is a victory for Bush's foreign policy stance over Kerry's. Kerry's stance would be to find an accomodation with the French policy while Bush will do what he can to get allies but in the end we'll go alone if necessary. Russia seems to think that we have the right idea.

In the overall scheme of things, it's much more important to build good relations with Russia than it is with France for a number of reasons. The first would be to put ourselves in a position to help prevent its slide back into its Soviet days - it's already teetering on the brink, and closer relations can only improve our leverage. The second would be the fact that they still have an enormous number of nuclear (and biological and chemical) weapons that we need to keep out of the hands of terrorists. And the third, they have a huge population that is a virtually untapped market for American goods, and closer ties with them will lead to greater economic opportunities for Americans.

On the other hand, France finds itself losing influence to those upstart Eastern European countries and the UK within the EU. Chirac would be in prison if not for the immunity granted to him by his office. Their economy is stagnant. Their population is aging. Their cultural snobbery is offensive, and their active effort to oppose us over Iraq is not an isolated incident but part of a long-term pattern of obstructing American goals.

So if I have to choose: I'll take Russia over France every day...

Teresa Gets It Backwards...

2004-09-12T13:33:00.000-04:00

...KerryCare is for idiots...

Americans have voted over and over again against socialized medicine. Even Bush suffered a hit to his popularity when he signed the prescription drug benefit for MediCare. We've seen how it works in Canada and the UK, and we don't like it.

There's a reason that the rich and famous (and everyone else who can) comes to the U.S. for treatment, and we don't particularly want to give that up. Democrats pushing their socialized medicine down people's throats is not going to get them any votes they weren't going to get anyway, so I don't see the upside for them here.

They tried this when Bill Clinton took office. HillaryCare along with the Assault Weapons Ban were the primary movers for the 1994 Republican Revolution that lost Democrats historic numbers of seats in Congress.

Do they really want to go back down this path?

Confused Campaigning...

2004-09-12T13:02:00.000-04:00

...Read this article from the L.A. Times....

Let's look at some of the key phrases used:

"...lack of consensus, some Democrats say, has exacerbated Kerry's inconsistency on the campaign trail..."

"Kerry has to be...more consistent."

"The unevenness was evident last week."

"...new permutations of his views on Iraq"

"Kerry has a tendency to swing at whatever is thrown his way."

"...the lack of agreement has been apparent..."

When your friends are calling you on your flip-flopping and inept campaigning, you know you have a problem...Out in the real world, we call this an intervention...

Ace Names Names...

2004-09-12T10:55:00.000-04:00

...and perhaps gets to "the source" of the problem...

The story is moving forward. We've moved beyond the minutiae of proving why the documents are forgeries and into the real story: where did they come from?

I've said before, and I will say again: Bush's National Guard service is irrelevant to this election - he has never run on his Guard service. If he had - as John Kerry has with his service in Vietnam - it would be an issue. He hasn't, so it's not.

That being said: the story here is the blatant attempt by CBS and Dan Rather specifically to swing an election based on forgeries. If they relied on a guy with "a history of nervous breakdowns," that's relevant...If they relied on a guy who has written two anti-Bush books, that's relevant...If they relied on one of Kerry's biggest fund-raisers, that's relevant...

Dan Rather tried to change the focus to the storyline he was trying to push, but the second he tried to use dummied-up documents in order to lend credibility to a story that belongs somewhere deep in the fever swamps he lost control of the story. Much like the Republicans he so enjoys trashing, he isn't the journalist here: he is the story, and he doesn't get to dictate the terms of the discussion...

Welcome to the business end of that sharp "the public's right to know" stick you've been poking other people with for years, Dan...How's it feel?

Moonbats on Parade...

2004-09-12T09:46:00.000-04:00

...at DemocraticUnderground via RightWingNews...

John links to various comments left on DU (no link provided - find the hate on your own). It goes almost without saying that these people are hateful, spiteful people; but it also shows the depth of their ignorance about "Red States."

The reason Red Staters cry and express sympathy with New Yorkers are because they are Americans. Unlike these people on DU, Red Staters understand that no matter how much you disagree with someone we're all in this together.

New Yorkers weren't attacked because there's something special about New York. They were attacked because New York is a symbol of America. It is arrogance and stupidity to believe that if New York was an independent city like Singapore they would have been attacked.

New York wouldn't have ever recovered if not for the rest of the country. It was tax money from "fly-over" country that provided the money to get the city on its feet again. It was volunteers from all over the country that streamed into NYC in the days after to rebuild it. It is tourists from across the country that provide many of the jobs that NYCers depend on for their daily bread. It is the hard-earned money of Red Staters that trades hands every day on Wall Street.

Of course none of that matters to these Leftists. They are worse than snobs and elites. They consider Red Staters to be a different breed - a separate but unequal contributor to the American experience. They live in the self-reinforcing cocoon of their hatred and bile where dissent dares not speak. DU doesn't allow dissenting views for fear that truth might see the light of day.

These are the views of a dangerous minority in this country. Yes, I said dangerous - and I meant it. The unblinking perversion of thought that is required in order to come up with this kind of hate-filled screed is not the mark of a healthy mind. They not only don't believe in the American dream, their every day is a nightmare of their own making.

The nuts behind the Earth Liberation Front, the domestic eco-terrorism group, is the tip of the iceberg. When their impending election loss inevitably shakes loose the fruit from the tree of reality, I fear the rise of more. Most of these ranting and drooling hate-mongers are only brave because of the anonymity of the internet who would never actually act on it. However, there exists that fraction who will be driven by their lack of political power to seek expression through other means.

Our next adversary may not be foreign terrorism...It may well be domestic, and DU is the breeding ground...

My Feelings on 9/11...

2004-09-12T02:12:00.000-04:00

Never...

Again...

You Have Roused a Mighty Giant...

We Will Not Tolerate Your Deceptions and Evasions Ever Again...

Iran...Syria...North Korea...

We're not done yet, and I'm officially putting you on notice:

You're Next...

About Those Documents...

2004-09-12T01:08:00.000-04:00

...I can't keep up...

I officially give up trying to keep up with all the stories about the myriad ways in which the documents have been proven false, that CBS has been proven to run a story they knew was false, that Dan Rather has been proven a prevaricator, that the source of the documents was either a member of the Kerry campaign or the DNC, and that the Boston Globe (read: the New York Times Company) has been proven to distort and lie on this and other stories...

These things have been proven over and over and over again in multiple places throughout the blogosphere. Those who would argue otherwise are those who either are so blinded by their Leftist ideology that they will not see it or are those who do believe it but are fighting to their last breath in an attempt to so confuse the issue that others will not believe it.

I would recommend to those of you want to continue following this story that you look to my blogroll - almost any of these blogs/news sources are all over this stuff and many are cross-linking to each other.

As for me? I'm satisfied that the case is made: Dan Rather must be fired, as must the management at CBS News, the Boston Globe must correct its distortions, and the Kerry campaign must be held responsible for this shameless attempt to smear the president.

End of story.

Tribune Co Caught Lying...

2004-09-11T03:19:00.000-04:00

...again...

They already got caught once and had to revise their actual circulation numbers downward...Now they've gotten caught twice...

Between big Lies of Consequence like "Ra^thergate" and the lesser lies of Tribune Co., Old Media is wondering why stuff like this happens:

Morton and others said the industry has been largely unsuccessful in reversing a gradual decline in circulation during the past two decades.

Could it be that people just don't believe them any more?

Dan Rather Is a Liar

2004-09-11T02:09:00.000-04:00

...and CBS News is even worse...

I don't know how to permalink the story currently on ABC's "Noted Now," so I will print the related excerpt:

HODGES SAID HE WAS MISLED BY CBS: Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian's supervisor at the Grd, tells ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."

Hodges also said he did not see the documents in the 70's and he cannot authenticate the documents or the contents. His personal belief is that the documents have been "computer generated" and are a "fraud".

(Emphasis added.)

Their handwriting expert? Well...it turns out that he calls himself a liar...

And per Gary Killian's interview with Sean Hannity: CBS had spoken with him and his stepmother before airing the story. Both of them had said there were no personal files, that they didn't believe the memos were legitimate, that Lt. Col. Killian in fact thought very highly of (then) Lt. Bush, and gave them names of people to contact who could back up their story. CBS spiked their stories...

So much for Dan Rather's credibility...I hope sacrificing every shred he had of it left only to watch John Kerry go down in defeat in November anyway will be worth it for him...This will be what Dan Rather is remembered for...Long career as anchor? No...Fraud and Partisan Hack? Yes...

As for CBS? The Head of the News Division should be sacked over this, and heads should keep rolling until they reach the bottom...There's no excuse for trying to perpetrate a fraud like this...This wasn't an honest mistake: they had the truth in their hands, they knew it, they ran with the story anyway even though they knew it was false...

Faked Photocopies...

2004-09-10T21:02:00.000-04:00

...so where are the originals?

I think that would be the relevant question. If CBS is admitting that they only have photocopies then someone has the originals. If there are no originals, then this proves the allegations are false. How can there only be photocopies? CBS needs to explain...