Christopher Hitchens is a man you want on your side ...

Unfortunately, for the LLL/anti-war/root-causes crowd, he's not in their camp. The man is playing on our team, and he's batting .1000:

Christopher Hitchens/Slate: What Went Wrong - The flaw in Seymour Hersh's theory, and lo and behold Michael Moore makes a cameo appearance:

I ask this because, in the news cycle that preceded the Iraq atrocities, the administration was being arraigned from dawn until dusk for the offense of failing to take timely measures against the Taliban and al-Qaida. I hardly need to recapitulate the indictment here. We had our chance to see it coming, and to see where it was coming from, and the administration comprehensively blew all these chances, from the first warnings of suicide-hijacking to the cosseting of Saudi visa applicants. I might add that I completely agree with all these condemnations and wrote about many of them (including the spiriting of the Bin Laden relatives out of the country during a "no-fly" period imposed upon the rest of us) at the time.

But there is no serious way of having this cake and scarfing it. I remember a debate I had with Michael Moore—the newly crowned king of the Cannes Film Festival—at the more modest location of the Telluride Film Festival in 2002. Ridiculing the Bush administration's policy, he shouted that it had gone into Afghanistan to get Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar. "Mission NOT accomplished!" he added, to roars of easy applause. I asked myself then, and I repeat the question now: Would the antiwar camp have approved the measures necessary to ensure those goals? If they will the end, will they will the means? Would they taunt that lawyer in Tampa, as they taunt the supporters of regime change, with living a quiet life at home while others die in the field? Isn't the refusal to take out the leaders of al-Qaida a bit of a distraction from the struggle against al-Qaida?

Read it all: it's worth it.

Michael Moore & The Politcs of Entertainment

I think Rachel Lucas had it right in her opinion of Michael Moore:

PIG! PIG! PIG! PIG! PIG!

Have I made it clear how I feel about Monsieur Moore? Good.

In today's Opinion Journal: Daniel Schwammenthal exposes the less-than-honest goings-on of the porcine mockumentary director at Cannes, the post-Oscar festival of self-aggransizement that takes place in the south of France:

WSJ: Michael's Manipulations: Moore of the same at Cannes.

CANNES, France--On his way to the next film-festival interview, movie maker Michael Moore, self-declared champion of the downtrodden, lent his support to protesting show-biz workers on the Croisette, Cannes's beachwalk. He took a megaphone, screaming "a job is a human right, a living wage is a human right." Never mind that the protests were about neither jobs nor wages but small cuts to France's generous welfare checks for artists. He hasn't become a millionaire filmmaker by being too fussy with the facts.

We all know that the winner of Cannes' grand prize, the Palme D'Or, was decided before any films were actually screened: as Schwammenthal deftly illustrates, the glitterati will once again consume itself in a conflagration of anti-Americanism and award the Golden Palm to "Fahrenheit 9/11".

The LLL's will of course trample themselves to see it when it opens here in the US.

A Little Fun & Games ...

Too much going on to do much in the way of blogging, so I'm putting in a friendly diversion to pass the time.

Back soon!


What Color is Your Brain?
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Barbara Amiel Kicks Some Media Ass

The inimitable Barbara Amiel, one of my heroes, has written yet another sharp-focused and insightful (or perhaps, to the British LLL's "inciteful") Op-Ed piece on the manipulation of public opinion and scandal-mongering inre: Abu Gharaib ...

The Telegraph: "War is a minefield for any democratic government"

This week's Economist cover screams, "Resign, Rumsfeld". With the tide of condemnation over American mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and the charge that it will be a "permanent stain on America for years to come" (sic), the events at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad seem a story judged.

The admonition of the Economist leader that "the pictures of abuse, especially the one… of the hooded man wired as if for electrocution, stand an awful chance of becoming iconic images that could haunt America for years…" shows how news organisations are doing their damnedest to make sure just that happens. The iconic photo takes up the entire cover of the Economist.

From "The Pot Calling the Kettle Black" files, a New Entry!

Poor little Tommy Daschle.

Mainstream US politics have become "too mean". From the Aberdeen (SD) News comes: Senate minority leader sees 'startling meanness' in politics


The money quote is this one:

"There are things that matter more than political parties," Daschle said. "There are lines we should not cross regardless of the advantage we think it may give our party at times."

He continued: "Demonizing those with whom we disagree politically does not serve the interests of democracy. It does not resolve differences."

Granted, senator, but where's does recognition of your own behavior fall into this statement?

Repeatedly filibustering senate sessions, participating in smear campaigns on federal judicial nominees, and perpetuating the destructive lie that George Bush "stole" the presidency does not constitute "dirty politics", but legitimately defeating a democrat senator (Max Clelland) who just happens to be a triple-amputee is. Then again, I don't think Daschle gets it, and I hope South Dakotans go for the double and defeat Daschle in his next re-election campaign.

And by the way, senator: citing MoveOn.org as a left-wing example of mean politics won't gain you any favor with me. That one's so obvious it doesn't count as insight. Fish in a barrell, I say.

Jury's Requests Don't Bode Well for Jayson Williams

Williams Jury Hears Testimony Readback

As the jury in Jayson Williams' manslaughter trial continues its' second day of deliberations, his attorneys are likely trying to convince the New Jersey Net to accept a plea bargain ... that is, if the prosecutors are even offering one. This case is, and I use this term precisely, a "Slam Dunk". Williams' documented arrogance likely precludes recognizing just how bad the situation is for him, and how likely he is to end up in prison at the conclusion of this trial. I don't envy his attorneys in their efforts to get Williams to accept the inevitable.

The jury has thus far requested the transcipts of two witnesses, each of whom testified as to whether or not Williams tried to get them to lie to police and cover up the shooting death of Costas "Gus" Christofi. This jury knows exactly what it is looking for, and their request would seem to indicate a belief that Williams likely encouraged witnesses to lie about exactly where Christofi was shot, and whether or Christofi had in fact committed suicide:

"Williams, a former New Jersey Nets player, was playing with one of his shotguns in his bedroom when the weapon fired ... Williams, 36, faces eight charges, the most serious of which is aggravated manslaughter. To convict Williams on that charge, the jury must unanimously find that he recklessly caused Christofi's death "under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life."

He is also charged with trying to make the shooting look like a suicide by wiping down the shotgun and putting Christofi's hands on the gun. Prosecutors said he also instructed his guests to lie to authorities."

I wrote about Williams' rage in the archives of this blog ("I've had it with the NBA"), and it's something he lets loose with on those who are either weaker than or beholden to him. Christofi was Williams' chauffer and sometime fellow partier.

His crime on the night he died? Rolling his eyes at one of Williams' jokes.

I hope he gets convicted, and the judge maxes his sentence.

Atrocities Against Muslim Women & Girls Pooh-Pooh'ed by Left-Leaning-Lunatics ... er, Peaceniks

Pamela Boone has the LLL's sussed out in The Age: The enemy is not America. In spite of numerous instances where women and girls have been villified, dehumanized, and terrorized by misogynist Islamist cultures, many Feminists, and The Left in general, see America and its' military as the oppressors. This fundamental disconnect is something that fascinates me(that is, until I quickly find myself disgusted), in the same way that I might find fascinating the screaming, babbling, obviously unmedicated guy who paces in front of Water Tower Place here in Chicago. Why would one choose to be so blind to the obvious, so patently miserable, when the answer is right in front of you?

"No, the US didn't go into Iraq, or Afghanistan, to liberate women. Indeed, by the standards of the region Iraqi women were not badly oppressed - notwithstanding the hundreds who were executed by Saddam's son, Uday, for "dishonouring" their country (which meant speaking out about corruption in government). Nothing was done by Western governments to help the women of Afghanistan until Osama bin Laden became a threat. While South Africa was subjected to years of sanctions over the oppression of blacks, no sanctions are applied to countries because they condone or promote the oppression of women.

Yet if there is ever going to be a peaceful world there are few things more important than lifting the status of women. The hatreds of bin Laden and his kind will not be assuaged; but in general, fundamentalism wanes as prosperity increases. . And as a United Nations report notes, a large part of the reason so many countries in the Middle East are overpopulated, economic basket cases is the repression of women ... . (i)f there's a war on, we should be clear about who is the real enemy of civilisation. Despite the reservations any liberal would feel for some policies of the present Administration (and the doubts about its competence), the enemy is not America.

Indeed.

From the "Pot Calling the Kettle Black" files ...

Bill & Hillary Clinton's rabid hound, DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe is screaming "No Fair!"

McAuliffe Defends Kerry After Cheney Rap


"Call off the republican attack dogs," McAuliffe howled, castigating the Vice President Cheney for a speech he has yet to make.

"It's time for Dick Cheney to call off the Republican attack dogs. The American people have better things to do with their time than listen to more misleading attacks from a man who has been misleading them from the day he took office," McAuliffe said.

McAuliffe seems to forget that he and his lone patrons (Bill & Hillary) in the DNC were the architects & fomentors of the "politics of personal destruction", and that turnabout is fairplay. Rest assured, the Bush-Cheney administration was well-prepared for McAuliffe's hypocritical pronouncement:

A spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, Steve Schmidt, responded that McAuliffe has "a staggering lack of credibility" on the issue.

"During the height of the Cold War John Kerry advocated canceling the critical weapons systems that helped win the Cold War and are still being used to win the war on terror," Schmidt said. "After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Vice President Cheney helped transform the military from the Cold War era to the 21st century military that serves America today."

John Kerry Should Have an Honorary PhD in Double Talk

John Forbes Kerry continues to engage in mind-numbing double talk, and frankly my brain is fried from trying to make sense of the reasoning behind statements made to "Good Morning America this AM. As is clear from this GMA Transcript of Kerry, the democratic candidate for President is unable to adequately explain why, after years of claiming that he had thrown his medals over the White House fence in protest over the Viet Nam war, he must now insist otherwise. Why this is so is clear from Kerry's own justification of his action of that day 30+ years ago.

At first, Kerry claimed that he had thrown his own medals away in protest; when confronted by organized labor (upon his entry into the Massachusettes senatorial race) about this disrespect, Kerry justified his actions by claiming that he had sent someone else's medals over the White House fence. Now that the story has resurfaced, and the public is reexamining his actions on that day in 1971, Kerry is trying, desperately, to have it both ways. Witness the latest attempt to spin this telling story:

GIBSON: 1984, senator, to the present. you have said a number of times, as brian pointed out as recently as friday with the ""los angeles times,"" have you said a number of times that you did not throw away the vietnam medals themselves. but now this interview from 1971 shows up the in which you say that was the medals themselves that were thrown away.

KERRY: no, i don't.

GIBSON: can you explain?

KERRY: absolutely. that's absolutely incorrect. charlie, i stood up in front of the nation. there were dozens of cameras there, television cameras, there were -- i don't know. 20, 30 still photographers. thousands of people and i stood up in front of the country, reached into my shirt, visibly for the nation to see, and took the ribbons off my chest, said a few words and threw them over the fence. the file footage, the reporter there from the ""boston globe,"" everybody got it correctly. and i never asserted otherwise. what i said was and back then, you know, ribbons, medals were absolutely interchangeable . senator simmington asking me questions in the committee hearing, look ad at the ribbons and said what are those medals? the u.s. navy pam let calls the medals, we referred to them it is a symbols, representing medals, ribbons, countless veterans through the ribbon -- threw the ribbons back. everybody did. veterans threw back dog tags. they threw back photographs, they th rew back their 14's. there are photographs of a pile of all of those things collected on the steps of the capitol. so the fact is that i have -- i have been accurate precisely about what took place. and i am the one who later made clear exactly what happened. i mean, this is a controversy that the republicans are pushing , the republicans have spent $60 million in the last few weeks trying to attack me. and this comes from a president and a republican party that can't even answer whether or not he showed up for duty in the national guard. i'm not going to stand for it.

GIBSON: senator, i was there 33 years ago and i saw you throw medals over the fence and we didn't find out until later -

KERRY: no, you didn't see me throw th. charlie, charlie, you are wrong. that's not what happened. i threw my ribbons across. all you have to do -

GIBSON: someone else's medals, correct in?

KERRY: after -- excuse me. excuse me, charlie. after the ceremony was over, i had a bronze star and a purple heart given to me, one purple heart by a veteran in the v.a. in new york and the bronze star by an older veteran of world war ii in massachusetts. i threw them over because they asked me to. i never --

GIBSON: let me come back to the thing just said which is the military --

KERRY: this is a phony -- charlie, this is a phony controversy.

GIBSON:the military makes no distinction between ribbons and medals but you are the one who made the distinction. in 1984 --

KERRY: no . we made no distinction back then, charlie. we made no distinction.

Kerry knows there is no distinction between ribbons and medals. And yet he chose, very precisely, I might add, to keep his own medals, as they might prove useful later in a political campaign. Countrary to his repeated assertions, he did make a distinction: one bourne of a curious combination of disdain for combat and those who engage in it, intermingled with a craven desire for grasping the political opportunities said medals could bring about. As is his wont, he is attempting, quite transparently, to have it both ways.

Note also that as he is trying to explain his own actions, he predictably brings up the subject of Bush's Air National Guard service (unlike Kerry, Bush has made all military records pertinent to his service available to the press: Kerry has yet to meet the standard of full disclosure). He blew this interview with Charlie Gibson, and his handlers have to know it. They must be hoping that the "anyone but Bush" sentiment is so strong that no amount of truth applied to Kerry's public persona could penetrate it. With the diehard LLL's this is so: but in key swing states like Ohio, where God, Family and Country form a triumverate that trumps liberalism, people see the distinction. Kerry's insisting otherwise is wishful thinking.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but could we in fact be witnessing the "YEEEEAAAAAGGGGHHHH!" moment of John Forbes Kerry?

Bringing a Marine Home

From BIG, a poster at Little Green Footballs (see post #220) comes this story of a US Marine named LtCol Strobl, who accompanied the body of Marine PFC Chance Phelps home to Wyoming. It's an incredibly moving story and one that is especially fitting as we are mourning Pat Tillman and the other soldiers who have died in order that we might never see another September 11th.

Taking Chance

Be forewarned: read this when you have either a strong heart or a box of tissues nearby ...

"Chance Phelps was wearing his Saint Christopher medal when he was killed on Good Friday. Eight days later, I handed the medallion to his mother. I didn't know Chance before he died. Today, I miss him."

Peggy Noonan on Pat Tillman

Privileged to Serve

Privileged to Serve: In this war, not only the sons of the poor are enlisting.

Friday, July 12, 2002 12:01 a.m.

Maybe he was thinking Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Maybe it was visceral, not so much thought as felt, and acted upon. We don't know because he won't say, at least not in public. Which is itself unusual. Silence is the refuge of celebrities caught in scandal, not the usual response of those caught red-handed doing good.

All we know is that 25-year-old Pat Tillman, a rising pro football player (224 tackles in 2000 as a defensive back for the Arizona Cardinals, a team record) came back from his honeymoon seven weeks ago and told his coaches he would turn down a three-year, $3.6 million contract and instead join the U.S. Army. For a pay cut of roughly $3.54 million dollars over three years.

On Monday morning, Pat Tillman "came in like everyone else, on a bus from a processing station," according to a public information officer at Fort Benning, Ga., and received the outward signs of the leveling anonymity of the armed forces: a bad haircut, a good uniform and physical testing to see if he is up to the rigors of being a soldier. Soon he begins basic training. And whatever else happened this week--Wall Street news, speeches on the economy--nothing seems bigger, more important and more suggestive of change than what Pat Tillman did.

Those who know him say it's typical Tillman, a surprise decision based on his vision of what would be a good thing to do. When he was in college he sometimes climbed to the top of a stadium light tower to think and meditate. After his great 2000 season he was offered a $9 million, five-year contract with the St. Louis Rams and said thanks but no, he was happy with the Cardinals.

But it was clear to those who knew Mr. Tillman that after September 11 something changed. The attack on America had prompted a rethinking. Len Pasquarelli of ESPN reported last May that the "free-spirited but consummately disciplined" starting strong safety told friends and relatives that, in Mr. Pasquarelli's words, "his conscience would not allow him to tackle opposition fullbacks where there is still a bigger enemy that needs to be stopped in its tracks." Mr. Tillman's agent and friend Frank Bauer: "This is something he feels he has to do. For him, it's a mindset, a duty."

"I'm sorry, but he is not taking inquiries," said the spokeswoman at Fort Benning. She laughed when I pressed to speak to someone who might have seen Mr. Tillman or talked to him. Men entering basic training don't break for interviews, she said. Besides, "he has asked not to have any coverage. We've been respecting his wishes. And kinda hoping he'd change his mind." Mr. Tillman would, of course, be a mighty recruiting device. The Army might have enjoyed inviting television cameras to record his haircut, as they did with Elvis. But Mr. Tillman, the Fort Benning spokesman says, "wants to be anonymous like everyone else."

Right now he has 13 weeks of basic training ahead of him, then three weeks of Airborne School, and then, if he makes it, Ranger School, where only about a third of the candidates are accepted. "It's a long row," said the Fort Benning spokesman, who seemed to suggest it would be all right to call again around Christmas. Until then he'll be working hard trying to become what he wants to become.

Which I guess says it all.

Except for this. We are making a lot of Tillmans in America, and one wonders if this has been sufficiently noted. The other day friends, a conservative intellectual and his activist wife, sent a picture of their son Gabe, a proud and newly minted Marine. And there is Abe, son of a former high aide to Al Gore, who is a lieutenant junior grade in the Navy, flying SH-60 Seahawk helicopters. A network journalist and his wife, also friends, speak with anguished pride of their son, in harm's way as a full corporal in the Marines. The son of a noted historian has joined up; the son of a conservative columnist has just finished his hitch in the Marines; and the son of a bureau chief of a famous magazine was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army last month, on the day he graduated from Princeton.

As the Vietnam-era song said, "Something's happening here." And what it is may be exactly clear. Some very talented young men, and women, are joining the armed forces in order to help their country because, apparently, they love it. After what our society and culture have been through and become the past 30 years or so, you wouldn't be sure that we would still be making their kind, but we are. As for their spirit, Abe's mother reports, "Last New Year's, Abe and his roommate [another young officer] were home and the topic came up about how little they are paid [compared with] the kids who graduated from college at the same time they did and went into business.

"Without missing a beat the two of them said, 'Yeah--but we get to get shot at!' and raised their beer bottles. No resentment. No anger. Just pure . . . testosterone-laden bravado."

The Abes and Gabes join a long old line of elders dressed in green, blue, gray, white, gold and black. Pat Tillman joins a similar line, of stars who decided they had work to do, and must leave their careers to do it. They include, among others, the actors Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable and Tyrone Power in World War II; sports stars Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio in the same war; and quarterback Roger Staubach in Vietnam. It is good to see their style return, and be considered noble again.

And good to see what appears to be part of, or the beginning of, a change in armed forces volunteering. In the Vietnam era of my youth it was poor and working-class boys whom I saw drafted or eagerly volunteering. Now more and more I see the sons and daughters of the privileged joining up.

That is a bigger and better story than usually makes the front page. Markets rise and fall, politicians come and go, but that we still make Tillmans is headline news.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal. Her most recent book, "When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan," is published by Viking Penguin. You can buy it from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays.
Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Pat Tillman, an American Hero, is Dead.

Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals football player (and the subject of several posts here, as Pat has been one of my heroes for some time) who gave up a multimillion dollar salary to enlist in the Army and defend our country, has been killed in a firefight in Afghanistan.
(ABC NEWS) In the Line of Duty: U.S. Army Ranger and Ex-NFL Player Pat Tillman Killed in Afghanistan

A former member of the Arizona Cardinals, Tillman, along with his brother Kevin, enrolled with the U.S. Army Rangers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

According to a Pentagon source, Tillman was killed in action when his Rangers patrol was attacked by small arms fire and mortars during a coordinated ambush in eastern Afghanistan.

One enemy combatant was killed, and Tillman was the only U.S. soldier killed during the ambush, said Pentagon sources. His brother, Kevin, is in the same platoon.

My heart is too heavy from sadness and bewilderment to write any more about this right now.

God Bless Pat Tillman, and the other soldiers who have lost their lives protecting us from the scourge of terror. And may God protect the other soldiers who fight on in his stead.

For those who take their freedom for granted, a must read ...

Roger L. Simon points the way to a poignant and powerful essay by Mohammed, one of the two brothers (Omar being the other) who write the blog Iraq The Model. In today's piece, titled "A Routine Day in Iraq", Mohammed tells of his wishes for an Iraq free of the fears and violence of Saddam's regime, and how, on his birthday, he fears that his liberators may have more courage to stay the course than he does:

"The hardest thing is that I have to fight more, and I will, but God, please give me the strength. Why should I be strong while watching others run away; Spain, Honduras, Thailand, human organizations, the UN and all the others who want (and it’s their right I must say) to avoid the dangers. But why did they disappoint us? Why abandon us in this moment when we really need them? Will they come back when conditions improve? Most likely, but who will need them then!!? We don’t need doctors and engineers. We have enough of those and large numbers of Iraqi doctor, teachers and engineers are working abroad. We do export minds, and some of those have returned and are doing their job and some are on their way back. We need political, financial and military support, and once we get rid of the terrorists, WE will show you what we can do, and we will not forget those who helped us, they will remain as friends and allies, that’s from a political point of view. As for me, they will remain as my real family, my brothers and sisters.

One of our friend (sic) was angry when he saw the former slaves burn the flag of their liberators (and he has all the right to feel so), but I saw my country being destroyed for 35 years and I’m not desperate because I have faith that it will be rebuild one day. Still, why am I supposed to be the 'superman' who is never allowed to feel angry, sad or frustrated?"

I'll be thinking of Mohammed and Omar as I cast my vote for President Bush this November. We cannot turn our backs on them.

From the "Doesn't Government Have Better Things To Do?" file ...

State, County May Require Condoms in Adult Films

Don't get me wrong; preventing the spread of AIDS is an important issue. But if a group of adults is determined to engage in unsafe behavior, esp. when such behaviors can be rendered (relatively) harmless with minimal effort on their part, is it not a waste of government's finite resources to attempt to change their mind? Such is the problem in La-La Land:

After almost a year of urging the adult-film industry to require actors to wear condoms during sex scenes, state and county officials say the recent HIV infection of two porn stars has given them the leverage they need to force change. State and Los Angeles County health officials said Monday they believed existing regulations gave them the authority to require adult-film actors to use condoms, and the state Division of Occupational Health and Safety plans to begin inspections this week, marking the first time Cal/OSHA has investigated the adult-film industry ... some industry officials say pornographic movie production would move out of state if condom use were required.

Although a few California adult-film producers have voluntarily switched to condom-only productions, the majority of producers and distributors have balked at doing so. It is conventional wisdom within the multibillion-dollar industry, which employs more than 6,000 people in California (including about 1,200 performers), that using a condom doesn't pay.

"It's market forces," said Mark Kulkis, president of Kick Ass Pictures, a production company based in downtown Los Angeles that specializes in fetish films. "The bottom line is, customers don't like [to see] condoms."

I'm all about the market forces - but if you are stupid enough to go along with this caveat, all I can say is you'd better have iron-clad private insurance, 'cause the State of California has no business paying for your healthcare when you come down with AIDS. That's what the legislature ought to be doing - protecting the state's finances from people who are determined to give the term "Career Suicide" a literal interpretation, not trying to legislate common sense in an industry filled with, pardon the expression, headcases.

Melanie Phillips: The Hard Lessons of Terror

A regular op-ed columnist for London's Daily Mail, Melanie Phillips is one of the most rational journalist in Europe. On the heels of Israel's pre-emptive strikes on the '"spiritual" and "political" leadership palestinian terror group Hamas, Phillips argues that Europe is not ready, not is it willing, to face the truth about Islamist terror, and may pay the price for its' policy of appeasement:

The danger lies in not recognising that terrorism is encouraged by weakness, not strength. Al Qaeda attacked America because it perceived the west was decadent and so assumed it was not prepared to fight. It made a big mistake over America, but it got Europe (with the exception of Tony Blair over Afghanistan and Iraq) dead right.

The history of modern terrorism is a history of appeasement. From the first Palestinian plane hijacking in 1968, the response of the west was to assume there were legitimate grievances that had to be addressed. From that point, terrorists had every incentive to continue.

Read it all, and you will understand why pulling our troops from Iraq is not an option, and why negotiations with terrorists (such as is going on in Fallujah with the Iranian puppet Al-Sadr) will only lead to further bloodshed.

Democratic Party Apologizes for Local Club's Call for Assasination of Rumsfeld

St. Petersburg Democratic club ad says 'pull trigger' on Rumsfeld

USA TODAY online continues the story of the St. Pete (FLA) Democratic Club's Local News advert calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's assasination. The advert, in the free community newspaper Gabber contains the following 'call to action', if you will:

And then there's Rumsfeld who said of Iraq 'We have our good days and our bad days.' We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say 'This is one of our bad days,' and pull the trigger," the ad read under a banner "St. Petersburg Democratic Club." ... "Do you want to salvage our country? Be a savior of our country? Then vote for John Kerry and get rid of the whole Bush Bunch!" The ad then directs financial donations to Kerry's campaign headquarters in Washington.

To its' credit, the Kerry campaign responded immediately to the local affiliate's faux pas:

Mark Kornblau, a Kerry campaign spokesman, said the club was not working for their campaign "in any official capacity" and called for an apology ... "It is outrageous and does not in any way reflect the position of our campaign. We hope that those responsible will retract the statement, apologize for it and move on to more productive pursuits," Kornblau said.

Ahh, the DNC caveat ... "move on". I'll not nitpick that last bit too much; I hate the phrasing, but support the idea that such ads distract from the campaign at-hand. I would, however, offer them the following piece of advice: The irrational fury present in the St. Pete club's advert represents a not entirely uncommon sentiment that has taken a solid hold within the ranks. DNC-funded websites like MoveOn.org and Democratic Underground underpin and spread messages of impotent rage and 'victory at any cost'. The DNC has continued to fuel the wholly-unrelated-to-fact (conspiracy) theory that "Bush stole the election" and the unquenchable lust for Bush's figurative head on a platter (with Dick Chaney's and Donald Rumsfeld's as accompaniments), and they shouldn't be shocked when the local parties feel unencumbered by decorum and place adverts like this.

Just my two cents, no need to hit the tip jar.

The "Anyone But Bush" Psychosis Reaches Critical Mass

Courtesy of (who else) The New York Times and Howard Dean:
For Ralph Nader, but Not for President

When Howard Dean can write in something beyond simple sentences ("a sentence must have 1 noun & one verb"), please wake me up. In an otherwise unremarkable plea to the DNC electorate, Dean argues that we can't let Ralph Nader "steal" votes from the democratic candidate. A Vote for Kerry + a Vote for Bush = Trashing "of many of (Nader's) accomplishments." The conclusion does not equate its' component parts, but you gotta give Howard props for chutzpah:

"Our agenda is rooted in hope and real American values; opportunity, integrity, honesty. This is the way to defeat George Bush."

Even that inherently (andhilariouslyy) disingenuous statement is not the telling moment of the piece. Rather, it's the number of times each presidential candidate is mentioned, particularly that of the DNC's candidate ...

Bush: 7 times ...

Nader: 9 times ...

Kerry: Once.

A Fitting Tribute to Journalist Michael Kelly

Robert Vare, Senior Editor @ The Atlantic Monthly has penned a fitting tribute to the late (and truly great) journalist Michael Kelly, who died nearly one year ago in Iraq, where he was embedded with US troops during the second war on the Baathist regime. The essay will be published as the forward to Kelly's final book of writings Michael Kelly: True to his Words .

Kelly's attention to detail, and his ablility to focus on the human detail within the the chaos of war (of both the literal and political variety), was what made reading his work so powerful and affecting. In Vare's essay I was shocked to learn the Kelly was one of the few reporter's who covered the conflict from the inside; Kelly, unlike the more well-known CNN anchor Bernard Shaw and special correspondent (and egomaniacal asshat) Peter Arnett, was in Iraq because it was where the real human story was to be found, not because it represented his chance to make journalism's A-List. From Vare:

"Out of these Gulf War dispatches, revised and expanded, would come a much heralded gem of a book: Martyrs' Day: Chronicle of a Small War (1993). All this was a feat made even more impressive by the fact that Mike had never before written anything remotely like these dispatches, with their full sensory reports of the sights and sounds and smells of war."

"I don't know what it was, but my reporting faculties had never been engaged like that," Mike told me years later. "I was just seeing everything—even the tiniest thing—large and in Technicolor. I think it was partly the fear, partly the sheer excitement of being there and bearing witness, and partly my growing anger at what Saddam Hussein had done."

Kelly's final anthology of dispatches will be available this spring from Amazon :
Things Worth Fighting for: Collected Writings
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Mark Bowden "America must answer last week's barbarity in Fallujah"

The Lesson of Mogadishu (Wall Street Journal - Opinion Journal)

Mark Bowden, best known as the author of the book "Black Hawk Down" has written yet another compelling op-ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal's Opinon Journal. Besides the obvious comparisons to Mogadishu, Somalia, last week's attack on four civilian contractors in the Baathist stronghold of Fallujah, Iraq presents an opportunity to 'get it right':

"Which means recognizing that the gory carnival on the streets of Fallujah is not evidence of the mission's futility, nor is it something to chalk up to foreign barbarity. It was deliberate and it must be answered deliberately. The lynching of African-Americans would have ended decades earlier if authorities had rounded up and punished those participating in crimes like the one in Marion. Somalia would be a vastly different place today if the U.S. and U.N. had not backed away in horror from the shocking display in Mogadishu."

Read it all - Bowden's essay's are always a highlight of The Atlantic Monthly, where he serves as the magazine's National Editor. His biography can be found here.

Fallujah must die.

4 From U.S. Killed in Ambush in Iraq; Mob Drags Bodies

A part of me can't believe I'm writing this. After all, I do recognize that there are people in Fallujah who were horrified at the attack on four American civilian contractors. According to reports, many residents of Fallujah hid in their homes while the merry-makers desecrated the bodies of four people whose job it was to plan & provide security for army convoys bringing food to this former-Baathist stronghold. That only tells me so much, and it's not enough to exonerate them.

Many of you reading this may be aghast at that last sentence. Surely their fearfulness kept them inside, and represents an implicit disapproval and horror at the barbarism of their fellow townspeople, most of whom were young men, teenagers and boys. This assertion, while true, only serves to further cement my judgment. Fallujah must die.

The Islamic world is one of cowardice, hiding behind the guise of machismo and wounded pride. To hide in one's home, to let the horror continue unabated while one is safely tucked away, signifies the moral bankruptcy not only of the citizenry, but also of Islam and it's adherents'. Let it all happen, it will all blow over.

Don't tell them of your horror.

Don't tell them that there is no place for barbarians in the modern world.

Don't tell them that their maniacal behavior will bring violence upon their home and family.

Don't tell them they are fighting a losing cause, and are choosing nihilism over survival.

Don't tell them, when their children join in the barbarism, that they (the children) are wrong and that they will pay a moral price for their behaviour.

After all, does not the Koran say that the horrors of yesterday are glorious in the eyes of Allah? And we wonder why people like Saddam thrive within the social construct that is Islam, and the Middle East in particular?

If these are the choices they make, and the language they speak, then we must reply to them in the manner they are best-suited to understand. Get the Americans and other aid workers out of danger. Warn the residents of Fallujah that they have a few hours to leave: enough time to evacuate themselves but not enough to pack all of their things (whether weapons or clothes or what have you) and then drop a MOAB or similar tactical device on Fallujah. The bomb should be enough to render dust all traces of a town having once existed on that site, but will not be so destructive as to irradiate the area. At that time they may return to sort out whatever may be left over from the strike. The sight of the former Baathist town of plenty reduced to sand and ash will communicate our resolve much more effectively than any diplomatic overture.

If they will not wipe the slate clean, then we will.