Whistlin' Dixie

Does this make you want to vomit? I know I did. (Want to hurl, that is.)

I didn't really care about the Dixie Chicks episode in 2003. Fine, they're against the war. Said it on a stage. No sweat. That's democracy.

I don't know much about the Chicks, except that they went to The Greenhill School (one of my rival schools when I debated) and formed in Dallas' Deep Ellum music scene during the period I was pretty involved with it. I don't know their music and I'm not interested in country music on the whole. But I find the vague "poor Chicks overcome Big Brother" hero-worship from abroad a bit much and more importantly, I find the Chicks' own spin of the debacle to be fairly pathetic.

"The reaction was as if Natalie had said 'Death to the President' or something," says violinist and vocalist Maguire.

"It was the bullying and the scare factor," shudders banjo and guitar player Robison. "It was like the McCarthy days, and it was almost like the country was unrecognisable."

Shuddering, indeed.

McCarthy days? For people who seem so concerned about free expression in a democracy, they seem wildly unfamiliar with the notion of responsibility which accompanies that freedom. Sure, you can say any damn thing you want, no matter how irresponsible. But when you say something, especially publicly, you open yourself up to criticism or negative sanction. That sanction represents society's collective right to exercise *its* freedom of expression. That's the deal. That's democracy. No one ever promised any of us freedom of speech without consequences. Our Constitution merely makes the promise that the government will not incarcerate or punish us for expressing our views. If you fel strongly about a view that is unpopular, by all means express it. But don't cry to the British press when you voice this opinion and it meets with a predictable response. Show some sack.

Last I checked, the Dixie Chicks were free to make another album and untold millions. They made their opinion about the war known, which is fine, and in response a good deal of the country made its opinion of the Chicks' comments known. Touche. I saw nothing in the way of government intervention or censorship that might recall the McCarthy era. I also saw no major deviations in the recognizability of this nation's political discourse. So either Robison has her head somewhere physically uncomfortable when it comes to the history of McCarthyism or she's playing martyr. I'll let you make the call.

"The entire country may disagree with me, but I don't understand the necessity for patriotism," Maines resumes, through gritted teeth. "Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country… I don't see why people care about patriotism."

Now the patriotism comment is something altogether different and troubling, gritted teeth or no. Again, the notion of responsibility completely eludes these intellectual heavyweights. Do you have to love this country to live here? Obviously not. Do you have to support everything the government does? Clearly not. Can you speak out against certain policies as Maines did in 2003? Sure.

But what is patriotism? Patriotism is defined as love and devotion to one's country. A willingness to sacrifice for one's country. Please note that the definitions speak of country and not government. An important distinction, I would say.

I think any American with a sense of history should love and respect and be willing to sacrifice for a nation which has given so much to each one of us. After all, how many heroes died at Bunker Hill, Antietam and Normandy? How many Americans have foregone significant portions of their salaries to provide clean drinking water, social security, welfare, education and so many other things which have allowed us to reach for our dreams? Poor little Natalie sits in her counting room on stacks of bills to the ceiling, in part, because of the sacrifices of so many nameless, faceless people who made contributions to her life. That she sits on these bills and shows not the slightest bit of gratitude for the sacrifice of the nameless, faceless may be both a commentary on the superficiality of this band and the Entitlement Generation's repugnant worldview.

But then again, a key aspect of the definition of patriotism is the willingness to sacrifice for love of country. Patrick Henry said "Give me liberty or give me death." He was willing to risk it all for his devotion not to a government, but a nation. Natalie Maines' 2003 comments could well have been viewed as patriotic, but her clear resentment of criticism showed she was quite unwilling to sacrifice for love of country. She was not a patriot. Her 2006 comments further support this. It was not even her objective to speak out for love of country. Maines was a disingenuous patriot in 2003 and displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of patriotism in 2006.

Finally, how about this baffling juxtaposition?

"A lot of artists cashed in on being against what we said or what we stood for because that was promoting their career, which was a horrible thing to do," says Robison.

followed by

Early concerns about the premature demise of the Chicks' career subsided when the furiously unapologetic single Not Ready to Make Nice became the most downloaded track on iTunes, despite a lack of radio airplay. Then the album went to number one on the Billboard 200 after selling half a million copies in the week after its release in America last month. It looks set to be their first UK top 10 album this Sunday.

So it was wrong of other artists to "cash in" on the Chicks' 2003 comments, but it is perfectly OK for the band to merchandise itself on the basis of a furiously unapologetic single. Hey, more power to you, Chicks. But lose the hypocrisy.

Bottom line, people with marketplace power have a voice. It just sucks that these voices tend to be backed by precious little gray matter.

UPDATE: See point about marketplace power. Five minutes after I post, here's what GoogleAds gives us:

Dixie Chicks TicketsBuy Dixie Chicks Concert Tickets. Where Fans Buy & Sell Tickets.™www.StubHub.com
Dixie Chicks ConcertsVisit ABCNews.com for the Latest on the Dixie Chicks & the New AlbumABCNews.com
Dixie Chicks RingtonesDownload Dixie Chicks ringtones for any

Poor Natalie. She's really sacrificed. It's McCarthyism. She's been blackballed.

UPDATE II: There's always more than one way to skin a cat. Coalition of the Swilling gives the Dixie Chicks less credit than I do.

Wasting my Time?

You decide.

UPDATE: Garbage like this can sit around and collect 178 comments, yet I'm fortunate to get 30 visits a day. What gives?

Troubling News about the News

I don't know that you can call it "Civil War," as some have, but it isn't a good thing that a major stock-holder in The Tribune Company, owner of the Los Angeles Times, start selling off chunks of the media giant:

In a letter addressed to the Tribune board of directors, the Chandler Trusts said that the company had not achieved its aims of boosting profits by owning complementary media outlets in major U.S. markets. They expressed fears the future would be no different unless it changes course.

"This strategy has failed," said the Chandler Trusts, which represents the Chandler family.
The Chandlers said the company should consider a tax-free spinoff as the most effective way to accomplish the split. It said Tribune's board has been considering such a move for "many months" but has taken no action.

Three Tribune board members representing the Chandler Trusts signed the letter. The Chandler family took a stake in Tribune as part of its agreement to sell the Times-Mirror Co., and its flagship Los Angeles Times newspaper, to Tribune for $8.3 billion in 2000.

Tribune had sought to build a stable of major newspapers -- including the Times, Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun -- to work in tandem with its television and Internet holdings. It also owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team.

Part of the strategy, the letter said, anticipated changes in U.S. media regulations that would allow media companies to own multiple radio and TV stations, as well as print publications, in the same market. But an effort to relax those regulations has languished in a legal battle.
In the interim, Tribune has seen its stock fall nearly 38 percent during the past two years as many of its papers lost readers to the Internet, while newsprint costs rose and advertising dollars retreated.

However, publisher Jeff Johnson says the Times is not for sale:

Billionaire investor Ron Burkle, former Olympics organizer and Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth and philanthropist Eli Broad have indicated in recent interviews or in comments to others that they would like to buy The Times or see it in local hands.

"The L.A. Times is a world-class brand," Ueberroth, a financier and former travel entrepreneur, said in an interview this week. "We're always attracted to quality brands."

Though analysts estimate that The Times could sell for about $1 billion, Publisher Jeff Johnson said the paper was not for sale. With about $1 billion in annual sales, the paper accounts for about 18% of Tribune's revenue and about 17% of operating profit.

One deterrent would be the huge tax burden Tribune would incur in an outright sale.Yet investors and analysts said Tuesday that a rift between the paper's owner, Tribune Co., and its second-largest shareholder, the Chandler family of Los Angeles, had the potential to put The Times in play.

Hugh is a big proponent of blowing up the LA Times and starting over. His summary of this fight echoes that point of view:

This would be a great thing, as the rescue of any newspaper is a good thing, and the recovery of the Times' brand would not be that difficult after a round of tough cuts and the end of hard left agenda journalism.

Ron Burkle may be a FOB, but he's an extraordinary businessman who knows how to sell. Ditto Ueberroth and Broad, though the former Los Anegles Olympics chief is a GOPer, not a Dem like the other two. The three would not put up with the destruction of circulation in the service of politics.

I sometimes wonder if this view really understands the situation that newspapers find themselves in in our New Media environment. As one tasked with selling for one of only a handful of papers in the entire state of California that saw it's circulation increase in the last year, I'm obligated to point out to anyone wanting to make this argument that the situation is far more complex than simple editorial changes.

I don't doubt that the things that Hugh points to aren't contributors, but it's too simple an explanation. Back in March, Outsell had this to say about the just-completed sale of Knight Ridder properties to the McClatchy Co.: In Outsell’s opinion, the increasing uncertainties of market share and future revenue streams have caught up with news publishers. Those valuation questions will be further tested immediately. As the ink on the deal was barely dry, 12 of the KR papers – including flagships in Philadelphia (the Inquirer) and San Jose (the Mercury News) – learned that their buyer was putting them on the block. It was a rude interruption of their celebration. (Their surprise was shared by KR CEO Tony Ridder, who told the Mercury News that he was shocked that his hometown paper and 11 others would not remain in McClatchy’s fold.) The reason was clear: CEO Gary Pruitt had made good on his read-my-lips promise to his shareholders. As the KR auction moved forward, he told them that McClatchy would not waver from its relatively successful strategy of buying higher-margin properties in higher-growth markets. Philadelphia, San Jose, and others didn’t meet that standard. Not said but very much an issue: most of the 12 have unions, making cost savings more difficult and time-consuming to achieve. As Pruitt went on a whirlwind goodwill tour of media and analysts, he made the point that he wanted the deed done quickly. The 12 papers – currently producing 42 percent of KR’s revenues – were to be ready to be transferred to their eventual owners on July 1, when he takes ownership of KR. In Outsell’s opinion, Pruitt’s urgency makes sense. McClatchy is in the throes of all the same issues as its brethren companies. Those issues center on the disruptive effects of the Internet, as readers become online users and advertisers move to the seductive allures of measurable online reach.

If the shoe fits, wear it...and the LA Times' wears essentially the same size booties that prompted McClatchy to unload 12 of the higher-profile KR properties. It's not just a matter of not liking left-leaning editorial content.

Where's this guy been?

Where has George Bush been for the last year-and-a-half?

The George Bush that spoke to reporters yesterday morning in the Rose Garden was confident, poised and purposeful. Where has he been hiding?!

Others have comments on how it went:



Let Freedom Ring says: In what could only be termed as a strong, passionate, logical defense of his Iraq policy, President Bush explained in great detail why we:

• can’t leave Iraq until the sectarian violence is dramatically reduced;
  must still help Iraq’s emerging government with security operations;
• and must stay engaged in Iraq in terms of what it means to the overall GWOT.

President Bush also said that he looked forward to debating with Democrats that setting a timetable “is bad policy.” He said that the Iraqi people have to know that they have a reliable ally in their struggle against sectarian violence and foreign jihadists.

Here’s some of the noteworthy things the President said:

He thought he shouldn’t call Zarqawi’s death as a “tide turning” and that he’d rather think in terms of making steady progress in Iraq. That marks a change in tone, replacing his prior bold tone with a more cautious tone.

He said that setting a “zero violence” benchmark for success wasn’t realistic because “it gives the insurgents and foreign terrorists” something to point to as America and its allies not succeeding.

AP’s article has this quote, which I thought was significant:

“Iraqi and coalition forces are still on the offense,” Bush added. He cited raids of suspected terrorist targets. “We got new intelligence from those raids which will enable us to keep the pressure on the foreigners and the local Iraqis who are killing innocent lives,” he told a Rose Garden news conference. “We’ll seize this moment of opportunity to help the prime minister,” Bush added.

This statement’s significance relates back to Democrats calls for a timetable, which he dismissed as bad policy.

That last point was where I walked into the TV coverage, having turned on Today expecting to see Matt et al. and instead seeing a George Bush that I haven't seen for quite some time. Anyway, I thought that exchange was one of a couple of key statements.

From the transcript:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I'm pleased to be here. Mr. President, polls show that the public thinks Democrats can do a better job of running the country than Republicans. Are you concerned that Republicans will lose control of Congress in November? And do you think there's anything you could have done differently to put them in a better position, coming up in the midterms?

THE PRESIDENT: I remember 2004. At one point, people -- you would have stood up and said, you know, there's no way you can get reelected, if you had been listening to those polls. I can't remember, I was probably down double digits at some point. And they said, how can you possibly stand here and tell us you're going to get reelected. Listen, the elections are a long way off. What's going to matter is who has got the plan that will enable us to succeed in Iraq and keep the economy growing. And I look forward to the campaign. And I believe we're going to hold the House and the Senate, because our philosophy is one that is forward-looking and optimistic and has worked. We've got a record to run on.

There's an interesting debate in the Democrat Party about how quick to pull out of Iraq. Pulling out of Iraq before we accomplish the mission will make the world a more dangerous place. It's bad policy. I know it may sound good politically; it will endanger our country to pull out of Iraq before we accomplish the mission.

See, Iraq is a part of the global war on terror. It's not "the" global war on terror, it's a theater in the global war on terror. And if we fail in Iraq, it's going to embolden al Qaeda types. It will weaken the resolve of moderate nations to stand up to the Islamic fascists. It will cause people to lose their nerve and not stay strong.

And so I look forward to taking the debate -- that's not quite right -- kind of getting warmed up as a result of your question -- the timing is not right for me to get out there yet. But I think the Democrat economic policy of raising people's taxes isn't going to work either. I know they'll couch it in all kinds of language, but really what they're saying is we're going to raise your taxes.

So, you know, Sheryl, thanks for your question. I don't necessarily buy your premise. I feel confident we will hold the House and the Senate.

The response was confident, strong and insightful. It tells us exactly what he thinks and why he thinks it. Again, where has George W. Bush the Orator been hiding.

Later on in answering a question from CBS' Jim Axelrod, the President took a back-handed swipe at the press. After discussing the Iraqi PM, he said this: I was also pleased to meet with his cabinet. You might remember, it wasn't all that long ago that there were some doubts in people's minds as to whether or not this government had the capacity to put a unity government -- as a matter of fact, there was doubts after the first election as to whether or not a portion of the population would even participate in the elections. And last December a lot of folks voted, from all different aspects of society, and the government reflects that. And that was important for me to see firsthand, as well.

The enemy has an advantage in this war, because they can get on our TV screens every day. And, of course, it upsets me when I see the loss of innocent life, and it upsets me to know that our servicemen and women are losing their lives. I'm like most Americans, it is -- death affects my way of thinking. But I also understand the stakes of this war, see. I understand how important it is to defeat the enemy. Now, I recognize some in the country don't feel that same sense of urgency I do. But al Qaeda is real; their philosophy is a real philosophy; they have ambitions. Their stated goal is to drive us out of Iraq before a government can defend itself and govern itself and sustain itself, so they can have safe haven from which to launch further attacks. And my most important job is to protect the American people from harm. And I understand the stakes of this war. And I understand this battlefront in Iraq.

And I want to repeat something: Iraq is not the only part of this war. It's an essential part, but it's not the only part of the war on terror.

One extended meme-killer. An explanation of Iraq's context and the President's committment to the fight there.

I wish he'd given this presser last year.

What I meant

From yesterday:

On a personal note, I'm going to tapdance all over the heads of the DU types, even the fine upstanding gentlemen at the Place that shall remain nameless, the commentariot who so blindly insisted that Valerie Plame was 'outed' as punishment for Joe Wilson's brave speaking of truth to power.

Meh!

You all look like idiots for getting way-out in front of the facts and, frankly, you deserve it. You wanted desperately for this to be true to the point of trying to make it true through sheer force of will.

At least one of the players in this whole little drama seems to agree:

What was most notable in Mr. Luskin’s brief statement was this line: “We believe that the Special Counsel’s decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove’s conduct.”

Mr. Luskin does not gnash his teeth at Mr. Fitzgerald.

“It’s not winning the lottery,” he said of the Rove case. “It’s just avoiding something that would be a truly horrendous injustice for your client …. You feel lucky to be part of a process that works fairly and intelligently.”

Actually, it’s the media—not the prosecutor’s office—that he’s angry at, and especially the bloggers. Mr. Luskin was eager to portray the suffering of his client as a function of media attention and speculation, rather than real danger of a conviction.

Mr. Rove, Mr. Luskin said, had fallen victim to partisans and—more importantly—the bloggers who became their enablers.

“It seems to me that there are lots of constituencies who have treated this as the story too good not to be true,” he said. “And people have all had their own reasons—whether they’re political, whether they have to do with opportunities to put themselves forward personally, whether or not they are motivated by efforts to show up the mainstream media.”

Tom Maguire called it a victory lap.

The Washington Times says--essentially--what I was thinking, actually calling out the offending (offensive?) parties:

Unfortunately, at times, some in the media sounded more like cheerleaders for Mr. Wilson, who said in 2003 that "it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." In October, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert referred to Mr. Rove as "the administration's resident sleazemeister, who is up to his ears in this mess but has managed so far to escape indictment"; in November he declared that Mr. Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were "clowns" who had been "playing games with the identity of a CIA agent."

Keith Olbermann of MSNBC turned his TV show, "Countdown," into a veritable repository of misinformation: A Lexis-Nexis search shows that the subject of Karl Rove's demise was discussed 26 times on Mr. Olbermann's program. In an Oct. 28 appearance, Jim Vandehei of The Washington Post quoted "people close to Rove" who "are telling us that there's still a distinct possibility that he could be indicted, and that they probably will know soon." On the same broadcast, NBC News Correspondent Norah O'Donnell said that Mr. Rove "has come within a whisker of being indicted." But even though Mr. Rove had escaped indictment, Mrs. O'Donnell said it was still bad news, because he was still working at the White House: "In a way, it might have been even cleaner and more helpful to the president if Rove had gotten nipped with some minor level of indictment, so that you could just get rid of both of these people [Messrs. Rove and Libby] today." On the May 8 "Countdown" broadcast, MSNBC correspondent David Schuster said flatly, "I am convinced that Karl Rove will in fact be indicted."

In the end, however, Mr. Rove was not indicted. And Mr. Wilson was exposed in the bipartisan report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee two years ago, in which the panel demonstrated that Mr. Wilson misrepresented numerous aspects of his account of the trip he took to Niger in 2002. The fantasy Rove indictment should be a cautionary tale for the mainstream media. But we suspect that there will be no sober reassessment at the senior level of the mainstream media of the unprofessional performance of journalists and producers. Rather, we suspect, their instructions will be, "Reload, and fire again."

"...will in fact be indicted." No, fool...he will not. Will you have the nerve to tell us that you were driven over the edge by your dislike for the Administration and all it's members?

I doubt it and that's too bad. It would save alot of heartache in my estimation. As one of Tom's commenters, JJ, put it: The main event/day-of-reckoning for various media outlets is the Libby trial...

A scolding from Luskin or The Washington Times shouldn't rate a blimp [sic] on the radar compared to the severe storm that various sources of news/"truth" are due on PlameGate.

Lastly, Ralph Peters goes all out, calling out the media for it's recent behavior vis-a-vis the President.

Put up or Shut up

Us folks in the North County have an opportunity. Namely, we can put rhetoric into action and implement a solution or continue being part of the problem. American Ethanol looks to build an Ethanol refining facility just west of Santa Maria:

Citing a growing need in the energy industry, a Santa Maria-based company is proposing to bring corn by rail from the Midwest to be turned into ethanol in a 200,000-square-foot plant that would be built on vacant land two miles west of the city.

American Ethanol envisions a plant that would process 50 million gallons of the gasoline additive a year, with the possibility of expanding capacity to 100 million gallons.

If the project is approved, it would be the first ethanol plant in Santa Barbara County and one of only a handful statewide.

However, the proposal is just beginning a long process of review by Santa Barbara County, with the county Planning Commission scheduled to conceptually review it today and offer opinions on the early plans. The meeting starts at 9 a.m. at the Betteravia Government Center, 511 E. Lakeside Parkway in Santa Maria.

Put up or shut up folks! Either we can take a step and help ease the crimp in statewide refining capacity and thereby help reduce gasoline prices and take--albeit a small one--a step toward energy independence.

Inside the Iraqi Government

Senator Inhofe (R-OK) gives Hugh the scoop after returning from his 11th trip to Iraq.

HH: Let's talk a little bit about the new defense minister, Jassin, Senator Inhofe. How's he strike you? Is he middle aged? Is he experienced in military matters?

JI: Yeah, he's very experienced. He's a general. He is a career military guy, and he's tough as he can be. And he came out with all kinds of wild things. I probably shouldn't tell you this...

HH: Oh, go ahead.

JI: But...and this is so funny when it happened. I was talking to him through an interpretor, and I didn't know whether he could speak English. And I finally got to the point where I said look, our big problem is the media, the media back in the United States, because they're lying to the people of America. All of a sudden, in clear English, he said I hate CNN.

...

HH: I'm talking with Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, just returned again from his 11th visit to Iraq, just today, I imagine. Senator, I just want to pause on the defense minister of Iraq's reaction to CNN. I hate CNN. Did he tell you why he hates CNN?

JI: Oh, he said all they do is talk about negative things, things that are bad, and we have nothing but successes over here. And then he start enumerating the successes, which I can verify, because I'm there all the time. The number, out of 112 battalions, they have 62 of them. That's over half of them that are either level 2 or level 1. That means they can conduct their own combat. He made the statement, and this is one of the things that he says that CNN and some of the media keeps saying, they keep saying that America is leading them, and we're in the rear. And he said that's not true at all. We are leading, and America is offering support. In fact, of the last 500 special operations that took place, 75% of them were led by the Iraqis, not by the Americans. Only 25% were. Now if you go back, as I've done on almost a monthly basis, you can see how this changes. And a year ago, hardly any of them were led by the Iraqis. These guys...I was up in Fallujah during the last election, and they were so proud. They were going down there to vote, and they were targeted, because they were supposed to shoot any of the Iraqi security forces that voted. And they went down, they voted, and they came back, and they were real proud of it. And then, when I asked them the question, are you going to be able to take over the security of Iraq...it's kind of funny, because of the language problem, they said nein, nein. I thought that meant no, no, but that really means yes, yes.

One Sane Democrat

Marshall Wittman was telling folks last week to temper their enthusiasm about the all-but-ordained Democratic take-over of Congress scheduled for this November:

As a veteran of the '94 revolution, the Moose is recalibrating his view on whether the Democrats will replicate that political tsunami - and not on the basis of the California 50 special. What fuels the Moose's increasing skepticism is that the Democrats are offering no governing vision. And while Democrats believe that there is no comparison between Republican and Democratic corruption scandals, that distinction may not be as clear to the general electorate.

Moreover, despite the unpopularity of the war, Republicans will relentlessly portray Democrats as the party of defeat and retreat. And as was demonstrated in San Diego, the GOP has not lost its touch in exploiting hot button issues.

Curb you enthusiasm.

Yes, you really do need to stand for something.

Just when you think he can't be less savvy

He takes off for another super-double-secret flight to Iraq. According to some, he gave a heckuva speech to US soldiers while there.

Instead of meeting with Iraqi PM Nouri Al-Maliki in a much-publicized teleconference, President Bush met with Iraqi leaders in person after an overnight flight from Washington:

President George W. Bush landed in Baghdad this morning on a surprise visit to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and bolster his newly formed government amid continuing sectarian violence.

Combine that with the death of Al-Zarqawi last week, the naming of the two most prominent and important cabinet members in the Iraqi Government and the President has had a pretty good week...

Like clockwork, the not-conservative-friendly Seattle Post Intelligencer published this report that hit the web about 5 hours ago as of this posting.

Aint no Crime...

So there aint no time. Fitzmas is postponed...well, forever. As quoted at thousands of blogs, left and right throughout the day:

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has told White House aide Karl Rove that he does not expect to seek charges against him in connection with the CIA leak case, Rove's lawyer said today.

In a statement this morning, Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, said that Fitzgerald "has formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges" against Rove.

"In deference to the pending case, we will not make any further public statements about the subject matter of the investigation," Luskin said in the statement. "We believe that the Special Counsel's decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove's conduct."

Unless you write for Truthout.org, or frequent cesspools like this.

Jason Leopold is doing his best to win the coveted 2006 Dan Rather "That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!," award!

On a personal note, I'm going to tapdance all over the heads of the DU types, even the fine upstanding gentlemen at the Place that shall remain nameless, the commentariot who so blindly insisted that Valerie Plame was 'outed' as punishment for Joe Wilson's brave speaking of truth to power.

Meh!

You all look like idiots for getting way-out in front of the facts and, frankly, you deserve it. You wanted desperately for this to be true to the point of trying to make it true through sheer force of will. And what have you for your trouble?

A big fat pie-in-the-face. Enjoy it...you worked hard for it.

MSMBot

Roy in AG is not short of any opinions on terrorism, Iraq or Zarqawi. Yesterday in the featured Letter to the Editor, Roy made it plain that--far as he's concerned--Zarqawi's death won't change anything:

The death of Al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda terrorist, means less to the Iraqi mess we are in than the Dodgers winning a game now means to who wins the World Series.

This hoopla over his death is, as Shakespeare said,--full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. What happens to a few terrorists will not make a gnat's difference. What makes the difference is U.S. military imperialism, which has created thousands of terrorists like Zarqawi, and will keep creating more and more and more. Only our withdrawal from Iraq stop it.

The hawks didn't and still don't like it that we withdrew from Vietnam and they will fight us getting out of Iraq. But like the bullies they are, they only know how to get us into war, not how to win it. And never will.

Thinking in black and white in a multicolor world leads only to misery.

This is what happens when someone gets all their information from Big Media. I'll bet dollars to donuts that Roy has never read a milblog. I'd wager that his only source of information on Abu Ghraib came from The New Yorker.

He was right on one thing. Vietnam. He's right that many don't like the way Vietnam ended. Not because we enjoyed seeing innocent Vietnamese and Cambodians suffer. Rather, because leaving South Vietnam to fend for itself when it was not able, ready nor willing to carry the full load meant that nearly 15 years of American sacrifices of time, effort, money and lives were wasted. Wasted because we failed in the objective.

He's also right that many of us have fought to date and will fight still the effort at imposing the Vietnam solution on the people of Iraq. This is a battle that can be won but only if we choose to see it through.

The Iraq-is-Vietnam crowd is wrong on this, in my estimation. While 2,500 brave men and women have died in this conflict, many more are coming home with stories of success and accomplishment in Iraq. We're on the verge of doing a very big thing.

Roy's defeatism and bitterness isn't helping anything.

Navel Gazing

This post over at TPMCafe just strikes me as somewhat odd. As in, how can so many people have the same case of Amnesia about who said what when about war in Iraq?

Meanwhile, even though it seems the media (and those who write about them) might have forgotten, others have not:

Assertion doesn't always beat facts, but it happens a lot. For example, many of President Bush's detractors are saying that his argument for keeping troops in Iraq -- to achieve a democratic transformation -- is a new rationale meant to distract from the missing WMDs. The New York Times made that charge in an editorial on April 27. But it isn't true. Bush listed democratic transformation in Iraq as one of his aims before the war, as the Times acknowledged in an editorial on Feb. 27, 2003. Distilling the president's various arguments on Iraq down to the one on which a lot of people think they were snookered -- the WMDs -- is a distortion, but it accurately expresses a popular feeling, so who cares if it isn't so? Not the Times, apparently.

The emphasis is mine (access the Times editorial at the archives here). I find ideas about a media "skew towards Bush," to be downright laughable. But regardless, reporting about the Administration's case for war mirrored much of the general thought about Iraq--namely, that there were reasons to go after Sadaam. Foreign governments believed it, enough at the CIA believed it and of course the decision-makers at the cabinet-level believed it.

They didn't believe it on the strength of media's reporting...they believed it for the same reason that media reported it: most of the evidence pointed there.

From the "Who'da thunk" file

More about trade-offs in this Fox News piece yesterday. It seems that heavily armored Humvees have a problem:

Thousands of pounds of armor added to military Humvees, intended to protect U.S. troops, have made the vehicles more likely to roll over, killing and injuring soldiers in Iraq, a newspaper reported.

"I believe the up-armoring has caused more deaths than it has saved," said Scott Badenoch, a former Delphi Corp. vehicle dynamics expert told the Dayton Daily News for Sunday editions.
Since the start of the war, Congress and the Army have spent tens of millions of dollars on armor for the Humvee fleet in Iraq, the newspaper reported Sunday.

That armor — much of it installed on the M1114 Humvee built at the Armor Holdings Inc. plant north of Cincinnati — has shielded soldiers from harm.

But serious accidents involving the M1114 have increased as the war has progressed, and the accidents were much more likely to be rollovers than those of other Humvee models, the newspaper reported.

An analysis of the Army's ground accident database, which includes records from March 2003 through November 2005, found that 60 of the 85 soldiers who died in Humvee accidents in Iraq — or 70 percent — were killed when the vehicle rolled, the newspaper reported. Of the 337 injuries, 149 occurred in rollovers.

I noted a few months back that some Marine units were saying "No," to body armor, the left's "salvation" for soldiers on the ground. Now it seems there's at least one reason to be okay with riding around in a lightly-armored Humvee.

Late Spring

Met with a myriad of colors when I look out to the back terrace. One of the many reminders that I'm not in Kansas anymore!

That Reminds me

Michael Barone reminds us again of what how and why Democrats keep losing elections. The scary part is, it apparently matters not who says it or how many times it's repeated. It just isn't sinking in.

Say it Here, hear it There

Leading up to Tuesday's primary, I made a comment about the dynamic in the Democratic Gubernatorial race. In it, I warned that the Democrats would be wise to learn the Lesson of 1998:

I wonder though if either of these two gentlemen might not be wise come November to take home the lesson of the 1998 Gubernatorial campaign. That year Republican Dan Lungren spent months campaigning on one premise alone: Gray Davis was a bad choice for Governor.

While I agreed with that premise, it was obvious to me why Dan lost in the general election that year by a wide margin. People need a reason to vote for you. It wasn't enough that Lungren wasn't Gray Davis and it won't be enough that Steve Westly isn't Phil Angelides or that Angelides is no Steve Westly.

When it comes time for one or the other to square off against the Governator, people will need a reason to vote for them aside from whatever it is they might not like about Arnold.

It's not a particularly profound truth but a very obvious and important one. Dan Weintraub, political columnist extroidinaire for the Sacramento Bee gave a similar warning just 48 hours into the new campaign:

But if he is to win in the fall, Angelides will have to be more than the "anti-Arnold." He will have to offer a positive vision for California's future.

He is capable of doing so. He did it in stump speeches and in interviews during the primary campaign. He can weave together economics, demography, education and the environment into an inspiring narrative about his own life and his view of the world.

He and his team, for some reason, never wanted to put that version of Angelides front and center in his campaign for the nomination. Instead, they introduced voters to a snarling, mean-spirited party hack who managed to wrestle his less experienced opponent to the ground, roll around for several weeks and finally pin him, leaving both candidates exhausted.

Such is common, if not exactly preferred, in primary battles but general elections need to be run differently. Meanwhile, Arnold is already hitting the trail with a bus tour of the state: Now Schwarzenegger is off and running for re-election, touring the north state by bus, holding events his staff says will be unstaged and open to all comers. And his story -- he cut taxes, brought the state back from the brink of bankruptcy and now is laying the groundwork to rebuild California's infrastructure for the 21st century -- is compelling.

Angelides will complain about education budgets, but Schwarzenegger's current proposal would complete an $8 billion, 17 percent increase in school spending over two years. The Democrat will hit him on the environment, but the governor is an enthusiastic supporter of alternative energy and backs a plan to put California in the lead among states fighting global warming.

Angelides can try to attack Schwarzenegger as a tool of the special interests, but the treasurer is a favorite of the state's most powerful interest group -- the public employee labor unions -- and in the primary he was the beneficiary of an unprecedented $8 million campaign by Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulos and his family.

In the end, this will be a campaign offering two distinct choices.

Meanwhile, I haven't seen Phil anywhere except in a pre-fab photo-op with his former adversary, Steve Westly...the guy he'd just finished sliming.

Making your bed

Barry Bonds has made his bed, but seems unwilling to lie down in it.

Only Bay Area fans tolerate him now, the commentariot that fawned over him 5 years ago has, in many regards, turned it's back on him. Now, as detailed by Jason Grimsley's attorney, the Feds are more than curious about Bonds' alleged steroid use and abuse.

Today, Bonds' attorney Michael Rains let it be known that Bonds is seeking protection from the Feds in return for any testimony on the subject of steroids:

Barry Bonds is willing to cooperate with Major League Baseball's investigation of performance-enhancing drugs in the game provided the information isn't used against him by federal prosecutors, Bonds' attorney told the New York Daily News.

The New York Post reported Friday that Bonds' attorney, Michael Rains, received a letter last month from former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, hired by commissioner Bud Selig in March to investigate steroids in baseball, saying that he wants to interview the San Francisco Giants left fielder as part of baseball's investigation.

"I'd like Barry to cooperate with Sen. Mitchell," Rains was quoted as saying to the Daily News. "He'd like to cooperate. We believe Sen. Mitchell's investigation will be fair, thorough and impartial.

"But here's the problem: Anything that happens there can become fodder for the federal government and fodder for another book that will make reporters rich."

A federal grand jury in San Francisco is investigating whether Bonds lied under oath about using the performance-enhancing drug known as "the clear" during his grand jury testimony that led to the indictment of four people connected to BALCO.

Bonds could also face charges of tax evasion.

No, Barry...you made the bed and you must lie in it. DeFord is right, you are a stain on the game. The Game--in retaining any credibility on the issue--must deal with you and frankly, you must be accountable: to MLB, to your fans and to yourself for what you did in the name of pride.

What Happens? What in the World Happens?

I cannot imagine how I would deal with the loss of a child. I cannot even remotely perceive of how I might react to the death of a child in a battlezone, much less one in a battlezone whose cause I fundamentally opposed.

But what the hell happens to people like Cindy Sheehan and Michael Berg? I cannot even fathom the psychic torture that I would have to endure that would allow me to equate the actions of the man that personally imposed seven minutes of excrutiating hell on my son in the name of some vague, twisted, retrograde ideology with the actions of a President whose politics I strongly opposed, or even abhorred.

For the record, John Gibson is an asshat. But I'm just plain stupified by Berg.

Strategic Victory

Overlooked in light of burying Zarqawi under his safe-house and under-reported earlier in the week, Islamists now control the Somalian capital of Mogadishu and thus for all intents and purposes, the country:

After months of fierce fighting, Islamic militias declared Monday that they had taken control of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, defeating the warlords widely believed to be backed by the United States and raising questions about whether the country would head down an extremist path.

What this means for the future of Al Qaeda terrorism isn't wholly clear, but it can't be good:

Islamists who took control of Somalia's anarchic capital this week declared war on "infidels" yesterday and warned that any American intervention in Mogadishu would be "disastrous."

The chairman of the city's Islamic court union, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, warned that any action from Washington would fail, echoing the botched 1993 operation that left 18 American servicemen and 300 Somalis dead, and was used as the basis for the movie "Black Hawk Down."
"If U.S. forces intervene directly against us in Mogadishu, then we are ready to teach them a lesson they will never forget and repeat their defeat in 1993," he told the Saudi-owned pan-Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat.

Militia loyal to hard-line Islamic courts yesterday celebrated the capture of Mogadishu after a three-week battle with secular forces said to be backed by Washington.

It is widely believed that the courts' leaders are at best sympathetic to Al Qaeda and at worst actively support its agents.

The test though is not the taking but the governing. And as Christopher Hitchens points out, folks like the Taliban and AQ fail miserably at this part of the game:

CH: That's certainly true. And they're...we're faced with an extremely relentless force. Mind you, now that they've gotten Mogadishu, they have the problem of having to run it, which is what always discredits these forces, that they have no program for running any society.

Discredits, yes...eliminates, sadly no.

Washington Post's morning tripe

The Post serves up a heaping helping of tripe this morning, disguised as analysis of yesterday's events surrounding the death of Zarqawi. Written by Phil Kennicott, it is--as Hugh rightly points out--barely on par with much writing at your local high school.

I only barely got through it. May you have better luck than I.

Obligatory Sports Post

I've often thought that Barry Bonds, like a lot of professional athletes, seems to think it's all about him. Or at least should be.

Well, it appears he may have his wish. According to Jason Grimsley, Arizona Diambondback reliever and 18-year journeyman pitcher released this week after getting pinched by Federal agents curious about his dabbling in performance-enhancing products, the Fed's want Barry:

An attorney for released Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Jason Grimsley said Wednesday that federal agents tried to pressure the player into wearing a listening device in an effort to collect incriminating evidence against San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, The Arizona Republic reported.

"It was a specific effort to target Bonds," attorney Edward F. Novak told the newspaper. "We were told that Jason's cooperation was necessary to their case."
Novak said Grimsley subsequently "was outed by the feds" because he didn't cooperate, the Republic reported.

"They asked him specifically about Barry Bonds, and Jason said he didn't know Bonds well and didn't know if he did or didn't use drugs," Novak told the paper. Investigators then asked Grimsley whether he knew any of Bonds' teammates who might confide in Grimsley about the slugger's alleged use of performance enhancements, Novak said.

Covering the Coverage

The death late yesterday of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi has produced myriad number of responses in the blogosphere and the media both. Many are surprising, many are expected and some are just...unbelievable.

We'll start there, with the moral idiocy of Michael Berg, father of Nicholas Berg. You remember him, the first of too many Western contractors and civilian personnel beheaded by Zarqawi:

"I think al-Zarqawi's death is a double tragedy," Michael Berg told The Associated Press after learning a U.S. airstrike had killed the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. "His death will incite a new wave of revenge. George Bush and al-Zarqawi are two men who believe in revenge."

Berg said the blame for most deaths in Iraq should be placed on President Bush, who he said is "more of a terrorist than Zarqawi."

"Zarqawi felt my son's breath on his hand as held the knife against his throat. Zarqawi had to look in his eyes when he did it," Berg added, pausing to collect himself. " George Bush sits there glassy-eyed in his office with pieces of paper and condemns people to death. That to me is a real terrorist.

Does the man not recall the screams of his son as Zarqawi slowly, patiently hacked through his neck with a dull blade for seven minutes?! I hate to say such things about somebody who has experienced something so horrible as the death of a child but if this man can't distinguish between a butcher like Zarqawi and a legitimate act of war (and an act that is more than deserved), then I fear his understanding of right and wrong is seriously impaired.

From there to big media's unwillingness or inability (take your pick) to acknowledge good news for the American effort:

It isn't sad. It is predictable.

MSM has been trained by Democratic Party cues to view every development in the war through the lens of the political war on the Bush Adminsitration.

News is never "good," but "long overdue." Excellent political developments are mere flip-turns en route to another length of anti-Bush diatribe.

John Kerry believes the very thing that the deranged half of his Democratic base believes about the President:

John Kerry - Some Democrats renewed pressure on Bush to bring U.S. troops home by the end of the year. "Our troops have done their job in Iraq," said Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry.

Apparently getting Zarqawi was the magic bullet!

Meanwhile, the reaction of two Democratic politicians are indistinguishable from members of their loony electoral base:

Some Democrats, breaking ranks from their leadership, today said the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq was a stunt to divert attention from an unpopular and hopeless war.

"This is just to cover Bush's [rear] so he doesn't have to answer" for Iraqi civilians being killed by the U.S. military and his own sagging poll numbers, said Rep. Pete Stark, California Democrat. "Iraq is still a mess -- get out."

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Democrat, said Zarqawi was a small part of "a growing anti-American insurgency" and that it's time to get out. "We're there for all the wrong reasons," Mr. Kucinich said.

The most deranged of the deranged were actively consulting with each other today, looking for a spin that could work.

Finally, Pajamas Media is the closest thing to a one-stop shop on this. Read it all.

Got yer ass!

Zarqawi is dead. Huzzah!

Details:

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's leader in Iraq who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings and kidnappings, has been killed in an air strike, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday, adding that his identity was confirmed by fingerprints and a look at his face. It was a major victory in the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the broader war on terror.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said al-Zarqawi was killed along with seven aides Wednesday evening in a remote area 30 miles northeast of Baghdad in the volatile province of Diyala, just east of the provincial capital of Baqouba, al-Maliki said.

Loud applause broke out among the reporters and soldiers as al-Maliki, flanked by U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and U.S. Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told a news conference that "al-Zarqawi was eliminated."

On a personal note, there is no figure--not even Bin Laden--that has managed to create the level of angst and even anger in this fight than the actions of Zarqawi and his band of thugs, even from the first of the beheading through the bombing of mosques.

Hooray for our side.

I like the way you think!

Professor Bainbridge launches his anti-Angelides campaign:

This blog's battle against Phil Angelides' California gubernatorial campaign starts now. On the issues I know best, corporate governance, Angelides was consistently wrong when he was Treasurer. As I wrote in the Harvard Law Review:

Public employee pension funds are even more vulnerable to being used as a vehicle for advancing political/social goals unrelated to shareholder interests generally. Recent activism by CalPERS, for example, reportedly is being “fueled partly by the political ambitions of Phil Angelides, California’s state treasurer and a CalPERS board member, who is considering running for governor of California in 2006.” In other words, Angelides allegedly used the retirement savings of California’s public employees to further his own political ends.

In addition, I'm a little tired of zillionaire left-liberals tax and spend mentality. As I wrote when Angelides declared his candidacy:

You won't find his most telling comment in his press release, nor have I been able to find it in any of the news accounts thus far, but I distinctly heard him say that he plans to raise taxes on those "who don't even need the money."

Could there be a finer example of the basic Democrat principle of confiscatory taxation to finance wealth redistribution? Of course, Angelides himself his a zillionaire who probably doesn't need the money, but aren't you getting a little tired of limousine liberal millionaires telling the rest of us to pony up while they hire expert tax lawyers and accountants to minimize their own taxes?

Beyond Lame

Note to self: Posts without searchable terms or absent strong local interest don't get read.

That was the least-read post here since my second day of blogging.

Zero and counting

Instapundit, both here and here, comments on yesterday's election results along with Don Surber here, I imagine would be enough to drive any rabid young progressive crazy. From Surber's none-too polite post:

Democrats are claiming a “moral victory” on the left coast where Republicans kept Duke Cunningham’s seat. My DD is claiming a moral victory, which folks, is a loser’s spin:

"No matter what the media says, no Democrat should be mistaken about this result. First, this is a huge, seismic shift in our favor that bodes extremely well for November. If we receive an 18% shift nationwide, we will win the House easily. If Republican candidates are pulling only 20% of the independent vote, the Indycrat realignment is still on."Yes, a seismic shift. Sure. Democrats could not win even after the Republican congressman was hauled away to the federal pen for 8+ years. Then there is this gem:

"We had some real victories tonight, and we still have time to rectify our mistakes. Fortunately, come November, even Busby will have another chance. I just hope that as a party we realize that there are clearly better strategic paths for us to take than the ones we are currently following. Tonight, as David Sirota writes, Jon Tester showed us just such a path."Oh, what is that path? Did a Democrat beat a Republican elsewhere? No, a Democrat beat a Democrat!

From that My DD post:

"Tonight, in a major upset, populist Democratic State Senate President Jon Tester crushed his primary opponents, becoming the Democratic nominee against vulnerable incumbent Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT). Tester, a farmer from Big Sandy, ran against the Washington Establishment, ignoring those who said he couldn't beat State Auditor John Morrison (D) - the candidate that Democratic Party powerbrokers in Washington tried to anoint."

Instapundit says Kossers are 0-fer-20 in these races. That is a lot of moral victories.

Not only do they cheer about trailing during the race by 10 points, but when they lose they want to throw a party.

Headline vs. Story

Another case where the headline implies a story that the body of the report does not. This AP story discussing the alleged existence of CIA prisons in Europe notes that:

Swiss senator Dick Marty's report to Europe's top human rights body was thin on evidence but raises the possibility of a cover-up involving both friends and critics of Washington's war on terror. It says European governments "did not seem particularly eager to establish" the facts.

Meanwhile, the headline blares loud & proud that the Probe of CIA Prisons Implicates EU Nations.

So the thin-on-evidence report, which Tony Blair notes "has nothing new in it," indicts the US and member-EU nations.

Hhhmm.

Apologists and Sycophants

Paul Campos, law professor and guest columnist for the Rocky Mountain News took aim at two fellow law professors yesterday in his weekly column:

This column was originally going to be about a couple of law professor-pundits, Hugh Hewitt and Glenn Reynolds, who specialize in defending the Bush administration. My learned colleagues are now busy claiming that the supposed "media frenzy" regarding the apparent massacre of civilians in Haditha, Iraq, is a product of liberal bias, rather than of a sense of professional obligation to report a major news story.

But in the end it's not very interesting to point out that Bush administration dead-enders are willing to defend anything it does. (Hewitt in particular seems past praying for: If President Bush came out in favor of compulsory late-term abortions for the wives of NASCAR drivers, I wouldn't be surprised if Hewitt found something to praise in the proposal).

What started as a slagging of Hewitt and Reynolds--as Hugh described it--turns into an interesting argument from one liberal against another's perception of history, the military and war. Fine enough as far as it goes.

Neither of these gentlemen need a defense from me; they both have the means and the the smarts to counter Professor Campos' rhetoric. As one who has been similarly slimed by more average, run-of-the-mill left-leaning wanna-be intellectuals, I felt compelled however to comment.

Campos turns his ire to Peter Beinart and a number of his comments on Haditha: What's more interesting are the following comments from Peter Beinart, editor in chief of The New Republic. After noting that Americans can be as barbaric as anyone, Beinart argues that "what makes us an exceptional nation with the capacity to lead and inspire the world is our very recognition of that fact." While it's true "we are capable of Hadithas and My Lais," America is nevertheless almost unique among nations because, when we confront such atrocities, we are "capable of acknowledging what happened, bringing the killers to justice, and instituting changes that make it less likely to happen again."

What's disturbing about this claim is that illustrates how a person in a position of considerable public influence can simply concoct an imaginary past to suit the propaganda needs of the present war.

Interesting take, not one I agree with necessarily but one I was willing to listen to an explanation of. Well, as I read the piece I couldn't help but notice that Campos seemed guilty of exactly what he charged Beinart with doing.

Professor Campos goes on in his effort to highlight three examples from US Military history that he believes, apparently, proves that the US isn't what Beinart argues it is. Pointing to My Lai, a 1967 incident involving a platoon of elite US soldiers called Tiger Force and an alleged incident involving former US Senator Bob Kerrey at Thanh Phong, Campos concludes that the US isn't exceptional in this regard.

Saying that "all wars are terrible," he finishes the point by saying that "...most such incidents will never be investigated; and that those that are investigated will rarely lead to punishment." The conclusion is reached because of what appears anyway to be a dissatisfaction with the ultimate outcomes of investigations into these incidents.

One conclusion that can be reached is that the Professor has decided--whether accurately or not--that absence of satisfactory outcomes in these individual cases is somehow dispositive of the notion that the US Military is nothing like what Beinart argued. In otherwords, it is not unique in it's recognition of it's own flaws and errors, it does not bring those who engage in criminal activity to justice, nor does it attempt to change it's behavior as a result.

All that based on three individual cases. Maybe he's a better lawyer than statistician.

I couldn't help but think that in so concluding on such a thin number of data sets that he engaged in the very behavior he charges of Beinart by concocting an imaginary past. Now, I have no numbers of my own but I've got to think that the current number of incidents involving questionable behavior that warrants an investigation by individual Military branches far exceeds the number that have recently been focal points of so many news reports.

I disagree with the ultimate conclusion Campos makes but was willing to go along for the ride as he was sticking to making an argument, even if I didn't think the argument worked. That is, until I got to the end of the piece:

That right-wing ideologues peddle jingoistic nonsense about American exceptionalism is only to be expected. That the editor of a prominent liberal magazine should do so as well helps explain how we've managed to entangle our troops in yet another nightmarish guerrilla war.

With my years of experience under my belt at the place that shall remain nameless, I feel secure in saying that such rhetoric masks condescension and an off-putting sense of superiority. In his interview with Hugh yesterday afternoon he made it even more clear:

HH: And were you fair-minded in this morning's commentary about me?

PC: Yeah, I think so. I think you are basically just a Bush apologist, pretty much.

Post Election

Statewide and County numbers here.

Looks to be Arnold and Angeledes squaring off in November and no new California county.

Coming to a country near you

The ramifications of this weekend's Canadian terror arrests it seems keep expanding:

Police said Monday more arrests are likely in an alleged plot to bomb buildings in Canada, while intelligence officers sought ties between the 17 suspects and Islamic terror cells in the United States and five other nations.

A U.S. law enforcement official said investigators were looking for connections between those detained in Canada and suspected Islamic militants held in the United States, Britain, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Denmark and Sweden.

American authorities have established that two men from Georgia who were charged this year in a terrorism case had been in contact with some of the Canadian suspects via computer, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

The Counterterrorism Blog has a thorough rundown of links--literally and figuratively.

Political savvy

Francine Busby has none. From this weekend in the special election in California's 50th Congressional District comes one of the craziest lines in recent political history:

“You don't need papers for voting.”

Hugh hits it right on the head: My guess is that the audio clip will play at least a hundred times on radio heard in the district over the next 48 hours. It isn't a gaffe so much as a stunning bit of clarity about Democratic indifference to the rules, and Busby can't recover from it.

I would expect Busby to bomb today like nobody's business. 'Course if she doesn't, Hugh's right about something else (more importantly so):

If the 50th goes "D" anyway, it will be very difficult to argue that illegal immigration is the seismic political issue that many believe it to be.

What that would mean for November is an interesting thought indeed.

Presidential Perspective

Or better put, the lack there-of. Michael Barone points out it's notable absence today:

Two weeks ago, I pointed out that we live in something close to the best of times, with record worldwide economic growth and at a low point in armed conflict in the world. Yet Americans are in a sour mood, a mood that may be explained by the lack of a sense of history. The military struggle in Iraq (nearly 2,500 military deaths) is spoken of in as dire terms as Vietnam (58,219), Korea (54,246) or World War II (405,399). We bemoan the cruel injustice of $3 a gallon for gas in a country where three-quarters of people classified as poor have air conditioning and microwave ovens. We complain about a tide of immigration that is, per U.S. resident, running at one-third the rate of 99 years ago.

Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds bemoans it's absence in his comments on Barone's keen observations:

The 1990s were a fool's paradise -- which I liked, too, but then I was one of those fools. That things aren't like the 1990s now, other than economically, is a case of returning to norms, not of an unusual deviation from them. That doesn't mean anything specific with regard to particular policy disputes, of course, but it does mean that people who are shocked and appalled that the situation isn't like the 1990s are missing the point.

How many critics of Bush in his first term decried what "he had done" to the world Bill Clinton left us? How many now I wonder still think we can find some magical way to get back there?

Just read about how many yearn for a return to the economy of the 90's (or at least a departure from the "Bush Economy,"). All despite a stock-market that, today not withstanding, is higher than it was in 2000 and an unemployment number that past Administrations could only dream of and this little bit of interesting under-reported news.

And of course there's the all-too-common assertion from similarly minded folk that today's government is run by crooks. Not just any ordinary crooks mind you, but moronic crooks:

Kerry agreed completely with someone's assessment that everything that Bush does is solely for the purpose of looting the country. He basically said that Bush and his cohorts are criminals and that history will judge them so. He said that he believes that the pendulum will swing back and that is why after 35 years in politics he is still involved, otherwise he wouldn't waste his time. He also said that he never stopped fighting after the election, and that he still hasn't, but I didn't get to ask why he conceded the next morning, though I wish I had. At some other point he referred to Supreme Court Justices Alito, Scalia, and Roberts as Idiots.

Barone is so on top of it: Reports of Bush's West Point speech noted that Truman had low job ratings -- lower than Bush's, in fact. But does that matter now? Bush, as Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis has written, has changed American foreign policy more than any president since Truman, and like Truman he has acted on the long view.

He's got perspective.

W : Harley Davidson as ______ : to Marlboro Man

In these times of want and woe for George W. Bush, support can often come from unexpected and really meaningful sources.

Another U.N. moment?

In watching Fox News Sunday this week, I was drawn to one specific point, one that came up first with Secretary of State Rice and again in the roundtable on the point of this weeks diplomatic 'shift' on Iran. First, from Chris Wallace's conversation with Ms. Rice:

WALLACE: You keep talking about, both this week and also this morning, the fact that this is not just a U.S. offer. This is a world offer. I want to talk to you about how much agreement there is.

Have the five other nations who made this offer -- and specifically, I'm talking about Russia and China -- have they made a specific commitment to impose sanctions if Iran rejects this offer?

RICE: Well, I think you saw in what Margaret Beckett said, the British foreign secretary, when she chaired this meeting, that the international community has developed two paths, not one, two paths, one path with a set of very positive incentives; another, the path that the international community would have to go. As she put it, we would have to go back to the Security Council. There would be no other option.

Now, we have agreed as a diplomatic matter to talk about neither of those paths in detail. I think that only makes sense. It's only fair that Iran should have the first crack, if you will, at seeing what is there.

But there should be no confusion, and I think there should be no confusion given what was said out of this meeting, that there are two very clear paths.

WALLACE: Well, but I want to ask you about that, because I read also what the foreign secretary, Beckett, said and she was talking about, you know, we'll have to go back to the U.N. Security Council. That's pretty broad.

Do you have a specific commitment from China and Russia that they will impose sanctions?

RICE: Chris, we are absolutely satisfied with the commitments of our allies to a robust path in the Security Council should this not work. But we are not going to talk about what is on either of those paths because it's very important now to give this some time to work.

The Iranians shouldn't have to read in the newspaper what is being offered to them. They do deserve the opportunity to hear that directly from the European envoy who will go, and that's what we're going to do.

Then in the roundtable discussion:

HUME: They're not trying to coax them to the table. That's not what's happening here. What is happening here is they've been given an offer of sorts. There will be no talking unless and until Iran does something the administration really does not expect at this point it will do.

And if it did it, it would be such a total victory that whether we then sat down with them would be secondary.

PAIGE: But if you want to show good faith that you're willing to try diplomatic measures so that when you go to sanctions or even military action, your allies will be with you, it does matter what's happening now.

HUME: Well, the question isn't whether the allies will be with us in the future. The question is whether they're really with us now. And the administration believes that everybody in the Perm Five in the Security Council is either willing by acquiescing or favoring taking Iran before the Security Council and applying sanctions.

Now, of course, sanctions remains, obviously, to be seen. So my sense about this is that the U.S. hasn't gone soft here, and it puts -- this is designed simply to put Iran on the spot.

WALLACE: Also on the panel today, Bill Kristol.

Let me ask you the same question I was asking Secretary of State Rice. How confident are you that if Iran -- if Brit's right and Iran rejects this precondition, doesn't sit down to talks, that the Europeans, Russia and China are all on board to impose sanctions?

And that is 'it' in a nutshell. If and when push comes to shove at the U.N. sometime in the near future on the question of Iran, what will we have?

Have we a breakthrough, a sort of meeting of the Allied minds as it were or are we facing another U.N. moment where the US will be hung out to dry in the self-interests of Russia, China and Europe? I don't know and I'm frankly afraid to guess.

I'll eat my hat

The NY Times is wondering out-loud if little-known Democrat Jim Pederson of Arizona will unseat the Republican incumbent, Senator Jon Kyl:

What once seemed a long shot to Democrats — unseating Senator Jon Kyl, the two-term incumbent Republican — has in recent weeks shifted to the realm of the possible.

His Democratic challenger, Jim Pederson, a wealthy shopping mall developer, seems to be benefiting from the national decline in support for Republicans and President Bush. Mr. Pederson is using the dominant issue here, illegal immigration, to try to make inroads among centrist and independent voters.

"Kyl is carrying that albatross of closeness to the president and the president's untimely demise in the public esteem," said Earl de Berge, research director of the independent Rocky Mountain Poll here, citing public concerns about the Iraq war, high gasoline prices and other factors.

Recent polls here have showed Mr. Kyl, 64, with a lead of some 10 percentage points, compared with 20 or more in surveys earlier this year. The National Journal, the political weekly based in Washington, recently elevated the race to among the top 10 most-competitive Senate races.

I especially love that last bit. All aflutter over being down 10 points.

Arizona's political landscape is shifting with an annual influx of new residents from all over the country, many from Blue States, Democrats are becoming more viable there. They are strong at the state level while Governor Napolitano has, for the most part, done a good job running the state and is almost certain to win a second term in November.

However, when it comes to Congressional races it's a completely different story. Look at the rundown of Arizona's congressional delegation here. Six of 8 congressional seats are Republican, as are both Senators.

The Times admits the same thing I just told you, Arizona's politics are changing but I can't think this is anything but a flight of political fancy. Arizona is Red and will remain so in terms of it's national politics for quite some time.

If Senator Kyl loses in November, I'll eat my hat.

'Money well Spent'

That's what Phil Angelides and Steve Westly are reportedly saying about the millions of dollars in advertising--most of it negative in recent weeks--and campaign costs for their Gubernatorial runs. I don't recall exactly when this turned, but in recent weeks it's become a rather messy little catfight.

Angelides has used negative ads, in part at least, to eliminate Westly's lead in the polls that was built up over the last few months with crafted messages like this. Westly of course has responded in-kind and both point to the other as the man who started the name-calling nastiness.

Meanwhile, as this little tidbit points out, people still don't know what to think:

Democratic gubernatorial candidates Steve Westly and Phil Angelides have spent a combined $56.9 million this year telling Californians why they should be governor.

But plenty of voters are still left scratching their heads.

A Public Policy Institute of California poll released Thursday showed one in three likely Democratic voters remains undecided, while Angelides holds a marginal three-point lead as the June 6 primary draws near.The campaigns suggest their candidates started with low name recognition and face a changing media environment and voter fatigue in a fifth straight election year.

"Well, it's a big state," state Treasurer Angelides said Friday. "And I've always said, when I got into this race, (Gov.) Arnold Schwarzenegger was known by 100 percent of the people ... and I wasn't known by the people of this state. But I guarantee you, over the next 11 days, voters are going to get to know who I am."

Pollsters and analysts believe a more fundamental problem may exist: The two candidates are too similar ideologically and made weak early impressions before sinking into a nightly feud of negative ads that confused the electorate.

I have no horse in this race so I comment as an outsider; one who is just a curious political observer. I wonder though if either of these two gentlemen might not be wise come November to take home the lesson of the 1998 Gubernatorial campaign. That year Republican Dan Lungren spent months campaigning on one premise alone: Gray Davis was a bad choice for Governor.

While I agreed with that premise, it was obvious to me why Dan lost in the general election that year by a wide margin. People need a reason to vote for you. It wasn't enough that Lungren wasn't Gray Davis and it won't be enough that Steve Westly isn't Phil Angelides or that Angelides is no Steve Westly.

When it comes time for one or the other to square off against the Governator, people will need a reason to vote for them aside from whatever it is they might not like about Arnold.

As an observer of this all, I'm beginning to feel like some of these folks.

Meanwhile, for any of the folks still unsure about who is who as we head into Tuesday's primary, the Easy Voter guide offers profiles of every candidate in every state-wide race.

Idiot Alert

A Darwin Award-winner-in-waiting shows an epic amount of stupiditiy in this stunt on a stretch of Arizona freeway known for dangerous driving:

A Goodyear man was arrested by police after speed enforcement cameras on the Loop 101 freeway in Scottsdale caught him driving his vehicle at up to 147 mph.

Lawrence Pargo, 26, was taken into custody by police at his home May 26 on suspicion of four counts of excessive speeding, reckless driving and endangerment, said Scottsdale police Lt. Frank O'Halloran.

Pargo was photographed by the digital cameras -- which are able to estimate speeds using magnetic strips embedded in the roadway -- traveling at speeds ranging from 102 mph to 147 mph on four occasions in the early-morning hours of May 21.

The stretch of Loop 101 through Scottsdale has always been known for this kind of reckless speeding; for what reasons I've never fully comprehended. Apparently East Valley residents are in more of a hurry...

In our three plus years in the Valley, this stretch had a notable history of accidents as well, including an incident where a man suffered decapitation after his convertible lost control and drove into the wire-barrier in the median. Mr. Pargo's foolishness puts him in some fine company.

Waves and soil erosion

You mean it wasn't Bush's fault? How can this be?

IPET determined that, after 35 years structures at the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal were more than two feet lower than their design specifications. Other discrepancies, such as outfall canals built one to two feet below their specified elevations, were the result of designs being based on water level datum while construction was based on geodetic vertical datum—the two are not equivalent, spatial and temporal variations between 0.2 and three feet were found between the two.

Government or contractor negligence was not discovered. The practices and design criteria did vary however since 1965. The piecemeal construction of levees, floodwalls and gates over the decades led to “inconsistent levels of protection.” Protection erected around the 17th Street Canal for example was not as strong as those at the Orleans Canal, which incorporated more conservative designs and practices. Materials also ranged in strength and fortitude.

IPET also determined Katrina’s surge levels were as much as six feet higher than design levels in the eastern and southern portions. And the waves were “long period ocean storm waves” allowing them to run over the levees. Some waves generated velocities of 10 to 15 feet-per-second over levees.

All but four breaches were due to overtopping and erosion. A key element leading to failures at the 17th Street Canal and London Avenue was the formation of gaps behind I-walls. The morning of the hurricane, water had already risen 1.7 feet above the tops of the levees and floodwalls to an elevation of 14.2 feet. As the water passed over the levees, it eroded the soil supporting the walls degrading their stability and resulting in catastrophic flooding.

Yet another reason I try and wait for actual analysis before drawing conclusions. Sometimes when you get out in front of the facts, you turn out to be wrong.

Multiple sources

Last night I incorporated comments from Uncle Jimbo--formerly of US Special Forces, to the tune of 14 years. Additionally if you recall, I mentioned a story from CNN's Arwa Damon that told the story of her time with the Marine unit alleged to have committed "war crimes" in Haditha.

Today AP reporter Antonio Castaneda filed a similar report about his time with that same unit. In it, members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion , 1st Marine Division while in Haditha in October of last year express thoughts eerily similar to Jimbo's. From the testimony of more than one witness:

But, for all their experience and obvious military skill, there was something else that caught my attention.

Several Marines approached me and asked my opinion about a controversial incident during the Fallujah offensive in the fall of 2004.

A Marine from the battalion shot and killed a wounded, unarmed man in a mosque. The killing was videotaped by a cameraman and broadcast worldwide.

Several Marines wanted to know if I thought the shooting was justified. I hadn't examined the footage. I saw it in passing on CNN. I wasn't there, and I didn't claim to understand the raging hell the storming of Fallujah must have been.

But some Marines were eager to discuss the shooting, arguing that the Marine was entirely justified in firing at a perceived threat. To them, it was a litmus test to identify those who understood combat. The Marine Corps agreed on some level, opting not to press charges against the Marine.

The Power of Bull**it

Never underestimate the power of Bull**it:

An alternative-energy project at Western Washington University would power cars with natural gas harvested from cow manure.

Students at the state university's Vehicle Research Institute have developed a scrubber that removes the corrosive chemicals from the gases released by manure so it can power a natural-gas car.

Eric Leonhardt, director of the institute, said the fuel, which he calls "biomethane," is less flammable than gasoline and produces fewer greenhouse gases than manure left to decompose naturally in fields.

He estimates that the natural gas would cost about half the current price of gasoline to produce, but emphasizes that that is not the real benefit of cow power.

"If we can get farmers to put in anaerobic digesters, that's going to be the environmental impact," he said. "The gas is really an aside. The real impact is getting manure out of the water supply."

Killing two birds with one turd. Marvelous!

I chuckled when I saw this yesterday morning on the local AM broadcast leading up to Katie's 3-hour farewell tour. Little did I understand the seriousness of it all:

Only one farm in Washington has started turning its cow manure into natural gas, although the process is catching on more quickly in some other states where utility companies are helping farmers buy anaerobic digesters.

An anaerobic digester on Darryl Vander Haak's dairy farm in Lynden processes manure from about 1,000 cows into electricity to sell to Puget Sound Energy. At full capacity, the digester can produce enough energy to power 180 homes.

The raw biogas contains highly corrosive hydrogen sulfide, so it must be processed before it can be used in motor vehicles that run on natural gas.

Leonhardt says his institute is working on creating a commercially viable bioscrubber to turn that idea into a reality.

One of Leonhardt's students, Matt Wilson, said the scrubber they have developed from PVC pipe and spare parts removes both hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide from methane gas. The gas is then compressed before it can be pumped into a special natural-gas-powered car.

Waste produced by 15 cows has been enough to run the institute's natural-gas car for 250 to 300 miles, Wilson said.

Better off Now or Then?

Gateway Pundit with an amazing roundup of numbers...metrics...things that help you understand whats going on in Iraq:

Using Pentagon statistics cross-checked with independent research, King said he came up with an annualized Iraqi civilian death rate of 27.51 per 100,000.

While that number sounds high - astonishingly, the Iowa Republican discovered that it's significantly lower than a number of major American cities, including the nation's capital."

It's 45 violent deaths per 100,000 in Washington, D.C.," King told Crowley. Other American cities with higher violent civilian death rates than Iraq include:
Detroit - 41.8 per 100,000
Baltimore - 37.7 per 100,000

Something to think about when you read the next "Iraq the quagmire" headline!