An amusing find over at the Kerry campaign website – my search for “Christmas Cambodia” brought up this Washington Post article of June 2003, from the campaign site archives. The CIA hat story already been well circulated across the blogosphere, but you’d think the webmasters would have discretely deleted it. (As they evidently did with this one which still registers as a hit under the search word “Cambodia”, though the word no longer exists there.)
Or maybe they don’t yet know it’s problematic?

A close associate hints: There’s a secret compartment in Kerry’s briefcase. He carries the black attach� everywhere. Asked about it on several occasions, Kerry brushed it aside. Finally, trapped in an interview, he exhaled and clicked open his case.
“Who told you?” he demanded as he reached inside. “My friends don’t know about this.”
The hat was a little mildewy. The green camouflage was fading, the seams fraying.
“My good luck hat,” Kerry said, happy to see it. “Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia.”
Kerry put on the hat, pulling the brim over his forehead. His blue button-down shirt and tie clashed with the camouflage. He pointed his finger and raised his thumb, creating an imaginary gun. He looked silly, yet suddenly his campaign message was clear: Citizen-soldier. Linking patriotism to public service. It wasn’t complex after all; it was Kerry.
He smiled and aimed his finger: “Pow.”

A saved a screenshot of the relevant portion of the page here in case it disappears.
And speaking of the Kerry website discrepencies, reader Mike Power sent this;

I just finished reading the latest from Instapundit’s blog and now it seems there is more to the Kerry military saga than I was aware of. Most people are under the impression that Kerry got out of the service in 1970. But now we find out his release was 1978 and as a member of the Naval Reserve, he met a delegation from North Vietnam. Unless this meeting was sanctioned by the U.S. Government, this sounds troublesome. It was at this time that Kerry was on his anti-Vietnam rant. Fraternizing with the enemy maybe??

As Mike mentions, this was outlined by Glenn Reynolds a couple of days ago. Reynolds is still hot on the media watch trail, as they twist and dodge and bury the most damaging aspects of the swift boat debacle.
And some military perspective on the Kerry service records.
Meanwhile, the Democratic front “MoveOn.org” is fighting back, with former Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan promising the “mother of all backlashes”.
That’s right – a page out of Saddam Hussein’s propoganda playbook.
How deep does the Rove infiltration run in that party?

The biggest Kerry mystery has yet to be solved. Indeed, I’m not sure anyone has spent much time on it at all. What began as an amusing meme when John And By The Way I Served In Vietnam Kerry first began his bid for the Democratic nomination, his habit of referring to his Vietnam service was more an amusing sidebar than a central question. Who would have ever guessed he would have used it as a foundation for his presidential campaign?
Today, as his tales of bravery and travels in Cambodia are being disassembled across the blogosphere and by the men he served with, and his campaign tries to stop the implosion of his credibility with artless posturing, legal maneuvers and support from media co-conspirators…
There remains a fundamental problem with the absurd – even bizarre – decision to make his Vietnam experience the central underpinning of his qualifications for commander In chief – it simply makes no sense. Conventional wisdom holds that America failed in Vietnam. Jeez, John. Wouldn’t have it have been more logical to tie your commander in chief credentials to a war you helped win?
It’s not as though Kerry played a pivotal role in winning a serious engagement, storming a pillbox or fending off a seige. His military accomplishments seem to consist of little more than dispatching a fleeing Viet Cong and fishing a crewmate out of the drink.
I dislike conspiracy theories, but is everyone absolutely sure this guy’s not a Rove operative?

Canadian Finance Minister Ralph Goodale addressed reporters half way through his ten day tour of the continent to report that Africa is poor.
Toronto Star;

“It’s obviously important to Africa, but it’s also important to the world” to find solutions to long-standing development and poverty issues, he added. “We all have a stake in that. … It’s partly altruism but quite frankly, for the rest of the world, it’s partly also self-interest,” he said. “And those of us who are privileged to live in some of the more comfortable parts of the world need to understand that.”

Of course. It’s all about geography.
Perhaps Goodale can draw on the nearly uninterrupted half century of Liberal success in throwing money at findiing creative solutions to solve the problems of poverty, unemployment, tribal tensions, violence and illiteracy on Canadian Indian reserves.

Bush critic Chris Suellentrop ;

After last week’s Democratic convention, I felt that John Kerry had become the favorite in the presidential race. Now, after only two days with President Bush, I’m not so sure. He’s that good. Unlike many people, I’m not threatened by the president’s religious rhetoric. It must be the Midwestern Catholic in me. Like the people in the audience, I find it familiar and comforting. I can see why so many people believe the president is “one of us,” no matter how rich or how elite his background. And I can see that Kerry will have a tough time besting Bush in all three debates.

Via Occam’s Toothbrush

Gadhafi writes another check.

Libya agreed Tuesday to pay $35 million to some victims of a bloody terror bombing at a Berlin disco nearly two decades ago, making another step in Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s effort to rebuild relations with the West.
The deal, coming after much larger settlements for the bombings of two U.S. and French airliners, does not cover 169 American victims, including two soldiers who died in the blast at the La Belle disco on April 5, 1986. Lawyers are seeking separate compensation for them in U.S. courts.

Not as satisfying as chasing the little dictator into a hole in the ground… but progress, nonetheless. Now, would someone please start the ball rolling on Yassar Arafat?

Not just a catchy slogan!

This has to be a bit of a downer for convention celebrants. Kerry’s polls are sagging faster than his debotoxified face …

hmmmm….

Considering the fact that average voting Americans are only beginning to pay attention to the choices before them, maybe the DNC should rethink giving Michael “Would you say that to Bush or Kerry?” Moore a chair in the presidential box.

Brokaw, on the DNC network coverage;

“Any entrepreneurship that we show on booking guests or unilaterally calling up people and trying to get them to come to our booth, we get a call 15 minutes later from the Kerry operation saying ‘No, no, that’s not part of our booking procedure,’ ” Mr. Brokaw said. “There is a politburo running this convention.” (Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kerry, said the campaign’s booking operation was set up to facilitate interviews, not restrict them.)
The campaign went so far as to try to limit the kind of questions Mr. Brokaw and Mr. Rather were to ask Mr. Kerry here on Wednesday afternoon. The staff wanted the questions to concern Mr. Kerry’s expectations for the convention, nothing more, according to people at both networks. It was the sort of terms-setting that few have dared to ask of network anchors. The request was swiftly denied.
Mr. Kerry did not help matters when he failed to appear until nearly an hour before the evening newscasts, leaving the anchors to wait at Faneuil Hall with increasing anxiety. (Mr. Kerry was not running late in returning from a campaign stop but rather from his vacation home in Nantucket.)
“What that said to me was that either they don’t have their stuff together, or he’s ultimately responsible, or he just took it lightly,” Mr. Rather complained.

All that, and a Jennings-Brokaw pissing match, too.
Heh.

I have no personal opinion about this, but in the event that it comes to pass, I do relish the notion of 85% of Europeans and 90% of Americans assuming that the Prime Minister of Canada is married to C�line Dion.

The blog pundits are already in overdrive over this story;

Newsweek – American counterterrorism officials, citing what they call “alarming” intelligence about a possible Qaeda strike inside the United States this fall, are reviewing a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election in the event of such an attack…

James Joyner discusses the legal aspects.
Some of the voiced concerns are that this will give the tin-foil hat crowd “another conspiracy to latch onto” (who gives a rip?), that doing such a thing will mean the “terrorists will be handed a victory” (eh… no.), as well as worries that such legislation could produce “self-fulfilling prophesy”. (Since when have terrorists needed an incentive?)
As a Canadian living under a parliamentary system where federal elections are set pretty much arbitrarily by the governing party, and usually at a time chosen to give them an advantage over the opposition – I can’t get too bent out of shape over the idea that an election commission be granted bi-partisan authority to consider postponement of a set election date in the event of a national emergency.
It’s very easy to sit back and state that “short of a nuclear attack” nothing should interfere with the democratic process. But what of an attack that took down the power grid for two days a la the summer of 2003 or caused the death of a candidate and his running mate?
It seems to me that not having a contingency plan in place to respond to such a catastrophe in a controlled manner is more dangerous than the alternative. If you buy the arguments that it would be too disruptive and politically inflammatory to delay a presidential election for two or three weeks under emergency legislation, consider the contraversies involved with going forward with an election in a nation in grief, fear and chaos, while individuals of varying authority make decisions on a “seat of the pants” basis.
The nature of Islamic fascism is to be unpredictable, to attack civilian targets and cause the most disruption possible. Rigid systems are the most vulnerable to this type of threat. It’s all well and good to stand behind dogmatic resolve to see an election through come hell or high water… but in the reality of a post 9/11 world, not to have a legal contingency plan for the worst-case scenerio seems naive and foolhardy.

flop

“I know that Republicans are going to try very hard to say, ‘Oh, John Kerry voted for that dairy compact when he represented Massachusetts,'” Kerry said. “I plead guilty. I did vote for it, because I represented Massachusetts as a United States senator.”
Noting that he will be representing the entire country as president, Kerry said he wouldn’t support such a regional system if elected.

That’s not the important part, though. This is;

Throughout his hourlong town hall-like meeting in Independence, Kerry spoke of his proposals to require that food labels include a product’s country of origin and to expand programs that provide financial aid to farmers who practice conservation.

Just so you Kerry-cheering Canadians can’t say you weren’t warned.

A commentor on the Shotgun;

Did my duty today and paid my $10 for my Separation Party of Alberta membership. I had to do it online b/c all of the phone lines to their headquarters were busy, busy all day. (whoo hoo)
Also, noticed on the Rutherford show this morning Separatist calls outnumbered confederation calls 17:1
What do they say? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me; fool me thrice, I’m really getting steamed; fool me a fourth time, I’m not taking it anymore.

Sure, people are blowing off steam. But today a provincial Tory backbencher defected to the separatist Alberta Alliance Party after accusing Premier Ralph Klein of ruining Stephen Harper’s federal election chances.

In and of itself, not earthshattering. The defector was already critical of Klein and facing the dissolution of his seat through boundary changes.
But, it’s not going to go away. I once asked a friend in Calgary – a 70’ish grandmother, not particularly politically motivated – what it would take for her to support separatism. Her answer – “A ballot”
Stay tuned. I think Paul Martin has a big, big problem on his hands. The things he must do demonstrate he is serious about western alienation – pull out from Kyoto, kill the gun registry, mend fences with the US – are precisely those things that are going to trigger the NDP and his own left-wingers to pull the plug on his government. If Martin is going to diffuse Western anger, he’s going to have to broker a serious deal with the Conservatives – not the NDP.

The defining moment for me during last night’s election results was this one: Newly elected Liberal MP in Kings-Hants (NS), Scott Brison:

“There’s not a lot of room for Red Tories in a party with a lot of red necks.”

This morning, I’m wondering where the outrage is.
There is none, of course, because it’s acceptable in the media to use cultural slurs against Western Canadians.
And sadly, it’s been acceptable to us for too long. Or it never occurs to us that the slur is serious, intentionally dehumanizing and directly aimed at core conservative values and belief systems integral to our heritage and western history. A couple of weeks ago I took a swipe at the CBC’s Michael Enright for “criticizing the media for assuming” that the conservative Fraser Institute was the Droolers and Knuckledraggers Association. He never did “get” it. He was incapable of recognizing that his use of those terms, in and of themselves, to describe conservative thought was dehumanizing, whether or not he was defending the Fraser Institute in this instance. He wasn’t criticizing the marginalization of conservatives by the media, he was criticizing them for automatically dismissing the Fraser Institute as part of that “drooler” crowd.
The biased conduct by the national media during this campaign has been brazen. From day one, a blatant double standard has been applied to the Conservative party members who dared open their mouths and express personal conservative values. Social conservates in the Liberal Party enjoyed a free pass, their “gaffes” unreported, the contraversial backgrounds of Liberal advisors unexamined.
The media drove the agenda, hijacked the campaign and framed every discussion on so-called “social issues” as an “us vs them-who-would-kill-gays and enslave women”. Stephen Harper was branded as “scary” . Apparently, Liberal corruption at the senior civil service isn’t “scary”, but invoking the constitutionally entrenched notwithstanding clause is the chainsaw massacre of Canadian Politics.
The same thing happened to health care. No rational debate of private vs public ever occured. It was good vs evil, right vs wrong, Canadian vs the evil baby-killing American system. During the Klein health care frenzy nobody turned a camera east to the blatant Canada Health Act violator – Quebec.
The Conservative campaign has to take some blame for that. They shied away from those direct comparisons. In the well-predicted hindsight of a zero seat performance, it was an opportunity squandered to put Paul Martin’s challenge under a public microscope and pound home the message of “double standard”. They didn’t, and why they didn’t I will never know.
If Canadian conservatives, both big C and small c, are ever to find a voice in this country and rescue it from it’s headlong collapse into international disintegration – we must begin at both the top political echelons of the party, and the grassroots, by reclaiming the language and demanding our own share of protection under political correctness guidelines. It is not a silly “get even” suggestion. It is critical, if we are to remove this tool from the hands of the opposition.
The most obvious first target is to eliminate the use of the word “redneck” as an acceptable tactic to stifle debate before it occurs. Make the use of the word “redneck” as unacceptable as “redskin”, “raghead” and “frog”. Then we can go to work on “hillybilly”, “cowby” and all the other sniggering cultural insults as they surface. It’s an easy one to attack because it’s so common and used so casually. Tackling “redneck” would seed doubt in the minds of moderate Canadians that maybe – just maybe – it is not appropriate to marginalize conservatives with cheap namecalling tactics.
This week Conservative party officials should hold a news conference. That news conference should have a sole purpose – to demand a public apology from MP Scott Brison for his derogatory cultural slur against Western Canadians.
Get this namecalling issue on the table. Stop allowing the left to write the Encyclopedia of Political Correctness. Point out just what terms like this are intended to do, and that their use is a cheap device to avoid debate. Until that happens, western Canada will remain vulnerable to being political dismissiveness as uneducated, unintelligent, unsophisticated, and untrustworthy. And so long as we permit it, we have no one but ourselves to blame.
It’s time to demand respect, and to settle for nothing less than 100% compliance in the language of both the left and the media.

Mark Steyn; So it’s corruption plus socialism. That’s great news, isn’t it?”

Class victory speech of the evening – openly gay Conservative – turned – Liberal Scott Brison : “There’s not a lot of room for Red Tories in a party with a lot of red necks.”
We have a minority government with a “tie” potential. The Liberals and NDP, who are expected to work in concert, will have 154 votes in parliament, less the appointed speaker.
The Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois have 154 seats, plus Chuck Cadman, who was a Conservative MP who won his seat as an Independant after losing the local nomination.
No word yet on whether the newly enfranchisedCanadian Convicted Felon community influenced any of the outcomes.
Cosh has a synopsis
Saskatchewan anhilated the NDP – a Conservative sweep of 13 of 14 seats, with the exception of Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, who has respect across all party lines. (Plus, he’s good insurance – smart strategic voting there). Premier Lorne Calvert’s shaky majority is more vulnerable than ever – this is a message to the provincial NDP as much as it is the feds.
With this Anti-American, left wing alliance and David Pratt gone – the only decent Liberal defense minister in the past decade – things look desperate for the military. Short of an attack on Canadian soil, nothing substantive will be done with the NDP holding the hammer. And hopes for early BSE-border resolution just evaporated.
I said on the Shotgun last night – the unofficial slogan of Western Canada, The West Wants In may be on the cusp of changing to The West Wants Out.

Andrew Coyne has a must read column for those interested in Canadian politics and tomorrow’s election. That includes you Americans, by the way. You cannot understand Canada and our schizophrenic foreign policy without a cursory understanding of the political system and regional idiosyncracies that have allowed a single political machine to install itself in virtual perpetuity.
Andrew argues that this machine is on the verge of finding itself dismantled.
For the country’s sake, I hope he’s right. The tentacles of government have been increasingly rewoven under the Liberals to entrench that power. Majority governments hand 95% of the decision making power of parliament to the office of the Prime Minister, and challenges to the constitutionality of legislation are adjuciated by a Supreme Court – also appointed by the Prime Minister. New campaign finance laws shovel out taxpayer cash to parties on the basis of the votes they garnered during the previous election – and forbid corporations and unions from contributing at all, giving the governing party a financial edge. Private interest groups and individuals are gagged by strict spending limits in elections, effectively muzzling all but the political parties and the media. That media that includes a government funded CBC with it’s own self interest in conflict with the prospect of Liberal party defeat.
Short of reform from within – highly unlikely – the only hope for cutting those tentacles permanently is from the outside, and I will argue, like Andrew – the outside represented by the more inately democratic political mindset of western Canada.

Whatever the precise result on Monday, and whoever forms a government, one thing should by now be clear: the political landscape of Canada is on the verge of historic change — radical, permanent, and mostly for the the better. Eight decades of Liberal dominance, punctuated by occasional Tory interludes, are about to come crashing to an end. This isn’t 1984. It isn’t 1979. It isn’t even 1957. It’s something completely new.

We shall see. Go read it all.

Dominatrix and Marijuana Party candidate Carole Taylor is running in the riding of Ottawa-Vanier, against Liberal MP Mauril Belanger. Belanger is chief government whip.

I couldn’t make this stuff up.
hat tip – Ghost Of A Flea

I’m not the only one who’s noticed this.

Cabinet ministers are going to fall. There is a new desperation in the Liberal campaign — a whole generation of Liberal MPs and organizers have never felt what it’s like to lose. They don’t like that feeling, and it shows.
They’re angry. And so they’re telling Martin to be angry — to do something, anything. And so Martin is getting angry at the easy scapegoat, the traditional Liberal whipping boy: Alberta. He really ought to be angry at Ontarians, who are rejecting him for the Conservatives, according to recent polls, by a 10- point margin, or at Quebecers, who are rejecting him by even more.
They used to vote Liberal, and aren’t. But Alberta makes a much more gratifying target.
So last week, Martin blasted Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, calling Klein’s health-care reform package un- Canadian. “Unlike Stephen Harper, I will look Ralph Klein in the eye and I will say ‘no.’,” ranted Martin. From Ontario, of course — not over the phone to Klein privately, not in a memo, but at an election event, using federal-provincial relations as a desperate partisan weapon. “Unlike Stephen Harper, I will defend medicare,” he said — defending it against Klein, the new Liberal demon.
Although nearly every province has private health-care facilities, Martin chose to attack only Alberta.
He did not criticize Ontario and Quebec, with their burgeoning private hospitals. Ontario and Quebec are run by Liberal governments.
The government of Alberta has kept Martin briefed about their proposed changes for months. Martin has never raised an objection, and Anne McLellan, the deputy prime minister, has repeatedly approved of such changes.
So there was no reason to criticize Klein’s plans at all — at least until they provided a scapegoat for the Liberals. And if Klein’s plans provide a scapegoat, so do all the other provinces.
This is not coincidence. This is what the left would call “systemic bias” — an anti-Alberta bigotry.

This hypocrisy needs to be targeted hard by the media. Instead, they’re lining up behind the Liberal canard, awaiting the Klein “bombshell” that Paul Martin is predicting.
Funny how he doesn’t apply the same standards to his own doctor.
hat tipDebbye

Why I’m voting Conservative and not NDP in Ottawa Centre�:

3. $1.75
My vote is a $1.75 donation to a political party – I don’t want it to go to the NDP.

The “enemy of my enemy is my friend” voters might keep that in mind.

Fab Magazine’s Editor-In-Chief Mitchel Raphael:

“Paul Martin is your only hope if you do not want to see Stephen Harper become prime minister. Under the Liberals, we have seen gay rights move forward a touch beyond what most Canadians are comfortable with. The Conservatives will roll back our rights. I say, bring it on: boost the NDP, infiltrate the Conservative Party and make them change. But if you want to avoid a big battle, vote red.”

From his interview of the chosen candidate:

How do you think your personal views on homosexuality have changed over time? And why?
No comment supplied.
In the last session of Parliament your government introduced Bill C-12, which would remove the artistic merit defence in current child-porn laws. How can gay youth be protected from prosecution for expressing their sexuality through art?
No comment supplied.
The new Assisted Human Reproduction Act makes home insemination illegal. This is a big hurdle for gay men and lesbians trying to conceive. Does the state have the right to be in the bedrooms of the nation if a gay man decides to inseminate a lesbian with a turkey-baster?
No comment supplied.
Will you be attending Pride Day in Toronto on June 27, the day before the election?
No comment supplied.

I smell a Pulitzer.