Just a short note to let readers know I’m still at the farm, visiting with family down for my mother’s funeral. Will be home and probably back to normal posting routine in a day or two.
Kinder, Gentler Bin Laden?
My initial reaction to the Bin Laden release yesterday was about the same as Wretchard’s. The tone has changed.
It is important to notice what he has stopped saying in this speech. He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out.
On Larry King last evening, Walter Cronkite agrees – Bin Laden would like to negotiate. Of course, he also said this…
“Indeed. Indeed. And the thing that in bringing this threat to us, there is almost, in the fact that he dressed well, that he looked well, he was clean shaven, nearly clean shaven as those folks get.”
Say, what?
update, via Instapundit; Jeff Jarvis is slowly (?) starting to see he’s supporting a candidate whose party is suffering from a case of full-blown political necrotizing fasceitis…
Thomas Friedman’s Memory Hole
Thomas Friedman in the New York Times….
“When the world liked Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, America had more power in the world“
James Joyner is perplexed.
When exactly was it that the world liked Ronald Reagan? Certainly, not while he was in office. Remember all the protests about his plan to put Pershing II’s into Europe? The controversy over Star Wars? The business about him being a stupid cowboy?
Bill Clinton, on the other hand, was wildly popular in Europe. But how exactly did that translate into U.S. power? He was unable to secure UN backing for Kosovo and a myriad of other military operations, having instead to go it alone or with coalitions of the willing. The good will toward Clinton didn’t exactly translate into freedom from terrorism, either, as al Qaeda formed and perpetrated numerous attacks on American targets under his watch.
Ahistoricism isn’t just a symptom of Bush derangement syndrome – it’s a prerequisite. Much of the core criticism of Bush’s foreign policy absolutely hinges upon ignorance – or intentional misrepresentation – of past events. Indeed, it isn’t even that uncommon for critics to move events that occured in the Clinton administration through time to attribute them to Bush, if they think it will help their case.
Case in point: the current meme that unemployment rates under Bush are “high”, placed against a backdrop of Clinton prosperity and full employment. In fact, the unemployment rates in the US today are nearly identical to those under Clinton.
The same phenomenon occured under the dearly departed – and only recently beloved – Ronald Reagan. Under the heavily scorned “Reaganomics” plan, average income for the lowest one-fifth of Americans rose from $7,008 to $9431, inflation fell 48%, unemployment fell 45%, interest rates declined from 21% to under 6% . 21 million new jobs were created.
The only economic indicators that weren’t affected was press coverage. Negative stories on the economic performance of the Reagan adminstration outnumbered the postive by a ration of seven to one.*
[*source- L. Brent Bozell III, Media Research Center, in Imprimis Nov. 1994]
New Hostage Video
The Arabic television station Al-Jazeera has broadcast a second video of kidnapped blog worker The Commissar, who took himself hostage last week and threatens to behead himself with his own circular saw, unless his demands are met.
The station showed footage of The Commissar demanding that American troops stay in Iraq. He also urged DynaCorp, the private security firm, to keep open its office in Baghdad, and appealed for Iraqi women prisoners to be executed.
The Commissar, who is holding himself hostage, was seized last week while at his New York office. The Commissar, 50, was born in America and has lived and worked in America for 30 years and is married to an American. He holds American citizenship.
I think this marks the “jump the shark” moment for the impact of beheading threats. Move on Jihadis…. your ratings are about to tank.
Al Qaaqaa – From Explosives Scandal to Media Scandal
It turns out that the New York Times was let off easy on the Al Qaaqaa fiasco. CBS was trying to hold the Bush-damaging story in order to run it in the final hours of the campaign – when there would be insufficient time to present the facts – but the Times broke it. The initial explanation was journalistic “competitiveness”.
Except they weren’t competing with CBS. They too, had planned to hold it for Monday publication – until it began to leak into the blogosphere. According to the Washington Post, their hand was forced.
On Sunday night, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller told Jeff Fager, executive producer of CBS’s “60 Minutes,” that the story they had been jointly pursuing on missing Iraqi ammunition was starting to leak on the Internet.
“You know what? We’re going to have to run it Monday,” Keller said.
Bill at INDC has the Russian angle covered (including possible connections to the “caught in the crossfire” incident involving Russian “diplomats), while Wizbang is providing updates and asking for assistance in exploring the discrepencies between the original IAEA inspections and their subsequent reports.
The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing – presumably stolen due to a lack of security – was based on “declaration” from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility.
But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency’s inspectors recorded that just over 3 tons of RDX was stored at the facility – a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported.
More at Instapundit, while Powerline is covering the follow-up “reporting” by the Times and finds they are still working hard to salvage/spin this story.
Once again, the Times appears to be the only news organization in America that doesn’t know that the 101st Airborne merely passed through Al Qaqaa on the way to Baghdad without searching the site. It was the 3rd ID, which reached Al QaQaa six days earlier, that knew the site needed to be searched, and did, indeed, search it. Can the Times really be this inept? I don’t think so. I think it’s deliberate. No newspaper could be this bad accidentally.
“Swift And Certain Response”
Lifelong Democrat Meryl Yourish is voting for George Bush.
I think Kerry is a liar and a poseur. You cannot have a career of pacifism and voting against military issues and suddenly turn around and declare yourself a fit commander-in-chief. It takes more than a campy salute and a “reporting for duty” at the DNC to make me believe Kerry is fit for command. I believe he is more unfit for command than any other candidate who ran against him, with the possible exception of Howard Dean.
And may I say that the Democratic party may lose me forever if they can’t give me a candidate I can respect and believe in. The Democrats have forced my hand. I was praying for a candidate I could vote for with the confidence that he would continue the war against the fascists who would change our world into one of uncompromising totalitarianism. In the past, I would have voted Democratic regardless – hell, I voted for Walter Mondale – but not today. Today, I think our safety, and the future of our way of life, is in danger. And I don’t think John Kerry gets that.
These were the nails in the coffin for me, when Kerry told the DNC:“Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response.”
That’s not good enough. We are at war now; I don’t want a president who will wait until we are attacked in order to respond. I want the targeted assassinations of terrorists. I want the continued isolation of terrorist nations like Syria and Iran. I want dictators like Muammar Ghadafy to be sweating for their lives and careers. I want someone who is committed to trying to plant the seed of democracy in the Middle East, not someone who thinks that is an impossibility. Kerry has indicated that his Middle East policy will be more of the same, using Clinton’s failed tactics and Clinton’s failed negotiators. That’s not good enough.
For those who wonder (and occassionally ask outright) why I spend so much time following this election – an election outside my own country – I offer the above.
Yesterday, local talk radio host John Gormley was asking callers if they agreed with survey results that indicated a great number of Canadians considered the US election more important than our own. He was incredulous that there were people who thought so.
Ordinarily, I might agree. But these are not ordinary times and this year I hold the election in the US to be more important than any in our own. Why?
Because my country cannot protect me.
Arafat
A problem best solved with a bullet, I say.
UN: Attempting To Influence US Election?
Via Powerline; Clifford May connects the dots behind the New York Time’s crumbling story about “missing bomb material” in Iraq.
The United Nations is already embroiled in the largest economic scam in world history: the multibillion dollar Oil-for-Food scandal. Now there is reason to ask whether a senior U.N., official also has attempted to influence an American election by spreading misleading information.
[…]
Here’s one theory: It was Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Why would he do that? “The U.S. is trying to deny ElBaradei a second term,” a high U.S. government official told me. “We have been on his case for missing the Libyan nuclear weapons program and for weakness on the Iranian nuclear weapons program.”
ElBaradei also opposed the liberation of Iraq. And he would like nothing better than to see President Bush be defeated next week.
If all this is true it would amount to a major scandal: It would mean that a senior U.N. official may be changing the outcome of an American election by spreading false information. And major U.S. media outlets are allowing themselves to be manipulated in pursuit of that goal.
The Times and other news organizations also have ignored this pertinent question: Why did Saddam Hussein have the kinds of explosives favored by terrorists � and why was he permitted to keep them? Such explosives, according to the Times, also “are used in standard nuclear weapons design,” and were acquired by Saddam when he “embarked on a crash effort to build an atomic bomb in the late 1980s.”
[…]
Writing in The Corner, former federal terrorism prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy pointed out that U.N. Security Council Resolution 687, which imposed the terms of 1991 Gulf War ceasefire, required Iraq to “unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of . . . [a]ll ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities[.]”
Yet the IAEA made no attempt to force Saddam to comply with his obligations to destroy these “related major parts” of its ballistic missiles.
In addition, McCarthy noted, Iraq was required “not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material or any subsystems or components[,]” and, to the extent it had such items, present them for “urgent on-site inspection and the destruction, removal or rendering harmless as appropriate of all items specified above.”
It shouldn’t require a rocket scientist to understand that a detonator is a key component of a nuclear bomb. But according to the Times, Saddam persuaded ElBaradei that he wanted to hold on to the explosives in case they were needed “for eventual use in mining and civilian construction” – and ElBaradai agreed.
May asks good questions. It makes one wonder why the Times didn’t ask them.
Pang Of Professionalism
ABC News President David Westin suffered a pang of professionalism in an address at the Harvard University’s Institute of Politics last night.
Harvard Crimson:
“The more time we express our opinions, the less time we have to talk about the facts,” Westin said. “Unfortunately, opinion is driving out facts too often in most of what we see on television today.”
[…]
“It can be very entertaining to have two very spirited people discussing heath care in this country, but I for one would be better benefited by someone coming on and telling me exactly what the state of health care is before we talk about what ought to be done and telling me what my real options are,” Westin said.
In addition to the danger of having too much opinion, news media face the danger of the blurring between fact and opinion, he said.
“If viewers see news people on different channels that look pretty much the same, on sets that look pretty much the same, and graphics that look pretty much the same, with some expressing opinion some of the time and some expressing facts, is it surprising that the audience believe that they’re all expressing facts?” Westin asked.
Via Drudge.
Scene From The Gas Pumps
A car pulled up for fuel at one of the local gas stations yesterday.
Hello sir, would you like it filled?
Yes, thanks.
What with?
Whatever’s cheapest.
So, he filled it with diesel.
Khmer Rouge Embraces Jesus
A headline ripped from the pages of “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up”…
Khmer Rouge Embraces Jesus
The Guardian:
The Khmer Rouge followed a harsh brand of communism, killing nearly two million people in their bid to return Cambodia to Year Zero. Now they have a new faith: evangelical Christianity.
Hundreds of former fighters have been baptised in the past year. The Khmer Rouge’s mountain stronghold, the town of Pailin in south-west Cambodia, has four churches, all with pastors and growing congregations. At least 2,000 of those who followed Pol Pot, the guerrillas’ former leader who died six years ago, now worship Jesus.
Many new converts were involved in the bloody battles, massacres and forced labour programmes that led to the Killing Fields. Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge sought to eradicate religion, ripping down the country’s biggest cathedral, killing Muslim clerics and turning Buddhist temples into pigsties.
According to one pastor, 70 per cent of the converts in Pailin are Khmer Rouge. For many, it offers a hope of salvation. ‘When I was a soldier I did bad things. I don’t know how many we killed. We were following orders and thought it was the right thing to do,’ said Thao Tanh, 52. ‘I read the Bible and I know it will free me from the weight of the sins I have committed.’
(Hat tip – Kathy Shaidle at the Shotgun, who thinks this “kinda” vindicates Ann Coulter.)
Hanoi John
A buzz has been running through the blogosphere since last night about this story.
The communist regime in Hanoi monitored closely and looked favorably upon the activities of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War during the period Senator Kerry served most actively as the group’s spokesman and a member of its executive committee, two captured Viet Cong documents suggest.
The documents – one dubbed a “circular” and the other a “directive” – were captured in 1971 and are part of a trove of material from the war currently stored at the Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University at Lubbock. Originally organized by Douglas Pike, a major scholar who is now deceased, the archive contains more than 20 million documents. Many are available online at the Virtual Vietnam Archive and, as the election has heated up, have been the focus of a scramble for insights into Mr. Kerry’s anti-war activities. The Circular and the Directive are listed as items numbered 2150901039b and 2150901041 respectively. Their authenticity was confirmed by Stephen Maxner, archivist at the Vietnam Archive.
My first reaction to this story? Well, duh.
… more than 350 Americans secretly worked for Soviet intelligence during World War II — when the United States and the Soviet Union were allies. A number of them served in very high positions in the U.S. government. Harry Dexter White was assistant secretary of the Treasury and played a key role in creating the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, pillars of the postwar world monetary structure. Lauchlin Currie was one of a half-dozen special assistants to President Franklin Roosevelt. Laurence Duggan was in charge of U.S. relations with Latin America.
The Venona story.
If Soviet communists could be this successful at infiltrating the highest levels of the US government, how difficult do you think it would be to influence Vietnam protest groups? One could hardly consider their goals to be in conflict.
Personal Notes
I went to visit my mom for the last time yesterday. She passed away this evening in Arcola hospital. I’m sure the two hour road trip must have hastened her death, but it was clear that she really wanted to be out of Regina General and “home”. I can’t say that I blame her.
The blogging has been a useful distraction over the past days, and I suspect, it will continue to serve that purpose for a few more. It goes without saying that activity here will be light for the rest of the week.
This space wasn’t set up to be a window into my personal life, and even if it were, my Scottish genes wouldn’t allow it. So, while I appreciate any sentiments you may wish to share, I’d really prefer you take those few moments to sit down and tell a young person that a very good woman left the world tonight, years before she should have, because she made the choice as a teenager to pick up a cigarette.
Goodnight.
Kerry In The Land Of Make Believe, con’t
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 leather was a little mildewy.
“My good luck sea monster skin,” Kerry said, happy to see it. “Given to me by a sanpan fishermen as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia.”
A Request For The Blogosphere
Back in August, in a post about the accredited bloggers at the Republican National Convention, I made this point;
Now, if there are any Canadian Conservative party members lurking about, would you please sit up and pay attention;
These bloggers are, in no small way, responsible for the recent downturn in the polls for John Kerry, through their relentless pursuit of the Swift Boat contraversy, keeping it alive, digging up documentation and expert military analysis when the mainstream media was avoiding it like the plague. They pushed past the major networks, the New York Times, WaPo and kept this story alive. Both the Democrats and Republicans have recognized the phenomenon of citizen journalism and news analysis and are finding ways to use it to their advantage – but for the Republicans, with the handicap of a predominantly Democrat leaning media – the importance of the internet cannot be “misunderestimated”.
With a minority government, and the potential of another election over the horizon, the gatekeepers at the CBC, Globe, Toronto Star to contend with – I hope that someone in party headquarters is looking at finding ways to incorporate the Canadian blogosphere into the machinery of the Conservative Party.
Well, someone was. I recieved this email last week, and promised to pose the question to the blogosphere in general.
I’ve noticed that a few weeks ago you commented on the impact that bloggers have had on American politics and asked why the Conservatives weren’t using blogs similarly in Canada. I work for a fairly prominent Conservative politician and am quite interested in hearing how you think blogs could be used to change the dynamic in Canada.
I’m a big fan of blogs having read them for the past three years and certainly can see their impact in the US on several stories ranging from the Rather affair to Trent Lott’s collapse. However I don’t think they’ve really had any similar impact in Canada. The only mild influence of the blogosphere on Canada politics I can think of was Andrew Coyne’s use of his blog to find a name for the sponsorship scandal and successfully get Adscam used widely.
Having seen first hand how the media could twisted and spun the Conservatives in the last election I am highly eager to see the blogosphere develop into a actual force that can counteract the Globe/CBC/Toronto Star near stranglehold on the Canadian media. So far I don’t think it’s happened and if you have suggestions as to what politicians can to do encourage it I would interested in hearing about it.
There’s your assignment, folks. Posts and trackbacks invited from anyone with thoughts or observations to share, on either side of the border.
I have some of my own ideas, and I’ll post on those later.
2004 Best Blogs
2004 Best Blogs – Politics & Elections Readers’ Choice Awards
Congratulations to some of my favorites!
Team America: Roger Ebert Is An Idiot
Roger Ebert gave this movie a single star. I can’t say I’m surprised. This is a man who will undoubtedly place Michael Moore’s discredited “documentary” on his Ten Best for 2004.
If I were asked to extract a political position from the movie, I’d be baffled. It is neither for nor against the war on terrorism, just dedicated to ridiculing those who wage it and those who oppose it. The White House gets a free pass, since the movie seems to think Team America makes its own policies without political direction.
I wasn’t offended by the movie’s content so much as by its nihilism. At a time when the world is in crisis and the country faces an important election, the response of Parker, Stone and company is to sneer at both sides — indeed, at anyone who takes the current world situation seriously. They may be right that some of us are puppets, but they’re wrong that all of us are fools, and dead wrong that it doesn’t matter.
Really, Roger?
Were we watching the same film?
Sure, there were moments when the trigger happy “Team America” members went over the top, but you know, there was a certain “inanimate object” aspect to their “collateral damage” – the Eiffel Tower, the Sphinx…
But, were you out taking a p*** during the scene involving the terrorist bombing of the Panama Canal, Roger? Did you not notice how completely unfunny the movie suddenly became when those “dead” puppets were bobbing in the floodwaters?
Come to think of it, how did your review manage to omit mention of the left’s cult-hero Michael Moore – a suicide bomber, inside Mount Rushmore? Certainly, that had to be one of the most politically charged “statements” of the film. Hans Blix, being torn to pieces in Kim Jong-il’s shark tank – did you sleep through that or just close your eyes in horror?
Finally, the biggest hint of them all – how did it end, Roger? Who “saves the world” from destruction? Alex Baldwin? Sean “rivers of chocolate” Penn?
Team America is a funny, funny movie. The sex scenes would someday join those “moments in movie history” – if you could actually show them during a “moments in movie history” retrospective. This movie outragiously, gloriously slays all the sacred cows of the politically correct. Contrary to all prior warnings, I was never offended.
I left thinking that this movie was not at all what the reviewers would have you believe it is. It has one of the most deadly serious undercurrents of any “comedy” I’ve seen in a very long time. Maybe because of the absurdity, exaggeration and the bawdiness, that undercurrent is more easily avoided or overlooked, but for me, it was just driven home more starkly because of the contrast. Perhaps it’s the fact that the stance taken by Parker and Stone – a vicious indictment of the left, of the entertainment industry and the cancer of anti-Americanism that infects and undermines the war on Islamic fascism – is so counter-Hollywood and so rare.
Go see this film.
(Don’t take grandma.)
Kerry In The Land Of Make Believe
Kerry campaign shaken. More here.
Make-Believe News: Update – Kerry meets Security Council members, wearing hat he was given by CIA agent in Cambodia, right after running the Boston Marathon with his Chinese assault rifle slung over his back.
Getting hard to tell the difference, isn’t it?
Update #2 from the Land Of Make Believe via Wizbang:
According to an ESPN interview, Sen. John Kerry claimed to be just “30 yards away” from Bill Buckner’s infamous error in game 6 of the 1986 World Series. That fateful game was held at Shea Stadium in New York on October 25, 1986.
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire reports that a Boston Globe article places Kerry in Boston that night at a banquet.
In August, I was talking with Kerry’s scheduler about possible dates. On Sept. 1, Kerry began his intense criticism of Bush’s decisions in the Iraq war, saying “I would’ve done almost everything differently.” A few days later, I provided the Kerry campaign with a list of 22 possible questions based entirely on Bush’s actions leading up to the war and how Kerry might have responded in the same situations. The senator and his campaign have since decided not to do the interview, though his advisers say Kerry would have strong and compelling answers.
Update #3 – Hell, why not?
Three Assassins. Three Presidents.
Nicholas Packwood notices that the Guardian’s website has been Drudgealanched/Instalanched off line. For this:
“On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And S**’s law dictates he’ll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr – where are you now that we need you?”
Apparently overlooked by the leftist rag from across the pond – the targets of those three gunman so “needed” were none other than Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
“Wrong”… Wrong.
When this Herald-Palladium item by Anna Clark floated up on Drudge a couple of days ago, I wondered why it didn’t create a news frenzy. Perhaps others noticed, as I did, that the word “wrong” in Clark’s report had been wrestled down to a single word quote.
Tenet: CIA made errors
Tenet called the war on Iraq “wrong” in a speech Wednesday night to 2,000 members of The Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan at Lake Michigan College’s Mendel Center. He did not elaborate.
Today, the Herald-Palladium offers this “clarification”;
Former CIA Director George Tenet told the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan on Wednesday that the United States was wrong on its pre-war intelligence in Iraq, but an article in Thursday’s Herald-Palladium may have put the comment in an incorrect context.
The story said Tenet called the war in Iraq “wrong.” However, after reviewing the reporter’s notes (Tenet barred reporters from using tape recorders), the newspaper now believes Tenet used the word “wrong” in the context of U.S. intelligence, not on the direct question of whether the United States should be in Iraq.
To their credit, I don’t think the original story has been airbrushed (yet), but they should really add this disclaimer to the original online item.