C'est Magnifique or Sometimes the French Do Get It Right

How appropriate!
AFP

Lack Of Chill Wind

You know, sometimes I just hate going to Drudge because inevitably he has little jewels like this:

"Rapper: Blacks 'cheered when 9-11 happened'"

"The hip-hop anarchist has declared his solidarity with al-Qaida by asserting that he and other African-Americans 'cheered when 9-11 happened,' reports the New York Daily News."

"'I say that proudly,' the Boogie Down Productions founder went on, insisting that, before the attack, security guards kept Blacks out of the World Trade Center 'because of the way we talk and dress.'"

"So when the planes hit the building, we were like, 'Mmmm - justice.' "

I will refrain from commentary other than to quote these immortal words:

"You know life is cruel, life is never kind

Kind hearts don't make a new story
Kind hearts don't grab any glory

We're the kids in America
We're the kids in America
Everybody live for the music-go-round!"

Kim Wilde

I'm A Thief! Gulp!

I know it is cheesy to lift what is basically an entire post from someone else's site. That being said, I can't resist. I rationalize this rude behavior in two ways:
1) It is not really the entire post; just the entire update.

2) The efficaciousness of the plundering is both efficient and effective.

The following is an update to a post on Daniel Drezner.com which I initially came upon at The Corner.

In the post, Mr. Drezner states that he is pretty sure that he will be voting for Sen. Kerry on Nov. 2 but can still be talked out of it. He challenges people to change his mind.

In an update, this argument is advanced:

"UPDATE: The best effort to persuade me so far comes from a former US diplomat who served in both the Clinton and Bush administrations:

I don't dispute some of Kerry's criticisms of the current Administration's conduct of foreign policy. But KE04 presents no actual solutions on foreign policy from which we can derive a reasonable belief that his performance would be better than the current White House. In fact, it just might be worse.

Many of Kerry's policy proposals on foreign affairs strike me as nastily disingenuous. His "fair trade" mantra raises the specter of protectionism at a time when America's continued global economic engagement remains a lynchpin of the "soft power" Kerry so ardently wishes to use as leverage in the war on terror. His fulminations on a lack of allies in Iraq don't pass the red face test -- French, German and Russian interests are now clearly arrayed in a classic balance of power position against the U.S. This will not change with Kerry in the White House. As for other allies (minus the UK and Australia), we're the victims of our Cold War success - most participants in Iraq are already projecting about as much power as they possibly can, having comfortably atrophied under our security umbrella for the past 60 years. This is the burden of hegemony, and I'm not quite sure Senator Kerry, whose mind still fully inhabits the Vietnam paradigm, is up to the task of bearing it forthrightly.

Kerry's respect for multilateralism should not be praised, but questioned, given the changing nature of international politics today. The days of America being able to win a kitchen pass from UN members on any number of issues have come to pass. The Cold War is over, and as your U of C colleague Mr. Mearshemier warned back in 1990, multipolarity will make us outright miss the Cold War. But Kerry hasn't grasped this fundamental change. He hasn't comprehended that the UN, as well as other multilateral institutions, has stopped being a preserve of internationally agreed rules and collective action backed by broad consensus. These institutions have become, instead, vehicles for the pursuit of narrow self-interests by any number of major regional powers which aspire to great power status. (France, Russia, Germany, India, Brazil, China). This is a drastically different international order from the one Kerry presumes to know.

You also have to ask yourself, who is going to carry out Kerry's multilateral approach? And on that score, things simply get worse. A Kerry White House would mean the Madeleine Albright B Team moving into senior foreign policy positions. And, with the notable exception of Richard Holbrooke (his hair may be on fire, but he gets things done), this would be disastrous. These are the same folks who fiddled for 8 years on counter terror, negotiated a terrifyingly naive nuke deal with North Korea, and generally treat foreign policy as a rhetorical exercise. This is a team who has demonstrated, in past position of influence, an alarming propensity to get rolled by their foreign counterparts. Let's pick just two: Susan Rice? Jamie Rubin?! Are you serious?? During her sojourn as assistant secretary for Africa in Albright's State Department, Rice had to be consistently bailed out of trouble by career diplomats. As for Rubin, he is anti-gravitas. He's Edwards-lite.

Think about Kerry's foreign policy track record and his much ballyhooed commitment to "multilateralism". Think if that reflects accurately the state of world politics today. Think about the people who would occupy senior Cabinet, NSC, State and DoD positions under Kerry. Then think about your vote again, please."

I would love to know who the diplomat is!

Halperin Alert/Koppelgate

In a breathtaking piece of investigative journalism, ABC's Nightline has gone straight to Vietnam in order to "shore up" their man Kerry. They have decided to tackle one specific charge made by the nuisance that is Swiftboat Veterans For Truth. Due to this incisive probe, the legitimacy of presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry's Silver Star has now been established. However, to do this, Ted Koppel has chosen to believe a Vietcong commander and former Vietcong members and their families rather (ooops; maybe I should say "instead of") than highly decorated American Veterans.

"Nightline" traveled to Vietnam and found a number of witnesses who have never been heard from before, and who have no particular ax to grind for or against Kerry. Only one of them, in fact, even knew who Kerry is. The witnesses, all Vietnamese, are still living in the same villages where the fighting took place more than 35 years ago. A 'Nightline' producer visited them and recorded their accounts of that day."

"Vo Van Tam, now 54, was a local Viet Cong commander during the war."

"Villagers say this is what they saw: 'Firing from over here. Firing from over there. Firing from the boat,' Vo Thi Vi told "Nightline."

'Was the man killed by Kerry or by fire from the Swift boat? It was the heat of battle, Tam said, and he doesn't know exactly how the man with the rocket launcher died. "

"None of the villagers seems to be able to say for a fact that they saw an American chase the man who fired the B-40 into the woods and shoot him. Nobody seems to remember that. But they have no problem remembering Ba Thanh, the man who has been dismissed by Kerry's detractors as 'a lone, wounded, fleeing, young Vietcong in a loincloth.' (The description comes from Unfit for Command, by Swift boat veteran John O'Neill.) 'No, this is not correct,' Nguyen Thi Tuoi, 77, told ABC News. 'He wore a black pajama. He was strong. He was big and strong. He was about 26 or 27.'"

Now obviously, I have cut and pasted here so I highly recommend you read the entire article. The thing that just blows my mind is that Ted Koppel could sit there on ABC and put this report on and then expect me to believe a communist Vietcong commander over the word of a hundred or so decorated American Veterans. Oh yeah, and I am supposed to believe that they can go into a communist country, with minders, and find people who have spot on detailed memories of an event 35 years ago. They proudly claim:

"The Vietnamese government initially rejected "Nightline's" request to visit the village, saying it did not want to somehow influence the U.S. presidential election. Once "Nightline" explained that the intention was to simply find out what the Vietnamese people remember and think of what happened there, permission was granted."

No mention of the minder on the website. Oh yeah, and isn't it wonderful how cooperative the Vietnam Government is? And how unconcerned about the outcome of the research they are?

I must admit, for balance, Nightline did have SBV John O'Neill on. Yeah, they had him on so Ted could take his shot at bitchslapping this proud man!

I wonder if the domain name "Koppelgate.com" has been taken?

A Chill Wind

Tip from the Junkyard.

It seems that the mullahs are not happy with the blogosphere. Read the BBC report here. My thoughts and prayers are going out to bloggers.

Now for all you whiny Hollywood types, this is a real chill wind. The fact that you invoke this symbology at your fancy little press conferences is just disgusting. It blunts the reality of people who really are be squashed!

If that is not enough for you, check out the situation in:

Cuba and Cuba again,

and in Bangladesh,

and in Russia,

and in China,

and in Colombia,

and in Mexico,

and in Ivory Coast,

and in Vietnam,

and in Zimbabwe,

and in.........

Shameful!

I Wonder!

With the Kedwards' sickening politicization of Christopher Reeve's death in mind, one important question I would ask the Senator at tonight's debate if I was one of those "undecided" voters present would be:

"Senator, how much money does the Heinz Foundation [a private philanthropic entity] contribute to stem cell research?"

This is not a satirical or rhetorical question.  I don't know the answer.  I would really like to know.  

Where is my brain? Dooohhhhh!
Football Fans For Truth

Ode To an SF 180

Thomas Lipscomb in The New York Sun has a possible reason why Sen. John Kerry refuses to sign an SF 180 to release all his military records. In an explosive piece that appears today, the spectre is raised that Sen. Kerry may not have originally received an honorable discharg from the military.

According to Lipscomb:

"An official Navy document on Senator Kerry's campaign Web site listed as Mr. Kerry's 'Honorable Discharge from the Reserves' opens a door on a well kept secret about his military service."

"The document is a form cover letter in the name of the Carter administration's secretary of the Navy, W. Graham Claytor. It describes Mr. Kerry's discharge as being subsequent to the review of 'a board of officers.' This in it self is unusual. There is nothing about an ordinary honorable discharge action in the Navy that requires a review by a board of officers."

"According to the secretary of the Navy's document, the 'authority of reference' this board was using in considering Mr. Kerry's record was "Title 10, U.S. Code Section 1162 and 1163'. This section refers to the grounds for involuntary separation from the service. What was being reviewed, then, was Mr. Kerry's involuntary separation from the service. And it couldn't have been an honorable discharge, or there would have been no point in any review at all. The review was likely held to improve Mr. Kerry's status of discharge from a less than honorable discharge to an honorable discharge."


Now some dates come into play. The Sec. Claytor signed document that is shown on Sen. Kerry's website is dated Feb. 18, 1978. If this is the date that Kerry was discharged, then he spent 12 years in the service which is six more than he claims.
The fact that the document is from 1978 also brings some other relevant details into the mix.

As per Lipscomb:

"The 'board of officers' review reported in the Claytor document is even more extraordinary because it came about 'by direction of the President.' No normal honorable discharge requires the direction of the president. The president at that time was James Carter. This adds another twist to the story of Mr. Kerry's hidden military records."

"Mr. Carter's first act as president was a general amnesty for draft dodgers and other war protesters. Less than an hour after his inauguration on January 21, 1977, while still in the Capitol building, Mr. Carter signed Executive Order 4483 empowering it. By the time it became a directive from the Defense Department in March 1977 it had been expanded to include other offenders who may have had general, bad conduct, dishonorable discharges, and any other discharge or sentence with negative effect on military records. In those cases the directive outlined a procedure for appeal on a case by case basis before a board of officers. A satisfactory appeal would result in an improvement of discharge status or an honorable discharge."

Now, this is all speculation and could have a logical and undamning explanation. However, this is definite grist for the rumor mill. But (nod to Sen. Kerry) until Sen. Kerry signs an SF 180 and lets the public have access to all his military records, speculation of this type will not only continue to grow, it will continue to grow exponentially!

(tilted beret to Michelle)

Update: It has been brought to my attention that there are numerous other discharges from military service other than just honorable and dishonorable. This link gives details on that. However, my main point remains unchanged; without the full disclosure of Sen. Kerry's military records, speculation about his discharge will continue and will continue to his detriment. This whole kerfuffle could be cleared up with the stroke of a pen.

What Liberal Bias?

Two recent studies by the Center for Media and Public Affairs show that by far, John Kerry is receiving more favorable coverage by the MSM. In one study comparing ABC, CBS, NBC, FNC, and CNN, the CMPA recorded the analysis of each network immediately following the two presidential debates. They ended up with 476 comments about Sen. Kerry and 474 about President Bush. They categorized each comment about each candidate as either positive or negative. The table below shows the percentage of positive and negative comments made at each network about each candidate.

First debate Second debate

________pos___neg_____pos neg_____
ABC Kerry: 82% 18% Kerry: 86% 14%
Bush: 24% 76% Bush: 71% 29%

_______pos___neg______pos___neg_____
CBS Kerry: 81% 19% Kerry: 60% 40%
Bush: 45% 55% Bush: 44% 54%

_______pos___neg______pos___neg____
NBC Kerry: 55% 45% Kerry: 74% 26%
Bush: 52% 48% Bush: 31% 69%

______pos___neg______pos___neg____
FNC Kerry: 51% 49% Kerry: 48% 52%
Bush: 52% 48% Bush: 46% 54%

______pos___neg______pos___neg____
CNN Kerry: 55% 45% Kerry: 68% 32%
Bush: 57% 43% Bush: 56% 44%
_______________________________________________

(Source: Media Tenor and the Center for Media and Public Affairs)

Interesting indeed.

In another study, the CMPA examined:

"...election coverage from June 1 through September 2 on the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news shows and in Time and Newsweek."

The analysis of coverage was once again divided into individual comments and those comments were rated either positive or negative. They determined:

"Evaluations of John Kerry were positive by a two-to-one margin, while evaluations of George W. Bush were over
60% negative."

"Among non-partisan sources, Kerry's evaluations were almost three-to-one positive; Bush's were over two-to-one negative."

"Among the networks, the gap between candidates was largest on NBC; the coverage was most balanced on ABC."

"Based on our previous studies of primary and general election coverage, Kerry has gotten the best press on network news of any presidential nominee since we began tracking election news in 1988."

The evidence just keeps piling up!

The Point Of No Return?

Could Israel be planning to take out the Iranian nuclear program?

Zev Chafets seems to think that there are signs pointing towards it.

Name That Quote or Ooops, I Dropped My Crack Pipe Pt. 2

Multiple choice. Who said:

"We have to get back to the place we were."

Was it:

A) Uday and Qusay just before the barrage of gunfire?

B) Dorothy to Toto just before flying monkeys carried her
off?

C) The Swiftboat Vets just after the MSM bitch slapping
began?

D) The Donner Party just before the first snowfall began?

E) John Kerry when asked what it would take for
Americans to feel safe again?

Anyone? Anyone?

When asked how 9/11 effected him (oops; I just gave it away that it wasn't Dorothy), this same person also said:

"...it didn't change me much at all."

Anyone? Anyone?

Sharpies For Kofi

Jed Babbin over at The American Spectator points out once again the ineptitude of the U.N. Can you say "sharpiegate?"

"The Afghan election -- an otherwise wonderful and historic event -- is now in dispute because the U.N. didn't have Sharpies handy."

"The U.N. was supposed to be monitoring and assuring the validity of the Afghan election in which Hamid Karzai and about seventeen others were vying for the presidency of this war-ravaged nation. The U.N. failed. Not because of violence in the polling places, though there surely was some. Not because hundreds of thousands of Afghanis quailed at the terrorists' threats of murder if they tried to vote, because they didn't. The U.N. failed because its infallible, impartial, and professional election monitors planned to mark the cuticle of one thumb of each voter with ink to show they'd voted and thus prevent them from voting again, and couldn't manage to get even that right. You'd think they'd have arranged for pens with ink that wouldn't wash off immediately, rendering the result in doubt of massive Chicago-like vote fraud. But they didn't."

To prevent this from happening during the January election in Iraq, Babbin suggests this call to action:

"Let's help. Every American (and everyone else interested in seeing democracy take root in Iraq) should send a Sharpie to Secretary Kofi Annan:"

Kofi Annan, Secretary General
U.N. Headquarters
First Avenue at 46th Street
New York, NY 10017

I think I will send a multipack of indelible markers from Sam's Club just to emphasize the point!