Requisite Super Bowl Prediction

This game will come down to how well the defenses play.

The Patriots have the easier task. Donovan McNabb, while having a great season, has been flummoxed by defensive schemes in the past. Terrell Owens is not 100 percent, and may be more distraction than aid. Brian Westbrook is the bright spot, and versatile enough to pose big problems for the Pats.

The Eagles have to contain Brady, one of the more accurate passers in the league, his slew of great receivers, and Corey Dillon, who's had an explosive season. It's a tall order, much more difficult than containing Michael Vick and shutting down the Falcons.

What are the chances Andy Reid and the Eagles will pull it off?

Not very good, given that the Patriots shut down the NFL's highest-flying offense (Indianapolis) and stingiest defense (Steelers) the past few weeks.

Patriots 31, Eagles 6

Update:

So right, so wrong.

Defenses were the key to the game, but the Eagles managed to effectively contain the Patriots' multiple threats for most of the game. The Eagles had success deep down the field against the weak New England secretary, but for some reason preferred to throw short slants to the injured Terrell Owens.

Final score: Patriots 24, Eagles 21.

A fine Patriots Day nonetheless.

Well, Maybe L'Affaire Eason is Important After All

The Eason Jordan scandal, while delightful, is a tempest in a teapot, in my opinion. For smart and savvy Righties like Hugh Hewitt, Captain Ed, and company to be surprised and outraged that CNN is a sewer of anti-American and anti-U.S. military bias is a bit like Inspector Reynaud upon "discovering" gambling in the casino in "Casablanca". Of all people, surely we're not shocked to discover this? Indeed, we've known it all along.

I served in the military for the better part of my adult life. I think Eason Jordan's comments were flat out lies, and despicable ones at that. But I thought Eason Jordan was a despicable liar long before he made his Davos speech, based on the way he's run the leaky postule that is CNN and his willful broadcasting of Saddam Hussein's propaganda. Now, most Americans probably don't trust CNN on military or Iraqi issues anyway, but Hussein and his Ba'athist thugs gained a lot of credibility within Iraq and the Arab world when Jordan and his band of idiots decided to do a Baghdad Bob schtick. I don't have any clue as to how significant this was, but it surely didn't help, and it destroyed whatever credibility CNN retained at that point (hardly any).

Roger Simon's making me rethink my position, and wonder if righteous indignation isn't exactly what's called for here.

Shilling for the Enemy

Jack Kelly connects some dots that Howie Kurtz is apparently too---conflicted---to link together regarding media coverage of the War on Terror:

It's also interesting that the terrorists turned to the news media to recover lost momentum. Journalists who fell for these hoaxes may merely be idiots, and their silence about the implications of the hoaxes may simply be the by-product of embarrassment. But more to the point, why are major media so quick to disseminate anything that a terrorist group, or purported terrorist group, releases? For the terrorist, it is like being given millions of dollars in free advertising.

Application of Occam's Razor would suggest a ready answer to me: the media wants the "insurgents" to win and America to lose, just as they did in Vietnam.

Plugola: A Survey of Products Endorsed By MoltenThought

I'm a supply-sider. Conspicuous consumption is a good thing for America, and a better thing for Americans. Here are some of the good things in life we at MoltenThought have enjoyed.

The "Ray" DVD
- Jamie Foxx' performance is more brilliant than Academy voters are likely to recognize. Word Girl and I saw this at the theater, then picked up the DVD to find out how on Earth he did it. The movie's wonderful, the extras include deleted scenes, commentary, and a couple of "Making Of" short films, but the absolute best thing about this set is seeing Ray Charles teach Jamie Foxx to play "The Mess-Around". It's magical.

Ray Charles: Genius & Soul Box Set (CD)
- I'm a sucker for Ray Charles. His fusion of gospel and blues led to the birth of soul, but Brother Ray could play any musical genre he chose to. Genius is overused, particularly in the arts, but Ray Charles was a genuine genius whose work has stood the test of time. This Rhino collection pulls the best from all stages of the great man's career, from his Atlantic Records heyday through his groundbreaking ABC tenure to his later brilliance. Thus it's about the only place you can get "What'd I Say", "Drown In My Own Tears", "America the Beautiful", "Georgia on My Mind", and "Still Crazy After All These Years" in one package. And unlike a lot of boxed sets churned out these days, there simply isn't a mediocre song in the bunch.

"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" DVD - We're very retro here at MoltenThought, as you might tell from the Art Deco touches here and there. Love this stuff. This movie is not just an amazing technical accomplishment, but it managed to launch an Art Deco revival that is very, very cool. Plus it's got Giant Freakin' Nazi Robots, and it just doesn't get much better than that.

"The Fifth Head of Cerberus" by Gene Wolfe - Wolfe is the modern master of the puzzle story, and this interlinked series of three science fiction novellas is his masterpiece. The central puzzle here involves the twin worlds of St. Croix and St. Anne and their legendary aboriginal shapeshifters, but Wolfe's really asking fundamental questions about colonialism, human nature, and identity. Every time I reread it, I learn (or think I learn, anyway) something new.

Apple iPod 20 GB U2 Special Edition - Word Girl received this as an early Valentine's Day gift and hopefully will post an in-depth review of it. I've been an iPod owner for a few years now, and have pretty literally loved my iPod to death. Upon seeing Word Girl's sleek, red-and-black 20 gigger with U2 bandmates' signatures etched into the back, though, I looked upon Old Pod as though it were an 8-track tape. This puppy is cool, and with the clickwheel a sleek improvement over the original iPod button configuration plus $50 off the complete U2 digital boxed set (with 446 songs!)...well, let's just say the second her back's turned it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

Gnash Teeth and Rend Claw (For All the Good It Will Do You)

Victor Davis Hanson is on fire with an article on the global elites and their typical flair for bogus prognostications:

Thus we now expect that the New York Times, Harper's, Le Monde, U.N. functionaries who call us "stingy," French diplomats, American writers and actors will all (1) live a pretty privileged life; (2) in recompense "feel" pretty worried and guilty about it; (3) somehow connect their unease over their comfort with a pathology of the world's hyperpower, the United States; and (4) thus be willing to risk their elite status, power, or wealth by very brave acts such as writing anguished essays, giving pained interviews, issuing apologetic communiqués, braving the rails to Davos, and barking off-the-cuff furious remarks about their angst over themes (1) through (3) above. What a sad contrast they make with far better Iraqis dancing in the street to celebrate their voting.

As John Stewart Mill once said,

"The man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

Liberalism, thy heart is cowardice.

Condoleeza Takes State By Storm

Yet another reason to love Condoleeza Rice (and to go public with my crush on her):

With Americans suffering a reputation as geographically challenged, Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) handed out pocket atlases to the U.S. press corps on her first trip abroad as Secretary of State.

"I would not want anybody to feel lost" the former university provost quipped as she handed out 18 copies of the books on her plane.

Of course, the reporter gets it wrong. This wasn't a shot at Americans' lack of geographic knowledge (why research a place until you need to liberate it, I say), it was a shot at the media and their love affair with Rice's predecessor, "Leaky" Colin Powell.

Her predecessor Colin Powell (news - web sites) was criticized for traveling too little when some more face-to-face diplomacy might have helped win over allies to radical U.S. policies.

Aside from the editorializing use of "radical", I love how the reporter here notes criticism of Colin Powell's travel schedule as though the MSM reported on it before he was retired.

The bottom line is Powell and his henchman Richard Armitage saw themselves as the world's ambassadors to the Bush administration, not the Bush administration's
ambassador's to the world. The clearest indication that Rice sees things quite differently is her racking up the frequent flyer mileage Powell avoided.

The Art of the Internal Investigation

Roger L. Simon has some thoughts.

I'm more interested in why the MSM continues to lend credibility to internal investigations of media organizations when they constantly decry the inherent conflicts of interest in the same when their least favorite institutions are involved.

Here's a quick scorecard:

When the focus of the investigation is:
- A mainstream media outlet
- A left-wing political organization
- An anti-American institution
- A Democratic Administration or political body

internal investigations are acceptable and credible.

When the focus of the investigation is:
- An alternative media outlet such as talk radio or Fox News or the blogosphere
- A right-wing political organization
- A pro-American institution
- A Republican Administration or political body

internal investigations are unacceptable and not credible.

Simple, isn't it?

Particularly handy for those who recall, say, the contrast between the media's comfort with the secrecy of Hillary's healthcare task force versus their conspiracy-mongering over Dick Cheney's energy task force.

The MSM and the U.S. Military---A Study in Contrasts

An executive makes embarassing off-the-cuff remarks during a public forum.

Is is better to:

a.) Pretend the remarks never occurred, accuse critics of partisanship, and hope the whole thing goes away or

b.) Acknowledge the error and take immediate action to sanction the executive in question


The United States military, often derided in the media as being unaccountable to the public, chose option b.

The mainstream media, represented by the flagship 24-hour news stations CNN, chose option a.

If there are any lingering questions as to why soldiers are among the most respected professionals in America, while journalists are among the least, this should answer them.

Blog or Die?

Patrick Hynes has an American Spectator Online piece concerning the future of blogging in politics. A sample:

Tactics like this will only get easier -- and more necessary -- as blogs continue to proliferate. I'm not just talking about political blogs. A campaign cannot win simply by having a direct line into Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit.com (though that wouldn't hurt). Targeting lifestyle blogs will be fundamental to electoral success in the future.

Color me skeptical of this Blog Supreme Meme.

Look, there is no doubt that bloggers have provided a much-needed, realtime palliative to MSM, continuing the work undertaken by talk radio. The instantaneous investigation and open-source networking of the blogosphere is a huge innovation, one which is already having enormous impact.

One could even say that George W. Bush's 2004 victory, which surprised so many jihadists of the Hair Helmet Hamas, was so shocking in part because bloggers helped to form a vast, grassroots network of Bush supporters virtually invisible to the Kerry campaign and its water carriers in the media.

But as Han Solo memorably warned, "Don't get cocky, kid."

The DNC is using bloggers primarily for fundraising and message-spreading channels. This is what we'd expect of the Democrat Hive-Mind, where "independent" voices like Susan Estrich dutifully call DNC headquarters to get their talking points of the day. Politics on the Left is, as one would predict, a command economy lorded over by the party nomenklatura.

This simply isn't the case with the GOP. Dubya's grassroots support came about because people love the guy. This fondness extends beyond (indeed, some would say in spite of) his Administration's policy positions.

Bloggers on the Right naturally tend to align with principle first, party second. We're more easily discouraged, therefore, when someone lacking Bush's unique charm steps off the ideological reservation. The reaction of the righty bloggers to Arlen Spector's judiciary chairmanship afford a case study. Many Republicans would rather see a Democratic senator in Pennsylvania than see Arlen Spector get that gig. Ideology trumps party.

In exploiting the blogosphere, then, the GOP needs to proceed cautiously. If a Republican presidential candidate wants to win in 2008, he needs to listen to the Righty bloggers as well as talk. The GOP hasn't been as poll-driven as the Democrats, given that their platform has a natural majoritarian appeal that proponents of abortion on demand, slavery reparations, and gay marriage simply will never get outside of their natural New York/LA habitat. A better investment would be to hire campaign people to be active participants in blog communities. Better still would be a candidate who could type (and even blog) himself.

I don't think the blogs are powerful enough yet that we can't safely be ignored. If we were so powerful, why is Arlen Spector going to be chairman of the one indispensable Senate committee?

Lower Taxes + Higher Growth = More Tax Revenue

Perhaps more people in the MSM and DNC ought to sit down with Nevada Governor Bill Richardson, who apparently understands the simple equation above:

Nevada’s simplified tax code, however, is a proven job-producing winner. Nevada’s labor market has been so strong in recent decades that the “metropolitan statistical areas” (MSAs) of Las Vegas and Reno have actually recorded net new jobs in periods of recession. Employment typically declines when the economy contracts, yet jobs were added in Las Vegas during the recessions of 1980 and 1990-91, and in Reno during the 2001 recession. Only a small percentage of MSAs nationwide record employment growth during recessions.

A veritable job-creation machine has existed in No Tax Nevada for a long time. Nevada’s economic growth rate of 12 percent has led all 50 states since the last recession ended in 2001. Only one state — Florida — recorded more new jobs (379,000) than Nevada (124,000) in the period. Nevada also led the U.S. in job creation (68 percent) in the record 10-year expansion of 1991 to 2001.

Are tax rates a factor in job growth and economic development? Yes, indeed. Nevada’s yet another case in point.

Forget Dean, Kerry, and Hillary in 2008. The man to watch is Bill Richardson, who if he isn't bought off by the Clintons, will come to the table with a proven formula for high-growth government.

The dirty little secret of American politics is that solid increases in economic growth combined with minor increases in the welfare state are an enormous winner. If the Democrats follow Richardson's lead, stop static scoring, and cut taxes, we'll be in big trouble on the Right.

Now The Georgian PM Mysteriously Dies---What Is Putin Up To?

No sooner do we post on Russian President Vladimir Putin's dark dealings with Iran than another domino falls:

The lawmaker, Alexander Shalamberidze, noted that the death of Zhvania, 41, came days after a car bombing that killed three policemen in Gori, the city nearest to South Ossetia. Zhvania, considered a moderate influence in the government of this former Soviet republic, had been trying to negotiate settlements with the separatist regions.

``The explosion in Gori and Zhvania's death have dealt strong blows to our state. Now our neighbors are going to take advantage of that, they are saying we are almost savages living in the cold,'' Shalamberidze said.

Asked whom he meant, he replied: ``Russia. They are trying to prevent Georgia from getting stronger. The entire Russian diplomatic activity regarding our country confirms that.''

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, asked about the lawmaker's allegation, responded: ``The statements of those who rush to make judgments ... will remain on their consciences.''

Folks, this is getting scary.

Putin is an ex-KGB man. This sounds an awful lot like one of the KGB "special tasks" Pavel Sudoplatov,
Oleg Gordievsky,
and Christopher Andrew
have described. On top of the attempted assassination of Yuschenko in Ukraine, this is truly disturbing.

It looks an awful lot to me like Putin is attempting to reconstitute the Soviet Union.

[Edited to include article link---Teflon]

First Hispanic AG Confirmed Despite Senate Democrats

The Democratic Party continues to commit political suicide. Do they think that the fastest-growing portion of the American electorate will forget how they treated Alberto Gonzales?

The Senate voted 60-36 to put the first Hispanic ever into the job, with all of the "no" votes coming from Democrats and Democratic-leaning Independent Jim Jeffords of Vermont. Last week, 12 Democrats and Jeffords voted against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's confirmation.

Gonzales will replace John Ashcroft, who won more Democratic support four years ago despite contentious stances on a number of issues. Eight Democrats voted for Ashcroft, while six voted for Gonzales.

The Democrats' record in this regard is consistent---every time the GOP nominates a minority or a woman to a history-making post, they oppose it. Clarence Thomas. Condi Rice. Alberto Gonzales.

So much for the Democratic Party supporting civil rights.

This has been a watershed year for exposing the utter hypocrisy of the Left, both within the Democratic Party and the Democratic underground that is the mainstream media.

The best bet for Howard Dean and the DNC is to pressure law schools to start cranking out trial lawyers and try to get Breyer and Ginsburg to drive to rule disenfranchising felons and the dead unconstitutional. These will soon be the last voter blocks Democrats can count upon to show up at the polls.

Is Sudan the Nexus of the Axis of Evil?

Another disgusting example of how Sudan fosters terrorism:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Up to 12,000 people have been killed in hostile action during a war in Northern Uganda and many more have died from hunger, disease and malnutrition resulting from the conflict, according to a draft State Department report.

The report, mandated by Congress, estimated that 20,000 children have been abducted since insurgents led by the Lord's Resistance Army began their uprising against the central government in 1987.

The LRA, led by Joseph Kony, has been using southern Sudan as a launching pad for attacks against the Ugandan government, the study said. Kony is described in the report as "erratic and vicious."

"LRA tactics to brutalize civilians include murder, looting, burning houses, torture and mutilation of children for the purposes of forced conscription, labor and sexual servitude," said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

The study noted that according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, LRA attacks had displaced nearly 95 percent of the ethnic Acholi population in three districts of Northern Uganda by the end of 2004.

The report called the LRA a "bizarre and cult-like group." It once claimed as goals the toppling of the Ugandan government and the creation of a new government guided by the Ten Commandments.

According to the study, the LRA drew upon grievances and disaffection in the Acholi community against a government it perceived as dominated by people from central and western Uganda.

"Today, the LRA has no discernible political agenda and survives through a vicious cycle in which children are abducted, brutalized and are forced to become soldiers or the 'wives' of LRA commanders and sent back to carry out the next wave of terror and abductions," the report said.

It added that the LRA has "benefited significantly" from food, arms and refuge provided by the Sudanese government and government-supported militia groups.

The draft was described as "underwhelming at best" by Rory Anderson of World Vision, a Christian relief group.

"Where else in the world have more than 20,000 children been abducted and brutally forced to serve as child soldiers and sex slaves over the last 18 years?" she asked.

Anderson said the report should have gone further than a summary of a complex situation.

"World Vision expected more substantive analysis and recommendations on how to resolve one of the world's longest civil wars," she said.

Osama bin Laden was based in Sudan for quite some time. Sudan's government has a history of using famine and terror against minority tribes within its borders---indeed, this was what first brought the region to worldwide infamy in the 80s.

It is a festering sore of tyranny and terror, and it's high time the world did more than lob some cruise missiles into it.

BlogRoll: La Shawn Barber's Corner

La Shawn Barber is a witty, insightful, and ambitious blogger who is clearly going to be a superstar in the blogosphere. Malcolm Gladwell would probably call her a Connector---she's able to bring disparate people together, to build a far-flung network of people from thin air, as she did by knitting together those bloggers following the Eason Jordan scandal.

I've enjoyed her posts for some weeks now, not being connected myself well enough to have checked out her work before.

This post is what guaranteed her a spot in Ye Olde Blogrolle:

Indulge me for a moment while I wax self-centeredly. I want to be more than just a “black conservative blogger/writer” or a “Christian blogger/writer.” If I must be either or both (it’s human nature to attach labels), I want to be huge, the biggest black conservative blogger in the blogosphere or the most popular Christian blogger on the web.

I don’t mean simply well-known but influential and sought-after. I’m talking about visitor stats out of this world, endorsement deals, books, TV, radio…

Or something like that.

I’m not satisfied with my current traffic and linkage. Blogging all the time has its rewards, but let’s face facts. Success sometimes depends on who you know and whether or not they like you. I want to be every blogger’s favorite. Irrational, isn’t it? I don’t care. I want everybody to like me and link to all my posts, even if I write something stupid.

Have you noticed that the big bloggers have favorites and link to them all the time? I want to be a favorite. I read those bloggers’ posts. They aren’t any more interesting or special than mine, in my opinion. But I’m biased.

People like me OK, I guess, but not enough to suit me. That’s selfish and short-sighted, isn’t it? For all I know, some of you might be saying the same things about me. I don’t care. Guilty. Envy is not fun. It can be used for good or evil. I try to use it for good.

The mini-pity party is over now. It felt good. Back to reality. I’d like to thank you for suggesting names for my business. I’ve selected a reader’s recommendation, slightly modified. I will make the announcement perhaps as early as Friday, but definitely before next week.

Anyone who's attended sales training knows that the fundamental rule of sales is that you have to ask for someone's business. You can't just hint. This is why Dubya made a point in each debate to talk directly to the American people and say, "I want your vote." It's that simple.

It's also very unusual. It takes guts to sell. Confidence. Moxy. Chutzpah. Stones.

It's also a great predictor of success. If someone refuses to be daunted by the awkwardness of engaging another human being very directly and asking for something, chances are they won't be daunted by much of anything life throws at them.

In reading La Shawn's blog, it's very clear that she is, quite simply, dauntless.

We at MoltenThought are ardent admirers of the great British bulldog, Sir Winston Churchill. He was dauntless too, as well as eloquent, witty, and smart. As the great man has long gone to his eternal reward, and Ouijablogging isn't catching on, we'll be reading La Shawn Barber's Corner, a Churchillian blog if ever one existed.

And with a heave, and a ho, to the BlogRoll it will go!

Lent -- A Re-examination

I haven't thought about Lent in years. Probably because the wacko church I once attended viewed it as a poor attempt at piety. But nevermind.

The Lenten season is something I plan on participating in this year. Simply because my new church does it. (Which sounds sort of impious, I guess...) But really, it's that I want to see what a sacrifice feels like for an extended period -- along with other Believers. And I'd like to examine how this process may (or may not) tune up our spiritual lives.

Now I've fasted before, but the longest I've gone is about 24 hours. It's eye-opening. You get to know a lot about your routine, your appetite, your will, and your prayer life. And while I don't plan on fasting for the entire 6 weeks, I do plan (like many others) to give up some things for a season.

As a child, I had only heard of Lent in passing. (It was something Catholics did.) But I felt in my heart it was a noble sacrifice, and something I should pay attention to. I don't know exactly why.

Lent is a forty-day period of penitence and prayer which begins on Ash Wednesday and prepares for the feast of Easter. It is a form of retreat for Christians preparing to celebrate the paschal mystery. It became a forty-day retreat during the seventh century to coincide with the forty days spent by Christ in the desert; before this Lent usually lasted only a week. Every Friday of Lent is a day of abstinence... Formerly a severe fast was prescribed: only one full meal a day was allowed, and meat, fish, eggs, and milk products were forbidden. Today, however, prayer and works of charity are emphasized... Penitential works are very important during Lent... Ash Wednesday is one of the greatest days of penitence... in preparation for celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christians seek a change of heart during Lent in their relationship to God.

Set aside time. Seek the Master of Love in quietness. Winnow out the chaff in your life. Pare down. Think of it as Spring cleaning for your body and spirit. Be aligned with others who are doing the same. Strengthen the collective Body. Live with intention.
I like that.

Of course there are some for whom this does not resound. But I have always been a little drawn to liturgy. I see it as soft lines within which I may write my thoughts and aspirations. Yet many think of it as a cage. Whatever lights your fire. Liturgy done with a heart of gratitude and love trumps empty works in the flesh every time. You get what you give.

So I'll try it. I can live without some beloved things for 6 weeks. Except on Sundays. Then I'll live out the Sabbath as a festival day.
That part of the Lenten prescription speaks volumes about what I think is truly the Intention of the Sabbath. Not a day for asceticism and black tragedy, but rejoicing and feasting.
I'm excited.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Meet Hawg Zilla.




Okay, I don't officially subscribe to the "Weekly World News," I'm just fascinated by stories like this. But don't go calling the Paxil police yet. I took a poll, I'm not alone on this one. Granted the people I surveyed are hunters and expert barbecue-ers, but no matter.

Seems there's a guy in Florida by the name of Larry Earley who owns a small cattle farm... And while there's a bit of internet adulteration on the specifics of the story, it is verifiable.

I shot the hog once with a .44 magnum... The hog charged towards me after he was shot but he only covered about 20 feet of ground. I was 10 yards away when I shot, and I was backing up while keeping the crosshairs on the hog as he was moving towards me. That is typical with wild hogs, that is what makes them fun to hunt. The hog was too big for scales that were available to me on a Friday evening (500 lb. scales), so we decided to let the processor estimate the weight for us. Smokin' Oak Sausage Co. in Branford, FL, did the processing for me and he put the weight between 1100 and 1200 lbs. The tusk on the right side was 8-1/4" above the gum line and the right tusk was broken and measured 5" above the gum. The hide with the head was weighed at 284 lbs. The taxidermist I am using measured the neck at 42" around and the length from his eye socket to the tip of his nose at 11-3/4". I just found out about the story on the internet yesterday. I think that it is hilarious that all of this has been going on. I'll be glad to talk to anyone about my hog.

The record weight for wild boar had been around the 650 lb. mark. Well, that's shot all to hell now, isn't it?

Another Salvo for CNN---Captain's Quarters Lets the Grapeshot Fly

Captain Ed responds to Eason Jordan. The kicker:

Until you can account for the Davos transcript so that we can all see the context of your remarks and explain your prevarications in the above two egregious examples of slander, then you have no credibility and neither does the news organization which takes its orders from you. Your position as the head of a major news organization and as a journalist requires you to be responsible for your words and actions. You have proven yourself to be inadequate to that task and disrespectful of the truth, and as such, you should resign immediately. As long as you remain in charge of CNN, nothing they report will have any credibility.

CNN's a garbage scow not much worth the ammunition, I'm afraid.

Right Wing Pillow Fight: Fisking the Blogfather

The disgraceful Democrat performance last night proved that the Left has nothing to say regarding the great issues of the day. They are completely irrelevant.

As such, we Righties will need to find some other whetstone on which to sharpen our arguments and our rhetoric. There's no mileage in debating mimes, so we might as well debate each other.

So, in the spirit of helping conservatives to maintain our fighting trim for the day when a worthy foe should arise, I'll begin with Hugh Hewitt's latest Weekly Standard Online piece.

BECAUSE I HAD TO FILE this column before President Bush gave his State of the Union address, I can only hope he called Democrats on their indifference to the medium- and long-term threats to Social Security. The decision by Democrats and their friends in media and blogosphere to downplay the obvious problems with the program is the fiscal equivalent of having a healthcare policy that is indifferent to teenage smoking because the consequences of such a habit are far down the road. The harsh truth is that Democrats prefer to fix the Social Security shortfall with tax hikes--which they cannot obtain from this Congress or president, so kicking the can down the road is their preference. Pretending that there is no problem buys time for the left to try and gain the congressional seats they need to hike payroll taxes.

Calling Joe Camel: There's work for you with the left.

Are the Democrats indifferent to threats to Social Security, or are they reacting forcefully to the President's anticipated changes in a way they feel will minimize the negative impact of those changes? After all, the Democrats have tried to stir up fervor over Social Security several times during the Clinton years. Their favorite "solution" is jacking up taxes, preferably on the hated "rich". Democrats are either indifferent or passionately obstructing the Bush plan---they can hardly be both.

Are the problems with Social Security so obvious? Young workers certainly seem skeptical of the program, but perhaps they're skeptical about problems which are 30 years away as well. If the problems are obvious, wouldn't there be a larger call from the grassroots to fix them?

Finally, what good would hiking the payroll tax do Democrats? Wouldn't they be more likely to seek increases in capital gains or income taxes to shore up Social Security, perhaps with some protectionist tariffs to boot?

Even though attention will turn today to the president's speech to the exclusion of almost everything else, let me underline two recent media events which deserve more scrutiny than they have thus far received.

The first is the genuinely scandalous assertion by CNN's Eason Jordan, made at the World Economic Forum, that the United States military has targeted and killed a dozen journalists. The account of Jordan's remarks -including his backpedaling and the crowd's reactions--is available at ForumBlog. Thus far no major media outlet has demanded an accounting of Jordan, but the idea that a major figure from American media traffics in such outlandish and outrageous slanders on the American military deserves attention and criticism, not indifference. It is no wonder that anti-American propaganda gains traction in the world when American news executives set fantasies such as this one in motion. If Jordan had no grounds for peddling this grassy-knoll garbage, he should be fired. If he did have even the flimsiest of grounds, he ought to share his evidence and let the public decide whether his judgment is as flawed as it was when he covered for Saddam all those years.

But is Jordan really a major media figure? Sure, he's got some prestige as head of CNN, but does that really translate to influence? After all, he's said plenty of outrageous things before, though certainly not as many as Ted Turner. CNN's in a ratings nosedive. The MSM's shrinking in influence daily. Had Eason made his comments 10 or 15 years ago, perhaps a good number of unsuspecting Americans might have believed him. I doubt many would make that mistake today.

As for the EUnuchs, they engage in conspiracy mongering because it offers them comfort in their impotence.

You sound almost disappointed that the MSM isn't addressing this issue boldly, with frontpage coverage. If they did, there would be more danger that more Americans might believe the bogus allegations to be true. It would also be a sign that they took media bias seriously, which they clearly do not. Either way, it would not necessarily be a good thing.

Better still a nakedly biased and deceitful MSM lopping off chunks of its former credibility by the day. Not all Americans have woken up to the notion that the MSM is in bed with the political Left and the Democratic Party. Let the implosion continue for a bit, I say.

THE SECOND SUBJECT for mulling is John Kerry's extraordinary interview with Tim Russert last Sunday. There's a lot to absorb here, including Kerry's assertion that he did indeed run guns and CIA men into Cambodia on secret missions--and to aid the Khmer Rouge no less!

What is really remarkable is not Kerry's whoppers--he couldn't have meant the Khmer Rouge, right?--or his almost certain not-to-be-fulfilled pledge to sign the form 180. It is the set of questions Tim Russert posed.

Russert is generally regarded as the toughest interview in television, and he did bleed Kerry a bit during the campaign; afterwards Kerry never again came close to Russert's set before November 2.

But if the questions posed by Russert on January 30, 2005--on Kerry's fantasy life in Cambodia, on the sequestered records, etc.--were legitimate and useful inquiries after the votes have been cast, why then did no one pose them to candidate Kerry when they might have made a difference in the election? The blogosphere and the center-right media were full of such demands from August 1 forward, but not a single reporter from mainstream media bothered to pose even one of the Russert questions prior to the vote.

Okay, but are we criticizing or praising Russert?

Russert, like most of the MSM bigwigs, was a Democrat operative. He wrote speeches for Pat Moynihan. Now, a lot of people view that as a less partisan job than, say, campaign press spokesman, but in reality, speechwriters channel their party's aspirations through their candidate's voice. Russert's a Democrat. Always has been.

As such, it is certainly commendable that he asks tougher questions more frequently than the other members of the Hair Helmet Hamas. That's not a very high standard to beat.

Does he approach both the Left and the Right with equally tough questions, posed through the lens of their ideological opposite? No, he doesn't. Every time a Republican proposes some new initiative, Russert will ask if they will raise taxes to pay for it. If a Democrat does the same, he will not ask them to cut spending elsewhere to pay for it. Russert is pro-tax, period. He's a Democrat.

We know this going in. John Kerry's handlers booked him on Russert's program because he needed to look willing to answer tough questions, but do so in a safe environment. That's what Russert offers.

How does that help Democrats?

It doesn't. They get to pull a fig leaf over their unwillingness to do truly tough interviews, but ultimately, not engaging on these issues make their arguments brittle and weak. When their opponents confront them, they look like fools.

MSM support of the Democrats has been very much a double-edged sword. The MSM is, after all, its own interest group under the DNC umbrella, and their propaganda mill exacts a price of Democrats for using it. As the public's perception of journalism declines, so too does the benefit Democrats get from their close alliance with the media.

I'm not disappointed in Russert. He does what he always does, and he's smart enough to do it intentionally. He knows who the Khmer Rouge were. He let it go. Good. That means we get more posts not only about what a fool Kerry is, but how in the tank for Kerry Russert has been. Works for me.

Why was that?

If the country's most respected television journalist asks a series of questions after the election that no one asked during the contest, doesn't that tell us all we need to know about the mainstream media's coverage of Kerry? Doesn't that conclusively answer the question of whether the debate moderators really came to the stage prepared to ask the questions that mattered most?

But we knew that, didn't we? Tim Russert just provided the proof.

Very true. But demonstrating media bias is important only in so much as it leads to methods to counter it. The MSM has done a nice job killing its own credibility in ways that Brent Bozell wishes he could. Americans see the bias, and are actively seeking alternative outlets for their information. These outlets are opened up as people seek them. Fox News never would have happened in the 80s---there just weren't enough people actively seeking escape from Tom, Dan, and Peter yet. Developing alternate media is a far more effective antidote to media bias than some sort of reform from within. Tear that crumbling edifice down and build something new in its place, I say.

The pathetic effort to avoid posing tough questions to Kerry (and by contrast the Mapes-like fanaticism against Bush) highlights the almost lunatic imbalance of ideologies within mainstream media. Tim Russert may have taken aim at Kerry's Walter Mittyisms, but he hit his journalistic colleagues instead.

Sure he did. But it only matters insomuch as it pulls more blocks out of the gutted structure of the MSM.

What we're seeing now are the last, desperate, grasping efforts to turn back the clock and hold onto the post-Watergate power of the media. We'll see more of this in the years to come. It is interesting, but irrelevant.

The MSM is dead. The parasites have already begun to flee its corpse. Nothing will bring it back.

Life Sure Is Tougher When You're Stupid

George Neumayr eviscerates the Democratic response to the State-of-the Union address:

Had John F. Kennedy accomplished such an epoch-changing shift in Iraq, the Democrats would have nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, they castigate Bush for turning into reality the Kennedyesque rhetoric of liberty they once lauded.

Who do the Democrats trot out to speak about America's "security" and fighting the terrorists? A San Francisco pacifist, Nancy Pelosi. And who speaks for them about reforming Social Security for younger Americans? A graying Senator who already qualifies for [it].

A good indication that the Democrats are done as a national force in this country is that they have absolutely zero ideas. The Big Bangs of the New Deal and The Great Society are now fully spent. Today's Democrats have been on intellectual autopilot so long that they haven't realized yet there's no longer anyone to appease with foreign policy or anyone to buy with domestic policy.

If they're hell-bent on aping Newt Gingrich, Pelosi and Reid might want to start with some new ideas. That's how the Contract With America started.

A Sacrifice Not In Vain

From last night's State-of-the-Union address, a striking rebuff to Democrat carping that the Iraq War dead died in vain:

Okay, I'll Do One Post on the Democrat Response to the State-of-the-Union Address

Could Harry Reid possibly sound more patronizing?

I admit it---I miss Puff Daschle.

As long as Reid insists on talking to Americans as though they were two-year-olds on the lower portion of the IQ bell curve, he'll never be Majority Leader.

Rearranging the Deck Chairs on Sinking Media Ships

Two stories which I think are related.

First, Clintonista George Stephanopolous may be switching seats with Ted Koppel.

Second, the brand new face of CBS News is, um, Bob Schieffer?

Does this remind any of you of the last few Soviet dictators---the grey old men who dropped like flies as the Soviet Union withered?

America's Heroes: Medal of Honor Recipient Army Sgt 1st Class Paul R. Smith

Every time I read the account of the events which resulted in a Congressional Medal of Honor being awarded, I am humbled beyond words at the devotion to country, to comrades, and to sacred honor which these men have displayed. Such men! Such sacrifice!

Army Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith is the first soldier of the Iraq War to be awarded America's highest military honor. His valor deserves to be remembered forever:

Paul Smith, he said, was not a "soft soldier" who suddenly got tough under fire. "This was a guy whose whole life experience seemed building toward putting him in the position where he could do something like this. He was demanding on his soldiers all the time and was a stickler for all the things we try to enforce. It's just an amazing story."

Lt. Col. Smith commanded the 11th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, during the American attack on Iraq, which began March 20, 2003. On the morning of April 4, the engineers found themselves manning a roadblock not far from Baghdad International Airport.

A call went out for a place to put some Iraqi prisoners.

Sgt. Smith volunteered to create a holding pen inside a walled courtyard. Soon, Iraqi soldiers, numbering perhaps 100, opened fire on Smith's position. Smith was accompanied by 16 men.

Smith called for a Bradley, a tank-like vehicle with a rapid fire cannon. It arrived and opened up on the Iraqis. The enemy could not advance so long as the Bradley was in position. But then, in a move that baffled and angered Smith's men, the Bradley left.

Smith's men, some of whom were wounded, were suddenly vulnerable.

Smith could have justifiably ordered his men to withdraw. Lt. Col. Smith believes Sgt. Smith rejected that option, thinking that abandoning the courtyard would jeopardize about 100 GIs outside - including medics at an aid station.

Sgt. Smith manned a 50-caliber machine gun atop an abandoned armored personnel carrier and fought off the Iraqis, going through several boxes of ammunition fed to him by 21-year-old Pvt. Michael Seaman. As the battle wound down, Smith was hit in the head. He died before he could be evacuated from the scene. He was 33.

The Times published a lengthy account of the battle, and Smith's life in January 2004. It can be seen [here].

Sgt. Matthew Keller was one of the men who fought with Smith in the courtyard. "He put himself in front of his soldiers that day and we survived because of his actions," Keller said Tuesday from Fort Stewart in Georgia. "He was thinking my men are in trouble and I'm going to do what is necessary to help them. He didn't care about his own safety."

Can you imagine the courage it required to expose yourself to the fire of 100 advancing enemy infantry, to place yourself between a hail of bullets and your troops, knowing you would never see your wife and children again?

Thank God for Paul Smith and for the men like him.

So long as America continues to produce such men, we shall remain free.

(Thanks also to the St Petersburg Times for the superlative job they did in reporting this story. They ought to receive a Pulitzer for the comprehensive coverage of this American hero).

America's Toys Held Hostage---Day Two

TCS has recovered GI Joe's POW diary.

(Hat tip: Instapundit)

How Sonograms Are Turning the Abortion Tide

A disclosure:

I used to work for a medical equipment manufacturer which produced advanced ultrasound machines. There were a number of technological breakthroughs a few years ago which are now being fully realized in clinical applications today. At the time, a colleague and I noted that NARAL would be better off trying to shut down this R&D than keeping abortion protestors far removed from clinic doors, as once women could see their unborn children clearly they would never assent to infanticide.

Official MoltenThinker Pat is the gadfly of the blogosphere, spreading wit and wisdom hither and yon. One of his blogs, Ankle-Biting Pundits, tracked down this confirmation of my long-held suspicion on this point. It's in the Infanticide Paper of Record, the New York Times.

We're Not Live-Blogging the State-of-the-Union Address

I love Dubya, but State-of-the-Union addresses are to speeches as Abe Vigoda is to Abe Lincoln.

The Geneva Conventions: Not Just for Signatories Anymore

Is there a better U.S. Senator serving today than John Cornyn? Not for my money. He's got an excellent piece on NRO today on the Geneva Conventions:

When its Geneva position was first announced, however, the administration was harshly criticized for failing to extend prisoner-of-war privileges to al Qaeda fighters — and those same criticisms are now being repeated by some opponents of Judge Gonzales's nomination.

These critics misunderstand the requirements of the Geneva Convention. Under the convention, only lawful combatants are eligible for POW privileges. Notwithstanding the contention of some critics, even the Red Cross's own guidelines make clear that, to earn POW privileges, combatants must satisfy all four conditions of lawful combat: being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates, having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, carrying arms openly, and conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

Do Judge Gonzales's critics honestly believe that al Qaeda complies with the laws of war? After all, al Qaeda's sworn purpose is to terrorize innocent civilians — in flagrant violation of the fundamental principles of the laws of war.

Not surprisingly, then, the Bush administration's legal interpretation of the Geneva Convention enjoys overwhelming support. It is not only well grounded in the text, structure, and history of the convention — as documented in authoritative international-law treatises — but has also been affirmed by three federal courts across the country and endorsed by the 9/11 commission and the Schlesinger report, as well as numerous legal scholars and international legal experts from across the political spectrum.

Let me also address the issue of those utterly ignorant of military history who forward the argument that Americans must extend maximum protections under Geneva to anyone we fight, as failure to do so endangers our troops should they become prisoners-of-war.

Ahem.

"THEY'RE ALREADY TORTURING AND MURDERING THEM!"

I think these people need to turn on "The History Channel" and turn off "Hogan's Heroes."

How Many MSM Scalps Will Hang from Bloggers' Belts?

It sure looks like Eason Jordan's will be next.

Captain Ed is all over the story of the CNN exec's accusations that the American military tortured and killed 12 (or is it 10?) journalists for seeking the truth. He's neck-and-neck with the Blogfather to nail all aspects down, and seems to break new leads every couple of hours.

His latest: Jordan's done this before.

And before that.

Anyway, Captain's Quarters should be constantly monitored for the duration, and I'm not just saying that because we've got a blogad up there.

Update:

La Shawn Barber's mind-mapping the blogosphere on this story.

Why Kos Matters

The Weekly Standard Online has a piece on the influence of The Daily Kos.

Kos is our complete opposite in terms of political viewpoints, but you have got to hand it to him---he's built a powerful brand from nothing but venom and vapor. When the history of the blogosphere is written, he'll get a chapter. Or more.

Ivan & the Ayatollah: Bad Moon Rising

Disturbing news of ongoing Iranian and Russian cooperation from Shawn Macomber:

Last week, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak visited Teheran, meeting with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Gulam Hoshru and several other high-level Iranians.

According to Russia's official news agency, the meeting was in large part to determine the "peaceful nature" of Iran's nuclear program, a diplomatic language hurdle to Russia helping the Islamic nation finally bring the Russian-built plant at Bushehr online. Aaron Klein of World Net Daily reports sources have told him that Russia has "installed a mobile radar system to protect Iran's Russian-built Bushehr nuclear reactor, and similar systems allegedly are in the works for other Iranian nuclear facilities, including a facility in central Iran." It's called protecting your investment.

In two weeks, Russia's atomic energy chief Aleksandr Rumyantsev will visit Iran to make final arrangements on the contentious issue of where the spent fuel rods will be sent. The finality of all these meetings suggests imminent movement on the nuclear issue. A feeling of covering the bases pervades press reports coming out of Russia

.

Ok, let's do a quick review:

1. Vladimir Putin has been undermining Russian freedoms and consolidating political power into his own hands.

2. Putin aggressively interfered in Ukrainian politics in an attempt to seat a pro-Russian dictator at the head of the Ukrainian government.

3. Putin has now come out in support of Iran's right to enriched uranium.

4. The KGB has increased penetration of America.

Is Putin acting like an ally in the War on Terror?

Or is he acting like an enemy, working through proxies in Iran and Syria to destabilize the Middle East and undermine American interests?

We report. You decide.

Iraq and Reconstruction: A Better Fit than the Vietnam Analogy

Andrew Cline nails the coffin shut on the Left's ridiculous Iraq War arguments:

Exposing left-wing hypocrisy on Iraq is as easy as uttering three little words: "What about Reconstruction?"

Despite the obvious success of Sunday's election, the anti-war left is sticking to its script, which says the election is illegitimate because it was conducted under American "occupation" and because the group most closely associated with the old ruling class (the Sunnis) did not fully participate.

But precisely the same thing can be said about the American South during Reconstruction. Yet as the left calls the Iraq election a "sham" and a "farce," you would be hard pressed to find a liberal anywhere who would use the same terms to describe the election of America's first black legislators, congressmen, senators and governors.

Few people know that the first black senators served during Reconstruction---in fact, the very first black senator took Jefferson Davis' seat in the Senate. This was a direct result of the disenfranchisement and refusal to vote on the part of Southern men. Do you really think John Kerry's going to be pushing for these pioneering men to be excluded from the Senate rolls ex post facto due to the "illegitimacy" of the elections which seated them? He'd eat his Magic Hat first!

Eric Foner is a Marxist and an historian. Despite his ridiculous and discredited political views, Foner has written what I consider to be the finest history of the Reconstruction era. It is very much worth your time to read.

I Guess It's Not Genocide When Africans Are Conducting It

Kofi Annan is an utter disgrace:

The United Nations took another step in its long road to irrelevancy on January 31 with a report announcing that the Sudanese government was not conducting a genocidal campaign in the Darfur region. It agreed that there were indeed mass killings of civilians, torture, rape, pillaging, possible war crimes and perhaps crimes against humanity, but there was no evidence of genocide.

"Some of these violations are very likely to amount to war crimes and given the systematic and widespread pattern of many of the violations, they would also amount to crimes against humanity," the report said.

The report hung its conclusion on the belief that there was no "genocidal intent" by the Sudanese government to kill off a particular group on the grounds of ethnicity, religion or any other reason, a rather dubious finding. No such policy was implemented, the report maintains, by the government, either directly or through militia groups under its control.

Such an assertion comes as a surprise to anyone with basic familiarity with Sudan. Although the Sudanese government denies it, it's widely believed that it supports an Arab militia known as the Janjaweed -- the group chiefly culpable for causing the region's strife -- in an effort to put down a rebellion by non-Arab African groups. Experts believe that the Janjaweed is attempting to exterminate three tribes so that they can take their land.

This is of course what the Sudanese were up to back in the 80s when they took advantage of a drought to create a humanitarian disaster. Perhaps Bob Geldof should have spent less time browbeating Maggie Thatcher and more time shedding light on the inhuman actions of the government of Sudan.

I thought that after Clinton apologized for watching the Tutsis get hacked to death in Rwanda on Kofi's watch this wasn't supposed to happen again.

This is why the Left can never be trusted with U.S. foreign policy. They place their faith in corrupt institutions, morally bankrupt leaders, and empty words.

If A Whiner Whined in the MSM, and No One Picked Up the Story...

It's quiet on the MSM anti-American front. Too quiet.

The Rich Gets Richer

Wizbang! does some more digging on the Toy Hostage Crisis:

This Was No Rookie Mistake

A couple notes about today's colossal AP blunder.

First this was no rookie mistake. The sole reporter on this story - AP correspondent Robert H. Reid - is a former AP bureau chief (Cairo and Manila) and has been reporting on Iraq since 2002. As a reporter, he has covered the fall of the Shah of Iran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war, and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Second the location where the image and statement were posted is an Arabic language bulletin board that has seen its share of jihadist propaganda. I doubt that this was a "teenage prank," as some have speculated.

Third, the story arc in this instance is different from previous kidnapping that bubbled up into the mainstream press. This story appeared first on the AP wires rather than many of the sites that normally break this kind of story. Many reports don't survive the bubble up process from bulletin boards; to specialty intelligence monitoring sites; to blogs or second tier media site; and finally to the networks and wires. This report appears to have been rushed as a "scoop."

Robert H. Reid and the editors at AP have some serious explaining to do.

Wonder if the MSM folks ever get sick of bloggers' eating their lunch every day?

This Just In...

John Kerry, in an exclusive interview with high ranking officials of MoltenThought, has positively identified John Adam, the American soldier identified on the Islamic radical website as having been captured by Iraqi insurgents, as the Special Forces operative working for the CIA who he helped run guns to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia back in 1968.

"Teresa and I are praying for the safe return of John Adam. I'd like to give him his hat back," Senator Kerry would likely have been quoted as saying.

Bloggers Once Again Eat the MSM's Lunch

Backcountry Conservative has the timeline of the GI Joe Hostage Crisis. As one would expect, the MSM winds up looking like a bunch of fools for swallowing another story they undoubtedly deem "too good to not run"--the bogus claim of an American soldier being captured in Iraq.

Here's the summary (please shoot over to Backcountry Conservative for the definitive timeline complete with all the links):

2:05 PM EST Reuters carries a claim by a militant Islamic website which includes a photo allegedly of a captured American soldier with a gun to his head before a black banner with Arabic writing on it.

2:10 Wizbang! and Drudge run the photo.

2:35 Wizbang! and The Jawa Report doubt the authenticity of the photo and question whether it was Photoshopped.

2:42 Michele from A Small Victory finds a GI Joe doll which looks exactly like the "soldier" in the photo and posts a link to its image at Wizbang! (She notes it was actually a couple of other posters at Fark who figured this out but doesn't indicate the time).

3:15 CNN notes the "soldier" doesn't seem to be wearing U.S. military gear.

4:00 The Associated Press finally notes the uncanny resemblance between the "soldier" and an action figure.

To sum up, it took the blogosphere 37 minutes to definitively debunk this photo as a hoax. It took the MSM over 2 hours to do the same, despite having had opportunity to catch this BEFORE putting it over the wire.

So much for superior editing and fact-checking.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Update:

Michele's post was actually at 2:32, not 2:42. That means this was busted faster than Domino's delivers---27 minutes.

No Bias At CNN, Either

Oh, this is rich. The man who admitted to broadcasting propaganda for Saddam now claims American soldiers are assassinating journalists:

During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others.

The implosion of the MSM and their Democrat buddies continues apace. Does anyone honestly believe a word these anti-American clowns say?

The delicious irony is that members of the Hair Helmet Hamas have been reminding us for years about Tailgunner Joe and his Fictitious Commies List. Now Eason Jordan hands us his, to place on the shelf alongside Sonorous John's Magic Hat and Dan Rather's head. This is history in the making, folks.

At this rate, Ralph Nader's going to be in a great position in 2008.

Hat tip: The Blogfather.

Update:

Hugh Hewitt continues to be all over this story. We here at MoltenThought call Hugh "The Blogfather" for the amazing job he has done building the blogosphere into the powerhouse it has become today. It's not just the high standards he sets and inspires others to reach. It's not just the relentless, selfless promotion of bloggers and blogging. It's that Hugh represents the best America has to offer, as his indignation over the cavalierly vicious Eason Jordan amply demonstrates. A total class act.

Another Brick in the Democrat Wall Falls

Anyone surprised by this Inside Politics piece?

NAACP obstruction
The NAACP is refusing to cooperate with an Internal Revenue Service investigation into whether its chairman made an improper political speech, charging that the timing of the probe was politically motivated, the Associated Press reported.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said in October that the group's tax-exempt status was under review after its chairman, Julian Bond, gave a speech last summer that criticized President Bush on Iraq and domestic issues.
In a letter to the IRS on Thursday, NAACP lawyers said the group will not hand over documents requested in the probe and argued that the IRS followed improper procedure by beginning its exam before the group had filed its 2004 tax return.
"We must conclude that the intention was to chill appropriate voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, whether conducted by the NAACP or by other organizations that are targeted by similar examinations in the program," they wrote.
Federal law bars the IRS from discussing specifics of tax returns or audits, but IRS spokesman Terry Lemons said that groups being investigated for political activity span the ideological spectrum and that such decisions are made by career civil servants, not political appointees.

Democrat abuse of federal tax exemptions have been a key component in their past stranglehold on electoral power. Whereas the Democrats have had some success in having the tax exemption status of churches and other religious organizations who support Republican candidates pulled (note that the first refuge of Democrat scoundrels is invariably the black churches), this is the first instance I'm aware of where the Republicans have struck back.

It's a hopeful sign.

Now if only we could nail the labor unions for extorting union dues and then using them to buy Democrat politicians.

The Other Election, Lest it be Lost in the Shuffle

Thunder on the horizon, from the American Spectator:

Last week in Gaza, Hamas won 77 out of 118 seats in municipal elections for ten towns. Hamas, when not engaging in suicide bombings and other terrorist activity, doubles as a social agency in Gaza and the West Bank that runs schools, kindergartens, and clinics. Indeed, last month Hamas scored a big win in West Bank municipal elections as well.

These results are seen by some as a blow to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas's comparatively secular-nationalist Fatah movement. As loudspeakers blared in Gaza while thousands of Hamas supporters celebrated in the streets, "The Hamas victory proves that Islam is the only solution."

Under Yasser Arafat's corrupt oligarchy, Hamas gained popularity for its "clean" image as a strictly Islamic movement dedicated to the people's welfare. But its terror activities endeared it to the public as well. Indeed, in Beit Hanoun, a town in northern Gaza that Hamas members had been using to fire Kassam rockets into Israel, Hamas won 11 of the 13 seats. As Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said of the elections, "This means that the people believe in the armed resistance as the only option."

It is an enduring mystery why President Bush continues to support the oxymoronic peace process in the Middle East. As Iraq and Afghanistan amply demonstrate, victory is the best guarantor of peace. Egypt does not attack Israel because the Egyptian Army was nearly obliterated by the Israelis in 1973 and the top Egyptian officers have no desire for a reprise.

Annihilate Hamas to ensure peace. No one wants to see a rocket fly in their bathroom window during their morning constitutional. It's a great disincentive to joining terrorist brigades.

Democrat Suicide Watch

Somebody better pull out their shoelaces and take their belts, 'cause they're looking more and more unstable by the day.

If This Were an Actual Emergency...

Whoops, somebody's getting canned for this:

Emergency Broadcast Test Mistakenly Calls For Evacuation

POSTED: 3:04 pm EST February 1, 2005
UPDATED: 4:53 pm EST February 1, 2005

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Despite what residents may have seen on television, the state of Connecticut was not ordered evacuated on Tuesday.

State emergency management officials believe someone pressed the wrong button, and instead of running a test of the emergency alert system, midday television viewers and radio listeners were told that the state was being evacuated.

"There is absolutely no evacuation or state emergency," said Kerry Flaherty, of the Office of Emergency Management. "It was an erroneous message."

The department was investigating how the alert was sent. Officials said it is manually released to broadcasters.

The error prompted Gov. M. Jodi Rell to issue a statement reassuring residents.

"We are looking into the circumstances and will take every step necessary to make certain this type of problem does not reoccur in the future," she said.

State police said they received no calls related to the erroneous alert.

Hat tip: Drudge.

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for the DNC

Donald Lambro from The Washington Times is spot-on with his analysis of Howard Dean and the DNC (hat tip: Powerline):

For those who have forgotten his presidential history, Mr. Dean was known for more than just his screaming performance after he lost Iowa. He made many wildly irresponsible, shoot-from-the-hip statements that suggest he could be a loose cannon as DNC chairman.
Among them: he expressed doubts whether the Iraqis were better off with Saddam Hussein out of power; suggested Osama bin Laden should not be prejudged before he has had a jury trial; and intimated the United States may not always be the world's strongest military power.

He won't get away with it as long as the world's strongest blogosphere is around, either.

Kerry's Khmer Rouge Operation

Just caught Pat from Brainster's Blog and Kerry Haters calling into the Blogfather Hugh Hewitt's show.

As always, Pat made an excellent point, which I paraphrase below:

"Kerry's not getting away with this. Remember: he doesn't have anybody on his boat who'll back up his story."

Pat & Company are better men than I for keeping up with Kerry. Braver, too---how do you take on the man who single-handedly won the Vietnam War (before he was against it), who ran covert ops in Cambodia with the murderous Khmer Rouge, and who's got a Magic Hat?

BBC = Back Burner Corrections

This is amusing:

BBC apologises over Iraqi figures

John Simpson presented the Panorama report
The BBC has apologised for incorrectly broadcasting figures which suggested more Iraqi civilians had been killed by coalition and Iraqi forces than by insurgents.
The information was based on figures given by the Iraqi Ministry of Health to the BBC's Panorama programme. The statistics concerned the number of people killed in conflict-related violence in the second half of 2004.

The figures said that 3,274 civilians had died in that period, 2,041 of them as the result of "military operations".

The rest were attributed to "terrorist operations".

The BBC reported the figures as suggesting that coalition and Iraqi forces could be responsible for up to 60% of conflict-related civilian deaths in Iraq.

Changes made

However, the Iraqi Ministry of Health then clarified that the figures included not just civilians, but also insurgents and Iraqi security forces. And it said that the phrase "military operations" referred to Iraqis killed by insurgents as well as coalition or Iraqi forces.

The ministry said the BBC had misinterpreted the figures.

The figures were not used in John Simpson's report on Sunday's Panorama programme, as it was still being prepared for broadcast and changes were made. However, the statistics were given out in other news reports.

"The Iraqi Ministry of Health has issued a statement clarifying matters that were the subject of several conversations with the BBC before the report was published, and denying that this conclusion can be drawn from the figures relating to 'military operations'," said the BBC in a statement.

"The BBC regrets mistakes in its published and broadcast reports."

Not that bias had anything to do with this---simply haste.

Why We Fight II

From This Is London:

Disabled child in suicide attack

31 January 2005
Terrorists used a disabled child as a suicide bomber on election day, Iraqi interior minister Falah al-Naqib said today.

In all, 44 people were killed in a total of 38 bomb attacks on polling stations. Police at the scene of one the Baghdad blasts said the bomber appeared to have Down's syndrome.

Mr Al-Naqib praised an Iraqi citizen who was killed while preventing one suicide bomber from reaching a crowd of people outside a polling station.

If any of those misguided fools in this country who have been romanticizing these "insurgents" had any vestigial sense of shame left, any shred of honor remaining, this latest atrocity would end their infatuation with this murderous scum.

One day, long years hence, when people gather to commemorate our victory in the War on Terror, they shall mock mercilessly the self-deluded idiotocracy who through their selfish foolishness strove to keep their Iraqi brothers and sisters enslaved.

Well, Here's Another Fine Mess You've Gotten Us Into

Check out this brilliant summation of this weekend's political events courtesy of the gang at Kerry Haters.

[Edited to fix link---Teflon]

If Only CBS News Could Have Found Some Investigators

David Blum has an excellent article taking us behind the scenes at Black Rock during the final days of the "investigation" into Rathergate.

Here are some key excerpts:

Howard left Heyward’s office stunned. Of course, he had been expecting some consequences for his role in the story; but up until the moment he entered Heyward’s office that morning, he had been telling colleagues that he believed he would get to keep his job. The amiable, well-liked 50-year-old Howard reasoned that his quarter-century of exemplary service to the company—as a producer on the Evening News and 60 Minutes, and eventually the deputy to legendary 60 Minutes executive producer Don Hewitt—would enable him to preserve his job and some semblance of his professional reputation. He had, after all, been the only one to push for an immediate admission, less than two days after the story aired in September, that the documents at the heart of the National Guard piece might not be real. The news that he would now need to pack his office belongings into boxes and remove them (and himself) from the premises came as a brutal shock.

Look, I've been in Corporate America for quite some years now. It says something about the lack of accountability at CBS News that someone as highly-placed as Howard was actually shocked he'd be fired over a scandal as huge as this one. Yes, he had been the only one to push for an immediate admission, but shouldn't that admission have occurred WITHIN the original broadcast? Shouldn't he have shut it down before airing? The biggest story to come down the pike in years (if not decades), with major political implications, in wartime no less, and Howard decided it was time to play hands-off? Don't cry for me, Argentina, the truth is he should have been fired.

West went back to her Upper West Side apartment after her session with Heyward. But Howard chose instead to dodge the traffic on West 57th Street and return to the nondescript office building across the street that has housed 60 Minutes since the seventies. At 10:30 a.m., once the public announcement had been made, Howard addressed the 60 Minutes Wednesday staff outside his ninth-floor office. Heyward agreed to cross West 57th Street himself to join Howard; and so, after Howard’s brief, poignant farewell, greeted by tears and an ovation from the crowd of producers and assistants, Heyward stepped forward.

“I’m here to put a human face on today’s sad events,” the CBS News president said solemnly.

“Then why didn’t you get a human being to come over here and do it?” one producer was heard to mutter. Many in the room felt Heyward’s words rang particularly hollow, given that he had not demonstrated any particular humanity by sacrificing the careers of his trusted lieutenants and friends, while managing to preserve his own. When Heyward stopped speaking, he was met with stony silence.

Heyward could have resigned. A man of honor with his title would have. But the decision to fire or keep Heyward was not his own. I strongly suspect the decision regarding who to terminate was made well above Heyward's pay grade. He certainly deserved the ax. Still does.

At around 1 P.M., the show’s producers—along with Hewitt and several 60 Minutes correspondents—turned up with bottles of champagne to toast the fallen news executive. “This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Hewitt declared, “in 55 years of working for CBS News.”

Soon afterward, boxes of personal effects in tow, Howard left the 60 Minutes offices for the last time in his life.

Boy, Don Hewitt sure is a team player, isn't he?

Lack of professionalism is clearly the root cause of CBS News' problems (and yes, that does include political bias).

I've been part of some awkward situations over the years where people were let go. I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't have them give a farewell speech in the office. We didn't have ex-employees (isn't that what Hewitt is?) come in to toast them with champagne.

What we did was preserve their dignity and ours. We allowed them to come in after hours to gather up their effects, and held a party for them (if they wished) a couple of days afterward. This largely takes emotion out of the equation, and with it, embarassment. Professionals dislike emotion and embarassment.

Do it the CBS News way, and this is what you get. The New York Times had a similar session for Howell Raines, and the bitterness lingers to this day.

But Heyward does have one crucial gift: He has proved himself an adept budget-cutter, reducing the overhead at CBS News so that profit margins remain high. The lack of stars has saved CBS News hundreds of millions of dollars, in contrast to ABC and NBC, whose bloated star contracts cut deeply into potential profits. Heyward delivers substantially to the network’s bottom line, and for that he has been richly rewarded.

Umm, it's not hard to cut budget. Businessmen do it every day. It's simple: take the old budget; set a target for cuts; eliminate the unessential until you hit the target. If you're in the business of ratings, you probably need some stars to draw eyeballs. Don't cut them. Instead, make them do their own research. Cut their assistants (or make them pay for them out of their own pockets). No pampering.

Believe me, few Hollywood celebrities would want to switch places with Fortune 100 CEOs. The work's a lot harder, the hours a lot longer, and the perks a lot fewer. Same goes for these silly network news people. You want to see a tough job, go look at the manufacturing industry. You want to see vacations, watch Gunga Dan (while you can) and the rest of the Hair Helmet Hamas.

Speaking of Dan:

Some at CBS remain particularly upset by Rather’s conduct, both before and after the story aired. The anchorman lent his enormous credibility to the story, and seemed to have pushed his normally sharp reportorial instincts aside to get it on the air. The vague public statement from Rather that followed the commission’s findings failed to contain any apology, and he has continued to defend the piece despite ample reason to doubt it.

Much has been made of Rather’s failure to see the piece before it aired, but that fact isn’t very meaningful; he’d read multiple drafts of the script for the story (written by producer Mapes), done most of the interviews, and had a thorough knowledge of the story’s content and point of view. He was hardly the uninformed mouthpiece portrayed in the media.

Rather knew full well the story’s implications for the presidential election then only two months away. The anchorman’s experience at going after sitting presidents is well known, as is his dogged pursuit of tough assignments. But Rather’s reputation as a Bush hater, true or not, has allowed journalists to wonder whether Rather helped rush the story on the air partly for political reasons. “Elections have consequences,” the anchorman had been heard to mutter around the CBS News hallways last year, an apparent reference to his feelings about the crucial importance of replacing Bush this past November.

Hmm, sounds biased to me. Doesn't the image of Dan wandering the halls muttering to himself about getting rid of Bush remind you of The Ghost of Christmas Past? Pathetic.

“Should Dan resign for his part in this story? Yes,” says one CBS News executive. “Will he? No. It’s just not his style.” It’s unclear from the commission report who bears the responsibility for the network’s ultimately foolish hang-tough strategy after the story aired, but some CBS News producers and executives increasingly suspect that Rather was one prime force behind it. (Others, such as Gil Schwartz, CBS’s executive vice-president for communications, and Jim Murphy, the executive producer of the CBS Evening News, more sensibly argued for new reporting in the controversy’s immediate wake.) Rather has remained intensely loyal to his disgraced producer Mary Mapes, but those around him feel his loyalties should have been to the truth. “The producer lied,” one longtime Rather producer told me in an unsolicited, not-for-attribution e-mail, angry that other innocent people had been wrongly punished for Mapes’s transgressions. But the commission’s report showed that it was the considerable power of Rather—in addition to Mapes—that helped lead Howard, West, and others to trust the reporting on the National Guard story in ways they now must deeply regret.

The lack of professionalism at CBS News is manifest. What you don't hear in this story is any concern whatsoever for the truth, which is supposedly what CBS News is primarily focused in uncovering. Cronyism and political games were clearly more important than honest reporting. Moral cowardice was rife.

And in the aftermath of this supposedly blockbuster report, there's nothing but backbiting and griping.

Moonves and Heyward can rearrange deck chairs all they like. CBS News is The Titanic, and she's going down fast.

Let Her People Go

Well, I admit I totally misjudged Eleanor Clift. I thought it was the other Clinton she lost her freakin' mind about:

Fast forward to 2005 and the most controversial first lady of modern times is a sedate senator from New York talking about finding “common ground” with abortion foes. Like Moses leading her party to the Promised Land, Hillary is treading a path to Red-State America. She may be the darling of the liberal left, but she won in New York by appealing to upstate voters who are traditionally Republican. Forty of the state’s 62 counties were carried by George W. Bush.

Ok, deep breath.

Eleanor:

1. "Controversial" doesn't mean "good".

2. "Talking" does not imply "doing."

3. Who promised "Red-State America" to the Democrats? God?

4. The popular vote matters in senatorial elections, not counties won. Senators have not been selected by the Electoral College since 1913.

We Read Lefty Propaganda So You Don't Have To: Bill Moyers

All right, deep breath. Relax. Deep breath. Relax.

OK, I'm ready.

From Bill Moyers' latest hysterical screed, a desperate cry hurled into the rarified air of the utterly irrlevant:

One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

Amen, brother Bill! You've finally discovered the lunacy that was the Carter Administration. Man, do you believe that unilateral disarmament crap?

Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

I'm with you, Bill! I feel you! Why the Left persists in the pursuit of the man perfectable by the State is beyond me, too. Now, fortunately Liberation Theology is pretty much dead, but I appreciate the continued vigilance against marrying Marxism and Deism. Jesus didn't make no gulags, know what I mean?

Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

I'm not quite sure why we're talking about James Watt, Brother Bill, but given the amount of deforesting the Soviets did, especially above the Arctic Circle with a ready supply of half-dead slave labor, I'll presume we'll get back on track. If Christ doesn't return first, of course.

Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true -- one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index.

Ahh, irony! Bill, didn't I read somewhere that you were a man of the cloth or something? No, not Brooks Brothers. I mean Christian. When Christ said, "I am the alpha and the omega", was he identifying which fraternity he belonged to? Sure are a lot of orthodox Jews who believe the Bible to be literally true, what we call the Old Testament portion of it, anyway. If only they'd listen to you! Bacon all around, I say.

And I don't know why you're bringing that old Blondie tune into a perfectly good discourse regarding the horrors of the Carter years, when freedom was on the run.

That's right -- the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.

Umm, okay.

Well, if by "today", all of 2004 will do, I found the following list:

Bestselling books of 2004
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, Doubleday, $24.95. A religious thriller about the secret origins of Christianity hidden in a Renaissance painting.

The South Beach Diet, by Arthur Agatston, Rodale Press, $24.95. Tasty recipes based on the famous diet by a Miami cardiologist emphasizes good fats and good carbs.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven, by Mitch Albom, Hyperion, $19.95. An amusement-park worker discovers that life in heaven is a journey with unexpected twists and turns.

Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown, Simon & Schuster, $7.99. World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon discovers the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood.

The South Beach Diet Good Fats/Good Carbs Guide, by Arthur Agatston, Rodale Press, $7.99. The latest information regarding good fats and good carbs.

The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren, Zondervan, $19.99. Pastor Warren thinks there is too much focus on the self. He puts the focus back on God, a chapter a day, for 40 days.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America the Book, by Jon Stewart, Warner, $24.95. A satiric textbook on American history and government.

My life, by Bill Clinton, Knopf, $35. The former president recounts his hardscrabble childhood in Hope, Ark; his illustrious academic career; and his meteoric rise in politics.

Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, Penguin, $14. In this coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s, 14-year-old Lily Owen is determined to find out more about her mother.

Deception Point, by Dan Brown, Simon & Schuster, $7.99. A rare object is discovered in the Arctic ice that could have profound implications for NASA and the presidential election.

Courtesy of Barnes & Noble

Doesn't look like any of the books you mention made the list. Now, the only non-Lefty spiritual book on there is Rick Warren's book. Doesn't quite make up for
three Dan Browns and a Bill Clinton, though.

Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon.

Not indebted enough to reference it by title or link to it, though, huh? Don't worry, Brother Bill, I Googled it for you. Or for your research intern, as the case may be.

Whoa, we cut a bit close in our paraphrasing, don't we, Bill?

From George:

In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century, two immigrant preachers cobbled together a series of unrelated passages from the Bible to create what appears to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to Earth when certain preconditions have been met.

From Bill:

These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.

Would've been nice to have some primary source material referenced by George and Bill, but I guess part of the fun is making readers Google everything.

As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

Hmm, I've never heard it described quite that way, at least not by believers, who typically, in my experience, emphasize that those who do not embrace Christ during the Rapture will have additional opportunities to do so. Nothing about the supposed joys of watching your friends, family, and colleagues suffer if they refuse to do so. Somehow, I think Brother Bill rather likes the notion of seeing his political and religious enemies suffer enough to inject it into the story.

Is this how urban legends get built?

I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed -- an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 -- just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.

Really? References, please? Not that I don't trust you, Brother Bill, but you keep making assertions and, ahem, forgetting to provide evidence to back them up.

Hmm, that apocalyptic Rapture Index sounds eerily similar to the Doomsday Clock your fellow left-wingers used to trumpet, which invariably seemed to be between 5 and 2 minutes to midnight (nuclear holocaust), and actually moved CLOSER whenever Ronald Reagan took another step to remove the Soviet Union as a superpower. (Had fewer atomic scientists felt the need to give the Soviets nuclear secrets, perhaps it wouldn't have been needed at all). I'll grant you that your Doomsday Clockwatchers were lunatics, Bill, but I'm not thinking you'll agree with me. I'm sure you viewed the National Debt Clock the same way, until Bill Clinton took power, anyway.

So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer -- "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming apocalypse.

Ahh, an actual reference, for once. Can links be far behind?

Now, waitaminute!---I found this article by Scherer first. Here's an interesting quote:

But a scripture-based justification for anti-environmentalism -- when was the last time you heard a conservative politician talk about that?

Odds are it was in 1981, when President Reagan's first secretary of the interior, James Watt, told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. "God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back," Watt said in public testimony that helped get him fired.

Two things here that you've seem to have forgotten to mention, Bill.

1. Watt prefaced his remarks with "God gave us these things to use." Hmmm, that doesn't seem such a radical notion, at least in Christian circles.

2. Watt was fired in part due to this comment. If those awful, nutty, apocalyptic Christians were so powerful as to influence foreign policy and move world events as pawns on a chessboard, Bill, do you think they might have prevented one of their own from being canned as Interior Secretary? Or will James Watt simply have to abide until the Rapture to see his enemies steeped in pitch and such?

Oh, for God's sake! (Sorry, Brother Bill).

That WAS the article you referenced! You linked to it yourself, apparently. Funny, the title's now "The Godly Must Be Crazy". Hmm, that's a bit more, umm, controversial a title, isn't it?

No matter.

So why'd you Dowdify Watts' quote and leave off Scherer's note that Watt was fired in part because of it?

Plus, would you mind providing a link to the data demonstrating that "millions of people" believe this, or are you just extrapolating that "fact" from La Haye and Jenkins' "Left Behind" readership?

No matter---millions of people believe you're talking out of your....

Whoops.

I'd intended to Fisk the rest of the piece, but apparently Norm Coleman's newspaper is now registration only for the second page and beyond of articles.

No matter, I think we've made the point that Bill Moyers' real issue with being left behind is the last couple of election cycles.

Update:

Brainster beat me to the punch (again!)

Update II:

Dave Kopel has a similar take.

Update III:

If Lileks stands with us, who can stand against us?

Hmm, Wasn't There Some Famous Dude Who Used to Certify Election Results?

What was his name?

Oh, yeah---Jimmy Carter.

Apparently Jimmy doesn't like going anywhere to lend credibility to elections where the local Gestapo aren't keeping things nice and tidy:

Contrary to what many Arabists, foreign office types, and media pundits have been saying, a fair percentage of people in the Middle East value democracy -- enough, at any rate, to take a chance on being blown up for it. Which is more than can be said for Kofi Annan's crowd. The terrorists' only undisputed success has been to scare away the UN's international observers, along with such NGOs as the Jimmy Carter Centre of Election Monitors. They sit at a safe distance in Jordan, wringing their hands about the lack of security, using their own cold feet to raise doubts about the validity of a process they lack the guts to verify.

Another disgraceful performance from a thoroughly disgraceful man.

All Right, I'll Say Something Nice About Colin Powell

This seems like a good idea (although sooner would have been better):

Although no one reported it, Colin Powell made a decision last week that could formally reverse the State Department's earlier preoccupation with Cold War arms control into an intensified and much-needed battle against the spread of strategic arms to the world's Irans and North Koreas. In an internal State Department memo, Powell agreed with the key recommendation of his inspector general to merge what was once State's crown jewel — its Bureau of Arms Control — with the department's Bureau of Nonproliferation.


This may seem like inside baseball but it's not. Indeed, the question now is whether our government will simply combine two large organizations to do pretty much what they were doing before to restrain weapons of mass destruction or take on a much more serious effort to promote nonproliferation. For the moment, the jury is still out.

Henry Solkolski at NRO has more.

Are You Getting the Idea that Today's American Spectator Online is a Must-Read?

So am I, although Massachusetts pols may beg to differ.

Here's Shawn Macomber putting Sonorous John Kerry in his place:

The only vote Kerry was not interested in talking about was the popular vote (granted Bush didn't want to talk much about this his first go around, either) and, more importantly, the Electoral College vote. The senator bragged to Russert that he won the youth vote, the independent vote, and the moderate vote. More bizarrely, Kerry enthused that "If you take half the people at an Ohio State football game on Saturday afternoon and they were to have voted the other way, you and I would be having a discussion today about my State of the Union speech."

Good job, Senator---blame Ohio State football fans for your loss. If only more of the youth had put down the bong and turned out in force, it would have been the Summer of Love all over again....

Honor Thy Drunkard

James Bowman, the American Spectator's resident Honor Guru, doesn't much care for Teddy Kennedy.

But then again, who does?

Great Moments in Civil Rights History---The Lost Years

Scott Johnson and the rest of the Powerline gang inaugurate a rotation at the Weekly Standard's online 'zine today.

It's an auspicious start---where else will you see Condi Rice's ascension to SecState seen as the culmination of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"?

John Podhoretz Vies for Snark of the Year Honors

If you didn't catch John Podhoretz in the NY Post today, you missed a Snark of Epic Proportions (SOEP):

There are literally millions of Americans who are unhappy today because millions of Iraqis went to the polls yesterday. And why? Because this isn't just a success for Bush. It's a huge win. It's a colossal vindication.

It's a big fat gigantic winning vindication of the guy that the Moores and Kennedys and millions of others still can't believe anybody voted for.

And they know it.

And it's killing them.

He calls out the usual suspect by name (and nickname!), but then absolutely sticks the landing:

Yesterday was a day for Democrats and opponents of George W. Bush to swallow their bile and retract their claws and join just for a moment in celebration of an amazing and thrilling human drama in a land that has seen more than its share of thrilling human drama over the past 5,000 years.

But you just couldn't do it, could you?

Losers.

One day, medical science will find some way for me to have John Podhoretz' baby.

"Insurgents" No More---Now "Enemies of the People"

Jed Babbin, as usual, is right on the money:

The insurgents -- now unable to escape the label "enemy of the Iraqi people" -- are still supported by Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Those despotisms realize that their days are numbered if Iraqi democracy succeeds. They will become increasingly desperate to make the Iraqi democracy fail, and we will have to be in Iraq to protect it from them for the foreseeable future. President Bush is correct in saying that the election creates momentum behind the Iraqi democracy experiment. But momentum can be lost if we quit too soon. That is one of the central points we will hear on Wednesday when Mr. Bush delivers his State of the Union address. And it is one that the Democrats and their holy of holies – the U.N. -- can't bring themselves to answer.

This is yet another difference from the Vietnam War that neither senator from Massachussetts has the mental wherewithal to comprehend: Ho Chi Minh could spin the fiction that the Viet Cong were a popular uprising in South Vietnam because the Diem regime was not freely elected. Bin Laden and Zarqawi won't be able to do this, even though the MSM will try mightily to cast these foreign terrorists as "freedom fighters".

Crack kills, Homer.

FOXNews.com has a story in their health headlines section that confirms what we've known for millennia.

Promiscuity ain't good. In fact, it's putting more and more people at serious health risks -- and not just from the clap.

Keep your pants on, kids. For as long as possible.

Reuters Spins the Iraqi Elections

Captain Ed catches this one:

Reuters Playing Headline Games Again

In an attempt to underscore the notion that violence wrecked the Iraqi elections -- which anyone watching the live coverage and aware of the high turnout knows is false -- Reuters uses the following headline to characterize the historic developments:

"Violence-Weary Iraqis Await Poll Results"

How do they support the headline in the story? They show these examples of "violence-weary" first-time voters:

"Up to 8 million Iraqis, some ululating with joy, others hiding their faces in fear, cast ballots across the country on Sunday as guerrilla attacks proved less ferocious than anticipated in the face of a massive security crackdown. ...
Samir Hassan, 32, who lost his leg in a car bomb blast last year, said as he waited to vote in Baghdad: "I would have crawled here if I had to. I don't want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me." ...

Voters created an almost festive atmosphere in Shi'ite areas and the northern regions where Kurds, who make up nearly a fifth of Iraqis, are looking to the vote to enshrine their autonomous rule. ...

By the end of the day in Baghdad, voters were rushing to get to polling stations before they closed, including some old women helped along by young boys."

Not one single mention of violence weariness appears in the Reuters report. The reporters who contributed to the article played it straight. They wanted to report the story as it happened. However, the editors at Reuters apparently want to send a different message to its readers.

Small wonder that the British news service has acquired the nickname "al-Reuters". It earns it every day.

"Profiles in Disgrace"

That's the apt title of Powerline's devastating dissection of hometown senator Mark Dayton.

The Senate has always drawn intellectual mediocrities, but here's a particularly telling line:

In June 2003 Senator Dayton visited Iraq. At a telephone press conference held with Twin Cities reporters Senator Dayton unburdened himself:

"The contrast between these oil fields, which are just 15 minutes away, and the total poverty of the people living in that region, was just unbelievable. They're now waiting up to nine hours in line to get gasoline for their vehicles, which is pretty absurd when you have all of this oil 15 minutes away."

What's really absurd, Senator, is that Minnesota elected some clown to high political office apparently unaware that automobiles can't run on crude oil.

Statements like this are further evidence that Dayton is despised by his staff. Were he not, they'd pull him aside and whisper something in his ear about petroleum refining.

Oh, Those Pro-American Iraqis...

The Mayor of Baghdad wants to erect a statue of President Bush.

Was This Man Nearly President of the United States?

Nah, couldn't be.

"It is significant that there is a vote in Iraq," Kerry said in an interview with NBC television's Meet the Press. "But ... no one in the United States should try to overhype this election.

"This election is a sort of demarcation point, and what really counts now is the effort to have a legitimate political reconciliation," Kerry said. "And it's going to take a massive diplomatic effort and a much more significant outreach to the international community than this administration has been willing to engage in.

"Absent that, we will not be successful in Iraq," he said.

We're already successful in Iraq, bub. The international community is as irrelevant to that success as the Democratic Party and their empty-suit, empty-headed candidates.

It didn't have to be so, but it is. Perhaps if the Senator Kerry (D-Absent) would loan Allawi his Magic Hat, things would proceed more quickly.

If the elections didn't matter, why was the Zarqawi-Kennedy axis so desperate to stop them?

A Great Day to Be an Iraqi---and an American

This is one of those wonderful days we've been treated to quite infrequently in my lifetime. Tyranny's once again been defeated and a people enslaved have held their first open and free election, all made possible by the brave sacrifice of America and her allies.

The icing on the cake, of course, is watching the crowd who conveniently invoke human rights to thwart U.S. interests have to choose sides between the Iraqi people they've claimed to champion lo these many years and their American "oppressors". I suppose it's not surprising that Ted Kennedy and his MSM fellow travelers cannot quite bring themselves to cheer for the people our fine military and president have freed, but it sure is fun to watch their self-delusions get shattered.

Smart Democrats will get on board and quickly, as smart Republicans did during WWII. I suspect there will be enough dumb ones to make the party a tiny rump of the once-mighty jackass it was.

Congratulations to the Iraqi people, and remember in the days ahead Benjamin Franklin's response to a citizen who asked him what type of government had been created during the Constitutional Convention---"A republic---if you can keep it."

The Zarqawi-Kennedy axis won't sleep very well tonight.

All Your Freedom Are Belong to Us

Great statement, but did it have to be headlined with a Bushism?

President Congratulates Iraq Elections

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT ON THE IRAQI ELECTION

The Cross Hall

1:00 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Today the people of Iraq have spoken to the world, and the world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East.

In great numbers, and under great risk, Iraqis have shown their commitment to democracy. By participating in free elections, the Iraqi people have firmly rejected the anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists. They have refused to be intimidated by thugs and assassins. And they have demonstrated the kind of courage that is always the foundation of self-government.

Some Iraqis were killed while exercising their rights as citizens. We also mourn the American and British military personnel who lost their lives today. Their sacrifices were made in a vital cause of freedom, peace in a troubled region, and a more secure future for us all.

The Iraqi people, themselves, made this election a resounding success. Brave patriots stepped forward as candidates. Many citizens volunteered as poll workers. More than 100,000 Iraqi security force personnel guarded polling places and conducted operations against terrorist groups. One news account told of a voter who had lost a leg in a terror attack last year, and went to the polls today, despite threats of violence. He said, "I would have crawled here if I had to. I don't want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me. Today I am voting for peace."

Across Iraq today, men and women have taken rightful control of their country's destiny, and they have chosen a future of freedom and peace. In this process, Iraqis have had many friends at their side. The European Union and the United Nations gave important assistance in the election process. The American military and our diplomats, working with our coalition partners, have been skilled and relentless, and their sacrifices have helped to bring Iraqis to this day. The people of the United States have been patient and resolute, even in difficult days.

The commitment to a free Iraq now goes forward. This historic election begins the process of drafting and ratifying a new constitution, which will be the basis of a fully democratic Iraqi government. Terrorists and insurgents will continue to wage their war against democracy, and we will support the Iraqi people in their fight against them. We will continue training Iraqi security forces so this rising democracy can eventually take responsibility for its own security.

There's more distance to travel on the road to democracy. Yet Iraqis are proving they're equal to the challenge. On behalf of the American people, I congratulate the people of Iraq on this great and historic achievement.


Thank you very much.

The Damning But

Balloon Juice catches the MSM with their collective pants down.

Why is it that the only time the MSM feel the need to provide "fair & balanced" coverage is when they're weighing America's interests versus her enemies'?

Boris Badinov is Not Your Buddy

From Time:

At Los Angeles International Airport two weeks ago, FBI agents arrested an Irish businessman they had spent a week tailing all over California's Silicon Valley, from the offices of two electronics manufacturers in Sunnyvale to a hotel in Mountain View and down a quiet cul-de-sac to a suburban house in San Jose. The technology exporter, according to court papers, had purchased sophisticated computer components in the U.S. to send to Russia through Ireland. He now stands to be charged in mid-February with "unlawful export of 'defense articles.'" U.S. officials point to this little-noticed case as one manifestation of a troubling reality: although the cold war is long over, Russia is fielding an army of spooks in the U.S. that is at least equal in number to the one deployed by the old, much larger Soviet Union.

Russia runs more than 100 known spies under official cover in the U.S., senior U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement officials say. And those are just the more easily spotted spies working under the classic guise of diplomat. An unknown number of so-called nocs—who work under nonofficial cover as businessmen and -women, journalists or academics—undoubtedly expand the Russian spy force. "They're baaaaack," says a former senior U.S. intelligence official who worked against Moscow during the cold war. "They're busy as hell, but I don't think we've really got what it is that they're doing." The number of Russian spies in the U.S. is especially surprising, given that it was less than four years ago that the Bush Administration expelled 50 of them in retaliation for the humiliating discovery that FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen had been spying for Russia for 21 years.

In a high-level meeting late last year, officials tell TIME, the National Security Council instructed the FBI, CIA, State Department and other agencies to get a better handle on the Russian espionage threat. While the U.S. might like to eject suspect diplomats to force the Russians to send in their "rookies," as a U.S. official put it, Moscow would probably respond in kind, denting the CIA's corps in Russia.

As the FBI has remade itself in the wake of 9/11 into a counterterrorism agency, the bureau's long-standing counterintelligence mission has been bumped down a notch on the priority list. During this time, Russia has been among the U.S.'s rivals most aggressively exploiting the opening to build up its spying capabilities. Also, it has been using liberalized immigration rules for Russians, instituted after the cold war, to install nocs.

Vladimir Putin is no partner in the War on Terror. Russian arms proliferation to known terrorist states has been a major factor in enabling terrorist networks. Moreover, Putin's disgraceful powermongering within Russia and his attempts to undermine democracy elsewhere have destabilized Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region.

It is folly to cultivate this authoritarian KGB murderer as an ally. In WWII, we had little choice but to suck up to the monstrous Stalin in order to defeat the even more monstrous Hitler.

Why on Earth would we lend our precious credibility (rebuilt after the disastrous Clinton Apology World Tour) to a regime which clearly views itself as our enemy?

Guess where those Russian nukes are pointed right now. It ain't Chechnya, baby.

Dan Rather: Still a Jerk

Ratherbiased.com somehow manages to keep their gag reflexes perpetually suppressed:

With the historic election approaching, it is no surprise that Rather is fixating on death, mayhem, and a body count.

But to make an attempt at "fairness," he added a snippet from the Commander of U.S. forces in Iraq about the insurgents.

"The insurgents have created an impression that they're better than they are."

In this country, Rather strives tirelessly to create that impression.

If Gunga Dan had been at Auschwitz when the camp was liberated, he no doubt would have praised the Nazis for providing pajamas to the inmates and wondered at their prospects for a decent life outside of the structured existence they had experienced since their internment began.

Jerk.

The Real Losers Today: The MSM

Scrappleface, as usual, nails it:

Iraqi Voting Disrupts News Reports of Bombings
by Scott Ott

(2005-01-30) -- News reports of terrorist bombings in Iraq were marred Sunday by shocking graphic images of Iraqi "insurgents" voting by the millions in their first free democratic election.

Despite reporters' hopes that a well-orchestrated barrage of mortar attacks and suicide bombings would put down the so-called 'freedom insurgency', hastily-formed battalions of rebels swarmed polling places to cast their ballots -- shattering the status quo and striking fear into the hearts of the leaders of the existing terror regime.

Hopes for a return to the stability of tyranny waned as rank upon rank of Iraqi men and women filed out of precinct stations, each armed with the distinctive mark of the new freedom guerrillas -- an ink-stained index finger, which one former Ba'athist called "the evidence of their betrayal of 50 years of Iraqi tradition."

Journalists struggled to put a positive spin on the day's events, but the video images of tyranny's traitors choosing a future of freedom overwhelmed the official story of bloodshed and mayhem.

The conduct of the MSM in this conflict has been even more disgraceful than that of the Democratic Party.

What kind of American actually prefers to see other human beings enslaved to seeing them liberated?

No kind of American, in my book.

The dwindling ratings of the Hair Helmet Hamas make me wonder if there aren't a lot of other Americans who feel the same way.

Unabashed Plug: Solucian Networking

MoltenThought the Blog is brand-new, but I've had my own web site for a number of years now. I was working in the telecom industry at the time, and did quite a bit of research before placing my business with a company called Solucian Networking. I've never regretted this decision and have been with them ever since.

Solucian's a small company offering big-time support and customer service. When you e-mail or call Solucian with a question, you don't get an interlocking maze of voicemail systems. You get an honest-to-goodness human being (typically Howard Towt, the proprietor or Chris Towt, web guru). Response rates have been incredible---any issues or questions we've had have been invariably resolved within 24 hours (and most often taken care of within 2 or 3).

Moreover, Solucian offers the rarest kind of TLC---proactive problem resolution.

In getting this blog up, I needed to make some technical changes to the site. In so doing, I missed something and had to make a note to dig into it and fix it. Before I could do so, Chris e-mailed me to indicate he had noticed the problem and would fix it for us with our permission. A few minutes later, the problem was resolved---no effort needed on our end aside from e-mailing "Yes. Thanks!"

This is the kind of service we all deserve, but only a fortunate few experience.

And before any of you skeptics out there begin to presume we're plugging our hosts in return for a big ol' bag of lottery tickets, we approached Solucian requesting an ad we could carry to recommend their services. It's the Internet equivalent of word-of-mouth advertising.

If you have web hosting or other Internet service needs (and who doesn't?), check Solucian Networking out. You'll be glad you did.

MoltenThought Film Festival: "A Tale of Two Cities"

The MoltenThought Film Festival continued yesterday. Logistical difficulties mandating the postponement of viewing the 9th film on our "Ten Best Movies Ever" list, so we jumped straight to #8, the 1935 version of "A Tale of Two Cities."



Hollywood often adapts famous novels, chiefly because they pay nothing for public domain rights, but they usually wind up unable to resist the urge to butcher said work in the process. Rare is the movie adaptation which remains faithful to the original work.

Yet that is precisely what screenwriters W.P. Lipscomb and S. N. Behrman have done, a monumental task given the intricacy of Charles Dickens' beloved novel and the wide swath of fans devoted to it.

The "two cities" in the title are Paris and London during the time between the American Revolution and the end of The Terror, roughly 1784 - 1794. Charles Darnay is the rebellious nephew of the thoroughly evil Marquis St. Evremonde, lord of a mansion located near the infamous Parisian fortress prison La Bastille. Darnay and his uncle clash over the plight of the poor peasants living in the shadow of the prison, which drives Darnay to flee France for England in protest.

The Marquis is not one to be trifled with. He framed a perceived rival named Dr. Manette some 18 years prior and had him sent to the Bastille, where he languished making shoes while his family assumed him dead. A French wineshop owner and member of the underground revolutionary movement La Jacquerie arranges for Dr. Manette's release from prison and arranges with a British bank owner to spirit him and his daughter Lucy away from France.

Lucy and Charles meet on the ferry across the channel and soon decide to meet again. Unfortunately, Charles is arrested on charges of treason trumped up by his murderous uncle. Drunken barrister Sydney Carton is employed to defend the hapless French noble, which he does with great guile, earning Lucy's gratitude.

Carton falls for Lucy, even as she and Charles become engaged and have a daughter. We're given a marked study in contrasts between the two men: Charles is dashing but impetuous and foolhardy; Sydney is a rake but solid and trustworthy. The two men become friends of sorts despite their vastly different worldviews.

The French Revolution explodes and Charles rushes to Paris in a foolhardy attempt to save his former tutor. He is captured and sent to La Force prison, there to face the guillotine for being an aristocrat and thus an enemy of the people. Dr. Manette, Lucy, and Sydney race to save him, accompanied by Lucy's governess, the delightfully dour Miss Pross.

In the movie's tense climax, Dr. Manette gives a powerful speech which seems to sway the peasant jury, only to see the venomous Madame Defarge, wife of the wineshop owner who had saved him so few years ago, viciously condemn Darnay with her emotional testimony. Charles is condemned to die within 48 hours.

I won't spoil the novel or movie for any who have not seen it, but suffice it to say that what happens next is one of the noblest exploits ever to be captured on paper or celluloid, and this wonderful film manages to perfectly reflect the crowning achievement of the novel.

I derive much of my personal political philosophy from Edmunde Burke's criticism of the French Revolution. As such, "A Tale of Two Cities" has a very personal resonance with me, as it did (I believe) with Dickens. With so much of modern leftism derived from the murderous creed of the sans-culottes, it has been virtually impossible for modern moviemakers to gaze with an unflinching eye at the bloodthirsty nature of the Revolution. Yet telling the tale Dickens told requires such vision. Directors Jack Conway and Robert Z. Leonard clearly have it.

The performances are outstanding. Ronald Colman gives a nuanced and utterly unaffected performance as the roguish Sydney Carton, while Elizabeth Allan glows as Lucy Manette. Donald Woods has the unenviable task of lending nobility to the hapless Charles Darnay---one walks away with a far more favorable estimation of the outcast Evremonde in the film than in the novel as a result.

I must note, however, that the two most powerful performances in the film come from supporting actresses. Edna May Oliver is superb as the maternal lioness Miss Pross. Blanche Yurka creates one of the most memorable screen villainesses in cinematic history with her venomous portrayal of Madame Defarge. She seethes like a cauldron of lava throughout much of the film. When Miss Pross and Madame Defarge confront one another, it is simply electric.

Finally, I should call attention to a deviation from the book which I think actually strengthens the movie. At several key moments, the film draws parallels between the the French Revolution and the Crucifixion. This was not a theme I recall from the novel, but it is used to great effect here, and is a touch you will not find in a modern picture thanks to the strong securalist sympathies of the Hollywood power players.

This is a great movie, which I unfortunately have not found on DVD yet.

Highly recommended.

He Shoots, He Scores!

If you read only one post in the blogosphere today, you must read Iowahawk's brutal takedown of Teddy Kennedy's "Peace With Dishonor" speech.

I'm not even going to give a taste here. Go check it out right now. Go on---you deserve it.

It is singly the most brilliant and devastating piece of political satire I've ever seen, akin to discovering Michelangelo's "Goliath" under a drop cloth in your basement.

Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.