NOW You See the Power of A Fully-Operational Blogosphere

Wow---I must say I didn't think this was coming so soon:

NEW YORK - CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq.

Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.

During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted.

He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place where a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.

"I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise," Jordan said in a memo to fellow staff members at CNN.

But the damage had been done, compounded by the fact that no transcript of his actual remarks has turned up. There was an online petition calling on CNN to find a transcript, and fire Jordan if he said the military had intentionally killed journalists.

Let me say this right now---I have a job I truly love, and I'm going to be very, very nice to The Blogfather, La Shawn Barber, and Captain Ed from now on.

Let me also say that I was wrong in my earlier speculation on the power of the blogosphere---Jordan's scalp was taken by bloggers without MSM help.

I was also way off on the importance of this story. Hugh Hewitt picked up on this like a Great White sniffing blood in the water.

But that's why he's the Blogfather and I'm just a ring-kisser.

Update:

Did this Washington Times editorial break the logjam and trigger Jordan's resignation?

Update II:

Blogs For Bush has the CNN internal memo announcing Jordan's resignation.

Michelle Malkin writes history's first draft of L'Affair Jordan.

Linkage:

Redstate senses a teensy bit of triumphalism. The Force is strong with young Krempasky.

Eagle-eyed Blogosphere Gunner 1st Class Kevin Craver drops in from the Rathergate system with news of Princess Amanpour.

Thanks to Admiral Goldberg for offering the services of the Super Star Destroyer "The Corner" for this mission.

Michelle Malkin finds this inspiring.

Confessions of a Political Junkie deems this sweet.

Bedrock Guy's cool with it.

Silent Running bears witness.

Marcvs the Bard's Tales calls it "A New Hope."

The Politics of CP thinks this is a pretty decent summation of the whole affair.

PolySciFi notes that the Star Wars uninitiated might mistake this for...something else.

Unconsidered Trifles is in on the joke.

Clive Davis wonders if this isn't a new logo for a new era.

Pajama Hadin is disturbed by the MSM's lack of faith.

Blogs to the Left of Me, Blogs to the Right

...here I am, stuck wishing I were Michael Barone:

For 12 years, Democratic chairmen were chosen by Bill Clinton. He built a new generation of fundraisers who relished contact with the Clintons. Now the big money comes from the left blogosphere and Bush-hating billionaires like George Soros. Dean gives them what they want. As Dean says, "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for." Hate. But Bush hatred was not enough to beat Bush in 2004--while Democratic turnout was up, Republican turnout was up more--and doesn't seem likely to beat Republicans in 2006 and 2008. The left blogosphere has driven the Democrats into an electoral cul de sac.

Media hatred. The Bush campaign, quietly, used the Internet to build an E-mail list of 7.5 million names and a corps of 1.4 million volunteers who produced more new votes than the Democrats. But the right blogosphere was different from the left. There was no one dominant website and no one orthodoxy. Glenn Reynolds, the University of Tennessee law professor whose instapundit.com gets 200,000 page hits a day, supports Bush on Iraq but disagrees with him on abortion, stem-cell research, and same-sex marriage. The focus of hatred in the right blogosphere is not Kerry or the Democrats but what these bloggers call Mainstream Media, or MSM. They argue, correctly in my view, that the New York Times, CBS News, and others distorted the news in an attempt to defeat Bush in 2004.

He's dead-on as always, so read the whole thing.

(Hat Tip: Instapundit.)

Quo Journalist?

A not-so-rhetorical question from a very level-headed White House Press Secretary, courtesy of Drudge:

White House spokesman Scott McClellan On Thursday challenged liberal media activists, who are currently feigning outrage over events surrounding "Jeff Gannon," to examine the definition of reporter in the new century.

"In this day and age, when you have a changing media, it's not an easy issue to decide or try to pick and choose who is a journalist. It gets into the issue of advocacy journalism," McClellan said.

"Where do you draw the line? There are a number of people who cross that line in the briefing room.

"There are a number of people in that room that express their points of view, and there are people in that room that represent traditional media, they represent talk radio, they're columnists, and they represent online news organizations."

Let the MSM continue their self-destructive fit of pique. The world has moved on, and they shall only be left behind.

What Would A Real Churchill Do?

The rise, phoenix-like, of the Left's appeasement wing makes me wonder what the Great Man himself would say concerning the War on Terror. I wonder no more, for Daniel Mandel has the answer in an excellent article.

Set A Course for Los Angeles---Hahnwalker Is There

If only the blogosphere could deal swift justice to racebaiters and demagogues like LA's mayor:

A tragedy, to be sure, but one made all the more sickening by the shameless political sideshow that soon followed. The dead driver was Devin Brown, a 13-year-old black boy. I mention his ethnicity here only because of its relevance to the carnival of racial pandering that's been escalating all week, with politicians falling over themselves to denounce the shooting, and the always reliable chorus of "community activists" calling for the officers to be brought up on murder charges. Perhaps the most craven of all was Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn, who called for swift changes to LAPD policy. He addressed reporters and protesters at a news conference staged in front of a South L.A. police station on Tuesday. "I am joining in the anger and the frustration," Hahn said, "and I stand here with great concern over this latest use of force." One wonders if the mayor joined in the anger and frustration expressed by those protesters who carried signs reading "Death to the pigs." Addressing the LAPD policy on shooting at moving cars, Hahn said, "We need to make sure this doesn't happen again." As to how to prevent 13-year-old boys from using stolen cars to run over police officers, the mayor had no suggestions.

Jack Dunphy is right on the mark as usual. Got news for you, Mr Mayor---this isn't 1988. This isn't 1994. It's 2005, and the American people are getting a little sick of crooked little weasels and their lickspittle response to the racial grievance industry.

Or did you think these cops somehow managed to determine the race and age of a "victim" they couldn't even see?

Could Ward Churchill Get Any More Loathsome?

The answer is no.

The Denver Post reveals he went to Libya to meet with Moammar Gadhafi and denounce America.

You might recall that the Libyan dictator's anti-Americanism took a more muscular form.

Howard Kurtz: Lapdog

Looks like ol' Howie's going to have to find another lefty lap to sit in:

CNN's Jordan Resigns Over Iraq Remarks
News Chief Apologized For Comment on Troops

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 12, 2005; Page A01

Note the subtitle the copy editor chose for this one---"News Chief Apologized for Comment On Troops". Is this the big story the blogosphere missed? Where was this apology? Or is WashPo once again engaging in a little revisionist history?

Eason Jordan resigned last night as CNN's chief news executive in an effort to quell a burgeoning controversy over his remarks about U.S. soldiers killing journalists in Iraq.

Even as he said he had misspoken at an international conference in suggesting that coalition troops had "targeted" a dozen journalists and insisted he never believed that, Jordan was being pounded hourly by bloggers, liberals as well as conservatives, who provided the rocket fuel for a story that otherwise might have fizzled.

So now his comments were about "killing journalists", not just "targeting" them? And why is this controversy only "burgeoning", Howard? You could as easily have said it was an effort to hold Jordan accountable for anti-American remarks. That would have been the lede had this been a comment from Pat Robertson.

Poor Jordan---getting "pounded hourly." And given your only previous utterance on the subject only referenced conservative bloggers, Howard, why reference liberals now? Trying to claim the Left a piece of the kill? The story would have fizzled because you and the other MSM toadies would have completely suppressed it if you could have, Howie. Or did your call for the release of the Davos tape get lost in the partisan din, much as Jordan's mythical "apology" did?

Jordan, 44, said in a statement yesterday that he was quitting after 23 years at the network "to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished by the controversy over conflicting accounts of my recent remarks regarding the alarming number of journalists killed in Iraq. . . . I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise."

Well, there's one way to resolve the "conflicting accounts"---release the tape! Easier and less painful than a resignation, unless the only conflict is between Jordan's "clarifications" and the truth. And if this is Howie's "apology", it hardly qualifies---"I'm sorry if you're all too stupid or partisan to see reality". "I'm sorry I said something stupid and anti-American on foreign soil in a time of war. I have no evidence whatsoever for the United States military intentionally torturing or killing any journalist, despite my alleging so twice." That's an apology, Howie. The other statement is something we call "weasel words".

No definitive account of what Jordan said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 27 has been made public, including the forum's videotape of the off-the-record session. Two Democrats who were there, Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (Conn.), criticized Jordan's remarks. Others in attendance, including U.S. News & World Report editor at large David Gergen and BBC executive Richard Sambrook, said Jordan had clarified his remarks.

How can it be "off-the-record" if it was videotaped? What were the remarks you so obliquely allude to? What, at least, did Frank and Dodd object to? We know you've read the blogs, Howard. Why are you so circumspect on this?

New York University professor and blogger Jay Rosen said bloggers "made a lot of noise" about the Jordan flap. "But there was basic reporting going on -- finding the people who were there, getting them to make statements, comparing one account to another -- along with accusations and conspiracy thinking and the politics of paranoia and attacks on the MSM, or mainstream media."

Hmm, wonder why you chose this particular quote, Howard? Was it to diminish the bulk of what was said in the blogosphere as "accusations and conspiracy thinking and the politics of paranoia and attacks on the MSM, or mainstream media"? Transparent and bogus. The signal-to-noise ratio was quite high among the major bloggers on this issue, as you know from reading them.

Journalist and blogger Jeff Jarvis said Jordan, like CBS News's Dan Rather after his flawed story about President Bush's military service, failed to acknowledge his mistake. "He could have said, 'Oops, I did something stupid, I'm sorry.' Instead he came out with obfuscating statements and now he's quit in shame."

Absolutely. You could have noted that Jarvis founded Entertainment Weekly and is nobody's idea of a rabid right-winger.

Glenn Reynolds, who writes as InstaPundit, said "it was the stonewalling, the lame response" that sealed Jordan's fate. "And although there are some people calling it 'another scalp for the blogosphere,' it was really a case of Jordan taking his own scalp."

Another good quote buried within the story. I have a sneaking suspicion Glenn actually said more on the subject, and you picked the quote which most diminished the bloggers' impact. Are you "targeting" bloggers, Howard?

In a memo to the staff, CNN News Group President Jim Walton praised Jordan: "The regard in which he is held by people from every walk of life in virtually every corner of the world has added incalculably to our ability to cover such historic events as the Gulf War and the war in Iraq, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the crackdown in Tiananmen Square and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

Yes, Saddam Hussein held him and the other CNN weasels in high esteem, indeed.

Several CNN staffers say Jordan was eased out by top executives who had lost patience with both the controversy and the continuing published gossip about Jordan's personal life after a marital breakup. Jordan's authority already had been greatly reduced after a management shakeup.

This is odd. Did you report on any of these water-cooler conversations before the king was dead, Howie?

See, on the blogs, we link to stories so people can see them for themselves. No obfuscation here.

At the forum, Frank has said, Jordan seemed to be suggesting "it was official military policy to take out journalists." Jordan later "modified" his remarks to say some U.S. soldiers did this "maybe knowing they were killing journalists, out of anger," Frank said.

Hmm, that seems to contradict Jordan's account, doesn't it? But we know who gets the benefit of the doubt and who doesn't, don't we, Howie?

In an interview this week, Jordan said he had been responding to Frank's comment that the 63 journalists killed in Iraq were "collateral damage." "I was trying to make a distinction between 'collateral damage' and people who got killed in other ways," he said. Jordan cited such 2003 incidents as the U.S. shelling of Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, a haven for foreign journalists, in which two cameramen were killed, and the fatal shooting of a cameraman outside Abu Ghraib prison.

So where there is no definitive account, Jordan's word is gold, right? A reporter might have looked into Jordan's previous utterances on the matter, which were unprompted by someone allegedly introducing the notion of "collateral damage". Know where we could find one of those, Howard? Oh, wait---Captain Ed of the Starship "Blogswarm" already dug this up.

Blogs operated by National Review Online, radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt and commentator Michelle Malkin were among those that began slamming Jordan last week after a Davos attendee posted an online account, but the establishment press was slow to pick up on the controversy. The Washington Post and Boston Globe published stories Tuesday and the Miami Herald ran one Thursday. Also on Thursday, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Bret Stephens, who was at Davos, published an account accusing Jordan of "defamatory innuendo," and the Associated Press moved a story. As of yesterday, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today had not carried a staff-written story, and the CBS, NBC and ABC nightly news programs had not reported the matter. It was discussed on several talk shows on Fox News, MSNBC and CNBC but not on CNN.

Why no mention of the Washington Times, Howard? Another conflict of interest on your part?

Gergen said Jordan's resignation was "really sad" since he had quickly backed off his initial comments. "This is too high a price to pay for someone who has given so much of himself over 20 years. And he's brought down over a single mistake because people beat up on him in the blogosphere? They went after him because he is a symbol of a network seen as too liberal by some. They saw blood in the water."

Is Gergen an uber-weasel or what? Number one, it wasn't a single mistake---he made these comments before. Number two, it wasn't because people "beat up on him in the blogosphere"---that was Jeff Gannon's situation. If Kurtz' paragraph above is to be believed, Jordan was on the way out anyway.

At least this quote amply demonstrates how the Mouth of Sauron thinks---the real evil and real power is vested within the little guy typing at his home computer, not the millionaire head of a global media empire.

Wonder why you quoted him, but didn't quote an equally-strong voice (say, Hugh Hewitt) as to why Jordan should have gone?

In his statement, Jordan said: "I have great admiration and respect for the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, with whom I have worked closely and been embedded in Baghdad, Tikrit, and Mosul" and other places. "As for my colleagues at CNN, I am enormously proud to have worked with you, risking my life in the trenches with you."

Ahh, so Jordan now claims to have risked his life "in the trenches". When did this happen, exactly?

And when did Jordan manifest anything but contempt for the U.S. military?

Believe me, if Kurtz could have found a soldier saddened by the resignation of this great cheerleader for our armed forces, he would have quoted them. Until Private Tooth Fairy makes it through Basic, that ain't gonna happen. Such a soldier doesn't exist.

He touched off a furor with a New York Times op-ed piece in April 2003, saying CNN had withheld information about some of Saddam Hussein's abuses out of concern for its Iraqi employees in Baghdad. This sparked criticism that the network was collaborating with a murderer's regime to maintain its access. Jordan wrote that Hussein's son Uday had told him in 1995 of plans to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law and the man giving them asylum, King Hussein of Jordan. The CNN executive said he had warned the king; the brothers-in-law were later killed.

Howard Kurtz hosts CNN's weekly media program.

Well, thanks anyway for reminding us of another reason to be glad Jordan's gone. You might have touched base with Franklin Foer of The New Republic, who has a rather different take on Jordan's integrity than you do:

As Baghdad fell last week, CNN announced that it too had been liberated. On the New York Times' op-ed page on Friday, Eason Jordan, the network's news chief, admitted that his organization had learned some "awful things" about the Baathist regime--murders, tortures, assassination plots--that it simply could not broadcast earlier. Reporting these stories, Mr. Jordan wrote, "would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff."

Of course, Mr. Jordan may feel he deserves a pinch of credit for coming clean like this. But this admission shouldn't get him any ethical journalism trophies. For a long time, CNN denied that its coverage skimped on truth. While I researched a story on CNN's Iraq coverage for the New Republic last October, Mr. Jordan told me flatly that his network gave "a full picture of the regime." In our conversation, he challenged me to find instances of CNN neglecting stories about Saddam's horrors. If only I'd had his Times op-ed!

In fact, Jordan at least seemed well aware of Iraqi horrors, even when it came to Iraqi intelligence "targeting" his own people:

In December, Jordan said, he met with Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf to ask permission for CNN to send journalists into areas of northern Iraq that had been under Kurdish control since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

"He bristled, and he said, 'Mr. Jordan, if you send a CNN team there, the severest possible consequences will come to them,'" Jordan said. "And I said, 'What does that mean?' He just snapped back. He said, 'Don't you understand? The severest possible consequences.' It was clear he was talking about assassinating those journalists."

Some risk-taker, eh? Rather than lose CNN's much-vaunted Baghdad access rights, Jordan was willing to recycle Ba'athis propaganda and send those reporters he so loved into areas where his good buddies in Saddam Hussein's regime would have them assassinated.

Kurtz to his credit did deal with some of this previous Eason Jordan controversy head-on:

Cincinnati, Ohio: I hope you will be covering the astounding column in the New York Times by Eason Jordan regarding what CNN knew and didn't report. This is a major story considering their slanted war coverage. They are all too ready to report alleged atrocities by U.S. forces and not so quick to report what they knew firsthand. I can understand them not reporting these specific instances, but to have slanted their reporting in support to the regime is disgusting.

Also a caller to Rush just brought up how close was Eason to Uday that Uday confided that he was planning to murder his brother-in-laws. How nice he notified the King of Jordan. What about the poor sots who were going to be murdered. If he truly thought he and the interpreter were the only ones who knew and didn't tell to protect the interpreter then he can not claim that this was typical bluster from Uday. We must assume they had a close relationship.

Does CNN also have a nice close relationship with Castro and are we being treated to only one side of the situation in Cuba. The possibilities are endless in the world.

They disgust me.

Look forward to seeing your coverage of this issue.

Howard Kurtz: I deal with this in today's Media Notes print column. I don't agree that CNN's coverage has been "slanted," but I do think it raises all kinds of questions that the network sat on disturbing stories of human rights abuses, as Jordan now acknowledges. I asked about his relationship with Uday and he says they were not close but that Uday just went berserk in making these threats (which prompted Jordan to warn King Hussein). His rationale is that CNN could not have reported the specifics without jeopardizing lives, including those of the network's Iraqi employees in Baghdad, but I don't find that explanation entirely convincing. CNN could have just pulled up stakes in Baghdad rather deal with these thugs, but was unwilling to do so.

Philadelphia, Pa.: How can CNN maintain any kind of credibility after one of its executives admits to suppressing stories for years? That would seem like a cardinal sin of journalism, and it would be very hard for CNN to ever gain credence again.

Howard Kurtz: I think they've taken a hit. There are lots of instances of news organizations withholding information (such as troop movements or imminent arrests) that could jeopardize people's lives, but usually the information gets published after the crisis has passed. In this case you have CNN's top news executive acknowledging that the network suppressed important stories about Saddam's regime for a dozen years. That makes the situation very different.

This only makes his recent toadying all the more curious. How could any journalist be a fan of Eason Jordan?

Maybe in the aftermath of a future resignation you'll tell us all you know about this one, Howie.

In Two Years, Howard Dean Will Make Terry McAuliffe Look Like Benjamin Disraeli

A touching tribute to the outgoing DNC chair from the man who sat him in it:

Former President Clinton told Democrats Thursday night it won't take any special magic for them to win the White House again.

"All that has to happen is you have to have a clear vision, a plan for the future, good campaign tactics and fight like the devil," said Clinton. "We need to brand ourselves better. There were too many people who didn't know why we were Democrats except that we were against President Bush's policies."

Call him the Man from False Hope, then.

The problem isn't the brand, Bill, it's the product line you keep trying to foist upon the American people.

Byron York knows; listen to him:

And then, in the way that Democrats sometimes do when they want to criticize Bush's economic policies, Clinton branded himself by telling the crowd that he has become very, very rich. Speaking of John Kerry — who by that time was having his own conversation with McAuliffe — Clinton said, "He and I have more money than we need — and so does McAuliffe." The intended effect of that remark was to suggest a certain amount of selflessness in their opposition to tax cuts and other policies that Democrats say favor the wealthy. The actual effect was to remind everyone that Clinton, Kerry, and McAuliffe are a bunch of rich guys who don't need tax cuts.

Who do you think has a better grip on reality, Bill Clinton or his old American Spectator bete noire Byron York?

King of Pop or King of Porn?

Corey Feldman just became the Michael Jackson trial's Kato Kaelin:

Feldman stressed in his interview with Bashir that Jackson never molested him or touched him improperly and that there was no sexual contact between them. But he said he has re-evaluated his friendship with Jackson and has concluded that there were things that happened in their relationship that were inappropriate and wrong.

"If you consider it inappropriate for a man to look at a book of naked pictures with a child that's 13 or 14 years old — then your answer would be yes."

Feldman says he had such an encounter at Jackson's home when he says they stopped there on the way to Disneyland. "We went to his apartment, and I noticed a book that he had out on his coffee table. The book contained pictures of grown men and women naked. And the book was focused on venereal diseases and the genitalia." Feldman said the singer sat down with him and explained the photos to him.

Feldman said, "I was kind of grossed out by it. I didn't think of it as a big deal. And for all these years, I probably never thought twice about it … But in light of recent evidence … I have to say that if my son was 14 years old — 13 years old, and went to a man's apartment that was 35, and I knew that they were sitting down together talking about this, I would probably beat his ass."

I suspect the gang at E! True Hollywood Story is in the editing room waiting with bated breath for the Martin Bashir interview tonight.

Jimmy Carter Catches the Vapors

Truly a historic event, as relayed by The Washington Times (Hat tip: Captain's Quarters):

Former President Jimmy Carter, who predicted that elections in Iraq would fail and in the past year described the Bush administration's policy there as a quagmire, this week ended 10 days of silence to declare the historic Iraqi vote "a very successful effort."
"I hope that we'll have every success in Iraq," Mr. Carter said in a CNN interview. "And that election, I think, was a surprisingly good step forward."

Perhaps he was afraid the U.S. military was targeting at that very moment the CNN reporter to whom he was speaking?

The Nobel Peace Prize winner's comments on Wednesday contradicted his September assertion that the Iraq elections could not be held by January and ended a period during which the Georgia Democrat's failure to comment prompted one critic to gloat about the election success "shaming him into silence."

Ahh, maybe it was the fear of complete irrelevance, then.

Last year, in venues ranging from CNN to National Public Radio, Mr. Carter predicted that Iraq would not be ready for a January election, compared the situation there to the Vietnam War and implied that "the control of oil" was a major reason for the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
"I personally do not believe we will be ready for an election in January," Mr. Carter told Katie Couric Sept. 30 on NBC's "Today" show.
The United States, he said, should "go through the election and then withdraw American troops as rapidly as possible. ... Get us out of there."
As recently as three weeks ago, Mr. Carter predicted low turnout and an unrepresentative result for the Iraq election.
"Whether it's 30 percent turnout or 50 percent turnout, almost entirely Shi'ites and Kurds and just a very few Sunnis, I think, the White House will claim it's a success," Mr. Carter told Matt Lauer on the "Today" show on Jan. 19.

Man, such skepticism from the man who managed to claim free and open democratic elections occurred in a variety of totalitarian states with no hint of irony. I love the "ranging from CNN to NPR" reference; in other words, from Left to Far Left.

It is estimated that 60 percent of eligible Iraqis voted in that nation's first free elections in more than 50 years. Mr. Carter was correct in predicting low Sunni turnout. Results of the voting, which still are being tabulated, will determine the 275-member transitional national assembly. The assembly will draft a new constitution and select the country's next prime minister.
On Wednesday, even while lauding the Iraqi elections, Mr. Carter reiterated concerns about Shi'ite domination, telling CNN that "the Sunnis almost refused to participate and played a very small role in the most troubled and I'll say violent areas of Iraq."
He added: "Now the question is, will this be a Shi'ite-dominated religious organization formed as the next government, or will it be a democratic secular one? And will there be some way to encourage the Sunnis to come back in and participate?"

Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy---why weren't you so worried about religious Shi'ite domination when you were president? I understand why an old bootlicker like you are so concerned that the Sunni minority which so effectively enslaved the Kurds and Shi'ites would be left in the lurch, but are you really going to claim that people representing 20% of the nation ought to hold 51% of the power?

No, Jimmy, I was talking about Iraq, not America. Would you care to change your answer, then?

During the fall presidential election campaign, Mr. Carter repeatedly condemned the invasion of Iraq — an "unjust and completely unnecessary war," he called it in a Sept. 23 interview with NPR's Tavis Smiley. On that program, Mr. Carter said, "The war has now degenerated, I think, into as much of a quagmire as was Vietnam," and laid out his own proposal for peace in Iraq.
"What we have to do, obviously, is to create a peaceful environment there where at least the United Nations, with its courageous representatives, can come in and help conduct an honest election," said Mr. Carter, adding that he did not "see any possibility of this happening" in time for the January elections.

How courageous was the UN? They cut and run at the first sign of terrorism, not even staying long enough to destroy all traces of their Oil-for-Food booty.

But the courageous Carter Center election monitors bravely ran away too, didn't they?

Instead, the truly courageous Iraqi people had an honest election without your "help", although given that the winning candidate won't get a perfect 100%, as Saddam and Fidel did in their elections, perhaps you see this as regressive.

After about 8 million Iraqis went to the polls, Mr. Carter's September prediction that Iraq would not be ready for elections by Jan. 30 — "there is no security there," he said — was cited by conservative commentators including Mark Steyn and Ann Coulter as proof of liberal wrongheadedness. His silence in the 10 days after the election was greeted with derision by Bush supporters.
"We'd love to hear Jimmy Carter say, 'I was wrong,' but even we aren't idealistic enough to think that's going to happen in this lifetime," the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto said in a postelection comment. "Still, shaming him into silence is almost as great an achievement as bringing democracy to the heart of the Arab world. Chalk up another triumph for George W. Bush."

Well, I still haven't heard him say "I was wrong." Perhaps my grandchildren will, given the old buzzard clearly runs like a top on anti-Americanism alone.

At the Democratic National Convention in July, Mr. Carter shared box seats with documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. Mr. Carter's remarks in television interviews suggest that he also shared Mr. Moore's belief that the U.S. military intervention in Iraq was largely motivated by the Bush administration's desire to control that nation's oil supply.
In a Dec. 9 appearance on PBS, Mr. Carter said the United States must "be able to share or willing to share the political future of Iraq and the economic future of Iraq with other countries, including the control of oil" — a possibility he called "unlikely."
"I cannot imagine the Bush administration being willing to do that," Mr. Carter told Charlie Rose.

Wonder how much Oil-for-Food action the Carters received.

More 9/11 Monday Morning Quarterbacking

The 9/11 Commission will go down in history as a colossal waste of time and money. More dubious findings were released Thursday.

These "blue-ribbon panels" offer the worst of all worlds: mediocre intellects, political woolgathering, bureaucratic butt-covering.

Here's the reality: the 9/11 attacks were brilliantly conceived and executed, the single most devastating terror attacks since Genghis Khan drove his Mongol horde into Europe. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda managed to launch an extremely effective surprise attack on a nation which never realized the extent to which Islamofascists would go to vent their anti-American hatred.

One can never guard against every avenue of attack, particularly when faced with an innovative and determined foe with years to plan and practice. Intelligence will never be perfect. We were able to read Nazi and Japanese codes from very early in WWII, yet Pearl Harbor and the Battle of the Bulge still caught us completely unawares.

The real question is not how al Qaeda managed to pull off 9/11 but how effective the American response has been. Despite a burning desire to follow up the destruction of the World Trade Center towers with additional terrorist attacks, there have been none on American soil in 3 1/2 years. Our offensive is working.

Richard Ben-Veniste and the other Democrat hacks can continue to cover their hinders with white paper after white paper. It doesn't matter. Their failures are transparent. Their failures are history.

What matters now is the continued war against the Islamofascists and the terror they breed.

What's the MSM's Watergate Take-Away? Bush Is Bad, Mmmmkay?

The MSM is incapable of learning anything from their continuing credibility collapse:

For former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, the answer is simple. Speaking at a symposium at UT to celebrate the opening of the Watergate Archive, Lewis blamed the press for failing to bring down a president who in Lewis's opinion is so corrupt he makes Richard Nixon "look like an amateur when it comes to arrogating government power." Lewis ranted about the many supposed crimes of the Bush administration for about five minutes, concluding that the press had failed to hold Bush accountable for all these crimes. Sadly, he got the loudest applause of any single panelist, including Woodward and Bernstein, but later — through divine intervention — his microphone malfunctioned and cut off another laundry list of grievances.

For Lewis it's simple: Today's reporters are not bringing down this president, the one Lewis finds so detestable. Today's reporters do not agree with Lewis that "something is wrong." But listening to the comments of Woodward and Bernstein this week, and reflecting on the nature of their investigation into Watergate, might lead one to a different diagnosis of the problem.

I've always loved how some of the same media clowns who thought the Democrat HQ break-in was the crime of the century were completely asleep at the wheel when FDR and Truman turned a blind eye to Communist traitors within their inner circle, when JFK was cozying up to the Mafia or stealing the 1960 election with help from corrupt machine politicians in Chicago, when LBJ gadded about blackmailing political enemies when he wasn't bedding mistresses, when Clinton put a "for sale" sign on the Lincoln Bedroom and pardoned every crony and thug who kept his or her trap shut on his way out the door. No, to the Anthony Lewises of the world, these were men of integrity.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush liberates 30 million people from the harshest tyrannies on the face of the Earth, but he is the anti-Christ.

How selective does outrage get for these hacks?

Follow the Glowing Brick Road

...or the uranium trail, as Marina Malenic points out.

Nuclear weapons don't run on hot air, despite Bill Clinton's best intentions.

The Only Gannon I Know Blew the Last Super Bowl for Oakland

I haven't posted anything on the Jeff Gannon deal for two very good reasons: I don't really know anything about it and I don't have much to say on the subject.

Pat over at Brainster's, however, has all the skinny if you're into this story.

So When's the North Korea Nuke Investigation Commission Get Started?

The feckless irresponsibility of Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Madeleine Albright, and all the rest of the "give peace a chance", "talk it over", Oprah-was-a-diplomat do-nothing lunatic wind of the Democrat foreign policy establishment bears fruit once more:

North Korea publicly admitted Thursday for the first time that it has nuclear weapons, and said it wouldn't return to six-nation talks aimed at getting it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

I hope they have the decency to nuke the Clinton Library first.

Special Relationship No More?

It may happen if Labour keeps nuzzling Islamofascists.

All would not be lost even if Britain kowtowed to Islamic fascism as they refused to do so with its Teutonic strain. Eastern Europe's distaste for tyranny has not dulled, and the siren song of mindless Brussels bureaucrats in fine Italian suits won't draw Poles, Lithuanians, and Czechs as it does the benighted citizens of Cool Britannia.

Still and all, Tony Blair had better get ahold of this one.

If Only Stalin Had Watched "Dr. Phil"

Jonah Goldberg has a great piece on how the therapeutic culture has dulled our innate abhorrence of evil.

When Doves Cry

Joel Rosenberg is a lot more optimistic about the new Palestinian leadership than I am.

It would be easier to be hopeful if the Palestinian Authority and their puppet terrorist groups not resorted to this tactic every time the Israelis killed enough radical Islamists leaders.

If it allows Israel time to complete the fence and man it, great. If it allows the Mossad to find the next generation of terrorist leadership and get GPS coordinates for their toilets and bedrooms, wonderful.

Otherwise, the conflict goes on until the enemy is dead or captured. I won't shed any tears for people who strap bombs to children.

Update:

James Robbins over at NRO is similarly skeptical.

Who Are The Real Baby-Killers, Eason?

I look forward to Mr. Jordan's righteous outrage over this:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Masked gunmen killed an Al-Hurra television correspondent and his 3-year-old son on Wednesday in the southern city of Basra, an Iraqi army official said.

The gunmen sprayed journalist Abdul Hussein Khazaal with bullets in the al-Maaqal neighborhood as he stood outside his house, the official said. Khazaal was standing near a car at the time, waiting for bodyguards to retrieve something inside the house.

Khazaal's wounded son later died in a hospital.

Al-Hurra is an Arab-language TV channel financed by the United States.

Launched in February 2004, Al-Hurra, or The Free, was tailored for Arab audiences to compete with other regional stations like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, The Associated Press reported.

Although President Bush said its mission was to "cut through the hateful propaganda that fills the airwaves in the Muslim world," some Muslim clerics have denounced it as propaganda, AP reported.

Also Wednesday, a senior official with Iraq's Interior Ministry had been kidnapped, police said.

Col. Riyadh Gatte Elawi was abducted as he left his house for work in the al-Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, police said.

Or does the esteemed CNN exec reserve that outrage only for anti-American journalists?

Voice of Moderation? Not On Eason & Kurtz

The Moderate Voice has a great roundup of why Kurtz and Eason should outrage us.

I Am Not Charlotte Simmons

Stanley Kurtz has a very informative review about a new book concerning sex and courtship at religious universities.

And Lent Begins

I don't typically blog on religious topics, mainly because WordGirl does it so much better.

In honor of Ash Wednesday, however, I'll make an attempt.

My father was a lapsed Catholic for many years, while my siblings and I were raised to be lapsed Episcopalians. There's a lot of similarity between the two lapsed religions: the liturgy we avoided was fairly similar (so I'm told), both celebrate the same holiday masses we didn't attend, and some of the hymns we never sang were the same, surely.

I was confirmed as an Episcopalian through the Sally Struthers method. There was a crash-course, mainly done remotely, which involved a quiz on the books of the Bible which I'm sure no one ever failed. Modern Episcopalians don't believe in failure---their golden calf is "self-esteem", a curse which afflicts many before and in the pews.

When I say the quiz was on the books of the Bible, I mean the names of them. No need to worry about those with sequels; just get the titles more or less right and keep the Old and New Testaments straight, or at least the Gospels, which were most certainly NOT written by John, Paul, Ringo, and George.

I was sick on the day of my confirmation, but my mother made me go, since the bishop was only visiting the church that week and by the time he came around again she wanted to be a lapsed usher. So I went, and my siblings went, more than a little surprised that I didn't bleed from the ears like Damien upon setting foot on hallowed ground.

The confirmants sat down front. I wore a clip-on tie which made me uncomfortable. God knew it wasn't a real tie. As the service wore on and on, and as the bishop read from the book of Rocky II, the incense began to get to me. When the bishop said, "Now let us pray for the confirmants," I lost control of my upper GI and took out two velvet pillows, a prayer book, and the bishop himself. And in that moment, my firmly-lapsed Episcopalian brother called out for an exorcist. Like lapsed Catholics, lapsed Episcopalians don't qualify for exorcism.

The rest of the ceremony was a blur. I remember the soiled bishop gamely confirming me in the basement of the church, away from the real Episcopalians. My mother bore it well and was likely relishing her relapse. We never went back to that church again. I doubt we were missed.

Despite this, I considered myself an Episcopalian, part of the proud American Anglican church tradition of spotty attendance. I found that the Bible contained chapter and verse to go along with the titles, and that the Book of Job was not in fact ancient want ads.

Years later, while in the basic training, I began attending church. It was the one place you didn't get yelled at. I toyed with betraying my lapsed faith, but was saved when the Episcopal Church decided that the reason there weren't more people showing up on Sunday was they weren't engaging in enough socio-sexual experimentation. I remain lapsed in good standing, and spent a lot of time over the next several years alternating denominations to really dislike.

My father, on the other hand, remained a steadfast lapsed Catholic for decades. When he found out he was terminally ill some years back, he reconnected with his faith, talking and praying with a priest during his treatments.

I was with him as he lay on his deathbed, and when it became apparent he had hours left to live, I called the local Catholic Church to request Last Rites. The priest seemed disappointed he didn't actually belong to this church, but came anyway, and I like to think the ritual eased my father's suffering somewhat, at least the suffering that seeped in through the morphine haze.

My parents had pretty much ceased to be active in their respective faiths years before I was born. I had never really known either to be religious. I myself had never doubted the existence of God, nor that Jesus died for my sins. It's strange how that happens, how one can struggle with God yet not be well-versed in Scripture or religion. Yet struggle I did, and do.

My father struggled too, and mightily, particularly toward the end of his life. But when the end came, when my mother whispered to him the heartbreaking admonition to "Let go, let go...we're fine, let go," when she broke the tether of nearly 50 years of marriage, he went, into the arms of the Father who knew him, even when my father didn't acknowledge their acquaintance.

God is the Alpha and Omega not just of history, of the universe, but of each of our fleeting lives. He sees us on and off this mortal coil, the first and last sight we see.

Ash Wednesday is a reflection on mortality, and on sacrifice. On this Ash Wednesday, I feel the weight of both.

But I do not bear it alone.

Steyn On European Pessisism

Mark Steyn is on target yet again:

I was very moved by the story of Mr Richard Kral, a Slovak gentleman found staggering drunk down a snowy trail a few days back. He'd been motoring through the Tatra Mountains in his Audi when he got buried by an avalanche. Opening the window and frantically clawing at the snow, he grasped that he couldn't dig his way out faster than the white stuff would come into the car and bury him. So he looked around and his eye fell on the 60 half-litre bottles of beer he happened to have with him. He had a drink and midway through realised that he could urinate on the snow to melt it.

And he did: "Man Peed Way out of Avalanche," as one headline put it. "It was hard," the plucky Slovak told the local press, "and now my kidneys and liver hurt."

I read that item on January 29. The next day Iraq voted and, scanning the coverage from Toronto to Sydney via Dublin, London, Paris and Berlin, I had an eerie sense of déjà vu. The Western media appear to have decided that any good news out of Iraq is one almighty neocon snow job and the only thing to do is emulate Mr Kral and urinate all over it.

Ahh, let me enjoy the sweet-smelling smoke that only emanates from a perfect burn....

Lent -- A Re-examination: My First Ash Wednesday

Well, all the peanut butter in the house is gone. And more than a few of the cinnamon graham crackers. That was what I had last night after I returned home from my "last supper" of sushi and ice cream. Needless to say, skipping breakfast this morning wasn't terribly difficult.

Before I turned in, I jotted down a sort of prayer. Why am I doing this? What do I hope to accomplish? What am I concretely willing to sacrifice for the Season? Am I undertaking this only in my body or am I spiritually ready for this process?

As I mentioned before, I'm participating in Lent this year because; the church I attended growing up didn't participate, the church I first attended as an adult frowned on it, but the church I now attend practices it. And because I want to see what this process does. I know intellectually that it's something done to honor God; that I'm showing Him that I'm serious about things, etc. But God and I are pretty tight. He knows what's going with me better than I do. I however, don't always know what's up with Him.

So two primary objectives emerged; Getting to know my Master more intimately and getting to know myself and the limits of my devotion.

Okay. Deep breath. I can do that. What am I giving up Monday through Saturday?

People choose to sacrifice different things. Some are tangible, like food, some are behavioral, like watching television. Since my appetite has tended to rule me for most of my life, to both positive and negative extremes, I chose to go old school.

In the first place, my dietary restrictions tend to differ from most other people. I'm giving up things that might seem preposterous to you. And while this is not easy, per se, it's not just something like candy, for example.

For Lent I have chosen to sacrifice: junk food, alcohol (which I don't have much of anyway), meat, pork, fish, shellfish, poultry, eggs, milk, cheese, and honey. I'm going almost vegan, in other words. I don't know that I'm going to go so far as to start reading labels for trace amounts of gelatin, but you get the point.

I said goodbye to the ladies at TCBY yesterday (and got an extra bit of topping on my cookie dough and Reese's Cup Shiver for it). I had my sushi last night. I made my commitments and I prayed. I was more than a little scared this morning when I got up. But after my devotional and 2 cups of hot chai with vanilla soy milk and Splenda, I was feeling alright. Now it's almost dinner and I'm okay, even though I've had nothing but tea and diet soda all day.

But something in me still wonders if I'm doing this right, as absurd as that sounds. So many years of living (or dying) under legalism had created a sense in me that I should be living in a hole somewhere without anything, in order that I might be approved. And while I know in my heart that is untrue, I am still prone to second guessing. But then I remember Jesus. My yoke is easy and my burden light... I have come to give life in the fullest... I am with you until the end of the Age... my sheep know my voice... I lay down my life for my sheep. And I am emboldened my His love.

So, I'm going to go home and make myself some barley cooked in vegetable broth with carrots, sweet peas, diced tomato, mushroom and herbs braised in garlic olive oil. And I'll pray over it, quietly, thankful for this Season and where God is leading.

*Sigh.* Oh, Baby. Where Have You Been All My Life?

Apple iPod 20 GB U2 Special Edition




It's official, I'm in love. I've tinkered with these things before and knew they were thrilling. But since I'd never actually owned one myself, I didn't know the joy of the techno toy that is iPod.

This thing rocks. Hard.

I don't know where to begin. I'm a girl, so if you're looking for technical information, check out the link or post to Teflon, he's all into the whole boy trip of electronic gizmos.

What I do know is that it has a gaggle of features: a calendar, a place for contacts, a time/date stamp, languages, games (one of which is a primitive version of "Breakout"!), pictures, audio settings volume, bass, treble, spoken word, music style (i.e. dance vs. rock), a place for audiobooks, playlists, a sleep timer, alarm clock -- whew! This thing throws down some serious lovin'!

Since mine already came loaded with music (a supplemental gift from the Valentine's Day Fairy), all I had to do was learn how to work it. It's not too hard. The new wheel style helps immensely, especially in the car. Instead of touch only selection, iPod now has a toggle, so when you wheel around to the selection you want, you actually depress a button. It's more accurate (and tactilely gratifying) than previous models.

The iPod itself comes with a wall plug charger, USB cable, and ear buds. Since the Valentine's Fairy also threw in an FM digital car plugger-in-er-thingy, I now have gooey Neil Diamond goodness oozing out of my car speakers as well.

But the best thing about the iPod, obviously, is the music. I have every CD I own (and some thrown in) in one place. Neat and tidy. All I have to do is scroll down through my music, create a playlist, save it if I want, select shuffle, BAM! Now I ask ya', where else can you hear The Church, Aretha Franklin, Joan Osborne, Wham!, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Mahalia Jackson, Journey, Howlin' Wolf, LL Cool J, and Styx back to back? Come on! This thing is gold!

Remember when you took your headphones everywhere so your parents couldn't hear what you were listening to (or so you wouldn't drive them bats with White Lion's "Wait")? Last night, I lay awake until 11:30 because my 13 year-old enthusiasm for just one more song came roaring back from the recesses. And somewhere, pre-sleep, I became convinced that whoever mixed the backings for "Broken Wings" was, indeed, a genius.

Now for the ladies. Come on in the house, girls. Lookit. We've got Bono's autograph. Stamped right on the back of our brand new iPod. BONO. Remember vintage Bono '85? Remember sweaty "Rattle and Hum" Bono in the cowboy hat fighting against apartheid? We get to hear his silky sweet, tough and troubled, deeply poetic, sex laden voice on 446 tracks. Mmm-hmm. Yeah, I know.

Highly, highly recommended.

Arghgargle! Don't Do That! I Haven't Had my Coffee.

... Sweet smoking... What IS that?!




*Shudder*

The View from the Ground On Election Day in Iraq

Here's what the MSM missed.

This Isn't Something You See Every Day

Sometimes I run across things I just cannot fathom:

BOISE, Idaho -- A 16-year-old Idaho girl was tied up and scalped by an older woman in an attack motivated by revenge, police said.

Authorities are searching for Marianne Dahle, 26, who was visiting Kirkham Hot Springs in central Idaho Jan. 18 with the girl and a friend when Dahle allegedly tied the girl up and cut away the entire crown and back portion of her scalp.

A felony arrest warrant accuses Dahle of aggravated battery, though she has not been formally charged.

"When I say this gal was scalped, she was truly scalped," said Boise County Chief Deputy Bill Braddock. "The top of her head, her hair, was completely cut off. The motive, as near as we've been told by witnesses, was retaliation for acting in a way that the adult perceived as being offensive to women as a gender."

Alan Dershowitz Calls A Spade A Spade

Jacob in the lion's den:

"The kind of hatred that one hears on campuses like Columbia, and let me say especially Columbia, is a barrier to peace," Mr. Dershowitz said. "They are encouraging the terrorists. They tell the terrorists you will have academic support even if you oppose the peace process."

At times he singled out for censure an assistant professor of modern Arab politics, Joseph Massad, who is accused of ordering one of his students to leave his classroom if she continued to deny Israel's alleged atrocities against Palestinian Arabs. Mr. Massad, who denies that the incident took place, is among dozens of Columbia professors who in 2003 called on the university to divest itself of financial holdings in companies that support Israel.

"Anybody who advocates for divesting only from the Jewish state ... at a time when Iraq was posing a great threat to the world, when Iran was posing great threats ... when China is oppressing million of Tibetans, when the Kurds are still denied independence and statehood, to single out only Israel for divestiture at that point in time cannot be explained by neutral political, even ideological consideration," Mr. Dershowitz said.

I disagree with Dershowitz on many, many things, but I admire his courage.

How'd Michael Miss the Other Corey?

Curiouser and curiouser:

As Michael Jackson faces charges of sexual abuse in a California courtroom, "20/20's" Martin Bashir interviews actor Corey Feldman, who speaks about his relationship with the pop star during his youth.

Watch Martin Bashir's exclusive interview with Corey Feldman on "20/20" this Friday at 10 p.m.

In an exclusive interview, Feldman, now 33, speaks out with surprising new claims about his relationship with Jackson. The actor, known for his roles in "Gremlins," "The Goonies" and "Stand by Me," has stood by Jackson until now. He tells Bashir why he is now coming forward with allegations about their friendship.

"I started looking at each piece of information, and with that came this sickening realization that there have been many occurrences in my life and in my relationship to Michael that have created a question of doubt."

As some comedian said, "If you love kids so much, Michael, where are all the little girls?"

The Power of A Fully-Operational Blogosphere

The call for correction.

The response.

I hope Mr. Moyers realizes now The Power of a Fully-Operational Blogosphere.

Next up for Powerline: overthrowing the Iranian mullahs.

I Wonder Where Howard Kurtz Gets His Bias

Looks like it's the Washington Post op-ed page. After an insulting and condescending commentary you have to read to believe, here's the clincher:

I don't give her a pass on her performance as national security adviser, and I hold her at least partly responsible for the lies the administration told about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Boxer was right to hold her feet to the fire. I can't applaud Rice when she pursues policies that I believe make us more vulnerable, not safer.

But I do recognize her achievement in confounding expectations that were long overdue to be confounded. And now maybe we can begin to see black women through a lens that's not colored or distorted, but crystal clear.

And through that lens this clown clearly sees a dangerous liar.

Once again, what did the Administration lie about, exactly? Even if you believe that the WMDs were not in Iraq, that Iraq had no WMD programs, that Saddam Hussein was an earnest little beaver laboring mightily to comply with UN resolutions and international law, what makes you think the Administration a) knew that this was the case and b) decided to tell baldfaced lies about it HEADING INTO AN ELECTION?

George Bush is either a genius or a buffoon, but he can't be both simultaneously. Neither can Condi Rice.

Bioterror in Philly?

Earlier this month, Pennsylvania State Troopers intercepted $250,000 dollars during a routine traffic stop. The alleged drug money, which had been sealed in plastic, was being driven from Columbus, Ohio to Northeast Philadelphia.

According to law enforcement sources, after counting the seized cash, troopers began feeling ill and one trooper was even hospitalized with flu-like symptoms.

Sources tell CBS 3 that tests on the cash counter revealed the presence of a toxin derived from the bacteria staphylococcus.

Hmm, another Russian connection. Seeing a lot of that lately.

And Where Is the Media Research Center?

I saw MRC head Brent Bozell talking Eason Jordan on "Hannity & Colmes" tonight, but the most recent article on the MRC website regarding Jordan is over a year old.

C'mon, guys, can't we get a Cyber Alert? A Reality Check? Something?

Don't go Kurtz on me....