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....

The New Eason Meme

From tonight's "Hannity & Colmes", liberal Jordan apologist Daniel Schechter introduced the new Bolshie talking points re: Eason Jordan: targeting al Jazeera is the same thing as targeting American journalists.

Of course, by Schechter's absurd standard, that would mean Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw should have been provided with press credentials and immunized from air raids during World War II.

It is interesting because both Schechter and Jordan seem to be in agreement that fealty to the "profession" of journalism somehow trumps loyalty to one's country. Thus enemy propagandists like Baghdad Bob are brothers of the quill.

These silly little people can wander about the world lost in the illusion that they are citizens of some global village, but when a brutal dictator gets set to drop them in the dungeon, guess which embassy they'll be running for?

Howard Kurtz: Disgrace

Here's the latest on L'Affair Eason.

First, Howard "Conflict of Interest" Kurtz finally broke his silence regarding his boss Eason Jordan's claims that the American military tortured and killed journalists. Let's fisk a bit, shall we?

Eason Jordan, Quote, Unquote
CNN News Chief Clarifies His Comments on Iraq

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 8, 2005; Page C01

Oooh, problems from the get-go. Kurtz doesn't write his own headlines, but the copy editor misleads from the outset. The "Quote, Unquote" bit I simply don't get, but the overall impression is one of dismissiveness. Also, Jordan isn't clarifying his comments on Iraq, but specifically his claims that U.S. soldiers target reporters. He ain't talking about the makeup of the Iraqi National Assembly, folks. Plus, aren't headlines supposed to pique interest and invite the reader to read further? What's with the ho-hum soundbite for a major Internet scandal? They could just as easily have headlined this "J'Accuse!" with a "CNN News Chief Targeted By Blogosphere for Unsubstantiated Sedition" or somesuch.

Plus, Howard Kurtz isn't simply a "Washington Post Staff Writer", he's a media critic who hosts a CNN media criticism show. Jordan's his boss, in this sense. Would Kurtz EVER tolerate such a failure to prominently disclose an obvious conflict of interest, even amongst bloggers? He didn't when it came to Maggie Gallagher.

What CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan said, or didn't say, in Davos, Switzerland, last month has become a burgeoning controversy among bloggers and media critics.

Why is it only burgeoning, Howie? It's been over 10 days. And which media critics find it controversial? You've sat on it for a week, and you're certainly a prominent media critic. This implies some sort of parity between bloggers and media critics in chasing down this story. Heck, even Brent Bozell's Media Research Center has been AWOL on this one. They haven't made a peep about Eason Jordan since he admitted to being Saddam's toady months ago.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who attended the World Economic Forum panel at which Jordan spoke, recalled yesterday that Jordan said he knew of 12 journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq. At first, said Frank, "it sounded like he was saying it was official military policy to take out journalists." But Jordan later "modified" his remarks to say some U.S. soldiers did this "maybe knowing they were killing journalists, out of anger. . . . He did say he was talking about cases of deliberate killing," Frank said.

Wait a second. Howie's first quote describing the controversy features neither a blogger nor a media critic, but rather a Democrat congressman. Moreover, he talked to him yesterday, or 9 days after the fact. How about talking to the conference attendee and blogger who reported it AS IT HAPPENED, Howie? Why break up Frank's quotes on the question of Jordan's clarification? The effect of quoting Frank late and in this disjointed manner is one of obscuration, not clarification.

Jordan denied that last night, saying he had been responding to Frank's comment that the 63 journalists who have been killed in Iraq were "collateral damage" in the war. "I was trying to make a distinction between 'collateral damage' and people who got killed in other ways," Jordan said last night. "I have never once in my life thought anyone from the U.S. military tried to kill a journalist. Never meant to suggest that. Obviously I wasn't as clear as I should have been on that panel."

Nice touch. Talk to Frank, get a quote, then go talk to Jordan to refute Frank's quote. Are you a defense attorney or a critic, Howard? Did you think to ask Frank if he claimed that the 63 were collateral damage, or is Eason's word unassailable? If Jordan never "thought" this, then why did he say so months before Davos?

Eason's argument on this point is incoherent. Either the journalists were killed intentionally or unintentionally. If unintentionally, they were "collateral damage"---civilians slain in the process of trying to kill the bad guys. If intentionally, then they died because the U.S. military "tried" to kill them and succeeded. Indeed, the latter's the very point Jordan claimed he was making. Is the man a liar or a fool? Howard doesn't probe, so we don't know.

In some of the cases, "with the benefit of hindsight, had more care been taken, maybe this could have been avoided," Jordan said, referring to shootings that involved mistaken identity. But, he said, "it's a war zone. Terrible things happen."

Then why bring it up at Davos? And who needed to take more care---the journalists tromping about with terrorists, or the U.S. soldiers fighting for their lives? We get no specifics on the incidents Jordan is referring to, either. Nice job, Howie.

Two other panelists backed Jordan's account. David Gergen, editor at large at U.S. News & World Report, said he "sort of gasped" when Jordan spoke of journalists being "deliberately killed," but that Jordan "realized, as soon as he said it, he'd gone too far" and "walked it back." Jordan then expressed "a very deep concern about whether our soldiers on the ground level are using as much care as they should" when journalists are involved, said Gergen, who moderated the discussion.

Gergen was the moderator, not a panelist, as he notes later. And how does Gergen gasping in shock and relaying that Jordan criticized U.S. troops for negligence back Jordan's account? Because he retreated from his original position? You could as easily say that Gergen utterly discredits Jordan's position because he says that U.S. soldiers "deliberately killed" journalists, which sounds an awful lot like our troops "tried" to kill them.

BBC World Services Director Richard Sambrook, in a note to New York University journalism professor and blogger Jay Rosen, said Jordan was objecting to the phrase "collateral damage."

"He clarified this comment to say he did not believe they were targeted because they were journalists, although there are others in the media community who do hold that view (personally, I don't)," Sambrook wrote. "They had been deliberately killed as individuals -- perhaps because they were mistaken for insurgents, we don't know. However the distinction he was seeking to make is that being shot by a sniper, or fired at directly is very different from being, for example, accidentally killed by an explosion."

Umm, no, actually it's not, to anyone familiar with military art, as one would think the head of CNN might be. "Collateral damage" is a sterile term for "noncombatant deaths". These do happen on the battlefield, you know, especially when the enemy refuses to honor the Geneva Conventions by, say, wearing a recognizable uniform or not hiding in civilian zones. As for "we don't know", isn't it the media's job to find these sorts of things out? Or are they afraid to ask the question for fear they'll be targeted? It is a stupid distinction to try to make. Dead is dead.

No transcript exists of the Jan. 27 session, which was supposed to be off the record, and a videotape of the event has not been made public. The dispute erupted when Rony Abovitz, co-founder of the technology company Z-Kat, posted an account on the forum's Web site of what Jordan said, while also noting that he had backpedaled when challenged.

Oh, nonsense, Howard. "Off the record" didn't stop the media from reporting on Dick Cheney's energy task force. Videotapes don't just pop up of these things. If it was off the record, as you claim, why'd they tape it at all? Why allow note-taking? Why didn't you quote Rony Abovitz, Howard?

This triggered widespread denunciations of Jordan by conservative bloggers, who have also criticized the mainstream media for not reporting the remarks.

Sigh. How is the "conservative" tag relevant, particularly given Mickey Kaus and Roger Simon's outrage over this? Given that you quoted hard lefty Barney Frank without a corresponding "liberal" tag, your bias is showing, sir.

"Why would Arab members of the audience come up and congratulate him for having the courage to speak the truth?" asked Jim Geraghty of National Review Online. "One of the most senior news execs in the world tells a crowd of dignitaries from around the globe that the U.S. military targeted a dozen journalists for death, and there is no [mainstream media] coverage of that?" wrote radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt. Edward Morrissey of the Captain's Quarters blog urged his senators in Minnesota to hold public hearings "to establish once and for all whether the U.S. military has a policy of assassinating and torturing journalists, in Iraq or anywhere else, and correct the terrible damage Mr. Jordan may have inflicted on our image abroad."

Why didn't Howard mention that Arab members of the audience congratulated him? Why didn't he ask Jordan if this was true? Why did he quote Geraghty, Hewitt, and Morrissey only after tagging them as "conservative bloggers" above but didn't quote Abovitz, who started the whole deal? Was it because Abovitz isn't easily dubbed a conservative?

In the interview last night, Jordan said he and a group of other news executives have discussed with a top Pentagon official allegations by Iraqi employees of NBC, Reuters and al-Jazeera "who claimed to have been detained and tortured by the U.S. military. They all came out with horrific statements about what had been done to them."

Any evidence of that, Jordan? Howie doesn't ask, so I guess conservative bloggers need to. Why not identify the official? He's not a source.

At the World Economic Forum, participants say, the only specific case cited by Jordan was the April 2003 incident in which U.S. forces fired a tank round at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, killing a cameraman employed by Reuters and another for the Spanish network Telecinco. Military spokesmen said the troops were responding to sniper fire from the hotel, which was known to house about 100 foreign journalists, and defended the shelling as "a proportionate and justifiably measured response."

Which participants, Howard? How many? Why are they on background? And for God's sake, didn't you notice how this example flatly contradicts Jordan's claim that he was trying to draw a distinction between people killed in explosions and shot by snipers? What do you think tanks fire, anyway? What do you think "shelling" means? Does CNN have anybody handy who knows anything about the military?

But Jordan supplied a list of the other incidents, such as a tank firing on and killing Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana as he was filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in 2003. U.S. officials said the troops mistook Dana's camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Which at range, it does. Does that mean American soldiers intentionally killed a journalist? Or does it mean he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and became "collateral damage"?

Frank said he found Jordan's remarks "troubling" and in a later phone conversation asked him for specifics about the journalistic casualties so he could make inquiries at the Pentagon. Jordan said Frank was responding to a note from him and that there had been a "misunderstanding" if the congressman expected a further response.

Seems like Barney Frank's a better journalist than Howard Kurtz. Did Kurtz ask Frank or Jordan for a copy of the note? Seems it would clear up any misunderstanding. When a U.S. Congressman asks for more information pursuant to a public claim you made, would you blow him off?

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who was in the audience, "was outraged by the comments," said his spokesman, Marvin Fast. "Senator Dodd is tremendously proud of the sacrifice and service of our American military personnel."

But if Jordan was only trying to quibble about the definition of "collateral damage", why would Dodd or anyone else be outraged? We've got three eyewitnesses Kurtz has quoted who were all taken aback by Jordan's remarks. All three are Jordan's political fellow travelers (yes, that includes Gergen) who have no apparent axe to grind with him. Why would they all perceive his remarks as outrageous unless they were, in fact, outrageous?

Jordan's comments have sparked controversy before. He drew widespread criticism in 2003 for saying in a New York Times op-ed piece that CNN had withheld information about some of Saddam Hussein's abuses out of concern for the network's Iraqi employees in Baghdad. "Withholding information that would get innocent people killed was the right thing to do, not a journalistic sin," Jordan told his staff in a memo.

Nice sleight of hand here, Howard. This presumes that CNN reported on the bulk of Saddam's atrocities, missing only "some". You must not watch your own channel, sir. Plus Kurtz has the gall to introduce the "controversy" only to dismiss it by giving Jordan the unchallenged last word. Not to mention Jordan confessed this journalistic sin in a repentant tone because he clearly recognized it as a sin. Why confess if you were only doing the right thing?

Three CNN staffers have been killed in Iraq, two of them in January 2004 when the cars they were traveling in came under fire by insurgents.

Gergen said Jordan had just returned from Baghdad and was still "deeply distraught" over the journalists who have died in Iraq. "This was a guy caught up in the tension of the moment," Gergen said. "He deserves the benefit of the doubt."

Waitaminute. Howard's using the death of CNN staffers as some sort of justification for Jordan's intemperate remarks, and yet 2 out of the 3 were killed by "insurgents". If the other one was killed by Americans, I'm sure he would have told us.

Shouldn't Eason Jordan be mad as hell about the "insurgents" and their indiscriminate killing of noncombatants?

Howard Kurtz hosts CNN's weekly media program. Staff writer Lisa de Moraes contributed to this report.

Ahh, the small print disclosure. Why not indicate what the relationship is between Jordan and Kurtz? Can't have too much disclosure, right, Howie?

This is pathetic.

I've been skeptical of the legs of this story, but now I'm fired up.

The facts are simple and indisputable.

CNN head honcho Eason Jordan repeated unsupported claims that American soldiers target journalists publicly in Davos, outraging some very prominent Americans who were present.

Rather than apologize, Jordan went into spin control, releasing quotes only to favored media personnel, including his subordinate Howard Kurtz, alleged media critic. He has stonewalled for 10 days.

When challenged to back his statements up, by a U.S. Congressman no less, Jordan refused to do so.

Eason's comments were an outrage, but Howard Kurtz' washed-over puff piece is an utter disgrace.

Howard, you need to meet some of the fine men and women in our armed forces serving in Iraq. If you buy your boss' lying weasel words, clearly identify yourself and don't stand too close to a jihadist when you do.

Update:

The New York Sun shows Howie how it's done when you're not a bootlicker.

Even Larry Kudlow sees a problem here. And he ain't talking about money, baby.

That hardcore conservative blogger Mickey Kaus wants a piece of Howie.

Powerline wants to know who's on Howie's list.

Archconservative Roger Simon isn't a Howie fan right now either.

What? Oh That? That's Just The Sound of Bill Clinton's Head Exploding

KABOOM!



It's the handshake heard 'round the world. Now call me skeptical, but we've seen the Israelis and the Palestinians stage this kind of thing before. I don't think this little gesture is quite as favorable as some might hope. When it's in one group's charter to destroy the other... well... we'll see.

On a related note, the Bush administration is sitting pretty freaking pretty right now. Let's tick off the counter, shall we?

1. Freeing the Afghani people (especially its abused women) from the Taliban? Check!
2. Holding democratic elections for the first time in Afghanistan's history? Check!
3. Booting Saddam Hussein out of power? Check!
4. Holding democratic elections for the first time in Iraq in 50 years? Check!
5. Keeping Americans safe from more terrorist attacks? Check!
6. Getting Republicans the House and Senate majority? Check!
7. Helping the peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians? Check!
8. Lowering taxes? Check!
9. Rocking hard at speeches and press conferences? Check!
10. Making me proud (and more than a little enamored) of my President? Check!

Okay, #10 was a little personal (love you, Laura!). But if you think for a second that the Democrats are happy about this, you are SOOO wrong.

Edited for typos -- WordGirl

Kasparov on Russia's Slide Toward Tyranny

I feel a bit like Churchill beating the drum and shouting "Look!" at the goose-steppers in the streets of Berlin. So must Garry Kasparov, chess master and outspoken critic of Putin:

In Mr. Putin's view, Ukraine provides a dangerous model. He is careful not to make such mistakes as allowing an independent judiciary review election results and letting opposition politicians speak on television. These basics of dictatorship have recently been accompanied by other disturbing scenes on the Russian political scene. In his ongoing battle for total control over every aspect of Russian life, President Putin's weapon of choice has been a justice system that provides anything but justice. An expanding network of judges and district attorneys is being used to persecute the opposition and enrich Putin loyalists. A puppet judiciary has been created to accompany the puppet parliament. To add insult to injury, a man from Putin's St. Petersburg with no judicial experience was just named to the highest arbitration court in the land, a move akin to Caligula's naming a horse to the Senate.

Keep an eye on Putin. He's using the War on Terror as a fig leaf to rebuild the Soviet Union.

What Do You Do for the Money, Honey?

Ugh. Can one useless color-coded graphic really cost this much?

Agency: Department of Homeland Security
Spending: $34.2 billion

Percentage change from 2005: +6.8 percent

Highlights:

-Would increase Border and Transportation spending by 10 percent, to $16 billion, including $37 million for 210 new border patrol agents.

-Would create a nuclear detection office to monitor and report attempts to import, assemble or transport unsanctioned nuclear or radiological materials. The budget also would double spending, to $262 million, on developing detection devices for Customs and Border Protection agents.

-Would cut state and local coordination efforts by $420 million, or 11 percent.

Homeland Security is one of the few agencies that would not suffer an overall spending cut in 2006. The new spending largely comes from more than $4.8 billion in fees - 60 percent more than is expected in the current fiscal year. To do this, the White House proposes increasing airline passenger fees by $3 in 2006, raising the cost from $2,50 to $5.50 for each leg of a round-trip ticket.

We already have a "homeland security" department---it's based in the Pentagon, and does a fine job of it when a foolish Congress and feckless president don't sic the lawyers on them.

Shanley Convicted of Child Rape

It couldn't happen to a more fitting man:

Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, the most notorious figure in the sex scandal that rocked the Boston Archdiocese, was convicted Monday of raping and fondling a boy at his church during the 1980s.

The conviction on all four charges gives prosecutors a high-profile victory in their effort to bring pedophile priests to justice for decades of abuse at Roman Catholic parishes around the country.

The priest sex abuse scandals have been the nadir of Pope John Paul II's reign. It is a sad situation when a man so brave as to stand up to the Soviet Union fails utterly to stand up for the laity with his own clergy.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church continues to bleed.

Another Reminder That We're At War

If true, this is bad:

Port authorities found thousands of small steel balls hidden in water pots in a shipping container that consigned to the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation, the army reported.

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, who fought a two decade civil war against the government, are known for loading suicide bombs with metal balls to cause maximum damage.

One could, of course, dismiss this as a propaganda play on the part of a Sri Lankan government criticized both for not having an effective response to the disaster and for its inability to put an end to the rebellion and the violence it breeds. You'd be smart to do so as well.

On the other hand, terrorist bands do have cells among expatriate communities scattered throughout the West, as most Western countries are quite soft on terrorism and often turn a blind eye to these types of activities due to political correctness, active civil rights lobbies, etc.

More of this is undoubtedly on the horizon, and the Indonesian terrorists are strangely complacent about having lots of Westerners lumbering about Aceh.

MoltenThought Film Festival: "The Godfather Part II"

The Film Festival featuring the best films of all time continued last night with Francis Ford Coppola's magnum opus "The Godfather Part II". This sequel continues the saga of the Sicilian Mafia organization The Corleone Family, interspersed with flashbacks of how Don Vito Corleone came to be a New York mob bigwig.

It is inferior in every way to the first film, in my estimation. It is too long, and, unlike the original, an hour could easily have been shaved out (for example, the flashback to Sonny Corleone preparing the family for Don Corleone's birthday on Pearl Harbor day, which seems to exist only to bring back James Caan).

While some scenes are riveting, and the performances strong(particularly Robert Duvall as the conflicted lawyer friend of the Corleones), there is no character arc as strong as Michael Corleone's (Al Pacino's) was in the first movie. Michael is already corrupt here, already committed to doing whatever is necessary to hold the reins of power. He is less compelling as a result, and yet the movie remains focused upon him.

The flashback scenes to Vito Corleone's life are interesting, yet on the whole do not add to the main narrative. Indeed, this epic could have been two movies, and perhaps had greater impact.

The film is beautifully shot, and shifts effortlessly between the early and middle portions of the century and between Sicily, New York, Miami, Cuba, and Las Nevada.

On the whole, I am a bit disappointed with "The Godfather Part II", as it has nowhere near the impact of the first film, nor is it as well-crafted. Francis Ford Coppola seems to have given in to excess here.

That said, it is still a worthwhile film to watch, particularly if you're a fan of the original.

Recommended.

Heroes Aren't Hard to Find: Part II

faith n.
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.

When Christians say they have Faith, this is what they mean, more or less.
1. We place our confidence in the truth that God is our valuable, trustworthy Creator and Parent.
2. While this doesn't rest in a whole lot of logical proof or material evidence sometimes, there is more than enough evidence (in the natural world and in our hearts) to manifest this Truth over and over again throughout time and history.
3. We strive to be loyal to our Father and to our Brothers and Sisters; so much so that we will sacrifice things for Him and give ourselves and our resources to help and heal Them, respectively.
4. We trust in God and God's Will. Though this is not always clear, we know His Will is always working in concert with our God-given free will.
6. And we adhere to certain sets of principles and beliefs handed down to us by our great Master, the Teacher for all Ages -- Jesus Christ. He is the crux of our Faith. Without Him, we have no Faith at all.

The reference at point #5 may sting some of us a bit because "dogma" has come to mean something negative, though there are no inherently negative connotations in its original definition.

dog·ma n.

1. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church.
2. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true.
3. A principle or belief or a group of them: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present" (Abraham Lincoln).

Dogma reduced to its simplest form, means we believe in the Nicene Creed. Dogma in its most destructive form, can mean all sorts of things. Examples I have come across in my personal experience include: if you drink wine at all, you're a drunkard; when you speak, it is equivalent to a confession, and will come to pass, good or bad; if you don't tithe, God will not bless you; if you are not a virgin before marriage, you are a whore condemned to Hell. And on and on and on.

But on what are these latter "faiths" based? Ourselves. If we truly have faith in our Shepherd, then we have no basis for Faith in ourselves. Faith in ourselves is no faith at all. We fail, we fall, we lie, cheat, steal, put people down, squander our resources, waste all sorts of things, mistreat our loved ones and then ask for Commendation. Faith in ourselves will not hold because it is ultimately faith in the Mosaic Law.

Someone figured out a long time ago that justification to God through the Law could not be fulfilled. He is the One in Whom we put our Faith. He did it. He granted us face-to-face access to Himself through His work. And He never asked for a thing in return -- only our lives; past, present and future. But this is not a thing we give simply to be given. It is something we give away to get back 100 fold. He takes out the life we have made for ourselves and infuses His life into it. This new life is so alive that it cannot be killed.

He has always wanted us to love Him wholely, so He came and did what had never been done. And in the process He showed us how much He truly loves us. No one Who hung on the cross for me, enduring unspeakable torture, will ever turn me away. He accepted me. Not the way I want to be, but the way I was, am, and will be.

That's grace.

As well as beauty, simplicity, love, generosity, vibrancy, and indelible, incredible peace.

The mess the Church has been in ever since was all our doing, 100%. Somehow, we took free Grace and made it cost something. We've been trying to earn it ever since, holding ourselves and others up to impossible standards. Still pointing Pharisaic fingers, still blaming people for their own maladies, still unaccepting of anything imperfect, blemished or slightly human.

The Church (for the most part) has tried to bleed all the humanity out of us and transform us into cardboard, innocuous, spineless, joyless, cheeseballs. Not interesting, educated, funny, edgy, satirical or alive. But dead prayer books. That is not what Christ redeemed us for.

John10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

This leads to the first section of my examination. Who are these heroes of the Faith? And how do they affect mine?

Hebrews 11

By Faith

1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

The working definition of Faith has already been established for our purposes here. But as verse 1 states, we have not yet seen this Faith with our eyes. We can feel its ripplings and rumblings in our inner world every time a baby is born, a loved one passes, a natural disaster hits, the sick are healed or at certain times when we pray. We also have the Faith that an afterlife awaits where we will see our Shepherd face to face. Those rumblings are what make us more and more certain that something is indeed going on, and that God is up to it.

And this is precisely what our forerunners were commended for. Did they always have Faith? Did they sing hymns 24 hours a day? Did they fight and complain and insult one another? Did they ever wonder if God was real? Did they hold grudges? Keep score? Plant traps for enemies as well as friends?

They were completely, in every way, human. In fact, they were the first humans. And from the very beginning, they put their human-ness on display.

Abel brought God his offering because he had Faith. He focused not on the offering he was bringing and how good it would make him feel. His focus must have been on the Source of his Faith. That seems the only logical explanation for a subsistence herder to bring the fatted first born of his flock as an offering to his God -- even before anyone had handed down a single Law. It was his Faith the writer of Hebrews (probably Paul) commends.

And when Cain was reproved for his half-hearted offering, instead of accepting instruction, admitting fault and seeking to better recognize his Faith, jealousy and pride prodded him to murder the one who had outdone him.

Abel's blood "still speaks to us" because he had no Law, no covenant, no edict or dogma, just a sincere Love. And because he was not afraid to express that Love, however rough-hewn or fumbling, he was Approved.

Is that more heroic than comforting a child? Or visiting the elderly who have no family left? Or any other act undertaken simply because you Love the Author of your Faith?

I didn't think so. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Next up: Enoch.

Is Eason Jordan Going to Go After Osama bin Laden?

Probably not, although he must be disappointed this can't be blamed on Americans:

Two Journalists Killed, Two Wounded in Attack in Pakistani Tribal Region

By Paul Haven Associated Press Writer
Published: Feb 7, 2005

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Gunmen fired into a small bus filled with journalists on their way back from covering the surrender of a suspected militant in a lawless tribal region Monday, killing two reporters and wounding two others, security officials said.
The journalists were on a road near Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, when their bus was overtaken by the assailants about 7:30 p.m., said Brig. Mahmood Shah, chief of security for Pakistan's tribal areas along the frontier with Afghanistan. The gunmen sprayed the bus with AK-47 assault rifles, then fled, he said.

Killed were Mir Nawab, a freelance cameraman who worked for several media agencies, including Associated Press Television News, and Allah Noor, a reporter for The Nation, an English-language Pakistani newspaper.

The wounded journalists were identified as Anwar Shakir, who works for Agence France-Presse, and Zardad Khan, a freelancer. Both were taken to a hospital in Wana, where Shakir was listed in serious condition, Shah said.

Nawab was not covering the surrender ceremony for APTN, but he had worked extensively with the TV news agency covering an 18-month crackdown by Pakistan's military in the region, which is considered a likely hiding spot for al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and his top aides.

Shah said militant tribesmen were believed behind the killings and authorities would question elders from the tribe in whose territory the attack was carried out.

"This was an act of sabotage. These are elements that don't want peace in South Waziristan and the tribal regions," Shah said.

The journalists were coming back from a ceremony in Sararogha village, about 50 miles northeast of Wana, that was held to formalize a promise by militant leader Baitullah Mehsud to surrender and lay down his weapons in return for government amnesty.

Mehsud had been on the run since October after he was accused of being behind attacks on security forces and leading a band of local and foreign extremists in South Waziristan.

Standing before more than 2,000 tribesmen, Mehsud and about 35 supporters shook hands with senior government administrators to make peace, local cleric Maulana Ainullah said.

War journalism is a very dangerous business made only moreso when an effete hack like Eason Jordan strives to alienate the only people on the battlefield who try to protect reporters.

Blog, Blog, It's Better than Bad---It's Good!

If The Examiner continues to crank out articles as well-informed and interesting as Laura Vanderkam's assessment of the Columbia Journalism Review and its---ahem---problems with the blogosphere, I'm going to be tuning in frequently.

No excerpt---anyone interested in blogging ought to read the whole thing.

(Hat tip: Instapundit)

Howard Kurtz: Hack

Let's see, lots of questions on Deep Throat from a MSM-engineered Republican scandal more than 30 years old, yet none on the Eason Jordan scandal several days old?

Guess who chooses which questions get answered.

Uh huh. Howie "Eason's Boy" Kurtz.

The MSM is officially a No Credibility Zone.

Michael Ledeen on Iranian Regime Change

Faster, Bushycat---Kill! Kill!:

Well, there's always some spoilsport splashing around in the punch bowl. A column in the Boston Globe the other day noted that "Senator Joseph Biden said that...the world needed to address...Iran's emotional needs, he said, with a nonaggression pact."

I think it would be better to address the emotional needs of appeasement-loving senators, frankly.

The rest of the article's interesting as well.

Waiting only makes the problem worse.

Quick---What's French for Chutzpah?

France wants a fresh start in relations with the United States and both sides have much to contribute to a renewed transatlantic partnership, Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said in comments published Monday.

He made the remarks before a visit to Paris Tuesday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aimed in part at repairing ties damaged by the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which France opposed.

"The moment has come for a fresh start in our relations," Barnier said in an interview with the French daily Liberation which was conducted late last week.

"Alliance doesn't signify allegiance," he said, underlining the need for a mutual partnership. "A renewed transatlantic alliance must be based on two pillars (European and American)."

Hmm, maybe you could stop mowing down African civilians, and then we could talk all about the peace process.

General Mattis: Great Man, Great Marine

Mackubin Thomas Owens provides some much-needed context to the Mattis Affair.

I for one want the Marines to have as many generals who love to kill the enemy as possible. Perhaps the sister services, plagued during the 90s by Bill Clinton's manipulation of the promotions process, will wake up and elevate more men like Mattis to the top ranks.

Nah, it'd never happen.

Easongate Update

Michelle Malkin spoke with Barney Frank, who confirmed earlier accounts of CNN honcho Eason Jordan's claims that the U.S. military targeted journalists.

Richard Sambrooke of the BBC largely supports Jordan.

I'm still not sure why anybody would be shocked that the head of an anti-American, anti-U.S. military outfit like CNN would make such remarks to his Eurotrash buddies. If it costs him his high-paid job, great, but I'm not hopeful CNN will be fair and balanced anytime soon.

(Hat tip: Hugh Hewitt, the Blogfather)

The Strange Blindness of Dick Thornburgh

Justice may be blind in the allegorical sense of applying the law regardless of the status of individuals before the bench, but Dick Thornburgh's disgraceful performance in the CBS Memogate report demonstrates that he attempted to make the metaphor literal.

A Powerline contributor calls him on it, and wonders why a former attorney general doesn't seem to be familiar with a basic legal framework for getting to the truth of such matters as motive.

What's Up with Social Security?

David Hogberg encapsulates the current Social Security debate nicely.

Volckered: The Strange Diminuition of a Once-Great Man

Jed Babbin has been all over the various UN scandals, a Sisyphean task if ever there was one. I had wondered why the Volcker Report reminded me so much of the CBS Memogate report, and now Jed has exposed the reason why.

Sore Losers Show Their Lack of Patriotism

The Left flies into a hissy fit whenever their lack of patriotism is pointed out (for America, not the Communist Bloc), but emigrating on the basis of your side losing an election is pretty much irrefutable evidence of the charge.

These people are simply too silly to be entrusted with the reins of government.

Now if enough of them could be given one-way tickets out, we could extend our margins in the various government institutions by that much more.

Good plan, Bolshies.

Democrat Suicide Watch: Gerrymandering Is Bad When We're Not in Power

Start the 24-hour monitoring again, folks, as the MSM tries to talk the Democrats into political suicide yet again:

The increased attention to the issue is in part due to the effectiveness of efforts in 2003 in Texas, where Republicans, with the backing of the White House, forced through a midterm redistricting that effectively cost four Texas Democrats their seats. The complaints are also spurred by the way computers and the enormous amount of available voting data have turned redistricting into a surgically precise procedure and opened up to anyone with a laptop what was once dominated by legislative tacticians with decades of knowledge.

Ahh, I love it when the Times waxes nostalgic for the "legislative tacticians" of the past who gave us an entire generation of Democratic domination of Congress. Their babushka is showing.

Gerrymandering, perfected by Democrats for that generation when the Times and the rest of the MSM thought it was a nuisance at most, squeezes as many voters liable to vote for one party or the other into as few districts as possible, thus creating "safe" seats.

This does not only benefit the majority party, by the way. Every Congressman wants to run unopposed.

What typically happens is that the minority party loses a couple of seats in order to make the rest safer.

Thus, gerrymandering sets an unnatural minimum number of seats for the least popular party. When a party is as nationally toxic to the electorate as today's Democrats, they're overrepresented in the legislature.

But, as usual, the MSM will push for a "reform" they think will benefit their favored politicos in the short-term, not realizing that the populist appeal of the GOP is why their side is losing and such "reforms" will only accelerate the GOP ascension.

This is why MSM support for the Democrats is a net liability today.

Powerline Lowers the Boom on Bill Moyers

I fisked Bill Moyers' outrageous claims that evangelicals intend to pollute the world some time ago, but now the Powerline folks offer the coup de grace.

It is an honor to watch these gentlemen work. They meticulously flay Moyers' flaccid commentary until it is revealed for the malignant fraud it is.

Lent -- A Re-examination: Help! The Doughnuts Are Looking At Me!

I know it's not officially the Lenten season yet. And I've two more days until my brand of fasting begins. But in the run up to Ash Wednesday I've been uncharacteristically bad.

I'm usually so conscientious about what I eat. Lots of whole grains, veggies galore, no sugar, no refined flour, sensible portions -- you know, boring. But I had to teach myself how to eat this way for my health. (a.k.a. The subsequent loss of a Backstreet Boy.) It's not foreign nor difficult for me, however odd and spartan it may seem to others.

But something flipped in my brain 'round about Christmas. I threw in the towel and surrendered to the jelly doughnuts... and the pie... and the eggnog, the casseroles, the stuffing, and the bread pudding... OHHH the bread pudding!

Still, I started back on my maintenance plan New Years Day... however half-heartedly. I kept my 4 workouts-a-week schedule, still ate okay, though more than I should have here and there...

And then came last week. Don't know what happened. Don't know what went wrong. Suddenly I'm eating for no reason. Whether I'm hungry or not. Stuffing junk into my face is not even pleasurable -- I don't get why I'm doing this. Maybe it's a novelty. Perhaps I'm bored. Possibly I'm trying to see how much I can punish myself come Ash Wednesday to prove my piety.

Dunno'.

What I do know is that I'm not fitting into my clothes very well and I'm starting to feel like a swollen buffalo.

So after eating vast quantities of Mexican inspired appetizers and artichoke dip on Super Bowl Sunday, I awoke this morning, vaguely hungry, and started my day with oatmeal and my usual coffee. But I remembered flavored oatmeal is more of a sugar speedball than a nutritious breakfast a little too late.

Now it's 5 seconds from breakfast, I'm starving, and there are cherry biscuits swimming in sugared lard staring me in the face. Boss says they're leftover from an early morning meeting. "Want some?"

The inquisition echoes through my brain.

"Want some?" Come on... have a bite. Just one. One warm, delicious, dripping bite of sugared, buttered, salty-sweet, fluffy, lard-cherried goo... Sink your teeth in... let it melt. See? Isn't that better? Don't you feel goooooood?

And when the cherry biscuit almost has me in it's velvet grip, the fog clears. Not because I'm particularly iron-willed. Not because I'm a sanitized health Nazi. Because I'm reminded that I had to wear my fat pants to work today. Because when I walk, my thighs are a little too close for comfort. Because swimsuit season is already blooming at Target.

Can I cry now?

Georgia On My Mind

And it should be on yours, too:

GEORGIA was yesterday plunged into crisis after it was revealed a political associate of dead prime minister Zurab Zhvania had apparently committed suicide.

There were fears of a return to the old Soviet ways of dispensing with political foes by alleged accident or suicide after the third death in the government in as many days.

Zhvania, a moderating force in the Georgian government, and a colleague died apparently of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty heater last week.

Georgy Khelashvili, 32, a political associate of Zhvania, was found dead at his home of a gunshot wound on Friday night, a Tbilisi police official, Irakli Pirkhalala, said yesterday. Khelashvili was a member of the presidential commission on pardons and part of Zhvania’s United Democrats political bloc.

But within hours of the announcement of the suicide, officials changed the story and said Khelashvili was not known by the dead prime minister and had in fact held a low civil service position.

This has Vladimir Putin's paw prints all over it.

My tip: keep an eye on the former Soviet satellite states, particularly those which represent possible pathways for an oil pipeline from Iran, over the next few weeks. Putin's up to no good here, and aside from the pipeline, Russia has strong attachment to Georgia, which was the birthplace of Stalin.

Mark Steyn on the UN

If there's a better writer alive than Mark Steyn, I haven't read him.

His UN piece is simply devastating to the cognac and brie set along the East River:

If you're a UN bigshot, or the son of Kofi Annan, or the cousin of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, or any of the other well-connected guys on the Oil-for-Fraud payroll, $160,000 is pretty small beer. But, if you're a starving kid in Ramadi or Nasariyah, it would go quite a long way. Instead, the starving-kid money went a long way in the opposite direction, to the Swiss bank accounts of Saddam's apologists. "The Secretary-General is shocked by what the report has to say about Mr Sevan," declared Kofi Annan's chief of staff, Britain's own Mark Malloch Brown.

That's how bad things are at the UN: even the Brits sound like Claude Rains. Of course, the Secretary-General isn't "shocked" at all. And nor are the media, which is why the major news organisations can barely contain their boredom with the biggest financial scam of all time – bigger than Enron, Worldcom and all the rest rolled into one. If ever there were a dog-bites-man story, "UN Stinkingly Corrupt Shock!" is it.

Funny how dogged the MSM when it was Eron's corrupt board in their sights.

Bush Gets Serious About Cutting Spending

Of course, this will wind up DOA in Congress, but if passed would result in a real decline in spending of about 1 percent.

The Leviathan must be slain. A good start would be to drop the "non-discretionary" adjective from entitlement programs. All government spending is discretionary.

Welcome, Hedgehogs!

Lowell Brown at The Hedgehog Blog was kind enough to link to us. Thanks!

For anyone who hasn't checked out Mr. Brown's blog, I would characterize it as a compendium of American greatness. Scroll down (I had trouble finding a permalink) to the January 29th post on Lincoln, African-Americans, and the GOP for an example of the fine content on this blog.

Alberto Gonzales Should Get A Dog...

...since friendship in Washington is not to be counted upon, per Bob Novak:

Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, intensely ambitious and partisan, was uncharacteristically caught off balance. He had worked so amiably on federal judgeships in his state with Alberto Gonzales as White House counsel that the senator effusively endorsed his nomination as attorney general. Now, weeks later, Schumer was not only criticizing Gonzales but opposing his confirmation.

Novak has the goods on the Democrats' typical partisanship.

Perhaps if the MSM did its job in calling attention to volte-faces like Schumer's, the senators would be a bit less partisan.

But partisanship is good when the Dems practice it, isn't it?

"Nightline" Needs a Lifeline

Another nail in the coffin of the Left's theory that the MSM is all about hard journalism:

ABC News last week shot a pilot for one possible "Nightline" replacement, a freewheeling show hosted by Washington reporter Jake Tapper and Bill Weir, the co-anchor of the weekend edition of "Good Morning America," according to two people inside the network. One of the pilot's top stories was about the Michael Jackson child molestation trial — exactly the kind of tabloid-friendly fodder that the generally sober-minded "Nightline" has tended to avoid.

Jake Tapper will be a familiar name for many who've been following the Internet for the past several years, and his involvement with a potential "Nightline" replacement is a strong indication ABC simply doesn't get that their political bias is a big problem.

This also would cause me to wonder what they've got in store for George Stephanopolous, the most visible face of that bias.

When will the networks stop looking to the DNC for its minor league bench?

Light Blogging Today...

...in honor of Patriots' Day.

We'll have a lot more content out tomorrow.

John Leo Handicaps the 2008 Democratic Primaries

John Leo is one of the smartest political and media observers on the scene today. He thinks Hillary Clinton's way out in front of the Democrat pack at this point:

Hillary Clinton is likely to be the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee because she is so much smarter than her rivals now on the horizon. Once in the Senate, she made a beeline for the armed services committee because she understood that the first female president will have to be a hawk, just as the first Catholic president (JFK) had to be adamant about not aiding Catholic schools, and the first Jewish president will have to voice doubts about Israel.

I think he's missing something, though. The GOP has the most to gain from running a female or minority candidate for President, as this will likely lead to pickups amongst single women and minorities, two groups which tend to vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats.

Hillary will scare off the white male voters the Democrats desperately need.

Nuclear Options, Imagined and Real

An interesting contrast in the application of terms to political and foreign policy problems today.

First, Bob Novak has a bit on the "nuclear option" in the Senate for making the Democrats follow the rules of the chamber and historical president in considering the Bush Administration's judicial appointees.

Second, we've got a real lack of nuclear options in Iran.

A tale of two problems, one simple to fix, one hard, yet which one of these is the world's greatest deliberative body in knots over?

Here's my two cents:

1. No more gentleman's filibusters. You want to filibuster, you get the floor and you talk around the clock. The Dems won't be doing much of these, since it cuts into press conference time.

2. If the Dems want to break Senate precedent on judicial appointees, the GOP should follow the Clinton precedent of recess appointments. Americans elected Mr. Bush, and feel he should get his appointees. This is a loser for Dems just the way it was for Gingrich. Shove it down their throats.

3. The Iran problem won't get better over time. Deal with Iran and Syria now, while we have troops in Iraq and a clear cassus belli. Iran will topple quickly due to internal unrest. The Europeans will be useless as always, but that just means fewer opportunities to practice their outrage over friendly fire incidents because their soldiers are too stupid to turn on their IFF (Identify Friend and Foe). Nuclear weapons are exactly what the mullahs need to prop up their crumbling regime. If Bush means what he says regarding the march of freedom, the next stop runs through Tehran.