The Ultimate Government Health "Care"

If you don't read Drudge or listen to Hugh Hewitt, you probably haven't heard about this yet. Doctors at Gronigen University Hospital in Amsterdam, the Netherlands have taken socialized medicine to its logical end, determining by committee who shall live and who shall die. This is becoming known as the Gronigen Protocol.

Children up twelve years old may be liable to euthanasia if the committee of “professionals” believe they are suffering unbearably. Of course, they are quick to point out that this would only apply to those suffering from terminal illness or major birth defects . . . for now.

Assisted death for adults suffering from terminal illness is one thing. You may not like it but every adult can be assumed to be capable of making their own decisions. But, in the case of children this becomes something terribly like the eugenics of the Third Reich

What is so frightening about this “protocol” is the fact that it is a purely logical outgrowth of socialized health care. Only so much is allocated for health care so why waste it on those who can never fully partake of life? You may not have to be Aryan but you certainly have to be all there or the committee of professionals may just decide not to waste any resources on you.

I have this vision of a Hillary-like “professional” sitting at a table of her peers while she tells, with deep reget no doubt, a young couple that their fetus or child is not qualified for futher health care benefits due to their poor prospects for a “quality” life and is being “put down” as she speaks. No second opinions, the bureaucrats have spoken.

The Incredible Chutzpah of the Left

They lost the election fair and square. Unlike the 2000 one, this time Bush won both the electoral and the popular votes. And now that they have lost they tell us the right has to become conciliatory after that terrible and divisive campaign we waged against them.

You know, the people who called Bush a Nazi in public, claimed he lied, claimed he knew about 9/11 before it happened and invaded Iraq on bad evidence now has to agree with the losers on what this country needs.

And, of course there is the media. People such as Jane Smiley, whose recent Slate article reads like a progressive version of the Turner Diaries and Dan Rather-biased who, with his cronies at CBS News and the New York Times has fallen to levels of investigative journalism that would be considered unacceptable in junior high school. Frankly, the only reason I believe Bush didn't win by ten points or more is because of the vast numbers of Americans who still get their news from the mainstream media.

Well, get over it people. The right has the Presidency, the Senate and the House and you are out of it for at least another four years. You can expect to see one or probably more Supreme Court nominations that do not believe it is their job to right wrongs but to interpret the law.

Dutch Angst

It is interesting to watch the Dutch try to deal with their "jihadist" issues. In the classic liberal fashion, they try and avoid making any hard decisions. Somehow they seem to blame Mr. van Gogh rather than the vermin who took his life. The mayor of Rotterdam took down a mural that said, "Thou shalt not kill" to avoid inflaming Muslims and there were other similar actions by people too buried in political correctness to understand that they are playing directly into the hands of Islamist fundamentalists.

If Gore had been President instead of Bush, what would we have seen happen in this country after 9/11? This is simply more proof that the mindset of the "progressive" left is incapable of dealing with reality. And, this last week, the electorate agreed.

Despite any misgivings about President Bush, he does understand that the only way to deal with bullies or thugs is not some form of dialog or study but the application of an even greater amount of force; seemingly the only thing they are capable of understanding.

Four more years!

Thank goodness thats over with! Now we can get on with our lives again. John Kerry will move back to Boston or D.C. or anywhere but where I might be and President Bush can get on with the war.

I'm going to be paying a lot more attention to the Iraq and other Mideastern conflicts as well as Donny-boy and the lads at the Pentagon. These are the boys who seem enamored with the Stryker, a 19 ton armored car too big and too heavy to fly on a C-130 even before it is armored to defend against RPG attacks or even .50Cal heavy machinegun fire while troops do without protection on the vehicles thay already have.

Who Moved the RDX?

I've been trying to get to the Washington Post for over thirty minutes to check on the Gertz article linked by Drudge about Russian Special Forces moving the explosives for Saddam. I have yet to even reach the website, let alone the article.

Whooo boy howdy! IF this is really documented, the fur is gonna fly. Not only will John Kerry be shown up as an incompetent git (along with his buddy Dan Rather-Biased) but discovering that Russian Special Forces were involved will be a bombshell. Whether they are working out of the country for the Kremlin or are "freelancing" for Bush's Axis of Evil is almost immaterial if true.

Vladimir will have a hell of a time explaining this one . . . to the world and to his own people after Breslan.

As an aside, I heard that the explosives were in the raw powder state. This means they would have to be moved in bulk carrier trucks like flour and would be of absolutely no use to terrorists unless they had the tools to mix them with binders and plasticizers to make useful explosives.

The Joy of Journalism

Or, the joy of no-win Q & A's

Bob Woodward has a wonderful article in the Washington Post today; twenty-two questions he wants to ask Senator Kerry. Based on information he acquired in questioning President Bush and members of his administration last year for his book, “Plan of Attack,” these questions are both insightful (Bob is no slouch) and sometimes classic examples of the “when did you stop beating your wife” style of journalism that all too often overcomes even the best journalist.

I’ll run through them here with a few comments of my own.

1. On Nov. 21, 2001, just 72 days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush took Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld aside and said he wanted to look at the Iraq war plans. Bush directed Rumsfeld not to talk to anyone else, including the National Security Council members and the CIA director.
Questions: If a President Kerry wanted to look at war plans pertaining to a particular country or threat, how would he go about it? Who would be included? What would the general war-planning process be in a Kerry administration? Was it reasonable to look at Iraq at that time?

President Bush, knowing full well that any “official” notice of anything by the President reverberates throughout the administration, asked to look at the plans privately before making any decision to take official notice. Is this really such a telling thing? And how does this relate to the war-planning process in general? Either Mr. Woodward is being disingenuous with his statement here or he is asking a question that has no relation to the statement. “When, Mr. President. Did you start picking out bombing targets in your jammies with the First Lady at night?”

2. The CIA was asked in late 2001 to do a "lessons learned" study of past covert operations in Iraq and concluded that the CIA alone could not overthrow Saddam Hussein and that a military operation would be required. The CIA soon became an advocate for military action.
Questions: How can such advocacy be avoided? The CIA argued that a two-track policy -- negotiations at the U.N. and covert action -- made their sources inside Iraq believe the United States was not serious about overthrowing Saddam. Can that be avoided? How can diplomacy and covert action be balanced?

Here again, the statement and the question are not in synch. The CIA concluded that they were not able to overthrow Saddam with their assets and, if the object were to “overthrow” Saddam, military means would be required to do so. The media has already managed to discredit the CIA in regards to their intelligence activities in Iraq and now Mr. Woodward wants to know how decisions made by the discredited agency can be avoided. Watching the United States dance around with the UN while trying to find covert operatives in a country full of internal security spies would lead anyone to think we weren’t serious.

3. In January 2002 President Bush gave his famous "axis of evil" speech singling out Iraq, Iran and North Korea as threats.
Questions: Was this speech too undiplomatic? How would a President Kerry frame the issues and relations with Iran and North Korea? Do you consider these two countries part of an axis of evil now?

Was President Roosevelt’s “day that will live in infamy” speech before the combined houses too inflammatory? Singling out three countries run by whackos that make a practice of referring to us in less than positive terms when we’ve just been attacked really doesn’t seem terribly inflamatory compared to the way they speak about us.

4. On Feb. 16, 2002, the president signed a secret intelligence order directing the CIA to begin covert action to support a military operation to overthrow Saddam, ultimately allocating some $200 million a year. Bush later acknowledged to me that even six months later, in August, the administration had not developed a diplomatic strategy to deal with Iraq.
Questions: How should military planning, CIA activities and diplomacy (and economic sanctions and the bully pulpit) fit together to form a policy?

Hey, a real question! Of course it ignores the issue of whether or not there was any way to deal with Iraq diplomatically. I mean, you’ve got a thug with his own country and army, a United Nations busy taking a cut off the top of the thug’s oil profits and putative allies doing a booming business selling embargoed weapons to the thug; and you want a diplomatic solution short of bending over and kissing something goodbye?

5. On May 24, 2002, Gen. Tommy Franks and the Pentagon's Joint Staff began work on stability operations to follow combat in Iraq. This was about 10 months before the Iraq war started. But it was not until seven months later, in January 2003, that President Bush became involved in the aftermath planning.
Questions: How would you make sure that there was sufficient planning for both the war and the peace? What aspects would you want to be personally involved in or aware of as president?

Obviously the President has nothing better to do than get involved in military planning on a detailed level. Why don’t we close down the Pentagon and fire all those soldiers and generals so the White House can run the war like we did in 1812? Do ya think that just maybe it took the Pentagon ten months to figure out how to do something we haven’t had to plan for since 1945? Maybe it took them that long to develop the plan to the point that it was ready for executive oversight?

6. On June 1, 2002, President Bush announced his preemption doctrine.
Questions: Do you agree with it? What are the acceptable conditions for preemptive war? Bush has said that he believes the United States has a "duty to free people," to liberate them. Do you agree? Under what circumstances?

Asking a Presidential candidate if he agrees with the policy of a sitting President is certainly valid. Asking the same candidate what he thinks about spreading democracy abroad is also valid. Here is a rational pair of questions any candidate should be asked.

7. In July 2002, President Bush secretly ordered that some $700 million be spent on 30 major construction and other projects to prepare for war. Congress was not involved or informed.
Questions: How would you seek a relationship with the leaders of Congress so that they would be informed of such secret work? Should congressional leaders have an idea where you are heading? What should be the overall role of Congress in preparing for war?

My first question here is whether or not these funds were under the direct, discretionary control of the President. If he had the legal right to spend these funds, the question is moot. Of course Mr Woodward knows that Congress is a sieve so far as information goes. Any secret information given to Congress usually ends up on the front page of the Washington Post within a day or so of its release to Congress.

The final question seems a bit silly in a constitutional sense. Muddied since the Gulf of Tonkin, only Congress has the power to declare war. Of course, Mr. Woodward really wants the opinion of a sitting Senator about the President usurping the role of Congress.

8. In August 2002 (about seven months before the start of war in March 2003), Secretary of State Colin Powell told the president over a two-hour dinner that an Iraq war would have consequences that had not been considered or imagined. He said that an invasion would lead to the collapse of Iraq -- "You break it, you own it."
Questions: What would you do after receiving such a clear warning from a senior cabinet officer or other person with comparable experience?

I would imagine that this was the point at which the President would mention that he already had the military working on a post-combat scenario. I wonder if Mr. Woodward forgot what else the President mentioned about this dinner. Can you say, “out of context?”

9. On Nov. 8, 2002, the U.N. Security Council unanimously (15 to 0) passed Resolution 1441 on new weapons inspections in Iraq. Powell thought it was a critical victory, putting the United States on the road to diplomatic success.
Questions: What did this mean, now that Saddam seemed isolated and friendless in the world? Was strategic victory -- getting Saddam out of power -- possible through diplomacy or by continuing diplomacy and weapons inspections?

Ah ha! Let’s send Hans Blix, the Mr. Magoo of weapons inspectors, back into Iraq. I have to respect Secretary Powell for his record of service to this country and his desire to exhaust every effort before having to put troops in harms way. Of course, this “diplomacy” had been going on for a dozen years with no real effect except for padding the bank accounts of some UN officials and European businessmen.

10. In November-December 2002, major U.S. force deployments began but were strung out to avoid telling the world that war was all but inevitable and that diplomacy was over. Rumsfeld told the president that the large U.S. divisions could be kept in top fighting shape for only two to three months without degrading the force.
Questions: How might a President Kerry have handled this? What is the role of momentum in such a decision-making process?

Master of the obvious! Use secrecy to avoid letting Saddam know we’re getting ready to invade if he won’t give up his WMDs? Even Homer Simpson could answer this one!

11. On Dec. 21, 2002, CIA deputy John McLaughlin gave a major presentation to the president on the intelligence evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The president was not impressed and asked where the good, strong intelligence was. CIA Director George Tenet twice assured the president that the WMD case was a "slam dunk."
Questions: What might a President Kerry have done when he smelled weakness in an intelligence case?

Another perfectly valid example of, “when did you stop beating your wife.” We have an agency we spend billions of dollars on every year. If you aren’t going to believe them, why pay their salaries? Post-game quarterbacking is always easier – you already know the score.

12. On Jan. 9, 2003, the president asked Gen. Franks: What is my last decision point? Franks said it would be when Special Forces were put on the ground inside Iraq.
Question: Had the president already passed his last decision point when he ordered such a large military deployment and such extensive CIA covert action to support the military?

Please sir, put the stick down. Your wife has had enough. The President asked the general a military question. Mr. Woodward is asking a political question instead. Pulling the troops back after they had been deployed would have political consequences, not military ones.

13. Around this time, in January 2003, Rumsfeld told the president that he was losing his options, and that after he asked U.S. allies to commit forces, it would not be feasible to back off. Rumsfeld asked to brief the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Vice President Cheney, Gen. Richard Myers and Rumsfeld briefed Bandar on Jan. 11, 2003, telling him "You can count on this" -- i.e., war.
Questions: Do you agree with Rumsfeld's assessment? Andy Card, the Bush White House chief of staff, thought the decision to go to war was not irrevocable, that Bush could pull back, though the consequences would be politically expensive. How does a president credibly threaten force without taking steps that make the use of force almost inevitable? Should foreign governments be briefed in this way?

Let me see if I have this straight. Mr. Woodward’s question is whether or not foreign governments asked to be active allies in a war should be briefed about the war prior to the first battle beginning? Duh! How else do you get allies you silly twit?

14. On Jan. 13, 2003, the director of the National Security Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, issued a formal director's intent on how to support Gen. Franks in a war with Iraq. Previously, on his own, Hayden had reallocated some $300 million to $400 million of NSA funds to Iraq-specific signals intelligence programs to support a war without the specific knowledge or approval of either Rumsfeld, Tenet or Bush.
Questions: Was this good planning? What would be the procedures for such decisions in a Kerry administration?

Last time I looked, the director of an agency does have some latitude on how the funds of that agency are spent. Is the President to sit in on every budget conference for every agency? After watching (and listening) to everybody else deal with Iraq, the director decides to lay on some overtime to see what is happening. I suppose the only real question here is whether Senator Kerry would allow directors of government agencies any independent control over their own budgets or whether he would micromanage them all.

15. On Jan. 20, 2003 (two months before the war), the president signed National Security Presidential Directive 24 to set up the office for reconstruction for Iraq.
Question: What do you think of the timing of this?

I would imagine this is what would be called planning. You’ve set the wheels in motion for a war so you set the wheels in motion for taking control after the war is over. I suppose the President should have waited to see if American military forces could actually win another war with Iraq first?

16. On Feb. 7, 2003 (six weeks before war started), French President Jacques Chirac called the president and was very conciliatory. He said, "If there is a war, we'll work together on reconstruction. We will all contribute. I fully understand your position is different. There are two different moral approaches to the world and I respect yours." Bush was optimistic but took no action.
Question: What would a President Kerry have done about this conciliatory statement?

The President of a country busy selling weapons to your opponent in an upcoming conflict who refused to join you as an ally calls you up before the war begins to tell you he’d be more than happy to help make a buck or two after you finish taking over the country. And this is a conciliatory statement?

17. On March 17, 2003, concluding that Saddam was stalling and lying, Bush ordered war while U.N. weapons inspectors were still in Iraq.
Questions: Was this decision right or premature? Was there any other action, short of war, that would have effectively increased pressure on Saddam?

Is Mr. Woodward asking whether or not President Bush endangered the arms inspectors by not announcing the date of his surprise invasion so they could get out of town first or using that line to give Senator Kerry an opportunity to bash Bush?

18. On Sept. 30, 2003 (six months after the start of the war), British Prime Minister Tony Blair told his annual Labor Party conference that he had received letters from parents whose sons were killed in the Iraq war, saying that they hated him. "And don't believe anyone who tells you when they receive letters like that they don't suffer any doubt," Blair said. President Bush has said emphatically that he has no such doubts.
Question: Can a president afford to have doubt in a time of war?

What a great question, really. You have to answer it with either a declarative yes or no or else you look like an idiot.

Question: What is the role of doubt in presidential decision-making?

This sounds more like the title of a doctoral thesis than a question anyone could effectively answer.

19. Secretary of State Powell has said that he believed Cheney had a "fever," an unhealthy fixation on al Qaeda and Iraq that caused him to misread and exaggerate intelligence and the threat. In Powell's view, Cheney and others -- Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby and Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy -- were part of "a separate little government."
Questions: Your reaction? What should or could a president do about this discord among top officials of his administration?

Another excellent question even if laid on top of such a candid statement. Does Mr. Woodward think a President should never allow discord or differences of opinion among top officials? Should a President fill his Cabinet and top Administration positions with nothing but “yes men?”

20. Powell also had said he believed that the Bush administration had become "dangerously protective" of its decisions on Iraq and was unable to consider changing course.
Question: How does a president set up a system or process to enable his administration to alter course or get a clear-eyed evaluation of its actions and its consequences?

Yet another excellent question. Here is an opportunity for the candidate to lay out his or her philosophy of management.

21. President Bush has said on the record that he did not directly ask Powell, Rumsfeld or his father, former President George H.W. Bush, whether he should go to war in Iraq. He did ask national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and his senior aide, Karen Hughes.
Questions: Your reaction? What sort of consultation process would you have on major national security decisions? Would you consult former presidents, even former President Bush?

Firstly, the President did not poll his cabinet or former Presidents on whether or not he should “go to war.” Now we know that this President is willing to make his own decisions rather than asking for a consensus, running a poll or having his “strings pulled” by Cheney or even Carl Rove. I believe this is a different administration then the prior poll-driven one. The question is another excellent question for a Presidential candidate to determine whether or not they would make their own decisions or “poll” their cabinets and former officials.

22. Asked in December 2003 how history would judge his Iraq war, Bush suggested that history was far off. "We won't know. We'll all be dead," he said.
Questions: How do you judge his Iraq war? What do you think history's verdict is likely to be?

Don’t we already know the answer to this one? Has not Senator Kerry already told us he would have done the same thing but in a better way?

I think that what impresses me most about this article is the amount of candor the Bush Administration brought to the whole affair of Mr. Woodward’s questioning process. Admissions by senior Administration officials of disagreements within the Administration are not all that common while still in office.

This is the party of peace?

Don’t you just adore those peace-loving Democrats?

The Sun-Sentinal in Florida is reporting that a fluke in the early voting laws is lettings hordes of Democrats congregate at the early voting locations where a number of Republicans have already reported attempts at voter intimidation. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the Bush-Cheney offices there were broken into and ransacked while the Arizona Daily Sun reports another instance of vandalism at the Flagstaff Republican Party headquarters.

Meanwhile, the Guardian (You know, the British newspaper that has tried to influence the election in Ohio) runs an article by Charlie Brooker that ends with the plaintive query, “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?”

All this as John Kerry runs around screaming at the top of his lungs that George Bush “allowed” Osama bin Ladin to escape while his cohorts continue to try and scare people with the big lie of Bush bringing back the draft (cleverly ignoring the point that the draft legislation was introduced by Democrats and hasn’t a chance of passing).

Oh, and the Dems are really rolling out all their critical thinkers. Michael Moore is still on his slackers tour (less the CNN cameras he boots from his $30,000 a night tour) as are Rosie O’Donnell and even Cher who said that, “Abe Lincoln looks like Kerry on a crappy day.”

If they get their way, they will keep their hand deep in our pockets while telling us it is for our own good. If they don’t get their way, they are only marginally more democratic than the Soviet Union. Just a quick question, why do they call themselves the Democratic Party if their methods are so undemocratic?

Coming up on the Election

OK. The Dems are buying votes with crack, clean laundry and anything else they appear able to collect and hand out. They are also staffing up "swat teams" of lawyers ready to challenge any precinct that votes Republican.

Hugh Hewitt has news about the military having to hand out write-in Federal ballots to large numbers of troops who have yet to receive their absentee ballots from home. Hmmm, mom's can send them body armor and cookies but their county clerks can't seem to send them ballots. Does any of this sound familiar? I wonder if this has anything to do with the recent National Annenberg Election Survey poll that showed the military is solidly behind Bush?

Democratic lawyers have already filed voting-related lawsuits in Florida and Al Gore (you remember him, don't you?) is apparently heading down there to be sure everything is even more screwed up than in 2000.

And, has anyone seen the Channel One teenagers election results? 55% and 393 electoral votes for Bush! Is it any wonder the Democrats have reverted to lawyers and scare tactics for this election.

Want to annoy liberals? Ask them if they've heard about all the people endorsing John Kerry; Kim Jung Il, Yassar Arafat, Fidel Castro and of course, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder. Watch their blood pressure spike!

Then, of course, there are the international poll monitors. They are apparently very concerned about the disenfranchisement of all those ex-felons. Snowbirds can vote in New York and Florida but those poor misunderstood ex-felons can't vote at all!

If this election were not so critical to the safety of America and the prosecution of the War on Terrorism, I would have to laugh at the lengths the Democrats are going to in their attempt to steal what they can't win.

Now Drudge has a story that Bill Clinton wants to be Secretary General of the United Nations. Think of the opportunities . . . entire nations full of interns.

Bush vs. Kerry – What Really Counts

“How will George W. Bush have achieved this? In both cases, by force — military force issued in reaction to September 11. September 11 handed him the opportunity. We can be certain that on that awful morning, as Osama ghoulishly smiled from a cave in Afghanistan, a rout of radical Islamic terror, defeat of dictatorship in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a potential wave of democratic freedom in the Middle East was not what Mr. bin Laden had in mind. But neither did he have in mind the response of George W. Bush.”

These words are from Paul Kengor’s article in National Review. I have maintained for some time that President Bush’s attempt to implement democracy in the Mid East was one of the most far-reaching statesmanlike objectives seen in this country since the Marshall Plan. It is nice to see my position validated by someone else. This plan may not work, but the breadth of vision to even attempt it is inspiring.

While the bulk of the media are consumed by Kerry’s use of the Cheney’s daughter in the last debate, I have run across a few articles that, I believe, best point out why President Bush is the only real choice in the upcoming election. He is not perfect. Aside from the tax cut, I find most of his domestic policies to be based on political calculation as much as reason or conservative thought. But his foreign policy in a war on terrorism cannot be faulted for it’s vision or it’s effect.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to read political books, especially the biographies of candidates I despise. So I will let David Frum speak for me in his deadly review of the Boston Globe’s John Kerry biography. He pulls enough quotes from only seven pages (260-266) to allow him to describe Kerry’s foreign policy ideas as “opportunistic oppositionism.” ‘Nuff said. Read the article in National Review or take the time to read the book yourself.

Lest we ignore the pajamahadeen, Matthew Heidt makes an excellent case not only for the demise of the late, unlamented Osama bin Laden but also for the remarkable reason the Bush Administration has not trumpeted his demise as a propaganda tool in this election.

Some people know what matters. President Bush is one of them; the junior Senator from Massachusetts is not. President Bush has set a goal that will probably not come to fruition until long past his term or terms in office; a legacy for the history books and the safety of America. Senator Kerry has difficulty seeing past his next speech.

Geometric Logic or Poor Command?

Drudge had a link this morning to an article in the Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi) from yesterday about a platoon in Iraq that refused to make a fuel run.

The article is somewhat confusing (as all early reports are) but it appears the platoon was ordered to transport contaminated fuel to a unit they knew would certainly refuse it as had a unit the previous day using vehicles that were “deadlined.” There was to be no convoy guard even though the route was commonly ambushed.

Willful refusal to obey a direct order is one of the most serious offenses in the military so I would imagine this platoon thought long and hard before refusing this one.

No one knows yet what the actual facts are but if we aren’t careful, the Army command may try to sweep another example of poor leadership and command under the rug as they tried with abu Ghraib. My view is there are no bad units, only bad leaders.

We have a load of contaminated fuel already refused by one unit the day before. We have trucks deadlined for poor maintenance. We have no available escort gun vehicles or helicopters.

During the ramp up to World War II, General Marshall removed a number of general officers for failure to perform. I doubt that the command structure today is any different. With over a hundred thousand troops in country, it is likely there is any number of incompetent officers still serving in Iraq.

The transition from a peacetime garrison mindset to a war footing always shows up a number of incompetent commanders. The real question here is whether or not this is another example of poor command performance or not.

Was the commander of this unit made aware that the fuel refused was contaminated? If so, why was the unit ordered to deliver it to another unit? Knowingly delivering contaminated fuel to a combat unit is a serious business. Was the commander of this unit willing to put other troops in harms way with contaminated fuel to avoid responsibility for the contamination?

Were the deadlined vehicles the victims of poor maintenance or is the Army not providing sufficient spare parts to keep these vehicles running properly? With thousands of vehicles stockpiled here in the United States and abroad, why are units in the field not equipped with running vehicles?

While the immediate guilt lies with the platoon that refused an order, the real question is which doctrine or practice put them in this position. The Army was not prepared for a situation like Iraq where there are no front lines. It is equipped with thin-skinned rear echelon supply vehicles that were never designed to survive direct attacks by RPG.

The solution used to-date has been to run them in armed convoys with accompanying gun vehicles (Humvees, etc.) and overhead surveillance/support from helicopters. This is probably not the best solution but it is the only one available to an Army equipped as ours is.

This story requires serious investigation to determine where the rot lies that would create a situation where a platoon would refuse en masse to perform their duty. America doesn’t need a repetition of the Oakland weapons-loading mutiny of World War II.

Undecided Voters?

I find it incomprehensible that anyone could still be undecided at this late stage in the game. We’ve had the primary cycle where Kerry barely beat out the anti-war screamer, Dean and Sharpton kept skipping out on his hotel bills.

Then came the Democratic Convention where Senator Kerry “reported” for duty under the eyes of Michael Moore. Of course, there was the Republican Convention where the keynote speaker was a “renegade” Democrat.

We have just seen the last of the three “debates” where you had the opportunity to watch the two candidates head to head.

The media has spent approximately as many barrels of ink on the election as America imports of oil each year along with roughly 96 hours a day of air time. Then there are the talk radio hosts, the pajamahadeen and all those political conversations during the half times of sporting events.

The only reason I can see for anyone to still consider themselves undecided is to claim their fifteen minutes of fame much like guests on the Jerry Springer show. Look everybody, here is someone too dumb to have made up their mind by now!

Walter Shapiro thinks these undecideds are still trying to hash out what the candidates believe on a single issue that is critical to them. He calls them the “yes-but” voting bloc.

I do not see how it can be that hard. If you are a conventional conservative, you can’t help but be angry at the way the current administration spends tax dollars like a drunken sailor. On the other hand, if you are a true progressive, you probably see Kerry as too centrist.

Listening to campaign rhetoric is the worst way to select a candidate. These are politicians; their only real goal is to get reelected. In order to get a feel for either candidate you have to take a look at their previous records.

Senator Kerry has a voting record that makes him the shoe-in as most liberal Senator. He has never seen a tax increase he didn’t like or a weapons system he did like. If I have to listen to him say, “I have a plan” one more time, the Secret Service may come looking for me. (This is hyperbole, folks. As long as we have the franchise to vote, assassination is simply not a viable option)

President Bush has a spending record that is anathema to most conservatives but that has to be balanced against his tax cut and his actions in the War against Terror. His much shorter record is one of getting along with both sides in Texas government.

Look at the records and make your choice. Debates and rhetoric are not information but merely cover.

Bits and Pieces

Well, those fascinating debates are finally over and all we have to do is survive the last few weeks of campaigning.

Senator Kerry is a fine speaker. He stands erect with his mane of expensively coiffed hair and speaks in complete sentences. He uses these complete sentences, in many cases, to say things that are patently not so. Hey, he’s a politician after all. Getting elected is much more important than the truth.

President Bush, on the other hand, is less articulate than Senator Kerry. Often his sentences are less ordered than those of the Senator. He also says things that are not entirely truthful.

All told, however, it appears that the Republican campaign is a more mannered campaign than that of the Democrats. The rage that powered the campaign against Clinton is no longer there. All the rage is now on the side of the Democrats. Breaking into campaign offices, putting out memos about proactive actions against vote tampering, British soccer-fan hooliganism and starting silly rumors about the draft and such seem to be the tactics of desperation on the part of the Democrats.

If indeed, the Democrats try to take legal action against the vote count in very many areas I believe it will backfire against them. The one thing much of America is united against is lawyers. If the Democrats are seen as trying to get judges to give them what the electorate won’t, they will manage to marginalize themselves even faster than their Progressive Left Wing has managed to do.

Have you ever noticed how the “party of toleration” is so much more intolerant than those mean, nasty, big business Republicans? Bush and Cheney can disagree about issues on gay rights but the Left turns on any of their own who stray from the party line. Townhall’s Professor Mike S. Adams has run a number of articles on UNC and some of their “enlightened” policies. If they were any more enlightened, they would be candidates for the Spanish Inquisition.

Once more into the friend, dear breach

I couldn’t take it. I wandered in and out of the room for the first half of the debate before I turned it off and went back to work. From what little I did watch, Bush seemed more sure of himself than in the first debate but Kerry makes a strong impression too. As near as I can tell, Kerry does have a plan. It appears to be the Bush plan . . . but done differently.

You have to admire Senator Kerry. Here is a fellow who has spent his entire career voting against defense programs and voting for castration of intelligence activities trying to sound as if he has been in favor of a strong defense for the United States. Like any competent politician he is pretty good at it. He’ll look you right in the eye and lie through his teeth like that salesman who tried to sell you the cheap carpet last month.

I’m sorry. I just cannot get over a candidate who, with a straight face could actually say, “I voted for it . . . until I voted against it,” and expect to get away with it. That is just a little too far over the top.

I’m not happy with Bush. I really think there were too many in the administration that actually thought the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms. But that is a flaw many Americans suffer from. We are so used to our way of life that we have difficulty understanding people who don’t appreciate it.

Bush’s immigration stand (like that of the Democrats) is a scandal. His administration spends my tax dollars like drunken Democrats. But he does display optimism and commitment even when things look bad. He also has achieved two goals that I believe are critical to the future of America.

First, he has focused the Islamofascists on an Arab land (Iraq) instead of our own shores. They are so busy trying to get into Iraq and kill Americans in their own back yard; they have to time to bother us here yet. And if Iraq does develop a representative, secular government, it has the potential to become another shining city on the hill overlooking the petty fiefdoms and autocratic regimes of the Mid East, giving hope of a better future to other Arabs. He deserves a huge credit for taking a foreign policy risk of a magnitude not seen since the Marshall Plan.

Secondly, he understands, like Reagan and Kennedy before him, that the best way to invigorate an economy is by reducing taxes and freeing up capital for investment.

This isn’t rocket science. There are people out there who are trying to kill us. George Bush understands this and is using that incredibly unwieldy machine called the Federal Government to try and prevent it. John Kerry, on the other hand, seems to believe that he can charm the Islamists of the world out of their beliefs with a handshake, a winning smile, a photo opportunity with a celebrity or two and some nuclear fuel . . . as long as they promise not to make bombs with it.

If you have a neighbor who raises dobermans to attack anyone in sight, you don’t make him stop by ofering to buy him more dobermans as long as he promises to raise them to be nice.

Whose Side Are The Democrats On?

The election is less than a month away and the silliness just won’t stop. In one sense I have a sick fascination with the Democratic Party of today. They nominate a candidate for President of the United States of America who has a history of voting against defense and intelligence programs; a candidate who has a history of anti-war activities dating back to when he was still an officer in the U.S. Navy. How, after September 11th can the Democratic Party expect someone like this to lead a country at war?

Three years ago almost three thousand Americans died in single morning. They didn’t die in traffic accidents. They didn’t die from poor or nonexistent health care. They didn’t die because we didn’t sign the Kyoto Treaty. They died because nineteen Islamic terrorists decided that everything wrong with their world was the fault of America and those three thousand victims were proxies for us all.

How can a man who is patently anti-war lead a country involved in a war? Do the Democrats not understand that we are in a war for our very existence? If we weren’t providing targets for them in Iraq, they would probably be blowing themselves up in malls and pizza parlors across the United States.

The very idea of a candidate with an anti-military and anti-intelligence voting record as a war president is not only counter-intuitive; it is just plain silly in the most dangerous way. Either the Democratic leadership really believes we are not in a war or their motives are even darker.

The Arabs say that what they respect is strength and commitment. Theirs is a history of warriors and strong leaders. For all his flaws, George W. Bush has shown strength and commitment to defeating terrorism.

Have all the moves made by this administration been the right ones? No, but they have been indicative of strength and commitment. Can anyone imagine a Bush administration offering nuclear material to the Iranians if they would only promise not to makes bombs with it?

The man who claims our invasion of Iraq was, “the wrong war at the wrong time” has said we need to “talk” with our enemies. How? Whenever an American ends up in a room with these Islamofascists, heads literally roll. Perhaps people who use dialog as a verb know something I don’t . . . I doubt it.

For the first time in my life I find myself a single-issue voter. That issue is the war on terrorism and George W. Bush is the only candidate who understands why it is important that we do not give an inch on this.

The approval or disapproval of the aging and crumbling economies of Europe or a United Nations that gives Libya and Sudan seats on a Human Rights Commission is, and should be, meaningless to what we have to do in order to provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

We helped the Afghanis run the Taliban out of their country and more than decimated al Quaeda. Soon, Afghanis will vote in their first national election ever. We routed Saddam’s armies and soon, there will be free elections in Iraq as well. Libya decided to come clean on her weapons of mass destruction and told the world it was fear of America and her might.

For the first time since the Ottoman Empire, Arabs will be able to vote for a representative government of their own. No longer will kings, sheiks, grand vizirs or pashas rule by whim. The Imams and Mullahs will have to inspire the faithful by their words and deeds, not the guns of their followers.

The Democrats laugh at the naiveté of a President who claimed that democracy could thrive in the Mid East. Soon they will be proved wrong. Kings and princes will tremble as they did in Europe at the end of the Eighteenth century. If this President’s bold gamble pays off, millions may soon be free of the tyranny of their current rulers.

The lack of vision presented by the Democratic Party is stunning. Where are the statesmen and leaders produced by the Democrats of the past? Are they so locked in partisan conflict they cannot see beyond their own petty goals? That seems to be the case.

More Immigration Follies

Why is it that there is apparently no national political party that wants to address the illegal immigration problems this country faces? This morning The Washington Times reports that the White House wants House Republicans to,

"remove provisions in their intelligence-overhaul bill that would crack down on illegal aliens' obtaining drivers' licenses, allow easier deportation and limit the use of foreign consular ID cards. The Senate's bill lacks those provisions, and as the two chambers race toward trying to pass a bill before the Nov. 2 election, the measures are a potential stumbling block. The White House wants those provisions out, according to a congressional source familiar with the bill."

This is some kind of sick joke, right? This is the same kind of problem Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO) has experienced before with Carl Rove and the boys at 1600 Pennsylvania.

Until this country get serious about dealing with our immigration problems, we will continue to appear to the world like we're bent over in the shower searching for the soap.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Debates

You know, I caught only a few minutes of the first debate between George Bush and John Kerry. I paid little attention to the "cheat sheet" issue or to the reams of copy about who performed better or had better hair or anything like that.

By now, everyone with an IQ above room temperature should have realized that this election is not about Republicans and Democrats. It is not about health care or social engineering, This election is not even about who is going to control Washington for the next four years.

I am not a fan of George Bush and I am certainly not a fan of the junior Senator from Massachusetts.

I am voting for George Bush because he understands two critical concepts.

1. The answer is lower taxes. Now what's the question?
2. If you are going to fight a war, it is better to fight it on someone else's real estate.

Anyone who cannot accept these two premises is a danger to society.

MSM's Last Stand?

A Saturday story from the AP Saturday has Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings "supporting" Dan Rather in regards to the TANG memogate story from last month.

NEW YORK - While acknowledging mistakes in CBS anchor Dan Rather's "60 Minutes" report that questioned President Bush's service in the National Guard, competing news anchors Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings offered support Saturday for the beleaguered newsman.

The mainstream media are surrounded at the Little Big Horn but, like Custer, they think they're too big to be taken down by pajama-clad savages

Brokaw blasted what he called an attempt to "demonize" CBS and Rather on the Internet, where complaints about the report first surfaced. He said the criticism "goes well beyond any factual information" "What I think is highly inappropriate is what going on across the Internet, a kind of political jihad ... that is quiteoutrageous" the NBC anchor said at a panel on which all three men spoke.

A political jihad on the Internet? Why is it always politics for these guys when they are caught with their shorts flapping in the wind

"I don't think you ever judge a man by only one event in his career" said Jennings, anchor on ABC.

Hey guys, we're not just talking about one single event in the long and biased career of Dan "The Liberal" Rather. We're talking about a pattern of behavior that stretches back years! The "Dan Rather-biased" nickname is nothing new. It's really simple. The mainstream media has spent their careers ensconced in their towers of power at network headquarters in New York and just cannot understand that much of America is sick and tired of their constant "conservatives are bad but liberals are good" mindset. But now their ratings are falling, cable and the Internet offer alternates sources to the big three and they cannot or will not see what is happening around them.
What Dan Rather and CBS News did was indefensible. They took a story that had been beaten to death during Bush's previous runs for Governor and President, filled it with curious memos nobody could authenticate and meaningless lies from a Democratic hack and called it news in a transparent attempt to damage the President prior to the election.

Only in America

The Oakland Tribune reports today that Oakland Police have had to curtail their DUI roadblocks after complaints from Latino organizations that the roadblocks are ensnaring too many illegal immigrants.

Let me see if I have this right. One of the reasons automobile insurance in California is so high is due to the huge numbers of uninsured drivers running about the streets without licenses or any form of liability insurance. Every legal California resident who drives will know what I mean by high insurance rates. This affects you irrespective of your skin color, ethnicity, native language or style of dress. If you are a legal driver in California, you pay through the nose.

But organizations such as Oakland Community Organizations and Oakland City Council President, Ignacio de la Fuente are outraged that Police Officers would demand proof of registration, a driver's license and proof of insurance from illegal immigrants. Arrrgh!

In the short term, the Oakland Police Chief has agreed to notify Latino community organizations of the checkpoint locations and times of operation in advance. Does anything about this strike you as silly beyond belief?

America needs immigration. The vast majority of Hispanic immigrants to this country are hard working family people. But a society can only survive as long as it follows rules and those rules are applied with justice to all segments of society. I have immigrant friends from several countries that had to spend years waiting for visas to even get here.

Now, apparently there is a new immigration policy. Get here illegally and you will have a substantial advantage over legal immigrants and residents. You don’t have to get a driver’s license, you don’t have to pay for auto insurance, we’ll pay to educate your kids and we’ll even pay for your health care.

Why aren’t these idiots like Ignacio pressing for a Constitutional Amendment to allow illegal immigrants to run for President? This is so far beyond the pale I cannot even think of an adjective for it.

Sleep Tight America, The FBI Is On The Job

Today the Associated Press reported the FBI has over 123,000 hours of intercepted wire taps and other audio recordings from terrorist investigations that have yet to be transcribed. To save wear and tear on your calculator, that is just over fourteen (14) years worth of audio!

Of course this follows after the stories of the Arabic-speaking Sephardic Jews who were denied translator jobs with the FBI because it was feared they were "too close to Israel" and the Sibel Edmonds whistleblowing scandal.

I knew there were problems getting competent translators who could pass some sort of security investigation but a fourteen year backlog? Now that's job security!

Perhaps we should shop these translations out to a legal translator operation I know of in the San Fernando Valley. The quality might not be as good but we would probably get results before the suspected terrorists dies of old age.

The Answer is Less Government

The New York Times ran an editorial this morning on the “continuing shame” of the treatment of “native” Americans by the Department of the Interior, specifically the handling of the trust fund established over a century ago when reservations were broken up into individual parcels so the reservation lands could be plundered more easily by white men.

Imagine that, people taken advantage of by their own government, what a shock! C’mon people, get real. When has any government ever done anything else but feather their own nest? While it is unlikely that huge numbers of Interior Department staff have personally profited from scamming the Indians on this trust, I am sure they have made many a businessman wealthy.

Every day we watch the government spend billions of dollars without any real accounting. Every time the GAO or someone attempts to audit any government operation they find gross mismanagement, millions unaccounted for and usually some gross fraud as well. When you point out to a bureaucrat that one of their staff has mismanaged millions of your and my tax dollars, often using it for personal purchases, the response of the bureaucrat is usually along the lines of.

Oh! But they have worked here so long and been such a fine employee. How could we possibly let them go?

Well! We’ll certainly chastise them for that. How about two days off without pay? Will that do it?

Actions that, in the private sector, would result in firing and possibly prosecution are simply overlooked by bureaucrats who strive, in the best mandarin way, for the harmony of never having to be responsible for anything. As long as the tax dollars flow and their staffs don’t assault anyone with a gun, everything is just fine.

Until Americans insist on accountability from their elected officials and the bureaucrats they employee, this situation will never change. There are thousands of individuals working for the government who actually care about what they do . . . just as there are thousands who look upon government employment as a license to steal.

So why this editorial whining now about a problem that has existed for over a hundred years? All those who believe more and more government is the salvation of humanity should learn a lesson this. To quote a friend, “The answer is less government. Now what is the question?”

Dan Rather and the continuing death saga of the Mainstream Media

This has not been pretty. Dan Rather had to look America in the eye, at least those few who still watch him, and tell another lie. And it was a lie. The only miscalculations or mistakes on the part of Mapes, Rather and Heyward were in the commission of an act of news making rather than news reporting. To imagine that a team with the experience of this troika could have been taken in boggles the mind.

To apply Occam’s Razor leaves only one conclusion. CBS News in the persons of Heyward, Rather and Mapes knowingly decided to publish a story they knew was based on the most flimsy of evidence from people even the O.J. jury wouldn’t believe along with the most transparent of fraudulent documents that they were warned about by their own hired experts.

This troika decided to make news instead of reporting it and was caught in the act by the new media. Their little jaunt into fiction has cost the network dearly in terms of prestige. We have had to watch Dan Rather throw first Ms. Mapes then Mr. Hayward off the back of the sleigh to the wolves in an embarrassing attempt to save his own neck. Instead he has ended up looking much like Captain Queeg without the nifty uniform or Bogart’s acting ability.

Probably the saddest part of this whole fiasco is the absolute inability of Mr. Rather and his political kin to understand just how far out of touch they really are. By comparison, Geraldo is looking more and more mainstream every day.

You Call This a Debate?

There is an article in the New York Times this morning describing how both candidates want the commission to "sign-off" on their 32-page parameter agreement document defining the debate format. It was bad enough we had to sit through a pair of infomercials instead of conventions but now they want to alternate making speeches instead of an actual debate.

Merriam-Webster defines the noun, debate as "a contention by words or arguments." It is painfully obvious that we will have nothing of this nature in this Presidential race. The best quote from the article is a statement from a debate expert.

"The candidates are going to end up looking like game show hosts

I guess I'll plan to be out to dinner when the October 8th debate is on.

I did not have sexual relations with those memos

Does this announcement sound familiar? Is this just a mistake in judgement or are these the same sort of "weasel words" we heard a few years ago?

Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.

Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where—if I knew then what I know now—I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.

After ten days of being exposed by everyone from experts to ten-year-olds with a PC and Word, he has finally been able to get to the emails from those document examiners who told him before the story aired that the documents were questionable.

But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.

This was an error made in the spirit of partisan politics by journalists more concerned with getting a story that might unseat a President. From all I have heard, this story was five years in the making and had been at a standstill until these "memos" fell into their fax inbox one recent morning.

Please know that nothing is more important to us than people's trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.

Dan, you have squandered that trust in you and your network by your shabby actions that are not even up to the standards of the National Enquirer, let alone a national broadcast journalist

POFS time

I must be suffering from clinical depression. I can turn on the news, pick up the paper or browse the Internet and nothing bothers me anymore.

I can listen to the coiffed twits on network news and talk shows without my blood pressure spiking into pounds per square inch. I can even read a Maureen Dowd or Bob Scheer column without breaking into a sweat.

Have you ever ecountered these symptoms prior to an election? If so, you too are probably suffering from POFS (Political Outrage Fatigue Syndrome). You listen to the politicians. You listen to their spinmeisters. You listen to the pundits. And . . . nothing happens.

So, I'm taking the cure. For the next week I will pay no attention to any news that isn't about sports or automobiles that can cruise at 120 MPH. I will even attempt to finish several chapters of my tome on computer security without a single reference to Carnivore, the NSA or Echelon. I will worry only about the things I personally can deal with.

Courage . . . (whoops)

Hey Dan, you’re busted, dude!

I think we can safely say that it is now official; the blogosphere has officially joined the ranks of the new media. As Drudge broke the Monica Lewinsky story and catapulted the Internet into the forefront of journalism, so has the Rathergate story pushed the web logs into the limelight while humiliating one of the major network news organizations.

CBS and Dan Rather have spent more than a week claiming the story is true even if the documents are false, a reporting style most recently used by Comical Ali as he ducked falling plaster in Baghdad while denying there were any Americans near the city.

Using tactics akin to the swarming tactics proposed by Tofflerian military theorists, the blogosphere rapidly developed literally dozens of bits of information from experts on typography, word processing and even military nomenclature that showed the memos in question were undoubtedly fraudulent in nature.

This information was used by the mainstream media to illustrate how CBS and Dan Rather ignored any pretense to journalistic integrity in their campaign to discredit the President and influence the upcoming national elections.

Throughout the ensuing clamor, the story of President Bush’s TANG service faded into the background as the focus of the story became CBS’ and Dan Rather’s defense of a story based on the now discredited memos and the discovery that the former Texas politician is presently a fundraiser for the Kerry campaign.

The blogosphere, like the Internet that spawned it, is huge and composed of people from every walk of life in every time zone. The rapid response of numerous bloggers with excellent credentials to this story illustrates how the grip of mainstream media on news has now been conclusively broken.

The days of Walter Cronkite ending a broadcast with, “and that’s the way it is,” are gone. No longer can a mainstream news outlet rest the authenticity of a story on the gravitas of the talking head who tells it. CBS News and Dan Rather have had their reputations shredded with this story.

In the last day or two the blogosphere has published the contact information for CBS outlets, Viacom stockholders and CBS News advertisers. I expect their e-mailboxes will be overflowing, their fax machines running out of paper and their snail-mail carriers to be groaning under the weight of the protests about CBS News and Dan Rather.

Short of a public on-air apology by Mr. Rather, I would expect Viacom to soon be putting tremendous pressure on him to resign as their stock price drops and sponsors drop CBS News to avoid losing market share.

Pajama-clad or not, experts or not, bloggers have served an important role in exposing an attempted manipulation of public sentiment of a scale not seen since the days of William Randolph Hearst. Hey Dan, you’re busted, dude!

Danny, You Got Some 'Splaining To Do

Dan, Dan, Dan. We all know that journalistic integrity has never been your strong suite but this last week has been really informational. Did you really think that your stern visage and presence could cover up the obviously fraudulent memos so that everyone would ignore the man behind the curtain and instead pay attention to a story no one else cares about?

Instead of pointing out the obvious fact that practically anyone who got into the National Guard during the Vietnam era had either the luck of a lottery winner or some sort of pull, your story has instead made you and your network look very much like Richard Nixon during Watergate.

You have worn your politics on your sleeve for so long that anyone with the IQ to dress themselves and find their way to work in the morning discounts 75% of what you say to begin with.

You're right, Dan. The Bush story may well be true but it no longer matters. What matters now is that a major network has used the public airwaves and fraudulent documents to try and influence a national election.

Instead of knocking George Bush off his perch, you have managed to simultaneously give enormous credence to those pajama-clad scribblers you so detest and make your network the laughingstock of the country.

Attaboy, Dan.

Windows XP Service Pack 2

Does anyone have the slightest idea how annoying it is to upgrade an entire office only to discover each and every PC now has its own personal firewall?

It Wasn't a Mistake, It Was a Lie

For five days now we have seen Dan Rather and CBS try to defend the indefensible. It is clear that they knowingly used obviously forged documents to influence the outcome of a national election.

ABC News reported yesterday that two of the document expert hired by CBS to review the memos did not authenticate the documents and raised concerns to CBS about their authenticity. The one “expert” shown authenticated only a single signature and the Washington Post reports his claim that he never attempted to authenticate the documents themselves.

Despite this, CBS and Dan Rather went ahead with the story and continue to claim that the documents were authentic. This is not the case of journalists being caught out by forged documents but is instead, an out and out fraud perpetrated on the viewers of CBS by Dan Rather and, by extension, CBS News.

When the story began to unravel almost immediately in the blogosphere, Mr. Rather described the critics of the documents as “partisan political operatives.” Hugh Hewitt and the other bloggers at Instapundit and Blackfive are right; we need Congressional hearings on this blatant attempt to influence an election.

I always understood the media’s function as reporting the news, not making it up to fit the political agenda of an over-the-hill reporter who is apparently still angry with the Bush family for his 1988 interview with then-Vice President Bush.

It is quite plain that Mr. Rather needs to resign from his position at CBS and register as a lobbyist for the DNC and Kerry campaign.

Is This the DNC of Bill Clinton?

I guess once Bill Clinton left office, the DNC began inhaling. I can only attribute their behavior to some sort of chemical imbalance or Terry McCauliffe has been replaced by a pod person educated in the public schools. If this is not the case, why did they just release the Fortunate Son commercial after knowing that the charges were specious and all the bad information in them was currently under discussion all over the media . . . except by CBS.

Both ABC and CBS have called upon the DNC to pull the ads because they contain copyrighted material (The Daily Standard). To add insult to injury, the CBS material is some of Dan Rather's 60 Minutes II material from last week that will likely cost him his job. At least it doesn't use the Killian memorandums but it does use the interview with Ben Barnes.

This is the interview that was refuted by the interviewee's own daughter the next day. The interviewee that is a major fund raiser for the opponent of the guy he bashes in the ad. The same interviewee who apparently has a book deal in the making . . . much like Joseph Wilson.

Why is it that the same DNC that took Slick Willy to the White House twice and even managed to paper over the second impeachment proceeding in the history of the country can't even get a simple attack ad straight?

The Killian Memorandum

No longer is the story about President Bush's conduct in the TANG. For the past four days the story has been about the memos used as the basis of Dan Rather-biased's most recent attack on President Bush. I am really enjoying this.

Dan Rather was my introduction to the phrase media bias during the Iran-Contra hearings. I would wake up early and watch them on PBS, then listen to them on NPR at work. But I would come home every evening and be puzzled because Dan Rather appeared to be reporting on a different set of hearings than the ones I was watching.

I didn't catch 60 Minutes on Wednesday but caught the furor on the web Thursday afternoon. Powerline was one of the first on this but I was even more impressed by the Prowler's apparent leak from CBS on the source of the memos. Hugh Hewitt has been very on top of this with probably the greatest collection of links to the various sites debunking the memos.

And what does dapper Dan say? Attacks by right-wing nuts!

This just keeps getting better and better. I would imagine that by this next weekend Mary Mapes will be polishing her resume along with any other poor sod who got caught out on this. Rather himself may be bulletproof from internal arrows but he may soon be broadcasting to an audience no larger than the staff of the DNC and Kerry camapign headquarters.

Hmmm, maybe he can do a guest spot on the Today Show.

The Lies of The Left

As I write this, John Kerry is talking about the gun ban that expired today. His comments made his tales about Vietnam sound like gospel truth. First he pointed to seventy police chiefs who, he claimed, would now be threatened in their jobs by military machine guns and Uzis because of the lapse of this gun ban.

This is an absolute lie, not a misstatement or one of his typical "nuanced" non-answers but an out and out lie. Fully automatic or selective fire weapons have been banned since 1934! The gun ban that expired was a ban on scary-looking guns.

Do you know how those proud legislators decided a decade ago which guns to ban? Did they ask engineers or experts in the field? No. Did they go to a rifle range and determine which weapons were more destructive? No. Did they look at the gun violence statistics to see which weapons were used more than others? Not even. They looked through gun catalogs and picked out weapons that looked too military or that had big banana clips hanging off them, that's how!

Ten years ago the Clinton administration passed a piece of feel-good legislation that would make them look like they were doing something. Even a recent review of the legislation and crime statistics by the Justice Department was able to find no correlation between the drop in gun violence and the assault weapons ban. Everyone got a photo-of and nothing else.

I have absolutely no desire to purchase an AK or Uzi look-alike. I find large banana magazines difficult to use from the bench or a prone position. But there are people who enjoy shooting these guns, so what exactly is the big deal?

When the ban went into effect all that happened is the manufacturers removed the bayonet lugs and flash suppressors then replaced the black plastic stocks with wooden ones and continued selling the same weapons with nothing more than cosmetic changes.

Now all we have to do is get the government to sunset or repeal the other twenty gazillion stupid laws on the books and we might be able to breath easy for a year or two. Of course, the right is not immune to the same silliness. Wow, prescription benefits for seniors. I believe the last estimate I heard for this was something like three trillion dollars for this program - to be paid by those of us who haven't retired yet. Arrrgh!

The Twisted Pravda of Dan Rather

"This story is true. The questions we raised about then-Lieutenant Bush's National Guard service are serious and legitimate," he said. "Until and unless someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill." - Dan Rather

Mr. Rather is so convinced the questions about "then Lt. Bush's" service are true he is willing to ignore overwhelming evidence that the documents supporting these questions are forgeries. This sort of twisted logic could be expected from the old Soviet Union or even North Korea today but to hear it from the anchorman for CBS News is bizarre

By this same logic, Mr. Rather would sit in his chair and insist the building was not on fire because his chair wasn't warm yet. Using the geometric logic of Captain Queeg, Mr. Rather has proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he in no longer a journalist but rather a disillusioned old man out of touch with what is going on around him

If Mr. Rather and CBS ever admit to being duped, they will no doubt blame Carl Rove as the source of their misfortune just as Terry McCauliffe has. To paraphrase Pauline Kael, nobody they know voted for Bush. Perhaps the DNC and the Kerry campaign could save on costs by just moving into the CBS newsroom

We Shall Not Forget

Three years ago tomorrow morning, America was treacherously attacked by Islamofascists. That morning one thing stuck in my mind - all those first responders standing by their ambulances with absolutely nothing to do. Both towers were down and there were no survivors.

My first thought was to ship every tank, APC, Bradley or other armored vehicle to the coast of Lebanon, offload them, arm and crew them then line them up axle to axle and begin driving East until we reached the Persian Gulf. If it moved, kill it. If it didn't move, grind it onto dust. With the Battle Hymn of the Republic blaring over loudspeakers we would grind the classic Arab lands into dust in a way that not even Rome would have imagined. I remember the comment by Admiral Nimitz after Pearl Harbor to the effect that soon, Japanese would be spoken only in Hell. As for Arabic, that worked for me.

I've worked with Arabs and other Muslims throughout my career and I finally admitted to myself that these good people were not responsible for what happened to my countrymen. It was instead a small sect of perverted, self-hating vermin that need to be eradicated like any other vermin.

To those who lost loved ones in New York, at the Pentagon or in that field in Pennsylvania; I will never forget the price they paid this day three years ago. To the families, brothers and sisters of those first responders who gave theirs in an attempt to save others lives. They did not die in vain but in glory.

To the families, friends and the thugs who sent those men against us, you will pay. Your families will pay. Those who support you will pay. The imams, mullahs, ayatollahs and other purported holy men who have perverted the faith of Muhammad to create such as you will pay.

Russia, that remnant of the Soviet Union that just suffered their own version of tomorrow, has now joined us and many of your ilk will remember them from Chechnya, Afghanistan and the other "stans." They may not currently have the wealth and technology that would let them strike you as America has but do not count them as insignificant. They have memories, long memories and they will not stop until the killers of children and innocents have been wiped from this earth.

Yes, you may still strut down your dirt streets in your mountain villages where you hide from our wrath. You can claim that you are winning merely because you aren't dead yet but you are losing as we speak.

We snapped our fingers and Afghanistan fell. Saddam was a joke and we found him hiding in a hole. Your fighters come at us in droves and we mow them down like grass. Soon, even the ayatollahs in Iran will step over a line they never recognized was there and the rest of the world will put them down like the rabid dogs they are.

Your own people don't even trust or like you and they will turn their backs on you as you deserve. When you die even Allah will spurn you as unworthy for your poisonous attacks against the innocents. And where will you be then, when even your god turns his back on you?

Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic

Dan Rather and CBS may well be right that Lt. Bush was a less than stellar soldier in 1972. Does anyone care? The President himself has said he wasn't much of a person back then, nor has he ever tried to base any portion of his campaign on what he did as a young man.

Their abject failure to understand this and their determination to try and make a story of it shows their complete and total irrelevance to the current campaign for President of the United States of America as well as their status as shills for the DNC and the Kerry campaign.

The very fact that liberal and conservative media both have raised serious doubts about the authenticity of the documents they "reported" while ignoring their content is telling,

By Monday or Tuesday we'll have more information on the documents and one of two outcomes will be clear. Either Rather and CBS will be discredited for having reported fraudulent information or they will be ignored for reporting a non-story.

John Kerry put himself in harms way when he built his entire campaign on the strength of his four months of service in Vietnam and tried to ignore his anti-war record, his liberal, anti-defense senate record and his apparently puffed-up service record. Many of his public statements about the Vietnam war, made over the course of many years, have been shown to be fraudulent. He made his military service a major piece of the campaign, not the Republicans.

Unless the President is found in the Oval Office with a nine-year-old or a sheep it appears this election is just about over.

Did Dapper Dan Take A Dive?

Gasp! Could it be true? Could that man who invades fewer and fewer homes every night to spin his magic . . . that towering hero of the media . . . could even he be wrong? Say it ain't so, Dan.

While the American Spectator is hardly neutral, their data is usually pretty good. This morning the Prowler published a story on the genesis of the documents aired on 60 Minutes - they came from the DNC and Kerry campaign.

If this is indeed the case, I can only assume one of two things. Either the Dems decided to let CBS take the hit for releasing what even they thought were poorly-provenanced documents or Mr. Rather was so happy to have something he could pin on Bush he failed to perform even the most modest due diligence.

Either way, CBS is going to take a hit on this and if CBS' source of these truly was the DNC or Kerry campaign, it will be just another nail in the coffin the Dems seem to be building for themselves.

The Death of an Industry

According to the mainstream media, the Republicans are the bad guys. They're the ones who make the personal attacks against their opponents. With the exception of the black helicopter sites like World Net Daily and News Max which I discount almost as much as I discount the similar sites on the left, conservatives are much less likely to make personal attacks then the Left. I read the Weekly Standard and National Review and find more rational discussion of issues and positions than I do on equivalent sites on the left.

With the exception of his tax cuts and foreign policy I am not a fan of Bush's policies. To the best of my knowledge the Bush administration has made few comments about the Kerry/Edwards ticket and they certainly compare favorably to the diatribes flowing from the Kerry/Edwards campaign, the DNC and their lapdogs in the media.

I like to make my own decisions, based on reality rather than the meanderings of some journalist with less objectivity than the marketing manager of an Internet company. If I want opinions I'll read the editorial page, not the front page but the mainstream media insist on presenting opinion as journalism which only makes me even more determined to ignore their propaganda - yes, propaganda. I live in Los Angeles where the only local outlet that writes stories more than three paragraphs deep is the Left Angeles Times (often referred to as Pravda - West).

Perhaps the greatest embarassment of this election cycle is the mainstream media. They have become so overtly biased it is difficult to pay the slightest attention to their coverage of the news. Cable, the Internet and talk radio have replaced them as a source of news for so many I don't think they realize they have lost control or, if they have, they are frantic in their scramble to regain it.

Maureen Dowd and Robert Scheer are no longer considered pundits but merely political humorists and not very good ones at that. The great Gray Lady has become little more than a Leftist Chicken Little. It must be difficult to realize nobody is listening anymore.

But look on the bright side, newspapers are still useful for wrapping fish and shopping for cheap tires.

Poor, Poor Pitiful Dems

If it weren't for the fact that I believe we need more than one party in this country I'd be dancing in the streets like a Palestinian after they blow up some more children and young women. Watching the campaign of Senator Kerry self-destruct reveals so much about the conceits, self deceptions and absolute lack of ethics on the part of the current management of the DNC.

Senator Kerry, he was in Vietnam you know, built his entire candidacy on the strength of four months spent serving in the Swift boats. After Wesley Clark tanked, the DNC was so overjoyed to have a candidate who had not only served in the military but actually had medals to prove it they never even bothered to check his resume.

Along came the Swift Boat Vets with their non-partisan attack on this self-important git with his puffed-up resume and it all began to fall apart. Talk radio and the blogosphere kept the message alive at first while the mainstream Leftist media ignored it and the DNC turned their attack lawyers loose on any media outlet who ran their ads.

After their book, Unfit for Command, hit the bookstores (and is now in its third week on the NY Times best seller list) the major media had to pay some attention to the story and thus began the litanies of unsubstantiated stories and calculated attacks while Chris Mathews and others never let Mr. O'Neil even finish a sentence before they began shouting him down.

It didn't work. The Left was depending on their pet media to quash or subvert any criticism of their candidate and they failed. Too many people watch Fox News, listen to talk radio or read the Internet for the traditional media to be able to control what they see and hear. Now we have 60 Minutes (another unbiased source - NOT) doing a story on what appear to be forged memos claiming Bush received favorable treatment in the National Guard.

What we have here is a terrified Left trying to prop up a candidate done in by his own words and deeds. Granted, there are enough ABB (anybody but Bush) people out there to probably avoid another McGovern disaster but too many in the Democratic base will remember their own or their parent's service in Vietnam to be able to stomach a man whose words were used as flails against American servicemen incarcerated in the Hanoi Hilton. Too many in the Democratic base will do the same thing Zell Miller was castigated for by Jimmy Carter this week.

They will hold their noses, break ranks with the Democratic leadership and vote - not so much for Bush but against Kerry.

And the DNC can't understand why this is happening. What could be wrong with these people? Don't they understand that we have their best interests at heart? Don't they understand that only we can properly run this great nation as it should be run? Don't they understand that we should only go to war when the enemy has landed on the beach and is driving towards downtown Toledo? Don't they understand that we are lying through our teeth to them when we say we feel their pain? If they aren't careful, we'll fire up those lawyers we have on staff and sue their asses off!

The Democratic leadership of today isn't the party of Wilson, FDR or even Kennedy. The Democratic leadership of today is a bunch of spoiled social scientists and demagogues who are angry they are out of power and are even angrier at that contemptible electorate that voted them out.