The BYR Blog

Shifting Rationales And Answered Questions

2005-08-20T19:37:00.000-04:00

In 1991, Security Council Resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the repression of its own people, including the systematic repression of minorities -- which the Council said, threatened international peace and security in the region. This demand goes ignored. --President Bush 9/12/02

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.-- President Bush 01/28/03

The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages -- leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained -- by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country -- your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of
your liberation.-- President Bush 01/28/03

The first to benefit from a free Iraq would be the Iraqi people, themselves. Today they live in scarcity and fear, under a dictator who has brought them nothing but war, and misery, and torture. Their lives and their freedom matter little to Saddam Hussein -- but Iraqi lives and freedom matter greatly to us.

Bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq will not be easy. Yet that is no excuse to leave the Iraqi regime's torture chambers and poison labs in operation. Any future the Iraqi people choose for themselves will be better than the nightmare world that Saddam Hussein has chosen for them. --President Bush 2/26/03

The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of a desire for freedom in the Middle East. Arab intellectuals have called on Arab governments to address the "freedom gap" so their peoples can fully share in the progress of our times. Leaders in the region speak of a new Arab charter that champions internal reform, greater politics participation, economic openness, and free trade. And from Morocco to Bahrain and beyond, nations are taking genuine steps toward politics reform. A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.-- President Bush2/26/03

Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;

Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;-- IRAQ WAR RESOLUTION passed by 107th CONGRESS2d SessionH. J. RES. 114 10/10/02

I want to ask George Bush, 'Why did my son die? What was the noble cause that he died for?'-- Cindy Sheehan August 2005

I am posting these quotes, not to discuss a mother’s motives or to argue about her positions. She is entitled to those. Rather, I am posting these quotes because I have heard a constant refrain almost since the Fall of Baghdad that Bush didn’t explain the reasons for war, that he somehow keeps changing the rationale after the fact.

With the media circus surrounding Cindy Sheehan and her supporters reaching fever pitch this week, the demands of the anti-war, anti-Bush left have become louder. They say they simply want the President to answer Mrs. Sheehan’s questions. They accuse Bush of arrogance because he will not meet with her again and explain himself to her and to the American people.

As you can see from the quotes above- all taken from before the war and all in televised speeches—Bush has explained himself to the American people and continues to do so on a regular basis. In fact, the Congress actually voted on these positions to take us into war. So, the rationale for war has been discussed in both the Legislative and Executive branch at great length. Either Bush’s opponents are not listening or they are choosing to ignore him. Either way the anti-war left are the ones showing inconsistency and ever-changing rationales. The only consistent stance is their hatred for the President.

For a more articulate look at Cindy Sheehan’s supporters and the debate we should be having, you can read an excellent column by Jim Wooten at the Atlanta Journal Constititution here.

Liberals such as U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) call for a return of the draft, and others of his ilk are quick to call attention to politicians whose children are not serving in Iraq. But you never sense that the call is issued because they truly believe that the nation would be stronger if all its citizens accepted an obligation to military service, as it most certainly would.

It is, instead, a call that comes because they oppose President Bush's position on Iraq and believe a draft — as with the photos and running tally of dead soldiers — will turn the nation against him.

For my part, I yearn for that debate, for an honest no-other-agenda debate about the obligation each of us has to defend the country, without the liberty that no democracy can grant to pick and choose our wars based on whether we like the president or agree with his policies.
But that's not the debate they invite.

Excellent Idea

2005-08-18T16:44:00.000-04:00

Steel from the World Trade Towers is going to be used to build a new ship. The USS New York.

Closer to Home

2005-08-18T16:38:00.000-04:00

It looks like here in Georgia we may have a good primary race for Lt. Governor. Today, State Senator Casey Cagle makes a case for himself and a case for making the Lt. Governor’s Office relevant again.

In his first policy announcement of the 2006 GOP primary campaign, Cagle said he would reshape the office to focus on economic development.

He called for the lieutenant governor to be designated as a permanent member of the state's economic development board, the agency responsible for recruiting new business.

Read it all here.

"Lie-la-lie....."

2005-08-18T16:19:00.000-04:00

If you’ve ever argued about global warming with anyone, you know that the most common phrase uttered by those who believe it exists and is a man-made menace is "most scientists…" Then they proceed to accuse the Republicans of being luddites who ignore scientific findings.

Well, the facts are a bit different. When they refer to most scientists, they really mean most scientists that the left-leaning media talk to about it. It’s a bit more of that reality-based philosophy the left crows about so often. What are the lyrics to the Paul Simon song? "Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.… Lie-la-lie…."

Anyway, here is a well known and respected scientist, Roger Pielke Sr of the University of Colorado, who has just resigned from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program which was to report to the Senate. He felt that his work was marginalized because it didn’t fit with the politically correct global warming line.

I have given up seeking to promote a balanced presentation of the issue of assessing recent spatial and temporal surface and tropospheric temperature trends. The NY Times article today was the last straw. This entire exercise has been very disappointing, and, unfortunately is a direct result of having the same people write the assessment report as have completed the studies.

Their premature representation of aspects of the report to the media and in a Senate Hearing before we finalized the report has made me realize that, despite the claims of some of them to the contrary, only the minimal representation of the perspective that I represent will be begrudgingly included in the report. I also learned earlier this week that a member of the Committee drafted a replacement chapter to the one that I had been responsible for and worked hard toward reaching a consensus, which was almost complete. This sort of politicking has no place in a community assessment. If such committees are put together with no intention of adequately accommodating minority, but scientifically valid perspectives, then it would be best in the future not to invite such participation on CCSP committees.

His reasons for resigning and his findings on climate change can be found at his blog here.

“Inappropriate and Unacceptable”

2005-08-18T16:08:00.000-04:00

This is brilliant. The UN is now providing money for t-shirts and other paraphanelia encouraging terrorist attacks against Israel.

The United Nations' funding of a Palestinian Arab propaganda campaign timed to coincide with Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip has increased tensions between the U.N. and American officials.

America's newly installed ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, labeled "inappropriate and unacceptable" the United Nations Development Program financing of materials bearing the slogan "Today Gaza, Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem."

Mr. Bolton said yesterday that the UNDP had failed to explain why it funneled money to the Palestinian Authority to back the production of banners, bumper stickers, mugs, and T-shirts bearing the provocative slogan as well as UNDP logos.

Responding to angry reactions from Jewish and Israeli leaders, UNDP officials yesterday said financial support from the agency was intended to help the Palestinian Authority communicate with Palestinian Arabs during Israel's evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza.

Well, I am sure this the Dems can find some way to make this John Bolton’s fault.

Cryptkeeper

2005-08-18T16:07:00.000-04:00

This year’s winner of the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest. Here.

Warning! It is very ugly.

She Does Not Speak For Me

2005-08-18T15:52:00.000-04:00

Ronald Griffin lost a son, Spc. Kyle Andrew Griffin, in Iraq. In the Wall Street Journal, he looks at the Cindy Sheehan circus in Texas as well as some of the other grieving parents who aren’t getting the same media exposure.

I lost a son in Iraq and Cindy Sheehan does not speak for me.

I grieve with Mrs. Sheehan, for all too well I know the full measure of the agony she is forever going to endure. I honor her son for his service and sacrifice. However, I abhor all that she represents and those who would cast her as the symbol for parents of our fallen soldiers.

The fallen heroes, until now, have enjoyed virtually no individuality. They have been treated as a monolith, a mere number. Now Mrs. Sheehan, with adept public relations tactics, has succeeded in elevating herself above the rest of us. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida declared that Mrs. Sheehan is now the symbol for all parents who have lost children in Iraq. Sorry, senator. Not for me.

Our prayers are with you and your family Mr. Griffin and we are grateful there are people like your son in this nation.

How to Waste $80 Million

2005-08-18T15:35:00.000-04:00

Liberals have pledged to spend at least $80 million to start Liberal think tanks and advocacy groups to compete against what they see as Conservative dominance in this area. One of the problems is that they already outspend Conservatives in these area and several left wing groups that already exist have run out of money and shut down.

James Piereson looks at the problems these groups have and why the $80 Million might be pointless over at the New Criterion Blog.

Stein and his associates are fairly hard-headed in their assessment of the reasons behind the failure of Democrats and liberals to develop attractive ideas and proposals. Liberal groups, they say correctly, are organized mainly to protect an agenda that was enacted by Democratic majorities stretching back to the 1930s. They might have added that they are organized also around a few important Supreme Court decisions, primarily dealing with abortion and affirmative action. In any case, such a posture has made them reactive and reactionary rather than forward looking. As a consequence, they have not adjusted to new political and economic circumstances.

This is, as noted, correct as far as it goes, except that it does not go very far in diagnosing what ails the liberals. They should remember, as many Americans do, that liberals had an opportunity to enact their agenda in the 1960s and 1970s, and almost wrecked the nation in the process. It was conservatives and Republicans who rescued the economy, won the Cold War, and saved the cities from crime, stagnation, and welfarism. The liberals, because they controlled the television networks and the news media in general, along with the universities, concluded that they were in a position to dictate terms to their fellow citizens, and did not need to persuade anyone with facts, evidence, and argument. Thus the typical liberal approach to any situation was to issue demands or to file a lawsuit -- approaches that dispensed with the need to persuade anyone that their ideas were best for the nation. The rise of alternative television networks and newspapers has now rendered these tactics hopelessly ineffective. Now no one (except unfortunate college students) is required to pay any attention at all to the liberals. And most do not.

The highlighted portion above is relevant to my previous post in that the inability to engage in substantive argument using facts and logic seems to be pervasive on the left including at the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Read the whole thing here.

Welcome to Nuance

2005-08-18T14:39:00.000-04:00

I know that we Republicans are really troglodytes that haven't advanced beyond the days of quaint manichian dichotomies, but I would like to introduce you to the nuanced worldview of the Democrats. This is a world view that says that any change to social security is an attempt to steal old ladies' checks, that any tax cut is "for the rich," that any opposition to affirmative action is because of "racism," and will allow for only one reason for the War in Iraq at a time.

Let me introduce you to someone living in that world--Cynthia Tucker with the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

One would think that someone with a nuanced world view, like a liberal, and a job working with ideas and arguments at a major American newspaper would approach the issue of government funding for scientific research with a well-rounded editorial and a subtle understanding of the ethical dilemmas involved. Well, one would be mistaken. Apparently, in science, as well as race, war, entitlements and taxation, nuance really means simplification and name-calling.

Apparently the nuanced view today is that Bush is "declaring war on science."

Tucker begins her column by lamenting the loss of American know-how:

Whatever happened to good old American know-how? What became of those twin qualities of our national character of ingenuity and resourcefulness?

The nation could use a bit of those right now: Even as global petroleum reserves peak, we have no national program for developing alternative energy sources; NASA's shuttle program has been suspended indefinitely for fear of another disaster; and the South Koreans and others are outstripping us in vital genetic research.

Well, the answer to her question of missing American know-how may well be that ingenuity, ambition and talent have gotten caught up in the waste that comes with government funding. Scientisits are now able to spend decades wasting their time on research that shows no promise because the only investor they have to answer to is the US Government. Government funded research has to be dependent only on fads and to be able sell itself as the next miracle, regardless of the facts, in order to keep the government funds flowing.

That is if you believe that American know-how is failing us and that we are now at the mercy of cloned dogs in South Korea, but the nuanced view is notorious for being accompanied by pessimism. Optimism is so simplistic.

I'll skip over a bit to keep this post to a reasonable length. Tucker next complains of the President's opinions on intelligent design.

According to The Washington Post, Bush, in an Oval Office meeting with a group of Texas reporters on Monday, said, "Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about. . . . Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. . . ."

Like so many Americans who misunderstand scientific consensus, the president thinks there are two sides to the scientific debate about evolution. There are not. There is a side that teaches science-- that which can be tested and re-tested against the evidence at hand. And there is the side that favors teaching religion in high school biology classes. (No matter how much proponents of "intelligent design" try to clothe their views in the apparel of science, it is what it is: religion. Whose intelligence? Whose design?)

I agree that Intelligent Design is a largely unscientific belief that cannot be tested. However, the key piece of this nuanced argument that rings with subtlety here is the "Like so many Americans who misunderstand scientific consensus." I am glad to see that Ms. Tucker thinks so highly of the rest of us. Condescension is usually a vital part of nuanced arguments.

Bush also reiterated his opposition to broadening federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, despite growing Republican support for less restrictive funding. "They have the prerogative to pass laws. I have the prerogative to set limits on what I think is right," he said.

Of course, the nuanced position has utter contempt for backing up any of their assertions with evidence. The rightness of their argument is too obvious to have to bother. I suppose the "growing Republican support" Tucker mentions here might be referring to Senator Frist's public turnaround on the issue or is there some new poling data that shows a growing support among the GOP? I don't know. She never says.

This nation used to be exuberant about scientific achievement, confident (even arrogant) about our ability to solve any technological challenge, comfortable with the possibilities of scientific research. When the Soviets stunned the world with the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the United States rushed to the barricades with money for science labs and math classrooms. Nor was there any conflict among mainstream Christians about promoting scientific advancement.

But that was then. Now, this country is led by a cult of religious fundamentalists who wish to impose their narrow thinking on the rest of us. The dogma advanced by Bush and his ilk disputes more than a century of biological research, which relies on the foundations of Darwin's theories. It discounts the pain of countless sick and handicapped citizens, who might benefit from advances in stem cell research. It ignores the growing scientific prowess of other nations, including China and South Korea, where, just last week, scientists announced the successful cloning of a dog -- a stunning development.

Ah, now we get to the good part about nuanced left-wing thinking-- the name calling. If you look closely at the paragraph you may be able to interpret the sophistication in phrases like "cult of religious fundamentalists who wish to impose their narrow thinking on the rest of us." Now you as an uneducated reader may see this as simple name-calling, but you would be wrong. What she meant to say-- if she wasn't reverting to the condescension of the nuanced argument-- would be something along the lines of "people who might have some second thoughts about farming embryos and destroying potential human lives due to their conscience and beliefs." You simply have to read into the name-calling to see what Tucker really means here unless you are one of the "narrow thinking" individuals, of which, obviously, Ms. Tucker is not one.

And one question that Ms. Tucker fails to answer here is that if South Korea is showing such a scientific prowess by cloning a dog, does that put them ahead or behind Scotland which has cloned a sheep, the famous Dolly?

Never mind that millions of Christians, including me, are quite comfortable with the teaching of evolution, since it neither attempts to confirm or deny the existence of a Creator. Never mind that countless believers support broadening federal research on donated embryos that would otherwise be destroyed. The absolutes of a narrow minority rule the day.

Which absolutes is Ms. Tucker talking about? Could it be the absolute that denies that anyone who may have an objection to embryonic stem cell research might have an intelligent and persuasive argument for doing so? Is it the absolute that fails to even discuss the lack of success of any kind in embryonic stem cell research while advances are being made in adult stem cells (see here, here, here or here ) placenta cells and somatic cell re-programming-- none of which rely on embryonic stem cells? Maybe the absolute that she is referring to is the absolute that adult stem cells have already produced more than 140 treatments for patients suffering from spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease, stroke, cardiac damage, and multiple sclerosis while embryonic stem cell research has produced none? Or possibly it is the "absolute of a narrow minority" that refuses to mention that Bush and those "cult of religious fundamentalists who wish to impose their narrow-minded thinking on the rest of us" are spending $191 million of our tax dollars a year on adult stem cell research and another $54 million for embryonic stem cell research. Obviously, the absolute that Tucker is talking about must be the absolute belief that she is right and those who might disagree are uniformed neanderthals.

Tucker concludes with the favorite ploy of the nuanced thinkers.

If the great story of the last century was the conflict among various political ideologies -- communism, fascism and democracy --then the great narrative of this century will be the changes wrought by astonishing scientific breakthroughs. What seemed science fiction just yesterday will become an overnight reality --cures for Alzheimer's and spinal cord injuries, the development of advanced robots and nanotechnology, an incredible lengthening of the human life span.

The United States stood in the vanguard of the fight against communism and fascism, ensuring that democracy survived the last century and would flourish in the next. But in the race for scientific hegemony, we've tied a white lab coat to a stick and are waving it at Asia: We surrender.

In the nuanced world you can hold out hope for things that are complete fiction as long as you are trying to scare someone or sway them to your side with emotion. See most of the miracle cures that she mentions are science fiction. While she is right that they may become reality, they also may not and the keys may not be through embryonic stem cell research. The mention of a cure for Alzheimer's and spinal chord injuries are just a tool to make the whole argument look good. Tucker gives no evidence that these cures are even possible. It is all about emotion.

I could have attacked this column from a number of other angles, but attack what? She gave no facts and no solid arguments except that Bush and his supporters are ignorant narrow-minded people trying to deprive sick people of cures for their illnesses. The only thing this column contains is style and so that is all I had to go after.

My point here is that a subtle nuanced and responsible article would acknowledge that the opposing side has legitimate arguments and proceed to answer them in an intelligent manner supported by facts and logic. This, however, makes no attempt to do that. It simply accuses the President and Christians of standing for something that they don't, resorts to name calling and emotion to try to win the argument and completely avoids the facts involved in the argument while dismissing anyone who may disagree as "narrow."

In my mind that is hardly a sophisticated view of the world. But, liberals are more sophisticated than Republicans. Right? right?

Close only counts…

2005-08-05T15:36:00.000-04:00

in horse shoes and hand-grenades—unless you’re a Democrat. One of these two articles is a satire, the other is the real thing. See if you can tell which is which.

First sample:

Even though Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett lost Tuesday's special congressional election to GOP candidate Jean Schmidt 52 to 48 percent, Democratic leaders were delighted with the results, calling their Ohio loss "a shockwave of voter discontent." A Republican spokesman had a brief response: "We
won."

"This election is a shockwave of voter discontent that will be felt all across the country," said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel in a press release. "Every Republican in Congress should consider himself put on notice."

Second Sample:

Encouraged by their close loss in this week's special election for a vacant House seat in Ohio, the Democrat National Committee (DNC) has mapped a 50-state "virtual victory" strategy for 2006 and 2008.

"It feels so good to almost win," said DNC chairman Howard Dean. "We now believe we can rally our base around the hope of down-to-the-wire losses in traditionally Republican districts coast-to-coast."

It’s hard to tell the difference, isn’t it?

Enviro-Friendly Shuttle

2005-08-05T15:24:00.000-04:00

Over the past few years and especially over the last two weeks, I’ve wondered why NASA was having so many problems with those tiles on the shuttle. Well, there is an answer that is not getting much press. Political Correctness.

NASA was forced to obtain a more environmentally friendly putty from a New Jersey company, but almost immediately problems were noted. A July 23, 1985, memo by budget analyst Richard Cook warned about new burn-through problems with the O-rings.
…
Exploding and disintegrating space shuttles can damage the environment too.

Karl? No Karl Here.

2005-08-04T16:43:00.000-04:00

Bigfoot, The Lochness Monster, Karl Rove.
"There is no such organization as the CIA," McClellan said. "This is
tinfoil-hat stuff."

Hearts and Minds

2005-07-30T20:46:00.000-04:00

One of the silliest arguments that I have encountered from my anti-war friends is the argument that goes, "we shouldn’t be in Iraq, because it makes the rest of the world hate us." My response is usually "who cares?" It seems however that Bush’s position about changing the Middle East is actually improving our image around the world.

Max Boot at the LA Times writes about a recent poll taken on world opinion of the US:

The public opinion poll was conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, hardly a bastion of neocon zealotry. (It's co-chaired by Madeleine Albright.) Over the last three years, Pew surveys have charted surging anti-Americanism in response to the invasion of Iraq and other actions of the Bush administration. But its most recent poll — conducted in May, with 17,000 respondents in 17 countries — also found evidence that widespread antipathy is abating.

He has all the relevant figures here. His conclusion—once again, Bush was right all along.

What accounts for this shift? The answer varies by country, but analysts point to waning public anger over the invasion of Iraq, gratitude for the massive U.S. tsunami relief effort and growing conviction that the U.S. is serious about promoting democracy.
.....
That's exactly what President Bush has been saying. Though his actions and rhetoric have been denounced as "unrealistic" and "extremist" by his American and European critics, it turns out that Muslims welcome it. "Roughly half of respondents in Jordan and nearly two-thirds of Indonesians think the U.S. favors democracy in their countries," the new Pew study said. "About half of the public in Lebanon also takes that view." Imagine that: Bush's actions might actually be making Middle Easterners more pro-American!
Of course, public opinion is fickle, and there is still a lot of hostility toward the U.S. out there.
Even a small minority of extremists can cause mayhem similar to the London bombings. But at least there are some signs that the battle for hearts and minds in the Islamic world is far from hopeless.

Overestimating or Underestimating?

2005-07-27T14:00:00.000-04:00

With reminders of the threats we are facing in England and Egypt over the past few weeks, those on the left that insist that the War on Terrorism is just a tool that neo-cons are using to line their pockets and oppress the rights of citizens look more and more silly. But it does bring up the same question that was being asked before the Iraq War, do we assume the worst case and prepare for that or do we not act until we are 100% sure that there is a threat.

It turns out that in Britain, the week before the 7/7 bombings, British Intelligence was telling government officials that ‘‘at present there is not a group with both the current intent and the capability to attack the UK.’’ Of course, we know they were wrong. Jeff Jacoby writes about whether it is better to worry too much or better to worry too little about dangers to our security. His conclusion is right on target.

If intelligence failures are inevitable — and in a world of human fallibility, they are — we are better off worrying too much about our enemies and taking steps to defeat them than worrying too little and being caught, unready, when they attack. Worrying too much led the United States and Britain to topple a brutal tyrant. Worrying too little led to 9/11 and 7/7.

Smelling Fear

2005-07-26T18:35:00.000-04:00

Caleb Carr wrote an excellent piece for the Wall Street Journal that you can find here. In it he looks at the reasons terrorists attack when they do and what they hope to accomplish. After looking at a few specific examples, such as 9/11, the Madrid Bombings, and the London Bombings, Carr writes:

In all of these examples, then, the "trigger" for terrorist action was not any newly adopted Western posture of force and defiance. Rather, it was a deepening of the targeted public's wish to deal with terrorism through avoidance and accommodation, a mass descent into the psychological belief, so often disproved by history, that if we only leave vicious attackers alone, they will leave us alone. It is hardly surprising that by actively trying--or merely indicating that they wished--to bury their collective heads in the sand, the societies were led not to peace but to more violent attacks. Al Qaeda and terrorist groups in general have tended to press their campaigns of violence against civilians in areas where they have sensed disunity and a lack of forceful opposition. In the manner of clinical sociopaths, they seem to "smell fear"--and to find in it, not any inspiration to show mercy or accept accommodation, but a compulsion to torment all the more vigorously those who exude it.

Go and read the whole piece. It is excellent.

Heroes

2005-07-25T09:50:00.000-04:00

There is really nothing I could possibly add. Go to this website and watch.

Isakson and the Stem Cell Debate

2005-07-19T17:46:00.000-04:00

Here’s something involving GA’s Junior Senator that is not getting a lot of attention. With more and more progress being made with adult stem-cell research and new possible methods of creating stem cell lines without destroying embryos, Johnny Isakson seems to be changing his position on stem cell research legislation.

What really worries Harkin and his allies is that a bill funding the new approaches will draw support away from Harkin's own bill -- leaving Bush's rule firmly in place.

A good example is Senator Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican. He had long been counted as a Harkin supporter. Last week he wavered.

``If there's a way to get stem cells without destroying an embryo,'' he told Roll Call, ``then that is where (the federal government) should be making their investment, because the ethical and moral issues go away.''

Teaching PR

2005-07-19T17:34:00.000-04:00

At first, I was outraged at this story in the AJC about the city of Atlanta hiring Manning, Salvage and Lee to try to change the negative image of Atlanta’s Public Schools. My first reaction was that the money should go to actually teach the children? Why should tax dollars be spent to change the perception of schools instead of improving the schools?

After reading the story, I still think the money could be better spent, but two facts have softened my outrage. First, most of the $45,000 tab is being picked up by private sources, and secondly the schools have actually improved, but no one seems to know it.

The system has made significant changes in recent years under Superintendent Beverly Hall. Schools have adopted reform programs featuring intensive reading and mathematics lessons. Most principals have been replaced. Money has been poured into training teachers.

Students in the elementary grades have shown progress on standardized tests, with scores nearing state and national averages — remarkable results for a system that has long ranked among the state's worst-performing. But skeptics point out that the test scores decline sharply in middle school and that the system's SAT scores remain among the state's worst.

Hall has pleaded with the public to be patient, saying that middle and high schools should improve over time. She points out that the students who have been the target of most of the system's academic reforms are only now entering middle school.

I don't know how much of this is AJC spin, but it sounds like good news to me. More please.

In very related news, the results from George W. Bush’s "No Child Left Behind" Act are starting to come in. The test scores are encouraging. Mirroring the trend in Atlanta’s schools, young students showed marked improvement, while the older students still lag behind. Young Minority students show the most improvement. According to the New York Times:

The results were from a test given to 28,000 public and private school students in all 50 states during fall 2003 and spring 2004. It was the first time the federal Department of Education had administered the test since 1999.

Nine-year-old students, on average, earned the highest scores in three decades, in both reading and math.

In the reading test, the average score of 9-year-old black students increased 14 points on a 500-point scale, from 186 in 1999 to 200 in 2004. Reading scores of 9-year-old white students rose 5 points, to 226 in 2004 from 221 in 1999. As a result the "achievement gap" between black and white 9-year-old students narrowed to 26 points over those five years from 35. The gap was 44 points in 1971.

You're not likely to see this good news spread around much by liberal sources. Dr. Thomas Sowell's take is here.

And while most students are improving, I know some that won’t be.

Ebonics, a dialect of American English spoken by many blacks, was recognized as a separate language by the Oakland, Calif., school board in 1996.

Mary Texeira, a sociology professor at Cal State San Bernardino, believes the program will be beneficial to students.

"Ebonics is a different language, it's not slang as many believe,' Texeira told the Sun. "For many of these students Ebonics is their language, and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language."

While Republicans are being accused of being racists, a school district in California proceeds to marginalize a minority group even further from the American mainstream. I have only one question for Ms. Texeira and her supporters: If "Ebonics is a different language, it's not slang as many believe" then, where are the novels, the plays, the political and philosophical treatises, the great leaps in science and technology that have been produced in this language? I can think of an answer to those questions in almost any language you can name, but not one in Ebonics.

Update: Dr. Sowell has comments on this as well. Here.

Greg Gutfeld, Internet Star

2005-07-19T17:19:00.000-04:00

If you have not seen any of the posts by Greg Gutfeld over at the Huffington Post you should. You can read them all post (PEOPLE HATES US BECAUSE GEORGE BUSH IS BAD), I wasn’t sure if he was a raving loony on the left or if it was satire—it is so hard to tell the difference these days—but, as it turns out, he is a conservative with a wicked sense of humor. Check him out.

Fair Tax, Man of the Year and the BYRs

2005-07-12T16:33:00.000-04:00

I just want to point your attention to Neal Boortz's website today. One of the BYRs makes a brief anonymous appearance.

This weekend was the National YR Convention in Vegas and Jason Shepherd not only was named National YR Man of the Year, but was also instrumental in writing the YR platform. Today Neal Boortz takes note that one plank of the platform supports John Lindner's FairTax Bill. The resolution was unanimously approved at the convention. This makes Neal happy. The resolution is up at Boortz's website.

Good job, Jason.

Reminders

2005-07-07T17:22:00.000-04:00

I’m sure you have all read and heard about the terror attacks on Great Britain today. CNN has a good timeline of the events. This is truly a reminder that the War on Terror is a reality.

What strikes me is that the same divide that occurred several weeks after 9/11 began on 7/7 only hours after the attacks. A couple of weeks ago Karl Rove created a minor uproar from the left in this country with some remarks he made at a meeting of the New York Conservative Party. He said,

"Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." Conservatives, he said, "saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."

This caused a lot of Democrats to call for his resignation and generally act silly, but their base has spent at least today justifying those comments. Katie Couric tried to blame the Iraq War for today’s attack every chance she got. She just ignored the fact that Great Britain has one of the most extreme segment of the Muslim World living in London. A good write up is here (registration required. Via Instapundit)

In the past decade, the United Kingdom’s undisputed political, economic, and cultural center has also become a major world center of political Islam and anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American activism. Through its Arabic-language newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses, not to mention its flourishing network of bookshops, mosques, and community centers, radical Islam has taken full advantage of what British democracy has to offer for its anti-Western goals, reaping the benefits of London’s significance as a hub of global finance, electronic media, and mass communications technology.46 The effect of this with regard to anti-Semitism and virulent anti-Zionism has therefore been quite different from that found elsewhere in Europe: Although Britain’s Muslim population of about 1.5 million is only a quarter of that of France, the growing influence of London’s Muslims has given the most inflammatory of ideas a greater legitimacy in the capital’s political and cultural discourse than they enjoy virtually anywhere else.

If Couric can remember back before the Iraq War, she might recall that Richard Reid, the attempted shoe-bomber came out of those Mosques. Tuesday, in London, the trial of Islamic Cleric Abu Hamza al-Mazri began. He is being charged with 15 counts, including nine of soliciting to murder.

Couric isn’t alone in blaming Iraq. George Galloway Member of Parliament and Saddam Hussein crony was quick to issue a statement of appeasement.

We urge the government to remove people in this country from harms way, as the Spanish government acted to remove its people from harm, by ending the occupation of Iraq and by turning its full attention to the development of a real solution to the wider conflicts in the Middle East.

Only then will the innocents here and abroad be able to enjoy a life free of the threat of needless violence.

The lower down the Democratic food chain you go the loonier it gets. Over at Democratic Underground, opinion runs the gamut from it’s Bush’s fault for stirring up the terrorists to it was deliberately done to distract from some imaginary Karl Rove scandal.

I am so cynical... That all I can think is "how convenient" that this happened to take the light off Karl Rove.

I don't think anything is on the "up-and-up" anymore, not even terrorist attacks.

Check out the vileness and the stupidity here.

Meanwhile, on the flipside, you’ve got Blair,

"The perpetrators of today's attacks are intent on destroying human life. The terrorists will not succeed. Today's bombings will not weaken in any way our resolve to uphold the most deeply held principles of our societies and to defeat those who impose their fanaticism and extremism on all of us.

"We shall prevail and they shall not."

Bush,

"He'll carry a message of solidarity with him" as he leaves the G-8 summit for London, Bush added. "I was most impressed by the resolve of all the [G-8] leaders in the room and that their resolve is as strong as my resolve. ... We will not yield to the terrorists. We will find them; we will bring them to justice."

And even Anti-American Socialist Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is sounding Bushian:

"I want to say one thing: This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful, it is not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners," Livingstone told reporters.

"That isn't an ideology, it isn't even a perverted faith, it's mass murder," Livingstone said. "We know what the objective is. They seek to divide London."
…

"I know that you personally do not fear to give your own life in exchange to taking others [that is why you are so dangerous] ... but I know you do fear you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society ... in the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our seaports and look at our railway stations ... you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world, will arrive in London to become Londoners, to fulfill their dream and achieve their potential ... whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."

From most news accounts, British citizens made it a point to go to work and carry out as much of their daily routines as possible, including sporting events. I am sure as the days go by we’ll hear more stories of the British heroes of today and see more signs of resolve from Blair and the British citizens. We’ll also see more of the appeasers and apologists as they feel it is safe to give their opinions. We must remember who they are and what they say. As we’ve seen today, we have a long way to go in the War on Terror and we cannot let people like George Galloway or any of the posters at Democratic Underground anywhere near our National Defenses. They are simply not serious people.

What ever happened to the Fifth Amendment?

2005-06-24T14:55:00.000-04:00

The English political philosopher John Locke, whose ideas underlie the U.S. Constitution, proclaimed that "government has no other end than the preservation of property."

Those ideas were what prompted the Fifth Amendment which states no one can be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Now the U.S. Supreme Court by a 5 to 4 decision has struck a blow to private property rights and as usual, the liberal media is singing its praises.

The New York Times wrote, "The Supreme Court's ruling yesterday that the economically troubled city of New London, Conn., can use its power of eminent domain to spur development was a welcome vindication of cities' ability to act in the public interest. It also is a setback to the "property rights" movement, which is trying to block government from imposing reasonable zoning and environmental regulations."
The Limits of Property Rights (6-24-05), NYTimes.com

The majority Opinion for the Court was written by Justice John Paul Stevens and supported by David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, as well as Reagan appointee Justice Anthony Kennedy, who noted in his concurring opinion that states are free to pass additional protections if they see fit.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the minority opinion with Justice Thomas also dissenting.

Read the full Opinion of the Court with the Concurring Opinion and the Dissents.

Whatever was left of the idea that liberals were there for the "little guy" was destroyed yesterday by this opinion by the libral wing of the U.S. Supreme Court. These homes where not blighted, but nice, decent homes that were well kept and well cared for full of hopes, dreams and memories.

One home was bought in 1987 by a woman who wanted a nice home to fix up and where she could enjoy a nice quiet, waterfront view.

Another home was lived in by a woman who was born there in 1918. Her husband moved into the home with her when the couple married 60 years ago. Is it the new "liberalism" to tell this nearly 90 year old that her whole life must now be bulldozed for a new Coast Guard Museum and a TGI Fridays?

Whenever a liberal says Republicans are only for the rich and big corportations, remember that it was the liberal Democrats that handed over the property rights of the "little guy" over to the big boxed retailers and large scale developers.

If we're going to start letting local governments take property for economic development, I have 6 homes we can start with: Steven's, Ginsburg's, Breyer's, Souter's, Kennedy's, and the editor of the New York Times.

Winning

2005-06-21T19:10:00.000-04:00

I’ve spoken with a lot of Republicans who are very pessimistic about the way things are currently going in D.C. and I myself have felt exasperated about the lack of backbone among the Senate Republicans.

Today, in the Wall Street Journal, John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge make a case for optimism for the Republican agenda.

Conservatives whinge that George Bush has presided over a huge increase in federal spending. Social Security reform is stalled. A plan to deprive the Democrats of the power to filibuster Supreme Court nominees failed at the 11th hour, when seven Republican Senators defected. America is confronting protracted resistance in Iraq. And, needless to say, liberals remain firmly in charge of the commanding heights of American culture, from the Ivy League to the Hollywood studios.

All true. But it is time for conservatives to cheer up. Fixate on a snapshot of recent events and pessimism makes sense. Stand back and look at the grand sweep of things and the darkness soon lifts. There are two questions that really matter in assessing the current state of conservatism: What direction is America moving in? And how does the United States compare with the rest of the world? The answer to both questions should encourage the right.

Read the whole thing here.

Red On Red

2005-06-21T19:08:00.000-04:00

In an interesting post, blogger Bill Roggio looks at an amazing thing that is happening in Iraq.

From the NYTimes:

Late Sunday night, American marines watching the skyline from their second-story perch in an abandoned house here saw a curious thing: in the distance, mortar and gunfire popped, but the volleys did not seem to be aimed at them. In the dark, one spoke in hushed code words on a radio, and after a minute found the answer. "Red on red," he said, using a military term for enemy-on-enemy fire.

Marines patrolling this desert region near the Syrian border have for months been seeing a strange new trend in the already complex Iraqi insurgency. Insurgents, they say, have been fighting each other in towns along the Euphrates from Husayba, on the border, to Qaim, farther west. The observations offer a new clue in the hidden world of the insurgency and suggest that there may have been, as American commanders suggest, a split between Islamic militants and local rebels.

Real Torture

2005-06-20T20:03:00.000-04:00

Compare Guantanamo with the real torture chambers we found in Iraq this weekend.

When marines burst in, one of the captives was lying under a stairwell, badly beaten. At first, they thought he was dead.

The others were emaciated and battered. Mr. Fathil had fared the best. The other three were taken by medical helicopter to Balad, a base near Baghdad
with a hospital.

But he still had been hurt badly. Marks from beatings criss-crossed his back, and deep pocks, apparently from electric shock burns, were gouged in his skin.

The shocks, he said, felt "like my soul is being ripped out of my body." But when he would start to scream, and his body would pull up from the shock, they would begin to beat him, he said.

The terrorists should have tried playing Christina Aguilara. It apparently is as bad as torture can get.

Real Tax Cuts Have Curves

2005-06-20T20:02:00.000-04:00

That’s the title of a piece in the Wall Street Journal this weekend outlining the effects of Bush’s Tax Cut. If you want something to use against those envy-mongers who prattle on about "tax cuts for the rich" this is for you. Go and read.
Earlier this month the Congressional Budget Office released its latest report on tax revenue collections. The numbers are an eye-popping vindication of the Laffer Curve and the Bush tax cut's real economic value. Federal tax revenues surged in the first eight months of this fiscal year by $187 billion. This represents a 15.4% rise in federal tax receipts over 2004. Individual and corporate income tax receipts have exploded like a cap let off a geyser, up 30% in the two years since the tax cut. Once again, tax rate cuts have created a virtuous chain reaction of higher economic growth, more jobs, higher corporate profits, and finally more tax receipts.

Middle East Progress

2005-06-20T19:58:00.000-04:00

In better news in the Middle East, the anti-Syria party has won big in their elections.

And Kuwait gets its first woman cabinet member.

Who says the Bush Doctrine isn’t working?

Nazis, Gulags and Pol Pot

2005-06-20T19:47:00.000-04:00

I haven’t written much about the ridiculous statement by Senator Durbin on the floor of the Senate last week, but I really have little to add. It is another case of the Democrats acting insane while cementing their role as the minority party in America. Senator Durbin’s statement was this:

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."

Mark Steyn has written two excellent columns on this here and here.

But give Durbin credit. Every third-rate hack on every European newspaper can do the Americans-are-Nazis schtick. Amnesty International has already declared Guantanamo the "gulag of our times." But I do believe the senator is the first to compare the U.S. armed forces with the blood-drenched thugs of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. Way to go, senator! If you had a dime for every crackpot Web site that takes up your thoughtful historical comparison, you'd be able to retire to the Caribbean and spend the rest of your days torturing yourself with hot weather and loud music, as well as inappropriately provocative women and insufficient choice of hors d'oeuvres and all the other shameful atrocities committed at Guantanamo.

The only thing I have to add is that these Senators are not serious people and should be allowed nowhere near our foreign policy or defense issues. Durbin and his Democratic colleagues say that through are actions at Guantanamo Bay we are providing Al Queda a recruiting tool. I doubt that anyone who is joining the jihad is doing so because they are outraged about their fellow Muslims being subjected to Christina Aguilara in Cuba. I think the only people who are providing recruiting propaganda to Al Queda are know-nothing Senators who compare the US Military to Pol Pot and the Nazis.

To prove my point, this is from an Al Jazeera story entitled, "U.S. Senator Stands by Nazi Remark."

During a speech on Tuesday, Durbin, the Senate's number two Democrat, quoted from an FBI agent's report describing detainees at the naval base in Cuba as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."

Durbin is not alone in his criticism. Human-rights groups have long accused the administration of unjustly detaining suspects at the prison camp. Amnesty International last month called the detention centre the "gulag of our times".

If there is any doubt about how the Arab World is interpreting Durbin’s remarks go here and read the whole thing.

Fulton County Sheriff Recall

2005-06-19T20:18:00.000-04:00

For those of you interested, there is a movement to recall Fulton County Sheriff Myron Freeman triggered by the Brian Nichols shooting and the Sheriff’s response to it.

More info about the petition can be found at this website.

Update: Moving deck chairs on the Titanic.

BushHitlerNazis

2005-06-19T20:17:00.000-04:00

Jon Stewart's take on gratuitous Hitler references here.

Iranian Elections

2005-06-19T20:11:00.000-04:00

The Iranian "elections" were held this week. By elections I mean their sham elections. President Bush in a statement Thursday gave his opinion on them.

The Iranian people are heirs to a great civilization - and they deserve a government that honors their ideals and unleashes their talent and creativity. Today, Iran is ruled by men who suppress liberty at home and spread terror across the world. Power is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy.

The June 17th presidential elections are sadly consistent with this oppressive record. Iran's rulers denied more than a thousand people who put themselves forward as candidates, including popular reformers and women who have done so much for the cause of freedom and democracy in Iran.

Read the whole statement.

Now, the candidates are claiming fraud and protesting "the run-off" the Iranian Mullahs have set-up. As Iranian expert Michael Ledeen posted over at The Corner:

I am told by Iranian friends that the results of the "election" will show Moein (my "sleeper" pick) in first place, and Rafsanjani third. And the thuggish mayor of Tehran--I think--second.

Thereby setting up the morality play runoff of unknown reformer vs "conservative" thug. just what the mullahs want. so that when the "reformer" wins, the West will say, "well, we gotta give reform a chance."

Hopefully, the Democracy movement can use these claims of voter fraud as a reason to mobilize massive protests, much as the reformers did in Ukraine and Lebanon.

The New York Times actually reports on the voter fraud here. But CNN treats this as a real election here.

The Action President

2005-06-15T11:19:00.000-04:00

The President went after the Democrats at the annual President's Dinner last night.

I think this sums it up pretty well.

Members of the other party have worked with us to achieve important reforms on some issues. Yet, too often, their leadership prefers to block the ideas of others. We hear 'no' to making tax relief permanent. We hear "no" to Social Security reform. We hear 'no' to confirming federal judges. We hear "no" to a highly qualified U.N. ambassador. We hear "no" to medical liability reform. On issue after issue, they stand for nothing except obstruction, and this is not leadership. It is the philosophy of the stop sign, the agenda of the roadblock, and our country and our children deserve better.

Political parties that choose the path of obstruction will not gain the trust of the American people. If leaders of the other party have innovative ideas, let's hear them. But if they have no ideas or policies except obstruction, they should step aside and let others lead.

Horrors at Gitmo

2005-06-14T16:25:00.000-04:00

In reading the Time Magazine article about the "abuse" at Guantanamo, I was struck by how absurd it was. We now have defined abuse as things like playing Christina Aguilara music in the middle of the night, poking people with an index finger and invasion of space by females. I was going to go through it and post the highlights, but James Lileks has done it better than I could over at his blog.

isolation for as long as 30 days, removal of clothing, forced shaving of facial hair, playing on “individual phobias” (such as dogs) and “mild, non-injurious physical contact such as grabbing, poking in the chest with the finger and light pushing.”

If you’ve read accounts of the Soviet gulag you may recall the tales of men forced to march ten miles to a labor site in shoes made of cardboard and frozen spit, and digging hard dead beets from permafrost with hands that hadn’t seen mittens in three years. “Light pushing” in this context was a rifle butt to the chin, twice. Did the 19 methods in the Bill of Cruelty itemize “poking in the chest with the finger” as a separate method, or was it folded into a general go-ahead for acting like a high-school gym teacher? According to the log, al-Qahtani experienced several of those over the next five weeks.

Good.

Read the whole thing here.

Earlier today, Rumsfeld defended the U.S. policy at Guantanamo and pointed out that we actually spend more on food for the detainees than we do for food for our own servicemen and women. He went on:

"Detainees are sent to Guantanamo only after a proper screening process that identifies these prisoners who pose a threat to the United States or who have intelligence value," Mr Rumsfeld said.

"The kind of people held at Guantanamo include terrorist trainers, bombmakers, extremists recruiters and financiers, bodyguards of Osama bin Laden and would-be suicide bombers. They're not common car thieves; they're believed
to be determined killers."

I wonder if those people who talk about shutting down Guantanamo to help with our image have figured out that the same people who are attacking us now over Gitmo will just pick another prison or another target to complain about. Once we've shut it down it will be open season on our military. They will have learned that all it will take to shut down a military prison is a few complaints about a woman standing too close to them. That is not a message we should be sending.

And, Mark Steyn gives his take here.

But sure, go ahead, close Gitmo and wait for the rave reviews from the media — right after the complaints it's culturally insensitive to rebuild the World Trade Center when it's the burial site of 10 revered Muslim martyrs.

Guantanamo will be remembered not as a byword for torture but for self-torture, a Western fetish the jihad's spin-doctors understand all too well.

Health Care In Canada

2005-06-10T19:19:00.000-04:00

The next time you hear about how wonderful Nationalized Healthcare would be and some liberal points to Canada, you can tell them that the Canadian Supreme Court doesn’t agree. Yesterday, in a decision, they found that struck down a Quebec law banning private medical insurance. This is the explanation the New York Times:

The court ruled that the waiting lists had become so long that they violated patients' "life and personal security, inviolability and freedom" under the Quebec charter of human rights and freedoms, which covers about one-quarter of Canada's population.

"The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public health care system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care," the Supreme Court ruled. "In sum, the prohibition on obtaining private health insurance is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services."

Just remember this the next time you hear some Democrat talk about government provided healthcare.

Modesty

2005-06-10T19:17:00.000-04:00

From Heather MacDonald at NRO:

You gotta admire the liberal media’s modesty. For the last three years, it has been promoting the story that the Bush administration has a policy of torturing terror detainees. Now, such mouthpieces of the anti-administration Left as the New York Times are calling for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility on the ground that its reputation for prisoner abuse is jeopardizing the war on terror. Take some credit, guys! It may be true that Guantanamo Bay has become synonymous with lawlessness throughout vast swathes of the Western and Muslim worlds. But no one is more responsible for that reputation than the New York Times, Newsweek, the Washington Post, and other mainstream media outlets, which have never encountered a prisoner-abuse story that they didn’t find credible and worthy of broadcast.

Read the whole thing.

Iranian Protests

2005-06-09T23:13:00.000-04:00

One of the shamefully underreported stories has been the almost continual unrest in Iran over the past four years. With upcoming sham elections, there should be plenty of news coming out of Iran this month. The latest news is that the Iranian victory celebration over a win World Cup Soccer competition turned into a massive protest and was greeted by brutality by the Iranian plainclothes police force.

If you are interested in what is going on there you can read about it here, here and Regime Change Iran to find out the latest.

Rave On, Democrats

2005-06-09T22:47:00.000-04:00

In an earlier post, I pointed out some rather less than sane comments made by Democrats in recent days. It seems that the shrillness and desperation has grown over the last week.
On Monday, at a fund-raiser Hillary Clinton gave her opinion of Republicans.

"There has never been an administration, I don't believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," Mrs. Clinton told the audience at a "Women for Hillary" gathering in Midtown Manhattan this morning.

"I know it's frustrating for many of you; it's frustrating for me: Why can't the Democrats do more to stop them?" she continued to growing applause and cheers. "I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."

Stop laughing. I know the irony of anyone named Clinton accusing other people of lying is almost too much to bear, but there’s more.

Then, Howard Dean was at it again.

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, unapologetic in the face of recent criticism that he has been too tough on his political opposition, said in San Francisco this week that Republicans are "a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."
"The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people," Dean said Monday, responding to a question about diversity during a forum with minority leaders and journalists. "We're more welcoming to different folks, because that's the type of people we are. But that's not enough. We do have to deliver on things: jobs and housing and business opportunities."

He’s the best thing that could have happened to the GOP. Let’s just hope he hangs on for another couple of years.

Amnesty International fresh off of an offensive lack of perspective in which they compared the murder of millions of people in the Gulags of the Soviet Union to a few hundred prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, proceeded to dig themselves in deeper by calling for the arrest and trial of Bush, Rumsfeld and others.

If the US government continues to shirk its responsibility, Amnesty International calls on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior US officials involved in the torture scandal. And if those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them. The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998.

Foreign governments that are party to the Geneva Conventions and/or the Convention against Torture—and that is some 190 countries—and countries that have national legislation that authorizes prosecution—and that is at least 125 countries—have a legally binding obligation to exercise what is known as universal jurisdiction over people accused of grave breaches of the Conventions. Governments are required to investigate suspects and, if warranted, to prosecute
them or to extradite them to a country that will.

Amnesty International’s list of those who may be considered high-level torture architects includes Donald Rumsfeld, ...William Haynes, the Defense Department General Counsel..., and Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy....Our list includes Major General Geoffrey Miller, Commander of the Joint Task Force Guantanamo... former CIA Director George Tenet...

Not to be outdone by Amnesty, Rep. Charlie Rangel compares the Iraq War to the Holocaust.

"It's the biggest fraud ever committed on the people of this country," Rangel told WWRL Radio's Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter. "This is just as bad as six million Jews being killed. The whole world knew it and they were quiet about it, because it wasn't their ox that was being gored."

In fact, things have gotten so bad that even some of the Democrats are noticing and trying to distance themselves from the heated rhetoric. Nancy Pelosi rejected Dean’s comments yesterday.

"I don't think that the statement the governor [Dean] made was a helpful statement," Pelosi said, in quotes picked up by The Associated Press.

And, Joe Biden is running from Dean as well.

Asked about recent comments where Dean trashed Republicans as "evil" and said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay belongs in jail, Biden told ABC's "This Week," "He doesn't speak for me with that kind of rhetoric and I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats."

I don’t know exactly what to make of the increase in this kind of over-the-top talk. I’ve looked around at everything that’s going on in DC and America and don’t really see anything that Bush or the GOP has done to get them worked up.

I know that they think they’ve got 2006 figured out and think the way back into power is to follow Gingrich’s plan from 1994. They would be right if that’s what they were actually doing. But, what they think Gingrich did and what Gingrich actually did are not the same thing. Blocking Clinton’s unpopular programs—like healthcare, tax hikes, etc. is not the same thing as blocking nominees to the United Nations. And, Gingrich actually had a positive agenda to go along with the obstructionism. I really don’t remember insane name-calling to be a part of the Contract With America either. The great thing about Democrats is that they eventually end up believing all of the silly little stories they make up to make themselves feel better. This kind of behavior on their part will get them nowhere.

Bush Interview

2005-06-09T21:33:00.000-04:00

Foxnews has posted the transcript of a pretty good interview Neil Cavuto did with Bush. If you missed it you can read it here.

Gitmo Grovel

2005-06-04T22:22:00.000-04:00

Charles Krauthammer gives his usual brilliant take on Gitmo.

Let's understand what mishandling means. Under the rules the Pentagon later instituted at Guantanamo, proper handling of the Koran means using two hands and wearing gloves when touching it. Which means that if any guard held the Koran with one hand or had neglected to put on gloves, this would be considered mishandling.

On the scale of human crimes, where, say, 10 is the killing of 2,973 innocent people in one day and 0 is jaywalking, this ranks as perhaps a 0.01.

Read the whole thing here.

More Fun From Unhinged Democrats

2005-06-04T22:13:00.000-04:00

I posted earlier about the crazy comments coming out of "The Campaign for America's Future." Well, there's more. Linda Foley, president of The Newspaper Guild believes that there is only one side to every issue. Apparently, hers.

Claiming that conservative bias is a "major crisis in the U.S. media," a panel of liberal journalists and media analysts said news organizations should promote "truth" over "balance."

"The conservatives have got us, as a country, now believing that balance -- giving both sides -- is the same as truth, and there are some things that are just false," said Linda Foley, president of The Newspaper Guild, during a panel discussion on media reform at the "Take Back America" conference in Washington, D.C.

I'm glad she cleared that up. I guess if something doesn't fit her view of the world, it is "just false." Speaking of false news, this is the same Linda Foley, who two weeks ago accused the US Military of deliberately killing journalists.

"What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there’s not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq."

In case anyone missed the point, Foley restated her allegation:

"They target and kill journalists ... uh, from other countries, particularly Arab countries like Al -, like Arab news services like Al-Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios with impunity...."

Thanks for the help in the Middle East, Linda. Since she made that statement, she has been asked to provide some examples, facts, or evidence to back up the claim. She has yet to do so. "Truth over balance" indeed.

Buckhead Night Life

2005-06-04T22:04:00.000-04:00

I am 100% sure that nothing like this will happen at our Buckhead YR meeting-- well, maybe 80% sure. It depends on who's there that night.

When a group of New York natives hit the Buckhead party scene, it was supposed to be a wild girls' night out — just not this crazy.

Two of the women, then 23, have filed a lawsuit, expected to play out in court this summer, blaming a bartender and an Atlanta club, simply known as Bar, for a night that quickly spun out of control.

Candace Goodale claims that while she was dancing on top of the bar, a common behavior by Bar patrons, the bartender pulled her pants down and slapped a promotional Bar sticker on her exposed buttocks.

"I was wearing thong underwear, so my butt was exposed to everyone in the bar and my coworkers," Goodale said in a statement given to defense attorneys under oath. "So I'm sure you can understand the embarrassment of that."

Where Would These Materials Have Come From?

2005-06-03T20:32:00.000-04:00

I was under the impression that Hans Blix and company found nothing in Iraq. They were no threat. Bush lied, People died.

I'd like for the UN to explain this then.

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.

The Inmates Running the Asylum

2005-06-03T20:25:00.000-04:00

Howard Dean, Arianna Huffington, John Edwards and a host of other Democrats met in Washington, D.C. yesterday at something called "Campaign for America's Future." These people should be shown on every television station in the country between now and 2008. They've completely gone over the edge.

Some of the highlights include Dean on Election Reform. He claimed that some working parents have a hard time voting if the lines are long and some in Florida were 8 hours long. Then, he goes on:
"Well, Republicans, I guess, can do that, because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives," Mr. Dean said. "But for ordinary working people, who have to work eight hours a day, they have kids, they got to get home to those kids, the idea of making them stand for eight hours to cast their ballot for democracy is wrong."

He went on to make a few other charges that are completely false, such as claiming that Enron's crimes began as soon as Bush took office rather than taking place all throughout the nineties. He also showed his foreign policy acumen with this gem.

"Is there a problem with defense posture when we pick on dictators who are irrelevant to the United States and leave nuclear powers like North Korea alone?
Yes."

The guys over at Powerline have a good summary of some of Dean's absurdities.

Arianna Huffington also added her take to the proceedings by screeching at Hillary Clinton to set a date for an exit from Iraq or don't bother to run for President.

"If you're not comfortable setting an exit strategy," Mrs. Huffington said, "please point out someone who is, because American soldiers are dying every day, waiting for someone to set an exit strategy."
The consequences of such an exit strategy should be so obvious that I am not even going to go into it here.

I really can't do the shrill and hysterical nature of these speeches justice in print. They have to be seen and heard to get the full-tilt psycho nature of what the Democratic Party has become.

And how is this strategy working for them? Apparently not very well.

Charles Walker Guilty

2005-06-03T20:23:00.000-04:00

Augusta — Georgia Sen. Charles Walker, once the most powerful black politician at the state Capitol, was convicted late this afternoon on more than 125 counts of wrongdoing, including charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion.

He'll be replaced in the Senate with a special election. To fans of Senator Walker--Don't worry, I grew up in Augusta and I can assure you, he'll be re-elected the day he gets out on parole.

New York Times of the Airway

2005-06-03T20:12:00.000-04:00

I know, I know going to a Ted Turner interview for blogging material is the easy way out, but Atlanta's resident lunatic gave a lot to work with this week. During a celebration of CNNs 25th Anniversary, Turner opened up. I'll only touch on some his more ridiculous quotes. First, Ted stated the goals of CNN.

"I wanted to be the New York Times of the airway -- not the New York Post, but
the New York Times -- and that's what we set out to do, and we did it," he said,
referring to the tabloid.

There have been times over the last year when CNNs credibility has been about the same. Mission Accomplished.

Ted even has a plan for turning CNN into the number one News Network again. He'd like to see more "international coverage" and "environmental coverage." I can already see the ratings rise as the International reporters bash America and we watch junk science nonsense about the end of the planet. Thrilling stuff.

But, Ted gives credit where credit is due. He claims CNN International was Fidel Castro's idea.

In 1985, the network launched CNN International, an idea Turner said he got three years before when he met Cuban President Fidel Castro.
"He said, 'Ted, the whole world needs CNN. I use it all the time and it's very important to me.' So I said, 'Well, if Castro needs it, certainly the capitalists around the world could use it, and perhaps some other communists too.' "

Don't worry, Ted doesn't give away all the credit. Forget that Reagan fellow, Mr. Turner can tell you who won the Cold War.

Turner, not known for his modesty, credited his own efforts for helping to end the Cold War, and noted that he launched the Goodwill Games in 1986 as a
way to ease international tensions through sports competition.

"I thought, between sports and news and television and friendship, that you could end the Cold War and, by God, we did," he said.

He acknowledged that the size of his role is unclear. "It's hard to measure, and it doesn't really matter which straw breaks the camel's back. But it was an important straw."

I think the most offensive comment though came in defense of CNN's policy of turning a blind eye to Saddam Hussein's atrocities. On April 11, 2003 Eason Jordan, who was then Chief News Executive of CNN, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times confessing that CNN had willfully turned a blind eye to bad things going on in Iraq since 1990 in order to keep a news bureau there. There really is no excuse for this kind of covering for executions, and general mass murder. There is such a thing as journalistic standards and a society should be able to trust its news organizations to report the truth of things, or at least not cover up bad behavior. Jordan's Op-ed piece was a confession and somewhat of an apology. At least, he knew something was wrong with what they were doing. Not Ted, though. Here's what Ted had to say about it:

Turner also credited former CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan for
ensuring the network had the technical capability to broadcast from Baghdad when no one else could.

"Basically, by making friends all over the world, which included the Iraqi television people and (Deputy Prime Minister) Tariq Aziz -- the secretary of information or whatever he was -- we got access that others didn't, and when the war started, we were broadcasting and nobody else was.

"You know, by being nice, sometimes it works out real well. On the other hand, being nice to Gerry Levin didn't."

Turner was referring to the Time Warner chief executive who signed off on the merger with AOL in 2001. Levin has since left the company.

"I'd rather put myself in the Iraqis' hands than in some Americans'," Turner said.

Nice sense of perspective there, Ted.

Back to Blogging, Singing and Dancing

2005-06-03T18:44:00.000-04:00

I've been a little slack in blogging over the past week because I've been in Chicago. But, now I'm back and trying to get caught up. It has been an eventful week in Atlanta and the World, so I'll be posting alot over the next few days just to get back up to speed. In the meantime you really should go amuse yourselves with the Marvelous Crooning Child Eugene Mirman . Or if your more into dancing go here. Fascinating!

(hat tip: The Corner)

Ego-Busting at the WSJ

2005-05-26T17:55:00.000-04:00

Peggy Noonan's take on the filibuster deal does some much needed deflating of some Senatorial egos.

You've heard the mindless braying and fruitless arguments, but I'm here
to tell you the facts, no matter what brickbats and catcalls may come my way.
Lindsey Graham defied the biases of his constituency to do what was right, not
what was easy. Robert Byrd put aside personal gain to save our Republic. David
Pryor ignored the counsels of hate to stand firm for our hopes and dreams. Mike
DeWine protected our way of life. These men are uniters, not dividers.
How do I know?

Because they told me. Again and again, and at great length, as they
announced The Deal. And I believed them, because I am an idiot. Or as they might
put it, your basic "folk" from "back home."

Read it all.

More Saddam/Al Queda Ties

2005-05-26T17:54:00.000-04:00

One of the bits of "conventional wisdom" the left likes to point to is that Saddam had no ties to Al Queda. Although this has been proven wrong several times, for example the 911 Commission stated that Saddam had dealing with Al Queda, but there was no evidence of operational coordination, they continue to repeat that Saddam had no ties to terrorists. Well, Iraqi Premier Allawi has released a report cataloging Saddam's contact with Al Queda, including dealings with Al Queda number two-man Ayman al-Zawahiri. You can read the whole article here.

More Middle East Reform

2005-05-26T17:53:00.000-04:00

Election Reform in Egypt. I suppose this has nothing to do with Iraq.

GOP Gets Rolled Again

2005-05-24T11:43:00.000-04:00

According to the American Heritage Dictionary a compromise is defined as "a settlement of differences in which each side makes concessions." This so-called compromise on the judicial nominees in the Senate is no such thing. It is outrageous. It is not a compromise, but simply a loss for the GOP.

So, let's look at this "compromise." What did the Republicans gain? So far, it looks like they got votes for three judges. The rest are still going to be filibustered. What did they give up? The main thing they gave up was a reasonable solution that would have put an end to Democrat shenanigans in the future, especially for Supreme Court nominees. Now, what did the Dems gain? They avoided a humiliating loss that would have prevented further obstruction. They also gained power and momentum by facing down spineless Republican Senators and they preserved the right to use the filibuster on judges in "extraordinary circumstances." I know what "extraordinary" means to Democrats-- not much. What did the Dems give up? Three judges. That's it. They gave up nothing.

If you don't think the Republicans lost, don't take my word for it, listen to Harry Reid last night.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid later welcomed the deal and indicated
Democrats would continue to filibuster Myers and Saad, likely dooming their
nominations.

"This is really good news for every American," the Nevada Democrat told
reporters. "Checks and balances have been protected."

Reid said the agreement sent President Bush, Vice President Cheney and
what he called the "radical arm of the Republican base" the "undeniable" message
that "abuse of power will not be tolerated."

Does that sound like compromise to you? Not to me. To me it sounds like someone who has just won a huge victory.

When are the Republicans going to learn? The Democrats already intend to apply that "extraordinary circumstances" to several judicial nominees. The Republicans have learned nothing in the last 30 years. You'd think they would have learned after Bush 41 agreed to raise taxes in a "compromise" with the Democrats. They proceeded to break their end of the deal and beat Bush over the head with his tax hike for the next 2 years. You'd think that Campaign Finance Reform would have shown that the Democrats weren't dealing in good faith since they were planning to exploit the 527 loopholes before the bill was even passed. Apparently, neither of these lessons sunk in. Maybe a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee might finally get the message through. The Democrats play to keep and the Republicans are spineless. Did it never occur to McCain and the others that the reason these clowns were even talking to him is because they had already lost and were trying to salvage something out of the mess they created.

Last week, I was talking to some other Republicans about the 2008 Presidential prospects. When McCain's name came up I pointed out that he showed enormously bad judgment in passing Campaign Finance Reform. It has become a huge mess producing the opposite outcome he intended. One person in the group defended McCain and asked if one error in judgment should exclude him from the Presidency. Fair enough, but now we have this. If McCain sincerely believes that this "compromise" solves anything, his judgment is more seriously flawed than I thought. One poor decision is an error, two and it starts to become a pattern.

The only thing this "compromise" has done is emboldened the Democrats to more bad behavior in the future and allowed a handful of moderate, no spineless Republicans, to weasel out of making a tough call until a later date and become heroes to the left wing media. Shameful. I would also say that it has sunk at least two Presidential ambitions. McCain, of course, and Frist. Frist's ineffective leadership does not augur well for any Presidential Primary.

Phony Concern for the Cooling Saucer

2005-05-23T16:56:00.000-04:00

One of the joys of my Monday mornings is waking up to the radio alarm only to be greeted by Eleanor Clift's weekly dose of half-truths and spin. (I would set the alarm for later, but I've been shamed into getting up earlier.) It makes for an irritating start to every week-- but it does get me up and moving. This morning, Ms. Clift was giving a brief history lesson of the Founding Fathers' intentions in creating the Senate. Her history was lacking in a few details, but the main purpose was to point out that the Senate was supposed to be "The Cooling Saucer" for the Nation's passions-- the place where calm heads prevail. That is why the Senate is different than the House and every state has equal representation (equal in number, not necessarily quality, my apologies to New York and California.).

Clift was concerned that if the Senate voted to change the filibuster rules, the Senate would be nothing more than a copy of the House. Any change in filibuster rules would change the very nature of the Senate. This seems to be the current Democratic Party line. There are however, like most Democratic party lines, several omissions, contradictions and simple ignoring of the facts involved.

The Senate used to be different from the House until the "progressives" amended the Constitution to have Senators directly elected instead of chosen by their State Legislatures. That move went a long way to changing the supposed level-headed nature of the Senate.

Secondly, as Eleanor Clift so deftly skipped over this morning-- skipping back to FDR-- the Senate rules used to require 65 votes to shut down a filibuster. The rule was changed in 1975 to only require 60 votes, so these sacred rules traditions don't seem to be so sacred after all.

Finally, if the "cooling" nature of the Senate is so important, explain why for the first time in American History 41 Senators are filibustering a Presidents judicial nominees. It would seem to me the time for handwringing about changing the nature of the Senate was before changing 200 plus years of tradition-- not after.

Surprise, Security and the American Experience

2005-05-23T16:42:00.000-04:00

I know that in the past several months, I have recommended to many of you a small book called Surprise, Security and the American Experience by John Lewis Gaddis. This is a series of lectures that Gaddis gave at Columbia University looking at the Bush Administrations approach to American security and putting Bush policy in context by looking at the other two attacks on American soil by the British and Japanese. It is by no means completely pro-Bush, but it does look at the policies coming out of the White House in a rational and fair manner. I would highly recommend that you read it. It is informative, fascinating and best of all-- short.

I said all of that to point you to this website that has a recent speech given by Gaddis about his meeting with President Bush and the current policy directions of Bush's Second Term Foreign Policy. It is also well worth reading.

Laura Bush Unleashes a Tsunami of her own on... Katie Couric

2005-05-23T16:33:00.000-04:00

Laura Bush apparently took on Katie Couric on this morning's Today Show. She defended the U.S. Soldiers and suggested that the media's treatment of abuse was overblown. Tim Graham over at The Corner has the details.

Katie Couric suggested that it’s a matter of opinion whether the majority of American troops are abusive to Muslims: "In your view, is the administration holding the people who are doing these things, and perhaps they are in the minority as you say, but do you think they’re being held sufficiently accountable?"

Mrs. Bush took exception to Katie’s P-word: "Yes I do. I mean there’s
investigations going on the people are being held accountable and it’s not
‘perhaps in the minority.’ We know it’s very, very few people. A handful of
people. We know that overall our troops are serving with distinction. They’re
very helpful to the people where they are. They’re building schools, they’re
refurbishing schools. They’re drilling well waters so that villages have clean
water. They’re helping both Afghanistan and Iraq as they build they’re
countries. They’re training troops in Iraq and policemen there."

George W. Bush has unleashed a tsunami on this region

2005-05-23T11:29:00.000-04:00

A Jordanian of deep political experience at the highest reaches of Arab
political life had no doubt as to why history suddenly broke in Lebanon, and
could conceivably change in Syria itself before long. "The people in the streets
of Beirut knew that no second Hama is possible; they knew that the rulers were
under the gaze of American power, and knew that Bush would not permit a massive crackdown by the men in Damascus."

Read the whole thing.

The MSM Still Don't Get It

2005-05-22T20:02:00.000-04:00

I am sure that I don't need to fill you in on the Newsweek Story about flushing the Koran down the toilet. For those who are not up-to-date on it you can go here for a rundown.

Let me make a couple of observations about the events.

First, despite the press's circling the wagons to protect Newsweek, they are at fault. They should have been well aware of what the reaction to the story would be. To run a story like that based on one anonymous source is irresponsible. The attitude they take that basically tends to focus on the supposed wrong-doings of the American military does major damage to the War on Terror and our attempts to change the dynamics of the Middle East. Especially, since the suspicion of the US Armed Forces is not justified. This is how Gitmo Personell are required to handle the Koran.

The detailed rules require U.S. Muslim personnel to use both hands when touching
the Koran to signal "respect and reverence," and specify that the right hand be
the primary one used to manipulate any part of the book "due to cultural
associations with the left hand." The Koran should be treated like a "fragile
piece of delicate art," it says.

But, does the media immediately expect the worst from the U.S. Military? According to Terry Moran of ABC in an interview with radio show host/blogger Hugh Hewitt:

"There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media.
One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that
American projection of power around the world must be wrong. I think that that
is a hangover from Vietnam, and I think it's very dangerous."

I'll get back to Terry Moran by the end of this post.

As far as Newsweek's editors go Neil Boortz has some new editorial guidelines. And, Ann Coulter has some ideas of her own here.

Secondly, even though Newsweek should have known the reaction to their story, we can't leave the Muslim world itself out of all blame. The fact that they would riot and kill each other over rumors of someone flushing a Koran down the toilet is barbaric. In fact, although, I think a lot of this has to do with giving Newsweek cover, writers as diverse as David Brooks, Thomas Friedman, and Jeff Jacoby all rightly point out the responsibility of the Muslim world itself in the riots. This is the radicalism we are up against.

My third point is who cares? Why would this be big news? Abuse of prisoners, torture, dragging them around naked on dog leashes, that is news. Those are abuses and should be dealt with, but ripping pages from a book? If the folks at Newsweek think that that is torture or even newsworthy, they need to change their standards. The only value this story had was as a gotcha to the U.S. Military and the Bush Administration.

In fact, it may have been the detainees themselves who tried to flush the Koran. According to General Myers:

Myers said the only incident recorded in the prison logs was of a detainee
tearing pages from a Quran and using them in an attempt to block a toilet as a
protest, and even that incident, he said, was unconfirmed.

"It's a log entry that has to be confirmed," he said. "There are several
log entries that show that the Quran may have been moved and detainees became
irritated about it, but never an incident where it was thrown in the
toilet."

Lastly, it is becoming clear that the media still has failed to realize that the things they write or broadcast have major consequences far beyond hurting the Bush Administration. The New York Times this week in a blatent effort to give Newsweek cover publishes an account of plainly horrible murders of two Afghani detainees at Bagram. The events happened two years ago and those responsible are currently charged with those murders.

At least, this story is actually news, even if it is old news.

The other example is more ridiculous. At a press briefing earlier in the week White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was interogated by reporters about the Newsweek story. Terry Moran and Scott McLellan had the following exchange:

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, it's what I talked about yesterday. This report, which
Newsweek has now retracted and said was wrong, has had serious consequences.
People did lose their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been
damaged; there is lasting damage to our image because of this report. And we
would encourage Newsweek to do all that they can to help repair the damage that has been done, particularly in the region.
And I think Newsweek can do that by talking about the way they got this wrong, and pointing out what the policies and practices of the United States military are when it comes to the handling of the Holy Koran. The military put in place policies and procedures to make sure that the Koran was handled -- or is handled with the utmost care and respect.
And I think it would help to point that out, because some have taken this report
-- those that are opposed to the United States -- some have taken this report
and exploited it and used it to incite violence.

Q With respect, who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it's
appropriate for you, at that podium, speaking with the authority of the
President of the United States, to tell an American magazine what they should
print?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not telling them. I'm saying that we would encourage
them to help --

Q You're pressuring them.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm saying that we would encourage them
--

Q It's not pressure?

Terry Moran accusses the White House of pressuring Newsweek to retract a false story. I know the press wants this badly to be the Bush Administration's fault, but Mr. Moran doesn't quite understand that his silly allegations of "pressure" by the White House have repurcussions. This is from a CNN story:

But Muslims said they suspected that pressure from Washington was
behind the magazine's climbdown, Reuters reported Monday.

"We will not be deceived by this," Islamic cleric Mullah Sadullah Abu
Aman told Reuters in the northern Afghan province of Badakhshan.

"This is a decision by America to save itself. It comes because of
American pressure. Even an ordinary illiterate peasant understands this and
won't accept it."

I wonder where they got that conspiracy theory from? Any ideas, Mr. Moran? We already understand that the media is against Bush, but the question remains who are they for?

Update: Mark Steyn, as always, has an excellent column on this here.

Why Did the Dems Lose the South Again?

2005-05-22T18:44:00.000-04:00

The New York Times provides yet another example of why the Dems are losing the Red States.

For a certain segment of the population, Nascar's raid on American culture
-- its logo festoons everything from cellphones to honey jars to post office
walls to panties; race coverage, it can seem, has bumped everything else off
television; and, most piercingly, Nascar dads now get to pick our presidents --
triggers the kind of fearful trembling the citizens of Gaul felt as the Huns
came thundering over the hills. To these people, stock-car racing represents all
that's unsavory about red-state America: fossil-fuel bingeing; lust for
violence; racial segregation; run-away Republicanism; anti-intellectualism (how
much brain matter is required to go fast and turn left, ad infinitum?); the
corn-pone memes of God and guns and guts; crass corporatization; Toby Keith
anthems; and, of course, exquisitely bad fashion sense.

The article gets a little better and a little less condescending, but the whole gist of the article is basically examining the neaderthals in the Red States.

I Told You So

2005-05-21T22:50:00.000-04:00

Back in 2001, shortly after the Chinese had taken the pilots of our surveillence plane prisoner and before 9/11, the Buckhead YRs had an expert on Asia from one of the local universities come and talk at one of our meetings on US/Asian relations. During the Q&A session after his talk I suggested that one way of countering the threat of a Chinese superpower would be to improve our relations with India. My thinking was that a close relationship with India would not only keep China occupied on its Western border, but also provide us some leverage with Pakistan. His response was not favorable. I can't remember what he said exactly, but to paraphrase it was something like, "Why would we do that, you fool?"

Well, to show that I can hold a grudge as well as anyone, I wanted to post this link. It appears that someone in the Bush administration had a similar idea. Not exactly a brilliantly original idea, but not as ridiculous as our speaker thought.

For Those Young Republican Men

2005-05-21T22:43:00.000-04:00

The New Jersey GOP keeps your fantasies alive. You always knew they were out there. Enjoy!
(hat tip: The Corner)

And If Byrd Doesn't Get Under Your Skin...

2005-05-21T22:39:00.000-04:00

just look what the PC crowd has done to Cookie Monster. Have these people never been children? Jonah Goldberg, of course, has an appropriate response here.

Call The Political Vine...

2005-05-21T22:27:00.000-04:00

the theocracy is creeping onwards. Robert Byrd takes to the floor of the Senate to give us his interpretation of the Book of Esther and how it applies to filibusters. You can listen to it here. (Hat tip:radioblogger) Frankly, I don't understand how an ex-KKK member and a man who helped filibuster the Civil Rights Act can get away with this, but he seems to get a free pass from the press. It must be the "D" by his name.

GA GOP Racists

2005-05-21T22:20:00.000-04:00

In news closer to home, while GA Democrats were busy wrapping themselves in chains and calling GOP legislators names over voting reforms, the GA GOP were busy erasing laws that actually kept legal voters from voting. The news is a few weeks old, but I noticed this did not get nearly the attention it deserved.

Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a set of bills Thursday that erased the last vestiges of Georgia’s segregation-era "Jim Crow" laws.

The move was largely symbolic, since none of the language designed to skirt
racial integration has been enforced for decades. But Perdue said it was
important to show that the state rejects such notions, calling segregation "a
tragic era in our past."

I am sure the last few Democratic Governors intended to do it, but never got around to it.

Senator Diplomat

2005-05-21T22:14:00.000-04:00

After his tirade against John Bolton earlier this week, you'd think that Senator Voinovich must be the most mild-mannered diplomatic man in the Senate. He said of Bolton last week,

"Rather, Mr. Chairman, it is my opinion that John Bolton is the poster child of
what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be...The world needs an
ambassador who's interested in encouraging other people's points of view and
discouraging any atmosphere of intimidation."

And does the Senator practice what he preaches? You be the judge. This is from the Cincinnati Enquirer June 5, 1996.

As it often does when the president flies, the FAA issued a Temporary Flight Restriction, commonly referred to as a no-fly order.
When this order is in effect, no planes other than essential aircraft are cleared for takeoff. That reduces the chances of a terrorist staging a kamikaze attack on Air Force One.
The order kept the governor and his plane on the ground. And he was honked.
Gov. Voinovich called it "bull"-something and ordered his pilot to break the
rules and take off. He even dared the control tower to "shoot us down." That,
too, would have cost. One hour of flying time for an F-15 Eagle fighter jet runs
$3,399 to $4,037.
The pilot followed orders and took off. The FAA responded by slapping the governor with a standard $1,500 fine.
The governor's fighting that fine, and tax dollars are footing the bill. He has hired a
Columbus law firm to fight for his right to fly the friendly skies of Ohio.
We're paying his lawyers' $95-an-hour fee. Their bill could top out at $20,000.
The governor says he's entitled to the money because he was on official
business.
Too bad he wasn't thinking as a respected public official would, much
less an adult.

The Powerline guys have the whole story here.

Terrorism in the Homeland

2005-05-21T21:41:00.000-04:00

Domestic Terrorism- I must be talking about Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, or the Unabomber, right? Not quite. I wonder why we never hear about the worst of domestic terrorism. Maybe, the Democrats quoted at the end of this article provide an explanation.

And Sen. James Jeffords also issued a statement expressing doubt about the
target of concern.
"Congress can't do much about individual extremists committing crimes in the name of ELF or ALF, but we can act to significantly enhance the safety of communities across the nation," the independent from
Vermont wrote.

(hat tip: The Corner)

Bush's Inaugural Dreams- Dominos are Falling

2005-05-21T21:32:00.000-04:00

There have been some positive developments concerning Democracy in the Middle East. Read about them here and here. I know, I know, Bush had nothing to do with any of it. Some Lebanese feel differently.

And in Cuba a possibly unrelated democracy movement gains momentum.

First Post- The Water Is Fine

2005-05-21T20:46:00.000-04:00

After much hesitation and consideration, I have decided that if Arianna Huffington can put numbskulls like Jim Lampley spreading nonsense about stealing elections, and Norman Mailer musing about the U.S. government planting the Koran Newsweek story then I can’t do much worse. Since I spend most of my time surfing the blogs anyway, I thought I would use my wasted time to the benefit of the BYRs and visitors to the site. So, I am jumping into the blogosphere feet first. Unlike most of the lunatic left, I can at least spell correctly-- most of the time. I will, however, begin with this disclaimer. Anything that I post up on the BYR blog will be my opinion and does not reflect Official BYR positions. I intend to post observations, links, news and arguments that I think you might find interesting or amusing. If you disagree or think I’m on the wrong track, jump on and give me your comments-- debate and discussion is what blogs are all about.

Bowers for Supreme Court Justice?

2005-04-28T11:38:00.000-04:00

Governor Perdue's office sent out the following press release concerning finding a replacement for retiring Justice Norman Fletcher:

STATE OF GEORGIA
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

Sonny PerdueGOVERNOR

For Immediate Release Contact: Office of Communications
Wednesday, April 27, 2005 (404) 651-7774

Judicial Nominating Commission to Receive Georgia Supreme Court Nominations

ATLANTA – Governor Sonny Perdue’s Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC) is now accepting nominations to fill the vacancy on the Georgia Supreme Court created by the retirement of Justice Norman S. Fletcher.

Members of the Georgia Bar Association and the public may submit nominations to Michael J. Bowers, chair of the JNC, by May 6, 2005. Nominations may be sent by mail to 14 Piedmont Center, Suite 1100, 3535 Piedmont Road, N.E., Atlanta, GA 30305 or by fax to 1-866-547-3433.

For each person nominated, the JNC will send a questionnaire to be returned on or before May 18, 2005. The questionnaire will also be available on the State Bar of Georgia website – www.gabar.org. The Commission will meet to interview nominees on May 23-25, 2005.
The JNC will select and recommend to the Governor a short list of up to five nominees who are found to be “qualified” or “well qualified.” Governor Perdue will make the appointment from this list of recommended nominees.

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Why not the head of the JNC, Mike Bowers for Supreme Court Justice? He has been an invaluable resource to our party (he could retire on a private island is he actually billed the Republican Party, our candidates and elected officals for all of the legal help he gives).

But is his past still too much with him? It's been almost 8 years since he ran for Governor. Is it time to draft Bowers out of electorial retirement and ask him step up again and serve our state and its people in public office?

Welcome to the BYR Blog

2005-04-26T12:32:00.000-04:00

The Buckhead Young Republicans launch ourselves into the Blogosphere and become the first YR organization in Georgia to host a blog site. Be sure to visit and post often!