HunterByrd

Boaz Chapel

I don't understand, Ms Diaz

In its entirety from Drudge:

CAMERON DIAZ ELECTION SCARE: 'IF YOU THINK RAPE SHOULD BE LEGAL, THEN DON'T VOTE' Thu Sep 30 2004 12:12:11 ET

On Oprah's Wednesday 'voting party' show featuring important celebrities like P. Diddy (Vote or Die!), Drew Barrymore and Christina Aguilera, svelte suffragette Cameron Diaz took to shock tactics to get the female vote out.

After a discussion with Oprah on lynching and the vote, Diaz spoke of the dire consequences for women if they sit out this election:

Ms. DIAZ: We have a voice now, and we're not using it, and women have so much to lose. I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies. We could lo--if you think that rape should be legal, then don't vote. But if you think that you have a right to your body, and you have a right to say what happens to you and fight off that danger of losing that, then you should vote, and those are the...

WINFREY: It's your voice.

Ms. DIAZ: It's your voice. It's your voice, that's your right.

What is this celebrity saying? I'll give you my guess: She hates Bush so much, she doesn't know how to say another thing. Get out the vote!

What sort of 'insurgents' or 'Iraqi resistance' kills babies?

I guess the dark force kept notes on the unthinkable Chechan foray and thought it some more.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Three bombs exploded at a neighborhood celebration Thursday in western Baghdad, killing 35 children and seven adults, officials said. Hours earlier, a suicide car bomb killed a U.S. soldier and two Iraqis on the capital's outskirts.

The bombs in Baghdad's al-Amel neighborhood caused the largest death toll of children in any insurgent attack since the conflict in Iraq began 17 months ago. The children, who were still on school vacation, said they had been drawn to the scene by American soldiers handing out candy.

What sort of 'Iraqi partisan' intent upon the continued destabilization of the Iraqi struggle for peace and stability would stoop to killing children? Innocents! People on the left in this country say the Iraqi war is not about terrorism -- it is now!

Remember well Beslan. The plague of dark, murderous insanity is spreading. We are on the side of right, and we must keep the backbone stiff as a 4-inch plank. As Roger Simon says, we are on the side of the angels.

In the al-Amel bombings, grief-stricken parents wailed over the bodies of their children at the Yarmouk Hospital morgue. One woman tore at her hair before pulling back the sheet covering her dead brother and kissing him.

One man carried his younger brother - both legs bandaged - to the hospital, where some children were put two to a bed because of the many wounded. Outside, women sat on the ground and wept as they awaited news about their children.

Of the three blasts, it is reported that two of them were suicide car bombings. From what little I have learned thus far, suicide bombings have been carried out almost exclusively by non-Iraqis, i.e., non-Baathists. Think Zarqawi. Think pure islamic terror. I wonder...what do genuine Iraqi insurgents think about this latest atrocity? Can they continue to reconcile their own interests with these actions?

Has to be Bush...

Within the past few days, I've been hearing various predictions on the outcome of the election. It started in the 'sphere', then bled onto the radio, then TV, and now (at least in my corner of the world) it has spilled onto the street.

The verdict from Republicans, Democrats, pundits, and apathetics alike: George W Bush.

I have been called 'everyman', and this is my opinion, too. My guess is that these water-cooler, lunch-counter, and grain-bin soliloquies are playing out in a uniform fashion all across the fruited plain. The great chorus of national decision has begun.

ADDENDUM:

Nearly two in three likely voters who support President Bush -- 65 percent -- said they were "very enthusiastic" about their candidate while 42 percent of Sen. John F. Kerry's supporters express similarly high levels of enthusiasm for their choice, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News Poll.

That's a 23-point difference in relative excitement. Although the polling record is incomplete for earlier elections, the available data suggest that the enthusiasm gap in the 2000 presidential campaign was negligible, at best.

Source: Washington Post.

Many of the out-in-the-open Kerry voters I know don't talk him up the way Bush or Clinton voters did their respective candidate. It's obvious now. It's hard to get pumped up over a guy who has the most orange face in the crowd.

MoveOn attacking Pollsters. What's next?

The folks at MoveOn produced a full-page attack ad of Gallup's presidential poll results, and placed it in the NYT. MoveOn is quite disturbed that the poll's results have Bush hovering around a double-digit lead over his opponent. They point to "seven other polls" that put Bush just 3 points up. They claim Gallup refuses to fix a known error in its methodology concerning 'likely voters'. It becomes clear that the group simply cannot abide with such bad news coming from the most widely-known pollster in the pack, and accuse George Gallop of Christianity.

Gallop, who is a devout evangelical Christian, has been quoted as calling his polling "a kind of ministry." And a few months ago, he said "the most profound purpose of polls is to see how people are responding to God."

Mark Blumenthal, a Democrat and no stranger to the art and science of polling weighs in at Mystery Pollster. It is a good read, if you follow the numbers.

Call me a partisan, but I always thought that this sort of guilt-by-association smear of someone based on an exercise of a constitutional right – no matter how disagreeable – was something that Liberals fought against.

* * * *

I may not always agree with the decisions of the methodologists at Gallup, but I have no doubt they are professionals who exercise their best objective judgment in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom. We should respect that.

The folks at MoveOn respect one thing: their mutual, unrelenting hatred of George Bush. So much so, that they attacked a polling company! And how about the ad hoc sliming of scores of millions of folks who consider themselves evangelical Christians? Wonder how many more votes they'll dredge up for Kerry with the ad?

Plato's shadow is behind you

Hey Mikey Moore, spin this!

Looks like JFKerry is having a problem with 'slippage'. He's lost serious ground in the Gore2000 states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey! What gives?

Bear in mind that this is a state where unemployment remains close to 7 percent and where you would think that Mr. Kerry's attacks on Mr. Bush's handling of the economy and jobs would have blown the president out of the water. But not only is Mr. Bush gaining, he is nearly tied with Mr. Kerry in such heavily unionized, Democratic stronghold cities as Saginaw, Flint and Bay City.

Political observers say the reason for Mr. Kerry's decline is Iraq and the war on terrorism. Voters mention the economy and jobs first among their biggest concerns, but on the issues that are foremost in their minds when choosing a president are terrorism, homeland security and finishing the job in Iraq. They trust Mr. Bush more than Mr. Kerry to do a better job on these pivotal issues, pollsters say.

* * * *

Pollsters and some Democratic strategists say that shifts are coming from voters in Mr. Kerry's Democratic base, largely women concerned about terrorism and national security.


JF'nKerry. We all know anything is possible between now and the definitive 11/2 poll. I say you cannot keep a good man down, no matter how much or how often an inflamed left screams 'bloody murder!' to the contrary. Bush. Love him. Hate him. He is who he is. He knows how to make up his mind, and he has shown he can live with the consequences. It's the vision thing.

These thoughts brought to you by Donald Lambro, senior political reporter at The Washington Times.

Bless American Immigrants

A commentor struck a chord this morning.

I opined that a lot of the American electorate did not care about politics because their lives are simply too comfortable to care.

"I'm often amazed at how foreign immigrants or persons I meet abroad know more about this country and the world than many a red-blooded American." Moomont is on the money.

A friend of mine recently died. Like George Soros, he was born in 1930 and was a Hungarian refugee. While still in Europe, he witnessed the cruel politik of Nazi occupation, followed by the boot of Soviet Russia. He came to America in the mid-50's, on his last dime. He arrived here homeless and without a job. He craved the possibilities inherent in a free life. In the beginning, he held three menial jobs at one time, and worked to exhaustion. He did not complain; he celebrated. In 1958 he raised his hand and took the oath of American citizenship. In time, sheer, unmitigated industriousness resulted in his own fledgling business. He prospered mightily. In the end, he had personalized plates on his BMW.

My late Hungarian friend was proud of the homeland he left. But that pride of birthplace paled in comparison to the love he had for America. He championed America. He championed the thought that hundreds of thousands of young men (and a few women) risked and lost their lives for the cause of freedom. His was intoxicated by freedom. This man knew more about US history and the political landscape than most people with post-graduate degrees. He constantly reminded his new American brethren of the miracle that surrounded them. When someone complained about how hard life had become, he would invariably answer, "Yes, but you live in America. You can turn things around, here!"

Andy was, in an odd way, sort of like that kid in ‘The Sixth Sense’ who saw ghosts, except instead of seeing dead people, he saw possibility. Immigrants, yesterday and today, see the miracle of the United States. They inhale it like a man starved for air. We fortunate few who have known nothing else in our lives take this freedom for granted. It is as if we do not see it. So many of us complain. So many of us are negative and cynical. And for what? Because we couldn’t care less? Because we don’t know better?

My Hungarian friend, in the end, was no different from you or me, except that he walked the mile in the other man’s shoes. He knew the difference. I hope another man like Andy comes to my small community before long – they’re like a shot of B12 to the psyche.

Vox Ignorami

Jonah Goldberg highlighted examples from James Bovard's book, Freedom in Chains, of mass ignorance found in the United States. Some of them are less than comforting:

In 1995, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found — two months after the election that put the GOP in control of the House for the first time in 40 years — that 39 percent of Americans didn't know what the Contract with America was.

In 1996, a Washington Post/Harvard survey found that "four in ten Americans don't know that the Republicans control Congress; and half either think the Democratic Party is more conservative politically than the GOP or don't feel they know enough to offer a guess."

In 1987, 45 percent of adult respondents to one survey answered that Karl Marx's dictum "from each according to his ability to each according to his needs" was in the U.S. Constitution.

In 1991, a study commissioned by the American Bar Association found that a third of Americans did not know what the Bill of Rights was.

Defies belief. . . Who am I kidding? Of all the people I know, very few of them are politically-oriented, -motivated, or even -interested. When life is good...and it is good here in America, folks tend not to care about party politics. There's no reason to.

Mr Goldberg's piece this morning at NRO is a quality read. He makes good points about current 'political' movements, such as gay marriage and the push to re-enfranchise convicted felons. These are not populist movements because everyone wants them, they are afloat because the people within those respective classes are making a lot of noise. Well, the re-enfranchisement issue probably has a lot to do with Dems wanting to get as many folks onto the liberal plantation as possible...but I get his point.

Thune may finally douse Daschle

If South Dakota candidate John Thune defeats rival incumbent Tom Daschle on November 2, that one victory alone would be a significant defeat for the Dems. Daschle's face was the Dem face for three years post-2000. Daschle symbolized the bitter, stonewalling partisanship of the liberal left ever since Algore conceded that his lawyers could not, in the end, purloin the White House for him.

This GOP poll indicates Thune is up 3 points.

Life must be miserable for her there.

I just read a column by Debra Saunders at The San Francisco Chronicle, entitled With Friends Like This . . . I expected another helping of hollow pap that one generally finds in liberal newspapers. What I found were the impassioned words of a conservative, outing the Streisandish, negative blather of the left-of-center in general, the Kerry campaign in general.

Bush may be down 13 points in California, today, but I am heartened that some folks in that great state keep level heads and speak the truth. I suppose the Chronicle must receive credit, too, for having Ms Saunders.

Young Mourning Dove

Revenge Factor

John O'Sullivan has a sobering opinion piece in the Chicago Sun Times, entitled Modern evil demands medieval response.

But as Bacon pointed out: "Revenge is a kind of wild justice." It will inevitably -- and arguably rightly -- become the resort of decent people when law and government fail to deliver justice. Post-modern governments fail in just that way. Humanitarian bodies such as Amnesty International are even worse: They practice a sort of unilateral civil libertarianism that holds governments to account for the smallest infraction of civil liberty but treats terrorism as a natural disaster. Transnational bodies like the U.N. and the EU are worse -- they seek to take the weapons of war and capital punishment from us in our struggles against terrorism, slavery, piracy and hostage-taking and to force us to rely instead on their own paper resolutions and elevated principles.

All these responses -- from the critical reactions to "Man on Fire" to the E.U.'s prohibition of capital punishment -- are overcivilized. That sounds almost like a compliment, as if it meant more civilized. In fact, to be overcivilized is to be less civilized because genuine civilization includes a robust willingness to enforce its order and truths on anarchy, violence, murder and superstition.

George W Bush is vilified for the way he's handled the greatest threat of our age. Contrary to 'overcivilized' leftist opinion, I think he has it right, and that under his watch, the core of all that is right and decent in America has been protected .

Profiling Yusuf Islam

"The Cat" has an opinion piece in todays LATimes. The title: "Something Bad has Begun". I suspect the title is not his, because the tone and tenor of the article in which he recalls his and his daughter's recent, very unpleasant experience with the FBI is not condemnatory.

Had I changed that much? No. Actually, it's the indiscriminate procedure of profiling that's changed. I am a victim of an unjust and arbitrary system, hastily imposed, that serves only to belittle America's image as a defender of the civil liberties that so many dearly struggled and died for over the centuries.

I can't say that I disagree. Profiling, however hastily it was imposed, is in the instance of terrorism a necessary evil, Mr Islam. Necessary. There was no terror profiling before 9/11, and you can dang sure bet it was hastily imposed -- out of necessity. Whoever has a better, more discriminate idea of how terror-profiling can be accomplished, let's hear it.

As to the person who came up with the title, thanks! You miss the point. Something 'bad' began when the lives of 3000 innocent people were taken - indiscriminately - by 19 islamic terrorists.

Blogger World

Farhad Manjou has an excellent story at Salon about political blogging. You'll have to read a multi-part ad before you get access, but it's worth it. Here are some excerpts:

[Markos] Moulitsas [Zuniga, owner of the left of left site Daily Kos] concurs; on the Web, it's springtime for number crunchers. "I've always been a political junkie," he says. "But never before like this -- there's no way I could have kept up with a Senate race in South Dakota, or a House race in Nevada, it just was not possible. Now, every newspaper's online, and with Google News I can have all this stuff e-mailed to me when news happens. I've set up all sorts of keywords; I'm always getting all this stuff. It's a whole different environment."

* * * *

In this sense, what we're seeing in this election cycle is truly novel; amateurs, the political junkies whose interest in politics used to go unfulfilled, now find themselves holding some of the mightiest data in politics, the kind of dish they used to drool over.

Most of the writer's examples are center-left, but the story will probably resound well with you if you are a 'political junkie'. My better half says 'junkie' is blase. Yeah, it has gotten a lot of use over the years, but I think it's never-the-less apt.

Bruce the Boss of Thoughts

Bruce Springsteen gives a lengthy interview to (who else?) Rolling Stone. Interviewer Jann S. Wenner, Rolling Stone's founder, asks no 'hard' questions of the Boss, at least in the sense that he lets Springsteen get away with sweeping 'these grandiloquent statements are fact, Jack' statements. There are no 'give me specific examples' follow-up questions. Mr Wenner is on the same track as his subject. The 'angle' of this entire exercise is 'vote Kerry'...

The Boss is heading up the 'Vote for Change' concert tours this political season for the purpose of raising money for America Coming Together, an anti-Bush, non-profit '527' organization. One of ACT's principal contributors has been George Soros. Check out this link to an earlier story involving allegations over some of their down-stream, or trickle-down, get-out-the-vote activities.

Anyway. Bruce Springsteen is a much beloved artist, imprinted as deeply upon a generation of Americans as, say, Bob Dylan or Woody Guthrie were in their time. Mr Springsteen, however, has chosen to take his show onto the political stage. Well, good for him. He's lost a lot of listeners though, myself included. I'm not into the artist-as-political-shill thing. I would rather they keep their dialogue on a higher plane.

An artist should stick to higher thoughts and sentiment. You can make any kind of observation, speak to the truth of any issue as you see it without muddying yourself in politics. Bob Dylan did it strictly through his songs. At one time, John Fogerty accomplished the same thing. To my knowledge, Mr Dylan never delved into a 'get out the vote' mentality. He didn't have to. Most people knew where he probably stood on great issues of the day, but it didn't matter -- he kept his dialogue on a higher plane. As a result folks of all political stripes and colors were drawn to him, and are to this day, myself included.

Here are a few excerpts:

I felt we had been misled. I felt they had been fundamentally dishonest and had frightened and manipulated the American people into war. And as the saying goes, "The first casualty of war is truth." I felt that the Bush doctrine of pre-emption was dangerous foreign policy. I don't think it has made America safer.

Look at what is going on now: We are quickly closing in on what looks an awful lot like the Vietnamization of the Iraq war. John McCain is saying we could be there for ten or twenty years, and John Kerry says four years. How many of our best young people are going to die between now and that time, and what exactly for?

* * * *

It was something that gestated over a period of time, and as events unfolded and the election got closer, it became clearer. I don't want to watch the country devolve into an oligarchy, watch the division of wealth increase and see another million people beneath the poverty line this year. These are all things that have been the subtext of so much of my music, and to see the country move so quickly to the right, so much further to the right than what the president campaigned on -- these are the things that removed whatever doubt I may have had about getting involved.

* * * *

A lot of people think that you have no right as an artist to comment on this or play a role in politics.

I don't know if a lot of people think that. It is something that is said. It's sort of part of the "Punch and Judy" show that goes on when people disagree with what you're saying.

* * * *

One of the most disturbing aspects of this election is that the machinery for taking something that is a lie and making it feel true, or taking something that is true and making it feel like a lie -- the selling machinery has become very powerful. Senator Kerry has to make people pay attention to the man behind the curtain. He has to take the risk and rip the veil off the administration's deceptions. They are a hall of mirrors and a house of cards.

For Senator Kerry, the good news is he has the facts on his side. The bad news is that often in the current climate it can feel like that doesn't matter, and he has to make it matter.
What do you think of how the election is being covered and conducted through the press?

The press has let the country down. It's taken a very amoral stand, in that essential issues are often portrayed as simply one side says this and the other side says that. I think that Fox News and the Republican right have intimidated the press into an incredible self-consciousness about appearing objective and backed them into a corner of sorts where they have ceded some of their responsibility and righteous power.

The Washington Post and New York Times apologies about their initial reporting about Iraq not being critical enough were very revealing. I am a dedicated Times reader, and I've found enormous sustenance from Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd on the op-ed page. There has been great reporting, but there has also been some self-consciousness in some of the reporting about the policy differences in this election.

So there you have it. Springsteen believes Fox News has intimidated the press. He's found "enormous sustenance" from the likes of Maureen Dowd. See? This is what happens when entertainers take on the role of pundit from the stage. They are replacing their higher truths with politispeak. Politics can be, and are, enormously entertaining, but they don't mix with song and dance, or film for that matter (unless you're a shill to begin with, like Michael Moore, or politics is THE basis for your act, like Capitol Steps).

You know, we all have a right to speak our minds. Everyone of us. But there are natural consequences that one must accept as part of the territory.

Foggy Dawn

Believe it or not.

True statements from the campaign trail:

"Terrorism is not Saddam Hussein. Terrorism is Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan." "Afghanistan is one thing; Iraq is another."

"Osama bin Laden is now Osama bin lost." "He may now become Osama bin found in short order. Who knows?"

"Never again should an American boy or girl go to war because of our greedy need for oil."

"Day One of his presidency, every child in America will have health care. Period."

"Tests should be a measure that is enabling, not disabling." "Tests that are a trap are sinful."

These statements are 'Terayza' Heinz-Kerry's, and they need no interpretation.

This great campaigner has the complete and total right to her soapbox this season, but jeez! Just jeez! Is she really that limited in her thinking and observations, or is she dumbing down her message for the shrill masses? I mean, a woman doesn't get to be $500 million rich without some grey matter upstairs. Surely this woman wouldn't insult the electorate's intelligence on such a grand, sound-bite scale.

This story was found at Polipundit.

Carter sets the stage?

Could be. He writes an opinion for the Monday WaPo edition in which he claims "The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair. "

Our former President continues his unprecedented foray into bitter partisan politics this year. He says Florida has not achieved a 'nonpartisan election commission' or 'uniform voting procedures', two crucial components required for a fair and balanced election.

It was obvious that in 2000 these basic standards were not met in Florida, and there are disturbing signs that once again, as we prepare for a presidential election, some of the state's leading officials hold strong political biases that prevent necessary reforms.

He accuses Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood of bias. She's Republican, so what? What political affiliation did U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright hold? Ms. Hood is constitutionally sworn to uphold the law (not doing so can get her in trouble, no?). Where did the trouble in 2000 occur? In heavily Democratic areas, that's where. In heavily Democratic areas under the control of Democratic operatives! So, if basic standards were not being met...

Several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000, and a fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons.

Really, Mr Carter? What were the technicalities? Why didn't you elaborate upon the 'fumbling attempt' to disqualify all of those people. Are you accusing someone of racism? If you are, who? Convicted felons are disqualified everyday from exercising their right to vote -- it is a sanction for committing serious crime, sir. Why only 61 Hispanics? No words there...

Carter wants "maximum public scrutiny" in Florida at election time. Fine. I want somebody watching the lawyers.

Here is an example of liberal snowballing: This editorial has become 'news'. Check out this gleeful BBC story.

Posh Totty

Mark Steyn is a shot of espresso after dreary hours of Kerry's soapbox cynicism. In his latest Chicago Sun Times column, he rips Kerry's vapid attack on Iraq's Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

His decision to break the time-honored tradition of keeping out of the way during the other guy's convention by rushing on the air within an hour of President Bush's speech to give an instant response was boorish and petty. But, given that his ''midnight rambler'' routine in Ohio was a disaster, there didn't seem much point dwelling on it.

But last week he did it again. Ayad Allawi, the first prime minister of post-Saddam Iraq, was in Washington to give a joint address to Congress. A tough, stocky, bullet-headed optimist, Iraq's interim leader delivered a simple, elegant and moving speech, which made three basic points:

''First, we are succeeding in Iraq. [Applause] It's a tough struggle with setbacks, but we are succeeding . . .

''The second message is quite simple and one that I would like to deliver directly from my people to yours: Thank you, America [Applause] . . .

''Third, I stand here today as the prime minister of a country emerging finally from dark ages of violence, aggression, corruption and greed . . . Well over a million Iraqis were murdered or are missing . . .''

Kerry didn't show up for Allawi's visit to Washington -- he was in Ohio again, which is evidently becoming the proverbial Vietnam-type quagmire for him.

And:

Just for the record, Allawi is not living in a fantasyland. He's living in Iraq, and he begins his day with a dangerous commute across Baghdad's ''Green Zone.'' John Kerry's regular commute, by contrast, is from his wife's beach compound at Nantucket to his wife's 15th century English barn reconstructed as a ski lodge in Idaho. Nonetheless, he's the expert on Iraq and the guy living there 24/7 is the fantasist, and he's happy to assure us the prime minister doesn't know what he's talking about. It's all going to hell, forget about those January elections, etc.

What a small, graceless man Kerry is. The nature of adversarial politics in a democratic society makes George W. Bush his opponent. But it was entirely Kerry's choice to expand the field, to put himself on the other side of Allawi and the Iraqi people. Given his frequent boasts that he knows how to reach out to America's allies, it's remarkable how often he feels the need to insult them: Britain, Australia, and now free Iraq. But, because this pampered cipher has floundered for 18 months to find any rationale for his candidacy other than his indestructible belief in his own indispensability, Kerry finds himself a month before the election with no platform to run on other than American defeat. He has decided to co-opt the jihadist death-cult, the Baathist dead-enders, the suicide bombers and other misfits and run as the candidate of American failure. This would be shameful if he weren't so laughably inept at it.

And Mark's comments concerning the joint press conference held by Bush and Allawi:

Iraq's the No. 1 issue in American right now, and they've got the go-to guy right in front of them, and what do the blow-dried poseurs of the networks ask:

''Mr. President, John Kerry is accusing you of colossal failures of judgment in Iraq . . .''

NBC guy: ''A central theme of your campaign is that America is safer because of the invasion of Iraq. Can you understand why Americans may not believe you?''

CNN: ''Sir, I'd like you to answer Senator Kerry and other critics who accuse you of hypocrisy or opportunism . . .''

They're six feet from Iraq's head of government and they've got not a question for him. They've got no interest in Iraq except insofar as they can use the issue to depress sufficient numbers of swing voters in Florida and Ohio.

Who's living in the fantasyland here? Huge forces are at play in a world of rapid change. As the prime minister said, ''We Iraqis will stand by you, America, in a war larger than either of our nations.'' But the gentlemen of the press can barely stifle their ennui. Say what you like about the old left, but at least they were outward-looking and internationalist. This new crowd -- Democrats and media alike -- are stunted and parochial, their horizons shriveling more every day.

So for Kerry the new world war is just a wedge issue. After their schooling in Switzerland, those well-mannered English gels used to describe themselves as ''finished.'' If he wasn't ''finished'' after graduating from the Institut Montana in Zug in 1955, this week John Kerry is looking finished in a far more American sense.

Yeah, I know. I've just put most of Mark Steyn's column in this post. He is a fabulous voice of truth in this pathos-ridden landscape. Read him often. As I have said, and a thousand others like me, this fellow's pen is the proverbial sword of scathing wit, and it is on the right side of most issues, especially the 'Kerry issue'.

Bust my britches!

Check this out -- Democratic Voter Fraud. Everyone knows it's the vile RNC that "suppresses" the vote. Shocked, I tell you!

Pelicans over Dauphin Island

NYT turns on Kerry 'Caution' light.

Reporters Adam Nagourney and Jodi Wilgoren provide a story that sums up the general feeling that Kerry is just too nuanced for command. Bright, inquisitive, thinking. Give him that. One can study and thoroughly prepare the game plan, but as Jesse Jackson said:

"A boxer needs a manager and needs a cut manager in the corner and needs someone to handle the towels. But once the bell rings, a boxer needs his instincts."

It's the 'instincts' thing Kerry lacks. How many times has he shifted his position on Iraq? One can know the issues very well but thorough knowledge does not equate with credible action -- that quality is paramount in the efficient prosecution of the office of President of the United States.

In interviews, associates repeatedly described Mr. Kerry as uncommonly bright, informed and curious.

But the downside to his deliberative executive style, they said, is a campaign that has often moved slowly against a swift opponent, and a candidate who has struggled to synthesize the information he sweeps up into a clear, concise case against Mr. Bush.

Even his aides concede that Mr. Kerry can be slow in taking action, bogged down in the very details he is so intent on collecting, as suggested by the fact that he never even used the Medicare information he sent his staff chasing.

***

His habit of soliciting one more point of view prompted one close adviser to say he had learned to wait until the last minute before weighing in: Mr. Kerry, he said, is apt to be most influenced by the last person who has his ear.

Has the definite ring of truth.

A Military Lawyer's Perspective from inside Iraq.

Anyone who reads international news on a daily basis is quite aware of the United States and its ongoing struggle in Iraq. Much of the American population -- it seems -- is dead set against our presence there (it's all based upon a 'lie', you see). Just as many Americans, on the other hand, while cognizant of the lurching feeling of war and its uncertainty, believe the cause is right, just, and moral -- for reasons amply stated in the blogosphere.

Most of us who are interested are far away from the theater of operations, and get our news the best way we can. One of the greatest sources is the individual blogger in Iraq, be he or she Iraqi, or military personnel. One such blogger is Eric of Dagger Jag. He is an attorney within 1st USArmy Div, 2nd Brigade.

The excerpt below is from a post which responds to a concerned commenter's fundamental questions over the basis of the US Military's presence and purpose in Iraq:

You see, there's a viscious cycle of violence here in Iraq that, in many cases, feeds off of the poor, unemployed, and disillusioned. The projects we initiate are contracted to Iraqi companies that employ thousands of laborers and provide a much needed infusion of cash into the local economies. (Our soldiers don't actually go out and build all these projects.) We're trying to tackle the economic issues because, as the economy improves, so will security.

We advise local leaders because they really do need some assistance in figuring out how to run a government outside of a dictatorship. Again, it may seem strange that soldiers are advising government officials on democracy, civil society and the rule of law. But I think many Americans would be surprised at the talant and skills that our soldiers and officers have. In addition to being able to "find, fix and destroy the enemy through fire and maneuver" we have engineers, scientists, economists, doctors and, yes...even lawyers whose skills are being used each day. There are undoubtedly other organizations that would be better suited to advise local Iraqi leaders but, for some strange reason, none are willing to come and lend their expertise (at least not outside Baghdad).

This young officer may not be a polished journalist, but he writes well enough, and he is in Iraq, on the ground. I'll take his 'take' any day over NPR's Daniel Shore spouting off Pugh research statistics which indicate all of the Arab world and most of Europe despise our efforts to do the right thing.

Did Allawi "Murder" six of his countrymen?

I received a comment to an earlier post about the Iraqi Prime Minister's recent visit Stateside.

"Yeah, great Iraqi PM there...this is the guy that murdered six men, by his own hand, within days of taking power, as a way of making an example. He's one step above Saddam . . . " writes Phil von Bargen of Private Idaho. I enjoy frequent forays to Phil's left-of-center site; I abhor the tunnel vision which develops from sticking close too close to 'the comfort zone' of one's own point-of-view.

The gist of this tale is that "Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings." According to two anonymous witnesses, 12 Iraqi policemen and four Americans in Allawi's personal security detail "stood by in stunned silence" as the new Prime Minister shot the men, just days before the transfer of power in Iraq.

The Allawi government, of course, issued patent denials.

I recalled the incident. There was a fair amount of internet traffic about it in early July of this year. A few news outlets picked up the story, such as the Sydney Morning Herald, and ran reports and editorials. The story is abominal, and if true...my commenter would be correct in his assertion that Allawi is akin to Saddam. Equally wretched, however, is the fact that so many people take the allegations as gospel, and if false, their belief would be akin to a national pathos in line with that of many Al Jazeera readers the world over.

So, I performed the most rudimentary of Google searches. I found no MSM treatment of the Allawi-as-killer meme. No stories from CBS, ABC, NBC, NPR, WaPo, NYT, or LAT? What gives? None of these organizations are construed as shills of the current administration, folks. If these secretive witnesses spoke to Paul McGeogh of the SMH, then why not with other reporters. Sixteen witnesses (in addition to the two secretive ones?) are said to exist...and nothing from them since? I know statesiders love a good conspiracy theory, but that many people can't keep a secret of such magnitude...and still live and breathe.

Interestingly, I did find a response of sorts from the NYT. It is in the form of a letter from NYT Public Editor Daniel Okrent, in response to an earlier letter from one James Conachy of World Socialist Web Site, dated 19 July 2004. See here.

Dear Mr. Conachy,
I’ve checked with the editors, and have learned that The Times is well aware of the allegations concerning Mr. Allawi. However, repeating them without either substantiating them or disproving them would be exactly the sort of journalism I frequently condemn. I am assured that one of the paper’s best reporters is investigating the charges, and if they are found to be true The Times will certainly publish the details.[emphasis added]
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Okrent
Public Editor
N.B.: Any opinions expressed here, unless otherwise indicated, are solely my own.
29 July 2004

Well, here it is late September, and not a peep from the MSM. I like to think of the silence as nothing more than good, responsible journalism. Whether the Allawi story is true or not, no good comes from bandying about rumor and innuendo as fact. And the fact is, in many circles, the Allawi rumor is treated as stone-cold, hard fact.

Israel's anti-terror arm reaches out

Fighting fire with fire.

Israeli operatives carried the fight against Palestinian terrorists into Syria's capital city. Terrorist-style methods were employed. "Police at the scene were seen retrieving pieces of the body of Izz Eldine Subhi Sheik Khalil, [42]. His death was also reported on the official Hamas Web site and by Israeli security sources," the AP has reported.

The car-bombing appears to be in direct retaliation of two suicide-bombings in Beersheba on 8-21-04 which killed 16 Israelis.

The strike is a new tactic for Israel. It dovetails with US policy: terror-militants are not safe anywhere. Damascus...of all places.

An infant

Yunis Owaidah - photo by Ariel Jerozolimski

One Palestinian who gets it

This Jerusalem Post story is heartening. Yunis Owaidah is a Palestinian living in Israel. Long ago, his pragmatism brought him to the realization that living in a free and open society was worth far more than the posturing rhetoric of 'the Arab street'. The 'Arab street' was an oppressive byway, indeed.

"When the Jews came to Jerusalem, I saw how they were treating the people in a humane way," he said. "By comparison, we had been oppressed by the Jordanians when they were here. Look how the Jews have built a modern and democratic state, and look where the Arabs still are."

Despite years of deadly threats from the Palestinian Authority, Owaidah stands firm. Humanity first.

Hurricane Jeanne

It will be the state's fourth hurricane of the season - an ordeal no state has had to face since Texas in 1886.

Officials ran out of time to remove piles of debris left over from Frances - some taller than adults - that still sit in neighborhoods. Some people took to burning the downed trees, housing material and other debris that could become airborne, banging into homes and endangering anyone who ventures outside.

My heart hurts for the people who live in Florida. No one alive has seen the hurricane force visited upon this peninsula state. As wonderful a place as Florida is, we witness 'the equal and opposite' law in the form of another hurricane.

Godspeed.

A timely response to an ugly statement.

President Bush pushed back at Kerry for the Senator's belittling of Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Thursday.

"This brave man came to our country to talk about how he's risking his life for a free Iraq, which helps America, and Senator Kerry held a press conference to question Prime Minister Allawi's credibility," Mr. Bush told an audience in Janesville, Wis.

"You can't lead this country if your ally in Iraq feels like you question his credibility," he added. "The message ought to be to the Iraqi people: We support you."

That the Democrat candidate for the highest office in the land would disparage Allawi at such a critical juncture in the war is disgusting. It reflects poorly on the United States. It sends a strong signal to the darker forces in this war that America is far from united. It is a sad thing, too, that the President is forced to ground with this.

"He came to our country to thank the American people," the president said. "He came to our country to thank the moms and dads and husbands and wives of those who have sacrificed for his freedom and America's security."

He added: "And my opponent chose to criticize the prime minister of Iraq."

The candidate's words alone weren't enough for the DNC. Clinton's former press secretary, a 'loaner' to the Kerry campaign, Joe Lockhart, drove the nail deeper:

"The last thing you want to be seen as is a puppet of the United States, and you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips," he said after the Allawi-Bush press conference."

These people's actions exceed the boundaries of mere political posturing. Look at Lockhart's statement one more time. No good can come from mixing politics with foreign policy in this way. What is it that Kerry and his cast are looking for? Votes? They had 98% of the votes they will get several months ago. I am enraged!

OPEC has lost control over oil prices

This found posted at Drudge Report.

Catawpa Tree

The Proof is in the Mask

Polling data? We have quite a few to choose from. Gallup. Rasmussen. Zogby. Many more - they are legion and varied. But do you wish to know of one that has invariably called it correctly in every election year?

Check this one out! People who buy Halloween masks in Election Years intuitively know which one to purchase. Mass consumer consciousness has proved infallible the past quarter century. Forget the Weekly Reader poll!

Year Winner Loser

1980 Reagan = 60% Carter = 40%
1984 Reagan = 68% Mondale = 32%
1988 Bush = 62% Dukakis = 38%
1992 Clinton = 41% Bush 39%
1996 Clinton = 56% Dole = 40%
2000 Bush = 57% Gore = 43%

And this year . . . (place your guess):

So far . . . Bush 56% Kerry 44% !!!!!!!!!

Thanks, Shot In The Dark blog. As he points out, the consumers involved in this 'poll' didn't just spout off at the mouth, they put their money down.

Dan Brown's Holy Grail

"It is the existential doubt that people have about modern experience" that drives them beyond the covers of a book to the places that inspired them, says Phil Cousineau, a writer and filmmaker who himself leads literary tours to Europe. "You can read a book or see a movie, but you're not quite sure it's real until you've been there."

Peter Ford gives us this offering in the Christian Science Monitor. The piece amounts to no more than an encapsulation covering a multitude of people who spend their time and money chasing, well, other people's time and money. In a deep way, I feel sorry for them. No doubt they feel as if they are on a meaningful quest, albeit a meaningless one.

Brown's novel 'The Da Vinci Code' is the centerpiece of the article. I read the book, and I can say it reads well; it raises many questions. After a little research, though, it becomes more fiction than fact (I love the 'divine ratio' and corresponding Fibbonaci sequence, notwithstanding), an anti-Catholic diatribe. The one sure thing: Mr Brown's estate is greatly increased.

To think people spend thousands of dollars on a quest for the truth about Mary Magdalene, to be found somewhere in the streets and alleyways of Paris, France, is a sad thing, indeed. Ms Magdalene praised the truth of the Christ; the Great Story was not about her. Yet, to a multitude who have not bothered to seek the simple, profound truths contained in the Gospels, red-haired Mary somehow is seen as one who trumps the greater, infinite love of the Lamb.

"The misfortune of our contemporaries," the priest sighs, paraphrasing the English Catholic poet G.K. Chesterton, "is perhaps not that they have ceased to believe, but that they are ready to believe anything."

That people's lives have become so empty, so devoid of meaning, they must seek spiritual happiness in the literary effort of Dan Brown -- speaks volumes about 'lost civilization' in this time. To be fair, it's not just Dan Brown. It's 'The Field of Dreams'; it's 'Anne of Green Gables'; it's Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass', or Wolfe's 'You Can't Go Home Again'. It's any compelling novel -- any 'deep' novel which raises questions. But the questions are only that, literary allusions which spur seekers down a thousand flittering paths to nowhere. Oh well, you know what they say about life...it's the journey...

Shape-shifters, to borrow a phrase. In the end, the winners are the authors, and more power to them -- they are a profitable product of an age of listless, unanchored search for truth.

After seven minutes of NPR

Kofi Annan - (less than) splendid leader

On Wednesday, September 15, 2004, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said this about the war in Iraq: "I have indicated it is not in conformity with the U.N. Charter. From our point of view and from the charter point of view it was illegal."

Outrageous! If you were Saddam's defense attorney, who would you call as your star witness?

What does that make the US, Australia, Poland, Italy, the U.K.? Criminals, it would seem. Rogue nations acting against the peace and dignity of the world.

Kofi Annan's declaration of the war in Iraq by the US led coalition and its logical consequence of occupation as "illegal" is ill timed and no more useful in bringing peace than Senator John Kerry's assertions that the US should have not prosecuted the war against Saddam Hussein. Annan and Kerry are playing with the life of million of Iraqi people and with the life of thousands of Americans and that of others in Iraq. This is not the time to demoralize our forces, nor is it prudent to make statements that will be interpreted by the terrorists as a justification to pursue their criminal ends in Iraq as the case happened when the President of the Philippines caved in to the demands of the terrorists by withdrawing her troops from Iraq. -- Dr. Joseph Ghougassian, who served as US Ambassador to Qatar and CPA Advisor in Iraq.

Mr Annan, who enjoys a lavish UN salary, benefits, and pension -- provided in large part by the US taxpayer -- is giving aid and comfort to the likes of Osama bin Laden, Zarqawi the decapitator, and all other islamofascist killers the world over.

With friends like Annan and his myriad UN followers ...

The king of all flip-flops?

"We know we can't count on the French. We know we can't count on the Russians," . . . . "We know that Iraq is a danger to the United States, and we reserve the right to take pre-emptive action whenever we feel it's in our national interest." -- Senator John F. Kerry during a 1997 debate on CNN's Crossfire.

Source: Washington Times. Caveat: Powerline has received a Lexus/Nexus transcript of the Crossfire segment. Kerry makes similar statements but those particular utterances are not present. Odd. The source of the Washington Times article is a tape of the event provided by one of the participants, Congressman Peter King (R-NY).

Speaking of Powerline:

By the way, at lunch today I saw an editorial cartoon that made an excellent point--one that should be obvious, but that I, at least, hadn't put together. The cartoon shows "President" Kerry on the phone, saying something like: "Bonjour, Jacques, I'm calling to ask you to send some troops to help fight the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." I'm not sure that anyone ever believed that Kerry could somehow persuade our reluctant "allies" to lend more help in Iraq. But given the way in which he is now trashing the war effort, it would seem that Kerry will have to abandon the claim that if elected, he would be able to bring more allies on board.

Post-Totalitarian Stress Disorder

Arthur Chrenkoff has posted a valuable essay on one aspect of the troubles which Iraqi people are experiencing along the road to freedom, prosperity, and a viable democracy. In a phrase, call it "Post-Totalitarian Stress Disorder". Americans and others who are the beneficiaries of an open, ordered, liberal society have difficulty with the concept.

I have posted a small portion of Mr Chrenkoff's thinking below. The article is far more elaborative.

But there is another aspect to the "culture matters" argument, one that does not get nearly enough attention. It has nothing to do with religion, ethnicity, or national character; it is the social and moral legacy of life under a dictatorship. Iraq, quite simply, like many other recently liberated societies around the world continues to suffer from a Post-Totalitarian Stress Disorder.

For the Westerners, the PTSD is a difficult condition to understand. We take so many things for granted - from comedians being able to joke about the President, to the assumption that the next government employee we encounter will not be expecting a bribe from us - that we are quite ill equipped to fully comprehend what life under a totalitarian system must really be like, much less what mental and spiritual legacy its victims have to labor under long after the statues of the Leader are pulled down.

We all "know" about the secret police knocking on the door at night, adulatory TV programs exalting the president-for-life, the pervasive corruption, queues and shortages, or the silly propaganda. Nothing, however, in our generally safe and comfortable existence would helps us understand just how pervasively difficult, destructive and dispiriting the experience of life under a totalitarian regime is. For most of us, life in Saddam's Iraq would have been no more real than the Middle Earth of the colonial New England. And failing to understand the condition itself, by extension we find it equally difficult to understand how the mental attitudes and habits of the past cannot be shaken off overnight but instead linger on, making the reconstruction and transition to normalcy such a difficult and painful process.

. . . .

This - the damage done to individual psyche - and not just to the physical infrastructure and institutions of the country, is what we have to always keep in mind when assessing the progress of reconstruction and democratisation in places like Iraq. If things aren't moving ahead as fast as expected, if cooperation is lacking and trust hard to find, and if the population seems apathetic and disengaged, it's just the fallen regime having its final chuckle from beyond the grave.

The task of reconstruction is not just about adding more megawatts to the power grid or renovating another school. Just as importantly - if not more so - it is about changing attitudes, habits and ways of thinking. In many ways liberating minds is a far more difficult task than rebuilding the physical infrastructure.

Iraqi raises red flag over Iran

One of the Iraq the Model brothers -- an Iraqi reporting on Iraqi issues within Iraq -- posts a disturbing observation. Omar is concerned about the nuclear threat coming from Iran.

Omar draws an interesting, disturbing parallel between the international community and events as they transpired in Iraq, and the international community and the events as they are transpiring in Iran.

In the beginning, the world was united against Saddam. Now the world is united in its desire to thwart the totalitarian mullahs in Iran from obtaining WMD. The force of UN sentiment proved insufficient to bring Saddam to heel. Saddam violated UN mandates, and the world (that other part of it) wavered. Not only did a portion of the international community of nation states waver -- some states opposed the US in its resolve. Now, Iran announces its intention to continue processing Uranium, in spite of the expressed will of the international community...

Let's see just how the world community deals the threat this time.

Matson Switch

The Iraq debate rages: has Kerry made up his mind?

Kerry's mind is like the new Bush ad [I have not seen] where Kerry wind surfs left, then right, then left, then... It's not that Kerry isn't roundly intelligent - he speaks French. It's not that he can't make up his mind - his Senate record is consistent to a very high degree. It's that he is an opportunist. He vascillates because he wants the Presidency more than he cares about personal resolve. Decisiveness is an obstacle in his path. Irony of ironies. Fact is: the American electorate doesn't cotton to leftists. His leftism is an obvious barrier to the White House. Hence, one sees the waffling -- playing to his base [of leftists] even as he wabbles the center line.

No one issue has been more indicative of Kerry's wavering campaign than that of Iraq. The Economist has an article propounding the latest left-of-center hope that Kerry is finally gelling on positions that are substantively different from GWBush. Its sub-line: "This week, Iraq produced some of its most traumatic recent news for America. It also changed the election campaign" Think so?

But real differences have now appeared on three of the most important questions:

• How is the war going? In his UN speech, Mr Bush argued that Iraq is making progress to democracy. Iraq’s prime minister, Iyad Allawi, then claimed “we are defeating terrorists.” Mr Kerry argued that “raw sewage fills the streets, rising above the hubcaps of our Humvees”; that the administration has been exaggerating the progress in training Iraqi security forces; and that reconstruction is a failure.

On the whole, voters agree with Mr Kerry. Our YouGov poll shows pessimism about long-term prospects for democracy in Iraq has increased sharply since early August. Three Republican senators—John McCain, Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel—have worried aloud that the administration is painting too rosy a picture in Iraq (“right now, we are not winning,” says Mr Hagel). The army has admitted parts of Iraq are no-go areas. And the recent national intelligence estimate, a consensus of America’s spies, gives three prognoses: bad (tenuous stability), worse and worst (civil war).

• Is Iraq part of the war on terror? Yes, says Mr Bush. At the Republican convention, he asked: “Do I forget the lessons of September 11th and take the word of a madman, or do I take action to defend our country?” No, says Mr Kerry: the war is a distraction from al-Qaeda and has created the very terrorist havens that the administration claimed to be acting to destroy.

On this question, voters are undecided. The number of those who think Saddam and al-Qaeda were linked has fallen; just over half now say the war has not reduced the chance of a new terrorist assault on America; but roughly equal numbers think the Iraq campaign has strengthened and weakened the war on terror.

• Should America pull out? Mr Bush has said American troops will stay until Iraq has a stable government. Mr Kerry said his goal is to withdraw soldiers within four years, starting next summer.

Mr Kerry may be taking a risk here. He says he would not abandon Iraq, but talks of pulling troops out—which looks like a muddle or a smokescreen for retreat. If previous conflicts are any guide, Americans may well respond to reverses by demanding that more troops be sent in search of victory. Yet Mr Kerry’s position seems in tune with many voters: in a Harris poll in mid-September, 38% said troops should stay until there is a stable government; 54% wanted them home next year.

Kerry's road -- his gauntlet -- will be no easier for him than it will be for Bush. This election is 'going south' as they say. In any event, as the Economist excerpt subtly indicates. Kerry knows he must have resolve. He's trying to appear resolute by a process of constantly refining what he says until it resonates in the polls...'It's the polls, stupid.' However, JFKerry is no Bill Clinton.

Kerry belittles Allawi

"So John Kerry will end his political career as he began it, attacking America's role in a just war, undermining the morale of the troops who are fighting it, and expressing contempt for the leadership of a nation struggling to be free of oppressors. It is the only mark of consistency he's displayed, but not one that many voters will admire." -- Hugh Hewitt

Candidate Kerry - Mr Negativity - took Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to task shortly after Allawi gave a speech of positive thanksgiving to a joint session of Congress.

"The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story," the Democratic nominee told reporters here.

"The president says that things are getting better in Iraq and we must just stay the same course," Kerry said. "Well, I disagree. They're not getting better, and we need to change the course to protect our troops and to win."

"I think the prime minister is, obviously, contradicting his own statement when he said, 'terrorists are pouring into the country,' " Kerry said.

Why are these liberal politicians so disposed to negativity? Why nothing positive? The long and the short of it is because they are losing. Losers find it hard to be positive (they didn't become losers for no reason, you know...)

Citizen Smash has the transcript of Allawi's speech.

Scaramouche

That's the name of John Kerry's new yacht. At present, it's safely hidden away in Middleton, Rhode Island. I suppose a $780,000 yacht doesn't play well when you are trying to pass your high-brow self off as a man of the people...it's not always the best way to draw attention.

Any way: the good part is in the name. Steve Gilbert, of American Thinker, looked up the definition of 'Scaramouche' in the Oxford English Dictionary:

Scaramouche, n. 1. (As proper name, with capital S.) A stock character in Italian farce, a cowardly and foolish boaster of his own prowess, who is constantly being cudgelled by Harlequin.

Apropos, don't you think?

About those 10,000 Lawyers.

Voter Fraud. Mischief afoot. As I touched upon previously, it would appear that many more people are actively developing options which would be utilized in the event of a close election.

John Fund, writing on the Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal website, has done a considerable amount of intelligence-gathering on the subject.

"If you think of election problems as akin to forest fires, the woods are no drier than they were in 2000, but many more people have matches," says Doug Chapin, director of the nonpartisan Election Reform Information Project.

The Kerry campaign has already spammed its supporters with an e-mail saying it is "considering our options should John Kerry or George Bush pursue a recount like the famous Florida ballot dispute" and soliciting funds to do so. The Federal Election Commission will hold a hearing this month on a Kerry request to use its legal and accounting funds to pay for recount expenses. Republicans are forming their own network of lawyers to guard against possible voter fraud, citing what they say has been a flood of questionable new voter registrations submitted by liberal activist groups.

Fund points to litigation in Missouri, where Democrats are seeking to make St Louis the only jurisdiction where early voting is allowed at government offices. St Louis is, of course, a Democrat stronghold. Elsewhere, in Florida and New Mexico, liberal groups are seeking to loosen voting requirements still further(as if ease of voting hasn't been an issue for the past 20 years!).

Mary Herrera, the clerk in Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque, says her office has received over 3,000 suspicious registration forms. A 13-year-old boy received a voter card in the mail. Acorn organizers admitted that registration was submitted by one of their employees, who has since been fired. But in a court case this month, Acorn director Matt Henderson invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer whether his group illegally copies voter registration cards before turning them in to election officials. Previously, he had admitted to the Albuquerque Tribune that it did so.

Today while listening to a Limbaugh segment, the radio commentator mirrored Mr Fund, except that he pointed to egregious examples in other states. Examples of -- you guessed it -- voter registration cards containing the names of dead people, or cards which contained fabricated addresses.

Yeah...JF'nKerry cries out that Republicans are going to suppress the vote. I guess he's talking about dead voters. Jah Wohl! Evil Republicans!

If there is a close election, i.e., where the votes are the "margin of litigation," then we are going to have another not-so-fine mess. Only this time, the vitriol will be less concealed, and the 'culture war' will be laid bare as it has been by the likes of Michael Moore, George Soros, and MoveOn.org.

Great White Shark at Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Biologists are attempting to do what has not been done in 37 tries in the past 50 years -- keep a Great White alive in captivity for more than 16 days.

This CSM article by Mark Stappenfield is a worthwhile read if you happen to stand in awe of these beasts of the deep.

Moontree Cathedral

Thank you, Polipundit.

I agree with everything here:

Liberals weren’t always pessimistic. FDR, Truman, Kennedy and LBJ were optimists who had big ideas. In his inaugural speech, FDR said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Other Democrat presidents similarly exuded hope and optimism. Meanwhile, conservatives were reduced to darkly muttering about the ballooning budget deficit.

Then came Vietnam. Post-Vietnam Democrats are negativist cynics. In their eyes, America can do no good and the world is a depressing place. The ’70s solidified these liberal beliefs. The liberals of today refer constantly to Vietnam and Watergate because those moments define today’s liberalism.

Meanwhile, conservatives became the Morning in America party. Reagan won the Cold War and defeated recession. Bush 41 prevailed effortlessly in Iraq. Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America implemented much-needed reforms. Conservatives today have big ideas and are confident they can implement them.

Beneath the gibbous moon.

To all you folks who think of such things, autumn is here. The equinox is upon us. As the years pass, so also the solar events which gauge time and eternity. Regularity is the constant; it pays no attention to events of the passing day.

The cyclical moon's increasing light cast a strong shadow this evening. Celestial events keep their own clock, and care less than a whit about human passions of the moment. We take too seriously the flow of politics and passion.

Take a look at the moon in its phases. You see eternity. Your eyes rest upon a body seen by every living being blessed of sight that ever walked this sweet earth. Events at that level have a calculus all their own.

When I get caught up in a high-traffic blogger's rant, or a politician's desparate entreaty, there is nothing like a moment's perspective in the night air to set me aright.

Pay a little attention to the night sky. There, you will find a 'forest for the trees' comfort that is unassailable.

Dick Morris presents his latast analysis of the campaign.

Mr Morris has been proven wrong in many a past 'analysis'. Still, I find him among the more enjoyable pundits upon the scene today. I look forward to his latest contribution almost as much as I do those of Mark Steyn and a few others. Mr Morris has that certain 'panache', toe-sucking tet-a-tets notwithstanding.

Here's a part of today's offering:

On domestic issues, where Kerry’s voters at least agree with one another, he is undermined by Bush’s increasing economic success, robbing his challenger of his best issue. It is hard to base a campaign on economic disaster when the unemployment rate is near historic lows and rapidly dipping toward 5 percent.

Add to those elements the self-promotion of Kerry’s advisers who cannot keep their mouths shut and insist on grabbing the limelight from their candidate, and you have one of the worst-run campaigns since the time this same team made its national debut: The ill-fated campaign against Bush’s father by another liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, Gov. Mike Dukakis, in 1988.

Hugh Hewitt draws a great comparison.

Kerry as Neville Chamberlain. Dubya as Winston Churchill. In the midst of WW2. It is a tight analogy, albeit historically hypothetical.

"It is as though Neville Chamberlain hadn't died in November of 1940, but had instead lived and remained in the government, only to launch a challenge to Churchill's leadership in February of 1942, citing the fall of Singapore as the reason he needed to replace Churchill. Churchill's war leadership was far from perfect --read this review of Field Marshall Lord Alanbooke's war diaries for a glimpse of the imperfections of all involved in the epic struggle to save Great Britain and then defeat the Axis-- but it was far superior to anything else. Kerry's final assault on war policy has brought the campaign exactly where it needs to be, to a focus on the war, and a clear choice between resolve and retreat, and his offer is an offer of appeasement as the centerpiece of American foreign policy."

Poor Burkett to Sue CBS.

“Bill leveled with [CBS] about his doubts over the papers, and they promised him they would take their time. They spent all of three days, maybe less, on authentication,” attorney [David] Van Os told The Sun newspaper.

The lawyer said the CBS News producer, Mary Mapes, promised to protect Mr. Burkett with complete anonymity and CBS was to “expend both time and money authenticating” the memos.

No doubt, Bill felt like he was hung out to dry and forced to lie. And he did admit he lied. That he did. So is this a golden opportunity for poor Burkett? He long ago complained that W was instrumental in denying him health insurance benefits, relative to Burkett's National Guard Service. Perhaps a nice, fat settlement with CBS would rectify that paucity.

While we're on the subject of Poor Burkett, check this out: his C.V at the end of an article he did for Online Journal, datelined August 13, 2004.

Lt. Col. BIll Burkett is a decorated Vietnam era veteran who served 28 years in senior command and staff positions within the US Army and Army National Guard. While serving on the National Guard staff for then Governor George W. Bush, Burkett broke ranks and exposed an ongoing scam of reporting over 1,700 soldiers as present (Ghost Soldiers- USA Today, 2001) and fraudulent readiness reporting (USA Today) as well as the shredding of George W. Bush's own military service files. Burkett was one of five subjects in James Moore's book, "Bush's War for ReElection," and one of the sources for information in the Michael Moore's film "Farenheit 911." He is a recognized military process expert. [emphasis added]

Wesley Cemetery

Scalia Speaks

Justice Antonin Scalia says unelected justices too often choose to read new rights into the Constitution, at the expense of the democratic process. He is right. Scalia is a strict Constitutional interpreter; in other words, he views his duty as the application of the constitution to today's problems through faithful utilization of the mindset of those who set the words to paper and of those who then approved them as they were set to paper.

Not an easy position in this day. So many folks like to flow with the tide of personal sentiment.

"You want the death penalty? Persuade your fellow citizens" to pass legislation or a constitutional amendment, Scalia said. "You don't want abortion? Persuade them the other way. ... Judges have no more capacity than the rest of us to determine what is moral."

In his interview, he made no mention of impending retirements. However, he alluded to the volcanic climate surrounding the appointment of Justices to the high court.

"Each year, the confirmation of judicial appointments grows more intense. One shudders to think what sort of turmoil will greet the next appointment to the Supreme Court," Scalia told an audience of 60 at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center.

And so it goes.

Stay Reminded!

Lest you forget -- as we all do to an extent -- the war in Iraq put an extremely dark period in the lives of millions to an end.

Read this list of Baathist atrocities, and read it well all of you who vacillate between Bush and Kerry.

The statistics you see are documented. Saddam's mens rea was so dark, it swallowed the light of day like a black hole.

Leftspeak, its doubts about the reasons for war in Iraq, is vacuuous. Moore-talk over Bush's drive to war evaporates in the face of reality. Look at this list! Those thousands upon thousands of Iraqis are people like your brother, your sister, your husband, your lover, the seven-year old apple of your eye.

JFKerry's rotating positions on the war in Iraq do not help the cause of freedom. A man who cannot make up his mind cannot bolster the hearts and minds of people in need of resolute, strong leadership. Weak-mindedness translates into further chaos, emboldened criminality and more death. That is the truth!

Look at the list!

Well...can we say...duh?

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader accused his Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry on Tuesday of being responsible for a campaign to try and keep him off the Nov. 2 ballot.

It's called realpolitik. If only...Ralph hadn't taken those crucial votes in 2000. Just goes to show the party of compassion for what it is...a political party bent upon power acquisition.

The lesson of lessons learned was 1992. That year, Ross Perot's independent run snatched - in affect - the election from sitting President George H.W. Bush. Bill Clinton won with much less than a majority. Most disaffected voters who spent their votes on Perot would have held their breath and pulled the lever for Bush...had there been 'no giant sucking sound'.

These Dems know of what they speak...

"The ballot access has drained our time and our resources," Nader told a news conference. "I have to hold Sen. John Kerry and Terry McAuliffe directly responsible."

Murder of Eugene Armstrong

A masked killer, believed to be the infamous Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, stood over Mr Armstrong's headless body, called President Bush a "dog," and had this to say:

"Now, you have people who love death just like you love life. Killing for the sake of God is their best wish, getting to your soldiers and allies are their happiest moments, and cutting the heads of the criminal infidels is implementing the orders of our Lord."

I hope that evil wraith is put down soon.

Flora & Fauna

Poor Burkett. Whopper cum whopper.

LtCol Bill is in deep, national spotlight doodoo. This wasn't his idea of fame. Dan Rather must have poured on the heat last weekend at their Texas get-together. USAToday has a lengthy article.

Outed as the CBS source, he first told the tittering media giant a former Nat'l Guard colleague, George Conn, put the forged documents in his hands. To which Mr Conn replied, "Know absolutely nothing about the Killian memos."

"I just pushed too far," Burkett said. "I implied that George had something to do with this. I lied to you." He said he told the same story to CBS, but asserted that all his other dealings in the documents case had been honest. "I honest to God can't remember anything else I feel bad about," Burkett said.

Burkett now maintains that the source of the papers was Lucy Ramirez, who he says phoned him from Houston in March to offer the documents. USA TODAY has been unable to locate Ramirez.

When Burkett gave copies of the documents to USA TODAY, it was on the understanding that his identity would not be disclosed. USA TODAY honored that agreement until Burkett waived his confidentiality Monday.

"I didn't forge anything," Burkett said. "I didn't fake any documents. The only thing I've done here is to transfer documents from people I thought were real to people I thought were real. And that has been the limitation of my role. I may have been a patsy."

Go on, Mr Bill. The fellow seems to be bending under the strain. Overwrought. Fatiqued. Unsure of himself. He suffered a seizure here and there, including while on the phone recently with his attorney, a David van Os. He's exhibiting bits of abnormal pathology, too.

Burkett said Ramirez told him she had seen him the previous month in an appearance on the MSNBC program Hardball, discussing the controversy over whether Bush fulfilled all his obligations for service in the Texas Air Guard during the early 1970s. "There is something I have that I want to make sure gets out," he quoted her as saying.

He said Ramirez claimed to possess Killian's "correspondence file," which would prove Burkett's allegations that Bush had problems as a Guard fighter pilot.

Burkett said he arranged to get the documents during a trip to Houston for a livestock show in March. But instead of being met at the show by Ramirez, he was approached by a man who asked for Burkett, handed him an envelope and quickly left, Burkett recounted.

"I didn't even ask any questions," Burkett said. "Should I have? Yes. Maybe I was duped. I never really even considered that."

After he received the documents in Houston, Burkett said, he drove home, stopping on the way at a Kinko's shop in Waco to copy the six memos. In the parking lot outside, he said, he burned the ones he had been given and the envelope they were in. Ramirez was worried about leaving forensic evidence on them that might lead back to her, Burkett said, acknowledging that the story sounded fantastic. "This is going to sound like some damn sci-fi movie," he said.

An unnamed corroborating cattle-show witness aside, it sounds whacky. There are many other people in the loop, which must include DNC and Kerry campaign officials. Burkett is unsure of what to do, because these other people's necks are in a sling, and if he says what he really knows, the ropes will jerk hard.

He is reluctantly trying to fall on the sword, but he is not big enough. The blade is too large for such a small guy. Worthier targets still lurk in the bush.

Let's sum up the gist of Kerry's '71 Senate Testamony- and put it to bed.

Mackubin Thomas Owens. He's written many words about his service in Vietnam, and about John Kerry's activities post Vietnam. The gist of his writing is not about what JF'nK may have done in the few days he was there, but about what Kerry did after he was back safe in the USA with Jane Fonda, John Lennon, and Edward Kennedy. Kerry's activities consisted of political opportunism, prep-school speak, and political opportunism (read: VANITY).

Let's put things in perspective. Some three million men served in Vietnam. Since the logistics tail of U.S. forces is fairly large, only about 25 percent, or 750,000, served in combat units. If we add up all of the atrocities, both proven and alleged, and multiply them by two as a hedge against under-reporting, the percentage of American combat soldiers who might have committed atrocities is still less than 1 percent of the total. I doubt that many armies in history could match that record.

We can not deny American's committed war-time atrocities - crimes - against innocent people. Anymore than we can deny that crimes are committed against an innocent population here at home today. It just happens. Try as we might, we cannot get past the fact that human beings are capable of doing mean things -- in the midst of the most civil society recorded by man in history.

I have tried on many occasions to get to the heart of why some Americans committed atrocities in Vietnam and others didn't. The fact is that anyone who has been in combat understands the thin line between permissible acts and atrocity. The first and potentially most powerful emotion in combat is fear arising from the instinct of self-preservation. But in soldiers, fear is overcome by what the Greeks called thumos, spiritedness or righteous indignation.

It is thumos, awakened by the death of his comrade Patroclus, that causes Achilles to quit sulking in his tent and wade into the Trojans, slaughtering them in great numbers. But unchecked, thumos can engender rage and frenzy. It is the role of leadership, which provides strategic context for killing and enforces discipline, to prevent this outcome. Such leadership was not in evidence at My Lai, or most of the other cases of atrocities.

Our Vietnam veterans were no different from you or me. We have our good days; we have our bad. On the whole, we stick to our principles, and do not fall into the dark abyss of crime and dark acts. We stick to the high road and do the right thing, regardless of what some people say.

Let me recount a personal anecdote that makes me question the idea that a story heard many times validates it. I didn't commit or witness atrocities during my tour as a Marine infantry platoon leader. As far as I know, neither did the other officers in my regiment and battalion. But I heard of an atrocity just after I joined the unit. A Marine who was scheduled to rotate soon recounted an incident that he claimed had occurred shortly after he had arrived in the unit about a year earlier.

According to the story, members of a sister company had killed some North Vietnamese soldiers after they had surrendered. Some months later, I heard another Marine who had joined my platoon after I took it over relate exactly the same story to some newly arrived men, only now it involved me and my platoon. I had a little chat with him and he cleared things up with the new men. But that episode has always made me wonder how many of the stories have been recycled and how many accounts of atrocities are based on what veterans heard as opposed to committed or witnessed. Of course, an account based on hearsay may be true. After all, the soldier who broke the My Lai story was not present during the massacre.

Unfortunately for the body politic, this issue is not going to go away. Too many veterans have long memories and they believe that Kerry sacrificed their honor on the altar of his political ambitions.

JF'nK is an opportunist. He showed that in his Senate testimony. The only thing changed is his age. Read this man's final summary.