WELCOME TO THE RIGHT STORM!

Liberal Media? Naaawwwwwwww!!!!!

2004-09-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

by Ann Coulter
Why do TV commentators on CBS' forgery-gate insist on issuing lengthy caveats to the effect that of course this was an innocent mistake and no one is accusing Dan Rather of some sort of "conspiracy," and respected newsman Dan Rather would never intentionally foist phony National Guard documents on an unsuspecting public merely to smear George Bush, etc., etc.?
I'll admit, there's a certain sadistic quality to such overwrought decency toward Dan Rather. But how does Bill O'Reilly know what Dan Rather was thinking when he put forged documents on the air? I know liberals have the paranormal ability to detect racism and sexism, but who knew O'Reilly could read an anchorman's mind just by watching him read the news?
What are the odds that Dan Rather would have accepted such patently phony documents from, say, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?
As we now know, CBS' own expert told them there were problems with the documents – the main one being that they were clearly fakes dummied up at a Kinko's outlet from somebody's laptop at 4 a.m.
According to ABC News, document examiner Emily Will was hired by CBS to vet the documents. But when she raised questions about the documents' authenticity and strongly warned CBS not to use the documents on air, CBS ignored her. Will concluded: "I did not feel that they wanted to investigate it very deeply."
Within hours of the documents being posted on CBS' website, moderately observant fourth-graders across America noticed that the alleged early '70s National Guard documents were the product of Microsoft Word. If that wasn't bad enough, The New York Times spent the following week hailing Rather for his "journalistic coup" in obtaining the documents that no other newsman had (other than Jayson Blair).
By now, all reputable document examiners in the Northern Hemisphere dispute the documents' authenticity. Even the Los Angeles Times has concluded that the documents are fraudulent – and when you fail to meet the ethical standards of the L.A. Times, you're in trouble.
In Dan Rather's defense, it must be confessed, he is simply a newsreader. Now that Walter Cronkite is retired, Rather is TV's real-life Ted Baxter without Baxter's quiet dignity. No one would ever suggest that he has any role in the content of his broadcast. To blame Dan Rather for what appears on his program would be like blaming Susan Lucci for the plot of "All My Children."
The person to blame is Ted Baxter's producer, Mary Mapes. Mapes apparently decided: We'll run the documents calling Bush a shirker in the National Guard, and if the documents turn out to be fraudulent we'll:
a) Blame Karl Rove;b) Say the documents don't matter.
But if the documents are irrelevant to the question of Bush's Guard duty, then why did CBS bring them up? Why not just say: "The important thing is for you to take our word for it!"
Interestingly, the elite (and increasingly unwatched) media always make "mistakes" in the same direction. They never move too quickly to report a story unfavorable to liberals.
In 1998, CNN broadcast its famous "Tailwind" story, falsely accusing the U.S. military of gassing American defectors in Laos during the Vietnam War. (This was part of liberals' long-standing support for "the troops.") The publishing industry regularly puts out proven frauds such as: "I, Rigoberta Menchu" (a native girl's torture at the hands of the right-wing Guatemalan military), "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture" (a liberal fantasy of a gun-free colonial America), "Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President" (a book by a convicted felon with wild stories of George Bush's drug use), and the unsourced nutty fantasies of Kitty Kelley.
In a book out this week, Kelley details many anonymous charges against the Bush family, such as that Laura Bush was a pot dealer in college, George W. Bush was the first person in America to use cocaine back in 1968, and he also regularly consorted with a prostitute in Texas who was then silenced by the CIA.
Kelley backs up her shocking allegations with names of highly credentialed people – who have absolutely no connection to the events she is describing. No one directly involved is on the record, and the people on the record have never met anyone in the Bush family. In other words, her stories have been "vetted" enough to be included on tonight's "CBS Evening News" with Dan Rather.
The New York Times review blamed Kelley's gossip mongering on "a cultural climate in which gossip and innuendo thrive on the Internet." Kelley has been writing these books for decades, so apparently, like the Texas Air National Guard, Kelley was on the Internet – and being influenced by it – back in the '70s. As I remember it, for the past few years it has been the Internet that keeps dissecting and discrediting the gossip and innuendo that the major media put out.
Curiously, all this comes at the precise moment that speculation is at a fever pitch about whether Kitty Kelley is in the advanced stages of syphilis. According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: "Approximately 3 percent to 7 percent of persons with untreated syphilis develop neurosyphilis, a sometimes serious disorder of the nervous system."
Dr. Jonathan Zenilman, M.D., associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, has found there is an "inter-relationship" between STDs and truck routes in Baltimore. I'm not at liberty to reveal the names of my sources, but there are three or four highly placed individuals in the publishing industry who say Miss Kelley or someone who closely resembles her is a habitue of truck routes in Baltimore.
While opinions differ as to whether Miss Kelley's behavior can be explained by syphilis or some other STD, people who went to Harvard – and Harvard is one of the top universities in the nation – say her path is consistent with someone in the advanced stages.
Amid the swirling dispute over her STDs, there is only one way for Kelley to address this issue: Release her medical records. As someone who would like to be thought of as her friend said anonymously: "For your own good, Ms. Kelley, I would get those medical records out yesterday." This doesn't have to be public. She may release her medical records to me, or if she'd be more comfortable, to my brothers.

Since TV commentators have assured me that Dan Rather is an equal opportunity idiot, Kelley had better clear all this up before someone slips this column to CBS. As a precaution, I've written this on a 1972 Selectric typewriter

Fighting for Des Moines in Najaf

2004-08-23T23:36:00.000-07:00

This article appeared in the New York Times on Monday, AUgust 23, 2004. I could't have said it better if given 20 attempts.

By Major Glen G. Butler

Najaf, Iraq - I'm an average American who grew up watching "Brady Bunch" reruns, playing dodge ball and listening to Van Halen. I love the Longhorns and the Eagles. I'm you; your neighbor; the kid you used to go sledding with but who took a different career path in college. Now, I'm a Marine helicopter pilot who has spent the last two weeks heavily engaged with enemy forces here. I'm writing this between missions, without much time or care to polish, so please look to the heart of these thoughts and not their structure.
I got in country a little more than a month ago, eager to do my part here for the global war on terror and still get home in one piece. I'm a mid-grade officer, so I probably have a better-than-average understanding of the complexity of the situation, but I make no claims to see the bigger
picture or offer any strategic solutions. Two years of my military training were spent in Quantico, Va., classrooms. I've read Sun Tzu several times; I've flipped through Mao's
Little Red Book and debated over Thucydides; I've analyzed Henry Kissinger's "Diplomacy" and Clausewitz's "On War"; and I've walked the battlefields of Antietam, Belleau Wood,
Majuba and Isandlwana. I've also studied a little about the culture I'm deep in
the middle of, know a bit about the caliph, about the five pillars and about Allah, but know I don't know enough. I am also a believer in our cause - I put that up front just so there isn't any question of my motivation. We marines are proudly apolitical, yet stereotypically right-wing conservative. I'm both. And I'd be here with my fellow devildogs, fighting just as hard, whether John Kerry or George W. Bush or Ralph Nader were our commander-in-chief, until we're told to go home.
The other day I attended a memorial service for an old acquaintance, Lt. Col. David (Rhino) Greene. He was killed July 28 while flying his AH-1W Cobra over the eastern edge of Ramadi. His squadron was composed of reservists: "old guys" like me who had been around a little while. But unlike me, these guys had gotten out of active duty to pursue other careers and spend more time with their families. Now, they were leading the charge against the Iraqi insurgency.
The night after the service, I sat around in an impromptu gathering of $10 beach chairs in the sand, watching the sunset and smoking some of Rhino's cigars with friends I hadn't seen in almost a decade. I listened in awe as they told me about their Falluja April, about how they had all cheated death, been shot down, again and again. We talked about the war, pretending to know all the answers, and we traded stories about home, bragged about our wives and
kids.
We also talked about the magic bullet that ended Rhino's life. It could have been shot by a sniper who had slipped in over the Iranian border, or maybe it came from the AK-47 of a rebellious Iraqi teenager who viewed shooting at Yankee helicopters the same way mischievous American kids might view throwing rocks at cars. No matter, the single round pierced his neck, and within seconds a good man was dead, leaving his wife a widow and his two children fatherless. I won't soon forget that day, but it was quickly overshadowed by events to come, as I was thrust into the heat of battle in my own little slice of Mesopotamia.
On Aug. 5, after a few days of building intensity, war erupted in Najaf (again). When we had first come to Iraq, we were told our mission would be to conduct so-called SASO, or Security and Stability Operations, and to train the Iraqi military and police to do their jobs so we could go home. Obviously, the security part of SASO is still the emphasis, but our unit's area of operations had been very quiet for months, so most of us weren't expecting a fight
so soon. That changed rapidly when marines responded to requests for assistance from the Iraqi forces in Najaf battling Moktada al-Sadr's militia, who had attacked local police stations.
Our helicopters were called on the scene to provide close air support, and soon one of them was shot down. That was when this war became real for me. Since then my squadron has been providing continuous support for our engaged Marine brothers on the ground, by this point slugging it out hand-to-hand in the city's ancient Muslim cemetery. The Imam Ali shrine in Najaf is the burial place of the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, and is one of the most revered sites in Shiite Islam. The cemetery to its north is gigantic, filled with New Orleans-style crypts and mausoleums. We had been warned it was an "exclusion zone" when we got here, that the local authorities had asked us to not go in there or fly overhead, even though we knew the bad guys were using this area to hide weapons, make improvised explosive devices, and plan against us. Being the culturally sensitive force we are, we agreed - until Aug. 5. Suddenly, I was conducting support missions over the marines' heads in the graveyard, dodging anti-aircraft artillery and rocket-propelled grenades and preparing to be shot down, too. My perspective broadened rapidly. At first there were no news media in Najaf; now, I assume, it's getting crowded, although the authorities have restricted access after a group of journalists "embedded"
with the Mahdi Militia muddied the problem and jeopardized others' safety. I haven't had time to catch much CNN or Fox News, and although I've seen a few headlines forwarded to
me by friends, I don't think the world is seeing the complete picture.
I want to emphasize that our military is using every means possible to minimize damage to historical, religious and civilian structures, and is going out of its way to protect the innocent. I have not shot one round without good cause, whether it be in response to machine gun fire aimed at me or mortars shot at soldiers and marines on the ground. The battle has been surreal, focused largely in the cemetery, where families continue burying their dead even
as I swoop in low overhead to make sure they aren't sneaking in behind our forces' flanks, or pulling a surface-to-air missile out of the coffin. Children continue playing soccer in the dirt fields next door, and locals wave to us as we fly over their rooftops in preparation for gun runs into the enemy's positions. Sure, some of those people might be waving just to make sure we don't shoot them, but I think the majority are on our side. I've learned that this enemy is not just a mass
of angry Iraqis who want us to leave their country, as some would have you believe. The forces we're fighting around Iraq are a conglomeration of renegade Shiites, former Baathists, Iranians, Syrians, terrorists with ties to Ansar al-Islam and Al Qaeda, petty criminals, destitute citizens
looking for excitement or money, and yes, even a few frustrated Iraqis who worry about Wal-Mart culture infringing on their neighborhood. But I see the others who are on our side, appreciate us risking our lives, and know we're in the right. The Iraqi soldiers who are fighting alongside us are motivated to take their country back. I've not been deluded into thinking that we came here to free the Iraqis. That is indeed the icing on the cake, but I came here to prevent
the still active "grave and gathering threat" from congealing into something we wouldn't be able to stop. Weapons of mass destruction or no, I'm glad that we ended the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. My brother and other American jet pilots risked their lives for years patrolling the "no fly zone" (and occasionally making page A-12 in the newspaper if they dropped a bomb on a threatening missile battery). The former dictator's attempt to assassinate George H. W. Bush, use of chemical weapons on his own people, and invasion of a neighboring country are just a
few of the other reasons I believe we should have acted sooner. He eventually would have had the means to cause America great harm - no doubt in my mind.
The pre-emptive doctrine of the current administration will continue to be debated long after I'm gone, but one fact stands for itself: America has not been hit with another catastrophic attack since 9/11. I firmly believe that our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are major reasons that we've had it so good at home. Building a "fortress America" is not only impractical, it's impossible. Prudent homeland security measures are vital, to be sure, but attacking the source of the threat remains essential. Now we are on the verge of victory or defeat in Iraq. Success depends not only on battlefield superiority, but also on the trust and confidence of the American people. I've read some articles recently that call for cutting back our military presence in Iraq and moving our troops to the peripheries of most cities. Such advice is well-intentioned but wrong - it would soon lead to a total withdrawal. Our goal needs to be a safe Iraq, free of militias and terrorists; if we simply pull back and run, then the region will pose an even greater threat than it did before the invasion. I also fear if we do not win this battle here and now, my 7-year-old son might find himself here in 10 or 11 years, fighting the same enemies and their sons.
When critics of the war say their advocacy is on behalf of those of us risking our lives here, it's a type of false patriotism. I believe that when Americans say they "support our troops," it should include supporting our mission, not just sending us care packages. They don't have to believe
in the cause as I do; but they should not denigrate it. That only aids the enemy in defeating us strategically. Michael Moore recently asked Bill O'Reilly if he would sacrifice his son for Falluja. A clever rhetorical device, but it's the wrong question: this war is about Des Moines, not Falluja. This country is breeding and attracting militants who are all eager to grab box cutters, dirty
bombs, suicide vests or biological weapons, and then come fight us in Chicago, Santa Monica or Long Island. Falluja, in fact, was very close to becoming a city our forces could have controlled, and then given new schools and sewers and hospitals, before we pulled back in the spring. Now,
essentially ignored, it has become a Taliban-like state of Islamic extremism, a terrorist safe haven. We must not let the same fate befall Najaf or Ramadi or the rest of Iraq. No, I would not sacrifice myself, my parents would not sacrifice me, and President Bush would not sacrifice a
single marine or soldier simply for Falluja. Rather, that symbolic city is but one step toward a free and democratic Iraq, which is one step closer to a more safe and secure America. I miss my family, my friends and my country, but right now there is nowhere else I'd rather be. I am a United States Marine.

GREAT, THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN

2004-08-14T23:14:00.000-07:00

So on my last post about media bias in the press, I got some responses. As if on cue, a couple of clowns slipped out of the circus and blathered on about anything BUT media bias in the press. Big shock there. Here is what the (figures) Anonymous comment said:

OK, how many are gone? 2.1 million, 2 million, 1.5 million? How many? Tell the mom and dads that were impacted that its good for the country to by shoes from china for $75 when they cost $10, hell I would rather pay $75 to an AMERICAN worker even and ILLEGAL AMERICAN worker, they pay taxes. You right wing people, wow. Clinton couldn't do anything right and King George can't do anything right!

You "right wing people"? First off, your job loss figures suck ass. According to the GAO, the net loss since Jan 20, 2000 is 947,500. Now before you get your freaking panties in a twist, yes that is a lot of job loss. But lets take a look. From November 4th 1999 to Jan 20, 2000 the net job losses were 109,000. That's 109,000 you clowns keep trying to tag GW with. What it means is that GW inherited a recession. It's like the pilot puts the plane into a nose dive, and the co-pilot takes over, but you want to blame the co-pilot for all of the altitude loss before he could get the plane level again, totally ignoring that he just saved the plane. Second, of the 947K, 368,000 were lost before GW's first economic package was signed into law. Now I am sure you think its okay to tag him with those too, but any rational thinking person would realize that 9/11, and and an inherited recession might be the likely culprits, and not the economic package that hadn't even gone into effect yet.

No clue at all where you were going with the China thing. I assume you were trying to imply that a shoe costing $10 in China and selling for $75 in the USA would still cost $10 to make in the USA. Maybe that is how it would work on the planet Zog, but here on earth, that $10 shoe would cost $75 to make, it would sell for $200, and nobody would buy them because some European shoe company would be making $10 shoes in China and selling them here for $75. It's called a global economy, and doing a John Kerry and pretending it doesn't exist (all except for the Heinz corporation, which "outsourced" more then 85,000 jobs in the past 8 years. I guess Kerry's wife gets a pass on that huh?) is beyond stupid. Not to mention the fact that a factory worker in Vietnam making $4.00 a day can buy more with $4.00 then you can with $150. For Gods sake, put down you grassy knoll conspiracies, and come back when you have some actual facts and even a remote theory about how to put them into a cohesive thought. "Right wing people". I am conservative to be sure, but FAR from "Right Wing". Opinions based on factual information doesn't make me right wing, it just makes me RIGHT.

LIE, CHEAT, AND VOTE DEM!

2004-08-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

During the Democratic National Convention, various celebrities who can’t stop drooling over the prospect that happy days will be here again with the election of John Kerry were being interviewed left and right. Almost across the board, they know Kerry believes that by virtue of the fact they are stars, they must also be wise in matters of international and domestic issues. As much as it made me want to throw up, I sat through all of them, because it is always important to keep a watchful eye on the elites.
On more then a few of the interviews, stars from Ben Affleck to Rob Reiner got downright hostile at the suggestion of Liberal Bias in the press. No bias huh? Millions of people all over the world have now seen the Bill O'Reilly-Michael Moore shootout, which is still posted on the Fox News website. Although the reporting on the interview has been surprisingly fair, the allegedly "balanced" New York Times said, "Some of the most memorable moments on television had almost nothing to do with the convention itself, notably Michael Moore on Fox News badgering Bill O'Reilly into submissive silence by asking if he would send his own child to Iraq."
If you go on the website and watch the interview, I defy you to point out any time when Bill O’reilly was even in the ballpark of “submissive silence”. This isn’t really that shocking, because it is standard operating procedure for the New York Times. They hate conservatives so much they have no problem making up things at best, and at worst, intentionally and obviously misleading their readers.
Moores’ question was loaded, and O’reilly did in fact answer him, but he didn’t let Moore lead the conversations down the path Moore wanted. To begin, nobody serving in the military of the United States has been “sent to war” by their parents, and even an idiot like Moore knows that. I have two children, and although I would never “send them to war”, if either one came to me with the news that they intended to enlist and go to Iraq, I would be both incredibly worried and proud of their selflessness and courage. But I digress.
After getting his ample rear end kicked by O’reilly’s fact based arguments disputing Moores’ contention the Bush administration lied to the country about Iraq, Moore did what he is known for; delving into theoretical situations that yank on the heartstrings. How the average American can’t see this and thinks Moore is anything but a hack is beyond me.
But back to the “balanced” New York Times. The Times knows that a credible Dem couldn’t possibly throw this kind of garbage and remain credible, so they put egomaniacs on a pedestal, and let them do the dirty work of discrediting President Bush and others. Any fair-minded person knows Moore is what he is, yet the Times and other liberal rags legitimatize his work, and ignore any facts to the contrary.
What is worse, the media is no so blinded by ideology and not factual reporting, that they have even come up with an excuse for why they do what they do. Recently on Bill O’reillys “The O’Reilly Factor”, a Boston Globe reporter said, “Michael Moore is entitled to his version of the facts.” Excuse me? His version?
As O’reilly said, “There are no versions of facts. There is provable truth and everything else”. People who think there are “versions” of facts are the ones who believe that there was no moon landing, and that the Holocaust never existed.

Moore the Diplomat

2004-07-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

What the hell is going on here? Europe loves Michael Moore. Democrats love Michael Moore. Islamic militants love Michael Moore. Probably 90% of humanity loves Michael Moore. And of all the crap he spews, what they love the most is repeating Michael Moore quotes about the President of the United States.

He was giving an interview to the London Mirror (and just like the “every man” Moore, don’t we all give interviews to the Mirror?), he said:

"They (Americans) are possibly the dumbest people on the planet,"

First off, let’s make sure to note that he referred to Americans as “they”. Maybe catching himself, he explained what he meant about being dumb by saying:

"We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing."

He then went Cambridge, and commented on our general foreign policy. The worldly and well read Moore, said of us:

"I feel sorry of all of you because you're stuck with being connected to this country of mine, which is known for bringing sadness and misery to places around the globe."

I guess the fact that we freed the peoples of Western Europe, South Korea, Grenada, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Iraq from tyrannical and ruthless dictatorships, and this in just the last 65 years doesn’t count. I guess the hundreds of billions of dollars we have spend in food medicine and agricultural equipment doesn’t count. And best of all, I guess the over 500,000 men who died in somebody else’s country to free the people, who sometimes didn’t appreciate it, don’t count.

You would think that Michael Moore would have at least seen that the WTC attacks were not our fault, but no, according to him, it certainly was. Here is the gem he dropped on the media not two weeks after 220 stories of building, full of men and women who committed the crime of showing up for work, was reduced to rubble.:

“We, the United States of America, are culpable in committing so many acts of terror and bloodshed that we had better get a clue about the culture of violence in which we have been active participants."

Wanting to emphasize how blasted stupid we are, he said to a crowd of his faithful in Germany (the country that willingly allowed its onetime leader, Adolph Hitler to murder over 3 million people):

"That's why we're smiling all the time. You can see us coming down the street. You know, 'Hey! Hi! How's it going?' We've got that big fucking grin on our face all the time because our brains aren't loaded down."

Finally, in an effort to demonstrate his absolute grasp on both world and American history, Moore made the following comparison:

"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' , 'terrorists', 'The Enemy.' They are the Revolution, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win.''

Hussein, Zarqawi, Al-Sadar, they are all the same as George Washington, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, and the like. I am sure Moore knows of secret files that Republicans have successfully hidden, proving that Washington ordered the gassing of Tories, Revere beheading redcoats, and Jefferson ordering the gang-rapes of British sympathizers.

I have no doubt that Moore will burn in hell, and I only pray that sooner rather then later, his cholesterol level will get him there.

When Life Begins

2004-07-08T23:42:00.000-07:00

At a recent campaign stop, John Kerry said he believes life begins at conception. Amazingly, he also let people know that even though life begins the moment sperm meets egg, this in no way conflicts with the fact the he supports abortion rights. Huh? Is he saying then that this is just another circumstance where the taking of a life is allowed? And for that matter, how does this sit with Planned Parenthood, because I swear to God that Iraqi interrogators couldn't get one of them to say that life begins at conception.

In March, Sen. Kerry made it back to Washington DC to vote against the Laci Peterson Law which makes it a crime separate from murder to harm a fetus in the commission of a crime. Planned Parenthood went nuts on that one, and they went nuts not because they oppose being able to pile on murderers, but because it hints at or implies that individual human life, and the protections everybody living in the United States gets, begins before birth.

Because our legal system isn't convoluted enough, a few hardcore liberals got together and tried to change the law so it would focus instead on the harm to the pregnancy rather than attempting to determine when life begins. Very nice. We can afford protection to something that we will not acknowledge is a life. Arguing the slippery slope, Dianne Feinstein said, "Clearly, there is a concerted effort to codify in law the legal recognition that life begins at conceptionÂ This is the first step in removing a womanÂs right to choice."

So, Sen. John Kerry, who says that he believes life begins at conception, but apparently doesn't believe that a conceived life deserves legal protection, voted in favor of Sen. Feinstein's amendment, which lost by one vote.

And this is the clown people thing would be a good President.

Michael (Please No)Moore, Diatribe Elitist

2004-06-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

By Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair
One of the many problems with the American left, and indeed of the American left, has been its image and self-image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring. How many times, in my old days at The Nation magazine, did I hear wistful and semienvious ruminations? Where was the radical Firing Line show? Who will be our Rush Limbaugh? I used privately to hope that the emphasis, if the comrades ever got around to it, would be on the first of those and not the second. But the meetings themselves were so mind-numbing and lugubrious that I thought the danger of success on either front was infinitely slight.
Nonetheless, it seems that an answer to this long-felt need is finally beginning to emerge. I exempt Al Franken's unintentionally funny Air America network, to which I gave a couple of interviews in its early days. There, one could hear the reassuring noise of collapsing scenery and tripped-over wires and be reminded once again that correct politics and smooth media presentation are not even distant cousins. With Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, however, an entirely new note has been struck. Here we glimpse a possible fusion between the turgid routines of MoveOn.org and the filmic standards, if not exactly the filmic skills, of Sergei Eisenstein or Leni Riefenstahl.
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.
In late 2002, almost a year after the al-Qaida assault on American society, I had an onstage debate with Michael Moore at the Telluride Film Festival. In the course of this exchange, he stated his view that Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty. This was, he said, the American way. The intervention in Afghanistan, he maintained, had been at least to that extent unjustified. Something—I cannot guess what, since we knew as much then as we do now—has since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell. Indeed, Osama is suddenly so guilty and so all-powerful that any other discussion of any other topic is a dangerous "distraction" from the fight against him. I believe that I understand the convenience of this late conversion.
Fahrenheit 9/11 makes the following points about Bin Laden and about Afghanistan, and makes them in this order:
1) The Bin Laden family (if not exactly Osama himself) had a close if convoluted business relationship with the Bush family, through the Carlyle Group.
2) Saudi capital in general is a very large element of foreign investment in the United States.
3) The Unocal company in Texas had been willing to discuss a gas pipeline across Afghanistan with the Taliban, as had other vested interests.
4) The Bush administration sent far too few ground troops to Afghanistan and thus allowed far too many Taliban and al-Qaida members to escape.
5) The Afghan government, in supporting the coalition in Iraq, was purely risible in that its non-army was purely American.
6) The American lives lost in Afghanistan have been wasted. (This I divine from the fact that this supposedly "antiwar" film is dedicated ruefully to all those killed there, as well as in Iraq.)
It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which Moore's direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions, that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point. Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not. (They opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn't even let Tony Blair land his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.) Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all—the latter was Moore's view as late as 2002—or we sent too few. If we were going to make sure no Taliban or al-Qaida forces survived or escaped, we would have had to be more ruthless than I suspect that Mr. Moore is really recommending. And these are simply observations on what is "in" the film. If we turn to the facts that are deliberately left out, we discover that there is an emerging Afghan army, that the country is now a joint NATO responsibility and thus under the protection of the broadest military alliance in history, that it has a new constitution and is preparing against hellish odds to hold a general election, and that at least a million and a half of its former refugees have opted to return. I don't think a pipeline is being constructed yet, not that Afghanistan couldn't do with a pipeline. But a highway from Kabul to Kandahar—an insurance against warlordism and a condition of nation-building—is nearing completion with infinite labor and risk. We also discover that the parties of the Afghan secular left—like the parties of the Iraqi secular left—are strongly in favor of the regime change. But this is not the sort of irony in which Moore chooses to deal.
He prefers leaden sarcasm to irony and, indeed, may not appreciate the distinction. In a long and paranoid (and tedious) section at the opening of the film, he makes heavy innuendoes about the flights that took members of the Bin Laden family out of the country after Sept. 11. I banged on about this myself at the time and wrote a Nation column drawing attention to the groveling Larry King interview with the insufferable Prince Bandar, which Moore excerpts. However, recent developments have not been kind to our Mike. In the interval between Moore's triumph at Cannes and the release of the film in the United States, the 9/11 commission has found nothing to complain of in the timing or arrangement of the flights. And Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief of counterterrorism, has come forward to say that he, and he alone, took the responsibility for authorizing those Saudi departures. This might not matter so much to the ethos of Fahrenheit 9/11, except that—as you might expect—Clarke is presented throughout as the brow-furrowed ethical hero of the entire post-9/11 moment. And it does not seem very likely that, in his open admission about the Bin Laden family evacuation, Clarke is taking a fall, or a spear in the chest, for the Bush administration. So, that's another bust for this windy and bloated cinematic "key to all mythologies."
A film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation can only sustain itself by a dizzying succession of smaller falsehoods, beefed up by wilder and (if possible) yet more-contradictory claims. President Bush is accused of taking too many lazy vacations. (What is that about, by the way? Isn't he supposed to be an unceasing planner for future aggressive wars?) But the shot of him "relaxing at Camp David" shows him side by side with Tony Blair. I say "shows," even though this photograph is on-screen so briefly that if you sneeze or blink, you won't recognize the other figure. A meeting with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or at least with this prime minister, is not a goof-off.
The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the president on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm. More interesting is the moment where Bush is shown frozen on his chair at the infant school in Florida, looking stunned and useless for seven whole minutes after the news of the second plane on 9/11. Many are those who say that he should have leaped from his stool, adopted a Russell Crowe stance, and gone to work. I could even wish that myself. But if he had done any such thing then (as he did with his "Let's roll" and "dead or alive" remarks a month later), half the Michael Moore community would now be calling him a man who went to war on a hectic, crazed impulse. The other half would be saying what they already say—that he knew the attack was coming, was using it to cement himself in power, and couldn't wait to get on with his coup. This is the line taken by Gore Vidal and by a scandalous recent book that also revives the charge of FDR's collusion over Pearl Harbor. At least Moore's film should put the shameful purveyors of that last theory back in their paranoid box.
But it won't because it encourages their half-baked fantasies in so many other ways. We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation." (In fact, Iraq's "sovereignty" was heavily qualified by international sanctions, however questionable, which reflected its noncompliance with important U.N. resolutions.) In this peaceable kingdom, according to Moore's flabbergasting choice of film shots, children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003. I remember asking Moore at Telluride if he was or was not a pacifist. He would not give a straight answer then, and he doesn't now, either. I'll just say that the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once. (Actually, that's not quite right. It is briefly mentioned but only, and smarmily, because of the bad period when Washington preferred Saddam to the likewise unmentioned Ayatollah Khomeini.)
That this—his pro-American moment—was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam's depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible. Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Vienna* and Rome. Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer. Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (Quite a few Americans of all denominations walk the streets of Jerusalem.) In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled—Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more—the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally. (Though why should he not?) Should you and I not resent any foreign dictatorship that attempts to kill one of our retired chief executives? (President Clinton certainly took it that way: He ordered the destruction by cruise missiles of the Baathist "security" headquarters.) Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country. In 1993, a certain Mr. Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until the overthrow of Saddam. In 2001, Saddam's regime was the only one in the region that openly celebrated the attacks on New York and Washington and described them as just the beginning of a larger revenge. Its official media regularly spewed out a stream of anti-Semitic incitement. I think one might describe that as "threatening," even if one was narrow enough to think that anti-Semitism only menaces Jews. And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war. On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reported—and the David Kay report had established—that Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition's presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.)
Thus, in spite of the film's loaded bias against the work of the mind, you can grasp even while watching it that Michael Moore has just said, in so many words, the one thing that no reflective or informed person can possibly believe: that Saddam Hussein was no problem. No problem at all. Now look again at the facts I have cited above. If these things had been allowed to happen under any other administration, you can be sure that Moore and others would now glibly be accusing the president of ignoring, or of having ignored, some fairly unmistakable "warnings."
The same "let's have it both ways" opportunism infects his treatment of another very serious subject, namely domestic counterterrorist policy. From being accused of overlooking too many warnings—not exactly an original point—the administration is now lavishly taunted for issuing too many. (Would there not have been "fear" if the harbingers of 9/11 had been taken seriously?) We are shown some American civilians who have had absurd encounters with idiotic "security" staff. (Have you ever met anyone who can't tell such a story?) Then we are immediately shown underfunded police departments that don't have the means or the manpower to do any stop-and-search: a power suddenly demanded by Moore on their behalf that we know by definition would at least lead to some ridiculous interrogations. Finally, Moore complains that there isn't enough intrusion and confiscation at airports and says that it is appalling that every air traveler is not forcibly relieved of all matches and lighters. (Cue mood music for sinister influence of Big Tobacco.) So—he wants even more pocket-rummaging by airport officials? Uh, no, not exactly. But by this stage, who's counting? Moore is having it three ways and asserting everything and nothing. Again—simply not serious.
Circling back to where we began, why did Moore's evil Saudis not join "the Coalition of the Willing"? Why instead did they force the United States to switch its regional military headquarters to Qatar? If the Bush family and the al-Saud dynasty live in each other's pockets, as is alleged in a sort of vulgar sub-Brechtian scene with Arab headdresses replacing top hats, then how come the most reactionary regime in the region has been powerless to stop Bush from demolishing its clone in Kabul and its buffer regime in Baghdad? The Saudis hate, as they did in 1991, the idea that Iraq's recuperated oil industry might challenge their near-monopoly. They fear the liberation of the Shiite Muslims they so despise. To make these elementary points is to collapse the whole pathetic edifice of the film's "theory." Perhaps Moore prefers the pro-Saudi Kissinger/Scowcroft plan for the Middle East, where stability trumps every other consideration and where one dare not upset the local house of cards, or killing-field of Kurds? This would be a strange position for a purported radical. Then again, perhaps he does not take this conservative line because his real pitch is not to any audience member with a serious interest in foreign policy. It is to the provincial isolationist.
I have already said that Moore's film has the staunch courage to mock Bush for his verbal infelicity. Yet it's much, much braver than that. From Fahrenheit 9/11 you can glean even more astounding and hidden disclosures, such as the capitalist nature of American society, the existence of Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex," and the use of "spin" in the presentation of our politicians. It's high time someone had the nerve to point this out. There's more. Poor people often volunteer to join the army, and some of them are duskier than others. Betcha didn't know that. Back in Flint, Mich., Moore feels on safe ground. There are no martyred rabbits this time. Instead, it's the poor and black who shoulder the packs and rifles and march away. I won't dwell on the fact that black Americans have fought for almost a century and a half, from insisting on their right to join the U.S. Army and fight in the Civil War to the right to have a desegregated Army that set the pace for post-1945 civil rights. I'll merely ask this: In the film, Moore says loudly and repeatedly that not enough troops were sent to garrison Afghanistan and Iraq. (This is now a favorite cleverness of those who were, in the first place, against sending any soldiers at all.) Well, where does he think those needful heroes and heroines would have come from? Does he favor a draft—the most statist and oppressive solution? Does he think that only hapless and gullible proles sign up for the Marines? Does he think—as he seems to suggest—that parents can "send" their children, as he stupidly asks elected members of Congress to do? Would he have abandoned Gettysburg because the Union allowed civilians to pay proxies to serve in their place? Would he have supported the antidraft (and very antiblack) riots against Lincoln in New York? After a point, one realizes that it's a waste of time asking him questions of this sort. It would be too much like taking him seriously. He'll just try anything once and see if it floats or flies or gets a cheer.
Indeed, Moore's affected and ostentatious concern for black America is one of the most suspect ingredients of his pitch package. In a recent interview, he yelled that if the hijacked civilians of 9/11 had been black, they would have fought back, unlike the stupid and presumably cowardly white men and women (and children). Never mind for now how many black passengers were on those planes—we happen to know what Moore does not care to mention: that Todd Beamer and a few of his co-passengers, shouting "Let's roll," rammed the hijackers with a trolley, fought them tooth and nail, and helped bring down a United Airlines plane, in Pennsylvania, that was speeding toward either the White House or the Capitol. There are no words for real, impromptu bravery like that, which helped save our republic from worse than actually befell. The Pennsylvania drama also reminds one of the self-evident fact that this war is not fought only "overseas" or in uniform, but is being brought to our cities. Yet Moore is a silly and shady man who does not recognize courage of any sort even when he sees it because he cannot summon it in himself. To him, easy applause, in front of credulous audiences, is everything.
Moore has announced that he won't even appear on TV shows where he might face hostile questioning. I notice from the New York Times of June 20 that he has pompously established a rapid response team, and a fact-checking staff, and some tough lawyers, to bulwark himself against attack. He'll sue, Moore says, if anyone insults him or his pet. Some right-wing hack groups, I gather, are planning to bring pressure on their local movie theaters to drop the film. How dumb or thuggish do you have to be in order to counter one form of stupidity and cowardice with another? By all means go and see this terrible film, and take your friends, and if the fools in the audience strike up one cry, in favor of surrender or defeat, feel free to join in the conversation.
However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point. And as for the scary lawyers—get a life, or maybe see me in court. But I offer this, to Moore and to his rapid response rabble. Any time, Michael my boy. Let's redo Telluride. Any show. Any place. Any platform. Let's see what you're made of.
Some people soothingly say that one should relax about all this. It's only a movie. No biggie. It's no worse than the tomfoolery of Oliver Stone. It's kick-ass entertainment. It might even help get out "the youth vote." Yeah, well, I have myself written and presented about a dozen low-budget made-for-TV documentaries, on subjects as various as Mother Teresa and Bill Clinton and the Cyprus crisis, and I also helped produce a slightly more polished one on Henry Kissinger that was shown in movie theaters. So I know, thanks, before you tell me, that a documentary must have a "POV" or point of view and that it must also impose a narrative line. But if you leave out absolutely everything that might give your "narrative" a problem and throw in any old rubbish that might support it, and you don't even care that one bit of that rubbish flatly contradicts the next bit, and you give no chance to those who might differ, then you have betrayed your craft. If you flatter and fawn upon your potential audience, I might add, you are patronizing them and insulting them. By the same token, if I write an article and I quote somebody and for space reasons put in an ellipsis like this (…), I swear on my children that I am not leaving out anything that, if quoted in full, would alter the original meaning or its significance. Those who violate this pact with readers or viewers are to be despised. At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to be objective. At no moment does he pass up the chance of a cheap sneer or a jeer. He pitilessly focuses his camera, for minutes after he should have turned it off, on a distraught and bereaved mother whose grief we have already shared. (But then, this is the guy who thought it so clever and amusing to catch Charlton Heston, in Bowling for Columbine, at the onset of his senile dementia.) Such courage.
Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless, and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention, as clumsily excerpted like this (...) is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban, and the Baath Party and that the war against jihad is about nothing. If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following:
The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …
And that's just from Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945. A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.
If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

The "Fair and Balanced" Press

2004-06-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

You may think I am hard-core right wing, but if you have an argument to this, I’d be more then happy to hear from you.

The 9/11 Commission put out some of their findings Thursday, and newspapers across the country were unanimous in their headlines and above the fold stories.

The New York Times: "Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq tie."
The Washington Post: "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed."
The Los Angeles Times: "No Signs of Iraq-Al Qaeda Ties Found."
And the generally conservative Wall Street Journal: "No Iraq-al Qaeda Link."

But if anybody actually took the time to read the articles, you see the Commission didn’t really say that. Here is what the commission actually said: There was no a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda regarding Sept. 11. While I agree that Sadam had zero to do with the WTC and Pentagon attacks. there were in fact links between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Not a “feeling”, not a “possibility”, but a provable link.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, by his own taped diatribes is an Al Qaeda leader who was wounded in Afghanistan by American forces and went to Baghdad. Zarqawi was there in May of 2002 and had surgery in an Iraqi hospital. The hospital was run by Uday Hussein. For most, that would be enough, but for the skeptics, tree huggers, Anti-War activists, and American apologists, there's more.

After he recovered from his wounds through the good graces of the Iraqi government, he went to Lebanon to meet with Hezbollah brass. Shortly after that, in October of 2002, American official Lawrence Foley was assassinated in Jordan. When the Jordanians caught up with the killers, they reported that Zarqawi was not just passively involved in the plot, but had picked the target and provided the plan of attack. On what I am sure was just a flight mistake and total coincidence, Zarqawi was back in Iraq after the assassination of Foley and had a meeting with the Ansar al-Islam group, which has an affiliation with (big shock) Al Qaeda.

In January 2003, several Ansar terrorists were arrested in Britain and charged with planning to put Ricin in the food supply of a military base. Some of those terrorists fingered Zarqawi in the plot.

As I write this, foreign and American intelligence services think Zarqawi is in Fallujah working with some of Saddam's former henchmen in planning terror attacks. Last week, he took credit for killing 13 people in a bombing.

Do we need a video of Sadam and Al-Qaeda building a bomb with airplane tickets to Los Angeles in the corner to prove it? What the hell else do you need? The links are all over the place, but again, I have no reason whatsoever to doubt it when the Commission says Saddam was not directly involved with Sept. 11. That’s true. Of course, what the press wanted you to think was that the commission called bullshit on the Bush Administration. The counted on the fact that 8 out of 10 of you just read the headlines on your way to the sports section.

President Bush said Thursday: “The reason that I keep insisting that there’s was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda. This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and Al Qaeda.”

Gee, it must have been bad luck that his comment wasn’t printed in the same issue, or the next two issues of those same newspapers. The press wants you to believe that the President misled us. They want you to believe that so bad, they will do and say anything to make it happen. This is just the beginning.

THE TRUE AMERICAN COWBOY

2004-06-07T19:44:00.000-07:00

The Reagan Legacy: It Was About More than his Optimism

If only President Reagan were here to take in some of the commentary we’ve been hearing and reading about his life, his presidency, and his effect on politics. Even his former critics have rushed to the airwaves and op-ed pages to remember this great and good man. Sen. Ted Kennedy described Reagan’s optimism "infectious," and the New York Times wrote that "he managed to project the optimism of Franklin D. Roosevelt."

Of course Reagan was an optimist. The important question is why.

Twenty years ago President Reagan's critics saw his optimism as the by-product of a naïve, unsophisticated worldview. They believed that his sunny demeanor was no more than an irrational denial of reality, which was caused by his dogmatic and outdated beliefs. Reagan was caricatured as the "amiable dunce," an avuncular soul who quit work each day at 5 pm and took naps in the afternoon. Only an unsophisticated rube totally disengaged from the complexities of the world at home and abroad could have such a positive outlook.

Twenty years ago, Reagan's optimism was not viewed by the elites as a mark of his character but as evidence of his general lack of understanding. The reason he could smile after walking away from the Reykavik summit (where he rejected a deal on arms control) was because he just couldn't comprehend the need for America to compromise with the Communists. The reason he could say "stay the course" with his tax cuts during the 1982 recession was because he could not fathom the fact that lower taxes were inherently unfair to poor people. The reason that he went to the Berlin Wall and said "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" is because he was ill-suited to master the nuances of international diplomacy.

Critics never understood the broad-based popularity of Reagan's conservatism because they never really understood why this guy was always smiling. Reagan was optimistic because he was he confident. He was confident because he knew what he believed was true. Good and evil exist. The individual trumps the collective. Our rights are God-given, not government given. And an America committed to these truths would overcome any obstacle.

He was convinced that truth had a power beyond any individual and that it would ultimately prevail. More importantly he was deeply convinced that liberty could never make peace with tyranny. We could never compromise with evil but we must call it what it is and fight against it until it is vanquished. Reagan's optimism was founded on truth, on character, and ultimately on his great wisdom.

To his core, he was convinced that regardless of our political difference on this or that issue, the American people would always be committed to these truths and be willing to sacrifice for them. Reagan could be both self-deprecating and confident because his confidence was founded not on primarily a belief in himself, but on a belief in others. This is why Reagan was rarely bothered by the cynics who enjoyed promoting the "Bedtime for Bonzo" caricature. (On the rare occasion on which the New York Times would write something positive about him, he liked to say, "I wonder what has gotten into them!")

The Reagan Revolution was a revolution of ideas based on basic truths about the human yearning for freedom, the power of the free market, and the dignity of all mankind. His political opponents routinely explain his success by attributing it to his masterful communication skills. "I wasn't a great communicator," Reagan insisted, years later, "but I communicated great things... and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow; they came from the heart of a great nation, from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries."

Indeed, his connection was with the "heart of a great nation," our people. This was the foundation of what the Washington Post yesterday referred to as "his buoyant optimism." That is why I came to Washington in 1987 to work as a junior staffer/speechwriter in his Administration. I was a kid just out of college and found myself working in the Reagan White House as an aide working in domestic policy. Most of us twenty-somethings came to Washington in the 1980s because we wanted to be some small part of the Reagan Revolution. His was a vision of an America that would never be defeated, of an America that is great not because of her government but because of her people.

When the President walked over from the West Wing to the Old Executive Office Building where most of the White House staff’s offices are, the Secret Service would clear the hallways. But instead of a hush, immediately one could sense a palpable energy, and invariably, one would hear laughter. That man could lift your spirit with just a wink, his beaming smile, his strong wave. Even in the aftermath of the Iran-Contra scandal, he elevated us with his unshakeable belief in America’s promise.

In the 1970s, Reagan was already speaking and writing of the coming collapse of the Soviet Union-often to great ridicule. But he knew what the educated experts in the détente crowd could never understand-that the "evil empire" was propped up by lies and subjugation and could not withstand the power of freedom’s call. It was not the force of will, but the force of truth that propelled Reagan. It was this force that defined his life and will continue to define America for generations to come.

When I left the White House in early 1988, I had my five minutes with Reagan along with other domestic policy staffers. He showed us around the Oval Office and I was totally star-struck. Overcome with nervousness, I looked at him and said, "Mr. President, I think I'm going to faint." He looked at me, grabbed my arm for the presidential photographer, smiled and said,"Don't worry, I'll catch you."

President Reagan, thank you for catching us all when we as a nation were at risk of being overcome by cynicism and pessimism. Your optimism-based on an abiding belief in God and a fervent devotion to protecting the liberties that He has endowed us with-helped to lead a rebirth a freedom around the world and a renewed faith in the American spirit at home.

Mr. President, God has welcomed you home, and I have no doubt you have heard the words,"Well done, my good and faithful servant."

-Laura Ingraham

DEFINING "DUMB"

2004-06-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

Well, Apparently I offended one or two of you out there, who took exception to the term "dumb liberal". Some kept it simple and made points like "Clinton was a Rhodes scholar, how dumb could he be?". Others went on at length. Either way it was chosen to be taken, I guess it is a good idea to maybe narrow down the term a bit so that its context is understood.
For most of history, this wouldn't even be needed because everybody was in agreement as to what a word meant. But nowadays there are a number of words that have been so overused, their meaning becomes phenomenally broad to the point it takes on multiple meanings. Words like "Hero", "right" and "Racist" are used to describe everything and everyone. "Dumb Liberal" may be one of those terms.
When I refer to "Dumb Liberals", I'm not speaking about their educational background or mental capacity. Also when I say "dumb liberal", I am not saying if you are a registered democrat, it automatically makes you a "dumb liberal".
A "dumb liberal" is one who cannot take a poison on a subject, and then support that argument with logical reasoning. DL's speak of the world in a manner reflective of how it "should" be, rather then it is. When confronted with facts contrary to their opinion, they revert to name calling rather then counterargument. A "DL" can in fact be very well educated, and still be a "DL".
Are there "dumb Conservatives" in the Republican Party? To be sure, but not nearly in the numbers you see among Democrats. The reason is simple. The basic philosophy of liberalism is that the State can take care of you. Bigger government can take care of all of the problems of the country. Simple fact is, the party that says "you can have what you don't work for" is going to appeal more to the lazy then the party that says "you can have only what you work for". Add to this that it is human nature to look good and avoid looking bad at all costs. If you are lazy, chances are that you did work to make your life better, and if it isn't, it has to be somebody else's fault. Any admission to the contrary destroys the entire foundation of liberalism, so they will cling to their point no matter what. The ideology blinds the facts.
Not all liberals are dumb, but the war in Iraq has unfortunately become a forum for them, so right now it looks that way because of the sheer number of them out there making noise. Michael Moore, Danny Glover, Ed Asner, Al Gore, Al Franken, they all make statements that not a single one of them has yet to support with factual data. Michael Moore explains this by saying all the facts have been covered up, Danny GLover just calls you a racist, on and on. You may not like Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, or Rush Limbaugh, but I defy anybody out there to take a point they have made and factually explain how it is made up.
Understand that a "dumb liberal" and a "hardcore liberal" can be very different. A left wing liberal like say Senator John Edwards is very articulate, makes a point and supports it with fact. That makes him a "hardcore liberal", but not a "dumb liberal'. On the other hand you have Barbara Streisand who sits in her 23,000 square foot mansion overlooking the California Coast with the ELEVEN SUV's registered to her and pontificates about how Republicans are anti-Environment, yet when questioned, simply doesn't answer the question, is a "dumb liberal". Sean Penn who said "The Bush Administration is the biggest threat to the Constitution in history", yet cannot give any example of ignoring the constitution of the United States, is a "Dumb Liberal".
I hope this redefines the term for everybody, especially those who felt I had called them "dumb".

The 25 Year War We Didn't Know Was Happening

2004-06-03T22:52:00.000-07:00

Its funny, but when you ask the average Anti-War "activist" when the war on terrorism started, They would most likely tell you it was in September of 2001. If you say "No, I don't mean just in New York, I mean anywhere on American soil", they will look at you with that blank stare that the average Anti-War "activist" is famous for. Ask them how many Americans have died in the War on Terrorism, and the vaguely bright ones may regurgitate the latest number from Air America or CNN. If you are lucky, you won't be then subjected to the ad nauseum diatribe they will go into about "war for oil" and "illegal war", "containment was working" and a bunch of other catchy terms they couldn't explain to you in a coherent manner.

For those of you scoring at home, lets go over the War on Terror to date. Of course, to start, you need to follow me back to when it began, which was November of 1979.

"1979 you say? Paul, That can't be! Jimmy Carter was president, and he was so open and giving and caring and all, no way we weren't loved the world over in 1979".

Yeah Einstein. 1979. November of Nineteen Freaking Seventy Nine. That was when a bunch of Iranian Students attacked the US Embassy (United States sovereign territory), and seized the occupants. Up to that point, President Carter was determined that his "lets all hold hands and be friends" doctrine was going to be the key to utopia, and there was no need for a military. Hell, they just got their asses kicked in Vietnam by a bunch of guerrillas, so it wasn't worth keeping anyway, right? The Iranians kept the hostages for 444 days, which ironically and I am sure totally coincidentally, was the exact number of days left in Jimmy's presidency.

The fact that a bunch of radical Islamic fundamentalists could do that with impunity, and the best we could do is to send an undertrained and poorly equipped rescue mission into the desert, only to see 8 of them killed and the mission abandoned without ever coming into sight of the enemy, emboldened Islamic fundamentalists everywhere. This everybody was the genesis of the war on terror. The problem we have seeing that as the start date is that while they declared war on us, we were busy doing God knows what for the next quarter century. Here are the facts gang, and the body count:

1) 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis and rescue attempt, 8 dead
2) 1983 Truck Bomb, US Embassy, Beruit Lebanon, 63 dead
3) 1983 Truck Bomb, USMC HQ, Beirut Lebanon, 241 dead
4) 1983 Truck bomb, US Embassy Kuwait, 0 dead
5) 1984 Van bomb, US Embassy, Beirut Lebanon, 1 dead
6) 1985 Suitcase bomb, Madrid Spain, 4 dead
7) 1985 Car bomb, Rein-Mein Air Force Base Germany, 22 dead
8) 1985 Hijacking, Achille Lauro 1 dead
9) 1986 Hijacking,TWA flight 840, 4 dead
10) 1988 Bomb, Pan Am flight 103, 259 dead
11) 1993 Shooting, CIA Headquarters, Langley VA, 2 dead
12) 1993 Truck Bomb, World Trade Center, NY, 6 dead
13) 1995 Car bomb, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 7 dead
14) 1996 Truck bomb, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, 19 dead
15) 1998 Car bombs, US Embassies, Kenya & Tanzania, 224 dead
16) 2000 Boat bomb, USS Cole, Aden, Yemen, 17 dead
17) 2001 kamikaze attack, world Trade Center 2,824 dead
18) 2003 Invasion of Afghanistan & Iraq 819 dead

that's 4,520 everybody. This doesn't include civilian contractors, or foreigners. If you hadn't noticed, the enemy has been busy and successful. We declared was on Germany and entered world War I after they killed 1,201 on the Lousitania. In that war, we lost 100,000 men. We declared war on Japan and Germany after the Japanese killed 2,403 at pearl harbor. World War II cost the lives of 405,399 military personnel. So far, terrorist nations and organizations have taken the lives of 3,701 people, and 819 have given their lives fighting to prevent it from continuing.

Appeasement doesn't work, and if WW II didn't prove it or if you think that was too long ago, Jimmy Carter certainly demonstrated it's not a good plan with Islamic nutjobs. Winston Churchill spoke of appeasement when he said "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last". He also said "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject". It is time to look to his wisdom. It is way past time we mobilized for all out war against terrorists, and nations who support them with money, training, equipment, or even moral support. Find them, and kill them. Then kill all their friends. In that part of the world, negotiation is weakness. Carry through. If we can't control Fallujah, then we surround the city (with 100,000 troops, not 30,000), give everybody there a week to leave. Detain all persons of fighting age. Then let 150 or so B-52's loose on the city for a week. Then tell everybody that every time we run into problems, this is how we deal with it. Be uncompromising with every blow we strike. Let it be known we will not allow Americans to be killed at will, simple as that. This is a war we haven't been paying any attention to for 25 years, and its time we did.

The Tie and Why I Don't Know Women

2004-06-02T19:40:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, something horrible happened to a very close friend of mine. Somebody she was very close to died much more suddenly then anybody expected. Because we share a deep friendship, she brought home from his house, a tie. It was a pretty flashy one too. Pink and green and maroon and black. The best way to describe it is "unavoidable". You can't help but notice it.

Today, I wore the tie. I often wear a black shirt and black slacks with black shoes and belt, and a mostly black tie to work. People call it my "priest suit" and if viewed at the right angle, its not far off. But today, the black tie was discarded, and the "unavoidable" tie took its place. It stood out. I absolutely went with the suit, but it also absolutely stood out.

It was more then a tie, more then silk and dye. It was part of a man who my friend lost. In a way, part of it was him. Now, I will admit, I only met him once at a baseball game. He was old and his best years were a fading sight in the rear view mirror, but he was still living life, trying to squeeze every last drop out of what life he was honored to get.

I like the tie. It looks good on me. I would look good on anybody I am sure, but after I looked at it in the mirror, I knew it was going to be one of my good ties. Partly because, well, it just looks damn good. The other is because somebody cares enough about me to give me part of who she is. I guess, when loved ones I am related to go, I will do the same. I named my daughter after my grandmother, and in that name, she is still with me, and so in giving me the tie that her grandfather wore, he still gets to be with her.
But then something happened. At work, and in front of her, somebody commented that the Pink streak in it looked like a flamingo. Admittedly, in a way, you can see the point, and if it had been any tie, it would have been funny. Mind you, nobody was making "fun" of it, and in fact, many people commented on how good it looked. But the comments were viewed by my friend as making fun of her grandfather.

You have no idea how much I wish now that I had figured that out at the time. I didn't. I wish I could say I figured it out after she mentioned it to me. I didn't. The problem with me was that I knew that nobody was making fun of anything, and that being the fact, I pointed it out to her. Many times. In fact, the last time we talked, I was still pointing it out to her. I was sure she was being dramatic and petty, I even did it to her a couple of times.

I was so mad at how mean she was being to me, yet absolutely lost as to why I couldn't explain to her how she was being, that I called a mentor of mine. Surely he would be able to advise me on a way to explain to her in a way she could understand, that she was being petty and dramatic. I called him, and I gave him the full blown, unedited version of events. He listened intently, giving me the "mmm-hmmm" acknowledgement that he was with me. After my diatribe, I asked him for the advice I had called him on.

And all he said was "She's right, and you need to think about what she said, and stop looking for a way to look like you didn't mess up here. Once you do that, you are going to hear what she said". I argued about all the mean and degrading things she said to me, but he pointed out that those all came after I screwed up, and her errors didn't make mine right, so for now, they are beside the point. So I did. I thought long and hard.

Among the many many differences between humans and animals is the capacity to feel sad. To feel loss. To feel emotion. Animals do it out of instinct, we do it for anything but. It's not a tie, it's the thing that a man who meant the world to her granddaughter left behind. It is, for practical purposes, him. Sometimes its in a picture, a book, a song, or a tie. Its what is left of every good memory, of every hope and dream and wish to pass on. It can't be quantified, explained, justified, or rationalized. It is what it is, and its the reason we are just different. I was wrong in not noticing that.

THE FALLUJAH YOU DON'T HEAR ABOUT

2004-06-01T23:07:00.000-07:00

The Fallujah Brigade
How the Marines are pacifying an Iraqi hot spot.

BY BRENDAN MINITER
Tuesday, June 1, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

In Iraq, apparently no news is good news. Two months ago everyone was talking about Fallujah. Four American citizens had been brutally murdered, and then a raging mob dragged their bodies through the streets and strung them up from a bridge. Every mosque in the city was calling for jihad, while the local police and fire departments ceased to exist. Then two days into offensive operations, the Marines suddenly seemed to halt their advance. Fallujah quickly became a metaphor for everything that was going wrong in Iraq.

Today, however, the city of 200,000 is relatively quiet, and there's little reporting on why. To find out how the Marines were able to pacify a city in the heart of the Sunni Triangle--despite accusations that they were shrinking from a fight for political reasons--I spoke with Col. John Coleman, who is in Fallujah and is chief of staff for the First Marine Expeditionary Force, which is in charge of about one-third of the land mass of Iraq. What he said revealed a continuing battle in Iraq that appears neither hopeless nor without progress. In speaking with Col. Coleman it quickly became clear that many of the images of the war that trickle back through the media and reports of "cutting deals" with insurgents are often out of context. This is a sentiment Navy Secretary Gordon England also sounded last week in a speech over lunch at the National Press Club. Before taking over in Fallujah, the Marines identified 28 individuals who were leading the insurgency in and around Fallujah. To date the Marines have killed or captured 27 of them, he said. The coalition is clearly winning.
As they were battling through the city two months ago, the Marines realized they could easily crush the insurgency in Fallujah but in the process would "rubble the city." That would leave thousands of Marines patrolling the city, repairing infrastructure and trying to build working relationships with the inhabitants who remained. "That doesn't work us out of a job," Col. Coleman told me. Nor would it leave the Marines free to conduct other operations.
What they needed to do was drive wedges into the enemy ranks--divide and conquer. From studying the enemy, the Marines realized the insurgents can be separated into five disparate groups with widely varying goals: foreign fighters (some of whom are very skilled bomb makers), religious extremists, violent criminals released from prison by Saddam and willing to kill for money, Saddam loyalists (those Col. Coleman described as "bloody up to their elbows" in the old regime) and former military personnel.
The Saddam-look-alike former general who turned up to help coalition forces in Fallujah notwithstanding, that last group offered the best opportunity. It turns out there are a lot of former military personnel in Fallujah. These are mostly Sunni men who were professional soldiers and are patriotic and proud of their military service. Many sat out the invasion last year believing the coalition's promise that if they abandoned Saddam, they would have a future in the new Iraq. But since the fall of the regime, the coalition hadn't provided them with any opportunity for meaningful work. As a consequence, many were joining the insurgency.
That's when a former Iraqi general stepped forward and promised the Marines that within 24 hours he could assemble 300 Iraqis ready to battle the insurgents. The next day he met his promise and within a few days the ranks of the brigade swelled to 900 men. Col. Coleman tells me there are so many former Iraq soldiers willing to fight insurgents that the "Fallujah Brigade" could easily grow to several thousand if the Marines would let it.
Among other things, this brigade became a liaison between the coalition and the local imams, sheiks and Fallujah city fathers. One by one these groups were peeled away from the insurgents. Now none of the mosques in Fallujah are calling for jihad, local politicians are coordinating with coalition forces in rebuilding city infrastructure--the Marines have approximately $500 million to spend in Iraq--and the Fallujah Brigade is patrolling the streets. Ninety percent of the intelligence the Marines get on insurgents comes from Iraqi sources.
The secret was to make "good hearted" Iraqis into stakeholders in a peaceful Fallujah. The unreported story in Iraq is that this insurgency would continue uninterrupted even if coalition forces withdrew tomorrow. It's not an anticoalition insurgency as much as it is a war against the establishment of a peaceful, stable society in Iraq.
The Fallujah Brigade, however, doesn't have free rein. The Marines constantly test it to make sure it is fulfilling the coalition's goals. These tests include submitting to civilian rule, taking large-caliber weapons off the streets, ensuring the rule of law is prevailing in the city, working with and positively influencing city fathers, and adhering to all the Geneva Conventions and rules of war that the Marines themselves must follow. So far the brigade is passing these tests. But one area in which it must do better is helping to investigate, capture and prosecute those responsible for killing and then mutilating the four Americans in March. If the brigade ever fails to meet these tests, Col. Coleman says it will be disbanded. And if it is to live on past the June 30 handover, it must also be sanctioned by the interim government.
After seeing American citizens dragged through the streets a few months ago, many likely expected to see the Marines drop the sledgehammer in Fallujah. But the truth is that all branches of the U.S. military are able to employ more surgical strikes when the situation calls for it. "The military is a pretty educated force," Col. Coleman told me. "What you may be witnessing is that our toolkit is fairly broad these days." Col. Coleman admits using the Fallujah Brigade wasn't necessarily the Marines' first preference and he's not yet convinced that it will ultimately prove to be a model worth replicating around the country. But, he said, coalition forces learn from their operations and if the coalition is to build a stable country, "everything we do here should endeavor to put an Iraqi lead up front."

AIR AMERICA

2004-05-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

I think Al Franken almost had a sexual experience on air today. A person called in to tell Al about a quote in the Kansas City Star from Theodore Roosevelt on May 7th 1918. The former president was talking about the obligation of citizens to question the president in a time of war. TR (A man I admire and idolize by the way) said;

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct....there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong....Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President.....is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public....
Al I truly believe had to excuse himself for a moment. A conservative republican saying that liberals not only should criticize the president, but dammit, they are obligated to criticize the president! Vindication!

Since Al now obviously thinks Teddy Roosevelt is the second coming of liberal activism, I'd like to point out a few of his other quotes, and lets see how they fit into the liberal agenda;

"Criticism is necessary and useful;....but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought...." (1894)

Oops. Lets see. John Kerry has certainly got the "Criticism is necessary" part down. But how about the "but it can never take the place of action" part? Mister "Iraq was a mistake" and "I would have done it better" never seems to get specific other them to point out how the president made a mistake. Action means taking a stand, and Kerry seems to, up until he doesn't take a stand. Maybe he thinks taking a stand on every side of every issue was going to help.

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
"The Strenuous Life"

How bout that John? Wouldn't you agree that the point is to do what in your heart you feel is the right thing, regardless of its popularity? Like for instance when you supported No Child Left Behind, and then didn't. Like when you said you "voted for the 87 Million before you voted against it"? Like when you testified in 1973 that you "witnessed atrocities by American soldiers against the Vietnamese" but then stated that your statements were not meant to imply that American Soldiers committed atrocities. My God, you will be the first candidate in the history of the United States who considered going to the nominating convention but not accepting the nomination! See where we might get the idea that you like to move in whatever direction is popular?

"I have a perfect horror of words that are not backed up by deeds."
Oyster Bay, NY, July 7, 1915

Lets see here. John's beloved United Nations Passed ELEVEN resolutions giving Saddam Hussein a "final warning" to comply or suffer the consequences. Security council Resolution 1441 said that there would be the "most serious" consequences if Iraq was found to be in material breach of the previous ELEVEN resolutions. Saddam was found to be in breach. 135,000 armed Americans on their way to Baghdad most certainly qualifies as "Serious Consequences". The UN made the words, George bush backed up the words with deeds, and John was........against the actions. Leadership huh.

Finally, we have this little warning;

"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility."
Abilene, KS, May 2, 1903

Saddam Hussein was responsible for the murder over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. He had professional rapists on his payroll. He gassed the Kurds, invaded both Iran and Kuwait, attempted to build a gun that could lob 3,000 pound shells into Israel, attempted to build an atomic bomb, and had his chief of security meet with Al-Queda members in Kuala-Lampour, Malaysia on January 5-8 2000. All this, and John wanted to look the other way because after all, Hussein hadn't done anything yet.

Al Franken, besides being a blowhard, is an idiot. Before getting all hot and bothered over one quote, maybe it would be good to take into account the totality of a persons ideology. Taking it all into account, my guess is that Theodore Roosevelt would have kicked the shit out of John Kerry if they had ever met, on principal alone.

LIBERAL "CENSORSHIP"

2004-05-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

I went to observe a rally a few days ago in Portland Oregon. in support of Senator Kerry. Some of it was curiosity at what the crowd was going to look like, and part of it was to see the Senator in person. Before he got to the rally, I floated around the crowd to listen in on conversations. On thing that 8 years in the military taught me was that it is always a good idea to keep an eye on what the enemy was up to.
Mostly it was sound bytes being regurgitated by people who wouldn't be able to explain their position if there was agun to their head, except to spit out another sound byte to justify the first sound byte. I once asked a guy who said that the Iraq war was "blood for oil" (Sound Bite number one). I asked him what exactly "blood for oil" meant. He then informed me, rather smugly I might add, that "George Bush started a war in Iraq to satisfy his cronies in Texas, and to get Iraqi oil" (Sound Bite number two). Aside from the fact that this didn't answer the question I asked, I pointed out that before the war, we were buying Iraqi oil. Completely stunned at my obvious stupidity, he said "when Bush's buddies take over the oil fields, the oil companies can charge whatever they want for gas" (sound bite number three). Proving how stupid I was by even continuing this conversation, I said "But OPEC countries set oil production limits, and by extension, oil prices. Are you saying that Texaco is going to take the nation of Iraq out of OPEC?" This is when he used the classic liberal weapon of argumentation. He looked at me and said "Fuck off". Boiling down his argument into a mathematical comparison we have the following argument;
"One plus one is three"
"How do you get three?"
"because two plus six is thirty four. Don't you know anything?"
"but two plus six is eight, not thirty four, and what does that have to do with two plus two? See on the calculator?"
"The calculator is a tool of the corporations and you are just stupid, so fuck off".
It's hard arguing with liberals, because an argument requires a statement supported by facts. They have the statement part down, but that's where it all ends. The thing that makes it so entertaining, is that they also believe in the theory that if a liberal makes a statement, it is "free Speech". If a conservative questions the statement or objects to it, what is coming back is not free speech, but "censorship". The Dixie chicks say "We are embarrassed that GWB is from Texas", Free speech. The fans of the Dixie Chicks say "I'm offended by that and I no longer want to hear your music", censorship. Mind you, they get to play their music wherever and whenever they want, but because some don't want to pay to hear it, you got censorship. Chinese citizens must wet their pants in laughter at what the liberal left call "censorship". To a Chinese citizen, they are under the mistaken belief that "censorship" is when a guy says "Hey Chang, I just read Mao's Little Red Book and I got to say, he's not a very good writer" and the next day at three in the morning the guys front door is kicked open, and he is hauled out of bed and never heard from again. Stupid damn Chinese, don't you understand, 500 copies of Wide Open Spaces were tossed in the garbage. My God, how can you not see the rampant censorship going on!

A few words on torture

2004-05-28T23:33:00.000-07:00

Has everybody had their fill of the "Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal" yet? No? Well here are a few things you may not know, especially if you rely on the mainstream media to give you all of the "facts".

First off, we are talking about a handful of guards. At best there were twenty. TWENTY shithead soldiers (I'd like to take a moment to point out that no Marines have been accused of any abuse, which means we weren't as stupid as the Army to take pictures, or more likely, we were awake in boot camp when we learned about the Geneva Conventions) decided to take matters into their own hands. As much as the liberal media, and the liberal elites, and for Gods sake lets not forget the Hollywood Liberal elites would have you think George Bush and Dick Cheney starred in a training video called How to Sexually Humiliate the Peace Loving People of Iraq in 5 Easy Steps, but they didn't. Neither did Donald Rumsfeld. It started at best with some dumshit reservist soldier who was pissed off that he wasn't at home collecting an unemployment check anymore, and decided to play games with prisoners. At worst, it was some dumshit reservist soldier who was pissed off that he wasn't at home collecting an unemployment check anymore who was told by some dumbshit CIA agent, dumbshit private contractor, or dumbshit interrogator to play games with prisoners. And while all of this was going on, the dumbshit prison commander was sitting on her fat ass in her office, not minding the store. Either way, the guards were under no obligation whatsoever to follow an unlawful order. They would have been given a medal if just ONE of them had said to whomever told them to do the things they did, "With all due respect sir (or Ma'am), not only will I not carry out your orders, but I will be reporting that you instructed me to do it to the Judge Advocate Generals office". Done. At any rate, 20 out of 138,000 troops is in fact a handful.

Second, I'm going to kill something if I hear again how the guards were "under trained". It takes no training whatsoever to know you don't put naked prisoners on a lash. If it didtake training, it should have come from mom and dad, not a Drill sergeant.

That said, the treatment of the prisoners needs to be hard. You will never get good old Abdul to tell you where his buddies are planning on firing off the next RPG if you take them in, give them a cigarette, copy of the Koran, hot meal, and a soft bed to sleep in. For the prisoners, if they were so wrapped up in the Geneva Convention, they might have wanted to read the chapter that talked about needing to be in a uniform that includes a recognized rank and fighting for a recognized nation state before they qualified for Geneva Convention protection status. They need to be kept awake, given small amounts of food, and yeah, a good smack every now and then wouldn't hurt. This is a war people, not a frigging daycare arrangement. If it were fun and easy, the French would be there. The rules of warfare are pretty simple; Locate the enemy, close with the enemy, kill the enemy. If Abdul tells us to go fuck a camel when we ask him where his buddies are, the a good crack across the grill and a wake up call every half hour for a week might encourage him to maybe let us know what we are asking.

I know John Kerry sincerely feels that a good bottle of French wine and a hug will get them to spill vital intelligence, but he's not president yet, and if we can get our own party to quit desperately trying to hand the Oval office to him, he may never be. In the meantime, lets get back to what we are good at; finding Abduls buddies, and killing them.