Jimmy Carter Excuses Terrorism

For many years I thought of Jimmy Carter as a good man who cared for people, yet was in over his head. I now think he is simply dense. He has assigned blame to Republicans on everything from global warming to terrorism and the failure of peace in the Middle East. It seems he just can’t keep it to himself.



Carter: Iraq War 'Unnecessary'

Former President Carter said Saturday the detention of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval base was an embarrassment and had given extremists an excuse to attack the United States.

So it’s back to Gitmo we go. Terrorism as an exciting and fun extracurricular activity got it’s kickoff under the Carter Administration if my memory serves me.

Carter also criticized the U.S.-led war in Iraq as "unnecessary and unjust."

Comments like that probably give extremists ‘an excuse to attack the United States’ as well.

"I think what's going on in Guantanamo Bay and other places is a disgrace to the U.S.A.,"

"I wouldn't say it's the cause of terrorism, but it has given impetus and excuses to potential terrorists to lash out at our country and justify their despicable acts."

How does this man’s mind work? How does he go to sleep thinking, ‘Gitmo is bad’ without also hitting upon ‘I was a weenie of a president that, given the chance to stand up to terrorism, proved to the world over that America is spineless in the face of aggression?’

Let's, for one second, assume Carter is right. He is the last person on the planet that should take up this cause. It's like Nero doing an infomercial on fire safety.

Carter said, however, that terrorist acts could not be justified, and that while Guantanamo "may be an aggravating factor ... it's not the basis of terrorism."

That basis would be the fact that they (the terrorists) want to kill us all. But I suppose that’s minor relative to the horrors of Gitmo.

"What has happened at Guantanamo Bay ... does not represent the will of the American people,"

Neither did sitting around on our hands for a year while a bunch of criminals, one of which may now be the President of Iran, humiliated our country.

"I'm embarrassed about it, I think it's wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people."

The logic just floors me. Terrorism aimed at the United States got it’s kickoff with the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran. It built for 20 years, culminating in 9/11. If Gitmo is an ‘excuse’ for terrorism, it’s only the latest and is made more convenient by the fact that those such as Carter continually argue the case.

Earlier this month, Carter called for the Guantanamo prison to be shut down, saying reports of abuses there were an embarrassment to the United States.

He also said that the United States needs to make sure no detainees are held incommunicado and that all are told the charges against them.

A federal judge disagrees.

"I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust. And I think the premises on which it was launched were false," he said Saturday.

Bush Lied! Sing it brother!

"I'm very proud to be in a nation that stands so stalwart against terrorism with us," he said. "The people of my country have united our hearts and sympathy for the tragedy that you have suffered from terrorism."

We could have used Tony Blair back in ’79.

The utter hypocrisy spewing forth from Carter is unbelievable. I honestly don’t know how the man sleeps at night, much less goes public with this garbage. He has absolutely no shame. It is amazing that he’s able to get the words out without choking.

I suppose I owe him one thing. The 1979 takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran was the formative event in my life. You might say that TSW owes its genesis to Jimmy Carter. And he continues to provide material. I would prefer a donation.

In Sports:

Nats 4, marlins 2
Finally!

Braves 5, Pirates 4

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Taking the Night Off

I promise.











See you tomorrow.

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CAIR Damages View of Islam in DC

Today we go local for once. Michael Graham was suspended today by Washington DC radio station WMAL, for making the following statement.

"The problem is not extremism," Graham told listeners. "The problem is Islam." He also said, "We are at war with a terrorist organization named Islam."

WMAL Suspends Talk-Show Host for Comment on Islam

Of course, the Post left this quote out of context, failing to mention that he went on to say that his reasoning was that Muslim leaders refuse to denounce terrorism, which is, for the most part, true. Remember the celebrations following 9/11? That may not reflect all of Islam, but that is the sort of thing that Americans remember. Of course, it does not mean that all Muslims are terrorists, and Graham states as much, though that section of his comments isn’t printed either.

Michael Graham is a bomb thrower. There is no doubt about that. WMAL knew this when he was hired. Graham has a long history and they knew exactly what they were getting. However, this is not a free speech case, as I have heard over and over today. WMAL, ABC and Disney have every right to put whatever they want on their station. Conversely, they have the right to remove any programming that they want. It may make them cowards, but it’s not a free speech case in any form whatsoever.

Here is what is noteworthy about this incident. Graham was left on the air for a week following his comments. It wasn’t until a phone whining campaign sponsored by CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) kicked in that WMAL suspended Graham.

Most Americans remember the pictures of Palestinians, among others, dancing in the streets, following 9/11. We remember the deafening silence of the Muslim community, which as a whole, only expressed worry about themselves being targeted, without really condemning the terrorists on any significant level. We remember all of the justifications for the attacks (oddly now echoed by some on the American left).

Knowing what we know about the probable disposition of the Michael Graham Show audience, what effect will suspending Graham have? Will it somehow help ‘American Islamic relations’? CAIR is going to do much more damage to the impressions that Americans have on Islam than they will help. Graham will be back on the air in a week and will be viewed as a hero for standing up to corporate suits, as well as the apologists at CAIR. This organization has taken the right’s hatred of terrorism, political correctness and the left wing media, and wrapped it all into one big fat target. Statements such as these don’t help…

CAIR denounced the comments as "hate-filled" and asked its members to contact the station's advertisers to express their dismay.

"I think it's a testament to the determination of individual Muslims who contacted the station and its advertisers to say Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry are unacceptable."

WMAL’s phone banks are already overflowing with outraged listeners. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is actually a marketing ploy by the station. Michael Graham is getting mounds of free publicity over this incident. Any ‘phobia’ reference will send the right into a tizzy as it is an obvious attempt to silence speech which the referrer does not want to hear, or want anyone else to hear for that matter. And it doesn’t help that CAIR is behind it. Remember CAIR? They are the official terrorism apologist organization of the United States. And Graham is taking full advantage of that fact.

Michael Graham

And, CAIR no doubt remembered that it had been caught by Joe Kaufman exploiting the 9/11 attacks to raise funds for two Hamas-linked fundraising organizations, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) and the Global Relief Foundation.

--[CAIR] is partially funded by terrorists…

Terrorists themselves don't literally give out money, but organizations that fund terrorism also fund CAIR.

What Michael Graham said on his radio show is not really the story. But by attempting to silence him, CAIR is giving the whole episode more play than it deserves and will probably do infinitely more damage to non-Muslim Americans perceptions of Islam than Graham’s comments ever would have. An honest listener could have taken his words for what they were. CAIR had to go and make his point for him.

Disclaimer: Before you accuse me of being some sort of talk radio parrot, please note that I work for a living and do not listen to any talk radio other than CSPAN in the mornings and Glenn Beck sporadically when I get off work early. I listen to 980 Sports when they aren't talking about the Wizards, but for some strange reason they can't get off of the topic, even in the summer.

In Sports:

Nats 3, marlins 4
Can the Nats break the record for most one run games, both lost and won?

Welcome home Rod Gardner!

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Newsweek Slams Iraqi Civilian Death Numbers

Perhaps Newsweek is attempting to get back into the good graces of the American people following their false Koran/Quran desecration story. I missed this last week, but I can't let it go without some comment. In any case, the magazine published an interesting article on civilian casualties and their causes in Iraq. You may recall my own attempt to add some perspective to the numbers from the Iraq Body Count website, which goes out of its way compare the civilian casualties to the number 0.

Civilian Deaths in Iraq

Newsweek attempts to make the same point.

Truth is the First Civilian Casualty

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died since 2003. But killings by U.S. troops are not nearly as common as the war’s critics would like us to believe.

I can’t believe its Newsweek.

In regards to the frequency of civilian casualties: But how often, really? The answer: not very often, in fact. And not nearly often enough to make the 150,000 U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq the leading scourge of Iraq's civilians. That dishonor goes, hands down, to the insurgents.

This must be some sort of mistake. The editor must have been on vacation.

It has become an article of faith among them that American troops have been slaughtering Iraqi civilians indiscriminately, and that one of the consequences of the war has been an unconscionable loss of life among the civilian population. It just isn't true.

I think I should sue Newsweek for stealing my material.

…it's highly dubious to suggest, as this report (Iraq Body Count) clearly intends to do, that these deaths were the fault of the U.S. military presence in Iraq.

And, as I have mentioned many times before, the total civilian deaths, even using the faulty numbers in this report, are still less than they were under Saddam Hussein, by more than half.

Is it the policeman's fault when the hostage taker kills his hostage?

Good analogy.

Fully 30 percent of the civilian fatalities Iraq Body Count records took place prior to May 1, 2003, when U.S. troops were actively engaged in the invasion and in subduing remnants of Saddam's army. During that military campaign, large numbers of Saddam Fedayeen and other irregular forces foght back from the cover of civilian dress, a violation of the laws and customs of warfare. Those who died were inevitably declared civilians by their loved ones.

Aha, now there’s a nice little piece of information I hadn’t heard. The anti-American death mongers on the left are looking more and more foolish.

The Iraq Body Count report goes through some interesting contortions to downplay the degree to which violence against civilians is predominantly caused by insurgent activity. U.S.-led forces alone, it says, killed 9,270 civilians, or 37.3 percent of the total (although it does not note at that point that 30 percent of that 37.3 percent was in the first six weeks of the war). Anti-occupation forces it blames for only 9.5 percent of the total, 2,353 civilians. Crossfires between insurgents and U.S. forces claim another 2.5 percent. And then most of the other deaths it attributes to "predominantly criminal killings" (35.9 percent) and "unknown agents" (11 percent). But it turns out that unknown agents are defined in the report as "those who appear to attack civilian targets lacking a clear or unambiguous link to the foreign military presence in Iraq.

Ok, I’ve stolen enough of this article. It is a good read and vindicates most of what myself and my fellow right wing conspirators have been saying for quite a while. Please take the time to read the entire piece. Remember where you heard it first!

Now, given that Newsweek, whom we all know is not a part of our conspiracy, is reporting this, how is it that MSM was able to use Iraq Body Count’s statistics in what they claimed were legitimate news stories? They never qualified them as productions of a left wing, anti-American organization. They printed them as fact. Newsweek seriously screwed up with their Koran desecration story, but they at least apologized for it. It was a weak apology, but it was something. CNN, CBS, the BBC and others present Iraq Body Count numbers fact, and no one whispers one word of protest, other than a few fanatical bloggers that is.

In Sports:
Nats blow it again. Who cares what the score was.

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Remember the Cannes Film Festival

I am by no means above rubbing the anti-American Europeans' collective faces in their own absurdities when they have been outed as frauds. I happened to run across this little nugget that I had been saving for a rainy day. I had no idea how handy it would become.

From May 12: The film US TV networks dare not show

Besides the Guardian, this ridiculous film, The Power of Nightmares, was hyped by the BBC and Reuters, among others. This could be the greatest ‘foot in mouth’ since George Custer stated that "There are not enough Indians in the world to defeat the Seventh Cavalry."

The Cannes festival actually requested that the producer/director, Adam Curtis, re-cut his idiotic documentary into a film so that it would be eligible for their anti-American fest. Recognizing that none of the major news outlets are going to highlight their own complicity, TSW will do so.

Adam Curtis has recut his explosive war on terror documentary The Power of Nightmares into a feature film - and is taking it to the festival. But he's no Michael Moore.

True, Moore was lucky enough not to come off as a complete fool two months later. It took an entire election cycle.

"They're suddenly talking about me as an auteur," he says. "I just think I'm a journalist. I do feel a bit like an animal in a zoo that's been put in the wrong cage and they'll find out and all go, 'Oi! that's not a giraffe, it's a vicuna!'" A vicuna, as you will know, is a llama-like ruminant.

How about a rat? I wonder if Curtis still considers himself a ‘journalist’.

…it is nonetheless this year's Fahrenheit 9/11, shaking festival-goers out of their aesthetic reveries with a political analysis of the causes and consequences of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

I’m sure Londoners really appreciate that ‘analysis’ now.

"Moore is a political agitprop film-maker. I am not - you'd be hard pushed to tell my politics from watching it. It was an attempt at historical explanation for September 11. You see, up to this point nobody had done a proper history of the ideas and groups that have created our modern world. It's weird that nobody had done before me."

Yeppers, a real revolutionary.

Curtis argues that politicians such as Bush and Blair have stumbled on a new force that can restore their power and authority - the fear of a hidden and organised web of evil from which they can protect their people.

I hope that Curtis has small feet. I bet that extraction from his mouth was quite painful.

For these reasons, one might well think that The Power of Nightmares would provide a usefully chastening corrective to the prevailing orthodoxy if it were shown on US television.

I really wish they would consider airing this nonsense now. How better to highlight the naivety and ignorance of the left.

While a two-and-a-half -hour film version is to be given a prime-time Cannes screening, and while the original three-hour series will be shown tonight on al-Jazeera along with a live interview with the director, US telly has run scared from showing it.

Nice job. I bet the terrorists got a real kick out of the stupidity of western thought.

"Something extraordinary has happened to American TV since September 11," says Curtis. "A head of the leading networks who had better remain nameless said to me that there was no way they could show it. He said, 'Who are you to say this?' and then he added, 'We would get slaughtered if we put this out.'" Surely a relatively enlightened broadcaster like HBO would show it?

Talk about arrogance. If I were that nameless 'head', I would be all over the ‘telly’ now proclaiming how right I was. I doubt there is a position higher than a ‘head’, but if there is, this guy deserves it.

Did the BBC have similar com punction about commissioning the series? "No. And the response from viewers was overwhelmingly positive. Ninety-four per cent of the emails were in favour."

I demand a recount! The Brits should really take a look at the disservice that the BBC is doing them, especially since they are forced to fund it.

...though Curtis worries that it will as a result become marginalised to art houses...

...and ‘rubbish’ bins or, rather, trashcans to you and me.

Curtis argues that there is a huge appetite for a serious critical analysis of the post-9/11 geopolitical world in the US.

He’s right about that. We just can’t seem to find any. Of course, the only news peddlers to highlight Curtis’ idiocy since the London bombings are those evil right wing conspirators at Foxnews:

The BBC Stoops to Crackpot Level

From the rest, the silence is deafening.

In Sports:
Nats 3, Braves 4
7th Straight loss in one run games.
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Many Former Congressmen are Tainted

It is rare that I find myself on the side of a liberal lobbying group, but I guess there is a first time for everything.

Hill a Steppingstone to K Street for Some (Account Required at times)

A new study has found that 43 percent of the 198 House and Senate members who left government to join private life since 1998 have registered to lobby. Of the 36 senators who left during that period, half have joined the lobbying ranks.

Members of Congress are able to ensure their own wealth following their government careers. I find the practice almost vulgar.

"Access equals power in Washington, and few people have greater access than a former member of Congress," said Frank Clemente, director of Congress Watch. "We believe the public has the right to know how frequently their elected representatives change their allegiances and become lobbyists."

I would like to know who they are lobbying for as well. Surely a former politician lobbying for a charity would not be quite as disturbing as, say, a former Congressman lobbying for CNOOC Ltd.

Congressional historians say that lawmakers rarely became lobbyists as recently as two decades ago. They considered the profession to be tainted and unworthy of once-elected officials such as themselves.

I still find the practice to be ‘unworthy of once-elected officials’. I find it ‘tainted’ no matter who is doing it.

But that began to change noticeably in the late 1980s. The reasons include sky-high lobbying salaries, a growing demand for lobbying services by industry, heavy turnover in Congress, and a change of control in the House of Representatives a decade ago, which opened the way for a flood of new GOP lobbyists.

Now that doesn’t make sense to me. The change in the House was not until 1994. In addition, that would seem to make more Democrats available, not Republicans.

"Now it's common for members of Congress to become lobbyists and, unlike years ago, there's no shame in making that transition,"

There is 'shame' in it. It's the former members of Congress who have no shame.

Probably because of the new partisan slant of government that year, more than 62 percent of the Republicans who left in 2000 became lobbyists -- 23 of 37 -- while 15 percent of departing Democrats -- 2 of 13 -- did the same.

Well, if we must have lobbyists, I guess I’m fine with the majority of the new ones coming from Republican ranks. Why not toss them all out on their ears though. In true Washington Post style, this article highlights that Republicans have moved into lobbying in greater numbers recently, without showing how many total lobbyists belong to each party.

I personally want them to toss the whole lobbying system out. Bar them from the Capital. In the spirit of populism, why in the heck does some clown with cash get more access to my Representative than I do? My one foray away from the GOP was over this very issue. I fear that since my sect of Republicans, who supported Ross Perot, were rewarded with Bill Clinton, we will never see that again. It is the one area where I almost side with McCain, though I don’t like the way he threw out the First Amendment. Whether it is Big Oil or the NEA, no organization should have that sort of influence over our government. Throw out the lobbyists from both parties, the whole bunch of them.

Note: I find it interesting that a liberal ‘lobbying’ group would create this report. It doesn’t sound like they are opposed to lobbying, just GOP lobbying.

In Sports:

Watching the Nats play the Braves is painful. Though I get to see my favorite pitcher of all times (John Smoltz) pitch, I can’t bare cheering against either team. If you had told me 5 years ago that I would be hoping for a Livan Hernandez win with Smoltz as the opposing pitcher, I might have thrown my drink on you. But since it is for the division lead, and Smoltz won’t take the loss, all I can say is…Go Nats!

Update:
Nats 2, Braves 3
Nats walk in the winning run. Braves take over 1st place.

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Is China Becoming a Fascist State?

Bill Gertz has been writing on China for years. Today he gives an ominous view of that country's military intentions.

Chinese dragon awakens

China is building its military forces faster than U.S. intelligence and military analysts expected, prompting fears that Beijing will attack Taiwan in the next two years, according to Pentagon officials.

I predicted ten, but who knows.

U.S. defense and intelligence officials say all the signs point in one troubling direction: Beijing then will be forced to go to war with the United States, which has vowed to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

That's assuming we have the guts to face them. Considering the weak knees of some in the government, press and population of the United States, I have to wonder.

Recent intelligence reports also show that China has stepped up military exercises involving amphibious assaults, viewed as another sign that it is preparing for an attack on Taiwan.

Ten years ago China had almost no amphibious assault capability.

China's economy has been growing at a rate of at least 10 percent for each of the past 10 years, providing the country's military with the needed funds for modernization.

The Chinese economy has been subsidized by the United States for the most part.

Here comes the scary part…

The combination of a vibrant centralized economy, growing military and increasingly fervent nationalism has transformed China into what many defense officials view as a fascist state.

"We may be seeing in China the first true fascist society on the model of Nazi Germany, where you have this incredible resource base in a commercial economy with strong nationalism, which the military was able to reach into and ramp up incredible production," a senior defense official said.

That’s the first comparison to the Nazis that I have seen, and it seems a bit alarmist. The possibility certainly exists though.

The release of an official Chinese government report in December called the situation on the Taiwan Strait "grim" and said the country's military could "crush" Taiwan.

Any document released by the Chinese government is most likely for propaganda purposes, but it is still a bit disconcerting.

"We left the million-man swim behind in about 1998, 1999," the senior Pentagon official said. "And in fact, what people are saying now, whether or not that construct was ever useful, is that it's a moot point, because in just amphibious lift alone, the Chinese are doubling or even quadrupling their capability on an annual basis."

And still we have our heads in the sand.

Beijing also is facing a major energy shortage that, according to one Pentagon study, could lead it to use military force to seize territory with oil and gas resources.

China could knock out two birds with one stone.

"Let's all wake up. The post-Cold War peace is over," Mr. Fisher said. "We are now in an arms race with a new superpower whose goal is to contain and overtake the United States." -- Richard Fisher, vice president of the International Assessment and Strategy Center

I am glad I am not the only one saying this. At least if I am crazy, that makes two of us.

Other Stuff: Yesterday we pondered what the heck John Kerry was doing following Lance Armstrong around. John Fund had some of the same questions.

What Will He Pedal Next?

Mr. Kerry noted that the cyclist had come to Boston on Election Night last year with Sheryl Crow, his rock and roll singer girlfriend, to show his support.

I love this quote:

"I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is not to have enemies." --Sheryl Crow

Now that is deep. Deep in what, I can’t mention on a family friendly blog.

If it is true that Lance wants to run for Texas Governor, how far off could the White House be? Perhaps Kerry wants a running mate in 2008. If that is the case, one must then ponder the possibility of President Armstrong. Imagine First Lady Sheryl Crow-Armstrong! (Surely she would hyphenate her name.) Imagine a Chinese invasion of Taiwan with that bunch in the White House. I may have trouble sleeping tonight.

Note: I thought about linking to Foxnews just to complete the cycle, but I don’t know if my lefty friends could handle all three at once.

Note #2: Go to Yahoo and type 'hillary's vast right wing conspiracy' and look what comes up. It seems I have cornered the conspiracy market for today.

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Kerry Praises Armstrong, No One Knows Why

Congratulations to Lance Armstrong for winning his seventh Tour de France. I’m not much of a cycling fan, but anyone who can torque the French to the level that Armstrong has is OK in my book.


(AP)

In the spirit of Lance worship, I ran across the following. I will state right up front that this is possibly the most pointless post I have made. But this entire article is pointless, which is what makes it somewhat interesting to me. I have a terrible habit of trying to assess the purpose of news articles. This one has me stumped.

Kerry Likes Armstrong for Politics

Sen. John Kerry thinks Lance Armstrong would make a terrific politician — but fears he'd be running for the other party.

Are we supposed to care what John Kerry thinks of Lance Armstrong as a politician? I mean, is there some reason this is even an article? Stand by for tomorrow’s article on John Edward’s thoughts on Barry Bonds' chances were he to run for California Governor. Or Harry Reid’s take on the viability of Tony Stewart as the next Supreme Court appointment.

"What's made him so special at the Tour de France, and as an athlete, is the level of focus, discipline, intelligence, strategic ability, and obviously, his endurance — his ability to just take it on and go," Kerry said.

I’m confused.

Those qualities would serve Armstrong well in politics, Kerry said. But Armstrong is also friendly with fellow Texan President Bush.

Now I’m more confused.

"I think he'd be awesome, he'd be a force. I just hope it's for the right party,"

Leave it to Kerry to bask in someone else’s glory. I still can't figure out why it qualifies as news. If Lance were to run, I hope it would be for the ‘right party’ as well.

Kerry said he had tapes of last year's Tour delivered during his presidential campaign last year.

Delivered where, and for what? And who cares?

Armstrong, who plans to retire after this year's Tour, sealed a historic seventh straight victory Sunday. He has not ruled out a career in politics after he quits.

Maybe he will run for a Massachusetts Senate seat. I know he is from Texas, but that's just a formality.

In Sports:
Nats 1, Astros 4
From bad to worse.

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Twisted History in Japan

I hate polls. I really hate polls. I especially hate this poll.

Poll: Americans Say World War III Likely

Americans are far more likely than the Japanese to expect another world war in their lifetime, according to AP-Kyodo polling 60 years after World War II ended.

I can live with that. I suppose if I had lived under someone else’s defensive umbrella for sixty years, I might feel the same way.

Some of the widest differences came on expectations of a new world war.

Six in 10 Americans said they think such a war is likely, while only one-third of the Japanese said so, according to polling done in both countries for The Associated Press and Kyodo, the Japanese news service.

Considering the most likely arena for a third world war is Asia, it does not help that the population of our closest ally in the region is not grounded in reality. I am beginning to think that the closer one lives to a potential flashpoint, the more delusional they become. Just look at the South Koreans. They have the absolute most to lose in a war on that peninsula, yet they live under the delusion that Kim Jong Il is just misunderstood.

"The Japanese people take peace for granted," said Hiroya Sato, 20, of Tokyo. "The Japanese people are not interested in things like war."

I guess naivety is to be expected from the young, but surely a proper historical education would lend itself to silence, or perhaps contrition. Here comes the part that really gets to me.

Two-thirds of Americans say the use of atomic bombs was unavoidable. Only 20 percent of Japanese felt that way and three-fourths said it was not necessary. Just one-half of Americans approve of the use of the atomic bombs on Japan.

The battle for Okinawa suggests that Japan would have fought to the last man, woman and child had there been an amphibious invasion of the mainland. Had such an invasion occurred, I wonder if the Japanese would today be pondering the necessity of it, or maybe wondering how much better things might have turned out had the U.S. only nuked them.

In addition, it seems that 16% of Americans polled believe that 'the use of atomic bombs was unavoidable', yet do not 'approve of the use of the atomic bombs on Japan.' If anyone can reconcile that for me, I'll feel much better. I hate to think that 16% of Americans are that stupid.

But military instructor Hugh "D.J." Carlen, who lives near Fort Knox, Ky., said: "I don't think we really needed to do it. We darn near had the country starved to death. We could have effected a blockade."

The military should really screen their instructors better. Approximately 105,000 deaths occurred as a result of Fat Man and Little Boy. That includes those that died of radiation sickness in later years. A blockade of a starving Japan surely would have killed millions. In addition, the ensuing bombing campaign and invasion may have killed millions more.

"I often hear the bombings were not necessary," said Toyokazu Katsumi, a 27-year-old engineer from Yokohama. "They just wanted to experiment with them."

This guy should work for Howard Dean.

For 63-year-old Masashi Muroi of Tokyo, the attacks with atomic bombs "were mass, indiscriminate killings and perhaps violated international law."

Selective memory is most likely a reaction to some sort of guilt. I doubt international law covered nukes at the time, but surely the rape of Nanking, the Bombing of Pearl Harbor, the forced prostitution of Korean, Philippine and Chinese women and the destruction of Indochina were violations.

I have a high opinion of Japan and her people. But this one issue sends me through the roof. I once toured around Nagasaki. The entire place is an exercise in self pity and false history. There is a place where monuments of condolence from world leaders for the victims of the bomb are placed. It is full of heart felt sorrow from such governments as the former USSR, Libya and Cuba. As Tom Daschle would say, ‘I am saddened’ that the younger generation of Japanese are so ignorant of their own past, and that of the United States.

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Democrats Blind to Good News in Iraq

The following headline portends good news on the Iraq front.

Pentagon Cites Progress in Iraq Democracy

The ensuing article goes on to site nothing but the complaints of partisans.

The Pentagon told Congress on Thursday that progress toward establishing democracy in Iraq is on track despite an adaptable and deadly insurgency, but it offered no estimate of when U.S. troops would start withdrawing.

And what would give anyone the idea that the Pentagon would ever do such a thing?

Some Democrats were quick to criticize, saying the accounting fell short of helping the public understand when U.S. troops can leave.

Imagine that.

"They missed an opportunity," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the lead Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense.

I agree. They could have been out having drinks rather than wasting their time producing a report that Democrats will either ignore or twist for politics.

He said the report lacks specific criteria for judging when Iraq will be stable enough for U.S. troops, now numbering 138,000, to withdraw.

That comment is immeasurably stupid for the following reason…

The Pentagon said it "should not and must not" publicly disclose specific data.

"The enemy's knowledge of such details would put both Iraqi and coalition forces at increased risk," the report said.

It doesn’t take an expert to figure that out. I honestly don’t know why the Pentagon releases these reports since the media simply turn them into photo ops for the Democrats.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said Rumsfeld was making a mistake by not publicly releasing the information about Iraqi security forces' readiness.

"By withholding this information from the public, the administration is denying Americans their right to know how much work remains to be done," Biden said. "The notion, as Secretary Rumsfeld suggested, that this information would somehow aid the enemy is absurd."

What is ‘absurd’ is that we have Senators that can’t figure out that releasing our timetable would help our enemies set their own timetable. Do you think they might hunker down until the Americans are gone? I am certainly no expert on the topic, but I seriously think my 3 year old could figure that out. He’s no expert either.

We are simply asking for an honest accounting of the level of troop readiness and capability.

Now that’s a brilliant plan. Let’s post troop readiness levels and capabilities on the net while we are at it.

Not one fact from the report itself is mentioned. Read the report if you get a chance. It is linked at the bottom of the article. It has much substantive information such as the decreasing number of insurgent attacks. Not one bit of that data made it’s way into the AP article.

Check out this little nugget that the AP and Senator Biden chose to ignore.

Just as the Department of Defense should not and must not disclose the precise equipment, training, and readiness data for U.S. military units, such precise data are similarly classified for Iraqi forces. The enemy's knowledge of such details would put both Iraqi and Coalition forces at increased risk. Tables showing this data are therefore in the classified annex of this report.

So the information is there. Biden has access to it. I used to think that, though partisan, Biden would not stoop to such a pathetic level. But he is either too ignorant to know that you don’t give your force levels to the enemy, or he is making political hay with the complicity of the press and at the expense of the military, both U.S. and Iraqi. Biden’s assumption that the public is too lazy to actually read the report is probably a good bet. But making an ‘absurd’ political point regarding access to information that he actually has access to, is best described as slimy.

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And So It Begins

The rumblings of battle have begun.

Roberts Likely Won't Face Filibuster

Meanwhile, an AP-Ipsos poll out Thursday said more than half of Americans, 52 percent, said they thought Roberts should have to state his position on abortion before he is confirmed, with women more interested than many in knowing his stance. Most of those surveyed — 59 percent — said they haven't heard enough about Roberts to form an opinion about him personally, while 25 percent viewed him favorably and 14 percent unfavorably.

I hate to seem so arrogant as to suggest the majority of those polled are clueless, but the majority of those polled are clueless. The notion that a justices appointment should hinge on a single issue is ridiculous. The man may think that Roe vs. Wade is overreaching (though I admit that I really don’t know what he thinks about it), at least if he is a constructionist, but that should be completely irrelevant.

Meanwhile, the politics surrounding the ‘Gang of Fourteen’ will be interesting. McCain has already stated that he did not see anything indicating that the appointment of John Roberts would reach the level of extraordinary circumstances. Today, however, Barbara Boxer seemed to differ.

Boxer: Filibuster to block anti-abortion Supreme Court candidate

Boxer called a threat to legalized abortion an "extraordinary circumstance."

"It means a minimum of 5,000 women a year will die. So all options are on the table," she said.

What a disgusting comment.

I am fairly excited at the notion that Dems will deem this an ‘extraordinary circumstance’. We may see the ‘Gang of Fourteen’ exposed, depending on what happens. I encourage Senate Democrats to filibuster. With one drop of the axe, Republicans may be able to get their nominee through, dismantle the filibuster and expose those 14 Senators as the opportunists that they are. If ‘extraordinary circumstances’ are defined by the most radical of liberals, then Republican skeptics will be vindicated come filibuster time. Keep an eye on the left side of the Gang. It is time to watch them squirm.

"This is a philosophy her successor should embrace ... We cannot go back to the dark days. Roe must remain the law of the land."

So close. I was really hoping to see a ‘turn back the clock’ today. That phrase inspires me somehow.

Unrelated Observation: I was initiated into middle age today. I turned to the classic rock station here in DC and found Nirvana playing. At least I haven’t gotten any AARP literature in the mail yet.

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Democrats Pacified

After days of speculating and pontificating by talking heads all over Washington, we finally have a nominee to Replace Justice Sandra Day O’Conner on the Supreme Court. I honestly don’t know much about the man, but from what I have read in the last two days, I believe he is a true conservative. I have been waiting for the Democrats to unleash their unhinged rhetoric which is the norm these days, but, so far, there has not been too much acrimony. Perhaps they do not know much about Judge Roberts either. Even Howard Dean seems a bit passive.

Can Roberts Abandon Partisan Streak?

Faced with a growing scandal surrounding the involvement of Deputy White House chief of Staff Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby in the leaking the identity of a covert CIA operative, President Bush announced his nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court late this evening.

I can’t help but laugh at the need to bring Karl Rove into this.

"It is disappointing that when President Bush had the chance to bring the country together, he instead turned to a nominee who may have impressive legal credentials, but also has sharp partisan credentials that cannot be ignored."

Translation: He’s not a lib and we don’t like him. Dean seems almost sad. In addition, it appears that he has taken lessons from Tom Daschle. I was almost expecting to see the word ‘saddened’ somewhere.

"Democrats take very seriously the responsibility to protect the individual rights of all Americans and are committed to ensuring that ideological judicial activists are not appointed to the Supreme Court.”

That statement is almost laughable. The Kelo decision proved that liberal justices have anything but ‘individual rights’ in mind. I can’t tell if these statements are a surrender or a prelude to nastier rhetoric as Democrats research any angle to grandstand over John Roberts' appointment.

Overall, it seems that the Democrats have been essentially neutered.

Bush Nominee Pays Visit to Key Senators

"No one is entitled to a free pass to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court," - Patrick Leahy

I know we have a lot of lobbyists around, but a payoff for a vote? Why I never!

"Do I believe this is a filibuster-able nominee? The answer would be no, not at this time," – Dianne Feinstein

Filibuster-able? Now that’s a head-scratcher. And I don’t mean the word itself, though Feinstein is certainly lucky that the AP inserted that hyphen. Dems have found ways to filibuster just about everyone nominated by Bush, at their own expense of course. I have no doubt that they will at least bounce the idea around.

"The key question is whether he will uphold core constitutional and statutory principles," – Ted Kennedy

That’s it? Weak.

"We have right now the most activist Supreme Court I've seen in my lifetime. ... So I'm going to ask him are you going to be part of that same activist coalition, overturning settled law, rewriting the law yourself? And, among those, of course, is going to be Roe v. Wade," – Patrick Leahy again

I assume he is referring to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I must say that Bush has done a great job with this nomination, assuming Roberts doesn’t turn into another David Souter. Bush has Harry Reid opining about the ‘constitutional mainstream’ whatever that is. In any case, when Dirty Harry steps up to defend the Constitution, that is a subtle admission of defeat. I must confess that part of me hopes that the libs pick up the volume a bit. After all, I need material, and what good are a bunch of agreeable idiots in that respect.

In Sports
Nats 2, Rockies 3
Braves 4, Giants 1
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Civilian Deaths in Iraq

CNN has taken data from one of the more virulent anti-American, anti-Bush websites and made it into a news story. So, in the name of moral relativism, lets conduct this exercise again.

Survey: 25,000 civilians killed in Iraq war

The Iraq Body Count -- a London-based group comprising academics and human rights and anti-war activists -- said on Tuesday that 24,865 civilians had died between March 20, 2003 and March 19, 2005.

Alright, so that is 12,432.5 civilian deaths in Iraq annually since the beginning of hostilities in 2003.

Between 1979 and 2003, Saddam executed approximately 600,000 Iraqis. In addition, approximately 100,000 Kurds were murdered at various times for a grand total of 700,000 deaths. These are low end estimates. Divide that by the 24 years that Saddam was in power and you get:

700,000 / 24 = 29,166.67

So, using ‘Iraq Body Count’s’ data, the US invasion of Iraq is saving:

29,166.67 – 12,432.5 = 16,734.17 lives annually

Of course, none of this data is mentioned in the CNN article or on the Iraq Body Count website. I won’t go into my usual condemnation of the press, but I think it is very clear how skewed the news we receive is.

"But if journalism is the first draft of history, then this dossier may claim to be an early historical analysis of the military intervention's known human costs."

So why isn’t ‘history’ going to record the ‘known’ human savings?

"Assurances that military forces 'make every effort to avoid civilian casualties' are no substitute for real data-gathering and analysis, and can have no basis without it."

Well, how about presenting all of the relevant data. This group uses 0 as its basis rather than the number of murders prior to the invasion. If my analysis does not convince you that some of your news is slanted to project a certain point of view, then there is absolutely nothing I can do to help you.

So much for Light Tuesday.

In Sports:
Nats 4, Rockies 0

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Light Tuesday

Today is Light Tuesday. I hope to post later this evening, but no promises.

Karl Rove Media Frenzy Continues

It seems the Main Stream Media is a glutton for punishment. The Plame story, in which Karl Rove is accused of passing the name of an overt CIA employee from one reporter to another, just won’t die. I regret having to revisit it, but as long as the major media outlets are going to hype a non-story, I am going to continue pointing out how dishonest their presentation of the facts is.

Bush vows to fire anyone who committed crime in CIA leak

Bush Vows To Fire Leak Criminals

Bush Vows to Fire Anyone Who 'Committed a Crime'

Bush says he will fire anyone who breaks law

So what has changed to resurrect this beast? As far as I can tell, only two things. President Bush mentioned that he would fire anyone that broke the law and Scooter Libby may have also passed information about Plame from one reporter to another, just as Rove did. Why are these developments significant? They aren’t, but the press is under tremendous pressure to find a story now that they collectively look like fools for drooling all over the place last week.

It’s obvious that the President would not have made such a comment if he wasn’t quite sure that no law had been broken. Plame was clearly not covert, and her husband, political hack Joe Wilson, admitted as much on CNN, noting that she had not been a “clandestine officer” for six years.

Absent from all of these articles is the scandalous role that Joe Wilson played in the events leading up to the Iraq War. I will re-link the article from the Post from last year, as that publication seems to have forgotten its own reporting.

Plame's Input Is Cited on Niger Mission

All of Wilson’s lies are a part of the public record, but our lofty press continues to ignore that part of the story. Just as in the false Newsweek Koran/Quran burning story, the MSM feels the need to cover there own tracks. Truth has no place in the American media today.

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China and Japan at Odds Over Oil

It seems a little brouhaha is building in the East China Sea between China and Japan.

Japan OKs Teikoku Oil's Drilling Request

Japan on Thursday approved a request by Teikoku Oil Co. to drill for natural gas in the East China Sea along a disputed sea border with China, prompting Beijing to warn about the possibility of worsening ties.

Tokyo and Beijing have been feuding over claims to the undersea gas deposits, amid a broader diplomatic row that has soured bilateral relations in recent months. The gas dispute stems from a disagreement over how much sea resources the two sides can claim in the East China Sea, which divides China's eastern coast and Japan's southern island chain of Okinawa.

China has already built a drilling platform west of the line that Japan regards as the two sides' sea boundary. But Tokyo has demanded that Beijing stop exploration over worries that reserves on the Japanese side might be sucked dry.

Asked whether that meant Tokyo would consider dispatching Japan's navy to protect Teikoku Oil workers, Nakagawa simply said: "We have various options."

The Chinese reaction is typically bellicose. According to the China Daily, which is the media mouthpiece for the Chinese Government, Beijing is willing to go to war over oil.

Japan's dangerous move in E.China Sea

Japan's move could lead to confrontation with China.

Giving Teikoku the go-ahead to test drill is a move which makes conflict between the two nations inevitable, though what form this clash will take is hard to tell.

Japan's unilateral action to start drilling, which flies in the face of international maritime laws, is not simply about new sources of energy. It reveals plainly the country's intention to take our Diaoyu islets for good.

It reveals plainly the country's intention to take our Diaoyu islets for good.

If a confrontation were to result, the blame would sit firmly with Japan.

With China’s exponentially increasing need for oil, how long before they make good on one of these threats?

There are two issues which our government refuses to address. One is our out of control immigration problems. The other is the growing Chinese threat to this country and the rest of the world. Republicans and Democrats alike allow this threat to fester without so much as a protest. The similarities to 1935 Japan are troubling.

In Sports:
Nats 3, brewers 5
Braves 1, mets 8

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China Reaffirms Intention to Nuke America

As I expected, now that Karl Rove is not the ‘leak’ in the case of the ‘Plame Game’, the story is well off of the front page. This gives us a chance to do a rundown of the important things we have missed in the last four days. One last note: I wonder if the Press will pursue this so ruthlessly if it turns out that Colin Powell was the leak.

China refused to retract statements made by a leading general that it would use nuclear weapons to repulse US military intervention over Taiwan despite Washington's criticism of the remarks.

China refuses to back down on general's nuclear threat over Taiwan

"We will never tolerate 'Taiwan Independence', neither will we allow anybody with any means to separate Taiwan from the motherland," a foreign ministry spokesman told AFP.

The spokesman was commenting on statements made this week by General Zhu Chenghu, dean of China's National Defense University, who said China could launch a nuclear attack on "hundreds" of US cities if Washington interfered militarily in the Taiwan issue.

"We ... will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds ... of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese."

I would like to take this time to thank the Clinton Administration for selling the multi-stage and MIRVing capability that China needed to accomplish such a feat.

Senate shuns attempt to add agents

The Senate voted yesterday against fulfilling its pledge from last year to hire 2,000 more Border Patrol agents and fund 8,000 new detention beds for illegal aliens in fiscal 2006, as some potential presidential candidates weighed in on border security and illegal immigration.

The intelligence overhaul bill that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in December called for 2,000 new agents and 8,000 new detention beds every year for the next five years in order to meet a threat posed by illegal aliens.

Yesterday's votes were on amendments to the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, which funds only 1,000 more agents and 2,240 more detention beds in fiscal 2006.

But Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said the amendments would sap funds from local law enforcement.

"That's the problem here. It's not in strengthening the borders. It's in taking away money from the people every day who defend us and, since 9/11, have new duties," he said.

Perhaps if we stopped them at the border, we wouldn’t need local law enforcement to act as our immigration police.

And Finally:

Court Win For Bush On Detainees

A federal appeals court put the Bush administration's military commissions for terrorist suspects back on track Friday, saying a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison who once was Osama bin-Laden's driver can stand trial.

Well, for all of you Al Qaeda apologists, here come your tribunals.

The protections of the 1949 Geneva Convention do not apply to al Qaeda and its members, so Hamdan does not have a right to enforce its provisions in court, the appeals judges said.

I’m sure you all will be able to find something else to outrage you soon enough, so keep your chin up and your protest signs at the ready.

I normally do not post old News, but I feel that some very important events occurred this week and were completely overshadowed by the MSM's need to burn Karl Rove.

In Sports:

Nats 5, Brewers 3 (Finally)
Hail to the Chief
(Save #32)



Braves 3, Mets 0
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Karl Rove Vindicated

Everyone and their brother knows that Karl Rove has been vindicated, so I will not re-bore you with the details. What I want to see now is for the main stream media to run this story to ground. I realize that many major news outlets, most prominently the New York Times, look incredibly stupid at the moment, but a greater purpose would be served if they do not allow this to drop out of view.

Source: Rove said reporters told him of CIA operative's identity

We now know that Karl Rove relayed what he learned from one reporter to another. Here is a newsflash for the less informed:

Relaying information obtained from Robert Novak is not a security violation. Similarly, relaying information you obtained from another reporter to Robert Novak is not a security violation.

Whichever reporter Rove got his information from first doesn’t really matter at this point. As I have been saying, the real story revolves around Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame, or Mrs. Wilson as her husband likes to call her.

Here is what gripes me. When, briefly and quite erroneously, it appeared as though Rove may have had something to do with the original leak, the main stream media went into a dizzying spin. I predicted two days ago that they were heading off of a cliff and never got a reasoned response from one lib. All I heard was that somehow I had received GOP talking points and that some sort of massive cover-up was underway. Though I am honored that so many think that I am somehow connected enough to receive GOP insider planning memos, I can assure you that I am not. What is sad is that all it took was a simple reading of what had happened over the last three years in regards to this situation. It was right there for anyone to see. And what is amazing is that so many members of MSM were lapping it up. Scott McClellan endured three days of press lunacy, and all for nothing. The media made the assumption of guilt before finding any connection whatsoever between Rove and the original leak.

That brings me to my next point. Someone did leak some information to Robert Novak and we do not know who that person is. I suspect that Judy Miller might know, and perhaps the management at the New York Times, but the rest of us remain quite interested. If the main stream media would like to retain a shred of credibility, they will not allow this story to drop into the black hole of stories that don’t conform to what they want to hear.

In addition, the media continue to allow Joe Wilson to act as though he were an honest broker of information in this case. All of the data proving the he is a lying political hack is a part of the public record. And seeing him grandstand with Chuck Schumer almost makes me believe that this was part of a plan from the beginning. I guess, if the MSM/DNC alliance can have a conspiracy theory absent of proof, then so can I.

And finally, more information on Valerie Plame came out today supporting my assertion that she was nothing more than a desk riding analyst.

Rove fight escalates

"She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat," Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times.

"Her neighbors knew this, her friends knew this, his friends knew this. A lot of blame could be put on to central cover staff and the agency because they weren't minding the store here. ... The agency never changed her cover status."

In addition, Mrs. Plame hadn't been out as an NOC since 1997, when she returned from her last assignment, married Mr. Wilson and had twins, USA Today reported yesterday.

This information combined with her pictures in Vanity Fair and her part in Joe Wilson’s biography should convince even the most ardent partisan that Valerie Plame is not what the MSM has been claiming.

But this story is far from over. Wilson needs to be crushed by the same press that he made a fool of. Plame needs to come clean with her real status at the CIA in 2003. We already know what it was, but I want to hear it from her. We would all like to know who the government leak to Novak was, and we may find that out one day. We also would like to know who Judy Miller and the New York Times are protecting. Sadly, what is going to happen is that the majority of the MSM will drop this story as fast as possible now that Karl Rove is no longer in the cross hairs.

In the mean time, stories revolving around China’s first strike nuclear intentions and the slashing of promised funding for Border Patrol agents have been all but lost. And all because the media thought they had Karl Rove against the ropes. 'Pathetic' is the only word that comes to mind.

In Sports:

Nats 3, brewers 4
Braves 2, mets 1

United 3, Earthquakes 0 (San Jose really needs a new mascot)
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The Two Faces of Joe Wilson

Joe Wilson’s comments this morning on the Today Show prove he is nothing more than a political hack. If I were Wilson, I would have kept my mouth shut.

CIA employee's husband exhorts Bush to oust Rove

If I had claimed that Dick Cheney approved my trip, knowing full well that it was a blatant lie, I would stay as far away from TV cameras as possible.

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson called Thursday on President Bush to fire deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, saying Bush's top-level aide engaged in an "abuse of power" by discussing Wilson's wife's job with a reporter.

Had I attacked the President of the United States by lying in a federally funded report using false assertions and bogus facts to affect a presidential election, I would be keeping a very low profile.

Wilson decried what he called a White House "stonewall" in the wake of revelations that Rove, a longtime Bush confidant, was involved in the leak to the news media that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA officer.

Had I used my wife’s position to further my cause, risking her job and my own credibility, grandstanding would be the last thing on my mind. I would be aware that those nasty right wing bloggers would pounce all over me for lying in a major publication, as well as to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Wilson, in an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's Today show, said he thinks the White House's posture in this controversy represents a continuing "cover-up of the web of lies that underpin the justification for going to war in Iraq."

If I knew that my own lies had been exposed in the public record, I don’t think I could keep a straight face while making such an assertion.

"My wife's name is Mrs. Joseph Wilson," he replied. "It is Mrs. Valerie Wilson. He named her. He identified her," Wilson said. "So that argument doesn't stand the smell test ... What I do know is that Mr. Rove is talking to the press and he is saying things like my wife is fair game. That's an outrage. That's an abuse of power."

And if I knew that I had exposed my wife in my own Biography, well before her name appeared in any news publication, my own sense of smell would tell me to lie (no pun intended) as low as possible.

"I think the president should call in his senior advisers and say, 'Enough is enough, I want you to step forward and cooperate,' " he said.

If I was aware that everyone involved, other than Judy Miller, was fully cooperating with the special prosecutor in the case, and that all of the relevant facts, including my own slanderous actions were about to flare up throughout the press again, I don’t think I could continue the facade.

That is, unless I intended to write a book and make a fortune off of the affair. Then again, that’s just me.

Note: I just saw an MSNBC interview with Wilson that was one of the most pathetic displays of MSM promoted garbage that I have ever seen. He was not asked one question of substance. Question number one should have been, 'Why did you lie in your report on the Niger/Iraq Uranium connection?' Of course, they never got close to that. I knew Chris Matthews was a liberal partisan, but I didn't realize the network had no grounding in news. I should learn to stick to CSPAN.

In Sports:
Nats 2, Brewers 4
The slide continues.

Braves 3, Mets 6
But the Braves can't capitalize.

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Attack on Rove Continues, Absent of Evidence

Well, we have run a complete news cycle since my last post and there have been hundreds of articles written about Valerie Plame’s ‘exposure’ as a CIA bureaucrat. Let’s examine what we have learned…nothing, in regards to the case at hand. The real news here is that the main stream media is running off of a cliff with the Democratic Party in tow.

The main story revolves around three journalists, Robert Novak, Judy Miller and Matthew Cooper. Let’s take a look at each:

Robert Novak exposed Plame as a ‘Agency operative’ back in July of 2003.

Mission to Niger

And here is the offending line:

‘Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.’

Now, if one of those two ‘senior administration officials’ is Karl Rove, then perhaps the media and their allies in the Democratic Party have a point. The question would then be; ‘was Plame a covert operative?’ which I submit she was not. But we have not yet gotten to that point. I suspect that Novak is cooperating with federal prosecutors as he is the one journalist out of this group that has not been threatened with hard time. In time we may learn who those two officials are, and if one of them is Rove, we are half way home to liberal euphoria. In the mean time, there is nothing new here.

The Second journalist of note is Judy Miller. Miller works for the New York Times, which also happens to be the publication which published Joe Wilson’s hatchet piece during the run up to the 2004 presidential election. No one has a clue what Ms. Miller knows, and she’s not telling. The poor woman wasn’t even allowed to publish her article, and the Times isn’t going to go to bat for her. I am very curious where she got her information on Plame, and would not be surprised if her source is somehow embarrassing to the Times. If Miller decides to serve out her term, we may never know.

One other side note to the Miller episode is that it was the New York Times which vehemently called for a federal investigation into these leaks during the 2004 campaign season. Now that one of their own has been sucked into it, they do not have the spine to come clean on their own complicity in the affair. It’s fine when the evil Republicans are on the hot seat, but the same standard does not apply to reporters as they hide behind what they consider to be the total immunity of the press to engage in sordid activities.

Finally, there is Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine. Rove sent Cooper an email back in 2003 which identified the approval for the trip to Niger as Wilson’s wife, and also identified her as a person who "apparently works" for the CIA. As I stated yesterday, there is nothing classified about outing someone as a CIA employee. Rove was actually trying to keep Cooper from making a fool of himself, as Cooper was about to write that Dick Cheney had authorized the Wilson trip to Niger, just as Wilson insinuated in his New York Times hit piece, in which he stated:

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report.

The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

What I Didn't Find in Africa

Never did he mention that ‘agency officials’ was actually referring to his own wife.

So, the only way that the current MSM/DNC sponsored conspiracy theory can hold any water is if Karl Rove is somehow connected to the Novak source, which actually names Valerie Plame, or if it is proven that Rove was trying to out her as an undercover operative. Those connections have not been made in any publications that I have read, even the major papers that are going out of their way to damage the President. In addition, if Miller has some information that was obtained by less than honorable means, and that information came from Rove, I suppose he would be in hot water there too. Neither one of these possibilities is likely as Rove has given blanket approval to any journalist to give him up as their source. Someone else is likely to go down should Novak or Miller’s sources be given up, and I am as anxious to see who that is as the most rabid Democratic hacks.

Lost in all of the accusation throwing is the fact that a mid-level pencil pusher analyst arranged to have her husband sent to Niger to do a hack job on a sitting president during his re-election campaign. In addition, that husband lied multiple times in an attempt to discredit the administration's assertion on an Iraq/Niger connection, which later turned out to be true. Read the below linked article from last summer if you want to know the real scandal.

Plame's Input Is Cited on Niger Mission (Account Required)

‘The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.’

The interesting part of this whole debacle is watching the media and the Democrats blather on the topic. It reminds me of those commercials with the Crash Test Dummies. They all have stupid grins on their faces just before they are flung into a concrete barrier at high speed. John Kerry has, of course, called for Rove’s resignation, which is normal as he has, at one time or another, called on just about everyone to resign.

The media made the connection between Rove and Novak’s name dropper before it existed, and now they have dug in too deep. The badgering that Scott McClellan suffered yesterday is a good indication that they are now desperate to make that connection. There is going to be a lot of egg on a lot of people's faces, and I intend to enjoy every second of it. I suggest that if the media and the Democrats really want to know the what constitutes a security violation, they should ask Sandy Berger.

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Dems Want Another Watergate at Rove's Expense

Well, I keep trying to figure out exactly what Karl Rove did, and I just can’t seem to come up with it. Neither can the media, but that isn’t stopping them or Democrats from attempting a royal hatchet job on Rove and the President.

Opponents Urge Action on Rove

Democrats, some White House reporters and assorted opponents of President Bush are demanding the ouster of Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove after the revelation that Rove discussed a CIA employee with a member of the press.

Without mentioning a name, that is. A ‘CIA employee’ is not the same as an undercover operative, for those of you who might be curious.

Rove is on the hot seat after his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed over the weekend that in July 2003 Rove spoke to Time magazine's Matt Cooper about a trip former Ambassador Joe Wilson took to the African nation of Niger.

Wilson investigated claims that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium, used for making nuclear weapons, from Niger. Wilson returned without such evidence, and subsequently wrote an op-ed in The New York Times criticizing the administration for manipulating intelligence to justify an invasion of Iraq.

Wilson claimed that his trip was authorized by Vice President Dick Cheney and then-CIA Director George Tenet.

According to Luskin, Rove told Cooper that Cheney and Tenet were not involved in planning Wilson's trip but that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, "apparently works" at the CIA and had authorized her husband's trip to Africa, according to a July 11, 2003, e-mail by Cooper obtained by Newsweek magazine.

That makes Joe Wilson the only liar so far out of this story.

"A fair-minded reading of Cooper's e-mail is that Rove was trying to discourage Time magazine from circulating false allegations about Cheney, not trying to encourage them by saying anything about Wilson or his wife."

I doubt we are going to get a fair minded reading of it in any of the major press outlets.

Novak later said that nobody in the Bush administration "called me to leak this" and that "according to a confidential source at the C.I.A., Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative, and not in charge of undercover operatives."

Will someone from the CIA just tell us what the heck she was? Riding a desk does not qualify someone as a spy. Mentioning that an employee of the CIA is an employee of the CIA is not divulging classified information. However, I’m not here to defend Novak or his source, but whomever it is would be the criminal if, in fact, a crime has been committed.

Former Justice Department attorney Lee Casey says Plame was not a covert agent and therefore, no crime was committed.

I think I just said that.

"The fact is, that this prosecution was started during the campaign, it is an artifact of the campaign and frankly, it ought to be ended,"

The bottom line is that Joe Wilson went to Niger with help from his wife, to do damage to Bush during the campaign. His wife was not a spy, but a desk analyst. Joe Wilson lied in the New York Times. Rove’s email to Cooper does not reveal a name, and if there was any leak from Rove, federal prosecutors will uncover it. The odds are that it wasn’t Rove. It would be interesting to know who Robert Novak’s source is, not to mention Judy Miller’s.

But facts will never get in the way of a good scandal, and there may in fact be a scandal here. The question is; who is to blame? Why has Wilson never been held to account for lying about Cheney? The press has never defended the CIA or any spy for that matter in cases such as this. Why has Plame not been hounded by the same media for using her position to help attack the President while an election was in process? It could not be clearer that the media has generated a scandal and Democrats are more than willing to take advantage. Someone did, in fact, do something wrong in this case, but it does not appear that it was Karl Rove.

Point of Interest: Some Democrats are calling for an Independent Council to investingate. The problem is that they got rid of the Independent Council statute after Clinton was busted for lying to a Grand Jury. Now that's hilarious.

Note: I realize that I said I was not going to post tonight, but this story is too much fun. I really need to get a life.
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Poll Results, Hillary and the Republican South

With 201 entries received, the results are in for what was possibly the most un-scientific presidential poll ever taken.

Who will be the next President of the United States?

George Allen 18%
Other 17%
Hillary Clinton 16%
Bill Frist 12%
Condoleezza Rice 10%
Jeb Bush 6%
Rudy Guiliani 5%
John McCain 5%
Mark Warner 3%
Joseph Biden 3%
Evan Bayh 1%
John Kerry 1%
Dick Cheney 0%

I am assuming ‘Other’ must be Barack Obama and John Edwards. Let me know if there was some other significant figure that I missed.

In other political news, I think I found the Quote of the Year courtesy of WSJ Opinion Journal's Best of the Web. The story is about Hillary Clinton’s silly Alfred E. Newman joke, but this nugget is buried inside.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton attacks President Bush, comparing him to Alfred E. Neuman

She (Hillary) said the United States should remain in Iraq until peace can be maintained by the Iraqi people, saying the mission was part of the "long struggle against terrorism" by the U.S.

Well, that ought to put the Iraq/Terrorism question to bed.

And finally, at the risk of sounding like a bad bumper sticker, it looks like the South will rise again, bringing the Republicans with it.

Sunny days ahead for GOP as population shifts south

Migration from liberal bastions in the Northeast and Midwest to the Sun Belt states will boost Republican electoral strength in the coming decade, making it tougher than ever for Democrats to win the presidency without carrying states in the South or Southwest.

Heavily Democratic states such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Michigan will go on losing congressional seats and thus electoral strength in presidential elections, political analysts say. At the same time, they say, Republican states such as Florida, Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada likely will gain congressional and electoral clout.

One might think that this migration will lead to a softening of Republican support in the South but:

"If you look at younger white voters in the South, they are even more Republican than the older white voters," he says. "As these younger white voters age, they are going to be even more cohesively Republican than their predecessors.

"So you could have more Democrats moving in from outside, but if the native population in the South becomes even more Republican, that may not lead to the diminishment of the GOP in the South."

I don’t have too much to add to that, but I would like to thank Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid and Dick Durbin for hastening the process.

Please check below as I have offered a rare double post today. I will be taking tomorrow off. The real world has taken it upon itself to wipe out my Tuesday evenings.

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Demons and Tourists

Since it is Monday, and since I hate Mondays, I think it is a good time to get something off of my chest.

Parents: Control your bratty kids in restaurants, especially if you happen to be in one during the lunch hour in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area.

Lunch is a sacred time for me. It is my chance to get away and read my newspapers. Today, I had the unpleasant experience of sitting next to a couple with two children who obviously ruled their parents with iron fists. They also smelled like out of town types. As I sat attempting to eat my sandwich with paper in hand, the younger of the two imps took to rolling on the floor around my chair. I attempted to ignore the situation, but it just kept building. The mother was off with the older one while the father had manned the table. Father didn’t bat an eye, acting as though it was normal for human beings to roll on a filthy deck and onto the feet of the innocent. I looked down and stared at the demon near my feet, hoping that daddy would get the hint. He didn’t, but the older one was on the way back.

The two switched places as the younger imp took her place with mother in line waiting for food. I thought this would be a good thing, but was sadly disappointed as the larger demon took to dancing on the partition that divided our respective tables. She was acting like a train, and yet dancing at the same time, all the while screaming “choo choo” at the top of her lungs. No Action Dad finally made his play. “Kinsley, could you please get down from there?” The imp replied, “Say please choo choo train.” Daddy replied meekly, “Please choo choo train”, at which the time this reincarnation of Medusa emitted a cackling laugh and continued her satanic dance. I had had enough; it was time to go. I made as much commotion in my retreat as possible, hoping I might accidentally step on a foot or something. No such luck.

As I was walking out the door, Daddy and I locked eyes. He was attempting to communicate with me using the telepathic means that men use when one of them is trapped and helpless. His eyes said, ‘I’m very sorry, but you just don’t understand’. Now, my telepathy isn’t very good. I was trying to respond with, ‘Oh but I do understand, and if my kids had acted as yours are, there would have been swift and righteous justice.’ Unfortunately, all I was able to get out was, ‘Bring those devils within ten miles of me again and you are going to see an explosion the likes of which Carl Sagan could not have conceived.' Then I left.

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Reserved Slots on the Supreme Court

Many pontificators and pundits are speculating on what the next Supreme Court Justice should look, think and feel like. I find the following a little unnerving somehow.

Ideology Main Concern in Replacing O'Connor

Many liberals and conservatives agree that O'Connor's seat on the court should be reserved for a woman — so long as she is the right kind of woman.

Oh really? I knew that the Democrats had an abortion litmus test, but I didn’t realize we had a female quota. In any case, Ruth Bader Ginsburg ought to count for three.

"Let's be real. What we'd like is a person who's a woman, but also a woman like Sandra Day O'Connor, who will not go backward on women's rights," said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

I smell a ‘turn back the clock’ coming on.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is on the record saying that the court should have no fewer than two women.

Well, if we are going to make a quota of two, why not five? That would more closely reflect America. Afterall, it’s not like the president should get to pick who he wants or anything, even if that is what the Constitution stipulates. Heck, we tossed out that dusty old rag years ago.

Women's groups on the left agree that they want four or five women on the high court so long as none of them is conservative.

I knew it! Not only does it have to be a woman, but it has to be the right kind of woman. We wouldn’t want anyone to know that some women don’t tow the feminist line.

As always, TSW has a solution that should appease everyone. All we have to do is rewrite the Constitution to stipulate that the Supreme Court must be made up of the following:

1 White Male Liberal who calls himself moderate
1 White Male Conservative
1 White Female Far Flung Liberal
1 White Female Moderate (So that both sides can claim the Court is extreme)
1 Black Male - Political Leaning Optional
1 Black Female Conservative or Moderate
1 Hispanic – Political Leaning and Gender Optional
1 Asian/Pacific Islander/Native American – Political Leaning and Gender Optional
1 Gay, Transgender, Hermaphrodite or Asexual Liberal – Gender and Race Optional

I think this would almost represent every race/gender/political category possible. We can mess around with the makeup if this isn’t exactly perfect. Think this sounds stupid? It’s no more stupid than reserving two Supreme Court slots for women. In fact, it’s the same thing. Sometimes bad ideas can be highlighted only by taking them to an absurd level. I don't care if all nine justices are women, as long as the President gets to pick who he wants.

In Sports:

Nats 4, Phillies 5
Braves 4, Brewers 8

At the Break:

1. Washington -
2. Atlanta 2.5
3. Florida 7.0
4. Philadelphia 7.5
5. NY Mets 8.0

Now, anyone who knows anything knows that this is not going to last. It appears that the Nats are already starting to slide a bit in the last couple of weeks. It is the natural law of the National League East that the Atlanta Braves will come on strong in the second half and win it yet again. This will last until Bobby Cox decides to retire. But for now, the Washington Nationals are in 1st place! How can anyone not love a team that actually appreciates the fans that come to watch them. How can anyone not love a team with a total payroll of less than $50 million. The only thing I can think of that could screw this up would be for Soros to buy the team. But until that happens, here’s to the wildcard and a good playoff run for the 1st year Nats.

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