March 2006 Archives

From Captain Ed, on the news that Andrew Card is resigning and the MSM's reaction:

"I find it amusing that the press corps can't fathom why Bush would want stability in his senior staff, and at the same time provide shelter for Helen Thomas, who has been around the White House so long she can remember when the British burnt it."

Priceless.

Via AP/Yahoo:

U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said the world body was working with the Afghan government to meet the request by Abdul Rahman, 41.

"Mr. Rahman has asked for asylum outside Afghanistan," he said. "We expect this will be provided by one of the countries interested in a peaceful solution to this case."

Of course, that's assuming he can make it out of the country alive:

Earlier, hundreds of people protested a court's decision Sunday to drop the case against Rahman, and an official said discussions were underway to determine when he would be released.

Muslim clerics have threatened to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he is freed, saying he is guilty of apostasy and deserves to die. They said Rahman violated Islamic Shariah law by rejecting Islam.

But of course, if he does survive, we all know who will get the blame:

Monday's protest ended peacefully about two hours after it started in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, said police commander Nasruddin Hamdrad. The protesters chanted "Death to Bush!" and other anti-Western slogans, while the police stood guard.

Sadly, this fellow is likely to be in danger anywhere he goes. And knowing this, it appears that our State Department isn't extending a hand, at least not publicly (H/T Michelle Malkin):

"He will be released," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. "I understand now that the details of his release and any potential onward travel are being handled as a private matter."

I think following through is a requirement here. I hope our State Department is part of that "private matter".

Moussaoui finally got a chance to speak with permission at his trial:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House.

Moussaoui's testimony on his own behalf stunned the courtroom as he disclosed details he had never revealed before. It was in stark contrast to Moussaoui's previous statements in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions.

Moussaoui testified Monday he lied to investigators when arrested in August 2001 because he wanted to let the attacks of Sept. 11 go forward.

Read the whole article from AP/Yahoo. Decency prevents me from making some of the obvious comments that you'll soon be reading on other blogs.

Via AP/Yahoo:

An Afghan court has dismissed the case against a man who converted from Islam to Christianity for lack of evidence, an official said Sunday.

The court, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, had been under intense international pressure to drop the case against Abdul Rahman, who faced a possible death sentence for his conversion.

No mention in the article about when and where he's to be released - in the meantime, they moved him to another prison:

On Sunday, he was moved to a notorious maximum-security prison outside Kabul that is also home to hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaida militants. The move to Policharki Prison came after detainees threatened his life at an overcrowded police holding facility in central Kabul, a court official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

But this isn't over yet.

Obviously, this fellow isn't safe in Afghanistan - in or out of prison. If they just shove him out the door into the bloodthirsty mob that clerics have pledged would be waiting for him, then the Afghan gov't has acted in no less a barbarous fashion than if they had carried out their original plan to execute him.

Someone needs to be giving Rahman safe passage to a country where he can be free from religious persecution.

Update: AP reports that others are concerned too:

A Western diplomat, also declining to be identified because of the sensitivity of the case, said questions were being raised as to whether Rahman would stay in Afghanistan or go into exile in a foreign country.

Additionally, it appears that they are using the insanity argument to smooth over the bloodthirsty clerics:

An official closely involved with the case told The Associated Press that it had been returned to the prosecutors for more investigation, but that in the meantime, Rahman would be released.

"The court dismissed today the case against Abdul Rahman for a lack of information and a lot of legal gaps in the case," the official said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

"The decision about his release will be taken possibly tomorrow," the official added. "They don't have to keep him in jail while the attorney general is looking into the case."

Abdul Wakil Omeri, a spokesman for the Supreme Court, confirmed that the case had been dismissed because of "problems with the prosecutors' evidence."

He said several of Rahman's family members have testified that the 41-year-old has mental problems. "It is the job of the attorney general's office to decide if he is mentally fit to stand trial," he told AP.

On a side note, consider the outrage it would have sparked had this been a muslim prisoner in a western country and the book in the following quote had been the Koran:

He said Rahman had been asking guards for a Bible but that they did not have any to give him.

Update 2: Michelle Malkin has more here.

Plagiarism, that is. This time AP is the accused. Larisa Alexandrovna at Huffington Post writes:

We gave the advocacy groups our notes and article, which they then took to the AP and demanded that the story be covered. The AP was given our article and maybe our notes.

On March 14, 2006, the AP did their own article, left out any attribution to me or my publication and lifted not only my research but also whole sections of my article for their own (making cosmetic changes of course).

We contacted an AP senior editor and ombudsmen both and both admitted to having had the article passed on to them, and both stated that they viewed us as a blog and because we were a blog, they did not need to credit us.

She also claims to have a tape recording of the conversation where AP folks admit to their lack of regard for intellectual property rights when it comes to small online players.

While I'm no fan of her work (we're ideological opposites), she's entitled to the fruits of her labor. If one of her articles is quoted by anyone, she deserves credit.

AP needs to respond to the charge - the sooner the better. If the charges are indeed true (while Larisa's argument seems compelling, I'm trying to be fair and hold my opinion until both sides are heard) then AP needs to promptly and loudly correct the situation.

Those with an interest in seeing blogs continue to gain credibility as an alternative to the "old" media would do well to take notice.

Update (3/26/06 10:33 AM EST): I would have figured this would be an issue of equal concern to left and right, considering all the concern about plagiarism in the last week. So far there seems to be a collective silence from the blogosphere. I guess these issues are only noteworthy if some political hay can be made. Truly disappointing...

I'd be remiss if I didn't comment on the Ben Domenech story. I won't rehash the particulars of his resignation from the Post, they're covered in great detail elsewhere.

But the story does raise a concern about the level of responsibility that our information-driven world requires. There's no question that Ben was aggresively attacked by a sizable crowd on the left, and on topics that fell far out of bounds for civil debate. I didn't have to follow very many links to see for myself that the attacks were vicious, personal, and intended to harm someone for the sole reason that the attackers disliked his message. That they found something in Ben's past that appears to be wrong in no way excuses the methods and motivations that led to their discovery. The finding of wrongdoing in Ben's past wasn't their goal - tearing down an individual out of fear and hatred for his beliefs was.

Again, I'm offering no excuse for Ben's actions. But no one can offer one for those folks that tore him down, either.

I wish Ben the best of luck in the future - and I'm glad he's continuing to post at RedState.

I guess it's been a slow news week for some on the left side of the blogosphere. They're still arguing the merits of the Feingold resolution.

Several bloggers are trying to push a grassroots effort to support what is undeniably an opportunistic political stunt. Most are along the lines of "call your congressfolk and tell them to change their minds" variety. This fellow over at Huffington Post gives talking points for his readers to use when they encounter resistance during the calls. He provides the faithful with ammunition made from carefully selected snippets of FISA, and taking the Attorney General out of context. Using that along with the absurd "I think X is illegal (even though I haven't the foggiest idea of what X really is), Bush said he did X, therefore Bush explicitly confessed to a crime" meme is typical enough for the left's discussion on the topic - once you've made such leaps, it can't be much farther to "forget the judge - get a rope".

Why Greenwald's arguments stood out as the best example of many displaying the left's irresponsibility stems from his bio:

For the past 10 years, Glenn Greenwald was a litigator in New York with a practice focused on, among other areas, constitutional law and First Amendment challenges.

And on his personal blog:

For the past 10 years, I was a litigator in NYC specializing in First Amendment challenges (including some of the highest-profile free speech cases over the past few years), civil rights cases, and corporate and security fraud matters.

OK, OK, ignore the differences. We'll consider them "targeted" resumes. But I find it strange that a lawyer with constitutional law and civil rights experience would advocate the pre-judgement by legislative decree of a person's guilt. I wonder if Mr. Greenwald would have tolerated such behavior directed at any of his clients?

But in stark contrast to Issue 2, all the facts necessary to know the answer to Issue 1 are already disclosed, are publicly available, and have been admitted by the Administration. Therefore, while an investigation into Issue 2 is imperative, all of the facts relevant to the question of whether the President broke the law (the only issue raised by the Feingold Resolution) are already known, and for that reason it is illogical to claim that an investigation is needed before that question can be answered. Put simply, we don't know the scope and extent of the President's illegal eavesdropping, but we do know that the eavesdropping he ordered was illegal.

What if that were a prosecutor arguing this? Would Greenwald allow his client to be convicted on an incomplete set of facts?

I woke up this morning at 4:30 AM on March 24, 2006 in the United States of America. Not in Moscow in the 1950s. Although the over-the-top rhetoric from many Democrats in congress suggesting that the legality and criminality of the President's actions are a foregone conclusion, they know (except for Feingold, apparenty) that in practice they can't officially take that step. Doing so would be antithetical to our system of justice, effectively shredding Article III of the constitution. After all, why do we need courts when congress can declare guilt with a resolution?

And that's what Feingold asks for. And he's certainly fortunate to have minions such as those we find in the blogoshere. "Investigation? We don't need no stinking investigation! He's guilty! Get a rope!" is the cry from Mr. Greenwald - and he gets a couple of hundred comments mostly giving variations of "You da man!".

I really want to know. Does hate really make them this blind?

Update: Link fixed.

One of the big stories of the week has been the case of Abdul Rahman, the fellow who has been threatened with death as a punishment for the crime of converting from one religion to another. Michelle Malkin has been the leading edge of blogospheric coverage on this story, her latest is here.

I can't remember where I saw it (I'll look later and update), but I read a lefty comment saying that we're doing it backwards in the middle east - we should be changing the culture first, rather than changing governments first and hoping it leads to a changed culture. This is a good example of the flaws in that argument. Had we not changed the government in Afghanistan, no one in the west would have heard about Rahman or others like him that were routinely executed for these types of "crimes" under Taliban rule.

As a direct result of what the US did in Afghanistan, the international community is now placing pressure on the Afghan government to end this backward and barbaric style of justice. Changing the culture, I suspect, would have taken far longer and cost many more lives.

Comes this case of ankle-biting from the US Post Office:

In July of 2004, Lyon sprained his ankle while on patrol in Iraq, but it didn't slow him down much.

Jason Lyon/Iraq War Veteran: "I sprained my ankle and two weeks later I was back on combat patrols. I was only in the cast for two weeks."

Nine months later, Lyon was discharged and after returning to western New York, applied for a job as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service. He was told that the ankle that he sprained a year and a half ago, while strong enough for combat patrol, was not good enough to deliver mail.

Karen Mazurkiewicz/US Postal Service: "Mr. Lyon was found unsuitable for the position of letter carrier. As a veteran he has had an opportunity to apply for other positions. We're not saying that he can't be a postal employee, just that our concern is his suitability as a postal carrier. "

Jason Lyon/Iraq War Veteran: "I've given them so much documentation from the VA that says that i'm 100 percent. I have a stack of documents at home that says that I'm fine and fit for duty."

Fit for duty in Iraq, but not for all the jobs at his local post office.

Karen Mazurkiewicz/US Postal Service: "The postal service is the largest civilian employer of veterans. In western New York alone, we have about 28 percent veterans. So there's a strong alliance with Veterans of America and we take that very seriously. The postal service doesn't know what kind of criteria the military uses to determine suitability. We're only looking at one specific job and one specific applicant and trying to determine if there's a suitability match. "

Now I'm not a doctor, but I had always believed that a sprain was a temporary condition, not a permanent handicap. This smells like an incomplete story - I suspect that there's something more at play here.

If, however, this is the whole story, it doesn't reflect very well on the USPS. Regardless, "We're not bigots - why, 28% of my friends are veterans!" is not a good flag to wave here, Karen.

Here's a larger story on the issue. Of note here is that his congressman is on the case:

Rep. Brian M. Higgins, D-Buffalo, sent a letter Wednesday to Postmaster General John E. Potter, the chief executive officer of the Postal Service, asking him to take a second look at Lyon's case.

I sincerely hope that he does. But while we're at it, I'd really like to know if the job entails walking all day or driving a delivery vehicle? And would either job be more physically strenuous than say, a janitor?

Debra Hawkins, the Postal Service's northeast manager for public affairs, encouraged Lyon to seek other employment with the Postal Service.

"We've had medical determinations made that he can't do the work of a postal carrier," Hawkins said. "But we have other jobs that he could do, like mail handler, mail clerk and custodian . . . As a veteran, he would receive preference for those jobs."

I know folks who clean buildings for a living who can attest to the physical taxation of the work. Frankly, this comes across as an insult.

I broke an ankle as a teenager. I suppose that I wouldn't qualify either, in spite of the fact that it didn't stop me from completing 20 years service in the military - performing difficult tasks under harsh conditions that would make the average letter carrier's duties seem like a vacation in comparison.

In addition to everything else I've had on my plate, my 7 year-old has been sick this week. I'm looking forward to the weekend, when I usually get a little time to post.

My schedule is light today as well, so I intend to catch up on some of the week's events

Cheers!.

Apparently bloggers are now a large enough demographic that Boca Java is reaching out to us.

I don't know about other bloggers, but at 12-13 bucks a pound (plus shipping), they're assuming a whole lot about my finances.

Harry Reid has set the strategy for Senate incumbents (H/T Carol Platt Liebau):

Senate Democrats have mapped a political battle plan for the March congressional recess that calls on lawmakers to stage press events with active duty military personnel, veterans and emergency responders to bash President Bush on virtually every one of his national security policies.

The game plan, devised by the office of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, is contained in a six-page memo distributed to Democratic senators on Thursday at a closed-door meeting at the Capitol and provided to The Washington Times by a congressional staffer.

Keeping up? It gets better:

Titled "Real Security," the political document calls for staged town hall events at military bases, weapons factories, National Guard units, fire stations and veterans posts.

"Ensure that you have the proper U.S. and state flags at the event, and consider finding someone to sing the national anthem and lead the group in the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the event," the battle plan states.

OK - it's called "Real Security", but you have to stage photo ops with GIs to sell it? Cynicism, thy name is Democrat.

And it's pretty sad when you have to remind U.S. Senators about flags, anthems, etc. In other words, "Don't forget to act patriotic".

In almost every issue in the Reid memo, Democratic lawmakers are called upon to criticize the president for not spending enough federal dollars.

But haven't they been complaining that Bush is spending too much?

The article lists a variety of manufactured press opportunities for participating Senators - all designed to bash the administration. Jim Manley, Reid's spokesperson, sums up the Democrats' plan best:

"It's an effort to paint the White House and the Republican Congress as having a failed effort on national security issues..."

Not "prove", "demonstrate", "illustrate", or "show" - "paint" is the best they can do. Carol is spot on in her assessment on this cynical ploy:

"Notably absent is any policy, plan or vision for the future. The Democrats should be ashamed of themselves. Their only strategy is to try to make Americans feel worse about everything."

All of which reminds me of what happens when you use people, places, and things you have no regard for as a prop just to score cheap political points in an election year:

TB (my lovely bride, for those of you who didn't know) loves books - she has little stashes of books in strategic places around the house so that she's never far away from a good read. At least she knows what to do with them, unlike Ukrainian designer Andre Tan...

You don't suppose that's a copy of An Army of Davids, do you? Or would a different kind of read be more appropriate for evening wear?

Via AP/Yahoo, Ben Stein hammers Hollywood over their disrespect for the troops:

"Stop spitting in the face of Americans and maybe we will go to the movies."

Georgia Senate Defeats Fonda Resolution

The Georgia Senate on Thursday nearly unanimously defeated a resolution that would have honored the actress' charity work in the state.

Good.

The Democratic sponsor had tried to withdraw the resolution after a rocky reception from colleagues and a phone call from Fonda's office, but a Republican leader forced a vote, saying members of his caucus wanted to go on record against it.

Fonda, who is out of the country, had asked for the resolution to be withdrawn to avoid the controversy, said the sponsor, Sen. Steen Miles of suburban Atlanta.

The effort was defeated 38-1, with even Miles voting against it.

I'd comment, but someone beat me to it:

"I can think of no living American who is less worthy of this honor," Republican Sen. John Douglas declared. "She is as guilty of treason as Benedict Arnold and Tokyo Rose."

I had bookmarked this at Instapundit for later review:

It’s more likely that conservatives will inherit the Earth. Like it or not, a growing proportion of the next generation will be born into families who believe that father knows best.

I had heard this argument many years ago in a "third beer" type of discussion. And like Glenn, I don't place much stock in these types of arguments - the acceptance (or rejection) of ideology depends on much more than upbringing alone.

But if the theory is true, this would seem to me relevant as well:

Richard Miller of the Michigan University Medical School said tests on mice and rats - genetically very similar to humans - showed lifespan could be extended by 40 percent, simply by limiting calorie consumption.

Translated into humans, that would mean average life expectancy in rich countries rising from near 80 to 112 years, with many individuals living a lot longer.

Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist from Cambridge University, goes much further. He believes the first person to live to 1,000 has already been born and told the meeting that periodic repairs to the body using stem cells, gene therapy and other techniques could eventually stop the aging process entirely. (do you think he might be a Heinlein fan? - ed)

De Grey argues that if each repair lasts 30 or 40 years, science will advance enough by the next "service" date that death can be put off indefinitely - a process he calls strategies for engineered negligible senescence.

So my counterbalancing theory goes like this - liberals are, in general, less ethically inhibited about the technologies mentioned above, and therefore will be the group to benefit most. So reproduction will be much less important as their lifespans increase, providing a counterbalance to the right-favoring delta in birthrates.

The theory is depressing, though. I find no comfort in the prospect that my great-great-great-grandchildren could be blogging about some of the same loonies that I do.

isn't necessarily new news:

Supreme Court Justice Reveals Death Threats

Sounds serious and urgent until you read the story:

WASHINGTON (March 15) - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor have been the targets of death threats from the "irrational fringe" of society, people apparently spurred by Republican criticism of the high court.

"apparently"?

Ginsburg revealed in a speech in South Africa last month that she and O'Connor were threatened a year ago by someone who called on the Internet for the immediate "patriotic" killing of the justices.

Oh, so it was a year ago. Not news. And obviously, no one acted on the "immediate" part of the call, so also not very serious, either.

Hang on, maybe it is news. Someone on the left smearing conservatives while overseas. Oops, never mind, that's old hat too.

Jokes are apparently threatening as well:

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter joked earlier this year that Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned.

The story just breaks down from here:

Ginsburg said the Web threat was apparently prompted by legislation in Congress, filed by Republicans, that would bar judges from relying on foreign laws or court decisions.

"It is disquieting that they have attracted sizable support. And one not-so-small concern - they fuel the irrational fringe," she said in a speech posted online by the court earlier this month and first reported Wednesday by LegalTimes.com.

According to Ginsburg, someone in a Web site chat room wrote: "Okay commandoes, here is your first patriotic assignment ... an easy one. Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and O'Connor have publicly stated that they use (foreign) laws and rulings to decide how to rule on American cases. This is a huge threat to our Republic and Constitutional freedom. ... If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week."

So one person in a chat room constitutes "sizable support". And if you're wondering who the "they" is, the story is written to suggest she's talking about Republicans:

Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla., a sponsor of one of the congressional proposals, wrote about the legislation on his Web site and in bold letters featured a quote from O'Connor predicting the Supreme Court would probably increasingly rely on foreign courts.

I suppose that many in public life get periodic threats of harm - I imagine that many are probably not serious, such as Ms. Coulter's statement. The ones that truly are serious are likely from a variety of ideologies. File this one under "what liberal media?".

Oh - here's the headline Huffington Post tagged the story with (complete with photo of armed guards protecting the Supreme Court from the Republican horde):

Justices Say They Are Targets Of Death Threats From The "Irrational Fringe" Spurred By GOP Criticism...

Is "irrational fringe" the left's equivalent of "unhinged"?

Here's a screen shot in case it changes.

Via Expose the Left, it seems that George Clooney post on Arianna's blog may have been, well, not entirely George's doing:

Oscar winner George Clooney may make politically provocative films like "Syriana." But he doesn't write politically provocative blogs.

So imagine his ire when Arianna Huffington used some of his recent answers to political questions in a way that makes it look as if he wrote one for her Huffington Post blog site.

And in George's own words:

"Miss Huffington's blog is purposefully misleading and I have asked her to clarify the facts. I stand by my statements but I did not write this blog. With my permission Miss Huffington compiled it from interviews with Larry King and The Guardian. What she most certainly did not get my permission to do is to combine only my answers in a blog that misleads the reader into thinking that I wrote this piece. These are not my writings — they are answers to questions and there is a huge difference."

And here's Arianna's take:

This was an honest misunderstanding. But any misunderstanding that occurred, occurred between Clooney and the publicist. We based our decision to post on the unambiguous approval we received in writing. There was no room for misunderstanding in that.

And the post has been pulled.

But I don't really care about who did what. My concern is for "corkiesmom". Who will help her defect now? I can feel her out there - so afraid, so "despret". Oh, the humanity...

Judge Feingold appears to have laid an egg, and he's none too happy with his Dem cohorts:

"I'm concerned about the approach Democrats are taking, which is too often cowering," he said.

Uh... We've been telling you that for a while, Russ. And he's 100% right on the next point:

"I'm amazed at Democrats ... cowering with this president's numbers so low," Feingold said.

I'm surspised, too. After all, kicking this president when he's down has been their stock in trade. I guess their gratuitous political posturing at the expense of the American people has garnered enough negative attention that they're thinking twice about the level of disingenuousity they publicly display.

But the Dem's real cowering this week is from the media:

Next in the Senate TV gallery came Schumer. An aide hung up a poster showing a port. The senator called the ports situation "extremely troubling." The aide hung up a poster of an Exxon cartoon. "Obscene profits," decreed Schumer, equally passionately.

CNN's Henry asked the Feingold question. Schumer ended the news conference.

And all of this begs the question of the week: How many Democrats does it take to make Sen. Feingold look foolish?

This is good news:

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico has made a deep-water oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico that could be larger than the country's giant Cantarell offshore field, President Vicente Fox said on Monday.

The oil find is under 950 meters (3,117 feet) of water and a further 4,000 meters (13,120 feet) underground, Fox said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires.

This is good news because every drop of oil found in a stable region offsets oil from unstable ones. Also, Mexico lacks the resources to exploit deep water oil, so there's opportunity for U.S. companies to get some work out of this.

Of course, we still have a refinery shortage problem to fix...

And it goes without saying that we'd be finding oil too if there weren't so many people getting in the way.

Like we didn't know already.

He shows a stunning ignorance about both history and the present, and surprise - he's a potty mouth as well. My favorite line from his rant:

"The fear of been criticized can be paralyzing."

This kind of profound clarity draws like-minded people. And indeed, there's more than the usual comments. My favorite is from "ProudProgressiveDemocrat":

"If by wanting government to be effective and the President of our country to be the samrtest person in the room means I'm a Liberal then by God I'm one."

And it's possible that he's the samrtest poster in the comments area. For some, this appears to be a cleansing event - from "msopine":

"This is a lot like a twelve step program. My name is Carole and I'm a liberal too. You know what - - I do feel better."

All together now - awwww. "corkiesmom" thinks George is there to help her defect:

"Please, Please help us! I am afraid and I'm despretly trying to look into moving to another country. I'm afraid to tell you which one it is, because I'm afraid that they will find some way to stop me. I am so afraid."

"HLM" thinks he's hit on the formula for Democrats winning elections:

"Come this November, anybody who walks into a Diebold-equipped polling station without a baseball bat on his shoulder deserves what he gets."

If you can take it, there's also the usual hate-filled rants about the administration as well. For a post about the meat of Clooney's loonyness, try The Astute Blogger, Outside the Beltway, and All Things Beautiful.

If you didn't catch it live yesterday (I didn't) this is the must-see video from the weekend. John Hinderaker discusses classified leaks with Lucy Dalglish (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press) and Michael Isikoff, (reporter for Newsweek) on CNN’s Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz. The transcript is here.

It's easy to imagine the press component of the discussion believing that they are somehow like narrators in a documentary, unable to have an effect on the events they describe - therefore unaccountable. And it's impossible to miss the contempt shared by all but Hinderaker for the law and the administration. For example, their dismissal of the Espionage Act:

Kurtz (in transcript, not on video):

"But first, it's no secret that the Bush administration is trying to choke off the leaking of secrets to the press. CIA employees are being given lie detector tests, according to "The Washington Post," and the Justice Department is talking about using a

World War I Espionage Act

to prosecute reporters for receiving classified information."

Dalglish:

"And there's a reason why the 1917 Espionage Act has never been used to prosecute journalists. It would be an absolutely ridiculous proposition."

Isikoff:

"And using statutes like the Espionage Act, which is so vague and open for -- you know, the number of investigations that could conceivably flow from this strategy is enormous and, you know, it's hard to see how it could not but have a chilling effect on doing, you know, standard reporting on what the government is up to."

"Just one point on what Mr. Hinderaker just said. He was -- selectively quoted from a portion of the National Defense Act. There's other -- there's other language in there talking about communications relating to national defense which are incredibly vaguely worded, nowhere defined, and can be used to prosecute just about anything."

"One of the recommendations of the September 11th Commission is that there was way too much classification in government, and that was hindering national security."

The inclusion of "1917" and "World War I" as descriptors is telling. The law is old. Antiquated. Obsolete. How arrogant. There are laws against murder, theft, and rape that are much older - should these laws be placed in the same category due to age alone? I guess keeping secrets was somehow more relevant during WWI than it is today.

Another good dodge is the "too much classification" line. Would Mr. Isikoff argue that since a duty roster may have been over-classified as confidential during WWII, the press should have published the attack plans in advance of D-Day?

But the undertone of the conversation is the fear sweeping news offices over this issue. And Lucy Dalglish illustrates nicely the abject terror felt by the MSM during this exchange:

KURTZ: Lucy Dalglish, why should journalists be shielded if it's a crime to leak it, classified information, when they're on the other end of that transaction?

LUCY DALGLISH, REPORTERS COMMITTEE, FREEDOM OF PRESS: Well, you know, I -- theoretically, you know, "The Washington Post" probably this morning in my newspaper broke the law 45 times. I mean, you cannot pick up a newspaper without reading classified information.

KURTZ: In other words, you could find the illegal justification to prosecute reporters every day of the week?

DALGLISH: You could find the -- absolutely you could. And there's a reason why the 1917 Espionage Act has never been used to prosecute journalists. It would be an absolutely ridiculous proposition.

Why, if the government enforced the law, we'd all go to jail! And wouldn't that be silly?

But certainly the threat of prosecution alone wouldn't frighten the stalwart defenders of free speech out of doing their noble duty to the public? John expertly tosses out the bait, but the panel pointedly ignores it:

The NSA program was capturing lots of international terrorist communications. That's dropped off drastically since "The New York Times" published the story. So they've -- they've damaged our security.

Sounds like "aid and comfort" to me. Even more than prosecution, the press fears prosecution using the dreaded "T" word. And that law is old, too, Lucy.

H/T PowerLine.

Added note: Ian at Expose The Left does a terrific job of making these videos available to everyone, if you agree, drop him a note of thanks for the service he provides. A hit to his tip jar wouldn't be unwelcome, either.

comes this from earlier today:

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Democratic National Committee said Sunday he supports having racially diverse states vote early in the presidential selection process, although there was "wiggle room" in the details.

"It's certainly a good idea to have more geographic diversity and more ethnic diversity in the Democratic nominating process," said Howard Dean. "We are committed to leaving Iowa first as the first caucus in the country and New Hampshire as the first primary in the country."

On Saturday, the Democratic Party's rules and bylaws committee agreed to move one or two state caucuses ahead of New Hampshire, a decision that could cause a confrontation with that state, traditionally the site of the nation's first presidential primary.

Dean, speaking on CNN's "Late Edition," said he hadn't met yet with the rules committee but was committed to having diversity early in the selection process.

"There's some wiggle room," he said. "There will be earlier events, and there will be some events, or at least one event in between Iowa and New Hampshire."

Minorities have been pushing for more of a voice in the early voting, noting that Iowa and New Hampshire are overwhelmingly white. The new early states could come from the South and West to provide regional diversity as well.

That's why they haven't been winning elections, you know. The candidates have been chosen by the (nudge, nudge) wrong people (wink, wink).

I guess what Howie and the DNC must be telling us is that liberals in New Hampshire and Iowa are racists. Who knew?

Big tent, indeed.

Chicago Requires Driver's Ed for the Blind

Well, of course. Their accident rate is much lower that way, and they get lower insurance rates.

Having failed miserably to get much political milage out of the NSA "domestic" wiretapping issue, Russ Feingold joins John Conyers as poster child for what's wrong with today's Democratic Party and the level (or lack) of civility in DC:

WASHINGTON - A liberal Democrat and potential White House contender is proposing censuring President Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping, saying the White House misled Americans about its legality.

"The president has broken the law and, in some way, he must be held accountable," Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., told The Associated Press in an interview.

A censure resolution, which simply would scold the president, has been used just once in U.S. history — against Andrew Jackson in 1834.

The text of the resolution isn't yet available, here's a "fact" sheet and press release from Feingold's office.

Since there are no real consequences associated with censure other than bad press for the President, the intent is crystal-clear. This is yet another cheap grand-standing effort to score political points. But this continues to highlight the secondary gift the NSA program has brought us (the first was increased protection from terrorism) - it gives the Democrats another opportunity to be themselves (as opposed to what they claim to be) and they deliver in bulk.

Disrepect the conviction (and sentencing) of a killer? No problem for liberals, as long as the killer is a lefty, or doing so scores points among their base. But when it comes to Bush (and the rest of the right), well... Lets skip any sane semblance of a fair trial or even a fair hearing. Announce that he's GUILTY - GUILTY - GUILTY of this crime and that crime without the mess or risk of involving the courts. After all, they have the MSM to repeat their baseless charges ad nauseum with nary an opposing viewpoint. Repetition in the press makes for transforming Joe and Jane Ordinary into liberal voters, they figure. After all, how many Americans believe Bush lied about WMD even though it's been proven to five nines that he didn't?

But the NSA flap showed us a different side of the electorate. The media, well coached by liberal talking points, disengenuously uses labels such as "domestic spying", "domestic eavesdropping", and "domestic wiretapping" trying to dredge up images of entire offices full of machine-like political operatives scrutinizing your phone conversation with Grandma for any hint of anti-American or anti-administration sentiment in the apple pie recipe she just gave you. Democrat politicians got lots of air time mischaracterizing it as "spying on ordinary American citizens", avoiding the inconvenient fact that the program was about finding out what the bad guys overseas were up to. The majority of the public, not surprisingly, didn't buy it. In fact, it turns out that they actually want someone using every means available to protect us from the next terrorist attack, and saw through the veil of partisanship being presented them. The over-the-top rhetoric of the Democrats, in large part, swung the pendulum of opinion toward the President. After all, in the week following the NYT story, the loudest voices of the left about the supposed legality of the program were from those that knew the least about it.

So Russ now proposes the final gasp of an issue that displays the hatred of the left toward this President nearly as well as the basement play-acting impeachment hearings. That it will fail is a given, but that's not the purpose. Reasonable heads will prevail, and the Dems will use it to frame Congressional Republicans in the upcoming election as [gasp] Bush supporters.

But this will fail as well. The public supports Bush on this one, and will likely support any sane politician who voted down an attempt to label a national security matter as criminal without the benefit of a disinterested review. Indeed, most folks take a dim view of sidestepping the courts, and there's a strong likelihood that this will backfire on the Democrats. There's a grim irony in their wanting to sidestep judicial review in order to punish a President who they claim is doing the same.

In spite of the conspiritorial views of many on the left, there's a good reason that impeachment hasn't been a serious possibility. There's just no proof that a crime has been committed. If such proof were offered, Republicans would do the right thing and the public would support it. If you could convince me, I would support it.

Labeling an act as illegal prior to knowing any facts isn't enough. Grandstanding to score political points doesn't do it either. And pandering to your base even in light of evidence that you were wrong ("Bush Lied", for example) just helps us win elections.

On second thought, just keep it up. You're doing just fine. We're scared. Have a nice day.

with this title:

Milosevic Death May Affect War Tribunals

Gee, ya think?

Apparently she has leprosy.

Oh, yeah - she has some points in the above-linked article, but misses much more than she gets.

The good points? Those who knew Abramoff and are denying it are making a mistake. Knowing someone, even being friends of someone who's breaking the law doesn't make one a party to it. Kenneth Lay surely had friends who were unaware of his day to day activities at Enron, and just knowing him shouldn't be a crime. The mistake that Arianna makes is in the assumption that distancing themselves somehow makes Republicans party to Abramoff's crimes.

The number of politicians benefitting from Abramoff-related money is large enough to suggest to any with common sense that some of these politicians probably did engage in influence peddling. If proven, this group should be punished. But common sense also tells us that many of these beneficiaries would have voted the way they did on bills whether they got the donations or not, and some may have been swayed by persuasive arguments and the money didn't factor in their decisions. The problem is sorting out who is who, and I'm not sure if it's even possible to do so.

So Abramoff is bitter that he's been abandoned by folks who used to dine with him? Welcome to politics, Jack. But considering how he lied to and swindled the tribes he represented, Arianna and the rest of the left would be hypocritical if they suddenly believe everything he says about his former running crowd in DC, especially after they've been telling us for over a year how evil he is. I suspect that much of what Jack says now will be spin or unprovable accusations from a man who stands to benefit from a reduced sentence for "spilling the beans".

But how to sort it out - Abramoff was a Republican, and it should be no surprise that he would donate (or steer donations) to the party he supports. In fact, it should be expected of him, even if he had not committed any crime. On the other hand, donating to (or steering donations to) the opposition is far more suspect. Why would anyone help their political opposition unless there were something to be gained? Why do the Dems not see this? Why aren't they asking Harry Reid the hard questions about the $66,000 he received?

Why, Arianna? Hmmm?

After characterizing Abramoff as a "corrupt insider looking for a reduced sentence", should I expect you to take any future accusations from him with the grain of salt they deserve? Will you consider the source and give whichever Republican Abramoff next accuses the benefit of the doubt he deserves?

Or will I see a post from you taking his next "revelation" as gospel because it's about a Republican...

Oh, and please get better soon, dear.

Linked with WizBang

From this AP story about the DNC's weekly radio address:

"America had a great victory this week in the war on terror," Dean said in the radio address. "Key Democratic senators and representatives forced President Bush to give up the idea that six major American ports should be run by a foreign country.

Of course, anyone not comatose during the past week knows the truth. The Dems didn't force Bush into anything, and Dean is just lying his ass off again, taking credit for something his rudderless bunch of whiners couldn't possibly accomplish without adult assistance.

I hope the left remains in denial about Howie - he's probably the best thing that's happened to the GOP in years.

In the latest of numerous threats from Iran, from Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi:

"If (they) politicize our nuclear case, we will use any means. We are rich in energy resources. We have control over the biggest and the most sensitive energy route of the world," Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

For the benefit of those who had Jay Bennish for geography, here is a link to a map showing the Strait of Hormuz, the "biggest and most sensitive energy route" that Mostafa refers to. 90% of the oil the US gets from the Gulf passes through the strait.

It should be noted that Iran doesn't seriously argue the merits of their nuclear program anymore. Indeed, they can't, considering the statements their leaders keep making. That they now attempt blackmail should convince all of their intentions.

Hillary's past connection with Wal-Mart. Do you think it might be because of this guy?

As I said over a month ago when Tasini started using Wal-Mart as a club to whack other liberals with - Chuckle, hell. I'm laughing.

H/T Jayson at Polipundit.

On a side note, this Tasini fellow is so far to the left he actually makes Howard Dean look good in comparison (As an example, he's proud to have Cindy Sheehan as a supporter). No small feat indeed.

is why the folks entrusted with enforcing our immigration laws didn't show up with a fleet of buses?

Via Michelle Malkin

Remember the Christian Peacemaker Teams foursome that was kidnapped by terrorists last November? At least one of them has been murdered execution-style in Baghdad:

Tom Fox, 54, from Clear Brook, Va., was the fifth American hostage killed in Iraq. There was no immediate word on his fellow hostages, a Briton and two Canadians.

He was shot in the head:

He said Fox was found with his hands tied and gunshot wounds to his head and chest. There were cuts on his body and bruises on his head, al-Mohammedawi said.

You'd think CPT would be calling for justice, yes? Well, no. True to form, Christian Peacemaker Teams ignores the obvious in their statement:

In response to Tom’s passing, we ask that everyone set aside inclinations to vilify or demonize others, no matter what they have done.

There you have it. Bringing terrorists to justice equals villification. Protecting folks from terror equals demonization. How much more deluded can you get?

We all know that hunting and fishing are the ultimate sports - the embodiment of the struggle of man vs. nature. But with all the animal rights wackos getting in the way, afficionados of these noble sports have been limited to a few select species. Well, get ready, 'cause there's good news today:

Federal fish managers are proposing to relax rules designed to protect endangered leatherback sea turtles and allow some fishing off the West Coast under strict government supervision.

The changes, which must obtain final approval from the National Marine Fisheries Service, would open up drift gillnet fishing off the California and Oregon coasts from south of Monterey, Calif., to just north of Newport, Ore.

These gillnets are used to fish for swordfish. And swordfish are good eatin', too! Bonus!

The market for swordfish in the United States is strong, fishermen said. Without a loosening of the restrictions, imports will dominate the market leaving the species at greater risk because of the lack of regulations and higher turtle-population density in other countries, fisherman Pete Dupuy said.

And it saves American jobs.

Loose limits means lots of turtle stew:

Under the proposed changes, all fishing would be done under the eyes of government observers, who would track the number of turtles caught. The fishery would be closed if two turtles were caught.

According to research reports, the nets could also snare other protected mammals. Under the proposal, if one sperm, grey, short-finned pilot, fin, humpback or minke whale were killed or seriously injured, the swordfish fishery would be closed.

The number of sets — the number of times a fishing vessel can put out its nets — was set at 300.

If I'm reading this right, you can legally bag up to 600 turtles a year - enough so you can serve turtle at block parties, special events, holidays, whenever! Imagine the your dinner guest's happy surprise when you present the main course:

Me, I'm looking forward to decorating my den with trophy photos:

Why, even Glenn Reynolds might give up puppies for this...

I'm considering applying for one of those government art grants to fund a series of sculptures celebrating nature's bounty made entirely of turtle shells. That'll help get rid of leftovers...

Happy Hunting!