April 27, 2007

Lessons From The Iraq Experience

Allow me to recommend two essential articles from Armed Forces Journal that I think are necessary reading for those of us not on the fringes, who strive to understand rather than shout slogans back and forth. I find little to disagree with in either piece.

The first is "A Failure In Generalship," by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling. Colonel Yingling places blame squarely on Rumsfeld and his generals, for the failure to achieve our goals in Iraq.

The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on individuals is insufficient. No one leader, civilian or military, caused failure in Vietnam or Iraq. Different military and civilian leaders in the two conflicts produced similar results. In both conflicts, the general officer corps designed to advise policymakers, prepare forces and conduct operations failed to perform its intended functions. To understand how the U.S. could face defeat at the hands of a weaker insurgent enemy for the second time in a generation, we must look at the structural influences that produce our general officer corps.
My only criticism of Yingling's article would be against his proposal that Congress assert more control over the selection and promotion of general officers. On the contrary, while Congress has a role, it's the executive's job to select military leaders who can get the job done. I believe Yingling is correct to criticize the culture of conformity that produced sub-par generals at the war's outset. But that's common in every major conflict. War is a results-oriented game, and typically the dross is burned away after the first few months of battle.

In the case of Iraq, we had an unusual tendency towards inertia that can only be blamed on Bush and Rumsfeld's management styles. Whether you want to call it admirable loyalty or excessive stubbornness, neither Bush nor the SecDef were willing to change horses when necessary to get results. Of what other successful wartime administration can this be said? Not Lincoln's, not FDR's, not Truman's.

To be fair, one reason for this President's inertia was the withering and omnipresent criticism from the left, whether by Democrats or internationally. Bush, rightly or wrongly, made the decision that sticking to his original plan and personnel was better than adapting midstream to the changing situation on the battlefield. His enemies so vehemently accused him of being wrong, that he overcompensated in an effort to prove that he was right.

I don't give Bush a pass on this. It's no excuse to say that he did what he did because the left made him do it. It's the commander-in-chief's job to husband the souls of those men and women serving our country as wisely as possible. I'll grant him the best of intentions; I know the President feels every loss of life personally and deeply. But, good intentions are not enough. As I've said many times before, what we need is results, and the responsibility for getting results lies ultimately with the president. If Franks, Casey and Abizaid were not getting the job done — and I don't think they were — Bush should have been quick with the hook. (Bush knows baseball; he should have taken a lesson from old Sparky Anderson.)

The essential constraint that the entire war team missed is the constraint of time and patience. In a democracy, this constraint is strict and onerous, especially now in our hyper-political environment where the opposing party turns every issue into a power-play. Time and patience are part of the battlefield, and Bush's advisors were negligent in failing to stress that fact. Success in Iraq, if it was/is to be had, must be had quickly, with sufficient force and resources to get it quickly. Unfortunately, Bush and Company acted like they had all day long. Instead, time has now nearly run out.

The second article, by Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (ret.), is called "Wanted: Occupation Doctrine." His point of view is decidedly Machiavellian, but in a good way. Peters catalogues some lessons we should take heed of when planning for the next counterinsurgency campaign.

Consider just a few essential rules for successful occupations — all of which we violated in Iraq:

• Plan for the worst case. Pleasant surprises are better than ugly ones.

• All else flows from security. Martial law, even if imposed under a less-provocative name, must be declared immediately — it's far easier to loosen restrictions later on than to tighten them in the wake of anarchy. This is one aspect of a general principle: Take the pain up front.

• Unity of command is essential.

• The occupier's troop strength should be perceived as overwhelming and his forces ever-present.

• Key military leaders, staff officers, intelligence personnel and vital civilian advisers must be committed to initial tours of duty of not less than two years for the sake of continuity.

• Control external borders immediately.

• Don't isolate troops and their leaders from the local population.

• Whenever possible, existing host-country institutions should be retained and co-opted. After formal warfare ends, don't disband organizations you can use to your advantage.

• Give local opinion-makers a stake in your success, avoid penalizing midlevel and low-level officials (except war criminals), and get young men off the streets and into jobs.

• Don't make development promises you can't keep, and war-game reconstruction efforts to test their necessity, viability and indirect costs (an occupation must not turn into a looting orgy for U.S. or allied contractors).

• Devolve responsibility onto local leaders as quickly as possible — while retaining ultimate authority.

• Do not empower returned expatriates until you are certain they have robust local support.

• The purpose of cultural understanding is to facilitate the mission, not to paralyze our operations. Establish immediately that violent actors and seditious demagogues will not be permitted to hide behind cultural or religious symbols.

• Establish flexible guidelines for the expenditure of funds by tactical commanders and for issuing local reconstruction contracts. Peacetime accountability requirements do not work under occupation conditions and attempts to satisfy them only play into the hands of the domestic political opposition in the U.S. while crippling our efforts in the zone of occupation.

• Rigorously control private security forces, domestic or foreign. In lieu of a functioning state, we must have a monopoly on violence.

Many of the above precepts have been adopted by Gen. Petraeus and his staff, now in charge of the war effort. For that reason, I'm hopeful that success is not yet beyond our grasp.

In the article, Peters uses the word "occupation," but he doesn't apologize for it.

The first step in formulating usable doctrine is to sweep aside the politically correct myths that have appeared about occupations. Occupations are military activities. Period. An Army general must be in charge, at least until the security environment can be declared benign with full confidence. Historically, the occupations that worked — often brilliantly, as in the Philippines, Germany and Japan — were run by generals, not diplomats. This is another mission the Army doesn't want, but no other organization has the wherewithal to do it.
It's obvious that Colonel Peters has a distinct pro-military, anti-Foggy Bottom bias. I share that bias.
Consider the prevailing claim that an occupation is a team effort involving all relevant branches of government: The problem is that the rest of the team doesn't show up. The State Department, as ambitious for power as it is incompetent to wield it, insists that it should have the lead in any occupation, yet has neither the leadership and management expertise, the institutional resources nor the personnel required (among the many State-induced debacles in Iraq, look at its appetite for developing Iraqi police forces and its total failure to deliver).

The military is the default occupier, since its personnel can be ordered into hostile environments for unlimited periods; State and other agencies rely on volunteers and, in Iraq, the volunteers have not been forthcoming — even when the tours for junior diplomats were limited to a useless 90 days and dire warnings were issued about the importance of Iraq duty to careers.

These two articles deserve wide readership. Print them out and read them on your lunch hour.

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April 25, 2007

Skadefryd Part 2: Rosie O'Donald Is Out

According to TMZ. Good news, I guess, but why don't they just cancel The View? While she was there it was easy to blame Rosie, but the show sucked long before she arrived.

Rosie hasn't announced yet, but how much you wanna bet she's going to spin it as "her decision," to "pursue other interests," blah blah blah. It won't be the fact that nobody likes a bully and she's a bully.

Rosie is the left's equivalent of Michael Savage — a loud, bigoted, egotistical, ignorant clown. The only reason Rosie gets away with it on tv and Savage is relegated to after-hours radio is that tv execs agree with Rosie's bullshit.

via Hot Air

Update: Rosie said, "my needs for the future just didn't dovetail with what ABC was able to offer me."

I was close. She just left out the "blah blah blah" part.

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April 23, 2007

Skadefryd: Kiki On The Ropes

From The Philadelphia Enquirer, rumor has it that Kiki Couric, "an expensive, unfixable mistake," may get the boot next year.

[T]he former star of NBC's Today has failed to move the Nielsen needle on No. 3 Evening News since her debut seven months ago.

In a bottom-line business like television, that's a cardinal sin. Already-low morale in the news division is dropping, says a veteran correspondent there.

"It's a disaster. Everybody knows it's not working. CBS may not cut her loose, but I guarantee you, somebody's thinking about it. We're all hunkered down, waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Seven correspondents, producers and executives at CBS and other networks interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity, given the sensitive nature of the Couric situation.

Couric and CBS were a bad fit from the start.

"From the moment she walked in here, she held herself above everybody else," says a CBS staffer. "We had to live up to her standards. . . . CBS has never dealt in this realm of celebrity before."

Media experts predict Couric's ratings won't improve anytime soon, given that news viewers tend to be older and averse to change.

Couric, 50, draws fewer viewers than did avuncular "interim" anchor Bob Schieffer, 20 years her senior. Much of the feature-oriented format she debuted with is gone, as is her first executive producer, Rome Hartman.

"The broadcast is an abject failure, by any measure," says Rich Hanley, director of graduate programs at the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University.

"They gambled that viewers wanted a softer, less-dramatic presentation of the news, and they lost. It's not fair to blame Couric for everything, but she's certainly the centerpiece and deserves a fair share."

CBS Evening News this season averages 7.319 million total viewers, down 5 percent from the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Couric's viewership has dropped nearly 30 percent since her Sept. 5 premiere week, when she averaged an inflated 10.2 million viewers and led CBS News to its first Nielsen win since June 2001.

"A bad fit from the start" is an understatement. To be absolutely fair, I would also use the descriptors "lightweight" and "clueless bimbo."

Have you watched Couric lately? Talk about deer in the headlights, she makes Kathleen Blanco look like the embodiment of "confidence" by comparison.

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April 19, 2007

Bradford Wiles Update

Remember a few posts ago, I quoted from a prescient op-ed by VT grad student Bradford Wiles, published eight months ago?

Well, somebody did track Wiles down for his comment on this week's horrific event. Here's what he said:

On Tuesday, Wiles stood by that opinion in the wake of this week's massacre, telling Cybercast News Service that "the only way to stop someone with a gun is somebody else with a gun."

"The entire campus was a place where someone knew they could inflict the most damage with the least amount of armed resistance, and that's what you get with gun control," Wiles said. "If you let people like myself carry a gun legally ... then you have the possibility of stemming the tide."

Wiles, who wasn't near the campus buildings where Monday's shootings took place, said he doesn't believe an armed student could have prevented all of the bloodshed. But, he added, "even if just one person is not shot by that gunman because somebody had their legally licensed concealed firearm on them, isn't that enough?"

h/t Buckeye Firearms Association News

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April 18, 2007

NBC Completely And Irresponsibly Throws Standards Out The Window

In pursuit of $ensationalism and the almighty ratings point, NBC proves that there is no longer any such thing as responsible media. Oh, Brian Williams made a big show about "not wanting to make Cho into a hero," even while holding up the pictures Cho intended to cement himself into the popular mythology.

NBC should have shredded the entire package immediately, not even handed it to the police, just burnt it as surely as Cho is burning in hell right now. Do they really think there aren't future sickos who will idolize Cho and memorize every word in his multimedia manifesto? Do they really think there's any possible journalistic justification that outweighs the virtual gaurantee that someone will idolize and imitate Cho the same way Cho idolized and imitated the Columbine murderers? Do they not understand that publishing the pictures and airing the video only gives the next mass murderer something to outdo?

Fucking assholes! But when the next mass murderer cryptically references the VT killer in his manifesto, you won't hear NBC or their ilk pointing the finger at themselves for creating the "cult of Cho." No, next time it will be "lax gun laws" all over again, and "easy availability of weapons," and "the incredible firepower of the nine millimeter," and "the NRA lobbyists," etc.

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Clinton Is In Trouble

I still think she'll win the nomination, but clearly Senator Clinton is in a dogfight. The RealClearPolitics average has her leading Bronco Bomber by only 6 points!

Update: More at Wizbang. Hillary's favorable/unfavorable rating is in freefall too.

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April 17, 2007

More Thoughts On VA Tech

Here are some more random thoughts on the shooting, which occurred to me throughout the day.

The touchy-feely methods of preventing this type of violence failed miserably yesterday. For instance, one oft-cited preventive measure is for faculty members to watch for signs of a troubled loner with possible violent tendencies, then send him to counseling. This was done in Cho's case, by one of his English professors, to no avail.

After Columbine there was no end to the re-education and awareness-raising on the dangers of bullying. Kids were taught not to make fun of outcasts, but to be nice to them. Again, in Cho's case, members of his peer group tried to befriend the loner during sophomore year. One said they invited him to lunch, tried to get him to laugh and come out of his "funk." Again, this was done, to no avail. He apparently did laugh during the lunch, but it didn't change anything.

Time Magazine, perhaps the most ridiculously out-of-touch major news source in America today, professes to know "how to make campuses safer." Frikkin joke. Here's the best they came up with:

Some schools like Princeton train professors how to spot signs of depression, and access to mental-health services is a big part of preventive efforts on many campuses. Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to tell someone if they see suspicious or troubling activity. Says Gene Burton, public safety director at Ball State University: "You need to get everyone on board." But as colleges and universities learned on Monday, it often takes a tragedy to expose just how many weaknesses there are in the system.
As I wrote above, they did that! It didn't work! Time Magazine... clueless fukkin idiots.

More: OMG, not to be outdone, CNN is just about as clueless as Time Magazine. No wonder they're joined at the hip.

Watch this video, which contains the absolutely hilarious warning that a semi-automatic handgun can fire bullets "as fast as you can pull the trigger!"

Dun-dun-dun duuuunnnh!

If anyone knows of a gun on the market that does not shoot bullets "as fast as you can pull the trigger," please let me know. I will make sure I don't have any of the manufacturer's stock in my portfolio.

Update: The anti-American New York Times reports that "officers also found several knives on Mr. ChoÂ’s body." Will there be calls for stricter knife control? It's not unheard of.

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April 16, 2007

Tech Shooting

The point has been made over and over again, and I'm sure I don't need to mention it on this blog, but I'll do it anyway.

It's ironic that some people who are criticizing the school for its response to the initial shootings this morning are the same people who will be calling for tighter gun control in the future.

If we learned anything from Katrina, it's the same thing we learned again today:

You cannot rely on the government to protect you from every harm!

In a land where the citizenry is unarmed, the government is the only thing that stands between a criminal and his victim. Thus, the one thing these types of shooters know is that all they need to do is outsmart the government in order to accomplish their evil.

Government, specifically the police, do certain things well, but preventing random acts of violence is not one of them. They can only respond after the fact. And the difference between that first 911 call and the arrival of SWAT (usually after the shooter has killed himself) today was measured in 32 innocent lives.

So when people ask "why didn't the school officials shut down the school right away?" the answer is, "well, I guess they fucked up." (Even though on a campus the size of Virginia Tech, I'm not sure that was practical, or that it would have even prevented the tragedy. Who's to say he wouldn't have found some other populated place to go on his rampage?)

Yes, government fucks up sometimes. Recognize this reality. Embrace it. Own it. Because the sooner we realize that government cannot gaurantee our safety, the sooner we'll stop willingly handing away our right to protect ourselves.

More: KG at Crusader Rabbit has a partial list of recent school shootings worldwide. And John Hawkins correctly identifies the deadliest school mass murder in U.S. history, the 1927 Bath School bombing.

Still more: I wonder if anyone in the MSM will contact VT grad student Bradford B. Wiles, just to see if his opinion has changed any by the events of today. My guess would be no on both counts.

Mr. Giles wrote the following in an op-ed published last August, after he had been evacuated from a campus building in the previous on-campus incident.

I am licensed to carry a concealed handgun in the commonwealth of Virginia, and do so on a regular basis. However, because I am a Virginia Tech student, I am prohibited from carrying at school because of Virginia Tech's student policy, which makes possession of a handgun an expellable offense, but not a prosecutable crime.

I had entrusted my safety, and the safety of others to the police. In light of this, there are a few things I wish to point out.

First, I never want to have my safety fully in the hands of anyone else, including the police.

Second, I considered bringing my gun with me to campus, but did not due to the obvious risk of losing my graduate career, which is ridiculous because had I been shot and killed, there would have been no graduate career for me anyway.

Third, and most important, I am trained and able to carry a concealed handgun almost anywhere in Virginia and other states that have reciprocity with Virginia, but cannot carry where I spend more time than anywhere else because, somehow, I become a threat to others when I cross from the town of Blacksburg onto Virginia Tech's campus.

Of all of the emotions and thoughts that were running through my head that morning, the most overwhelming one was of helplessness.

Read the whole piece here.

h/t Dymphna at Gates of Vienna

Update: Anti-American AP reports the following:

Two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were found on the guns used in both shootings. The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said.

One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol.

Did anyone think to ask why Cho would go through the trouble of filing off the serial numbers, then carry the receipt around with him?!?!!? Something is not right with that story. Why would somebody take the receipt with him on a shooting rampage? Especially after filing the serial numbers off (which isn't easy by the way)? Gun receipts are multi-page documents, at least mine is. If you ask me, it would be real convenient for the gun-grabbers if they could say this gun was bought legally just a few weeks ago.

Must-read: Publicola deconstructs the incident in his inimitable way.

[I]t has been preached from every rooftop of every school that resistance is bad. We even had a politician proposing using books as bullet proof shields as a solution to school violence. Not too long ago a teacher in Texas was "re-assigned" because he dared teach his students to fight back even if unarmed. For a number of reasons political & cultural we simply do not on the whole wish to face the idea that violence is an acceptable option in any situation.

That, & not the school's reaction (or lack thereof) contributed to the deaths & injuries at VT. [links omitted]

My friend Publicola says he can't take credit for my becoming a gun owner. That's wrong. It was he and Katrina that made me take the leap. Unfortunately, in California, the gun laws are designed to prevent self-defense. But as my sidebar quiz shows, if somebody busts into my home, I won't be jumping out the second story window.

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April 12, 2007

Annika Asks Her Readers 2.0

What do you think? Will the Don Imus auto da fe, recently concluded, have the unintended result of making it easier to execute Rosie O'Donald when she makes her inevitable next outrageous statement?

In other words, is the threshold of firable offenses now so low that Rosie will no longer be able to get away with the shit she's been pulling for months on The View?

Or does the Imus controversy have no relevance to Rosie, since the culturally designated Torquemadas, Sharpton and Jackson, are unlikely to be offended by anything Rosie might say?

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April 11, 2007

Bill Whittle's Newest

If you're like me, who waits impatiently for each great essay by Bill Whittle to come out, wait no more. The newest one is up! In it, Bill hits upon the motivation I've always suspected was the driving force behind the popularity of conspiracy theories: self-esteem. Or rather, the lack of it.

[M]ost normal people do not look at life from within a pit of failure and despair. Our lives are measured by small successes -- like raising children, serving in the military, doing volunteer work at your church – or just doing the right thing in a thousand small but important ways, like returning money if someone makes you too much change.

These are simply the small, ordinary milestones of a life of value. They give you a sense of identity.

But if I didn’t have that sense of identity rooted in my own small achievements, I wonder how likely it would have been for me to grab onto that sense of sudden empowerment, of being an initiate in some arcane club of hidden wisdom. I wonder what might have happened to me if being the Holder of Secret Knowledge had been my only source of self-esteem…the one redeeming landmark in a life of isolation and failure. Indeed, I wonder what power such a worldview would have over me if I could believe that behind the scenes lurked vast and unknowable dark forces – forces that could topple a president and perhaps even explain why a person of my deep, vast and bountiful talents was not doing a whole lot better in life?

When I uploaded my footage of the Truther at Ground Zero on YouTube, I intentionally checked the "no comments" box. For some reason, YouTube still submits comments for my approval and sure enough some idiot upbraided me for not drinking his particular flavor of kool-aid. I don't remember his exact words, but it was something like, "stop watching American Idol and do some research." I had to laugh at the irony of that.

To paraphrase Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller, "and where did you do your hard hitting data research... in your ass?"

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My First And Only Duke Lacrosse Related Post

Now that the Duke Lacrosse thing is over, I think it's an appropriate time to review what did not happen in Durham. So here's Mary Katharine Ham to remind us, in a video she did way back in December.


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Latest LA Times/Bloomberg Poll

The latest LA Times/Bloomberg poll on the Iraq War contains a real surprise, which might explain why nobody is reporting it. The poll is dated April 5th through April 9th. The key question is this:

Generally speaking, do you think setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq hurts or helps U.S. troops serving in Iraq right now, or doesn't it affect the troops one way or the other?
And the responses, no doubt highly disappointing to the LA Times and other anti-American news organizations, were as follows (emphasis mine):
Hurts: 50%
Helps: 27%
No Effect: 15%
Unsure: 8%
The really crazy thing about the poll is that the next question asks whether the President should sign a funding authorization that includes a timetable for withdrawal, or veto it. The poll found 48% of respondents favoring such a timetable! Even though 50% believe it would harm the troops! Not only that, 45% believe Congress should "refuse to pass any funding bill until Bush agrees to accept conditions for withdrawal." Again, even though it harms the troops.

So much for Americans supporting the troops, if you believe the poll.

Predictably, the only news story I found on Google that even mentions the poll is selective in its coverage — i.e. they're incredibly biased. Here's the link. As of this writing, E&P completely failed to mention the first question I highlighted above, instead focusing on the second question. That's not just biased reporting, it's fucking propaganda.

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April 10, 2007

Thank Don Imus

I have a somewhat different take on the whole Imus debacle. I've always thought he was totally overrated and I never understood his appeal or influence. Happily, living in California, I don't have to listen to him.

However, I think the huge uproar surrounding Imus's recent unfunny racial jokes, his subsequent apologies, public bitchslapping and two week suspension have shown us just how far we've come as a society that is unwilling to tolerate such insensitivity.

It is right and just that Imus be brought low, a-hole that he is.

I also firmly believe that this controversy has brought us closer to that glorious day, which will occur soon and possibly within our lifetimes, when no one will ever be insulted ever again. By anyone. At any time. In any way.

Hallelujah!

Update: It's official. Wikipedia now refers to "Imus in the Morning" in the past tense.

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Rhetorical Answer

Captain Ed asks the rhetorical question on a lot of conservatives' lips these days:

[H]ow can we expect these [Democrat] candidates to face off against America's enemies when they can't bring themselves to face Fox?
The answer, of course, is that nobody expects them to face off against America's enemies either.

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April 06, 2007

Kiki On WWI

Here's Kiki Couric on today's anniversary of the American entry into World War I.

Did you catch that?

Listening between the lines, Kiki's message is this: If not for advances in modern medicine, over 413,000 Americans would have died fighting the Iraq war.

Am I reading too much into it? If it was anybody else, I might be, but this is the anti-American CBS News.

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April 05, 2007

A Non-Issue For Me

I am in complete agreement with Jim Geraghty on the Pelosi head-scarf non-controversy.

I enjoy whacking around Nancy Pelosi as much as the next guy, but as far as I can tell, the photos of her in a headscarf are all of her while visiting a mosque. . . . There are a million and one reasons to object to Pelosi, but wearing the headscarf while in the mosque isn't one of them. It's akin to dressing appropriately while visiting a church, or a man wearing a yarmulke in a synagogue. It's something you do when you're a guest. It's not submission, it's respect.
I, too, looked through the entire Yahoo News photos slideshow to find a picture of Pelosi wearing the scarf outside the mosque, and there isn't any. Remember, she visited the tomb of John the Baptist, and made the sign of the cross. Before Vatican II all Catholic women covered their heads in church. I have zero problem with this and I think it hurts our credibility when we make a big stink over a non-issue and try to turn it into something it's not. Pelosi followed the same custom you and I would have done if we were in the same place. In fact, I think American women (myself included) dress far too immodestly in houses of worship. I was impressed when I visited Portugal, and saw young female tourists covering their shoulders before entering a church. So anyways, stick to hating Pelosi because she's an idiot.

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April 04, 2007

Truth Kook Caught On Video By Yours Truly

When I heard crazy Rosie O'Donald shooting off her ignorant bullshit about WTC Building 7, I was reminded of my trip to Ground Zero in July 2003.

As my friend and I walked around the site, we saw a guy standing next to a sign with a bunch of literature. He kept talking about how the WTC was really made up of seven buildings, not just the towers. I thought, "How nice, he's not political at all, he just wants to give people a little history while they tour the site." He kept repeating the exact times that the buildings came down with special emphasis on Building 7. I thought that was odd, but it wasn't until recently that I remembered him and realized that he was a friggin Truther, defiling the scene with his craziness.

On the video I shot, you can't really see him until the very end. In the last frame, I think he's to the right of center, half hidden behind the dude in the white shirt.

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Capitulation Works

I suppose we should all be happy that the crisis over the kidnapped Royal Marines looks like it's coming to a peaceful end. But something doesn't feel right about the way this thing has turned out.

I mean, Britain was patrolling the Gulf for a reason, right? And whether the Marines were kidnapped outside of Iranian waters or inside, the Iranians have quite forcefully demonstrated their power to win a showdown, anytime, anywhere.

The British could have won this confrontation, gaining the marines' release, without showing the world what a bunch of groveling patsies they've become. But instead, they've given the world another reason for a false hope: that you can deal with the Iranians as long as you avoid making them mad.

And don't think I'm letting President Bush off lightly in my scorn. Sure he talked tough while it was the Brits in captivity. But this administration has done nothing except pusue diplomatic impotence, while the Iranians built more centrifuges, and yanked our chains. Where is the Iranian Lech Walensa? Where is the Iranian Solidarity movement? Does anyone think the Iron Curtain fell on its own? We pushed it over. Reagan pushed it over. The means he used weren't always open and obvious, but by this time in Reagan's second term, we could see the effects. I've been hearing about Iranian dissidents and how sick the people are of the mullahs for years now. If that's so true, we should be seeing some actual dissent over there, demonstrations, labor strikes. Again I ask, where are President Bush and Secretary Rice on this issue?

Great Britain just made the likelihood of eventual military confrontation between Iran and the West more likely. What are we doing to prevent it by toppling the dictatorship before that happens?

Update: A comment by Cruiser at The Belmont Club made the following very cogent point:

We always hear that acting aggressively towards Iran shores-up the hardliners. This is an good example of why the opposite can be true.
Cruiser reacts at his own blog, here.

Update 2: In 2005, after the London bombings, I asked, "Where is this Britiain?" I'm now sure of the answer. It no longer exists. Blair has made a mockery of James Thomson's stirring poem, and it should never be sung again, except in sarcasm.

Yes the Britain of Lord Nelson is dead. And so is the Britain of Lord Churchill who, in 1940, said:

[B]e the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parley; we may show mercy—we shall ask for none.
Yes, that Britain is dead as dead can be. Mourn it.

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April 02, 2007

McCain Loses First Primary

John McCain just lost his first primary this season: the "fundraising primary."

Sen. John McCain today announced a disappointing $12.5 million fundraising total for the first three months of 2007.

The total, which would have been impressive in past election cycles, finds McCain trailing GOP rivals Mitt Romney and Rudolph Giuliani in the crucial early money sweepstakes.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has struggled in the national polls, reported $23 million in primary election contributions, including more than $2 million of his own money. The Federal Election Commission allows candidates to collect money for their primary and general election campaigns simultaneously.

Giuliani, the Republican frontrunner in national surveys, took in more than $15 million in primary cash, including more than $10 million last month. He also transferred about $2 million from another campaign account for a total of $17 million.

This is not good news for McCain, but it's good news for America.

Memo to Senator McCain: The mainstream media is not a constituency. You pissed off the wrong people with your Gang of 14 - anti-free speech - dumbing down the definition of "torture" - Democrats are people too, views. Money flows to candidates that can win the nomination. You can't win. It's time to leave the field to Giuliani and Romney and stop sucking up attention that should be going to the legitimate candidates.

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