Just how badly is the MSM mis-reporting the news from Iraq?

On the heels of my post from yesterday, quoting from Robert McFarlane's WSJ piece relating his work getting a joint Shia-Sunni fatwa against violence in Iraq, and how the MSM has yet to report of such a historic occurrence, comes this incredible post over at Protein Wisdom. Honestly, this is the best single Iraq post since Chrenkoff stopped doing his Good News from Iraq series. It hammers the MSM for its hotel journalism, reducing the number of reporters in Iraq from 570 to, at it lowest level, 9, relying on sources like al Jazeera for their stories, and simply reporting numbers (number of bombs, numbers of crashes, number of casualties, etc.) without doing any analysis whatsoever. Take, for example, the coverage of events in Anbar province. In September-November 2006, the Washington Post ran a series of articles suggesting that the US military was unable to defeat the bloody insurgency in western Iraq “or counter al-Qaeda’s rising popularity there.” These stories were echoed in the New York Times/International Herald Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, NBC News, ABC News, CNN, the AP and others, down to local TV. But this was not the only picture of events in Anbar. In “Will the Real Anbar Narrative Please Stand Up?”, Bill Ardolino juxtaposed the WaPo stories against analysis by bloggers and embedded reporters like the Times of London’s Martin Fletcher and Michael Fumento for the Weekly Standard. Bill Roggio’s military and intelligence sources were angry over the media’s characterization of the secret reports cited by the WaPo. Roggio examined how the claims made in the WaPo coverage were taken out of the larger context of events in Anbar. Roggio and the Mudville Gazette’s “Greyhawk” charted the formation and rise of the Anbar Salvation Council — the alliance of 25 of the province’s 31 tribes in the fight against al Qaeda. Roggio and Greyhawk followed up when the Anbar tribes got US air and artillery support — a development ignored by the establishment media. We now know which narrative was more accurate. Al Qaeda was not increasingly popular in Anbar. To the contrary, the local tribes were overwhelmingly opposing and increasingly waging war against al Qaeda, with support from the US military. Bloggers — carefully following and synthesizing information from their own sources, military information, embedded reporters, Arabic media and isolated stories in the establishment media over the course of a year — proved to be better remote journalists than those at the WaPo, NYT, CSM, AP, CNN, NBC and ABC (and any others I have overlooked). Incidentally, as early as September 2004, Roggio had predicted the tribes would eventually turn on al-Qaeda. This type of development is crucial to winning a war against an insurgency. Popular support is key to the continuation of an insurgency; Mao Zedong famously advised his insurgents to “move through the people like a fish moves through water.” Thus, the magnitude of the media’s failure to recognize the import of the rise of the Anbar Salvation Council — and its portrayal of Anbar province as lost — cannot be understated. It's very long but definitely worth the read. (h/t LGF)

Bush targets Iran's role in Iraq (and other news items of significant progress in Iraq)

Bush was speaking to the American Legion and not only reminded everyone that our troops have killed or captured 10,000 terrorists and insurgents, but that Iran is playing a major role in Iraq. In Iraq, Sunni extremists, led by al Qaeda, are staging sensational attacks on innocent men, women, and children in an attempt to stoke sectarian violence. Their operatives have assassinated those seeking to build a new future for the Iraqi people. Their targets include everyone they consider infidels -- including Christians and Jews and Yezidis and Shia, and even fellow Sunnis who do not share their radical distortion of Islam. Their ranks include foreign fighters who travel to Iraq through Syria. Their operations seek to create images of chaos and carnage to break the will of the American people. These killers don't understand our country. America does not give in to thugs and assassins -- and America will not abandon Iraq in its hour of need. (Applause.) Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people. Members of the Qods Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are supplying extremist groups with funding and weapons, including sophisticated IEDs. And with the assistance of Hezbollah, they've provided training for these violent forces inside of Iraq. Recently, coalition forces seized 240-millimeter rockets that had been manufactured in Iran this year and that had been provided to Iraqi extremist groups by Iranian agents. The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased in the last few months -- despite pledges by Iran to help stabilize the security situation in Iraq. Some say Iran's leaders are not aware of what members of their own regime are doing. Others say Iran's leaders are actively seeking to provoke the West. Either way, they cannot escape responsibility for aiding attacks against coalition forces and the murder of innocent Iraqis. The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops. I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities. And one of the ways Bush may target Iran is by labelling Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist force. Ahmadinejad responded to that likely threat: TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran would respond if the United States were to label the Islamic state's Revolutionary Guards a "terrorist" force, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday. "They know that any action against the Iranian nation would be faced with a proper response," Ahmadinejad, himself a former Guards commander, told a news conference. But he also said he believed it was "highly unlikely that the American government will take such an illogical approach ... it would be a joke I guess." U.S. officials said this month Washington may soon name the Revolutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist group, a move that would enable the United States to target the force's finances. I think it'd be a great joke, and I hope we give it a try. Of course the challenge with the terrorists designation is also going to be getting other nations to recognize the Revlutionary Guards as a terrorist force as well. But Bush is (finally) out there trying to drum up support for the war, trying to get the word out about our progress in Iraq. One thing that seems to be slipping through the cracks though was discussed this morning on Dennis Prager's show. Dennis interviewed Robert McFarlane, former National Security Advisor to Ronald Reagan. McFarlane has been working in Iraq and has achieved a momentous agreement; something that should be the headline on every newspaper in the country: A Fatwa Against Violence. Last week, I participated in a three day meeting here that included six of the most senior Iraqi Sunni and Shia religious leaders. At the meeting, held at a Marriott hotel in a Cairo suburb, they formally agreed to "end terrorist violence, and to disband militia activity in order to build a civilized country and work within the framework of law." This gathering was a truly historic event, given the authority of the participants -- including Sheikh Ahmed al Kubaisi, acknowledged by all Iraqis as the senior Sunni religious authority (the weekly audience for his Friday sermons, broadcast from Dubai, number 20 million), and Ayatollah Sayyid Ammar Abu Ragheef, chief of staff for Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, the acknowledged leader of the Shia community in Iraq and beyond. One has only to consider the power of these specific religious leaders, and the instruments at their disposal for getting results, to grasp the gathering's enormous potential importance. Going well beyond traditional rhetoric in their closing statement late last week, they stated their intention to work for the early issuance of a joint Sunni-Shia fatwa to the Iraqi people. A fatwa such as this will carry the force of law for all followers. Think about that. After more than four years of brutal warfare and untold suffering, the leading religious authorities in Iraq have joined hands and said "Enough," and have committed to use their authority to bring peace to their country. Why isn't this ANYWHERE in the MSM? A google new search of Robert McFarlane yields only 48 results, and the #4 result is the WSJ article linked above. Most of the results appear to be about a completely different Robert McFarlane! Where's the NYTimes? LATimes? Chicago Trib? CNN? MSNBC? ABC? All the other alphabet soup networks? No where to be found... Once again the MSM seems to news that shows the progress we're making in Iraq.

More than 10,000 terrorists killed or captured since surge began

Hugh Hewitt's been replaying the speech the president made earlier today in Kansas City. The entire MSM is hammering Dubya's for his comparison of Iraq to WWII and Vietnam, but they're missing a key bit of info (or conversely you could say that once again the administration isn't communicating our successes in Iraq again): More than 10,000 terrorists killed or captured since January. Here's the text from Dubya's speech today: There is one group of people who understand the stakes, understand as well as any expert, anybody in America -- those are the men and women in uniform. Through nearly six years of war, they have performed magnificently. (Applause.) Day after day, hour after hour, they keep the pressure on the enemy that would do our citizens harm. They've overthrown two of the most brutal tyrannies of the world, and liberated more than 50 million citizens. (Applause.) In Iraq, our troops are taking the fight to the extremists and radicals and murderers all throughout the country. Our troops have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month since January of this year. (Applause.) We're in the fight. Today our troops are carrying out a surge that is helping bring former Sunni insurgents into the fight against the extremists and radicals, into the fight against al Qaeda, into the fight against the enemy that would do us harm. They're clearing out the terrorists out of population centers, they're giving families in liberated Iraqi cities a look at a decent and hopeful life. Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq? Here's my answer is clear: We'll support our troops, we'll support our commanders, and we will give them everything they need to succeed. (Applause.) So let's do the math: 1,500 dead or captured terrorists x 8 months = 12,000 dead or captured terrorists These are the type of word problems math teachers should be giving to their students. As of right now, there are 716 articles at Google news, referencing the president's speech. Any guesses on how many lead with the "More than 10,000 dead"? Or even worse, check out the Freudian slip at ABC (via Ace and Hot Air): Iraq like Vietnam - Bush's new talking point...

Al Qaeda and bin Laden's direct role in Iraq

It's always nice to see intel declassified that supports the war in Iraq and the GWOT in general... even if it's released 2 years late and so infrequently it can be easily ignored by the MSM. That's why you guys read blogs though... NEW LONDON, Connecticut (Reuters) - Trying to rally support for an unpopular war, President George W. Bush used declassified intelligence on Wednesday to equate the U.S.-led fight in Iraq with the broader battle against al Qaeda. [...] The White House said the intelligence declassified on Tuesday provided further evidence of bin Laden's connections to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of Iraq's al Qaeda wing, who was killed in a U.S. air strike in June 2006. Bush said bin Laden had ordered Zarqawi in January 2005 to form a cell to conduct attacks outside of Iraq and to make America his "number one priority." Yes this is 2 year old intelligence, but I sure wish Dubya would release this stuff in a more timely manner. No wonder his approval rating is at 33 (sad thing is that the Democratic Congress has a 29% approval rating) and support for the war is dwindling. But of course the article is quick to dismiss the report as "politically motivated". Well duh! He's got to try to gain some political support from the public because the MSM is fighting him tooth and nail at every step of the way. If the media simply reported the news and didn't spin it for their own motives, he wouldn't have to have timely releases of declassified intelligence to scrap for public approval.

Saudis arrest 172 in airplane terror plot

They're saying this plot was at the zero hour. Even scarier then that is how extremely well funded these psychos were. Times Online - Police in Riyadh say that they have arrested Islamic militants who were being trained as pilots to fly suicide attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil fields. The Saudi interior ministry issued a statement saying that the 172 detainees held in raids today were involved in plots to carry out suicide atttacks against “public figures, oil facilities, refineries ... and military zones". Some of the planned targets were outside the Saudi kingdom. “They had reached an advance stage of readiness and what remained only was to set the zero hour for their attacks,” Brigadier Mansour al-Turki, an interior ministry spokesman, told the Associated Press news agency. “They had the personnel, the money, the arms. Almost all the elements for terror attacks were complete, except for setting the zero hour for the attacks.” The ministry did not say that the militants would fly aircraft into oil refineries, as the 9/11 hijackers flew planes into buildings in New York and Washington, but it said in a statement that some detainees had been “sent to other countries to study flying in preparation for using them to carry out terrorist attacks inside the kingdom”. The militants also planned to storm Saudi prisons to free the inmates, the statement said. In their crackdown, the police seized large quantities of weapons, explosives and money. More than 120 million riyals (US$32.4 million) had been seized in the operation, one of the largest sweeps against terror cells in the kingdom. Wow. It makes me wonder though, suppose this plot had been fully executed, assuming the targets were strictly located in the Saudi kingdom, how would that change the perception of the world toward the GWOT, toward the Bush adminstration, and to the US/west in general? Saudi Arabia says they're an ally, but in reality they're no major help. If the Saudis were devestated by several suicide air attacks, the US is instantly there with aid and any military support they request. Saudi Arabia immediately moves away from the terrorist groups and their politics and begins to vigorously pursue them, ostracizing them from the majority of society. Perhaps the marginalized terrorists begin to lash out more like their bastard Iraqi insurgent brothers; they're not part of the solution for the country so they turn to the only option they have: cowardly acts of violence and murder. World opinion can't hammer Arabs for trying to police and protect themselves, so as an Arab nation takes the point (even if only for the moment) in the fight against terrorism, the world supports them, re-legitimizing the GWOT and strengthening Iraqi resolve and our position in it. Bush is once again the maverick cowboy trying to police the world. Of course excellent intelligence, surveillance, and police work went into preventing these planned attacks, no doubt saving thousands of lives. So I guess we'll never know how the world would react because the MSM sure as hell won't pay this story any attention.

This is the type of scum that our troops are dealing with in Iraq

And for leftist moonbat like Michael Moore, he can say the Iraqis insurgents are the new minutemen. Well, I'm sorry but I don't remember George Washington using children to get close to the British and then killing them the same as he would kill his enemy. VOA - A senior U.S. military officer says insurgents in Iraq used two children to help them pass a coalition checkpoint in Baghdad in recent days, and then detonated a car bomb, killing the children. The officer reported the incident during a news conference at the Pentagon, and VOA's Al Pessin reports. Major General Michael Barbero says this is the first time he has heard of insurgents using what he called this brutal and ruthless technique. "We saw a vehicle with two children in the back seat come up to one of our checkpoints, get stopped by our folks, the children in the back seat lowered suspicion, we let it move through," he said. "They parked the vehicle, the adults ran out and detonated with the children in the back." And somehow the coalition forces, who are trying to stop this kind of senseless murder get lambasted by the anti-war freaks and the MSM as the bad guys. That's f*cked up.

Bush fires 8 US Attorneys!! Oh the humanity!!

Apparently the Dems never got the memo that as Commander in Chief of the most powerful nation on the planet, if someone under your employ doesn't perform up to expectations, you can fire them. As if these were the first US Attorneys a president had ever fired... The key here is "perform up to expectations" as opposed to "on a whim" or "to avoid your own criminal prosecution." But the Democratic Presidential candidates smelled blood and added to the MSM's feeding frenzy over this non-issue. But who would take the the 1st place for the "best shameless grandstanding", "beating a dead horse beyond recognition", and "wasting perfectly good airtime on a major news network for absolutely nothing" contest? Senator Barack Obama needs to fire his PR guy for not getting him more airtime on this exceedingly pointless issue as well as his speechwriter for not coming up with something with a bit more panache. Well maybe not fire... that's so Republican... I opposed Mr. Gonzalez's nomination, in part, because he had shown in his role as White House Counsel a penchant for subverting justice to serve the President's political goals, and I feared that in an Attorney General. Sadly, the latest revelations underscore my concern. Americans deserve to know who in the White House is pulling the strings at the Department of Justice, and why. Anyone involved should appear under oath and answer these questions. You opposed him from the beginning. Is that really the best you could come up with? Rookie... You get 3rd place. Senator John Edwards is outraged and takes 2nd place in our little contest for lumping the firing of US Attorneys to the Patriot Act, Gitmo, and Abu Ghraib. Kudos John! Today's news is only the latest and most disturbing sign of the politicization of justice under President Bush. From the abuse of investigative authority under the Patriot Act to the unconstitutional imprisonment of the Guantanamo Bay detainees and illegal torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Bagram Air Force Base, this president has consistently shown contempt for the rule of law. But Senator Hillary Clinton takes the cake and is our grandprize winner due to her complete and total hypocrisy. "The buck should stop somewhere," Clinton told ABC News senior political correspondent Jake Tapper, "and the attorney general — who still seems to confuse his prior role as the president's personal attorney with his duty to the system of justice and to the entire country — should resign. "I'm deeply disturbed by what we have learned thus far," Clinton said, "and I join those who are calling for a full and thorough investigation to try to get to the bottom of these very political decisions that interfere with prosecutorial responsibility by U.S. attorneys, and I think that the attorney general should resign." But where's the hypocrisy you ask? When Clinton's husband took office in 1993, one of the first actions his attorney general took was to remove every U.S. attorney. Clinton was asked how this was different from the termination of eight U.S. attorneys last December. "There is a great difference," Clinton said. "When a new president comes in, a new president gets to clean house. It's not done on a case-by-case basis where you didn't do what some senator or member of Congress told you to do in terms of investigations into your opponents. It is 'Let's start afresh' and every president has done that." Oh Hillary! How soon we forget! Check out this great op-ed from the WSJ that explains a little better how unprecedented Clinton's firing of all 93 US Attonreys was and not only the Democratic buddies he helped, he quite possibly quashed the White Water scandal he and his wife were up to their necks in as well. Mega-sooper-dooper bonus points for using the executive powers to prevent investigation into your own shady dealings! At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: "All those people are routinely replaced," he told reporters, "and I have not done anything differently." In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition. Equally extraordinary were the politics at play in the firings. At the time, Jay Stephens, then U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, was investigating then Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, and was "within 30 days" of making a decision on an indictment. Mr. Rostenkowski, who was shepherding the Clinton's economic program through Congress, eventually went to jail on mail fraud charges and was later pardoned by Mr. Clinton. Also at the time, allegations concerning some of the Clintons' Whitewater dealings were coming to a head. By dismissing all 93 U.S. Attorneys at once, the Clintons conveniently cleared the decks to appoint "Friend of Bill" Paula Casey as the U.S. Attorney for Little Rock. Ms. Casey never did bring any big Whitewater indictments, and she rejected information from another FOB, David Hale, on the business practices of the Arkansas elite including Mr. Clinton. When it comes to "politicizing" Justice, in short, the Bush White House is full of amateurs compared to the Clintons. This doesn't of course mean that Bush's firings weren't politically motivated. They were. They just weren't of the grotesquely criminal nature the Clintons' were. I mean really... has our society reached a point where it's criminal to fire someone for performing required tasks poorly or not performing them at all? The supposed scandal this week is that Mr. Bush had been informed last fall that some U.S. Attorneys had been less than vigorous in pursuing voter-fraud cases and that the President had made the point to Attorney General Albert Gonzales. Voter fraud strikes at the heart of democratic institutions, and it was entirely appropriate for Mr. Bush -- or any President -- to insist that his appointees act energetically against it. Take sacked U.S. Attorney John McKay from Washington state. In 2004, the Governor's race was decided in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire by 129-votes on a third recount. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other media outlets reported, some of the "voters" were deceased, others were registered in storage-rental facilities, and still others were convicted felons. More than 100 ballots were "discovered" in a Seattle warehouse. None of this constitutes proof that the election was stolen. But it should have been enough to prompt Mr. McKay, a Democrat, to investigate, something he declined to do, apparently on grounds that he had better things to do. In New Mexico, another state in which recent elections have been decided by razor thin margins, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias did establish a voter fraud task force in 2004. But it lasted all of 10 weeks before closing its doors, despite evidence of irregularities by the likes of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn. As our John Fund reported at the time, Acorn's director Matt Henderson refused to answer questions in court about whether his group had illegally made copies of voter registration cards in the run-up to the 2004 election. As for some of the other fired Attorneys, at least one of their dismissals seemed to owe to differences with the Administration about the death penalty, another to questions about the Attorney's managerial skills. Not surprisingly, the dismissed Attorneys are insisting their dismissals were unfair, and perhaps in some cases they were. It would not be the first time in history that a dismissed employee did not take kindly to his firing, nor would it be the first in which an employer sacked the wrong person. So sure this could have been handled better. But once you actually start to look at facts as opposed to innuendo, you pretty quickly figure out just how liberally biased the MSM is and just how much hot air Democratic presidential candidates are full of.

Is Obama taking a staunch position against Iran?

That's certainly what this Chicago Tribune headline makes it seem like: Obama calls Iran threat to U.S., Israel. Kinda makes him sound like he's the next JFK... Could it be true? Seeking to woo Jewish votes and contributions, Sen. Barack Obama told an audience in Chicago Friday that he considers Iran "one of the greatest threats to the United States, Israel and world peace" and pledged he would try to end that nation's uranium enrichment program. At least the ChiTrib is honest enough to note a political campaign promise when they see one. Still, Obama says Iran is one of the greatest threats to world peace. So far he's on the money... As he criticized the Bush administration's Iraq policies, the Democratic presidential candidate suggested that the danger posed by neighboring Iran has grown in recent years because of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Ahh the truth at last... It wouldn't be a Democratic fundraiser without a good ol' fashioned Bush-bash: Iran is our fault! So it's a back-assed view of national security. Yes, Iran's a threat, but because we screwed the region up. Nevermind that the region has been screwed up for centuries and we just got there... And then the annointed one speaks! "One of the most profound consequences of the administration's failed strategy in Iraq has been to strengthen Iran's strategic position, reduce U.S. credibility and influence in the region, and place Israel and other nations friendly to the United States in greater peril," Obama (D-Ill.) said before a regional gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a major pro-Israel lobbying group. Obama is looking at the strategy completely backwards. Iran is stronger by default because we ahnililated the stronger military threat in the region, and they're in a strategic position now because we already took out Iraq that was in a more strategic position. And it's not like Iran just figured out Israel existed in the past three years since we've been in the Middle East. Israel's been a target since the country was founded, and they've been a target simply because they exist. America has probably done more to inhibit Israel than help Israel. US officials talk alot about our great ally Israel, but most of our foreign policies have been made to placate the Arab street at the expense of Israel. And Obama's audience ought to realize that if he or any other Democrat is elected, we'll be leaving the region shortly after they take office, and Israel will be left alone to defend itself. Again. So sure Obama sounds great. It's easy to sound great when you spew misconceptions and half-truths... UPDATE @ 10:22am: And good luck to Obama when he tries to play the black card to get elected. Especially since his white ancestors owned slaves.

Britain sends a prince to Iraq

Prince Harry will be fighting for his country in the GWOT in Iraq. Forbes - He's the redheaded son of the late Princess Diana, the rowdy royal known more for dancing until dawn than waking for battle. But Britain's party prince, Harry, is getting his wish and is being deployed to Iraq this spring with his Blues and Royals regiment. Royal officials announced Thursday that the 22-year-old prince would fight for his country, confirming feverish tabloid speculation about the future of the best-recognized tank commander in Britain. His regiment is expected to set out in May or June for a six-month tour. Harry, a second lieutenant, has been trained to lead a team of 12 men in four armored reconnaissance vehicles and could become the first British royal to see combat since his uncle, Prince Andrew, flew as a Royal Navy pilot in the Falklands War against Argentina in 1982. This has of course been all over the MSM lately and deservedly so, but for the wrong reasons. You can hear the newscaster's hand-wringing when they say, "Won't Harry be a huge target for the insurgents?" Sure it's easy to have a brain-fart moment and say of course he'll be a big target, but I think that's giving a little too much credit to the insurgents. How are they going to recognize Harry? I don't think he'll be wearing a crown in the field, or have anything else on him that's going to make him stand out as a Prince of England. It's not like Medieval times when the royalty wore royal garbs into battle. He's going to look like every other tank commander Britain has over there. And when I'm sure by the time a terrorist gets close enough to recognize him, I'm sure his men will make short work of the would-be terrorist. That brings up another good point. His men, knowing who Harry is, are going to fight until their last dying breath to protect their commander, which could very well make it even more difficult to get to Harry. You don't think one of them would throw themselves on a grenade to save him? Take a bullet? They'll stop at nothing to protect him. So good luck Harry. Be safe.

Before everyone gets their panties in a wad about Iraq pre-war intelligence...

... I'd go read the correction the Washinton Post put up. It's not a small correction either. The original story said the big report questioning the pre-war intelligence was put out by the Pentagon. Oops. It was really put out by Democratic Seantor Carl Levin. That changes things a bit wouldn't you say? Thanks to Allah at Hot Air.

Bloggers on staff with Sen. Edwards are giving him a bit of a headache

Two bloggers Sen. Edwards staffed put him in a bit of a sticky spot the other day... WaPo - Former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) condemned comments made by two bloggers on his presidential campaign staff but chose not to fire the women, an incident that exposed the fault lines between the largely unfiltered world of new media and the highly regulated universe of national politics. At the center of the brouhaha are Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen, both of whom were hired last month by Edwards to oversee his "Net roots" outreach. A loose conglomeration of liberal-minded bloggers have grown increasingly influential in Democratic politics. Before joining the Edwards campaign, Marcotte and McEwen each maintained personal Web logs on which they posted highly critical and profane thoughts about topics including the Roman Catholic Church. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, called on Edwards to fire the duo, whom he described as "vulgar, trash-talking bigots." Wow... second chances abound for liberals who trash WASPs. Of course we were talking about Mitt Romney and some off his staffers popping off, we'd have a national outcry and the oh-so-tolerant left would demand he withdraw from the race, no matter how many apologies he and the staffers issued. And since the MSM isn't paying attention, this isn't the only issue Edwards has made for himself at the moment. He's getting himself in enough trouble talking out of both sides of his face (after all, he did learn from from the best in the business, John Kerry, who flipped flopped more than a fish out of water). 2 weeks ago, speaking at the Herzliya Conference in Israel Edwards addressed the issue of Iran and their pursuit of nukes quite firmly. "Let me be clear: Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons . . . The vast majority of people are concerned about what is going on in Iraq. This will make the American people reticent toward going for Iran. But I think the American people are smart if they are told the truth, and if they trust their president. So Americans can be educated to come along with what needs to be done with Iran." He then took a page from John Kerry's playbook and proceeded to change his position. Q. Can we live with a nuclear Iran? A. "I'm not ready to cross that bridge yet... When [Bush] uses this kind of language 'options are on the table,' he does it in a very threatening kind of way - with a country that he's not engaging with or making any serious diplomatic proposals to. I mean I think that he's just dead wrong about that." How else should a military threat be made? What option does Edwards mean to leave on the table - a bouquet of flowers? On the February 4 edition of Meet the Press, Edwards was asked, "Would President Edwards allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons?" His response: "There's no answer to that question at this moment... We ought to negotiate directly with the Iranians, which has not been done...." Q. But they may get one. A. "I think we don't know, and you have to make a judgment as you go along." So he's gone from staunch position to a policy of jibberish flexible it's spineless. So Edward has become the protege of John Kerry. Only Edwards has charisma and better hair

Doctor debunks the anti-smoking data and other legislative nonsense...

I heard Dennis mention this article yesterday and interview the doctor who wrote it today. Dr. Gio Batta Gori is a renown epidemiologist and toxicologist and for whatever reason, the WaPo decided to publish his piece. Here's a snippet... Lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases develop at advancing ages. Estimating the risk of those diseases posed by secondhand smoke requires knowing the sum of momentary secondhand smoke doses that nonsmokers have internalized over their lifetimes. Such lifetime summations of instant doses are obviously impossible, because concentrations of secondhand smoke in the air, individual rates of inhalation, and metabolic transformations vary from moment to moment, year after year, location to location. In an effort to circumvent this capital obstacle, all secondhand smoke studies have estimated risk using a misleading marker of "lifetime exposure." Yet, instant exposures also vary uncontrollably over time, so lifetime summations of exposure could not be, and were not, measured. Typically, the studies asked 60--70 year-old self-declared nonsmokers to recall how many cigarettes, cigars or pipes might have been smoked in their presence during their lifetimes, how thick the smoke might have been in the rooms, whether the windows were open, and similar vagaries. Obtained mostly during brief phone interviews, answers were then recorded as precise measures of lifetime individual exposures. In reality, it is impossible to summarize accurately from momentary and vague recalls, and with an absurd expectation of precision, the total exposure to secondhand smoke over more than a half-century of a person's lifetime. No measure of cumulative lifetime secondhand smoke exposure was ever possible, so the epidemiologic studies estimated risk based not only on an improper marker of exposure, but also on exposure data that are illusory. So we're basing scientific studies and are forming public policy on nothing more than anecdotal assumptions? Great. One thing to note here is that no one is saying second hand smoke isn't unhealthy, all we're questioning is how unhealthy. Is it worth the panic that the prohibitionist anti-smoking zealots have caused? The answer there is an emphatic no. The risk of cancer due to second hand smoke is largely exaggerated. There's no reason to ban smoking outdoors as several SoCal cities have done. There's no reason to force privately owned businesses to prohibit smoking. It kind of makes you wonder what else are scientists with agendas lying about... Global warming perhaps? Is global warming really humanity's fault? They talk all about CO2 emissions, but fail to note that over the last century as temperatures have increased, during that same period CO2 emissions have dropped. Maybe those scientists are using the same computer models that back in the 70's were predicting a global freeze or reports that had us running out of landfill space by 2000 due to the overwhelming amount of garbage we produce. That's the best part about liberal agendas... you can talk and talk and talk, throwing out opinions as if they were facts and never be held accountable to them by the MSM. It must be nice. And then in the name of energy conservation, California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine has introduced a bill that would ban incandescent light bulbs... You know up until now, I'd thought the banning trans fats in restaurants was the dumbest piece of legislation going. Levine's bill is completely f*cking retarded. If you want people to buy florescent bulbs because they're more energy effficient, you don't start by banning he competition, you make the alternative more attractive. Pass tax breaks for the manufacturers and tax incentives for the consumer. You don't make light bulbs illegal. It's like California (and the rest of the country for that matter now that the Dems are in charge) is being manhandled and driven right off a cliff by a bunch of 2 year olds in the Democratic party. And dumb 2 year olds at that! "We don't like this... ban it! This makes us feel bad... ban it! Personal responsibility and a free market system? Rubbish! We know what's best for everybody!" What a bunch of crap.

Lest we forget that terrorism and specifically al Qaeda aren't limited to Iraq

I think we're so focused on our own problems and issues in Iraq and to a lesser extent in Afghanistan, that we're losing the bigger picture. Terrorism is still a major threat in the world and al Qaeda, and their evil spawn sub-groups, is still the foremost perpetrator of terrorist attacks around the world. Playfuls - Seven people were killed, five of them soldiers, in separate attacks by terrorist groups in Algeria over a 48-hour period, local media reported Tuesday. Four soldiers and a local policeman were killed early Monday in a mortar attack on a military base at Batna, 435 kilometres east of the capital Algiers. In the ensuing reprisal, Algerian troops killed about 10 members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), a terrorist group associated with al Qaeda, in a sweeping operation in the region around Batna. In addition, one Algerian soldier was killed and another injured during a battle with suspected Islamist terrorists at Ain Kechra, some 550 kilometres east of Algiers. In related news, a former fighter for Algerian independence was found dead at a fake military roadblock erected by Islamic insurgents at Boumerdes, 50 kilometres east of Algiers. Terrorism isn't just a threat to Iraqis, it's a worldwide threat, and worldwide includes us. The MSM focuses all their attention on Iraq and can't seem to see anything outside of Iraq like the above al Qaeda terrorist attack in Algeria. Or what about this story about terrorist gangs in the Netherlands. Or a similar story from Toronto. Or Sri Lanka. Or Yemen. So don't forget to ignore the rest of the world, and remember America is the root of all problems great and small. If only we got out of Iraq and Afghanistan, all terrorism would stop immediately, and peace would reign over the world... Nevermind the millions of people freed from oppressive regimes that used torture, rape, murder, and genocide as basic tools for governing... But that's not what's important to the anti-war crowd. War is bad. War for oil. War for Halliburton. Give peace a chance and all the other lame slogans that are nothing more than cheap, meaningless soundbites. So if you're tired of people who don't think beyond their three word soundbite directing policy for the nation, go take the pledge. Tell Congress that war is tough, but the only way we'll lose this one is if we give up, so grow a set of brass ones and do what it takes to win the war. We already invested so much, why give up part way through? All that does is invalidate all that has been accomplished, abandon a fragile, new democracy, and make the sacrifice our soldiers have made pointless. Sign the pledge.

The NY Times Slimes is at it again

Can't they even pretend to put the best interests, safety, and security of this country ahead of a scoop? It's not even a scoop so much as it's a chance to make Bush look bad... Why else would they publish this? The memo, written by national security adviser Stephen Hadley and sent to President Bush, offers a candid and critical assessment of Iraq's embattled leader. Now it appears that publication of the classified memo's contents by The New York Times may have prompted the cancellation of the first of a pair of formal meetings the president was to hold with Maliki in the capital city of Amman. Mr. Bush arrived in Jordan Wednesday evening, local time. He was to sit down with the Iraqi Prime Minister and the Jordanian King shortly thereafter. Instead came an announcement that the session would proceed without Maliki. Here's an excerpt of the memo the NY Slimes published and you tell me there was a reason for publishing this other than the fact that it said "classified" on it and it would make Bush look bad. "Despite Maliki's reassuring words, repeated reports from our commanders on the ground contributed to our concerns about Maliki's government. Reports of nondelivery of services to Sunni areas, intervention by the prime minister's office to stop military action against Shia targets and to encourage them against Sunni ones, removal of Iraq's most effective commanders on a sectarian basis and efforts to ensure Shia majorities in all ministries -- when combined with the escalation of Jaish al-Mahdi's (JAM) [the Arabic name for the Mahdi Army] killings -- all suggest a campaign to consolidate Shia power in Baghdad." That's exactly the kind of info you want from your troops on the ground with the kind of analysis you need from intel. And it's certainly not the kind of thing that you publish on the front page of America's "paper of record." All it does it make it look like we don't trust Maliki when it's just an honest assessment of what's going on on the ground in Iraq. Instead of having cards to play in a diplomatic meeting with Maliki, Bush has zilch. He's actually got less than zilch, he's on the defensive, trying to difuse the mess created by the NY Slimes. And what about the troops on the ground? How supportive of our troops will the Iraqi government be when they know that it's likely what they say could end up as tomorrow's headline? Will they cooperate fully with our troops? Will they be honest with their info or will they just tell the commanders what they think the commanders want to hear, putting a good face on so they look good in the Times? Still think reporting like this makes us a stronger country?

What to do with Iran...

It's funny to see this coming from the LATimes, but it's an op-ed that basically says diplomacy's failed, start bombing Iran. So if sanctions won't work, what's left? The overthrow of the current Iranian regime might offer a silver bullet, but with hard-liners firmly in the saddle in Tehran, any such prospect seems even more remote today than it did a decade ago, when students were demonstrating and reformers were ascendant. Meanwhile, the completion of Iran's bomb grows nearer every day. Our options therefore are narrowed to two: We can prepare to live with a nuclear-armed Iran, or we can use force to prevent it. Former ABC newsman Ted Koppel argues for the former, saying that "if Iran is bound and determined to have nuclear weapons, let it." We should rely, he says, on the threat of retaliation to keep Iran from using its bomb. Similarly, Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria points out that we have succeeded in deterring other hostile nuclear states, such as the Soviet Union and China. Go figure... the MSM runs around in circles screaming "the sky is falling, the sky is falling." I don't know that I'd totally throw in the towel on revolutionary elements within Iran, but time is short. If that's still an option, something needs to happen there fast. Besides that, our options are bleak if we continue to put all our eggs into the diplomacy basket. Do we simply sit back and hope Israel can take out all of Iran's reactors? If that fails we're faced with a nuclear Iran, and what Koppel fails to realize is that this would be more than just a cold war. Iran would be more than willing to pass a nuke off to a terrorist group. Why else could they want an Iranian, Saif Adel, to take bin Laden's place as al Qaeda's leader? That'd certainly be convenient, wouldn't it? And what about the power shifft in the region? Israel's nuclear program is probably the only reason they still exist, along with their willingness to pre-emptively strike at those attempting to develop nukes. Would a nuclear Iran send Iraq's fledgling democracy into a tailspin? And Syria could easily hop on the coat tails of their nieghbor. Syria's going to continue to get bolder as we continue to wring our hands, so we'll get more demands from Syria, like their current demand for a timetable of our withdrawal from Iraq. Should we take bets on what Iran wants to discuss with this summit they've invited Syria and Iraq to? They say it's about the sectarian violence, but if you take what Ahmadinejad tells you at face value, I've got some great beach front property in Arkansas I'd love to sell you. I'd like to keep the "bombing Iran back to the stone age" option on the shelf, but we're painting ourselves into a corner here...

Olbermann takes stupid to a whole new level

If you thought Kerry's comments about our troops being stuck in Iraq because they weren't smart enough to do anything else with their lives was bad, you've got to see Keith Olbermann's 10 minute rant that it is President Bush who owes the troops an apology not Senator Kerry. Olbermann takes "stuck on stupid" to a whole new level... AlterNet has the video posted; just look to the right and click on Keith's ugly mug and try not to have anything nearby that might be used as a projectile. I'd hate to get complaints about staplers and tape dispensers being thrown through computer screens. We've also got the transcript up over at the AND Network. Here's some of Keith's commentary that's so brilliant it can only be attributed to an ingenious Karl Rove plot to drum up more anger at liberals... Sen. Kerry, as you well know, spoke at a college in Southern California. With bitter humor he told the students that he had been in Texas the day before, that President Bush used to live in that state, but that now he lives in the state of denial. He said the trip had reminded him about the value of education - that “if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you can get stuck in Iraq. The senator, in essence, called Mr. Bush stupid. The context was unmistakable: Texas; the state of denial; stuck in Iraq. No interpretation required. And Mr. Bush and his minions responded by appearing to be too stupid to realize that they had been called stupid. Context unmistakable, huh? Sure... cause I always assume the joke is about Bush when I hear "you know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." I think there must be a participle dangling there somewhere... You can only say "you" so many times before you've got to think that all eight "you's" in the sentence refer to the same person... Maybe Keith needs to hear the Kerry clip again.... So, that's either the most complicated joke in the history of the world... ever, or Keith Olbermann is some sort of uber-genius, and somehow I don't think genius takes the path from sports reporting to MSNBC stooge. But then again he's probably from the retarded 1/4 that also believes Bush was behind 9/11 and that Elvis is still alive...

The AP's latest pro-terrorist headline

All you've got to do is read the headline, "Militants blame U.S. for Pakistan strike" and then ask yourself why the hell do we care what militants terrorists think anyway? ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani helicopter gunships on Monday destroyed a religious school the military said was fronting as an al-Qaida training camp, killing 80 people in the country's deadliest military operation targeting suspected terrorists. Islamic leaders and al-Qaida-linked militants blamed the United States for the airstrike and called for nationwide demonstrations to condemn the attack that flattened the school — known as a madrassa — and ripped apart those inside. Furious villagers and religious leaders said the pre-dawn missile barrage killed innocent students and teachers. U.S. and Pakistani military officials denied American involvement. Among those killed in the attack in the remote northwestern village of Chingai, two miles from the Afghan border, was a cleric who had sheltered militants in the past and was believed associated with al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri. Oh, so the main story here according to the AP is that the terrorists are mad that we blew up one of their training camps. And nevermind that the madrassa's leaders were warned to stop using the school as a terrorist training camp and that the US wasn't involved in the attack. A memo to the AP: a more sensible title might read something like "Pakistan destroys terrorist training camp killing 80 ruthless, bloodthirsty murderers cowardly hiding among innocent civilians." Just a thought...

Who says the MSM is impartial?

Reuters continues its "fake but accurate" reporting from the Middle East (via Hot Air). On Tuesday, a Reuters cameraman was remanded to prison until trial for his part in rock-throwing attacks on security forces in Bil'in, where the separation fence is a constant target of protesters. The cameraman, Imad Muhammad Intisar Boghnat, was arrested and charged as a result of violent riots in the Arab village of Bil'in, in the Modi'in region, on October 6, 2006. A videotape that the prosecution presented to the judge shows Boghnat encouraging and directing rioters in Bil'in to throw large chunks of rock at Israeli vehicles in such a way as to cause maximum damage. The accused is heard shouting, "Throw, throw!" and later, "Throw towards the little window!" Wait a sec... I thought the press was simply supposed to report what was happening, not encourage people to do things so they've got something to report that fits their agenda. How silly of me...