September 02, 2004

Our 21st Century Jeremiah Sen. Zell Miller
"I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"
Zell, you ROCKED the hall and the republic!

Jeremiah & the Veep
Once again, NRO's Peter Robinson (President Reagan's speechwriter) sums up Sen. Zell Miller's outrageously wonderful jeremiad best:

[...]
Zell Miller? What a speech. Genuine emotion is rare enough in politics, but anger? Righteous anger? Zell Miller stands in a line that runs all the way back to Jeremiah — but of which we see almost nothing in today’s Oprahfied context. And once again, the contrast with the Democratic convention could hardly have proven any sharper: Whereas the Democrats suppressed any display of anger in Boston, in the Republicans, the milquetoasts of American politics, went right ahead and cut loose in New York, cheering Miller with gorgeous abandon. And take a look at Miller’s text. Political prose just don’t get any hotter — or more memorable — than this:

[I]t is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.

No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.

But don't waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking America is the problem, not the solution.

I suppose I’d have to grant that at least Dick Cheney did his job, conveying a sobriety and maturity that contrast with the boyishness and, well, lightness of John Edwards. But Zell Miller? Mine eyes have seen the glory.

Mine, too, Peter. Mine, too.
Tell the choir and the orchestra to prepare to play the "Battle Hymn of the Republic again.
I know I cheered with gorgeous abandon!
I cheered, I screamed, I woo-hooed and I yee-hawed at home in my living room!
What a night! What a week!
In fact, I'm still coming down from the high of hearing Zell speak truth to power hours later...honesty is energizing and living history is too exciting!
It's the first time we Conservatives have had the chance to tell the Dimocrats and the country what we really think about their anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-America "crusade" since this damn war started!
God Bless you, Sen. Miller and your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren.
You've probably not only played a major role in making this country and her future safe and secure for them but you may have been the Lord's instrument in helping save the Republic.

Postscript: As if giving an American History text-book-making historic speech wasn't enough, Sen. Miller then went on to give "Spitball's" Chris Matthews his comeuppance, first telling him to get out of his face, to shut up and then by challenging him to an actual Aaron Burr duel. Michelle Malkin was avenged in the bargain.--What a night to be an American!!!
The Reclycler has streaming video of both the already famous barn-burner speech and the Whiffleball showdown here: Zell's barnburner

 

 

September 01, 2004

UN poised to condemn Russia attacks

The U.N. Security Council has called an emergency meeting, at the request of Russian Ambassador Andrei Denisov, to discuss a wave of deadly terrorist attacks in Russia.

The 15-nation council planned to convene at 5 p.m. (10:00 p.m. British time) on Wednesday and was expected to issue a statement at the meeting's close condemning the attacks as a threat to international peace and security, council diplomats said.
[...]
The call for a special session came after a heavily armed gang seized a school in southern Russia and took hostage up to 400 people, including many children, in what appeared to be a Chechen rebel operation.
[...]
The request for a special Security Council meeting appeared unusual given Moscow's dogged insistence for years that its war in Chechnya was an internal problem which Russia would solve by itself.

Putin is about to experience the limits of the UNSC in confronting Islamist terrorism, just like we did.
Even if they vote to "condemn" the attack(s), that won't stop the killers or rescue those children.
The latest reports say that 8 civilians have been killed.
And Russia's so concerned, they've moved to protect their nuclear sites:
Russia Sends Troops to Guard Nuclear Sites
This sounds pretty serious...
The thing that bothers me (other than the obvious) is the realization that the nuke sites have been unguarded all this time!
Good Lord, save us!
Did you ever think you'd see the day when Russia would ask the rest of the world for help?

Only a man who's had to deal with the business end of Hillary Clinton can really appreciate First Lady Laura Bush; Dick Morris tells you all you need to know about Mrs. Bush's speech last night:
FIRST LADY: FIRST PRIZE
[ Speech Transcipt link.]
Lady Laura is such a national treasure: she's lovely, gracious and articulate!
I thank her for being such a source of love and support to our President, but I also adore her for showing us all that the First Lady can be so beautiful, ladylike and caring as well as well-read, intelligent and engaged on the pressing issues of our time.
God Bless you, Laura--you are "simply the best!"
Here's a link to videos of all of Tuesday's night speeches, including Laura's, her Twins, Rod Paige's, Lt. Gov. Steele's and the Governator's:
Video: Major Convention Speeches
Yes, before the First Lady, there was Ahnold.
The man just goes from strength to strength politically and he looks so happy and fulfilled personally doing it, too!
(BTW, I think his little son is adorable!)
This was one of my favorite parts of his terrific speech [Transcript]:

He [Schwartzenhegger] also said that despite the Kerry-Edwards campaign theme of "two Americas," when it comes to the nation's defense, "I can tell you this: Our young men and women in uniform do not believe there are two Americas."

"They believe we are one America — and they are fighting for it. We are one America, and President Bush is defending it with all his heart and soul," he added.

Vielen Danke, Arnold! (That "2 Americas" thing the Dims are so fond of makes me retch!)
And he worked in the "girly-men" deal again, which I hoped he would!:

But people can tell if they are Republican another way too, he said.

"You have faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people ... and faith in the U.S. economy. To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don't be economic girlie men!"

And then he invoked his "I'll be back" in a touching and powerful way by proclaiming that "America is back prefaced by a soldier's story:"

"Let me tell you about the sacrifice and commitment I've seen firsthand. In one of the military hospitals I visited, I met a young guy who was in bad shape. He'd lost a leg — had a hole in his stomach ... his shoulder had been shot through.

I could tell there was no way he could ever return to combat. But when I asked him, "When do you think you'll get out of the hospital?" He said, "Sir, in three weeks." And do you know what he said to me then? He said he was going to get a new leg ... and get some therapy ... and then he was going back to Iraq to serve alongside his buddies! He grinned at me and said, "Arnold ... I'll be back!"

Ladies and gentlemen, America is back! — back from the attack on our homeland- back from the attack on our economy — back from the attack on our way of life. We're back because of the perseverance, character and leadership of the 43rd President of the United States — George W. Bush.

My fellow Americans ... I want you to know that I believe with all my heart that America remains "the great idea" that inspires the world. It's a privilege to be born here. It's an honor to become a citizen here. It's a gift to raise your family here — to vote here — and to live here.

Our president George W. Bush has worked hard to protect and preserve the American dream for all of us. That's why I say ... send - him - back to Washington for four more years!

Thank you, America — and God bless you all!

What a wonderful man!
Thank God Arnold came here and became an American--he's an inspiration to immigrants and to those of us born in American, too!
He's doing great things in California as Governor of "Colli-fornia" as I knew he would and I know that Presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon(!), whom the Terminator also mentioned favorably, were both smiling in Heaven.

Hundreds Held Hostage in Russia School

Attackers wearing suicide-bomb belts seized a school in a Russian region bordering Chechnya on Wednesday and were holding hundreds of hostages, including 200 children. The assault came a day after a suicide bomber killed 10 people in Moscow.
[Another subway bomb, like Madrid. Heads up, New Yorkers!--Jen]

The seizure began after a ceremony marking the first day of the Russian school year, reports said, when it was likely that many parents had accompanied their children to class. The attackers warned they would blow up the school if police tried to storm it and forced children to stand at the windows, said Alexei Polyansky, a police spokesman for southern Russia.

Both the school attack and the Moscow bombing appeared to be the work of Chechen rebels or their sympathizers, but there was no evidence of any direct link. The two strikes came just a week after two Russian planes carrying 90 people crashed almost simultaneously in what officials also say were terrorist bombings.
[The "Black Widows" of Chechnya claimed responsibility and this is the same group that took part in the Moscow theater siege of Fall 2002.]

"In essence, war has been declared on us, where the enemy is unseen and there is no front," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said, according to the Interfax-Military News Agency. He spoke before the seizure.
[Sounds only too familiar, doesn't it?--J.T.]

The latest violence also appears to be timed around Sunday's presidential elections in Chechnya, a Kremlin-backed move aimed at undermining support for the insurgents by establishing a modicum of civil order in the war-shattered republic. The previous Chechen president, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed along with more than 20 others in a bombing on May 9.
[...]
The attackers demanded talks with regional officials and a well-known pediatrician, Leonid Roshal, who had aided hostages during the seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, news reports said.
[Told you there was a connection!]
[...]
A militant Muslim web site published a statement claiming responsibility for the bombing on behalf of the "Islambouli Brigades," a group that also claimed responsibility for the airliner crashes. The veracity of the statements could not immediately be confirmed.

The statement said Tuesday's bombing was a blow against Putin, "who slaughtered Muslims time and again." Putin has refused to negotiate with rebels in predominantly Muslim Chechnya who have fought Russian forces for most of the past decade, saying they must be wiped out.
[...]
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov told reporters near the Rizhskaya subway stop in northern Moscow that the female bomber was walking toward the station but saw two police officers stationed there, turned around "and decided to destroy herself in a crowd of people."

The blast tore through a heavily trafficked area between the subway station and a nearby department store. Doctors worked through the night to save the lives of others who were severely wounded by the bomb that officials said was packed with bolts to maximize casualties.

This, of course, is killer "technology" that the Chechen jihadis have picked up from their Paleostinian "brothers" in arms.
Revolting.
My prayers are with the parents, teachers and children trapped with these murderers in the school and with the victims' families and loved ones from the plane explosions last week and the subway bombing yesterday.
Putin needs to swallow some of his considerable pride that he can "crush the rebels" and put his head together with Bush and Blair, together with the recognition that he is fighting the same enemy in Chechnya that we're fighting in the Middle East and at home.
It won't work for Putin to fight Islamist terrorism only within Russia's borders while supporting, trading with and allying one's country with the state sponsors of IslamoFacisct murder like Saddam's Iraq and the mullahs' Iran.
Putin's contrarian and unsuccessful approach to his plague of Chechen terrorism illustrates the rightness of the Bush Doctrine and the meaningfulness of Monday night's speeches by Rudy, Sen. McCain and actor Ron Silver.
The war is global. The enemy is radical Islam and the Enemy must be defeated, not excused, forgiven, forgotten or treated as "freedom fighters" (which I think is where Putin is making his biggest mistake).

Palestinians celebrate Beersheba attacks

While hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets in major cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to celebrate the double suicide bombings in Beersheba, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat reiterated his call for sacrificing millions of martyrs to "liberate Jerusalem."
[Sneer quotes, mine. Don't know why the JPost left them off, because Arafat wants to liberate Jerusalem from whom or what exactly?--Jen]

Women in Nablus ululated in joy as Arab satellite TV stations interrupted their normal programs to break the news of the bombings. Scores of gunmen opened fire into the air, shouting "Allahu Akbar!" or God is Great.

Similar expressions of joy were reported in Tulkarm and Jenin.

In Gaza City, hundreds of Palestinians marched in the streets carrying pictures of slain Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi. The protesters hailed the suicide bombers as heroes and urged Hamas to launch more attacks inside Israel. Some of the demonstrators handed out sweets to the crowd as a sign of their jubilation.
[Just like they did when they heard we were attacked and had had 3,000 citizens murdered by Islamist henchmen on 9/11.
I hate this creepy death cult!--J.T.]

The attacks in Beersheba took place as Arafat was meeting with hundreds of supporters from the West Bank town of Salfit. Arafat told the crowd that the Palestinians were determined to sacrifice millions of people to liberate Jerusalem.

"We will march towards Jerusalem, we will sacrifice millions of martyrs," Arafat said in his famous battle cry. "Jerusalem is the capital of the state of Palestine."

PA officials said the visit was in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike. As Arafat flashed V-for-victory signs at the crowd, many chanted, "With our blood, with our soul, we will redeem Abu Amar [Arafat] and Palestine."

Then, in English, for the benefit of the Western, Leftist media who enable and support his group of murderers, Arafat turns around and does this:

Arafat later issued a statement condemning the twin suicide bombings in Beersheba and calling for keeping Israeli and Palestinian civilians outside the cycle of violence.

"The position of the Palestinian Authority is clear," said the statement issued by Arafat's office in Ramallah. "We are against any aggression against Palestinian and Israeli civilians."

It's become more than clear over the last 4 years of the Intifada that the "Palestinians" will never pursue anything but the slaughter of Jews and the eradication of the state of Israel as long as Arafat is in charge.
Whether they can change after he's gone remains to be seen.
Apparently, the suicide bombers were able to hit the buses in Beersheba because it's a place in Israel where the security fence isn't in place yet.
What a tragedy--16 dead and over 100 wounded.
Aren't you glad that President Bush has recognized Arafat for the thug that he is and doesn't receive him at the White House, like Clintoon?
Arafat and his death squads from Hamas, Hizbollah or wherever are IslamoFacist killers to be pitilessly defeated and not appeased or accomodated and thank God both Ariel Sharon and our President know this and act accordingly.
God rest the victims of the bombings.
Israel, fight on and build the rest of the fence!

August 31, 2004

Peter Robinson on Republican Convention on National Review Online

Well, I’ll be: Whereas the Democratic delegates seem to have been permitted only professionally printed signs and placards, the Republicans waved a profusion of crudely hand painted signs; whereas the Democratic delegates behaved with an obedient passivity, applauding and cheering only and precisely as they were expected to applaud and cheer, the Republican delegates hooted and hollered and booed — what richness, what sonority, what a sense of release, in the booing directed at Michael Moore! — even when the speakers would clearly have preferred them to stop; and whereas the Democratic delegates found themselves participating in a convention that ran precisely on time, the Republican delegates found themselves in the middle of an event that had careened off schedule, with the final major speaker, Rudy Hizzelf, failing to wrap it up until almost half an hour after primetime had come to an end. In a word: glorious.

About the two headliners, Rudy and John McCain, the first observation is the most important: They were something that the two headliners on the first night of the Democratic convention, Bill and Hillary, simply were not: authentic.

McCain’s speech was beautiful — simply, truly, beautiful — and, by way of tribute to the rhetorical arts, tomorrow morning everyone ought to reread just as much of the text as the New York Times can bring itself to print. The diction was exquisite, the use of parallelism fine, the pacing flawless. And the case: John McCain, a man more thoroughly acquainted with the horrors of war than all but a few now alive, argued soberly, calmly, and in detail, that the present war was not only justified but unavoidable. McCain, as all the world knows, has argued that we committed too few troops to the task. And as he himself said tonight, he honors, and counts as his friends, many Democrats. But on the essential point, the vote that we must cast on November 2, he insisted on unity. I’ve never seen him so selfless, or so good.

Rudy? He went on too long, but who cares? He was tough, funny, and — a peculiar trick — abrasive in a completely charming way. In other words, he personified New York. And the crack about Kerry and John Edwards — that Edwards needs two Americas so Kerry can vote for a measure in one America and then against the very same measure in the other — was a stroke of political genius.

I repeat: Glorious.

It was indeed a glorious evening and 6 hours later, I'm still basking in the warmth and wonder of it all!
McCain's speech was rousing (as was Ron Silver's with his challenge to Hollywood's phony facade of caring about human rights!)--it was truly Sen. McCain's finest hour.
I thought he was going to cry at the end, he seemed to feel what he was saying about supporting President Bush and winning this war so intensely.
His speech even moved the Dims, if WaPo articles like this one by the poisonous Richard Cohen are any example:
Needed: Straight Talk From Kerry
Where's our McCain, the Libs wanna know?
Well, you're looking in the wrong party, my friends!
And McCain's dig at Michael Moore's fraudulent movie was just too delicious, made all the sweeter by the fact that Moore was there "covering" the convention for USAToday.
The lady family members of 9/11 victims--Debra Burlingame (whose brother was the pilot of the plane that hit the Pentagon), Deanna Burnett (whose husband was one of the Flight 93 heroes) and Tara Stackpole (whose husband was one of the 343 firefighters who died in the Towers)-- moved me to tears again with their stories and their call to support Bush as a way to honor the sacrifice of their loved ones.
I was also touched by the words of Zainab Al-Suwaij, the Iraqi woman living in this country now who got quite upset when she stated that "Saddam was a murderer." and who seemed to speak from the heart when she thanked President Bush and all of us for liberating the country of her birth.
Rudy's speech was very powerful...funny, emphatic, persuasive, cogent; you could see how he would have been a formidable prosecutor and for the first time, I saw he could be an awesome president (2008, perhaps?).
Rudy's best point, IMHO, was that he stressed that President Bush has stayed the course with his plan to take the fight to the terrorists, even though it has cost him popularity and brought so much criticism on his head.
Rudy knows that Bush will do the right thing for this country and our security, not the popular thing or the thing the polls say to do, like a Clinton or a Kerry.
All in all, it was an unforgettable night of stirring speeches and I can only hope you saw it, too, even though the major networks didn't carry it (as powerful as it was, you can easily see why! They're just plain afraid of the power of the GOP message.).
If you didn't or if you'd like to hear the speeches again, here's a link to the video:
Video: Major Convention Speeches

August 26, 2004

Yemeni Poet Admits He's Al Qaeda Member

A Yemeni poet accused of crafting Al Qaeda propaganda defiantly admitted Thursday to a U.S. military commission that he is a member of Usama bin Laden's terror network.

Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al Bahlul, 33, is charged with conspiracy to commit war crimes.

"As God is my witness, and the United States did not put any pressure on me, I am an Al Qaeda member," the detainee said through an Arabic interpreter.
[...]
Bahlul is one of four Guantanamo detainees being arraigned at hearings this week as the first step toward trials by a five-member military commission — the first such proceedings since German saboteurs were tried secretly during World War II.

I'm sure the Left had ACLU lawyers at Camp X-Ray trying to get him off...and they probably had a poetry festival planned at Berzerkly with al Bahlul as the star, but that's not going to happen!
I sleep better at night knowing my government's got some real bad guys locked up on the island of Cuba and that our troops knew what they were doing when they rounded up jihadis like Bahlul!

Arrow-2 missile fails latest test

Israel and the US failed in latest attempts to launch an Arrow 2 missile against a Scud D like missile with a warhead that separates in flight in order to confuse the defending interceptor that took place at Point Mugu off the US West coast on Thursday.

The failed attempt came after the two countries launched a successful Arrow 2 missile test that intercepted and destroyed a live Scud B missile over the Pacific Ocean at then end of July. The Scud D missile considered to be the most sophisticated missile of its kind is in Syria's hands. Thursday's failed attempt was the thirteenth operational testing of the system since it was built and the eighth time its weapons system was tested.
[...]
Since 1998, the US has provided Israel with over a billion dollars in grants to research and develop the Arrow missile in addition it has also provided funding for two programs to compliment the Arrow, the Boost Phase Intercept Program and the Tactical High Energy Laser program.
[At least this was one thing the Clintoon Administration got right!--Jen]

Iran continues to develop more sophisticated long-range missiles such as the Shihab 3, which can be armed with chemical or nuclear warheads. Syria also maintains a sizeable ballistic missile arsenal and like Iran is keen on upgrading and expanding its capability. Syria already has stocks of chemical weapons. The Arrow missile is geared at intercepting such threats before they reach Israel.

...or our troops in Iraq!
Let's keep our fingers crossed and send our prayers up that this brilliant Arrow team can work the problem and make the system completely functional.
Not only do we have the safety and security of Israel and Iraq to worry about, but we need our SDI up and running in case Kim Jung-il of North Korea decides to use his nukes on us!
A vote for Bush on Nov. 2 is also a vote for Missile Defense, which Kerry's already said he would defund.
In one of the few busy moments of his 20-year long Senate career, Sen. Kerry actually sponsored an amendment in 1985 to end President Reagan's SDI program, which, mercifully, was defeated!
Kerry's defense(less) posture

[...]
In fact, Mr. Kerry always has vigorously opposed missile defense. In 1985, he sponsored an amendment that would have slashed the spending authorization for SDI by more than 50 percent. The Congressional Quarterly (CQ) 1985 almanac reports that Mr. Kerry's amendment "would have denied all funds for 11 projects within the [SDI] program." CQ added: "Like most of the liberal SDI critics, Kerry insisted such a defense never would work."

BTW, the Liberals (and this includes the Left both in America and in the EU) have 2 stock arguments they've used perpetually to argue against SDI: one is that it won't work and the other is that it will spur a "missile (or proliferation) race" by the Other Side, neither of which have proven to be valid.
Saddam was working feverishly to get the Arab Bomb when the IAF took out his Osirak site in 1981 and the mullahs, Kim and Bashir Assad could care less whether we have a president who backs SDI or not.
In fact, they'd prefer not!
10 out of 10 of our enemies would vote for sKeery!

Judge Stops Partial-Birth Abortion Ban

A federal judge declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Thursday in the second such ruling in three months - even though he called the procedure "gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized."
[...]
The law, signed last November, banned a procedure known to doctors as intact dilation and extraction and called partial-birth abortion by abortion foes. The fetus is partially removed from the womb, and the skull is punctured or crushed.
[While the virtually fully-developed baby is still alive.--Jen]

Louise Melling, director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, said her group was thrilled by the ruling.
[How revolting!
"Thrilled" about baby murder?
Why don't they just call Scott Peterson to do the job?--J.T.]
[...]
The three verdicts are almost certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
[Fine!
As Hanoi John would say, "Bring it on!"]

The ban, which President Clinton twice vetoed, was seen by abortion rights activists as a fundamental departure from the Supreme Court's 1973 precedent in Roe v. Wade. But the Bush administration has argued that the procedure is cruel and unnecessary and causes pain to the fetus.
[...]
Casey, who was appointed to the bench by President Clinton in 1997, was considered by some observers to be the best legal hope for the law's supporters.
[IOW, did the ACLU set up this case just so the ban could be struck down???
That would SO unlike them...NOT.]

"We were on pins and needles on this one," said Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
[Ah, yes. The folks who brought us the "I had an abortion" T-shirt at the Dim Convention.]
"The judge was very aggressive in his questioning and very transparent in his articulation of his personal views on the matter. Fortunately, he chose to uphold the law."
[Wrong. The ban was the law.]

During a hearing earlier this year, Casey repeatedly asked doctors whether they tell pregnant women prior before an abortion that they will rip the fetus apart and that it might feel pain.
[...and that they were killing a real, live, functioning baby!]

"Did you tell them you were sucking the brains out of the same baby they desired to hold?" the judge asked Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, who performs or supervises hundreds of abortions a year in Manhattan.

Lord, have mercy!
I can't argue with His Holiness the Pope when he says that America has a "culture of death" when we allow, and some such as these ACLU and Planned Parenthood representatives even promote and advocate, practices like this!
Remember that our vote on Nov. 2 is about the appointment of judges who are strict constructions and who don't legislate their Liberal agenda from the bench like Casey and it's also about values, those who value human life--that would be the GOP--and those who breezily choose to end it--that would be the Dimocrats, who have made "belief" in abortion-on-demand an article of faith.
John Kerry, a Catholic, has come very close to being either banned from communion or even excommunicated due to his unrepentant advocacy of abortion in the U.S. Senate.
Vote Republican to speak for the babies, who can't speak yet and save their own lives, if for no other reason!

MAX CLELAND'S MISSION

In one of the stranger photo-ops in an increasingly bizarre presidential season, former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland yesterday rode his wheelchair to the front gate of President Bush's Texas ranch to protest attacks on Democratic candidate John Kerry's Vietnam War record.

Cleland lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam — hence the wheelchair — but we won't patronize him by pretending he is anything other than what he became after losing his Senate re-election race two years ago: bitterly resentful, highly partisan and an effective deflector shield for Kerry whenever the latter's military bona fides are called into question.
[This was so terrible...guess Max doesn't mind his amputated limbs being used as visual props for Kerry's unconscionable political ambitions.
You know, this is the 21st Century and we live in the most modern and wealthy country in the history of the world, so why can't Mr. Cleland get some prosthetics?
We even got new false hands for those poor Iraqi men that Saddam had multilated so I know we have the medical know-how.--Jen]

There is some irony in this.

Cleland earned no Purple Heart for his grievous injuries (they were not suffered in combat), and he regularly is called on to defend Kerry — who received three Purple Hearts, but who seems not to have a scar on his lanky body to show for it.

Some veterans — including an impressively large number who served with Kerry in Vietnam — think not all of the senator's medals were earned.

Certainly the record is sufficiently ambiguous to suggest that there is some merit to these doubts.

And, for better or for worse, Kerry has made Vietnam service the centerpiece of his campaign — though it is not at all clear why Kerry & Co. are working so hard to keep this issue alive.
[My personal view is that Kerry is a confirmed Leftist--if not an out and out Marxist and Communist-- and has been all his life.
As such, it is mandatory to people of his political stripe to curb American power and to subjugate our sovereignity to the aegis of Socialist organizations like the U.N.
To that end, he was instrumental in getting our country to give up in Vietnam (we weren't losing and weren't going to), he has a Senate record of voting against every bill to strengthen our military, and he's warned us that if elected President, he would pull our troops out of the WOT and leave the problem of Islamist terrorism to the UN and the EU.]

As evidenced by Cleland's visit to the Crawford ranch.

"The question is where is George Bush's honor. The question is where is his shame," Cleland said after Secret Service agents at the Texas ranch refused to accept a letter calling on Bush to disavow the anti-Kerry veterans.
[Where's your shame, Mr. Cleland?
And he allows the press to perpetuate the lie that he wasn't returned to Congress because the "Republicans questioned his patriotism!" Wrong!
Your constituents didn't like your voting record and voted for your opponent!]

Tough talk.

But the Bush people had a compelling counter:

"You can't have it both ways. You can't build your convention and much of your campaign around your service in Vietnam, and then try to say that only those veterans who agree with you have a right to speak up," said a Bush spokesman.

Quite so.

We suspect that anti-Kerry vets are more angry with what the senator said and did after returning from Vietnam than about whatever happened — or didn't happen — while he was there.

And it may be that Cleland and the others are trying to abort that debate before it begins.

If so, it won't work.

This campaign has only just begun.

But it may already be over because the Swifties are speaking truth to power about who John Kerry really is and has been for 30 years with their ads and their book "Unfit for Command," which is the Number #1 bestseller on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the New York Times!

Instead of dispatching bathetic, maimed Max Cleland out in the Texas heat to bug President Bush (who's a busy wartime President!), Kerry needs to sign Form 180 and disclose his military and medical records, so we can all see how he earned those medals in Vietnam and whether or not he was in Cambodia for Christmas '68.
Further, if he's upset about the Unfit for Command book, the author John O' Neill has invited Mr. Kerry to sue him for libel!
Kerry's a lawyer, Edwards is a lawyer, and they've got plenty of attorneys on their team--what's the problem?*
[*Speaking of lawyers, prominent attorney Ben Ginsburg resigned yesterday because he had been giving legal advise to both the Bush campaign and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.To avoid even the hint that there were any improprieties concerning either group, Mr. Ginsburg tendered his resignation.
As is our want, the GOP takes the example of "Caesar's wife," which is to be beyond reproach.
As is their want, the Leftist media, water carriers for the DNC, made much of this resignation and implied early and often that Ginsburg was guiltier of violating McCain-Feingold 527 laws than he would admit. *Sigh*]
But acting as the Swifties' initiative is Bush's fault and that he's responsible for the "scurrilous" ads against sKerry? Sheer grandstanding to try and deceive the American voting public yet again.

Click here to go to the links which access Kerry's Communist Manifesto "The New Soldier" which he used his wives' considerable fortunes to keep out of the hands of the American public:
[Warning: It may make your blood pressure rise and/or cause your acid reflux to act up!]
JOHN KERRY'S THE NEW SOLDIER
Here's the cover which mocks our Marines raising Old Glory over Iwo Jima in WWII:

Ricky also has links to details about Kerry's anti-war "Winter Soldier" fraud and the the transcript of his sworn Senate testimony about Vietnam war crimes.
Too bad that Kerry didn't forsee that his pal Algore would invent the Internet and make the suppression of this book's being available moot and irrelevant!
Hat tips to Lucianne and Ricky--Patriots all!

WSJ.com - A Rumsfeld Vindication
[WSJ Subscription required]

[...]
So notes Tuesday's report from the Independent Panel to Review DOD Detention Operations, empowered in May by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and chaired by former Pentagon chief James Schlesinger. The report offers invaluable perspective on the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib and is devastating to those who've sought to pin blame on an alleged culture of lawlessness going all the way to the top of the Bush Administration.
[You Dims and Leftists know who you are.--Jen]
John Kerry must be even more disoriented by the Swift boat story than he appears if he thinks now's the time to call for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation.
[Kerry's desperate: he's in trouble from the Swifties for violating all kinds of rules of military conduct as embodied in the UCMJ and he decides to call for the top Pentagon chief's job, as if he would know military leadership?...pathetic and sad!--J.T.]

"The behavior of our troops is so much better than it was in World War II," Mr. Schlesinger told us yesterday, by way of comparison. Of the Abu Ghraib photos, he added, "It is preposterous that what these pictures show is we were prepared to use torture to get information," as Senator Ted Kennedy and others have alleged. Rather, Mr. Schlesinger characterized the photographed Abu Ghraib abuses as "free-lance activities on the part of the night shift," echoing the testimony we've heard so far during the courts martial for the accused.
[...]
Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, for one, would seem to owe some apologies. In a May hearing he accused Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Peter Pace, and the rest of the Pentagon of sanctioning war crimes. Also owing apologies are all those journalists who applauded his demagogy as some kind of gotcha moment, and who threw around words like "torture" so glibly.

Hope these fine men and women at the Pentagon don't hold their breath waiting for an apology from virtually all the 4th estate/5th column. Swine!
And the American people shouldn't either.
The Lying Liberal Left Mainstream Media owe a lot of us a huge apology--and not just for this story--but we won't get it.
The "journos" who gave us this "story," and "Bush lied" and the "Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame scandal," and the Swift Boat "smear" on Kerry and...and....and...etc, etc., etc. have so much to answer for it's staggering, but the only satisfaction we may get is when their "news" is replaced with cartoons and travelogues.
But there's an even bigger issue than the fact that the American people have been short-shrifted on the truth about the war here at home:

[...]
Worse than being wrong, these accusations have endangered the lives of soldiers by forcing a retreat in interrogation techniques so severe that it's hampering the U.S. ability to fight the counterinsurgency in Iraq. "We can't even use basic police interrogations tactics that they use in the States," a Marine officer is quoted as saying in a Journal news article yesterday by Greg Jaffe and David S. Cloud.

And the good old International Red Cross meddled in the mess, too:

[...]
In particular, the ICRC is rapped for insisting that the U.S. adhere to a controversial document known as Protocol 1, which the U.S. long ago explicitly rejected and which would grant terrorists and other non-uniformed combatants all the privileges of normal prisoners of war. The ICRC, the report says, promulgates this standard dishonestly "under the guise of customary international law."

"At the end of the day,"(I hate that clichéd phrase!) the conclusions of both the report and this op ed are damning--not to Rumsfeld and our top brass--but to the Dimocrats and their media enablers:

[...]...
While the Abu Ghraib abuses deserve to be punished, like other wartime excesses, the allegations that they had anything to do with so-called "torture memos" and a Pentagon "culture of permissiveness" are nothing but a political smear.

Which is what "far right wing" cheerleaders like myself and Rush Limbaugh have been saying all along!
Now if only we could do the same for our Vietnam experience and get John Kerry to explain what he meant in his sworn testimony before Congress in 1971 about war crimes being committed by all our soldiers including himself and being sanctioned up and down the chain of command!
What did you do in country, Sen. Kerry?
Who else did you see commit abuses and war crimes?
Why didn't you report it, as an officer of the U.S. Navy?
I want an answer to these questions before November 2 but there are tens of thousands of our Vietnam viets who've been waiting for 30 years to be cleared of these smears!
(A weirder question that needs an answer are these: Why didn't Congress press Kerry for details at that time and launch a similar investigation?
Why did they just take Kerry's word for it?
And why wasn't he prosecuted for his war crimes back then?)