MEMRI reports of a new alliance between Iraqi insurgents and a surprising group of fighters.
The following are excerpts from an interview with Iraqi Sheik Mahdi Saleh Al-Sumide'i, who participated in the battle of Falluja:
Sheik Sumide'i: They [the Americans] attacked Falluja and tried to cause great damage to its residents. They destroyed mosques and homes, killed women, children, and youths, and spread corruption in Falluja. Nevertheless, we believe that Allah protects the believers, and indeed, Allah stood beside Falluja, and I'd like to mention some miracles Allah performed in Falluja. It is possible that the media does not know about them.
The first miracle that occurred in Falluja took the form of spiders that appeared in the city – each spider larger than this chair, or about the size of this chair. The American soldiers left, holding the legs of this spider, and I too, in one of the Friday sermons, held up a spider, with all its magnitude, in front of the satellite channels and in front of the world. This spider also had thin black hair. If this hair touches the human body, within a short period of time the body becomes black or blue, and then there is an explosion in the blood cells in the human body - and the person dies.
This is one of the miracles performed in support of Falluja, and the Jihad that took place in Falluja. Despite the damage done to the American forces…
Interviewer:
The people saw it, but the TV stations did not air it?
Sheik Mahdi Saleh Al-Sumide'I: The people saw it and the TV stations indeed aired it. I held the spider, and there were between 13 to 15 TV stations, including Al-Arabiya, Al-Jazeera, Al-Majd, Dubai, Abu-Dhabi and other stations, and they saw it with their own eyes.
These are the same people some would like us to reason with through diplomacy...
Retired Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr. said Thursday in his first on-the-record interview about the swift boat veterans dispute that "I was absolutely in the skimmer" in the early morning on Dec. 2, 1968, when Lt. (j.g.) John Kerry was involved in an incident that led to his first Purple Heart.
"Kerry nicked himself with a M-79 [grenade launcher]," Schachte said in a telephone interview from his home in Charleston, S.C. He said, "Kerry requested a Purple Heart."
Schachte, a lieutenant, said he was in command of the small boat called a Boston whaler or skimmer, with Kerry aboard in his first combat mission in the Vietnam War.
Schachte described the use of the skimmer operating very close to shore as a technique that he personally designed to flush out enemy forces so that the larger swift boats could move in. Around 3 a.m. on Dec. 2, Schachte said, the skimmer -- code-named "Batman" -- fired a hand-held flare. He said that after Kerry's M-16 rifle jammed, the new officer picked up the M-79 and, "I heard a 'thunk.' There was no fire from the enemy," he said.
Grant Hibbard, who as a lieutenant commander was Schachte's superior officer, confirmed that Schachte always went on these skimmer missions and said, "I don't think he [Kerry] was alone" on his first assignment. Hibbard said he had told Kerry to "forget it" when he asked for a Purple Heart.
Ted Peck, another swift boat commander, said, "I remember Bill [Schachte] telling me it didn't happen" -- that is, Kerry getting an enemy-inflicted wound. He said it would be "impossible" for Kerry to have been in the skimmer without Schachte.
Not a good sign for the already panic struck Democratic Party.
A reader submitted this excerpt from Colin Powell's autobiography My American Journey. Powell writes:
“The Legion of Merit I received? It might have meant more to me in a war where medals were not distributed so indiscriminately. I remember once, as a division G-3, attending a battalion change-of-command ceremony at one firebase where the departing CO was awarded three Silver Stars, the nation’s third-highest medal of valor, plus a clutch of other medals, after a tour lasting six months. He had performed ably, at times heroically. He was popular with his men. Yet, the troops had to stand there and listen to an overheated description of a fairly typical performance. Awards were piled on to a point where writing the justifying citations became a minor art form….You accepted the package because everyone else did. The wholesale awards diminished the achievements of real heroes—privates or colonels—who had performed extraordinary acts of valor.”
Swift Vet leader John O'Neill writes a piece in today's Wall Street Journal which notes:
How many different ways will John Kerry devise to ask President Bush to condemn our ads and squash our book? Why, Mr. Kerry, are our charges as a 527 group unacceptable to you, while the pronouncements from 527 groups favorable to you are considered acceptable, regardless of stridency and veracity? And we do not have a George Soros, willing to drop millions into our modest group. We control our message. To date, we have received $2 million from 30,000 Americans who have donated an average of around $64.
Mr. Kerry, we ask you not to repeat the same mistake you made when you returned from war: Please stop maligning your fellow veterans. Dealing with us should be easy. Just answer our charges. Produce your Vietnam journal and notes, and execute Standard Form 180 so the American people can see your complete military record--not just the few forms you put on your website or show to campaign biographers.
The way for Kerry to clear this up is simple. Sign the Standard Form 180 to release all of his records (which he has promised but never followed through on), and then schedule an hour with Tim Russert to fully discuss and answer any questions. It is that simple.
The NY Post on Kerry's fake outrage over the 527 ads that are devastating his candidacy.
Under the law, there can be no coordination between presidential campaigns and 527 groups — though attorneys are specifically permitted to provide legal services to both entities.
In fact, all parties concede that what Ginsberg did for the Swift boat vets was entirely legal and above board. (He said he resigned so as not to distract attention from the president's campaign.)
Indeed, half a dozen Democratic lawyers and officials are doing pretty much the same thing for both the Kerry campaign and pro-Kerry 527 groups. Only no one in the national media is shining the spotlight on their activities — or calling for their resignations.
Hypocrisy, anyone?
Which Democratic lawyers?
Start with Robert Bauer. His Web site identifies him as national counsel to the Kerry-Edwards campaign (he's paid by the Democratic National Committee).
But he also represents America Coming Together, which is spending millions on mobilizing pro-Kerry voters and has been described as "the major ground-war vehicle for the Democratic groups."
In fact, ACT's president, Ellen Malcolm, boasts that her group is "looking for effective ways to do the work of delivering the message and getting out the vote that used to be done by the party."
Or Joe Sandler, who advises Move-On.org and also works for the DNC, which works directly with Kerry's folks.
Or Harold Ickes, the former Clinton politico, who also advises both America Coming Together and the Democratic National Committee and is president of the Media Fund.
In fact, there's been a veritable revolving door between the Kerry campaign and these super-rich 527 groups.
Zach Exley, who used to be MoveOn's organizing director, now works for the Kerry campaign, running its Web site.
Bill Knapp, who used to make TV commercials for the Media Fund, now makes campaign spots for the Kerry campaign.
And Jim Jordan, who used to manage the Kerry campaign, now helps run both ACT and the Media Fund.
All of which suggests that these groups are "independent" in name only — and that illegal coordination between the Kerry camp and their allies is under way on a massive scale.
As ABC News reported, because pro-Kerry 527s have out-raised pro-Bush ones $145 million to $9 million, "no candidate in history has benefited more from these . . . groups than John Kerry."
Charles Krauthammer on the depths of venom found in the race for the presidency.
Historians will have a field day trying to fathom the depths of detestation that the Democrats are carrying into this campaign. Vanity is only part of it. What else is at play? First, and most obviously, revenge. Democrats have convinced themselves that Bush stole the last election. They cannot bear suffering not just a bad presidency but an illegitimate one.
Moreover, against all expectations, it turned out to be a consequential presidency too. Bush was not the mild-mannered Gerald Ford-like Republican he was expected to be -- transitional and minor. He turned out to be quite the revolutionary, most especially in his radical reordering of American foreign policy. A usurper is merely offensive; a consequential usurper is intolerable.
I wrote about this anger and how it could destroy the party unless they are able to learn how to cope.
In his latest piece in the Washington Post, David Broder has an interesting quote from John Kerry.
In a 2002 conversation, Kerry told me he thought it would be doubly advantageous that "I fought in Vietnam and I also fought against the Vietnam War," apparently not recognizing that some would see far too much political calculation in such a bifurcated record.
If you want to see why most veterans are upset with John Kerry, tune into C-Span tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Central.
C-Span will broadcast tonight film of John Kerry's controversial 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in which he accused the U.S. military of authorizing and committing crimes during the Vietnam War.
The program, at 8 p.m. Eastern, will lead off with the new television ad by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which intersperses audio from that testimony with former POWs telling how they were demoralized hearing Kerry's charges while suffering in a Vietnamese prison.
The LA Times reports their latest poll results. It depends on your alliance as to whether it is good news.
For the first time this year in a Times survey, Bush led Kerry in the presidential race, drawing 49% among registered voters, compared with 46% for the Democrat. In a Times poll just before the Democratic convention last month, Kerry held a 2-percentage-point advantage over Bush.
That small shift from July was within the poll's margin of error. But it fit with other findings in the Times poll showing the electorate edging toward Bush over the past month on a broad range of measures, from support for his handling of Iraq to confidence in his leadership and honesty.
Although a solid majority of Americans say they believe Kerry served honorably in Vietnam, the poll showed that the attacks on the senator from a group of Vietnam veterans criticizing his performance in combat and his antiwar protests at home have left some marks: Kerry suffered small but consistent erosion compared with July on questions relating to his Vietnam experience, his honesty and his fitness to serve as commander in chief.
Bush's advantage remained 3 percentage points when independent candidate Ralph Nader was added to the mix. In a three-way race, Bush drew 47%, compared with 44% for Kerry and 3% for Nader, whose access to the ballot in many key states remains uncertain.
The Swiftees are making their mark. The question will be if President Bush can keep the momentum going.
Duane Freese examines why we are debating the Vietnam War when there are so many other things we could be talking about.
Go back to when the topic first came up. It amounted to a one-two punch aimed at President Bush by Democratic Party leaders and supporters.
Now, there is no denying that some Republican Party stalwarts support both the Bush campaign and the Swift Boats' folks. It's true, too, that a lawyer for the Bush campaign also did some work for the Swift Boats.
But the hypocricy of the Kerry position is that the same thing is going on for the Democrats. MoveOn.org is one of several 527 organizations started by Democratic Party faithful, such as financier George Soros who contributed $5 million to its founding, to circumvent the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act that limits presidential campaign spending. Lawyers for Kerry's campaign and the Democratic Party have advised those organizations.
Bush's lauding of Kerry's war record and his condemnation of the Swift Boat ads and other ads by 527 organizations didn't satisfy Kerry. Kerry wants him only to condemn the Swift Boat vets, even though Bush, not having served aboard Swift boats with Kerry, has no way to know personally the veracity of what they have to say.
In short, Kerry and crew want to have it both ways. They want their 527s to have free hand to attack Bush in any manner, while Bush is obligated to try and control any 527s that attack Kerry.
And as for what service in the Vietnam war has to do with being president, well, nothing.
Go through the history of presidential military service and you'll find it doesn't prove a thing. Being a good soldier doesn't necessarily make for being a good president. Abraham Lincoln, revered by most historians as the greatest president, was actually busted from being captain, and ended as a private, seeing no battle in the Black Hawk War, and few could imagine today his being beaten by Gen. George McClellan who ran on his military record in his campaign against Lincoln in 1864. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose polio prevented service, was a great war time president. Meanwhile, the great generals Ulysses S. Grant and Zachary Taylor were at best mediocrities. Richard M. Nixon served honorably and bravely in the Navy during World War II, and Jimmy Carter afterwards, and both are rated among the 10 worst presidents.
John Kerry had the concept of two Americas long before this campaign began.
We are asking America to turn from false glory, hollow victory, fabricated foreign threats, fear which threatens us as a nation, shallow pride which feeds off fear, and mostly from the promises which have proven so deceiving these past ten years.
I think that, more than anything, the New Soldier is trying to point out how there are two Americas -- the one the speeches are about and the one we really are. Rhetoric has blinded us so much that we are unable to see the realities which exist in this country. - John Kerry ( The New Soldier (epilogue))
Presidential consultant Karl Rove conducted a rare public interview with Brit Hume of Fox. A few highlights:
HUME: Today we saw Ben Ginsberg, counsel to the Bush campaign, step down from his post because he'd been advising the now famous 527 group, so-called the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
We see another Bush volunteer having stepped down for similar reasons. It is said that -- in fact, it's acknowledged that a prominent Texas -- well-heeled Texas Republican Bob Perry gave this group a couple of hundred thousand dollars to get them started. Why should people not conclude that this group of veterans is really a creature of the Bush campaign?
ROVE: Well, first, no one in the Bush campaign has coordinated with the swift boat veterans. Ben Ginsberg, as you said, was our outside counsel and also outside counsel to the 527 group. That's normal. The legal counsel for the Kerry campaign is counsel to 527 groups there. The DNC legal counsel is the legal counsel for MoveOn.org, as well. They're fulfilling a legal function, not a political -- they're not political consultants. But Ben Ginsberg, who's a great friend of this president and has been with him since he began to run for president in 1999, did -- was -- resigned from the Bush campaign in order to remove any possibility of being a distraction to his friend. He wants to see the president reelected. He knows that there's a hypocritical double standard on the part of some in the media, where a lawyer for the Bush campaign who is also the lawyer for a 527 is somehow suspect, where a lawyer for the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee, who's also a lawyer for a 527 group is not. And he accepted that reality and decided he wanted to help his friend. And the best way he could help his friend was to resign.
...
HUME: Bob Perry, the Texas businessman who gave them the seed money, is a noted Republican, has been a contributor to President Bush, is someone you know. What about that connection, if there is a connection?
ROVE: Well, look, I know Bob Perry. I've known him for 25 years. When I moved to Texas, you can count the wealthy Republicans who are willing to write checks to support Republican candidates on the hand -- on the fingers of one hand. It would be unusual if I didn't know him, having been active for 25 years in Texas.
HUME: When's the last time you talked to him?
ROVE: Sometime in the last year. I can't remember exactly when. I saw him in the last year, and I remember seeing him someplace along the campaign trail and exchanging a few pleasantries.
...
HUME: Has anybody in the Bush campaign or the White House, to your knowledge, engaged in any consultations, coordinations, cooperation, with the swift boat veterans group?
The state of Illinois has filed a lawsuit against the Dave Matthews Band for allegedly dumping up to 800 pounds of liquid human waste from its tour bus into the Chicago River earlier this month.
The suit, filed on Tuesday by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, claims that a bus rented by the usually eco-friendly group was traveling cross town to the band's hotel on Aug. 8 when it pulled up alongside a metal grating on the Kinzie Street Bridge. That's when, the suit claims, bus driver Stefan A. Wohl emptied the contents of the vehicle's septic tank into the river.
And that was bad news for Chicago's First Lady, a passing tour boat filled with 100 people on an architecture sightseeing cruise that was doused by the falling excrement.
No one was seriously hurt by the raining waste. The boat's captain made a U-turn and headed back to the dock, where reeking passengers were given refunds and the ship was thoroughly cleaned and sanitized.
According to authorities, the incident was caught on videotape
Madigan seeks more than $70,000 in civil penalties from the Dave Matthews Band and their driver for violating the state's water pollution and public nuisance laws.
That's one tour I won't be checking out anytime soon...
Kerry initially hoped to continue his service at a relatively safe distance from most fighting, securing an assignment as "swift boat" skipper. While the 50-foot swift boats cruised the Vietnamese coast a little closer to the action than the Gridley had come, they were still considered relatively safe.
"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."
But two weeks after he arrived in Vietnam, the swift boat mission changed -- and Kerry went from having one of the safest assignments in the escalating conflict to one of the most dangerous.
Dean Esmay cites a weblog where you can go to read the book written by John Kerry upon his return from Vietnam. The Kerry camp has done everything possible to make this book disappear, but you can study the book here.
The Democrats are hoping that repetition is the best way to counter the Swift Vets. Instead of having John Kerry come forth and explain his comments and "seared" memories, he is sending out the troops to paint the Swiftee's as complete liars. They are hoping that if enough Democrats say it, it will become the perception and the story will go away.
WOODRUFF: And when it comes to John Kerry's anti-war record, Bob Dole among others, are saying maybe John Kerry should apologize. He said that the two and a half other million...
KERREY: He's taking the advertising content of the Republican Swift Boat Veterans Against John Kerry as if it's true. It's not. They're not telling the truth on their ad.
COOPER: Well, Howard Dean is not mincing words about the television commercial attack, attacking John Kerry's Vietnam record, the original one. Earlier, I talked to the former Democratic presidential contender.
Governor Dean, you're calling for an apology from President Bush for misleading ads. What, in particular, what specifically, do you think he should apologize for?
HOWARD DEAN (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think he, the president needs to apologize to the nation and to the nation's veterans for two reasons. First is that the first so-called swift boat ad had absolutely no truth to it whatsoever.
And the second is that the president's campaign is directly responsible for that ad. He had people from his campaign participating in making that ad. That is a violation of the law. I think presidents ought not to be violating the law. So I think he has a double apology to make.
COOPER: But you're alleging, it seems -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- more than that, though. I mean, you seem to be alleging that these two groups are colluding, working in tandem.
DEAN: And the evidence is pretty clear. If you have an employee or someone who is on your advisory council then colluding with another group to put out ads, which, incidentally, don't have one shred of truth to them, then I think you've got a serious problem. I think the president has a very serious problem, because I believe the president has violated the law.
I understand I don't believe the president saw the ad ahead of time, but I believe that under the law, he is responsible for it.
COOPER: Haven't there been a lot of groups on the Democratic side or you know, 527 groups on the Democratic side, who have raised some $67 million, depending on who you listen to, and they've made some pretty outlandish claims? They've made some commercials. One commercial on Moveon's Web site, sort of made a link between George Bush and Hitler.
DEAN: That is something that -- that sounds like the Republican argument. The Republican argument is they're doing it, too. The truth is this is a matter of law. There have been a lot of things said on both sides that have some inaccuracy. There's nothing against the law about saying any damn thing that comes into your head, whether it's true or not. I think it's too bad that both sides are doing that, but that's what's happening.
There is something against the law when the president of the United States' campaign has a hand in doing that, and it also, I might add, since the president's campaign has a hand in telling a story that's totally untrue, which has been documented to have been untrue by some of the most important and prestigious newspapers in the country. I think the president owes this country an apology.
And that's just two examples from CNN yesterday. Howard Dean should win an award for calling the NY Times one of the most important and presitigous newspapers with a straight face. Listen closely to the Kerry defenders and you will see exactly how often they will just pan the entire Swift Vets group as being nothing but lies. They are hoping that it is their comments and not the ads themselves that stick in the memories of the voters.
"I think it's great we live in a country where 260 average guys can go out and put their point of view out there before the public and influence a major presidential race,'' ... "I am not one who agrees it is illegitimate for citizens to take a stand on these kind of issues and only the politicians should be able to say what they want about the issues they want to talk about.''
- Bradley Smith, Chairman of the FEC (appointed by Clinton) in an interview with Bloomberg television.
Iraq: U.S. forces unload on Fallujah. Iraq's top Shiite cleric arrives in Iraq to attempt an end to the standoff with al-Sadr. A report regarding Abu Ghraib questions top brass for letting the abuse get out of control. The father of a detainee in Gitmo questions the panel's fairness. Amir Taheri weighs the options in Iraq.
National: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gets tagged in new report. The full Schlesinger Report can be found by clicking here. Vice President Dick Cheney comments on gay rights. Washington Post writer Robert Samuelson opines on free speech and campaigns. A reporter from Time Magazinebegins to speak to authorities about the Plame incident. The EPA issues a warning on mercury contamination. The Wall Street Journal is skeptical toward the Republican trial balloon regarding the CIA. Professor Drezner is also on the case. Is Illinois violating Medicaid laws? Michigan's eminent domain experiment comes to an end. Bill Frist and Hillary Clinton reveal how to fix health care.
International: Two planes crashes in Russia suspiciously close to elections this weekend, terrorism has not yet been ruled out. More on the story here as well. Margaret Thatcher's son was arrested in South Africa under allegations of plotting to overthrow the government. The peace process in Sudan hits a snag. Bin Laden's driver is charged at Gitmo. Iran warns Israel. Cuba rejects hurricane assistance. Paris remembers liberation 60 years ago.
Politics: Ralph Nader loses another ballot appeal. The Purple Heart police point to Kerry's own journal to back up claims by the Swift Vets that Kerry's first medal might have been an error. While the Kerry camp alleges that the Bush campaign is a front for 527 groups, this post proves collusion of another group. Another story about the Swift Book causing trouble for bookstores as there are not enough books to sell. Candidate Kerry once supported tax breaks for the wealthy. Walter Williams writes about what he calls the appeasement disease. NY Daily News writer Zev Chafets claims that Bush has pulled a "swift one". Thomas Sowell examines the rift between the vets and John Kerry in part one and part two.
Potpourri: A German dictionary publisher offers a guide to the female language. The First Lady snubs P. Diddy. John Kerry visits the Daily Show. Blackfive announces a rally for veterans.
It would be nice if John Kerry and the Democratic Party got on the same page. Kerry claims that the Swift Vets are just a front for the Bush Campaign. From John Kerry's website:
A front group for the Bush campaign called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" is continuing to spread their lies about John Kerry's military record. Through his silence, George Bush is approving their action.
The Democratic Party is partnering with MoveOn.org, People for the American Way, Campaign for America's Future, and dozens of other groups representing millions of Americans to organize a massive public mobilization.
The Wall Street Journal hammers John Kerry on his selective memory regarding war hero status. Highlights:
The issue here, as I have heard it raised, is was he present and active on duty in Alabama at the times he was supposed to be. . . . Just because you get an honorable discharge does not in fact answer that question.
--John Kerry, questioning President Bush's military-service record, February 8, 2004.
A good rule in politics is that anyone who picks a fight ought to be prepared to finish it. But having first questioned Mr. Bush's war service, and then made Vietnam the core of his own campaign for President, Mr. Kerry now cries No mas! because other Vietnam vets are assailing his behavior before and after that war. And, by the way, Mr. Bush is supposedly honor bound to repudiate them.
What did Mr. Kerry expect, anyway? That claiming to be a hero himself while accusing other veterans of "war crimes"--as he did back in 1971 and has refused to take back ever since--would somehow go unanswered? That when he raised the subject of one of America's most contentious modern events, no one would meet him at the barricades? Mr. Kerry brought the whole thing up; why is it Mr. Bush's obligation now to shut it down?
Simply because some rich Bush-backers are funding Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is hardly an adequate answer. Some rich Kerry-backers are spending far more to attack Mr. Bush's record, and the Senator was only too happy to slipstream behind Michael Moore's smear that Mr. Bush was a Vietnam-era "deserter."
This is all about Mr. Kerry and what the veterans believe was his blood libel against their service when he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the spring of 1971 that all American soldiers had committed war crimes as a matter of official policy. "Crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command" were among his incendiary words.
Mr. Kerry has never offered proof of those charges, yet he has never retracted them either. At his recent coronation in Boston he managed the oxymoronic feat of celebrating both his own war-fighting valor and his antiwar activities when he returned home. This is why the Swifties are so incensed, and this is why no less than World War II veteran Bob Dole joined the fray on the weekend to ask that Mr. Kerry apologize for his unproven accusations.
The irony here is that a main reason Mr. Kerry has focused so much on Vietnam is to avoid debating Iraq and the rest of his long record in the Senate. He wants Americans to believe that a four-month wartime biography is credential enough to be commander-in-chief. But a candidate who runs on biography can't merely pick the months of his life that he likes--any more than a candidate who makes Vietnam the heart of his campaign can confine the resulting debate to his personal home video.
The Kerry camp is making a huge mistake by charting the current course. Attacking the vets and trying to link this as a smear by the Bush campaign is going to backfire. At one point or another, Kerry will either have to concede and tell the complete truth or he will risk losing the cornerstone of his campaign. John O'Neill has already said that he wants Kerry to prove him wrong or sue him. This has to be a troubling sign for the Democratic leadership. Since the truth appears to be with the other side, Kerry is backed into a corner and the only out is to convince the populace that this is all dirty tricks. With the blogosphere on full tilt covering this story, it is only a matter of time before whatever John Kerry is hiding sees the light of day. And when that happens, even those supporters in the media will have no choice but to cut and run.
Conversation between John Kerry and Swiftee Robert "Friar Tuck" Brant Cdr., USN:
KERRY: "Why are all these swift boat guys opposed to me?"
BRANT: "You should know what you said when you came back, the impact it had on the young sailors and how it was disrespectful of our guys that were killed over there."
[Brant had two men killed in battle.]
KERRY: "When we dedicated swift boat one in '92, I said to all the swift guys that I wasn't talking about the swifties, I was talking about all the rest of the veterans."
Matt Goldblatt of the NY Post has a wonderful piece I thought I would pass along.
ACCORDING to the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament, faith is "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." By that criteria, liberals must count nowadays as among the most faithful people in America.
For example, liberals believe that the police in Florida, at the behest of Gov. Jeb Bush, prevented black voters from getting to the polls in the 2000 presidential election . . . yet they can never quite locate a black voter who was in fact prevented from voting.
Liberals believe that the Bush administration tricked the American people into thinking that Iraq was directly responsible for the terrorist attacks of 9/11 . . . yet they can never quite track down a quote from an administration official saying it.
Liberals believe that the Patriot Act has enabled the government to violate the civil rights of American citizens . . . yet they can never quite produce the name of an American citizen whose rights have been violated under its provisions.
Liberals believe that the Bush administration accuses whoever expresses doubts about the War on Terror of being unpatriotic . . . yet they can never quite cite an instance where an administration official has done so.
Liberalism, in its current form, seems less and less like a political viewpoint and more and more like a religious orthodoxy. Its articles of faith persist in the absence of tangible evidence. Its tolerance of dissent is minimal. And its antipathy towards non-believers is seething.
Why not go the whole nine yards and anoint Michael Moore as its prophet?
A Bush-Cheney '04 ad released Aug. 13 accuses Kerry of being absent for 76% of the Senate Intelligence Committee's public hearings during the time he served there. The Kerry campaign calls the ad "misleading," so we checked, and Bush is right.
Official records show Kerry not present for at least 76% of public hearings held during his eight years on the panel, and possibly 78% (the record of one hearing is ambiguous).
Kerry points out that most meetings of the Intelligence Committee are closed and attendance records of those meetings aren't public, hinting that his attendance might have been better at the non-public proceedings. But Kerry could ask that his attendance records be made public, and hasn't.
Aides also claimed repeatedly that Kerry had been vice chairman of the intelligence committee, but that was Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, not John Kerry.
If you need an example of the hypocrisy of Michael Moore, look no further than the producers of his propaganda "Fahrenheit 9/11".
Miramax Films laid off 13 percent of its work force Friday, a move designed to cut costs amid a declining spate of movie releases by the film studio in recent years.
The film studio operates on a fixed budget of about $700 million a year to make and market films. It crossed the $1 billion mark in revenue last year. (Forbes)
So while Moore made mockery of corporate downsizing in previous movies, the hero to the common man has been mute on the subject. Miramax has over $1 billion in revenue with only 485 employees, yet feels the need to lay off 13%. Will Moore bite the hand that feeds him? Doubtful.
Elections:President Bush denounces 527 groups and takes a jab at George Soros at the same time. John Kerry takes the risky path and belittles President Bush for his leadership on 9/11. Kerry better hope more don't learn of this. The Washington Post uses Porter Goss as an example of how prudent John Kerry was. The NY Times examines the cable coverage of Kerry's war record. Barnes and Noble blames publisher for problems finding the Swift Vet book. Helpful Hint: check the cooking section of your local bookstore. Glenn Reynold's delves in on another quagmire. Christopher Hitchen's take on Vietnam revisionism is much more diplomatic than Mark Steyn's. The Chicago Sun-Times offers Kerry an out. If there is trouble with the machines, we won't be finding out about it.
Potpourri:This guy threw everything but the kitchen sink at police. The president does some redecorating.
