From Avenger D-22
Here are some thoughts from a friend of mine:

A true hero, Pat Tillman exemplified why America is so great. He should be the role model that children are shown by parents, not the athletes that hold out on contracts for more money and whose only loyalty is the paycheck, not the fans or the team they belong to. Today we need more Pat Tillmans and fewer Kobe Bryants. Pat Tillman's death was no more or less tragic than any soldier's death, but in walking away from the a lucrative contract, joining the Army and earning the right to be a Ranger and not seeking publicity for it, he showed that some still can show loyalty to a cause bigger than oneself. So from this soldier, a loud "HOOOAAH!" to Pat Tillman. His family can take pride that he died not only for his country but also for his buddy next to him as most soldiers do.

Thanks, Tim. Everyone I know is proud to know you.

Mazatzal (Mars, Not Arizona)

(Courtesy of the fine Americans at the JPL.)

More Details on the Death of Pat Tillman
Check out more about Ranger Tillman's heroic sacrifice here.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Matthew Beevers said Saturday that Tillman was killed in a firefight on a road near Sperah, about 25 miles southwest of a U.S. base at Khost.

After coming under fire, Tillman's patrol got out of their vehicles and gave chase, moving toward the spot of the ambush. Beevers said the fighting was "sustained" and lasted 15-20 minutes. He was killed by enemy fire.

"That's real tough country," said CBS News Military Consultant Perry Smith. "It's very mountainous country, the government of Pakistan has never really been in control, there are a lot of tribal elements there. There are a lot of elements that support radical groups like al Qaeda. That's where there's been the greatest amount of combat activity over the last few months."

Re-Ba'athification
Hammorabi is concerned that Bremer's decision to re-integrate some of the old Ba'athists into the new government in Iraq is a mistake. Bremer's doing it because he wants to pull in some Sunni support and optimism before we drop the hammer on that goddamned city of Fallujah. And because, in the long run, all the major groups in Iraq need to feel like we're going to treat with them fairly.

I certainly won't disagree with Hammorabi, but aren't we forgetting people like Werner von Braun, Albert Speer, and Kurt Waldheim, whose own Nazi pasts managed to be manageable in a different era? Oh, well. I'm not going to put myself in the posture of resorting to the counter-example of ex-Nazis (even if played by Peter Sellers), but a lot of that was expediency in a time when opposition was something less than futile. Can these bastards be rehabbed? Bremer's gambling on their change of heart.

Chronological Discrepancies
As I say, this partisan interest in attacking Kerry through his military service medical records and the many awards he earned for combat bravery is crap. But there is another issue related to the time of his service in the Navy and Naval Reserves which is not: whether Kerry, while still an officer on active duty, was involved in distinctly un-American conduct, both here and abroad. Some part of the answer is explored here, but also see today's New York Times' big story by David Halbfinger where the confusion over the dates of Kerry's service and the exact nature of his anti-war activities persists.

The thing to remember about John Kerry (besides the fact that a vote for him is a vote for those who hate America) is that his entire Senatorial career is based upon his service in Viet Nam and, just as importantly, the extremely controversial way in which he protested the war upon his return. Kerry absolutely earned the right to protest it however he wished, but the moral and experiential authority he wielded in doing so did not and does not immunize him from serious doubts about his judgement. He freely associated himself with utter frauds and communist dumbasses, and took part in meetings where he had no business. These things should be discussed openly.

The Democratic Party, which remains traumatized by its role in the Viet Nam War to this day, has nominated a man who, by one of those strokes of irony with which History is painted, is poised to redeem their self-conception as a party of peace. Kerry surely thinks as much himself. But he's first going to have to answer to the charges of why he consorted, in a time of war, with people who were explicitly the enemy of their own country. He is going to have to do more to justify his slanders against his fellow servicemen as depraved drug addicts, sadists, and the committers of atrocities.

After all, this is the stuff on which his claim to fame was first made. That shit may have passed muster with the post-Watergate pinko mentality that made Kerry a hero to the liberal constituency that first elected him to government back in Dukakichusetts, but Middle America won't cotton to it.

Time again to stand tall before the man, John.

Affectless
From The Guardian's account of this week's railway disaster at Ryongchong, North Korea comes this telling passage:

North Korean officials said about 350 injured people were hospitalized in Sinuiju, a bigger city on the Chinese border, according to [Dr. Eigil Sorensen, World Health Organization representative].

Aid workers didn't go there Saturday because Sinuiju is a special economic zone and North Korean officials hadn't prepared the required entry permits, Sorensen said. But he said they were promised access within the next two to three days.

We'll never know what actually happened there, but it's nice to see how efficiently the Communist bureaucracy responds to human needs.

If this damned thing had happened just a little further from the Chinese border, we'd never have heard about it.

Atta and the Iraqi Connection
Please see this Edward Jay Epstein run-down on the meetings between the most infamous of the 11 September mass murderers, Mohammed Atta, and Saddam's consul in Prague, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani. There's considerable specificity here. Is there some reason to doubt that this connection between al-Qaeda and the Saddamites existed?

Kerry the Catholic
The Weekly Standard's Joseph Bottum has written an interesting essay on the moral and doctrinal incoherence of John Kerry's Catholicism.

Usually, the personal religious issue has only cropped up among the anti-Bush Left, which condescendingly and even intolerantly belittles the President for his own spiritual convictions, while ignoring Kerry's, such as they are. But Bottum makes a pretty good case for Kerry being, at best, a half-assed Catholic, and it may be that the conservative interest in exploiting Kerry's unconvincing, Dean-like grasp of matters ecclesiastical has yet to be fully realized.

There's little doubt that Kerry's already got the atheist/agnostic vote wrapped up, but he'll probably also pull in the fundamentalist Muslim vote without even having to get down on his knees and face Mecca.

VDH is Such a Bad-Ass
Reading Victor Davis Hanson's latest words always gives me some much-needed confidence, especially on days like today. Read them yourself. And realize that nothing ever got done in the name of democracy and freedom without some fascist bastards cursing us as they lay dying at our hands.

The men and women who sacrifice their safety and their lives in defense of America do so as well for the sake of humanity. There's no question that these servants of Civilization have earned their place in History. The only question is whether we, too, will aspire to that degree of character. What will we do to ensure the success of Liberty?

Talk the talk, but walk the walk, too.

This Death Hurts Me Even More Deeply
I was deeply saddened to learn of Pat Tillman's death earlier this morning. I just can't believe it. Tillman is a true American hero and it hurts me to have to write these words. He was killed in combat yesterday, fighting against Islamofascist terrorists in Afghanistan.

He was 27.

Tillman gave up a lucrative career in the National Football League with the Arizona Cardinals. He was a kick-ass athlete, but he gave it all up to join the Army and be a Ranger with his kid brother, Kevin.

No fanfare, no publicity. Tillman was all about volunteering to serve his country in combat because of how he felt in the aftermath of the atrocities of 11 September 2001.

As many have already remarked, the stadium at Arizona State University must be renamed in his honor immediately. Tillman must receive the honors due to a man of his character.

I'm just too hurt by this.

Down with Traitors

Springtime for Krokuses and Moonbats
Mood:  happy
Check this out from the INDCJournal website. It's an hysterical photo essay of the turdblossoms breaking out in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, protesting the horrible mistreatment we've made of the asshole Islamofascists incarcerated at Gitmo.

Go get a job, you wankers. You, too, you protesters.

(Thanks to InstaPundit for the link.)

A Chaplain at Fallujah
Andrew Sullivan has an e-mail from an Army chaplain at Fallujah up on his site. It's a perspective we need more of.

Hang in there, men. You've got a lot of true Americans back home thinking about you every day and all the time. And, like me, wishing they were a fraction as brave as you.

(Thanks to Occam's Toothbrush for this.)

Aaron the Liberal-Slayer's Latest Devastation
Mood:  on fire
I'm a big fan of this guy and he's got the motherlode of quotes from every Dhimmicrat you can think of on the certainty that Saddam had weapons of mass murder and the certainty that the United States had an obligation to end him as a threat. If you have the nerve, go to that link immediately and know what ridiculous hypocrites and revisionists now infect the Dhimmicratic Party.

The Price of Texas Tea in Saudi Arabia
Even if the story about Bandar assuring the President that Saudi Arabia will flood the oil markets later this year to help him get re-elected were true, how is that a bad thing? I would very much like to save some money this summer and fall on my fuel costs, and if the Saudis want to "manipulate" world oil prices, then manipulate away, Mo!

Oh, and here's a list of wankers who can keep quiet about the price of gasoline and fuel oil if they're not going to hold politicians in all parties responsible for keeping us hooked like a bunch of crack whores on Middle Eastern and other foreign oil: people who drive vehicles, people who like to keep warm in winter, people who buy goods transported by diesel trucks, people who use hot water to shower and cook, etc. You get the idea, Mr. and Mrs. Hypocrite.

The sooner we make alternative energy policy a more important topic of conversation and action in and around our Government, the sooner we can break the stranglehold of the petroleum industry and grant it to some other industry.

The Phillips-Head Woodward
Did you see Chris Matthews on his MSNBC program interviewing Bob Woodward? Matthews' desperate need to use Woodward and his new book, Plan of Attack, to screw the President and his Administration is laughable. But Woodward, who helped to expose Nixon's corruption and drive him from office, is clever enough to stay one step ahead of such uses.

Of course, Woodward has his own agenda, which is to maintain his access to the leaders of both parties. That is his chief object since it is what makes him a journalistic superstar. Without that sort of access, he's not a fraction as important these days, although he has to be considered one of the most significant journalists this country has ever produced by virtue of the Watergate story alone.

But the best thing about Woodward is that, regardless of what his true political feelings are (and he's been called both a Republican and a Democrat), his work effectively puts the lie to the liberal charge that this Administration is secretive and unresponsive to the people and that we are on the verge of collapse because of those very qualities. After all, what irony could be more complete than the embrace of Nixon's old nemesis by another Republican President in the midst of a yet another enormously controversial moment in History? Plan of Attack is even prominently advertised on Bush's campaign website. Can it really be claimed that this President is something other than completely candid with respect to his thinking on the choices leading to the war for Iraq?

It neither bothers nor encourages me that Woodward may think of the President either disparagingly or glowingly in this new book. The fact is that, in an open and democratic society such as ours, a journalist is at liberty to pointedly and publicly question the President and his people on the most highly-charged questions of the day. Let the Matthewses of this political culture make what use of that book they will. The only thing that matters is that they can.

Dumb
I don't like John Kerry. I think he's a waffler and a straddler. And it especially makes me mad that he continues to insinuate to the crowds that gather around him that President Bush somehow stole the election. It's irresponsible and demagogic.

But this recent media upsurge of interest in his medical records from his service in Viet Nam and how he earned his three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star is just dumb.

Nobody can deny that the man served bravely in combat. Kerry was repeatedly wounded, at least once in the course of going back under heavy enemy fire to rescue a fellow sailor who was stranded in the water. Is anybody denying that?

So what do the Republicans have to gain? Is this payback for the equally indefensible "AWOL scandal" that the Democrats tried to hang on Bush? If so, it's petty. There's plenty of other reasons to go after Kerry. But not this one. The man served with distinction. Let it go.

Basra
What a very great shame. Do the subhuman turds who committed these atrocities today belong to those brave Minutemen that the godforsaken traitor Michael Moore is supporting against us?

There is evil in the world. There are those who let it prosper when they speak ill against the very men and women who would try to stop it.

I know who the enemy is. He is the filthy animal who dances upon the carnage of dead Americans. He is the one who taunts our leaders in a time of war with his support of murderers.

Michael Moore, you are a fucking bastard and a traitor to your country. If you ever come to Austin, Texas, I will make it a point to come to whatever public appearance you make and tell that to your face. And then I'll wait for you to take the first swing. Please come soon, you wretched coward. I ain't no chairman of the board. Ain't no bandleader, neither. I'm just someone who would like to correct your mistake.

San Jacinto Day
It was 168 years ago today that Sam Houston's Texians came upon the Mexican Army at San Jacinto and exacted justice for our defeat at the Alamo. The kill-ratio was just about what it should have been.

Everybody remembers the Alamo.

Relatively few remember San Jacinto.

Remember San Jacinto.

Uh, Did You Have to Say It That Way?
I just saw Secretary Powell say, in response to the question of whether he and Vice President Cheney have a good relationship, that it's "excellent."

And then he said, "It may sound a little improper, but when the Vice President and I are alone, it's 'Colin' and 'Dick.'"

Is the Secretary of State trying to say something?

Is Jon Stewart's staff's job easy or what?