John Kerry Calls Pro-al-Sadr Newspaper a "Legitimate Voice" in Iraq
This is unbelievable. Kerry is actually taking the side of Muqtada al-Sadr and the newspaper he used (until we shut it down last week) to incite violence against American troops! In an NPR interview Wednesday morning, Kerry mumbled and stumbled his way into (and out of) suggesting that we had done something wrong by closing down a "legitimate voice."

This man has no business being President if he can't even get out of the way of his own equivocations on whether we should shut down a violently anti-American newspaper in the middle of an insurgency.

Use the link. Listen to it for yourself. Kerry has no reason to oppose what we've done except to further his own agenda. Rotten prick.

The MoveOn.org Ad
CNN's running a fraudulent piece of propagandistic shit from MoveOn.org worthy of the smegmoid Michael Moore. It is narrated in part by a George Bush soundalike mouthing a bunch of Dhimmicratic fantasies of what he must be really saying in the depths of his malicious negligence.

At this point, I can only imagine that such nonsense would offend real Americans who aren't engaged in aiding and abetting the violence against American and Coalition troops we now see in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Remember: a vote for John Kerry is a vote for those who hate America.

And fuck CNN for running such dishonorable garbage.

The Very Nub of the Gist
Are the President's detractors really such assholes that they would question whether he would have done everything in his power to prevent the atrocities of 11 September 2001 had he known that they were going to be committed? That's the bottom of bottom lines, sirrah. Either you take the man at his word and recognize that no one in his position would have dared allow something like that day to have happened, or you expose the ass of your very character to all the world and insinuate that George Walker Bush ---a man who served his country in uniform, the son of a President, the grandson of a Senator, the father of two beautiful daughters, and the husband of a good and lovely woman--- would have sat idly by and knowingly allowed 19 Muslim fanatics to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands of innocent people and shaking this country and the world to their cores. Paranoia doesn't begin to describe the disease his detractors suffer from. Their seditious filth sickens me. And they must be defeated.

Dr. Rice
Heard a while ago that Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the Kean Commission tomorrow will be carried live by all of the major broadcast networks ---something they didn't do even for Book of the Month Club war profiteer Richard Clarke. Very interesting. Dr. Rice is enormously capable and poised, and many in America will get to see her shine (instead of watching some stupid-assed soap opera garbage).

Is there any ulterior motive for the networks' attention? It could be seen as a tacit admission that they have gone overboard and into Davy Jones' locker with all the pro-Clarke bullshit, and that they're trying to find some sort of balance for once. Or, it might seem to be a high-profile opportunity to again bash the Bush Administration over nothing with the helpful commentary of Comrades Jennings and Rather.

Either way, this will be a great introduction to a woman who could very well be a President some day.

Turd Kennedy
In Ted Kennedy's irresponsible speech yesterday at the currently un-firebombed Brookings Institute, the privileged scion of a notorious anti-democratic rum runner said that the situation in Iraq was becoming Bush's Viet Nam. What an enormously stupid analogy.

For one thing, we are only now a year into this war of liberation and there are several fait accomplis we can proudly lay claim to, among which is the fact that we have replaced a dictatorial regime with the beginnings of a republican form of government. And we've killed or captured virtually every Ba'athist who might have even thought of succeeding Saddam, most importantly his two psychotic sons.

True, we are facing some very tough resistance, but it is coming from a relative few. Does anyone think that an RPG or an IED ---or a thousand of both--- constitute some grand strategy that will derail Iraq's future? Iraq is a country of maybe 25 million people; al-Sadr's militia is maybe 10,000 strong. If they continue to resist us, their numbers will be sharply reduced. And Fallujah? That city is surrounded at this very hour and we are in full control. Does Turd Kennedy doubt that we have the ability to level the wretched animals there at a moment's notice, if need be?

It's also true that we have the men and materiel in place necessary to achieve our goal, despite the constant suggestion that we need more troops. And the funding the Congress approved to better supply our troops passed comfortably, even over the politically-motivated objections of John Kerry. Maybe the draft and massive troop call-ups was a means to effecting social policy for LBJ in his day, but this President is using what we need to achieve victory for ourselves and a free Iraq ---and without carpet-bombing and torching everything in sight. Remember, Turd, avoiding excessive civilian damages is a hallmark of this President's military. Maybe that's a reason why we can't move out of the "quagmire" as quickly as you might like.

Thus, in no important respect, except in the distorted perceptions and political manipulations of a Leftist media, does the war in Iraq resemble Viet Nam. Ted Kennedy, whose brother started us down the path to that extremely divisive war, is absolutely wrong to have made any such "argument." He wants to throw out some red meat to Kerry's supporters without tainting his colleague, but it's a rotten mess he's making instead. In fact, it's exactly his kinds of sentiments, wholly motivated by partisan hackery, that are giving aid and comfort to our enemies.

Listening to Air America
I listened to about an hour of Air America yesterday over the internet and I thought it sucked. I don't know who the woman was I was listening to, but she didn't even pretend to care what her callers were saying. She would give them each about five seconds of extremely lo-fi stammering before roaring into the fore, from where she would hold forth for a minute or so at a time, spewing historically-ignorant bullshit at such a rate that it could not be kept up with.

There's also some serious technical problems those people are going to have to fix, such as the aforementioned low fidelity of the telephone calls, awkward breaks and pauses, and the unfortunate occurrence of hanging up on every single person in the queue when the switchboard goes down. Not a great start.

But the best part of it all is that Air America's flagship station in New York, WLIB, has caught hell for displacing the very popular black-oriented programming format at that station. But this is no surprise, really. White liberals very often have a tin ear for the voices of those they purport to represent and champion. It's a paternalistic arrogance of which they are unaware in themselves, although they can spot it from a hundred miles away in a conservative. The reasoning at Air America is that giving whitebread liberals a soapbox from which to broadcast their hate speech is more important in New York than giving blacks there a radio station that plays music and news relevant to their own cultural interests. There's no question which one I'd rather listen to.

(Thanks to Cold Fury for this.)

Kill al-Sadr. Now.
The idea that Muqtada al-Sadr should merely be arrested is a joke. He needs to be killed outright. They say that we must use a rapier instead of a sledgehammer when it comes to putting down al-Sadr's militia forces ---for fear of provoking a national outrage in Iraq if there's too much collateral damage--- but, at some point, that cannot be helped. The citizenry of these Sunni cities cannot be left to feel safe and beyond harm when they harbor insurgents and terrorists. Let them experience some heavy pounding and then we'll see just whose side they want to be on.

Remember: we're not going anywhere. Even when we hand over the reins of government to the Iraqis on 30 June, we're still going to be there and still be responsible for that country's security. Everybody knows it. An outrage or two now will make our job a lot easier in the long run. If any other cleric wants to stir the shit in the future, he'll think twice before he does. But the example must be made now. Tell Sistani we'll have his back if he'll help us get rid of this Iranian-owned turd.

Pacify, pacify.

CORRECTION: A reader writes to remind me that these are Shi'ite, and not Sunni, cities where the Shi'ite cleric al-Sadr and his militia are engaged in insurgency. Although I do know that latter fact, the onrush of the events of the past several days has exposed my basic ignorance of Iraqi geography. But I'm learning fast. I fear we will all soon learn some more about Iraqi geography.

"...pigeonholed as a liberal"
Why does John Kerry bristle at the suggestion that he is a liberal? By any objective standard, the guy is one of the most liberal legislators in the United States Congress. Who the hell is he kidding? The only reason why he wants to run from that label is that he knows it is electoral poison.

But there's no place to hide and no way to win.

Marc Chagall (Self-Portrait, 1914)

Imago Porci
I haven't really looked into the exceptions to this rule, but I always thought that Mohammedans were opposed to any depictions of humans and animals in their art. Isn't that right? Isn't it supposed to be blasphemous somehow? Well, it's one more reason to dislike such a culture ---actually, two: first, for holding images of human beings and animals to be a sin and, second, for being hypocrites about it by running around with placards of such human (turds) as al-Sadr.

Ten Years After
Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide. I don't believe in suicide, unless one is terminally ill and in insufferable pain, but maybe he was in his own way.

I was a little bit late coming around to Nirvana, and I credit my little brother with hipping me to them. But I knew the moment I saw the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" that these guys weren't like the other kids.

Nirvana was the most important band of my generation, and I miss the future Cobain never allowed himself.

Many of their songs move me to this day. "Scentless Apprentice" is one of the angriest, most nihilistic pieces of music ever recorded. And their Unplugged concert is a beautiful moment, especially their version of "Plateau": "Who needs actions when you got words?" is a taunt I live with every day.

The one thing I remember most from the day I heard of Cobain's death was the smirking comment of one of my bosses, an older gentleman whom I respected very much. I don't know why but I snapped at him for his callousness. He didn't give a crap about any "caterwauling hippie" or whatever he would have called Cobain, but I did. I guess I had more invested in Cobain than I realized.

When I get home today, I'm going to put one of Nirvana's discs on and remember.

A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing
Guess where Muqtada al-Sadr is hiding out today? In a shrine at Kufa. He knows that there's a whole pack of Devil Dogs waiting to tear his ass apart if he pops his head out, but they're too respectful of his sanctuary. But they can wait. Even a rotten coward's got to run at some point.

al-Sadr, if you don't know, is the Iranian stooge who's been inciting his little militia to kill the American infidels. And, when they finally did so on Sunday, that's when Bremer decided enough was enough. al-Sadr now has a bull's eye on his forehead.

Interesting how he can order the butchering of an important pro-American Shi'ite cleric just outside of a holy shrine at an Najaf, but expects us to give him a break when he darts into one.

Fuck this loser. He needs to be made an example.

A True Mensch
Mood:  a-ok
A great big thanks to Aaron's Rantblog for indulging me with a shout-out yesterday. Be sure to visit this guy. He does some super-goofy stuff with PhotoShop, as well as kicking Dhimmicratic asses.

Enjoy!

Deep Blade Strikes Again
Deep Blade writes to tell me:

Iraqis are occupied by a foreign army and most don't like it. As horrible as Saddam was, he belonged to the Iraqis, their own problem with whom they could have dealt.

Sure. After 35 years or so, they had him right where they wanted him.

Such an outcome could have been as bloody, but Iraqis will never be given that chance to make their own history.

Which is a thing to be regretted? Assuming this fantasy civil war of yours had occurred, do you really think that Iraq's neighbors would have stayed out of it? True, we've got plenty of interlopers there now, but with our military might in their very midst, the dominoes are going to fall our way, not theirs.

There is reason to believe that if the vicious sanctions regime had been ended, the population of Iraq would have been able to deal Saddam Hussein the same fate as other murderous gangsters supported by the US and UK--without invasion and occupation--namely Ceausescu, Suharto, Marcos, Duvalier, Chun, and Mobutu.

I don't agree, but maybe you know something I don't. Anyway, the "vicious sanctions regime" was a UN creation ---and you know now that it wasn't going to be lifted so long as all those conscientious kickback artists had their hands on the switch.

How offensive to moral human decency is some American guy posting in a blog about who should live and who should die in Iraq?

For a guy who drops so many historical references, you seem to be woefully unaware of the role the international community always plays in national revolutions. This time around, as many times before, it's Uncle Sam and John Bull making possible the liberation of an oppressed society.

Now, do we sometimes support thugs and losers? Yep. Triangulation is a basic feature of foreign policy. No apologies.

And no apologies for saying that there's a lot of irredeemable psychopaths in Iraq who need to be wiped out. What other choice do we have? Like Jefferson said, the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants.

A Shot of Espresso
Mood:  caffeinated
What a hoot! Ed Koch just told Neil Cavuto that he'll be voting for Bush. Which is in keeping with my pet prediction that the Jewish vote will make the biggest shift to the right of any demo this November.

Happy Passover, y'all.

Islama Delenda Est
Whatever you believe about the war against the terrorists or the occupation and liberation of Iraq, that belief ought to be based on a system of morality, and not merely on partisan reaction. That is to say, we must each make value judgements about what is right and wrong for ourselves and our society. Those who are indifferent to the great issues of our times are beneath contempt because they are disengaged from their obligations as citizens. Such people are worms' food before their time.

When we make and act upon these judgements, they are presumably the outward expression of our own moral standards. In the public sphere, one such manifestation is ideology. And ideologies are made to compete. I say they are open to an objective scale of value wherein this system is to be held above that one. Those who cannot grasp the importance of making distinctions between competing value systems are moral relativists ---a very dirty term. Such people are cowards. They do not participate in politics, they do not educate themselves about the world around them, and they say (because they really don't think) that it is "mean" and "bigoted" to hold certain systems above others. But this is what must be done.

Now, in addition to a lot of other reasons (paranoiac at worst and superficial at best), many people hate President Bush because they believe he is a simple-minded warmonger who can only talk in terms of black and white. The people who hate him want only a world in shades of grey. They want no distinctions, no competeing ideologies, and no value judgements. And why should they? They have no stake in the body politic but their own convenience. They do not have the knowledge or the analytical ability to understand the bases and origins of their own society's structure. In short, they do not appreciate the rights and privileges before them because they did not work for them. Consequently, they cannot know what their absence would entail.

Thus, it cannot be a surprise that those who hate the President for waging a war against terrorists and tyrants are ignorant of what it is that he is trying to accomplish. Maybe the fault is his, but what use is communicating the importance of such an object to those who hate him because he "lied" about weapons of mass destruction? What difference does it make trying to convince those who would fault him and his Administration for somehow not preventing the awful events of 11 September 2001 when they refuse to hold his predecessor responsible for every other act of terrorism leading up to that day? Such people are partisans who are unwilling to support the hard decisions that will make us safer. They are moral cowards who don't want to put anything above another.

But what will make us safer? That is the essential question behind the President's vision. And the answer is that we must act to destroy the ideology of radical Islam. It is a diseased system that oppresses its own people and reduces them to ignorance and poverty that Leftists and liberals can only struggle to imagine. Islam on the whole must be secularized because wherever it exists, there are those who would use it to terrorize the world. And it is the radical parts of Islam above all that must be burned out and crushed. We must act as Sherman did and make war (and, by extension, slavery) so terrible and so painful that Islamofascism may never rise again.

I would have thought before these wars against terrorists and tyrants began that the reason why Islam must be changed is self-evident. But so many people throughout the West are so blind to the necessity that it stands to be said again and again: if we do not change Islam at its roots, it will only metastasize into something that we cannot stop. It will threaten the very existence of mankind. If that strikes some as an exaggeration, they should look to where Islam holds sway and ask themselves how those societies function. By and large, they do not. Islam teaches the mistreatment of women and girls. Unless, of course, you think it's normal to make women cover themselves from head to toe and deprive them of their liberties and the sanctity of their own minds. And you won't have a problem with Islam so long as you submit your will to that of imams and mullahs who reject modernity in all of its excellence and potential. There's no First Amendment in Saudi Arabia, friend. There's no Constitution at all. There's only an oppressed underclass of unemployed and angry young men all over the Muslim world. Whatever system it is that they have, it isn't making them happy or be fulfilled.

Thus, people of conscience must be in the business of making value judgements. Westerners must stand up and say that our system is superior to radical Islam. We must support our President and our troops when they act to liberate those who cannot liberate themselves. We must support and extol our system when it stands for the essential dignity of mankind and for the rights of individuals.

And when we do not, we betray the genius of our society and the promise of our ancestors. We become unhinged and rootless. And, at that point, we will find ourselves on our knees.

Worried
Yesterday was depressing as hell. We're supposed to turn over power to these people in less than three months when they behave like animals? What the fuck is wrong with them?

The answer is Saddam. Look at the ages of the men in the streets. They're all about 35 or younger, which means that they've never known anything but the terror of the Saddamite regime. They were brutalized from the day they were born and their minds have been warped beyond help. Those are the ones who need to die and die quick. Iraq needs to have those animals exterminated before they can ever hope to move forward.

Now is the time for all good Iraqis to come to the aid of their country.

Fisking the Sunday Herald's Tom Shields
Did you want more evidence of the mentality of a typical degenerate Euro-coward? Try this, with my responses in italics:

Slightly Upticked Off With Iraq War

Why the murder of four civilians proves the horrific mess that's been made of the war
By Tom Shields

IRAQ is now so free and liberated that a mob in Falluja can, without let or hindrance, burn and rip apart and then hang up on telephone wires the bodies of American mercenaries.

The characterization of those men as mercenaries implies that they were hired to go and hunt down people by extralegal or extramilitary means. This is wrong. They were hired to provide protection for the very people who are in Iraq to help re-establish that country's infrastructure. That is, they were security guards, albeit well-armed and highly-skilled ones. But they were not hired killers or whatever other sick and deceptive labels the Left wants to apply to them.

The images of the horrific end suffered by the four civilians were flashed on our screens almost a year after President Bush announced that the invasion of Iraq was "mission accomplished".

Calling those men civilians in the next sentence after calling them mercenaries may meet the requirements of the "irony" Shields wishes to develop by contrast with the President's words, but it ignores the reality of war. You don't end 30-plus years of Ba'athist rule with a single stroke; you have to work at liberation and make sacrifices. There are insurgencies and counter-insurgencies in every war of liberation. I choose to honor the sacrifices my countrymen are making because I believe in their objective. I don't call the war they fought in a mistake just because I'm some neo-communist wanker who doesn't like the President.

The pictures from Falluja, and the daily reports of the slaughter of American soldiers, will surely make many US citizens ponder on the wisdom of the Iraq adventure.

What would wisdom be to a decadent surrenderist like Shields? To never finally enforce the 17 resolutions against Iraq, thus demonstrating the worthlessness of the United Nations? To stand idly by while corrupt European politicians personally profit from the oil-for-food programs meant to feed Iraqis but, instead, used to keep a murderous Islamofascist regime in power forever? To deny against all evidence that radical Islamism is a perverse and disease-ridden ideology that must be changed, one country at a time? The wages of inaction and indifference is the death of your own liberties, Mr. Shields. You are a loser to take the attitude that you have.

What is even surer is the head-in-the-desert-sand response of the US military.

Stand by for news, you wretched bag of smegma.

After the attack, Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt said: "Despite an uptick in localised engagements, the overall Iraqi area of operation remains relatively stable, with negligible impact on the coalition's ability to continue progress in governance, economic development, and restoration of essential services."

Is this not so? Of course, neither the surrenderist crowd in Great Britain nor our own seditious pack of liars in America would know anything about the improvements in the lives of the vast majority of Iraqis since they take their news from anti-war partisans who have a point of view to sell that doesn't include any of the important gains we have helped that country to make. No, it's better to hammer away at the Coalition with flashes of Sunni psychopathy to blind the man in the street than to show Iraqis reading uncensored newspapers and driving their new cars for the first time in their lives.

The families of the Falluja four will be comforted to know that the obscene deaths of their loved ones is merely an uptick.

Oh, and you're such a defender of their sensibilities with your chickenshit label of mercenary that you slapped on them at the start, right? Get your shit straight, jackass!

They will be further comforted by the general's promise: "We will respond. It's going to be deliberate, it will be precise and it will be overwhelming."

This will be overwhelming as in shock and awe.

And what reason do you have to doubt this? Do you expect anyone to believe that, had the American military gone in there with guns blazing, you wouldn't now be pissing and moaning about what trigger-happy savages we are? You're a weak-minded commie rat, Shields. The only problem is that there's no telling whether a successful "pacification" of Fallujah would satisfy you or just make you more of a Ba'athist sympathizer than you already are.

The American military may not be too efficient at winning peace but they are brand leaders in jargon.

Right. Like D-Day, H-Hour, and VE Day, you chattering pustule?

They gave us collateral damage which is when enemy bits are blown up by mistake. And friendly fire when your own side are blown to bits by mistake.

Or, like Neville Chamberlain coining the phrase "peace in our time." This game is fun, Tom!

There is also the surgical strike which is when the US air force tries to launch an attack on Osama bin Laden but hits an Afghan wedding party instead, killing sundry teenage bridesmaids and grandparents. This is usually done with a smart bomb.

Oh, what delicious irony. It's no surprise, though, that a pasty Euro-cockbite who doesn't know his history wouldn't know anything about the sad realities of warfare, either.

There is one bit of US military jargon I am looking forward to hearing. Whatever is Pentagon-speak for: "We have a big mistake, let's get out of here".

So, basically, you take pleasure in anticipating the failure of America's armed forces. What kind of a peacenik are you, anyway?

The absurd corollary expostulated by those in favour of the war-mongers is that if you are not with Bush and Bliar [sic], then you are with the terrorists.

How is that absurd? That is, in fact, the truth. If you are not in support of taking the offensive in this war against terrorists, then you are condemned to assuming the posture of waiting for the Great Big Islamic Porno Pole up Your Slopchute. Get a clue, Shields! You may find American jargon amusing in your own condescending way but, as it's used by this President, the point gets made.

They have missed the small point, that the world is less safe since Iraq was occupied.

Well, the Muslim world, at any rate.

All the coalition has succeeded in doing is to turn Iraq into a terrorist theme park for al-Qaeda and chums.

Hmmm. Maybe you're on to something. Don't look at it too hard, though, lest you realize the logic of such "attractions."

The answer to the problem, if there is an answer, does not lie in overwhelming shock and awe attacks on so-called evil nations.

But I thought you were suggesting before that we had our heads in the sand and hadn't done enough. Which side are you on now?

It lies in achieving some sort of deal to end apartheid for Arabs in Israel and Palestine.

Did George Galloway whisper that in your ear before he pulled out? Whatever the case, you are doing exactly what al-Qaeda wishes for all of its European sympathizers to do, which is make some link between Israeli sovereignty and security and the Coalition's presence in Iraq. You play into their hands with that nonsense. And, if you actually believe that Islamofascists would stop terrorizing the world if only we'd withdraw from Iraq, then you don't even qualify as a useful idiot, but a useless one. Down with the dhimmis is what I say.

The answer also involves smarter anti-terror policing. The Spanish police actually stopped the van in which the Madrid bombers were travelling. If they had checked in the back of the vehicle they would have found the explosives and prevented the horror of Atocha.

Hmmm. A liberal who's in favor of greater domestic intelligence activity and a broader law enforcement privilege? Who knew?

But they didn't. Perhaps if Senor Aznar's government had concentrated more on the home front and less on joining the gung-ho attack on Iraq, Spain would have been spared the pain.

Yep. You've been bought and sold. Like the meretricious neo-commie stooge you are.

Leftist Treachery
Mood:  down
The reaction by the anti-war Left to the murder and desecration (is an atheist allowed to say that?) of the bodies of the four Blackwater Security contract guards in Fallujah has been pretty disgusting. A lot of them glory in it, explicitly taking the side of the Iraqi "patriots" "defending" their homeland against the mercenary killers paid by American corporations to go and hunt down innocent Sunnis. Never mind that these men are highly-skilled American military veterans who are contracted to protect civilian aid workers, bureaucrats, and other private employees who are there in Iraq to help bring the place up to speed. What really matters is that these brave men are profiting from their choice. Isn't that always the burr under the saddle of these donkeys and dhimmis ---risk-taking companies and their employees making money? What must it be like to be perpetually victimized by your own idealism (idealism being code for naive commie wonkerosity) and to forever believe that the best things in life are free? Free, that is, of the normal human impulse to profit from one's own efforts.

No, the infrastructural improvements that we are helping the Iraqis make are not, in the end, acts of charity, but of investment. Disgusting, isn't it? First, we invade and occupy their country and, then, to really turn the screws on them, we make it possible for them to have electricity, automobiles, telephones, and clean water. And how will we reap the rewards of such mistreatment? Some day, they will stop threatening their neighbors and killing their enemies at home. And then they'll realize just how good it is to suffer from the diseases we have infected them with: constitutional republicanism, grassroots democracy, freedom of worship and expression, etc. You know: all that subversive stuff asshole Leftists depend upon but never stop to consider the price that had to be paid for them.

Ask the Japanese and the Germans how it went with them. They took to American Imperialism real pretty. But first, though, they had to have the sociopaths among them ground up and flushed out. That is the biggest mistake we've made in Iraq: we didn't kill nearly enough Sunnis when we had the chance. That is, if we were going to "squander" all of our moral authority, anyway, as the Leftists say, we should have gone in all the way and put the fear of God and Uncle Sam into them. But we're not done yet.

Fallujah's still got another thing coming.

Why?
First of all, how did the story of that pathologically-lying, now non-abducted college girl become national news? For what possible reason did every cable news network carry that story from start to finish? It's an embarrassment. The instant they showed security camera footage of her pacing in the lobby of her building before she took her long weekend ("in a marsh," for Christ's sake!), you just had to know that the whole thing was crap. She was off for some jungle love or something, but it was all her doing.

Second, when are the networks going to come out and admit that this was a bullshit story from day one and that they were wrong to have carried it? The closest thing to an ombudsman that any of them have ---and it's really not one--- is Fox's News Watch, a program where a panel of five journalists (which includes about one and a half liberals) analyze the week's media coverage and declare this or that to be right or wrong. Otherwise, I hardly expect any of the networks to cop to the shoddiness of their logic in covering this story.

Is it that they want to repeat the genuinely shocking and bizarre outcome of the Elizabeth Smart thing and gravitate to those kinds of stories? If so, they can surprise me and choose a real abduction story where the victim falls outside the usual demographic orbit. I wasn't really joking when I made that observation before: the cable news networks' obsession with irrelevant and insignificant stories of crimes against theretofore unknown victims is telling only in its focus on attractive white people, preferably females.

There's really no other explanation but that the networks believe (because focus groups tell them to) that such stories are interesting and titillating in a ratings-positive way. And, because the dissemination of news on television is a for-profit enterprise that is entertainment-based, the only way to really get the information you need is to go online or to turn to trusted magazines or papers.

But this Laci-Scotty-Martha-Jacko-Bullshit-all-the-time stuff on the TV has got to go.