Digging C-SPAN
C-SPAN is airing today's rally for the Viet Nam Veterans for the Truth on our Capitol grounds. Some really good speeches. I'm especially pleased to hear references to John Kerry's meetings with the enemy in Paris during the war. That needs to be brought up a lot more. The American people need to know that what Kerry did was treasonous. Plain and simple.

I was much too young to know what the Viet Nam War was. It only lives on in my personal memory through hazy recollections from the TV of dirty and beaten young men in fatigues. And in the ubiquitous helicopters. I still have many drawings I made in those years, filled with rows of GIs and weird arrangements of ammo boxes, tents, trucks ---and lots of explosions. Who knows what I was looking at? Probably just the nightly news.

But a great many men and women who served and survived that war have an interest now in speaking their peace. They lived it. They have the right. They are offended by what Kerry foolishly did to "end" the war and aggrandize himself politically. I do not doubt their sincerity when they attack him for their own reasons. And I hope that their message gets through to the American people in time to help defeat John Kerry.

Confluences
Courtesy of the fine folks at The OmbudsGod!, here's a link to NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen's thoughts on the significance of the CBS News Memo Hoax:

At some point attention will shift to the confluence of events in the news media, in publishing, and in politics that made for "Guard week" this week-- to all the things that appeared within days of each other. Forces behind that confluence will be brought to light. As ABC's The Note said Friday, "Republicans can rightly ask about the confluence of all the DNC, outside group, and media focus on revisiting the Guard story."

And this:

Right inside the door of the CBS scandal there is a Dirty Tricks scandal waiting to come to light. If the documents turn out to be fakes, the question will immediately become: who dealt them to CBS? Perhaps that explains this: "Longtime Democratic strategist Pat Caddell said Friday that if documents aired by CBS newsman Dan Rather Wednesday night turn out to be forged, as alleged by experts, the presidential race 'is over. It would be the end of the race,' Caddell told Fox News Live. 'It would be the end of the race,' he repeated."

Which brings me back to the earlier suggestion I made with respect to John Edwards' seemingly inexplicable decision yesterday to jump on the President ---using these memos. As though they weren't slathered in Dan Rather's crap?! How else to play it but straight? If the Kerrion are involved in this, the only thing to do is do what is expected of you, which is to openly trust CBS News on your way to scoring the usual points.

It's gonna go hard for you, Dan. Tell us now who slipped you this stuff and you may come out of it with your gold watch.

Proportionate to the Crime
There's obviously too much going on right now with the CBS News Memo Hoax for me to do anything more competently than to insist to you upon pain of death to visit some of the blogs I have in my Oblogatory roll there on the left and soak it in, baby. Let the coolness get into your vertebrae. The Internet never sleeps, Jackson.

Everybody's in on it. Rathergate? Okay, let's call it that.

Go see the Power Line above all. And certainly go see Little Green Footballs and the Instapundit and the genius Allah. They're on this like white on rice, friends.

Fuck your TV: the utter demolition of the Communist Broadcast System will not be televised. Not yet. But, in the interim, there's always The Blogosphere.

What's left for Dan Rather and these shills to do? Apologize? Nah. That ain't near enough. How about telling us who supplied those forgeries?

I hope Bob Schieffer says something about this worth hearing tomorrow morning. He's a good man and I don't want to see him go down like Rather.

A Shrill Shill
Have a look at Eleanor Clift's latest load (emphases mine):

What Bush did at his own convention was sheer alchemy. Iraq is his greatest vulnerability; he called it a "catastrophic success." If there were problems, it was the result of the swift military victory. The administration was a victim of its own success. Who can argue with that? There's a rule in politics to hang a lantern on your problem. Bush successfully conflated the war in Iraq with the war on terror so all good patriots will suck it up and take the casualties, starting with the first casualty: truth. Absent serious arbiters in the press, who's to call him on it?

When will the anti-war Left ever come off of this stupid analysis? The President rightly saw the strategic value of confronting the Muslim world in its own geographic midst. We are there. We are fighting there for the legitimacy of democratic rule and for the sake of engaging the peoples of that region in the cause of self-interest ---economic, political, and otherwise. Does that mean we intend to make Iraq a client state and a new market? Yep. (And if you can explain why that's bad, but that helping combat the genocide in the Sudan is good because we don't have any interests there, then you're just stupid enough to be a Democrat.) But if the people of the Arab and Muslim world are engaged in an effort to join modern civilization, they will be moved from their poisonous ideologies and psychopathic death-worship. Not immediately, but in the long-term. That is what fools like Clift cannot comprehend. We are there in Iraq to burn the idiocy of violent Muslim extremism out of those people. What survives will be joined to the rest of the world; what does not must not be allowed to go farther afield.

Kerry's latest stump speech has a refrain about the $200 billion spent in Iraq and what it could buy at home. But what this election is really about is the thousand-plus dead and an administration that has the audacity to suggest a vote for the opposition helps the terrorists.

Is that what Vice President Cheney said or is that what Clift thinks he said? In any event, it is what many of us believe. There is absolutely no reason to believe that John Kerry is inclined to pursue the long-term strategic goals we have in mind for the Muslim world. He leaves everyone believing that he is committed to mere reaction instead of proaction. The Islamofascist networks know how easily moved much of Europe is towards appeasement and rapprochement ---and they certainly know that Kerry puts more stock in the approval of France and Germany than in trusting our own power and the allies we do have. How is Kerry able to persist with this lie that France is going to suddenly come and help us in Iraq? How? And why does he even think that's necessary? It is a fucking mystery that he is not called on this obvious lie more often.

Bush-haters say this election is a referendum on George W. Bush. That's fine ---because it has never been about what great things John Kerry can do to lead this country. He has never been their first choice and they deserve to be punished this November for their cynical belief (and false hope) that a "war hero" without principles was a worthy opponent to a man with moral clarity and faith in his own country's power to do good.

Remember

(Thanks to Aaron's Rantblog.)

A Moment of Streuth
I have absolutely no problem telling people who endanger my life in traffic that they suck. I'll honk, get their attention, and let them know what I'm thinking. I may, some day, not live to regret my candor, but the important thing for these negligent sacks of shit to remember is this: I am the only one of us two who matters in our encounter. That's a fact.

So, I'm on my way home from work a while ago and one of these negligent sacks of shit blows clear through the STOP sign at a four-way stop. I'm coming to a stop before I go through the intersection and this worthless turd rounds the corner without even pretending to slow down. Once I make my stop, I get on it and pull even with this piece of used food.

Through the tinted windows, I can see it's some woman yakking away on a cell phone. What?! Imagine my surprise! A negligent sack of shit on a cell phone who's blowing through stop signs. Who could imagine?

So, I honk, throw a thumb backwards, and shoot her a dirty look. I can't see her too well, but that changes when we finally come to a stoplight just moments later. I stop well short of the intersection so I can look over at her and elaborate upon my critique of her driving. And she's leaning over and cheerfully rolling down her passenger-side window ---smiling, oblivious, and now comes my shame....

This woman is stunning. She's like a super-fine version of Rebecca Gayheart. And for a split second, I actually regret getting angry at her.

What a fucking sap a man can be!

What possible difference can it make how...delicious and...unforgettable a face can be when it belongs to some negligent sack of....

Ah, to hell with it.

Sap.

Is He Serious?
According to The Nashua Telegraph, John Edwards thinks that the President needs to discuss these newly-[discovered] National Guard memos dredged up by Dan Rather.

President Bush should have to explain newly released records that reveal his former Texas National Guard superior was asked to "sugar coat" performance records after finding Bush failed standards to be a trained pilot, Sen. John Edwards said Thursday.

"I think they are reasonable and legitimate questions the White House ought to answer," Edwards said during an interview with The Telegraph.

Is this guy serious? Does no one in the Kerry campaign read fucking blogs? Turns out, Breck Girl, your surrogates at CBS News have stepped in a gargantuan pile of dog shit. You could have known that before you opened your pie hole today.

But, then, the evidence of Edwards' delusions made itself clear:

Edwards said the American people have "moved on" and already dismissed attacks from a pro-Bush veterans group that Kerry didn't deserve combat medals he received during the Vietnam War and had endangered prisoners of war with his strident protest of the war upon his return.

"I think people now having heard so much about it have a sense about John Kerry, his service to the country and his patriotism and what he's done with the rest of his life," Edwards said.

Jesus Christ! Does this guy still believe in the tooth fairy, too?

Uh, well, anyway, back to the forgeries.

The only possible explanation ---besides ignorance--- for why Edwards would suggest that the President respond to the accusations implied in a stack of forgeries is that Edwards has been told to play it straight. That is to say, he would be expected to raise the issue of these memos because it is consistent with the Democrats' standard line, which is that Bush was AWOL or a deserter or whatever. So, to rely on the veracity of a story brought out by a putatively reputable (think, boy, think!) news organization is the safe way to play it. In doing so, he and the campaign can claim that they were simply trusting in Dan Rather and CBS News if it later turns out that CBS News acknowledges that they were pushing forged docs.

All good liars know this step in misdirection: it is the authenticating touch of the plausible misjudgement, the ring of truth inherent in human error.

And this will give the campaign some distance. But will it be enough distance to persuade voters to believe that the Kerrion had nothing to do with supplying those forgeries?

Courage.

Were the Killian Forgeries a Gift from the Kerry Campaign?
Courtesy of the Ace of Spades, have a look at what The American Spectator has to say about the provenance of the Killian Forgeries (yep, they've already graduated to capital letters, beeyotch!):

More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.

The oppo researcher claimed the source was "a retired military officer." According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign.

A "retired military officer," eh? Well, I think someone should start an investigation into how Dan Rather came into the possession of what are obviously fraudulent documents intended to libel the President of the United States. Maybe a subpoena will shake the name of that "retired military officer" loose, hmmm?

Damn, man. Me so horny. Me love this too much...

In the Grass
I like what Roger L. Simon has to say:

If these documents were indeed forgeries, as they now seem, the fraud CBS anchorman Rather perpetrated, willingly or unwillingly, on the American public is far worse than anything former the New York Times editor did during the Jayson Blair affair. Rather's misrepresentation was intended to influence what many consider one of the most crucial presidential elections in our history, taking place during a time of war, when our troops are dying in Iraq and terrorists are murdering innocent people across the globe on a nearly daily basis.

You got it. Rather has absolutely shown the ass of his partisanship and anti-Bush bias. It was going to be his big bid to sway some votes ---and he blew it.

I'm taping the big meltdown tomorrow. It's gonna be sweet.

Is the Barnes Thing Also a Lie?
I was thinking of a favorite line from Oliver Stone's Platoon just now...

Wrong? You ain't never been right, about nothing! And dig this you assholes, and dig it good. Barnes has been shot seven times and he ain't dead, does that mean anything to you, huh? Barnes ain't meant to die! The only thing that can kill Barnes is Barnes.

That is to ask, has Ben Barnes now screwed the pooch? It could be:

A woman alleging herself to be none other than Amy Barnes, daughter of fromer Lt Gov Ben Barnes called into a Texas radio program being hosted by well-known host Monica Crowley.

The woman, stating that her politics differed greatly from her Fathers, stated that he informed her months ago that he was going to "go public" with this story, known to be false. She claims that he has acknowledged the untruthfulness of this story to her over the years. She claims that there are two motivations for his doing this. One, to gain publicity for a book he is writing and, 2 the desperation of the Kerry campaign at this moment in time. Apparently Barnes offered to carry this tainted water if it appeared necessary in the general election to help secure a Kerry victory.

I cannot personally verify the woman's identity, although Barnes does indeed have a daughter Amy. Also, WABC radio has replayed the phone-in interview twice tonight in drive time radio host Mark Levin's program.

Yeah, well, this may be a hoax, but that would be about par for the course today.

(Hat tip to the utterly indispensable boys at the Power Line.)

Typical Treatment
Just at random, here is how Big Media is playing the new documents [discovered] by CBS last night. In this case, MSNBC:

President Bush's Vietnam-era military service returned to the forefront of the race for the White House on Thursday after a host of media outlets reported details about the president's suspension from flying in the Texas Air National Guard.

Following up a report on CBS' "60 Minutes II" program, the Washington Post reported that "Bush failed to carry out a direct order from his superior in the Texas Air National Guard in May 1972 to undertake a medical examination that was necessary for him to remain a qualified pilot, according to documents made public yesterday."

The New York Times said, "Newfound documents emerged from (Bush's) squadron commander's file that suggested favorable treatment."

See, I just didn't realize (as the link to this story says) that these "Memos fuel Bush Guard furor."

Yeah. Well...it's a furor, all right.

Heh, heh.

Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe said Bush's "cover story" on his National Guard service was rapidly unraveling.

"George W. Bush needs to answer why he regularly misled the American people about his time in the Guard and who applied political pressure on his behalf to have his performance reviews 'sugarcoated.'"

Man, I am just champing at the bit. Christmas, have you come early this year?

A Hideous Man
Courtesy of Ramblings' Journal, here's a helpful visual. Do click. You won't be sorry.

Oh, and, uh, James Carville says that the Republicans drugged Zell Miller and put him up to making that speech at the RNC. Just so you'll know.

Letting Them Know About It
Our troops went into the Sunni town of Samarra today, just to let them know that we're around:

American troops today entered the city of Samarra for the first time in months, marking what appears to be a small but significant step in their effort to regain control of the contested Sunni Triangle.

American commanders said their troops, accompanied by Iraqi police and national guard soldiers, drove into the city this morning after gaining assurances from local Iraqi leaders that they would not be fired on.

American soldiers and Iraqi police convened a meeting of the old American-backed council, which then chose a new mayor and police chief. After a few hours that passed without violence, the American soldiers and the Iraqi police left the way they came.

You gotta love that, but you gotta love this even more:

On Wednesday, in an interview with The Associated Press, Maj. General John R.S. Batiste, the commander of the First Infantry Division, said his men were planning to go into Samarra whether they had a deal or not.

"It'll be a quick fight and the enemy is going to die fast," General Batiste said from his headquarters in Tikrit. "The message for the people of Samarra is, peacefully or not, this is going to be solved."

Our men are the best-trained, most-disciplined armed forces on Earth. We should be proud of what they're doing for us and for the Iraqi people every day of the week.

Judge, Crater
When I was watching the 60 Minutes II piece last night that featured some "bombshell" documents on the President's Air National Guard service that CBS and The Boston Globe had dug up, I wondered why Dan Rather went out of his way to address their authenticity. Why would he have to do that? I assumed that there had been enough of a question in his and the producers' minds to prebut any questions. But I also assumed that a news organization as old and venerable as CBS wouldn't have even gone with such a story if their doubts were strong.

Well!

It is now looking, let us say, more than just possible that those documents, supposedly kept by Lt. Bush's base commander in Alabama, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian (now deceased), are forgeries. There is an incredible buzz in the blogosphere about this right now. For starters, go to this frequently-updated post at the Power Line. It's been hit so hard today that the poor guys got knocked offline earlier this afternoon! Amazing.

Then, go see my man Chrles Johnson at Little Green Footballs for this and this.

And the Cybercast News Service has this. Heh, heh.

There are dozens of experts and people with knowledge and just plain old common sense coming out of the woodwork to show in a hundred different ways why these documents are forgeries. Turns out, you can't recreate memos from the 1970s with a word processor today. At least not if you're a chickenshit and a dumbass.

Just read it all, kick back, smoke 'em if you got 'em, and laugh at the temerity of these people trying to smear the President again.

I don't want your apologies, Rather. I want your tears of contrition.

Hot damn!

CORRECTION: Jerry Killian was Bush's squadron commander.

Barnes: Sorry About the Whole Thing
Just watched Dan Rather interview Ben Barnes on 60 Minutes II. I had been led to believe ---probably by the breathless and desperate Leftists I hang around with too much--- that what Barnes had to say was going to be earth-shattering. But no such luck, comrades. He came off pretty evenly, even blaming himself for the ambitions he once pursued and the choices of life and death that were once in his power.

The more interesting stuff were the documents Rather dredged up about Lt. Bush's failure to meet his requirements. But none of it, as far as I can see, adds to what we already know. I think it's clear that Bush pulled strings and danced around his obligations, but it's equally clear that he served honorably and well for most of his time with the Guard. The future President also received an honorable discharge. That's a lot more than many others ever did, including people who are now ripping into Bush for not serving in a war that they themselves both avoided and opposed. But now that there's an election on the line, they become ---ostensibly--- great champions of the Viet Nam veteran. You'll excuse me if I find this laughable.

Okay, folks. The ante's been upped. This story may keep the Viet Nam issue on the front pages for a few extra days that it could have receded. That will not prove helpful to Kerry.

Even Bill Clinton would agree with that.

Waiting for Barnes' Bullshit
I hear that America is about to be introduced to our former Wunderkind here in Texas, the very corrupt Ben Barnes. Apparently, Barnes has all sorts of thing to say about how he helped the young George W. Bush get into a cushy Air National Guard position during the Viet Nam War. This is the Democratic/Big Media response to the devastating claims made by the Swift Boat Veterans against John Kerry ---and all it's going to do is keep Viet Nam in the news. Great move, suckers. The longer Viet Nam dominates the news, the more justification there will be in investigating Kerry's anti-war activities. Secret meetings with the enemy? Secret debates to plot the murder of American Senators? Go ahead.

Kerry won't like it.

Should be interesting to see how local media reports on Barnes' own shady past, though. I'll keep you updated, naturally.

The Wrong Nominee in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time
Try this one on, ladies (it's from one of your favorite meddling Jews, Bill Kristol):

JOHN KERRY said yesterday that Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." Translation: We would be better off if Saddam Hussein were still in power.

Not an unheard of point of view. Indeed, as President Bush pointed out today, it was Howard Dean's position during the primary season. On December 15, 2003, in a speech at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles, Dean said that "the capture of Saddam Hussein has not made America safer." Dean also said, "The difficulties and tragedies we have faced in Iraq show the administration launched the war in the wrong way, at the wrong time, with inadequate planning, insufficient help, and at the extraordinary cost, so far, of $166 billion."

But who challenged Dean immediately? John Kerry. On December 16, at Drake University in Iowa, Kerry asserted that "those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein, and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture, don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president."

Kerry was right then.

(Emphases mine, but why not let them be Kerry's, too?)

Apocryphal?
According to Sam at the Iraqi blog Hammorabi, Muqi is having a hard time with the law:

The Iraqi police conducting a big search this morning for weapons! Grand Iyat Allah Sayid Ali Sistani asked that his house should be the first to be searched.

The IP then started with the house of Sistani followed by the nearby area before going from house to house in the other regions.

When they arrived to Muqtada Sadr house the guards prevented them from entering. The guards took positions over the roof with their RPG7 and Kalashnikovs.

Muqtada Sadr then went to Sistani to complain about it and to refuse the search but Mr Ali Sistani told him that all the Iraqis should be under the law and the IP indeed started with his house!

I wonder if this is a true story. Of course, if Saddam hadn't killed Muqi's pops a few years ago, the worthless lump of shit might not be such a problem for us today.

The Lunar Diaspora
I like this idea:

The European Space Agency's chief scientist has said that there should be a Noah's Ark on the Moon, in case the Earth was destroyed by an asteroid or nuclear holocaust.

Speaking exclusively to BBC News at the British Association Science Festival, Dr Bernard Foing said that the ark should be a repository for the DNA of every single species of plant and animal.

Dr Foing is head of Europe's Moon missions, so his thoughts on matters lunar should be taken seriously.

The idea should be taken seriously regardless of who suggests it. Is it really so amazing an idea that it should be qualified in this way? Funny.

From the Parisian Literary Review (Sorta)
Courtesy of Blackfive, here is a poem by Russ Vaughn (2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, Vietnam 65-66) about John Kerry's visit to Paris to meet with the Viet Cong and the Communists. Here's how it ends:

The vindication we'll accept
In settling up this long-held debt,
Is each of us will do his best
To deny you, John, your lifelong quest.

Listen carefully John to what we say,
November 2nd is Veterans' Day.

None of the Bush-haters want to admit it, but there's a whole lot of people out there who don't need any prompting to kick Kerry's ass for what he did to sabotage our efforts in Viet Nam. These Kerrion would have you believe that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are a creature of the Bush campaign but, in reality, they are the natural consequence of men who wish to make their case to History that they did serve honorably and that John Kerry did exploit them for his own gain.

One more battle to win, gentlemen.