What a Relief
I'm sure glad that David Gergen is reminding people on CNN's Slagging President Bush Hour (also known as Inside Politics) that "the public perceives" that Kerry won both of the debates so far. Really? I didn't know that. In fact, I was thinking that President Bush demonstrated in the second debate that he is a likeable human being who connects with the public and who inspires our confidence. He very obviously won that debate, just as certainly as he lost the first one on style.

Fuck these biased clowns in Big Media. If they weren't so taken with Kerry's owl-shit demeanor and banalities, they'd have to admit that he has nothing to say that isn't going to lead us to disaster.

Michelle Malkin: "Was Kerry Dishonorably Discharged?"
Mood:  special
Be sure to read Michelle Malkin's blog this morning for a very interesting post on whether John Kerry was dishonorably discharged from the Navy. As Thomas Lipscomb reports in this morning's New York Sun, there may be a reason why Kerry won't sign his Standard Form 180.

An official Navy document on Senator Kerry's campaign Web site listed as Mr. Kerry's "Honorable Discharge from the Reserves" opens a door on a well kept secret about his military service.

The document is a form cover letter in the name of the Carter administration's secretary of the Navy, W. Graham Claytor. It describes Mr. Kerry's discharge as being subsequent to the review of "a board of officers." This in it self is unusual. There is nothing about an ordinary honorable discharge action in the Navy that requires a review by a board of officers.

According to the secretary of the Navy's document, the "authority of reference" this board was using in considering Mr. Kerry's record was "Title 10, U.S. Code Section 1162 and 1163. "This section refers to the grounds for involuntary separation from the service. What was being reviewed, then, was Mr. Kerry's involuntary separation from the service. And it couldn't have been an honorable discharge, or there would have been no point in any review at all. The review was likely held to improve Mr. Kerry's status of discharge from a less than honorable discharge to an honorable discharge.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Maybe the President can ask Kerry about it at tonight's debate.

UPDATE: Be sure to read this post at the BeldarBlog for much more information.

"I Am August"
Mood:  lyrical
A couple months ago now, my little brother calls me up and asks me what I think the word august means. I give him my best Latin-educated answer and ask why he wants to know. He tells me that his new band is taking the name I Am August. Apparently, it's a phrase from a Walt Whitman poem.

So, I google that up tonight and I see it's from "Song of Myself," part of Leaves of Grass:

I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize
I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by after all.

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content.
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

This seems to match what I know of my brother and his chief collaborator, although they are manifestly more ambitious than what comes through Whitman's affected indifference to public opinion. But I wonder if they have yet read what the Saturday Review had to say about Whitman's poetry on 15 March 1856:

After poetry like this, and criticism like this, it seems strange that we cannot recommend the book to our readers' perusal. But the truth is, that after every five or six pages of matter such as we have quoted, Mr. Whitman suddenly becomes exceedingly intelligible, but exceedingly obscene. If the Leaves of Grass should come into anybody's possession, our advice is to throw them instantly behind the fire.

Heh, heh. I hope I Am August gets better reviews than that. But, having heard a few tracks from their upcoming release, I daresay they will.

I don't know much Whitman at all, but I think it's interesting that the one stanza of his that I do know comes from the same poem. I have been able to quote it by heart since high school:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then: I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes.

I'll keep you posted on their album release party. I think it's going to be later this month at one of the big clubs downtown.

Taking Care of Bidness
As reported in the Tehran Times, the Marines are backing up the Iraqi Army as they secure Ramadi:

Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. Marines and troops, launched a series of raids Tuesday on seven mosques in the central city of Ramadi, the U.S. military said.

"Our participation in these raids has been limited to supporting Iraqi security forces," U.S. Brig. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford said.

Ramadi is in the restive "Sunni Triangle" area about 70 miles (113 kilometers) west of Baghdad.

Insurgents have used mosques at times to stage attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

"Restive." I like restive. Sounds as gentle as a peace bond or euthanasia.

Earlier this week, we also hit a mosque in the town of Hit which was being used for "non-religious" purposes, taking on a hundred or so of these [patriots] and murderers and undoubtedly sending a few of them to their final reward. We also hit a safehouse in Fallujah from the air, killing at least four of these rats.

It's a damned good thing we have Iraqis leading the way on these operations. When they secured the mosques and other sensitive sites in Samarra last week, that's something we almost certainly couldn't have done without causing a big stink.

Keep at it, gentlemen. I am proud and in awe of you.

You Don't Shit Where You Eat
Via Winds of Change, here's an interesting story in today's Washington Post that explains what's going on in Fallujah. Apparently, Mo's getting The Idea through his thick skull.

Local insurgents in the city of Fallujah are turning against the foreign fighters who have been their allies in the rebellion that has held the U.S. military at bay in parts of Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland, according to Fallujah residents, insurgent leaders and Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Relations are deteriorating as local fighters negotiate to avoid a U.S.-led military offensive against Fallujah, while foreign fighters press to attack Americans and their Iraqi supporters. The disputes have spilled over into harsh words and sporadic violence, with Fallujans killing at least five foreign Arabs in recent weeks, according to witnesses.

Even the run-of-the-mill vermin who inhabit Fallujah know that they cannot actually defeat us and realize, instead, that their homes and their lives are not going to be worth anything if they can't figure out a way to be done with the "insurgents" in their midst.

Because, one way or the other, you filthy rats, your city will come around.

Several local leaders of the insurgency say they, too, want to expel the foreigners, whom they scorn as terrorists. They heap particular contempt on Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian whose Monotheism and Jihad group has asserted responsibility for many of the deadliest attacks across Iraq, including videotaped beheadings.

Bad PR, eh? If you're not willing to help the authorities drive these animals out, Uncle Sam will come and put a 500-pounder through the roof of your shack.

Oh, yes. The picture's getting much clearer now.

"You Gotta Believe Enema!"
My brothers and I used to laugh at the clowns on Sunday mornings disguised as televangelist preachers ---with their bizarre oratorical affectations and flights of fantasy. Some spoke in tongues, even, while others simply ripped off their speaking styles from black guys who never had a show on the TV. And the thing about Jesus, they'd hysterically tell you, is that "you gotta believe in him-uh!" ---which we understood to be "You gotta believe enema!"

I prefer that understanding.

No wonder I've been turned off of religion for more than 20 years.

But now we're in danger of having another blow-dried Baptist-type charlatan too close to power. In remarks made yesterday upon hearing the news of Christopher Reeve's unfortunate death, John Edwards told a crowd in Illinois that

"When John Kerry is the president people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk again!"

Got that? The Democratic Vice Presidential nominee/con artist is not only using Nancy Reagan's example to "shame" this Republican President into going beyond his own personal ethical limits with respect to stem cell research, but now he claims that Bush is somehow responsible for keeping quadripelegics in their chairs. What garbage!

Or am I mistaking Edwards' chickenshit for some even stranger belief in John Kerry's supernatural healing powers?

This stem cell thing has been one of the Democrats' most successful lies this election season and I wouldn't really expect them to abandon it now. But it might help to know that not only has George W. Bush been the first President to actually make Federal funds available for this sort of research, but he has neither the power nor the inclination to ban private researchers from pursuing any number of stem cell lines they wish.

Moreover, stem cell research is not a panacea for nervous or other organic diseases; it is simply one approach out of many. A lot of it is speculative and theoretical. I personally support its full development, but I'm not stupid enough to believe that the religious Right in this country has been standing in the way of a full range of immediately implementable drugs, therapies, and transplants that could have solved all human disease at some time in the last four horrible, GOP-oppressed years.

So let's review: 1) The Kerrion are chickenshits for trying to use stem cell research and Nancy Reagan's support of it to politically damage the President; 2) John Edwards is a chickenshit for using a man's death to score points with a celebrity-obsessed electorate; 3) Edwards may also either be an ignorant tool who still thinks he's addressing a jury in a tort case and/or he believes that John Kerry is Jesus H. Christ; 4) Stem cell research is not the Fountain of Youth or a cup of ambrosia or a silver bullet or anything else; it is a general line of inquiry into arriving at a cure for many different diseases; 5) The President has actually funded some of this research with our tax money; 6) The President, regardless of his own ethical questions, has no ability or interest in keeping private researchers from exploring as many lines of stem cells as they wish. They'll just have to do it without public money ---which is fine since they're going to be making an investment in their own future profitability by doing this research, anyway.

Thank you for your time.

CORRECTION: Edwards was in Newton, Iowa (not Illinois)when he gave witness to Kerry's healing powers.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who is a surgeon, said:

"I find it opportunistic to use the death of someone like Christopher Reeve -- I think it is shameful -- in order to mislead the American people," Frist said. "We should be offering people hope, but neither physicians, scientists, public servants or trial lawyers like John Edwards should be offering hype.

"It is cruel to people who have disabilities and chronic diseases, and, on top of that, it's dishonest. It's giving false hope to people, and I can tell you as a physician who's treated scores of thousands of patients that you don't give them false hope."

Bitch-slapped.

Gratuitous Picture of Salma Hayek
I'm not burned out yet, but every time I look down, there's little piles of kindling at my feet.

Another three weeks of listening to Big Media trying to put that lying liberal from Dukakichusetts into the White House? It's wearing me down.

In the meantime, enjoy this amazing picture of Salma Hayek.

The Drought Continues
OU beat my Longhorns again today. What a disappointment. The defense was fantastic, as ever, but where the hell are our receivers?

A big part of the problem, as my friend Dave pointed out, is that Vince Young is not a pocket-passer ---yet that's the kind of play-calling that's imposed on him. The guy is a pure option quarterback. Get it? He's at his best when he's on a roll-out. He's got a fine arm, but that's not his first gift. And it's stupid to keep forgetting that.

Oh, well. I guess we're headed to another scintillating appearance in a third-tier bowl. God forbid that these clowns who run Division I-A football think about a ...play-off system.

Bunker-Busted
In these debates, John Kerry has now twice raised his opposition to our development of a bunker-busting nuclear bomb, saying that we shouldn't be expanding our own nuclear weapons capability at the same time we seek to deny it to other countries.

Which means that the man who would be our President thinks more of some profitless point of consistency and "fairness" in the eyes of the world than in reaffirming America's essential goodness and the right to defend herself.

And the Kerrion take offense at the suggestion that their candidate is preferred among the defeatists of Europe and the murderous minds behind Islamofascism?

Because who is it that he seeks to appease by opposing such a class of nuclear weapons? Who is Kerry trying to impress with this foolish equanimity? Only those who already distrust us and who cannot wait for the end of Bush's interregnum of resolve and "unilateralism." People like Kim Jong-Il and the mullahcracy of Iran. When they hear that Kerry is dead set against these ground-penetrating nuclear bombs, they realize that they may yet get away with their own nuclear programs, which they pursue in underground complexes ---the very kind of places that such a bunker-busting nuke is designed to vaporize. And Kerry is telling them that he will put an end to such a technology? What an utter fool. You never tell the enemy what you won't do. You leave all the options on the table and let the enemy wonder just how far he can push it. With us, it is never very far.

Kerry's distrust of America's military power is one of the few consistent strains of his thought. His political life began in exploitation of that distrust and it has never truly abated. As a politician, the only times he has appeared to move beyond it is when he calculated that it would benefit him to be more of a hawk. That isn't the kind of commitment to this war against Islamofascism that we need right now.

Ultimately, Kerry's distrust of America's military power disturbs us most because it ignores the great good that we have put it to in defense of liberty and democratic ideals. Even as I write these words, the people of Afghanistan are exercising their right to vote ---something they have never done in all the centuries of their history. This very day, friends. It shouldn't be necessary to say that this is all thanks to America and her allies and the military power we used to liberate Afghanistan. The Soviets never brought the Afghan people that kind of freedom. Nor did the British Empire or Alexander the Great. We, the People of the United States did that.

So forget your superficial concessions to logical or moral consistency, Senator. They are the hobgoblins of your appeasing, pandering little mind.

Good, the Sorry Sumbitch
It's a fine way to start, but I'd actually prefer to see these people butchered in the middle of my street.

The U.S. government has sued a New Hampshire man in its first attempt to crack down on Internet "spyware" that seizes control of a user's computer without permission.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday asked a federal court to shut down an operation that it said disables users' computers in an attempt to bully them into buying anti-spyware products.

Spywaremongers piss me off something fierce. I hope this new law gives the government the right to charge these people with one count for every computer thus infected. Make it a catastrophic crime that can't be recovered from.

Sorry sumbitches.

Wood That I Could
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: "Back in the Saddle" by Aerosmith
Bush won the debate tonight. And people like him a lot better than Kerry, too. That counts for plenty, especially since this election has moved beyond facts and is now all about emotion.

Can't wait to hear more about the President's timber company, though. Maybe it'll be an even more sinister corporate scandal than...Halliburton.

Dissociative Press
Charles Duelfer's 1,000-page report on the work of the Iraq Survey Group is out now ---and everyone is taking from it what they need to score their points. But, as the Power Line tells it, such partisan interests are finding their way into what should be the standard for America's wire services: the Associated Press.

This is how AP reporter Scott Lindlaw opens his "report" (emphases mine):

President Bush and his vice president conceded Thursday in the clearest terms yet that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, even as they tried to shift the Iraq war debate to a new issue -- whether the invasion was justified because Saddam was abusing a U.N. oil-for-food program.

Ridiculing the Bush administration's evolving rationale for war, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry shot back: "You don't make up or find reasons to go to war after the fact."

Keep in mind that this is a news story about the findings of the Duelfer Report. Thousands of newspapers all across the country and world will run this report verbatim, yet it reads like a Kerry campaign press release.

This is what the President actually said:

The Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the U.N. oil-for-food program to try to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions.

He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program once the world looked away.

Therefore, the Power Line's ire:

So Lindlaw grossly mischaracterizes President Bush's statement. Bush did not invent a "new" rationale for toppling Saddam, or suggest that we went to war simply because Saddam was abusing the oil for food program. The point of Bush's reference to the oil for food program was that Saddam was abusing it for the specific purpose of regaining his WMD capabilities. This is exactly what the ISG report says. Bush correctly characterized the report; Scott Lindlaw incorrectly characterized Bush's point.

Lindlaw's anti-Bush bias is notorious and well-documented. In fact, until Dan Rather decided to ruin his credibility forever in the now-forgotten Killian Forgery Scandal, the boys at the Power Line had already jumped on Lindlaw's ass for another one of his lies.

Go check this out. And remember to not believe everything you read.

You'll Need to Read This
This is one of the best posts I have ever read in any blog anywhere. The guy's name is Bill Whittle and the blog is called Eject!Eject!Eject!

A small morsel:

It all comes down to carrots (liberals) or sticks (conservatives). By the way: if you're in a rush and need to run, here's the spoiler: You can offer a carrot. Not everybody likes carrots. Some people may hate your carrot. Your carrot may offend people who worship the rutabaga. But no one likes being poked in the eye with a stick. That's universal.

Brilliant.

I also very much agree with Whittle's belief that Osama is dead ---and that neither the President nor animals like Zawahiri have any good reason to say so. In Bush's case, if he actually does know what happened at Tora Bora, saying so would give the Islamofascists their martyr; in Zawahiri's case, it would be a demoralizer to know that the great Osama was gotten to by the Great Satan, even though the faithful would carry on with the Osama-as-martyr routine for a while to come.

In any event, this is a great post and should be read by all.

Pressureless Cooker
It doesn't matter that John Kerry vacillates repeatedly and shamelessly on issues large and small; his supporters will not hold it against him. Under any circumstances. Ever.

A couple days ago, for instance, Kerry publicly admitted that he knows that such alleged allies as France and Germany aren't going to send their troops into Iraq to help us. Yet, one of the very few points that Kerry never moves away from is his insistence that he is somehow magically qualified and capable of bringing these countries to our side in Iraq. Does he suffer any consequences for this volte-face? No. Even though it's an absolute refutation of everything he's said for the past nine months? NO.

That their nominee can change course like he does without paying any price can only be explained by the Democrats' intellectual dishonesty. When their only guiding principle is hatred of the President and their only desire is to see him removed, there is nothing else that matters. That would include the many indefensible and self-contradictory positions their candidate has taken and will continue to take until Election Day. The Kerrion willfully ignore all of that because it gets in the way of The Objective. (For real Americans, The Real Objective is putting a stake in the heart of Islamofascism, but let that pass.)

For example ---or pour example, if that will make you feel more at home--- Kerry refused to tell Jim Lehrer during last week's debate that the War for Iraq was a mistake. That is, until he called it a "colossal" mistake. Did the Kerrion notice this? Maybe, but it doesn't matter if they did because what really matters is that he looked Presidential. And did it matter to the party faithful that Kerry insisted that he will stay in Iraq and finish the job? Nope. They didn't hear that part, even though it's exactly what President Bush says, too.

Don't forget that the Democratic Party very much wanted to see Howard Dean take the nomination. Remember him? Dean was the only candidate for the Presidency whom any Democrat ever had any real passion for. Why? Because Dean was genuinely anti-war. Kerry wasn't. Edwards wasn't. And Dean was leading the pack there for quite a while. Until the Democrats realized that they needed to find a candidate whose resume could trump Bush's in one particular: military experience. And Kerry fit the bill even better because he had anti-war credentials from 35 years before. Never mind that, for the six years before Dean came along, Kerry had been as outspoken as any Democrat on the need to remove Saddam Hussein. What mattered now was that Kerry had to find some way to co-opt the Dean anti-war message if he wanted a chance at the nomination. And that is what Kerry did. He stole that support to get ahead.

What does John Kerry really believe about the War for Iraq? No question in today's political scene matters less. Not just because it is irrelevant to the machinations of both the Democratic Party and Kerry himself, but because it is a boring parlor game. If he had a legitimately held position, it would be of very great interest, both contemporarily and historically. But it is a footnote to us because it is an afterthought to him.

There is no pressure on John Kerry. He can say or do anything he pleases now and he will still stumble upon roughly half of the electorate's "approval." That should be a liberating feeling. Tomorrow's debate will tell.

My Take on the Debate
I wasn't able to watch the Vice Presidential debate live last night, but I taped it and watched it later.

There's no question that Dick Cheney won the debate handily. John Edwards did a competent job, but on the major questions, especially with respect to his qualifications to be President, he just didn't have an answer.

Cheney got pretty hot when the Breck Girl continued with the idiotic Kerry line of attack on our allies ---and that includes the Iraqi military and security forces. If people haven't been thinking of those men as being part of the Coalition, maybe it's time they do so. They're fighting for their country with our help, and they deserve our respect. The Kerrion aren't willing to do this. Indeed, they aren't willing ---unless shamed into it--- to acknowledge the sacrifices made by other countries, such as Great Britain, Italy, and Poland.

Cheney's command of the facts, his gravitas, and his long experience are a living argument against Edwards' facile, lawyerly rhetoric. You know who's better able to step into the Oval Office and guide this country. You know which of these two men is the greater resource and counsel to the President.

In Edwards' candidacy, Kerry's judgement has been discredited once again.

Why Isn't This Being TRUMPETED?
The notorious Frenchman John Kerry has admitted that

he probably will not be able to convince France and Germany to contribute troops to Iraq if he is elected president.

The Massachusetts senator has made broadening the coalition trying to stabilize Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign, but at a town hall meeting yesterday, he said he knows other countries won't trade their soldiers' lives for those of U.S. troops.

"Does that mean allies are going to trade their young for our young in body bags? I know they are not. I know that," he said.

Asked about that statement later, Mr. Kerry said, "When I was referring to that, I was really talking about Germany and France and some of the countries that had been most restrained."

"Other countries are obviously more willing to accept responsibilities," he added, as he took questions from reporters in a school yard in Tipton, Iowa.

These are unbelievable remarks. Kerry has known this inconvenient truth for quite a long time now, yet persists with his nonsense that he will somehow be able to bring our so-called allies to the "table." They have never evinced the slightest inclination to help us in Iraq.

And why is that? Not because of some moral objection or some noble faith in Saddamite Iraq's sovereignty ---but for the mere reason that these allies were making billions of dollars off of the kickback scheme built into the Oil-for-Food program. French and Russian companies were making out like bandits and didn't want to see Saddam's regime replaced.

So what does Kerry have to say for himself? How is this admission not a total refutation of his own mantra that we went into Iraq without a legitimate coalition?

If George W. Bush can't hang this around Kerry's neck, he deserves to lose.

Give the People What They Want
In an effort to kill rumors being spread by chickenshit liars in the Democratic Party, the United States House of Representatives yesterday voted 402-2 against a bill that would reinstate the military draft. The bill was authored by New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, a Democrat, and was originally intended to be a protest against the Bush Administration's policy in Iraq. But Rangel, when faced with the reality of having to vote for his little stunt, voted against his own bill, saying:

"It is a prostitution of the legislative process to take a serious issue and use it for political purposes on the eve of the election just to say they are against the draft."

Pure chutzpah, Charlie. Your party, which is full of Moore-ons, Movers-on, and fucking traitors, has been sending out e-mails, flyers, and ---for all I know--- winos in sandwich boards to warn college-aged kids that Bush is going to reinstate the draft if he gets re-elected. It's a big lie and you and Baghdad Jim McDermott and the other lying turds know it, too.

I am a pretty well-read political junkie and not once in the past three years of this war against the Islamofascists have I ever heard any Republican or member of the Bush Administration or any member of the Department of Defense or any active-duty officer in the United States military even suggest that we should reinstitute the draft. On the contrary, I have heard these very same people explicitly and convincingly describe the superiority of the current system of an all-volunteer force. And this would be in every aspect of the troops' morale, desire, sense of duty, and disposition to make the kinds of sacrifices necessary.

I am a colleague of a man who is a 12-year veteran of the US Army and who served in the Gulf War ---and he is working hard and planning to re-up. His sense of duty to himself and his country is what drives him, as is the case with many other such men. The modern military wants the best ---and that's what they get when they accept men and women who want to prove that they are the best.

The Democratic Party are a lot of cut-throat liars and smear-artists. But don't expect them to stop what they're doing anytime soon. They've got an election to try to steal ---let 'em at it.

Demeaned It
Courtesy of Cox & Forkum (the best editorial cartoonists you've never heard of) comes this withering retort from last night's Vice Presidential debate:

EDWARDS: [...] Not only that, 90 percent of the coalition casualties, Mr. Vice President, the coalition casualties, are American casualties. Ninety percent of the cost of this effort are being borne by American taxpayers. It is the direct result of the failures of this administration.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President?

CHENEY: Classic example. He won't count the sacrifice and the contribution of Iraqi allies. It's their country. They're in the fight. They're increasingly the ones out there putting their necks on the line to take back their country from the terrorists and the old regime elements that are still left. They're doing a superb job. And for you to demean their sacrifices strikes me as...

EDWARDS: Oh, I'm not...

CHENEY: ... as beyond...

EDWARDS: I'm not demeaning...

CHENEY: It is indeed. You suggested...

EDWARDS: No, sir, I did not...

CHENEY: ... somehow they shouldn't count, because you want to be able to say that the Americans are taking 90 percent of the sacrifice. You cannot succeed in this effort if you're not willing to recognize the enormous contribution the Iraqis are increasingly making to their own future. We'll win when they take on responsibility for governance, which they're doing, and when they take on responsibility for their own security, which they increasingly are doing.

There's really no question that Dick Cheney could step into the role of President at a moment's notice. But John Edwards? Gimme a break.

Separation Anxiety
Now Playing: "Keep 'Em Separated" by the Offspring
I don't know how it began, but the notion that the War for Iraq and the War against the Terrorists are separate issues is baffling. Well, I say I don't know, but I do: it serves the anti-Bush interests, shared by Big Media and the Democratic Party, to present these two fights as unconnected. One is a justifiable action, even grudgingly consented to by most of the Democrats and even much of Europe; the other is a Halliburton-inspired adventure, embarked upon for filthy lucre and to straighten out some deep-rooted inferiority complex suffered by the Chimperor.

But if you see Iraq and the fight against the al-Qaedists as two stages in a broader war against Islamofascism, then you are more likely to take the longer view of our struggle to liberate Iraq from the grip of murderers and savages. And why shouldn't you take that view? Because George W. Bush didn't explain it you eloquently enough? Because, if the French and Germans were opposed to the war in Iraq, then there must surely have been something wrong with it? Because every time Dan Rather or Peter Jennings showed you an opinion poll, they trotted out one set of numbers for what we have done in Afghanistan and elsewhere against terrorists and another set for our horrible quagmire in Iraq?

They who control the media control the message.

And I see from last night's Vice Presidential debate that John Edwards continues to parrot Kerry's line that there was no connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda. But that is a lie.

As I have written before, con artists like Kerry and Edwards want their base, which is mostly comprised of Oprah-watching dumbasses who take to books and politics like Superman takes to kryptonite, to think that Bush has lied to them.

I think I understand now what the problem is: you people believe that Bushitler claimed that Saddam was behind the atrocities of 11 September 2001 because when you hear the term "al-Qaeda," you only think of "9/11." Thus, when the Bush Administration rightfully claims that the Saddamites and al-Qaeda were linked, your minds elide these three things into one statement: "Bush says Saddam was behind 9-11."

Never mind that Bush has never claimed that Saddam was responsible for the atrocities of 11 September 2001. But he did proclaim once, not too long after that awful morning, that the United States isn't going to wait around while threats gather; nor are we going to make any distinction between terrorists and the countries that harbor them.

Iraq was ---and still is--- one of those countries. Last week, Kerry said that Iraq was not anywhere close to being the frontline in the war against the terrorists, but that is what he needs to tell you. The reality is much different. Read Stephen Hayes' latest article in the Weekly Standard. It's a good wrap-up of the connections between Saddam and al-Qaeda ---and attested to not only by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence but by the Kean Commission itself. You know, that august body whose recommendations John Kerry is so gung-ho to implement.

But it's clear that he's never read their report. Otherwise, he wouldn't keep telling the lie that there was no relationship betwen Saddam and al-Qaeda. Right?

The Barking Moonbat Alights upon Greensburg
In another nauseating turn at the mic, Ter-AY-zuh Heinz (who Charles Johnson at LGF wonders might be "the first barking moonbat First Lady") has done gone plum Evita, insisting that, among other things,

"Every child in America will receive health care from day one if John is elected. Period."

Is that something her consort can decree by imperial edict, or will the Congress have any role to play in that?

Yesterday, at a hotel in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, the foreign-born billionairess made a startling number of other weird remarks, such as her claim that this country is headed towards a huge new state-run health care system:

Under her husband's plan, the government would pay 75 percent of all medical costs above $50,000 per incident[...]

Is it even conceivable that she was authorized to make such an outrageous claim? Did the Senator actually tell her to say that, or is this just more of her bizarre ultra-socialist gibberish? It's unbelievable.

But, naturally, it was Ter-AY-zuh's idiotic remarks on Iraq and the war against the terrorists that has most gotten my goat. Try this comment on for size:

"On 9/12 every single newspaper in the world said 'We are all Americans.' Today it is not the case."

Every single one, eh? Did she mean to say that, or is such hyperbole to be expected when the demonization of her adopted country is demanded?

By sending American troops to Iraq instead of to Afghanistan, Bush permitted Osama bin Laden to escape, Heinz Kerry said.

This is a lie, of course, and criminally stupid to even believe, but such is Kerry's suggestion. He said the President allowed Osama to escape, but no one knows that. Osama could be dead. But don't ask Madeleine Albright that; she thinks he's been on ice for a while, just waiting to be paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue in chains as in a Roman triumph.

"Osama bin Laden is Osama been lost," she said.

Hilarity. How I wish to God Almighty Albright were right. That'd shove the cork so far back down the Kerrion's collective neck that they'd never breathe again.

"The Taliban is back running Afghanistan," Heinz Kerry said.

Well, don't look now, but they're about to have elections in Afghanistan next week. Sure, it's all illegitimate and fixed by Karl Rove and the Bushitler War Machine, Inc., but ten million new voters (40 percent of whom are women who don't know their place) are going to be doing something at the polls next week that they never dreamed of before. Can't we get this billionaire socialite-ist to give 'em their propers?

Iraq under Saddam Hussein was not a hotbed on terrorism, but it is now, she said.

Assuming that Ter-AY-zuh's right, where does she think those terrorists came from? I'm not talking about the homegrown nuts who polish their poles to visions of the Butcher of Baghdad; I'm talking about people like Zarqawi and the Ansr al-Islam and Tawhid murderers. Where does this crusty old clown think they would have gone after they fled our forces in Afghanistan if they hadn't gone to Iraq? Maybe they would have come here. Maybe they would have gone into the Sudan where her consort thinks we should go to save the natives from the Janjaweed. Since there's no reason to suppose that these vermin were planning on giving up the fight against us, isn't there something to be said for meeting them in a place where they are harbored?

The point is that Ter-AY-zuh is an ill-informed, ultra-wealthy dominatrix who can't wait for her shot at the White House. It is her prize for meeting with the Great Unwashed in their fast-food restaurants and high school auditoriums and train stations. But she knows dick about this country. All she knows is how much better it would be if it were just more like France.

And if everyday Americans could get a better look at this creepy broad, you know very well that they would have none of it.