Confederate Yankee
August 20, 2008
Down The Memory Hole at ABC News
We know from prior experience that probing or corrective comments aren't appreciated by ABC's investigative blog The Blotter. Those comments that are "problematic,"—asking the journalists to correct shoddy research is one recurring example—disappear rather quickly.
That same fine tradition of "disappearing" comments is also now a proven tactic of the fine ABC News folks who monitor Jake Tapper's comments (I'll give Tapper himself the benefit of the doubt for now).
In the post where Tapper notes that Obama and McCain
are playing hardball I left the following at 10:43:48,and immediately did a screen capture (Full text below image).
Barack Obama has been deeply involved with the entire Ayers clan--proud terrorist Bill, brother John, lefist lawyer dad Thomas--since 1987.
That's 21 years.
That's as long or longer than he's been with the Black Panther-inspired teachings of Black Liberation Theology screamed weekly from the pulpit of AIDS conspiracy-monger Jeremiah Wright.
That's as long or longer than he's called lynching advocate Michael Fleger his mentor and friend.
So please tell us, Barack Obama, why you have such deep ties with an unashamed terrorist that belonged to a group that that bombed federal buildings, committed armed robberies and murders, and even planned to slaughter innocents at a non-commissioned officers dance at Fort Dix, had Ayer's girlfriend not screwed up making the pipe bombs to be used in the attack, blowing herself to bits instead.
Please tell us, Barack Obama, how you could sit on the board of the Woods Fund, the Chicago Public Education Fund, the ABCs Coalition, etc with Ayers, and be comfortable in the company of a terrorist.
Tell us why you chose to start your political career at the home of one of your oldest allies, a man who once proudly declared war on the United States, and took up arms against it.
We're all ears.
Here are the two posts that came before and after my 10:43:48 comment that was deleted by an ABC News employee, as if it never appeared at all.
It's one thing to delete comments that are profane, trolling, personal attacks, or off-topic. Deleting a comment that lays out a compelling case for a more extensive investigation of the multi-decade relationship between a Presidential candidate and a terrorist?
That's partisan censorship of the most biased kind.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
10:21 PM
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I had the same experience in the same thread tonight. Someone said that Ayers "served his prison term" and i posted a Quote from a chicago sun times article with a link disproving that assertion. They kept deleting it. After about 4 posts they left it but deleted my questions to them (ABC) as to why they were deleting it.
There were no insults in my post or profanity or anything.
It sure felt like I was in China over there.
Posted by: sammy at August 20, 2008 11:31 PM (AfLIk)
Posted by: Purple Avenger at August 20, 2008 11:40 PM (6L459)
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The one good thing about McCain is that he is willing to play hardball, which most real conservative candidates are not.
Posted by: Trish at August 20, 2008 11:52 PM (iHOT3)
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For Less than a Dollar a Day, You, Too, Can Sponsor an Obama...
Sad, sad news... one of Barack Obama's "lost" half-brothers has be discovered living in a hut in a shantytown on the fringes of Nairobi.
We can't expect presidential candidate Barack Obama to support all the children his father sired around the world, but luckily, with the
Obama Family Fund, there is something you can do:
For less than a dollar a day, you, too, can help sponsor an Obama.
-OR-
You can help save
Obama School. Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School is a Kenyan School named after the Illinois Senator, and one the Senator promised to support...though apparently only in spirit.
Save Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School is a non-profit created by USAF veteran, Kenyan-American milblogger Juliette "
Baldilocks" Ochieng.
Help her keep his promise. Its the only thing associated with the name "Obama" really worth giving money too.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
11:07 AM
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Oh hahahahaha, hahahahahaha, wow. Such high-brow politics! And so fun! It's a shame for you and the rest of the confederacists that Obama has millions of donors and volunteers and paid workers all propelling him into the white house.
Posted by: rabbit at August 20, 2008 06:35 PM (HcgFD)
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Ziggy
Hey Rabbit,
Granted the first half of this was "tongue in cheek" but more better you go to Baldilocks site and check her out before you toss around the term "confederacists". Nice lady, USAF vet Kenyan-American.
The appeal to do something at the school which fell off the Anointed One's radar once he hit the airport on the way out of the country is REAL. He made a BUNCH of promises to those folks and has followed through about as well as he will on the ones he's making now. i.e. he's done SQUAT for them.
'Course you may be staring at your cell-phone waiting for the e-mail from the Obamessiah about his VP pick....
Posted by: Ziggy at August 20, 2008 06:36 PM (HcgFD)
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Great site, I love the name of your blog; maybe his Marxist first cousin, PM Odinga, who is trying (oddly enough) to impose Sharia can help his fellow countryman out.
BTW I am, similarly, American by birth and Southern by the grace of God, but have a lifelong devotion (3rd generation) to the New York Yankees, so Confederate Yankee hits close to home, for me as well...
Posted by: Carlos Echevarria at August 20, 2008 06:37 PM (WTS66)
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Hussein O's brother will have a better chance of starting a 'Muslem pig farm in Mecca' that he will of getting a dollar from me.
(stole the Muslem pig farm in Mecca somewhere) Still laughing from reading it.
Posted by: Scrapiron at August 20, 2008 10:59 PM (LdLcX)
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The Chicago Way
Britain's Channel 4 did a longish (9:21) but well-researched expose on who Barack Obama really is; a typical Chicago Machine politician.
(h/t
Obama's Con)
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
09:46 AM
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A new definition of "post-partisan" politics
Posted by: Neo at August 20, 2008 07:56 PM (Yozw9)
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Great. The Brits do an expose on an American nominee for the Presidency before the Americans do.
Posted by: Donna at August 20, 2008 08:37 PM (ibNfa)
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"Great. The Brits do an expose on an American nominee for the Presidency before the Americans do.
Posted by: Donna "
How do you think Americans learned about Whitewater, Dan Lassiter's Arkansas Airforce, etc., etc., etc.?
Rush and Drudge spread the word, but Brits and Isrealis did the investigative reporting.
It certainly didn't come from the MSM! They got dragged into reporting it kicking and screaming, after public outcry about the coverups!
i used to bring printouts of foreign news stories from the internet and leave them on the lunch table at work. People asked my where I got this information and why wasn't it in the local newspaper? "i don't know, why don't you ask the editor?"
Posted by: Ojiisan at August 20, 2008 08:55 PM (VAgJS)
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Obama Lashes Out Over Infanticide Charges, Hides Behind His Daughters
The Barack Obama Campaign is fighting back hard against charges that the candidate supporters what amounts to infanticide with a series of votes in the Illinois State Senate.
CBN News Senior National Correspondent David Brody has been in the thick of the controversy and provides a
very balanced account of the "he said, she said" going on between the Obama camp and National Right to Life committee.
Having read both arguments, I tend to side with NRLC as
being the more truthful.
Perhaps I'm being overly simplistic, but if Stanek is correct, and they have to issue both a birth and a death certificate for the child, Mr. Obama, it isn't an abortion. It's infanticide.
The campaign, in attempting to defend its candidate, has used his daughters as elementary-aged human shields:
The suggestion that Obama – the proud father of two little girls – and others who opposed these bills supported infanticide is deeply offensive and insulting.
Brody even seems to
buy into that argument.
Obama is a father of two young girls. You can bet that attacks like that will get him or any father riled up. That language seems to be way over the top. His critics can paint him as a pro-choice liberal. That's fair but to go any further is really beyond the pale. Is Obama really sinister, a monster? That narrative may fly in some conservative circles and in chat rooms but most Americans won't buy it.
Perhaps Mr. Brody needs to be reminded of the words
he quoted coming out of Mr. Obama's mouth in March.
"When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence education and teaching the children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information."
"I don't want them punished with a baby."
Barack Obama is a very wealthy man by any measure, quite capable of raising any grandchild that would result from a daughter's accidental pregnancy. That he would so casually call his own grandchild a "punishment" worth eradicating is certainly the sign of a monster in my eyes.
Your opinion may differ, but it seems to me that a man who could so casually announce that he would support—no,
advocate—the killing of his own grandchild to get rid of an inconvenience, a "punishment," is certainly the kind of monster who can hear a heart-wrenching first-hand account of a nurse holding an uncared-for abortion survivor until the baby died, and still be opposed to stopping such inhumanity not just once, but on multiple occasions.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
09:24 AM
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Another leftist squeals like a stuck pig when when the light of truth is shined upon his own actions.
I wonder what Michelle did to earn her two punishments, and if that serial punishment is why she was just getting around to being proud of her country for the first time this past year?
Posted by: GL at August 20, 2008 11:31 AM (vpAFg)
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Hiding behind the skirts of his daughters, how brave. Still haven't heard the Obamanation apologize to the NRLC and to the country for his lies on this issue. The argument seems to be that since SS concentration camp guards had daughters and sons, therefore they couldn't have been for murder against Jews and other internees at those camps. While the guards might have been 'personally' against murder of their own family members, they facilitated these actions imposed on strangers. So does that make the guards morally neutral or positive because they were protective of their family or had families?
It is a non-sequitur.
Posted by: eaglewingz08 at August 20, 2008 01:12 PM (W88Qb)
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I'm the father of a young girl the age of Obama's daughter. When I envision her teen years, I very much don't want her to adapt values and morals that would lead her to early, casual sexual relations. I don't want her to view intimacy in that light; I don't want her to contract a STD, I don't want her to become a pregnant teen, outside of marriage to a loving, mature, responsible husband and father.
So I have a great deal of empathy with Obama, on this issue.
CY, I appreciate you giving the context of the "punished with a baby" quip. I wouldn't use those words (and didn't, in the paragraph above), but I see what he's getting at. Knowing sex as merely a physical act/catching gonnorhea, herpes, etc./getting pregnant too early in life/facing the prospects of unwed single motherhood... these would be, I'll say, tribulations for my daughter that would pain me greatly.
In thinking about his actual daughter, he used the word "punished," and applied to her, I think his remarks are those of a concerned parent. And yes, his grammar does imply that the hypothetical baby is the punishment. But I don't at all think that that was what he was getting at, or thinking.
Poorly-chosen sentence structure doesn't make a person into a monster.
Posted by: AMac at August 20, 2008 02:57 PM (Djzc+)
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Eh, I can't tell if my 2:57pm comment is in (shows when I click on "Comments") or spam-filtered out (missing if I click on "Show Comments").
Posted by: AMac at August 20, 2008 03:04 PM (Djzc+)
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Yes, BUT, this guy is considered to be "brilliant" - the smartest guy in the room. So in that context, "misspeaking" or poor choice of words have more weight than if you or I mispoke.
He also claims for himself some ability to 'bridge' the divide in our politics - and yet his ACTIONS are not one of a man who will unite a divided America, but of a man who has chosen one ideological extreme as his own. So what's the "hoped for change" he's offering America, exactly?
He promised Planned Parenthood that his FIRST act as President would be to sign FOCA. Now for those who don't know, that act would wipe out every state law restricting abortion... it would roll back the gains of the pro-life movement of the last 30 years. If you think that will produce a Kumbaya, 'we're all One" euphoric experience of national unity you are delusional.
He is thus promising to overturn the will of the majority of the American people as expressed through their state legislatures over the course of 30 years.... and that is the "what" behind his rhetoric of "hope" and "change".
Posted by: Joe at August 20, 2008 03:04 PM (xgQeg)
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Nevermind the nonchalont attitude in Ubumma's comments regarding the (lack of) personal accountablity. Maybe the girl should have considered the consequences of her actions before jumping into bed. That too, would have stopped an unwanted pregnancy, without the need to involve others, and without "punishing" anyone. Silly me, thinking that teaching my daughters to think about the possible results and consequences of their actions is a parents' job.
Posted by: Mikey J at August 21, 2008 03:25 PM (j1ILX)
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August 19, 2008
Shocker: NY Times Decries Laughably Incompetent Taliban Rout As "Complex Attack"
You've got to be kidding me:
The attack on Camp Salerno in Khost Province was one of the most complex attacks seen so far in Afghanistan with multiple suicide bombers and a backup fighting force that tried to breach defenses on to the airport at the base. It followed a suicide car bombing at the outer entrance to the same base on Monday morning, which killed 12 Afghan workers lining up to enter the base, and another attempted bombing that was thwarted shortly after.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for all three attacks in Khost. Their spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahed, reached by telephone at an unknown location, said that 15 suicide bombers, equipped with machine guns and vests packed with explosives, with 30 militants backing them up, attacked the base, one of the largest foreign military bases in Afghanistan. He claimed that some of the bombers had gotten inside the base and had killed a number of American soldiers and destroyed equipment and helicopters. This last claim was denied by General Azimi of the Afghan military.
Suicide bombers mull about while preparing for an attack against a fortified U.S./Afghan position, receive minimal support in the form of small arms cover fire from a small band of untrained militant irregulars before helicopters chop them to bits, and this is what the
Times considers a "complex attack?"
No artillery or mortar support.
No mention of any flanking attack or feints.
No mention of even minimal attempts to camouflage the suicide bombers by disguising them as civilians or base workers or members of the opposite sex.
As a matter of fact, they didn't even manage a straight ahead, mindless assault into interlocking fields of fire. They got spotted well outside the perimeter and got cut to shreds while still 1,000 yards outside the base, and the majority of the Taliban seem to have been killed
as they tried to flee. Is it even fair to say they were killed in an attack, when it appears they were blown to bits before the attack began?
Not that I'm singling out the
Times for crappy coverage of the attack, The
Scotsman account sounds like a
Monty Python skit:
NATO troops and Taliban fighters clashed today after a group of the insurgents, backed by suicide bombers, tried to breach the defences of the main US base in south-eastern Afghanistan.
Backed by suicide bombers? I guess that is one way of making sure there will be no retreat.
The attack on the French base, by contrast, had far more deadly ramifications, with 10 French soldiers killed and another 21 wounded, but for the
Times to try to inflate the importance or the complexity of the Taliban attack on Camp Salerno beyond the buffonish, ill-advised and utter failure that it was isn't simply bad reporting, but verges on making excuses for the other side.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
12:06 PM
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C'mon, CY!
Once you understand the coding of the stories, it's much easier.
If the Taliban attack, it's a complex attack (b/c that means that they're able to attack, which means George W. Bush failed us).
If it succeeds, it's an offensive, and we're about to lose.
If it fails, then the evil Americans shot them in the back as they fled, and that's just not sporting. Haditha and Abu Ghraib all over again!
Of course, the code would be different if a Dem were in power.
Posted by: Lurking Observer at August 19, 2008 01:17 PM (QlYAH)
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The Scotsman account sounds like a Monty Python skit
Yes... this one.
Posted by: Russ at August 19, 2008 01:20 PM (5fmXL)
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Very clever, Lurking Observer
Posted by: ECM at August 19, 2008 01:43 PM (q3V+C)
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Since the media is actively rooting for the enemy they have to do something
Posted by: Capitalist Infidel at August 19, 2008 03:36 PM (kNqJV)
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What happened to all the doomsday Iraq coverage in the MSM?
Posted by: Saltine at August 19, 2008 04:15 PM (9v34C)
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It all depends on the meaning of
"complex". 15 suicide bombers? Complex stupidity.
Posted by: Biscuiteater at August 19, 2008 07:31 PM (2JF/+)
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What really grinds my gears is to hear His Lord High Hopechangeyness, the Obamamessiah (PBUH) spouting how the surge failed and yadda yadda yadda.... It's wearing on me that he keeps saying how there's been no 'reconcilliation' and all the other shytte he's been pushing... I'd really love to see General Patreaus come out and say something publicly like "Oh so sorry Senator 143... It's only been what? Not even 9 months? Aaaaannnnd just what have YOU accomplished in the senate in the same timeframe? Besides becoming the most egocentric, presumptuous and fatuous candidate this side of Caligula? Siddown and Shuddup and let us work."
Posted by: Big Country at August 19, 2008 07:48 PM (niydV)
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Well, a bungled attack by muddled suicide bombers and "insurgents" probably looks like Omaha Beach to most members of the MSM. Their experience with military strategy amounts to playing "Battleship" when they were kids.
Posted by: Donna at August 19, 2008 08:58 PM (oEqhN)
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You seem unwilling to refer to the entire statement made in the article: "one of the most complex attacks seen so far in Afghanistan."
Why?
Are you familiar enough with all the Taliban attacks made over the past few years that you can say with certainty that this is not accurate?
If so, please provide the context.
PS, you might try finding "military contacts" (I believe that's your term) who can pass along military terminology that doesn't make you look silly repeating it.
Posted by: skylark at August 19, 2008 10:15 PM (B5Q3+)
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The term "complex attack" is used by both the UNDSS and ANSO in their daily incident reports here in Afghanistan. It means an attack using more than one weapon system (small arms, RPG's, mortars etc..) Under that definition virtually every attack here is a complex attack because of the use of RPG's.
I am familiar enough with Taliban attacks over the past four years (I'm also a retired Marine infantry officer) to say without reservation that this was not one of the most complex attacks by the Taliban - about 3 dozen better examples come immediately to mind. If the NY Times had a reporter here worthy of the name they would know that. But it is hard to report on Khost when your hanging at the Gandymack in Kabul enjoying sundowners and hash every evening. Can't expect the poor babies to actually get around and see something for themselves now can we? Nor is it fair to expect that they know anything about the fundamentals or dynamics of military operations...I mean it has been only four years since the first journalist embeds - the "profession" needs time to catch up (I guess?)
Posted by: Baba Tim at August 19, 2008 11:04 PM (hmXME)
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skylark - You are just another lib who doesn't know enough about military matters to comment intelligently about the post. Wouldn't the smart thing to do be to remain silent until you learn enough to frame and intelligent question instead of making yourself look stupid?
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 19, 2008 11:24 PM (i/fLn)
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Baba Tim:
Thanks very much for the helpful info.
However, do you see anything in the article that suggests the NYT meant the term in the more technical way that the UNDDS and ANSO use it? Especially in the sense that if an action is either a "complex attack" or isn't, there could be no such thing as "one of the most complex attacks."
For example, here is the way I see the incident discussed in the article:
"Taliban insurgents mounted their most serious attacks in six years of fighting in Afghanistan over the last two days, including a coordinated assault by at least 10 suicide bombers against one of the largest American military bases in the country, and another by about 100 insurgents who killed 10 elite French paratroopers."
....
"As a result, this year is on pace to be the deadliest in the Afghan war so far , as the insurgent attacks show rising zeal and sophistication. The insurgents are employing not only a growing number of suicide and roadside bombs, but are also waging increasingly well-organized and complex operations using multiple attackers with different types of weapons , NATO officials say."
From the rest of your comment, it doesn't seem like you're relying on the technical definition either, but in your opinion it is not one of the more complex - in the sense of sophisticated - attacks over the past several years. I suppose that's arguable. However, the blogger didn't even bother to put it in that much context, did he?
By the way, it seems the NYT is not alone in reporting that Taliban fighters are using more "complex" tactics:
DoD: Armed Forces Press Release
(The Pentagon seems to think the attack on the French qualifies as a "complex attack" in the technical sense.)
Stars and Stripes
As to whether the NYT reporter is "worthy of the name" or not, I won't judge, but a quick search shows that Ms. Gall's byline appears on over 1300 NYT articles, with nearly 1,000 of them on the war in Afghanistan, dating from November 2001. Before that she was based in the Balkins and wrote for the NYT on the conflicts in that region.
(For some reason the system would not let me post a link to the article archives, but if you click on her hypertext byline, you will be taken there.)
Posted by: skylark at August 20, 2008 12:18 AM (B5Q3+)
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PS to Baba Tim - You didn't go to Servite, did you?
Posted by: skylark at August 20, 2008 12:23 AM (B5Q3+)
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I doubt that if we lost a battle that handedly,without killing a single enemy combatant, the newspapers would describe it as "bold", "complex", "sophisticated", or "coordinated".
ABC called it a "daring attack on a major American installation"
It's odd that they use such a positive adjective for such buffoonery. Daring? I suppose it was. But not in the way they mean it.
I wonder if the writers even believe the narrative.
-Militants launched a bold, highly complex, sophisticated, coordinated, daring attack on a major American installation, in which they totally failed and got gunned down like fools, without killing a single American. But it was bold, darn it.
Posted by: brando at August 20, 2008 12:51 AM (Gs5OS)
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PS on Carlotta Gall:
Looks like she gets around a fair amount.
PBS interview
Posted by: skylark at August 20, 2008 02:35 AM (B5Q3+)
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skylark - Nice try. An appeal to authority? She's written a lot of articles so she must know something? The attack on the french base was complex at least?
Try reading for comprehension instead of scorecard keeping and you might do better. CY explicitly differentiates between the two attacks. You still haven't said why you believe the attack with the 10 suicide bombers and 15 people standing around with their thumbs up their butts was complex.
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 20, 2008 07:30 AM (i/fLn)
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Have you ever tried herding suicide bombers? Its like trying to herd cats. That's complicated stuff.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at August 20, 2008 09:22 AM (6L459)
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The complexity of an attack is not really the issue, the fact that the attack utterly failed in it's apparent objective is what should really matter. This is just one more example of the MSM's disgust with the US military. The terms they use tell it all as they give all credit to the Taliban and never mention the US Military in a positive light. It does not show any insight or intelligence on the reporters part, just her bias.
Posted by: AlpacaRob at August 20, 2008 10:08 AM (aMBco)
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In ref to AlpacaRob's post, I'd say we could go a step further: it was their best effort yet, and still failed miserably. I absolutely love it when the Taliban gather in a nice, neat mob so we can gun more of them down before they can do any damage. Thanks for making such an attractive target, boys - keep up the good work.
Posted by: Tim at August 20, 2008 10:33 AM (3Wewy)
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If only they could understand the complex nature of the 4000 American soldiers who have given their lives for freedom, thankyou.
Posted by: biscuiteater at August 20, 2008 12:06 PM (2JF/+)
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I see that multiculturalism has made its way into war reportage.
Posted by: tsmonk at August 20, 2008 12:34 PM (PTFqS)
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The spread was four suicide bombers, no closer than 2,000 yards, and three self inflicted bloody crotches from trigger happy Taleban. The Taleban took the money.
For the next clash replace the three bloody crotches with six unplanned defecations and two martyrs from RPGs loaded backwards.
Posted by: Bel Aire at August 20, 2008 09:21 PM (xU01p)
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daleyrocks-
My comment about the reporter was in response to a commenter who made certain observations about NY Times reporters. He is welcome to make up his mind about her qualifications and so are you. I am certain you will take the time to read a few of her articles before you do, dilligent researcher that you are.
By the way, you have your facts wrong about the incident and about the fighters. It appears that Bob does too.
Long War Journal
But that's not so much the point. Bob took a single qualified sentence in the article - that it was one of the most complex attacks seen so far in Afghanistan - and parsed and twisted it so he could lecture us on a false issue. At the same time he had some conventional warfare terms he wanted to throw around, no matter how inapplicable they might be to the question. Plus, hey, they got killed! Another irrelevancy.
The question is whether this particular attack qualifies as "one of the most complex seen so far." According to Baba Tim it's debateable. Fair enough, then debate it in the context of what you actually know or are willing to research about the history of the conflict. It seems to me to at least fit within the NATO official's description of attacks that use multiple attackers with different types of weapons (the latter of which, according to Baba Tim, would seem to make it qualify as a "complex attack" in the technical use of the term).
Of course Bob and a some of his commenters don't seem to have a problem inflating the single sentence into a condemnation of liberal media, etc. etc., all the while ignoring the actual point of the article - that Taliban attacks are escalating, and getting more sophisticated and more deadly overall. An assessment which the Pentagon and NATO, among others, share.
They must be making excuses for the other side.
Posted by: skylark at August 20, 2008 11:24 PM (79kdb)
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"Of course Bob and a some of his commenters don't seem to have a problem inflating the single sentence into a condemnation of liberal media, etc. etc., all the while ignoring the actual point of the article"
skidmark - Based on your comments here and their laughable connection to reality (a present vote can not in any way be considered to have the effect of a no vote?), it seems indeed it is your function to cherry pick Bob's sentences or words and attack them rather than focusing on the substance of his posts. If your focus wasn't to merely produce snarky comments on subjects which you are woefully uninformed, people would take you more seriously.
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 20, 2008 11:53 PM (i/fLn)
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"skidmark - Based on your comments here and their laughable connection to reality (a present vote can not in any way be considered to have the effect of a no vote?), it seems indeed it is your function to cherry pick Bob's sentences or words and attack them rather than focusing on the substance of his posts. If your focus wasn't to merely produce snarky comments on subjects which you are woefully uninformed, people would take you more seriously."
Well, aren't you the clever one. Am I supposed to come up with an equally juvenile nickname for you?
I suggest you go back and read what I posted in the Obama thread again.
Cherry picking BO's sentences and words? Hello, it was an entire post, premised on his own private interpretation of a single sentence from an article, so he could trash the NYT.
The substance of his post was that, notwithstanding the article's clear statement that the attack was ONE of the most complex seen yet in Afghanistan, the NYT was inflating a "laughably incompetent Taliban rout as a 'complex attack.'"
Aside from the fact that it actually probably did qualify as a "compelx attack" in the technical sense of the term, the rest of the post is almost entirely factually incorrect.
Evidently he thinks all guerrilla maneuvers should fall into the conventional warfare mode to be considered the least bit "competent." Thus, using a few inapplicable terms he's cut and pasted from Wars R Us, he can pronounce the entire incident "laughably incompetent."
This was an incident where SEVEN suicide bombers got to within just over half a mile of a fortified American base. They were discovered "shortly" before they were to make their assault.
They were coordinated enough to use a diversionary tactic like mortar and rocket fire while the bombers made their way to the target.
Their plan was not dependent on heavy armed support or large numbers, and it was not a full on frontal assault. Any stealth mission like that can be taken out by an overwhelming show of force. So what?
But these facts do show us how clueless your favorite blogger is. For instance, he insists they should have tried "flanking attacks" because...well, yeah, they could have surrounded the base. He's incredulous bombers on a stealth mission didn't "manage a straight ahead, mindless assault." Oh and maybe best of all, he sniffs: "No mention of even minimal attempts to camouflage the suicide bombers by disguising them as civilians or base workers or members of the opposite sex." Uhm, does the concept of stealth under cover of darkness escape him completely?
There, I'm pretty sure I've focused on the substance of his post.
Posted by: skylark at August 21, 2008 08:55 PM (B4ZzX)
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skidmark - You seem to have a learning disability of some sort.
The Taliban and Al Qaeda have been employing more complex attacks in Afghanistan this year. That is a fact. The attack on Camp Salerno described by Carlotta Gall was not one of them, which was the point of Bob's post, which has yet to trgister in your brain. He is mocking the NY Times for that description.
The Scotsman described the attack as brazen. There is no mention of complexity in describing the attack at Long War Journal or in the ISAF press release describing how all the attackers got chewed up before they dot within 1000 meters of the base. Complex is a fiction created by the NY Times to describe the attack.
If you find another story describing it that way please feel free to cite it here.
Temember, reading is fundamental, especially for comprehension. You continue to be just a skidmark on this site.
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 21, 2008 11:45 PM (i/fLn)
27
And so you are reduced not just to calling other commenters puerile names, but to repeating "Is not!" Is NOT !!!"
I'm not sure "reduced" is the right word, though. I don't see where your posts have ever really surpassed that level.
You take care now.
Posted by: skylark at August 22, 2008 12:27 AM (B4ZzX)
28
Left out of prior:
"The attack on Camp Salerno described by Carlotta Gall was not one of them, which was the point of Bob's post, which has yet to trgister in your brain. He is mocking the NY Times for that description."
He just doesn't seem to be able to do it in any accurate way.
But once again...you take care, little buddy.
Posted by: skylark at August 22, 2008 12:33 AM (B4ZzX)
29
skidmark - I believe you are the only commenter I renamed on this thread.
You are also the only commenter on the thread who had difficulty understanding the concept of the post.
Explain to me who has issues again please.
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 22, 2008 10:44 AM (i/fLn)
30
Just a coincidence that I am the only one who disagrees with the post.
Posted by: skylark at August 22, 2008 08:18 PM (TWoHp)
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A Terrorist Founded It. Obama Was Its Chairman.
That's all some need to know about the Chicago Annenburg Challenge.
Others may want more details explaining why Barack Obama directly lied about the extent of his involvement with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, founder of the Challenge. Obama has claimed that Ayers was just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," which isn't even close to being true. Obama has had a relationship with Ayers since
at least 1987...roughly as long of a relationship as he's had with racist conspiracy theorist Jeremiah Wright, lynching advocate Michael Fleger, and the other far left liberals, Marxist-Leninists, and SDS veterans that make up Obama's base of power in the infamously corrupt world of Chicago Democratic politics.
Obama kicked off his political career with a fundraiser at the home of Ayers and fellow Weather Underground terrorist (and Charles Manson fan) Bernadine Dohrn. Bill Ayers and Obama sat on the board of directors for the Woods Fund. Obama also had a relationship with Thomas Ayers (Bill's father) as Chicago Public Education Fund on the Fund's Leadership Council. He also served alongside Thomas Ayers and Bill's brother John Ayers on the "Leadership Council" of the Chicago Public Schools Education Fund. Obama was part of the ABCs Coalition, created by Thomas Ayers and coordinated by Bill. The truth of the matter is that to Barack Obama, terrorist Bill Ayers is "just some guy in the neighborhood" to which he has deep and abiding personal, professional, and political ties dating back two decades.
How deep do those ties go? Thats a very good question that it seems some people don't want answered. NRO's Stanley Kurtz had been granted access to review 132 boxes of internal documentation from the Chicago Annenburg Challenge at the Richard J. Daley Library, only to
have that access barred.
Kurtz seems to think Bill Ayers might be behind blocking access to these documents. It rather makes you wonder what information those documents may hold.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
10:22 AM
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And this will get how much coverage outside of the right side of the BOS or NR, etc.?
Tip to McCain: you can potentially bury the man with this sort of revelation...
Posted by: ECM at August 19, 2008 01:44 PM (q3V+C)
2
"COVER UP! FREEDOM OF INFORMA......what? It's potentially damaging information about a democrat"?
"Oh".
"PRIVACY! GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR PERSONAL LIVES"!
Posted by: Pardo at August 19, 2008 04:19 PM (9v34C)
3
Paging Sandy Burger, cleanup on aisle 5.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at August 19, 2008 08:41 PM (6L459)
4
Tip to McCain: you can potentially bury the man with this sort of revelation...
I think just an ad featuring that photo Ayers stomping on an American flag and accompanied by the quote published on September 11, 2001 "I don't think we (the Weathermen) did enough" would do considerable damage. Of course, the Obamabots will scream "Swiftboat," but it would force the MSM to shine a light on Bomber Billy. And what's there ain't pretty.
Let's hope the McCain camp is keeping it as an ace up their sleeve.
Posted by: Donna at August 19, 2008 08:47 PM (oEqhN)
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RNC Accuses Obama Bundler of Supporting Iraqi Insurgency
Considering that the bundler in question is Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, it certainly seems possible:
The RNC quoted a January 15, 2006 column by Robert Novak that said, "Code Pink, At A Mock War Crimes Tribunal In Istanbul June 27, Signed A
Declaration That The Iraqi Insurgency 'Deserved The Support Of People Everywhere Who Care For Justice And Freedom.'"
Evans represented Code Pink at the mock war crimes tribunal. In addition to expressing Code Pink's support for the insurgency, Evans published a statement from Istanbul personally endorsing the insurgency that has killed thousands of American troops and free Iraqis:
"We must begin by really standing with the Iraqi people and defending their right to resist. I can remain myself against all forms of violence, and yet I cannot judge what someone has to do when pushed to the wall to protect all they love. The Iraqi people are fighting for their country, to protect their families and to preserve all they love. They are fighting for their lives, and we are fighting for lies." (AlterNet, June 26, 2005)
Evans has a close relationship with the Obama campaign. She hosted Obama's first Hollywood fundraiser in February 2007, along with Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and her ex-husband Max Palevsky.
According to Evans' Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, Evans is on a first name basis with Obama and discussed Iraq policy with Obama at another Hollywood fundraiser on June 24, 2008.
Evans is listed on the Obama website as having bundled between $50,000 and $100,000. She has also contributed the maximum $2300 to his primary campaign, according to FEC records.
But lest you think Evans is just another patriotic Democrat who was perhaps a bit overzealous with her opposition to the Iraq War, remember what she said just months ago about 9/11.
In addition to supporting the insurgency in Iraq, Evans recently expressed her agreement with Osama bin Laden's reasons for attacking America on September 11, 2001 in an interview broadcast June 3, 2008:
Jodie Evans:..."We were attacked because we were in Saudi Arabia, that was the message of Osama, was that because we had our bases in the Middle East, he attacked the United States."
Paul A. Ibbetson: "Do you think that's a valid argument?"
Evans: "Sure. Why do we have bases in the Middle East? We totally violated the rights of that country. Why do we get to have bases in the Middle East?"
Also in that interview, Evans said Code Pink's goal is to "undermine the war effort (of the United States"
and that she wished Saddam Hussein was still in power.
Of course, this is an RNC press release quoting Evans apparent admission of treason or sedition (I'm not a lawyer, and don't claim to know which, if either, applies) , so I'd like to hear from our lefty readers precisely how Evans' work for the insurgency has been taken out of context.
If these allegations can be substantiated in any way, should the Obama campaign return the money Evans helped bundle? Should Obama keep up ties with a person who seems to have not admitted proudly opposing her own nation during war time, but also active worked against it?
I don't think Obama needs to give back all of the money Evans bundled, but it would send a clear signal that he will not tolerate the undermining of American foreign policy and the sacrifices of American servicemen operating in harm's way if he were to return Evans' individual contributions, along with those contributions that may have come from other individuals of similar dubious character. It would also be wise for Obama to sever further ties with Evans and other members of Code Pink, a radical organization now best know for protests attempting to
shut down a Marine recruiting office and calling Marines "assassins," or worse.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
09:31 AM
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1
Ms. Evans, meet the bus.
It's time for the treason laws to be rekindled in this country.
Posted by: Lord Nazh at August 19, 2008 10:05 AM (sBNzZ)
2
Didn't Code Pink actually give money to jihadis based in Fallujah?
Posted by: Rob Crawford at August 19, 2008 10:48 AM (IuKAf)
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Why did we have bases in Saudi Arabia? Kuwait? Because we were INVITED there. Whenever we have been asked to leave, we left. See the Phillipines, see France in 1966, see Libya in 1969.
Posted by: XBradTC at August 19, 2008 12:00 PM (pSXbN)
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Time to call for the removal of American troops from Germany. I'd like to see the left wing democrat heads exploding from that proposal since Russia invaded Geogia in it's first action to reassemble the USSR.
Posted by: Scrapiron at August 19, 2008 12:40 PM (I4yBD)
5
Jodie Evans is a digusting sorry excuse for a human being; she is a traitor & a scumbag.
During WWII, she would have been tried, prosecuted and been given justice she rightly deserves...
Posted by: Carlos Echevarria at August 20, 2008 02:00 PM (WTS66)
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Dems in Distress
Perhaps with "patriotism" being a word most often spit than said by those on the far left, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that the Democratic National Committee screwed this up:
Some viewers contacted 9NEWS Saturday, questioning the design of the credentials to see Sen. Barack Obama accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination at INVESCO Field at Mile High.
The viewers say with the stars and blue field in the lower left corner, it looks like an upside down American flag. Published flag etiquette states the stars should always be displayed in the upper left corner. An upside down flag represents an international symbol of extreme distress.
Matt Chandler with the Obama campaign says the flag is not upside down. He says it is a stylized flag designed to blend the stars on Senator Obama's shirt with the flag blowing in the wind.
Natalie Wyeth with the Democratic National Convention Committee sent 9NEWS the following statement Saturday night: "The DNCC community credentials incorporate patriotic design elements. They do not depict an actual American flag. The DNCC has full and complete respect for the flag and all rules of display."
A composite of two images in a hologram, the credentials show the following.
What an interesting parsing by these two Democrats. Obama loyalist Chandler actually asks us to ignore our lying eyes, which clearly shows an inversion with the stars in the lower right orientation, while Wyeth parses that this isn't an
actual flag, so the perceived slight is the fault of those who see it, not the fault of the DNCC.
The concerns of those Americans who understand flag etiquette and the meaning of an inverted flag has been compounded by some on the far left, who have noted that this is not the flag they are familiar with either, lacking the
orange, crackling glow to which they have become accustomed.
(h/t
Weasel Zippers and
Hot Air, which notes another possible source for the inverted flag in an update.)
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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This is totally understandable. This is the only flag democrats and liberals respect and admire. The American flag is something they have to pretend to have respect for.
Posted by: Capitalist Infidel at August 19, 2008 09:11 AM (kNqJV)
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I think you could also describe the picture as Socialism "wrapped up in the flag".
Posted by: sharprightturn at August 19, 2008 09:17 AM (/qKVR)
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"He says it is a stylized flag designed to blend the stars on Senator Obama's shirt with the flag blowing in the wind. (emp added)"
Kind of wraps up the whole thing doesn't it...
Posted by: Lord Nazh at August 19, 2008 10:09 AM (sBNzZ)
4
lacking the orange, crackling glow to which they have become accustomed.
*rimshot*
LOL! Nicely zinged!
Posted by: Justacanuck at August 19, 2008 11:11 AM (chosq)
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democrats want to lose
and therefore did not fully vet the candidate they shoved down everyone's throat. I am the first blogger to blog about Obama's abortion vote and how it would become the october surprise...they have michelle obama on tape defending live birth abortion, and raising money for it too...(they called this "the whitey" tape, but its far better than just that kind of a boring thing...she is on tape defending sucking the brains out of babies who live through late term abortions). This is the greatest gift pelosi and dean can give to the republicans they work for. It took alot of doing in order to throw this election to the republicans after iraq, katrina, and the economy, but pelosi and dean found a way!
...
Wow! michelle obama on tape defending live birth abortion
Even "Crazy Larry" never came up with that one.
I wonder what drugs they are using.
Posted by: Neo at August 19, 2008 11:12 AM (Yozw9)
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August 18, 2008
Jeremiah Denton Must be Lying, Too
As Andrew Sullivan, Jane Hamsher, Steve Benen, and other liberal bloggers try to discredit John McCain's story of compassion shown by a North Vietnamese prison guard as being stolen from a similar experience related between Russian author Solzhenitsyn and another prisoner, I'm forced to ask: when are the going to go after Jeremiah Denton?
Denton was another U.S Navy pilot shot down in Vietnam, a contemporary of McCain's in the same brutal North Vietnamese prisons ... and also the beneficiary of
surprising Christian compassion from the North Vietnamese:
Denton also found strength in his fellow captives. The Americans were forbidden to communicate with each other. But that didn't stop them. They communicated in Morse code and other number-based codes they devised and transmitted through blinks, coughs, sneezes, taps on the wall and even sweeps of a broom.
"I experienced what I couldn't imagine human nature was capable of," Denton said. "I witnessed what my comrades could rise to. Self-discipline, compassion, a realization there is a God."
He also experienced periodic compassion from the North Vietnamese. Sometimes the guards would weep as they tortured him.
One experience, he will never forget. Denton kept a cross, fashioned out of broom straws, hidden in a propaganda booklet in his cell. The cross was a gift from another prisoner. When a guard found the cross, he shredded it. Spat on it. Struck Denton in the face. Threw what was left of the cross on the floor and ground his heel into it.
"It was the only thing I owned," Denton said.
Later, when Denton returned to his cell, he began to tear up the propaganda booklet. He felt a lump in the book. He opened it. "Inside there was another cross, made infinitely better than the other one my buddy had made," Denton said.
When the guard tore up the cross, two Vietnamese workers saw what happened and fashioned him a new cross. "They could have been tortured for what they did," Denton said.
Denton survived the war and returned home, and like McCain, became a Republican Senator.
It is also worth noting that Denton switched parties to become a Republican precisely because of the far Left's attacks on the military—including those from
people like John Kerry—in the first place.
Update: And via
Instapundit, a confirmation of McCain's story from another Hanoi Hilton alumni, reporting he
first heard the story in 1971, two years prior to Solzhenitsyn's book coming out.
Will Sullivan, Hamsher, Benen, the Kossacks, etc apologize for attempting to discredit McCain?
Update: What's even worse than accusing McCain of stealing Solzhenitsyn's work? Finding out that Solzhenitsyn
didn't write such a story. The walkbacks will be very interesting indeed.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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1
Yeah whatever. Barack once had to go an entire week without fresh arugula.
Game. Set. Match.
Posted by: Pardo at August 18, 2008 03:46 PM (9v34C)
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I find it hard to believe that anyone on the left has ever read the Gulag Archipelago....leftist people are so dense.
Posted by: Jack at August 18, 2008 03:57 PM (Ss83y)
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I'm gobsmacked that you would call Andrew Sullivan a liberal blogger. He obviously has Conservative Soul.
Posted by: mpc at August 18, 2008 04:05 PM (VGfif)
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...The Left actually read a book critical of the Soviet System? HAH! They probably went to wikipedia and lifted the cliff notes version.... After all, we can't have The Comrade Obamamessiah look foolish and out of touch now can we... oops... too late.
Posted by: Big Country at August 18, 2008 04:08 PM (niydV)
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Will Sullivan, Hamsher, Benen, the Kossacks, etc apologize for attempting to discredit McCain?
No.
OTOH it is a pretty good indication of how desperate they must be.
I'm predicting Obama in the low to mid 40s come November.
BTW I believe Kerry was doing 3 to 6 points better at this point in his campaign.
I can't wait until Denver. The circus clowns should put on an excellent show.
Posted by: M. Simon at August 18, 2008 04:09 PM (OANt1)
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The generic democrat does 12% better than Barack against McCain so something is wrong. Are they in full panic mode yet? It's getting close.
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 18, 2008 04:18 PM (i/fLn)
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There is absolutely no question that McCain has told this story before. I was already very familiar with it in evangelical circles before this interview.
5s with google turns up that he was telling this story back in 2005. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4959134
Trying to claim this is something he just made up on the spot is rank desperation.
Posted by: Jd at August 18, 2008 04:30 PM (7Kgl0)
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The Dems will stoop to anything to subvert McCain's campaign, I guess that's because their presumptive nominee has such a great backstory of commitment to our country. Maybe they should trot out their war hero John Kerry and tell us again the thrilling story of how Nixon ordered Kerry and his magic hat to Cambodia.
Posted by: Lank Bodkins at August 18, 2008 04:30 PM (h3fxk)
9
Trying to claim this is something he just made up on the spot is rank desperation.
You can say that again. HotAir has a post up about this saying the left stepped in on this line of attack and says it's basically and in kind contribution to McCain. Thanks Andrew and Jane!
Posted by: Slipknot at August 18, 2008 04:35 PM (2r2Mg)
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I don't understand the critics.
Are they claiming that there are no decent jailers in Communist states? That's surprising, given how many are prepared to argue that the USSR, Cuba, East Germany weren't really so bad. If there could be a Schindler in Nazi Germany, surely there might be a decent camp guard in Vietnam?
Are they claiming that there were no Christians in these countries? Given that they all "guaranteed" freedom of worship, again, that is a surprising tack.
Or is it that they simply have forgotten that not every person's personal stories are made up for the moment? Perhaps they've learned that memories seared, seared into their consciousness are sometimes false and told for the sake of votes---in which case, perhaps they should look to their own candidate first?
Posted by: Lurking Observer at August 18, 2008 04:42 PM (G6yrG)
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when they say that mccain lied about the cross - when they say he lied about not knowing the questions beforehand ... i am reminded of the thief that misplaced something and screamed that someone must have stolen it.
they see in others what they are themselves.
Posted by: clyde_m at August 18, 2008 04:51 PM (XXHuk)
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I believe its called projecting, clyde-m, and the American Left has been projecting for years. My favorite is the accusation of the Bush administration, specifically Bush-Cheney, of abusing government power to intimidate their political opponents. Whyever would they think that Bush or Cheney would do that? Well, precisely because that's exactly what Clinton did when he was in power. There are many examples.
Posted by: AF at August 18, 2008 04:56 PM (ebfW3)
13
Keep up the great work!
Would you like a Link Exchange with THE INTERNET RADIO NETWORK? At the IRN you can listen to over 60 of America's top Talk Shows via Free Streaming Audio...
http://www.the-irn.com
Thanks!
Steve
Posted by: Steve at August 18, 2008 05:18 PM (PIEdX)
14
This is proof that the left has never read The Gulag Archipelago. No such story about a cross in the sand and Solzhenitsyn contemplating suicide appears anywhere in any of the three volumes. It's not three.
Posted by: Bob in Texas at August 18, 2008 05:24 PM (OSxeB)
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These modern day journalists, who think they speak truth to power, cannot imagine the courage of Solzhenitsyn as a Zek in the Gulag or that of John McCain as a POW in North Vietnam. I do not find it surprising that humans who are subjected to this brutality would "cling" to their faith.
I knew a pilot at Udorn who wore a Baht chain with a star of David, Crucifix, a Buddha medal, a crescent and a figure of Vishnu. When we rolled for drinks, he would shake this chain over the dice cup for luck. When he was shot down over the North, he decided not to eject from his F4 for fear of these camps. Ironically, his weapons systems officer did eject and was rescued from the jungle 23 days later.
McCain could have taken an early release and he refused for which he was beaten, tortured and put in solitary confinement for two years. He had made a promise to his fellow prisoners and he kept his word, a concept that has not yet penetrated the Left.
Posted by: arch at August 18, 2008 05:39 PM (EQFru)
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Attacking a war heroes experiences sure is a winner for democrats, keep it up you moonbats!
Posted by: Capitalist Infidel at August 18, 2008 06:25 PM (kNqJV)
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I am a great friend of Admiral Denton. I challenge anyone to read his book, "When Hell was in Session." The book will make a grown man cry.
Posted by: Luke Taylor at August 18, 2008 06:31 PM (jW7DP)
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Denton's a true American hero; when forced by the North Vietnamese to make a video confessing his war crimes, he blinked his eyes to spell out the word "TORTURE". Of course, the idiot US media disclosed that fact, and Denton got tortured even worse.
Posted by: Brainster at August 18, 2008 07:46 PM (RA6PA)
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"Will Sullivan, Hamsher, Benen, the Kossacks, etc apologize for attempting to discredit McCain?"
Will I be be nominated by Obama to fill the cabinet position of Secretary of Toweling Off Scarlet Johansen After She showers? Same answer...
Posted by: Paco at August 18, 2008 08:49 PM (8b6aT)
20
Senator Webb became a Republican after Vietnam for the same reasons Denton did. No normal person would want to belong to a group who considers him a rapist and baby killer because of his service.
Posted by: stace at August 18, 2008 09:27 PM (JO0c/)
21
Senator Webb became a Republican after Vietnam for the same reasons Denton did.
Which makes me wonder what in hell happened to Webb. I know he's against the Iraq War, but Webb cannot possibly believe the Dems have changed their spots. A few years back, he told Russert that he still believes Vietnam was justifiable, although the strategy was screwed up. How can he stand sitting on the same side of the aisle with Kennedy, Dodd, Biden, etc? Webb is far from stupid, so it looks like sheer opportunism to me - he saw which way the political winds were blowing and changed horses. Sad to see such a thing happen to an honorable Marine.
As infuriatingly stupid and dishonest as these attacks on McCain's war record and conduct as a POW are, I am actually glad the other side has stooped to this low. (As if there were any doubts that they would.) If there is one thing Americans know about John McCain, it is that he was a war hero. And the clueless left is forgetting that the most respected institution in this country is the military.
So let them hang themselves by attacking McCain under the impression that they can pull a reverse Swiftboat. Kerry's military service and subsequent betrayal of his fellow servicemen was his weakest point; McCain's military service is his strongest.
Posted by: Donna at August 18, 2008 11:36 PM (RzRkl)
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And here is what Swindle said four months ago:
Even when he was imprisoned, McCain was not one to confide his feelings on God.
“I don’t recall us talking specifically about our faith,” says Orson Swindle, one of McCain’s closest friends and a fellow POW. “We talked about our friends, families, our resistance posture, and that our country didn’t seem to have the will to win.”
Belief in a higher power helped them survive the routine torture and daily indignities, Swindle says.
“It would help us endure what we had to endure. But we knew God wasn’t going to come down and wave a magic wand.”
Politico blog
Robert Timburg's 1995 book "The Nightingale's Song" contains (at pp 171-174) very detailed accounts by McCain of three Christmases he spent in prison - 1968, 1969, and 1970 - yet not a word about a prison guard drawing a cross in the dirt.
McCain wrote a 17 page essay in US News and World Report when he returned in 1973, full of everyday details of his life in prison. Lots of harrowing, heartbreaking stuff, terrible conditions, terrible treatment by the guards. He wrote that he would pray for strength and guidance. But not a world about a Christian guard, nor one who loosened his ropes nor one who drew a cross in the dirt - and that would have been something that would have stood out in this horrible experience.
It doesn't look like McCain told this story at all until the late '90s.
Posted by: skylark at August 19, 2008 02:41 AM (dxp8a)
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Pappy Boyington, the WWII Marine Corps flying ace, also experienced unexpected kindnesses from Japanese Christians after he was shot down and captured; they are recounted in his book Baa Baa Black Sheep.
Posted by: Robert at August 19, 2008 06:43 AM (LjV4b)
24
It doesn't look like McCain told this story at all until the late '90s.
There were WWII incidents my father wouldn't talk about until over 30 years had passed, and then only very briefly because they were still too emotional for him.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at August 19, 2008 07:07 AM (6L459)
25
"Are they claiming that there were no Christians in these countries?"
It is entirely plausible that one of McCain's prison guards was a secret Christian: When the Communists conquered North Vietnam, they began to oppress Christians (as they also did when they conquered the South.) Even after decades of violence and oppression, Vietnam is now about eight percent Christian.
Posted by: pst314 at August 19, 2008 08:38 AM (OA547)
26
To echo what pst314 said, Vietnam was a strongly Catholic country prior to the growth of Communism in the 1950's. One of the better priests I know is a Vietnamese refugee. It is not much of a stretch to recognize that there would be some Christians among the conscripts.
Posted by: largebill at August 19, 2008 12:02 PM (GiGT5)
27
It doesn't look like McCain told this story at all until the late '90s.
There were WWII incidents my father wouldn't talk about until over 30 years had passed, and then only very briefly because they were still too emotional for him.
Yet McCain was writing and talking about the most harrowing, emotional details of his imprisonment - and his spiritual experiences too - immediately after he returned. He has continued to do so, even taking the press on tours of his former prison. He had no reason to have left this most unusual and telling anecdote out.
Posted by: skylark at August 19, 2008 09:49 PM (B5Q3+)
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"He had no reason to have left this most unusual and telling anecdote out."
skidmark - Ah, you are a mind reader as well. Irrefutable evidence you've got there. Stick with it.
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 20, 2008 03:19 PM (i/fLn)
29
"It doesn't look like McCain told this story at all until the late '90s."
"I recall John telling that story when we first got together in 1971, when were talking about every conceivable thing that had ever happened to us when we were in prison"
-Orson Swindle
"I heard that story in 1970, 1971—back in that time frame. Anybody who says it's not true is full of..."
-Bud Day
One of these things is not like the others...
Posted by: Andrew the Noisy at August 24, 2008 04:03 PM (cntKs)
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Another Miracle in Galilee
Even God seems to be against Barack Obama, because in His wisdom, He highlights a living example of the candidate's most inhumane views.
The woman underwent an abortion and the baby, weighing 610 grams, was extracted from her womb without a pulse, hospital officials said.
A senior doctor pronounced the baby dead and she was transferred to the cooler.
Five hours later, the woman's husband came to the hospital to take what he thought was his dead baby girl for burial.
When the baby was taken out of the cooler, she began to breathe. The premature baby was then taken to the intensive care ward, where doctors were attempting to save her life.
Luckily for the baby, Barack Obama was not there to vote against care for the abortion survivor after she was discovered alive,
as he has done here in the United States.
Real Messiah: 1, ObamaMessiah: 0
Related: The moral courage of ferrets.
Update: The baby passed early Tuesday.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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How high in the Israeli government did they have to go before finding someone with the proper pay grade to decide this baby's fate?
Posted by: Pardo at August 18, 2008 03:49 PM (9v34C)
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I don't suppose it's worth mentioning that the Israeli woman was having an abortion to remove what the doctors believed to be a spontaneously aborted fetus (that is, the baby just died in utero), rather than electively, or that the normal effect of providing "care" to neonates from that sort of induced labor is simply to prolong for a brief time any suffering they may experience.
Or that a "present" vote is not the same as a "no" vote, essentially or otherwise.
Posted by: Doctorb at August 18, 2008 04:07 PM (DGLui)
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You're right, doctorb; a present vote just indicates even fewer principles and being too spineless to take a stand.
Posted by: SDN at August 18, 2008 05:01 PM (ehTyy)
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1012796.html
"A preliminary examination found that the fetus had no pulse, and the woman was rushed to the operating room to have the fetus removed."
Removing an (apparently) already dead fetus from a mother is NOT an "abortion" in any meaningful use of the word.
Posted by: LIBARBARIAN at August 18, 2008 05:03 PM (tCYT+)
5
Removing an (apparently) already dead fetus from a mother is NOT an "abortion" in any meaningful use of the word.
The (spontaneous) abortion would have taken place upon the death of the fetus. Elective abortion is what folks take issue with. Spontaneous abortion just happens sometimes.
Posted by: Pablo at August 18, 2008 09:50 PM (yTndK)
6
doctorb - If a piece of legislation takes a certain number of affirmative votes to pass, can you explain further how voting present is not the equivalent of voting "no"?
Can you also let me know your native language?
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 18, 2008 10:24 PM (i/fLn)
7
It's really too bad you can't frame your debate in any sort of factual context.
Illinois already has a law that requires that when a child is born alive as the result of an abortion, the physician must exercise "the same degree of professional skill, care and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as would be required of a physician providing immediate medical care to a child born alive in the course of a pregnancy termination which was not an abortion."
Posted by: skylark at August 19, 2008 03:08 AM (dxp8a)
8
Or that a "present" vote is not the same as a "no" vote, essentially or otherwise.
Correct. A "present" vote - which is used in Illinois and several other states - is often a means of indicating that the legislator objects to certain parts of a bill they might otherwise be willing to support. And that's exactly what Obama said about the Illinois "born alive" bill.
Stateline
Posted by: skylark at August 19, 2008 03:15 AM (dxp8a)
9
From your link skylark:
"In Illinois, the “present” vote works as a vote against a measure during final action."
There is nothing hard to understand about this concept.
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 19, 2008 09:19 AM (i/fLn)
10
From your link skylark:
"In Illinois, the “present” vote works as a vote against a measure during final action."
There is nothing hard to understand about this concept.
-------------------------------------------
And yet you seem to have a problem doing so.
Posted by: skylark at August 19, 2008 09:51 PM (B5Q3+)
11
It's really too bad you can't frame your debate in any sort of factual context.
Context like this, skylark?
Indeed, Mr. Obama appeared to misstate his position in the CBN interview on Saturday when he said the federal version he supported "was not the bill that was presented at the state level."
His campaign yesterday acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate, and a spokesman, Hari Sevugan, said the senator and other lawmakers had concerns that even as worded, the legislation could have undermined existing Illinois abortion law. Those concerns did not exist for the federal bill, because there is no federal abortion law.
Posted by: Pablo at August 20, 2008 07:02 AM (yTndK)
12
Pablo, try - just try - to go back and read again, for comprehension.
Posted by: skylark at August 20, 2008 10:48 PM (79kdb)
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No Common Ground?
The progessive blogosphere and Andy Sullivan—but I repeat myself—have decided to accuse former POW John McCain of stealing a story from Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Russian sent to the gulags (forced labor camps) for writing ill of Stalin in a letter to a friend... a typical application of the Soviet version of the Fairness Doctrine.
Here is McCain's story:
Solzhenitsyn's tale read:
Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.
As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.
There are, of course, no recorded instances of crosses or other Christian images ever being recorded in prisons. I jest, of course.
In Kilmainham Gaol, in the spot where a mortally wounded
James Connolly was strapped to a chair before a firing squad on May 12, 1916, a
cross stands. Of course, it came later.
Mamertine Prison was originally constructed around 386 B.C. but is best known for it's
upside-down crosses because it's most famous alleged resident, Saint Peter, was crucified upside-down. While we don't have any witnesses that crosses or the Christian fish symbol was written in the dirt of the prison floor during the incarcerations of Peter and Paul, it seems likely such imagery was commonplace, and I'm reasonably certain neither Saint was familiar with the Russian writer who came nearly two millennia later.
Christian imagery is common in prisons
around the world long before Solzhenitsyn was born, spreading as Christianity spread.
With the brutality of man's inhumanity to man common throughout the history of prisons, is it surprising in the least that in prisons around the world, guards and prisoners, enslavers and slaves, found a shared common ground in Christianity?
To disbelieve such things are possible is to not renounce John McCain, but to insist jailers are not human, just unfeeling robots incapable of grace or compassion. But I prefer to think that God is in all prisons.
It's one of the places where he's needed most.
Update: Uh-oh. Another U.S. Navy pilot who became a POW in North Vietnamese prisons is telling similar stories of surprising North Vietnamese Christan compassion. Are progressives going to try to assail his honor as well?
Why not?
They already
drove him out of the Democratic Party.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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1
Wait. Are you saying Solzhenitsyn ripped it off from someone else before McCain ripped it off from him? I'll have to alert the Kosmonauts, who were on this story before Excitable Andy.
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 18, 2008 10:19 AM (i/fLn)
2
It really is amazing the vicious hatred liberals have for our men and women in uniform.
Posted by: Capitalist Infidel at August 18, 2008 11:18 AM (kNqJV)
3
The people at Daily Kos will let you know that the research was first done by the FreeRepublic.com back in 2005:
"Sorry, Fellow Kossacks, but it was the Freepers who first spotted McCain's plagiarism."
"Of course they would. They all love Solzhenitsyn and at the time, they all hated McCain. The year was 2005..."
Posted by: BC at August 18, 2008 12:42 PM (cHiv+)
4
You forgot to mention that A) McCain is a big fan of Solzhenitsyn(See article McCain wrote about him below). Also if they shared the same event don't you think McCain would've made some mention of it in the article? What are the odds that in a communist prison a Christian guard goes up to them and draws a cross in the sand? Also John McCain described this as a pivotal moment in his time there, yet failed to mention that in his 17 page article that he wrote giving a first hand account of his time as a POW in 73.(See article below) You would think that would've got some sort of mention. Solzhenitsyn book came out in 73.
McCain's article on Solzhenitsyn
http://www.nysun.com/opinion/solzhenitsyn-at-work/83117/
McCain's first hand account of his time in the prison camp.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account.html?PageNr=1
Posted by: DBA2211 at August 18, 2008 01:22 PM (gFOJB)
5
McCain is a loser. He lies constantly. Must have picked it up from Bush/Cheney. Oh,Karl Rove is his un official advisor. Nevermind. The king of slime is running the show from behind the curtain.
The Mob ties to his wifes fortune that catipulted him to power havent even surfaced yet. Not on a big scale. It is well documented, as there was a trial in which her uncle was sent to prison.
All McCain can do is talk about Obama cause his own past is beyond shady. I see his son just bailed a failing bank just before the quarterly report showing major losses came out. This is the old Bush Bank Fraud Scheme revisited. Just bigger.
Obama has more class in his pinky than McCain has ever had. McCain is another fortunate son who was handed everything he ever wanted as he partied his way through life without a care. His lust for power has led him to say anything he believes will get him elected. The facts, as with Bush, are not relevent.
Posted by: John at August 18, 2008 01:35 PM (opbWo)
6
Yes, because everybody knows McCain's POW story isn't harrowing enough, so he needed to make stuff up to be more dramatic.
This is just another example of how well McCain did and how nervous Obama's supporters are getting. They're throwing anything out as a distraction and hoping something sticks. First he knew the questions, now he's exaggerating his POW stories. Weak.
Posted by: mindnumbrobot at August 18, 2008 01:48 PM (d5LvD)
7
McCain is another fortunate son who was handed everything he ever wanted as he partied his way through life without a care.
It is my sincere hope that you never have to experience 1/100th the agony, broken bones, and shattered teeth of this "life without a care" John.
I do agree with your closing statement however: for liberals such as yourself the facts are indeed irrelevant.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at August 18, 2008 01:56 PM (HcgFD)
8
CY - Something is wrong with the comment sections on a couple of your posts below. I wanted to ask you where I could get a copy of that new Obama Buy American CD.
I haven't done the Dixie Chicks number on anything in a while so seeing it perked me right up.
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 18, 2008 02:01 PM (i/fLn)
9
daley, nothing is wrong with the comments... I turned them off due to spam.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at August 18, 2008 02:07 PM (HcgFD)
10
CY, why, if this narrative of McCain's is true, did he leave it out of his 1973 biography? Why, if this narrative of McCain's is true, would he not have paralleled it with Solzhenitsyn's? I mean, he is a fan of his writings, you would think McCain would connect the dots to make for a more powerful narrative.
And Christian imagery being common in prisons around the world is a complete non-sequitur to your point. You are trying to point out that McCain did NOT lift the story from Solzhenitsyn, and your evidence is that Christian images are common in prisons. Let me repeat, that DOES NOT FOLLOW.
I'd like to believe that it really happened, but there is a lot of circumstantial evidence suggesting otherwise.
Posted by: DSBq at August 18, 2008 02:19 PM (c2FAa)
11
I hate to accuse McCain of exaggerating his account of POW life but do you remember this?
Per McCain's original account, during an interrogation, he was asked for the names of his squadron buddies; McCain gave his questioner the names of the Green Bay Packers' offensive line. But recently, he went to Pittsburgh and, lo and behold, the names of his squadron members were members of the Steelers' defensive line.
Unfortunately, McCain has shown that he will say or do anything to win the Presidency. That may include this "cross" story.
Posted by: Barry at August 18, 2008 02:31 PM (GAf+S)
12
Ah, the smell of Obamatard desperation is in the air.
How sweet it is!
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 18, 2008 03:09 PM (i/fLn)
13
I can think of several reasons to *not* tell that story in '73-- not the least of which would be preventing the slaughter of said guard and his family.
It's also possible that it *became* a pivotal moment in his time there sometime after the bones were healed and he had enough distance to think, hard, on the subject.
I'm putting this in the same category as the folks who insist that NOBODY ever has their lives saved by a Bible taking the bullet-- because, y'know, nobody ever packs a Bible over their heart, and there wasn't ever a tradition of metal-bound Bibles....
(Reality check: Even the book "Saving Sprite" saved a life-- kid had it in his leg pocket, and it took shrapnel that would've had him bleeding out before help could get there.)
Posted by: Foxfier at August 18, 2008 03:28 PM (3aOlt)
14
As Ace has pointed out there will never be proof or disproof of this story. The left wants to sow doubt about McCain's authenticity as a war hero because their man is slowly sinking in public esteem, and the polls. The people who suffered in prison with John McCain, including a medal of honar winner, have had plenty of time to give him up as a liar if they had wanted to, and have not. The people who knew Kerry had no qualms about torching him. Even Micheal Moore, a propagandist for the left of the first rank, has recently called him a liar. The left would do better to try and build up their guy but have little to work with.And, ever since Watergate, the epitomy of journalistic glory has been destruction of a president. McCain is not yet there but one can see already how he will be treated by these pathetic losers if he wins.
Posted by: mytralman at August 18, 2008 03:54 PM (k+clE)
15
Well? Did he lift it, or didn't he?
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=11080
I vote: yes.
Posted by: joeyess at August 18, 2008 04:00 PM (oOH72)
16
Actually, mytralman, Ace was wrong... Orson Swindle was in the Hanoi Hilton, and heard the story of McCain's cross two years before Solzhenitsyn published.
MCCain win. Netroots FAIL.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at August 18, 2008 04:02 PM (HcgFD)
17
Keep up the great work!
Would you like a Link Exchange with THE INTERNET RADIO NETWORK? At the IRN you can listen to over 60 of America's top Talk Shows via Free Streaming Audio...
http://www.the-irn.com
Thanks!
Steve
Posted by: Steve at August 18, 2008 04:09 PM (PIEdX)
18
I have a suggestion.
Try, just try, having a debate without calling anyone names. No 'Obamatard' or 'Bushie'.
You might find it's just a little more civil. You might also find that it compels you to look for facts instead of calling names. This could help both sides.
Posted by: Keith at August 18, 2008 04:21 PM (MRpPP)
19
How amusing that the guy they found to back up the sandal in the dirt story is named "Swindle."
Posted by: pinko at August 18, 2008 04:29 PM (kj6mz)
20
It is truly hilarious to see the Left asserting that McCain is insufficiently authentic in his biography. Barry knows better. You see it in his answer about Thomas on the SC. He began to say Thomas was "not qualified" but choked it back at the last and filibustered out a rambling diversionary soliloquy to obscure it because The Big O could not get elected dog catcher on his qualifications. Likewise, Barry wants to put biography off limits because he has none and McCain has, as they say, bookoo.
"another fortunate son who was handed everything he ever wanted as he partied his way through life without a care. His lust for power has led him to say anything he believes will get him elected."
Shwuh? How did Kerry get tied up in this? Sorry Charlie. It is Barry who has had everything handed to him, who has never taken a serious challenge in life nor risen to one thrust upon him. From his prep school days to his affirmative action career Barry has never done, nor even attempted, a noteworthy thing. Everyone knows this. Everyone. But let the anti-American faction have its way. Let them screech from the highest tower what they truly believe. It is only through obscurity that they have prosepered so well so far in this nation. Sunlight is disinfecting.
Posted by: megapotamus at August 19, 2008 01:39 PM (LF+qW)
21
The only real question here is whether or not you think that McCain stole Solzhenitsyn's story because his work (Gulag Archipelgo)containing the story was printed in 1973. Given the fact, that McCain is a big fan of Solzhenitsyn, it would appear that he did steal the story. If not the McCain should elaborate and verify this story in the press.
Posted by: David at August 19, 2008 02:44 PM (nQLtm)
22
Other than the fact that Solzhenitzyn never wrote such a story, I might agree with you. Wasn't in Gulag Archipelago, or anything else he ever wrote. The fable was created by someone else and attributed to him. McCain can't "steal" something Solzhenitzyn never wrote.
Combine important fact that with multiple personal accounts of those who have heard McCain tell his story as far back as 1971, and reading of similar instances recounted by other North Vietnamese POWs, and what we have here is a bunch of folks that are looking very, very foolish right about now.
Idiot-in-Chief? Andrew Sullivan, who at last count has written something like a dozen blog posts trying to claim McCain lies/stole the story from Solzhenitzyn, and buried the post admitting that there is no evidence Solzhenitzyn ever wrote such a story--sans any sort of apology or admission he was wrong.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at August 19, 2008 03:04 PM (xNV2a)
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Bitter and Clingy Revisited
Capturing yet again the feelings of every American from Honolulu to San Francisco, Barack Obama gave his contempt for American voters another go while raising millions first from from South Asians, then rich ($28,000 per couple) liberal Democrat donors, uttering a similar refrain:
"Now, you want to win. And saying it doesn't make it so," Obama said. "It would be nice to think that after eight years of economic disaster, after eight years of bungled foreign policy, of being engaged in a war that should never have been authorized and should never have been waged, that cost us a trillion dollars and thousands of lives, that people would say, 'Let's toss the bums out. Toss the bums out, we're starting from scratch, we're starting over. This is not working.'
"So I understand why a lot of folks are saying, 'This should just happen. Why are we having to run all these television commercials? Why do we have to raise all this money? Just read the papers. These are the knuckleheads who have been in charge. Throw ‘em out.'"
Poor Barack. He just can't seem to understand why people even want to have an election. Surely his coronation " should just happen." He shouldn't should have to go around this country raising money;
it's hard. Everyone should vote for him because he's great. And we've got knuckleheads who have been in charge, you see.
And why do we have knuckleheads in charge, Saint Barack?
Must be all those blue collar, white collar, and no collar Americans who keep bitterly clinging to their guns, their religion, and Presidents that don't think America is as mean, broken, and horrible as Barack and Michelle Obama think it is.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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August 15, 2008
Silk Purses, Hog's Ears
Via TPM Election Central comes word that Barack Obama's presidential campaign is once again trying to create a new marketing theme, and this one will launch tomorrow.
Why this design?
According to an Obama aide, the new effort dovetails with a renewed push by the Obama team in Pennsylvania to poke fun at John McCain's recent claim that he would rather hear the roar of "50,000 Harleys" than the cheering of 200,000 Berliners.
As the Obama camp was quick to point out, McCain opposed legislation that would have forced the U.S. government to buy American-made motorcycles.
The Obama camp's push on the issue includes running this recent ad, which was running in the York market and mocks McCain's Harley quote while pointing out McCain's position on American-made bikes, in two new markets in Pennsylvania beginning tomorrow -- the Pittsburgh and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre markets.
Obama's Pennsylvania campaign, the aide says, will be hitting the ground this weekend in around five towns around the state with stickers and flyers bearing the above "Buy American, Vote Obama" logo.
The events will feature a few dozen actual Harley riders for Obama that have been recruited for the weekend's events.
"Harley riders aren't typically supportive of Democratic candidates," the aide says. "But we're making a play for them by saying that Obama's economic policies are the true patriotic ones."
They. Don't. Get. It.
Patriotic purchasing doesn't come from buying products just because they're made in America, but instead comes from choosing American-made products because you have faith that American companies such as H-D put the time and effort into building a quality American-made product you can be proud of, making you
want to own it.
There is
nothing patriotic about
forcing Americans to buy specific products, but socialists like Obama are by nature anti-capitalistic, so should we be surprised that his campaign gets this wrong?
Perhaps progressives really think that bikers are bitter, clingy knuckle-draggers that can be influenced by such a half-hearted effort, but I think they are going to be sorely disappointed. The pandering is simply too transparent and insincere.
Should Obama need bikers, however, I think we can find some that are a bit more his speed.
To thine own self be true, Obamamessiah.
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A Perfect Home
I never quite appreciated how good of a fit Matt Yglesias was for his new home at Think Progress until I got a chance to see him in action this morning, hacking away with the intellectual dishonesty that has given Think Progress the reputation it has so richly earned (but surprisingly, hasn't yet found a way to tax).
John McCain deems the Georgia-Russia war the "first serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War"...
Satyam notes "the Gulf War, 9/11, and the Iraq War, to name a few" as possible alternatives. But beyond McCain’s seemingly poor memory, the interesting thing is the confusion in terms of high-level concepts. It was just a little while ago that McCain was giving speeches about how "the threat of radical Islamic terrorism" is "transcendent challenge of our time." Now Russia seems to be the transcendent challenge. Which is the problem with an approach to world affairs characterized by a near-constant hysteria about threat levels and a pathological inability to set priorities.
I'm no McCain fan by any stretch of the imagination, but it takes a person of true intellectual dishonesty to twist McCain's words the way these Soros drones have done.
As we now stand, Russia and the United States, two nuclear powers equipped with continent-killing ICBMs with MIRV warheads, are indeed in a diplomatic crisis over the recent Russian invasion and occupation of Georgia. It
is the first serious international crisis since we last stood toe-to-toe with Moscow during the Cold War.
Is Yglesias actually daft enough to suggest that acknowledging a new or renewed threat is wrong, and that it should be ignored so you can stick with your party's pre-planned script? That's not mature statecraft. That's sticking your head in the sand...
beach sand.
The Iraq War was and is a regional conflict, with little threat of expanding into a serious international crisis. The same holds true with the lower-intensity invasion of Afghanistan that began after 9/11; neither country had the weaponry or diplomatic power to engage in serious force projection outside of their regional spheres.
McCain was perfectly precise with his choice of words to describe the current crisis, just as he was when he described Iraq as the first
major conflict since 9/11, leaving out Afghanistan precisely because it
wasn't a major conflict, but a campaign waged primarily via special forces teams incorporating with indigenous forces and air support.
Of course, no one at
Think Progress understands the first thing about the military other than the mention of them gets their spit glands revved, so that is hardly surprising.
That Yglesias would use his own blanket ignorance as an excuse to once again imply McCain is going senile is pathetic, but it's what we'd come to expect from the support mechanism of the community reality-based he now so deservedly calls home.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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1
[Satyam notes "the Gulf War, 9/11, and the Iraq War, to name a few" as possible alternatives.]
Yes, these were ugly and dangerous situations all to be sure. But this invasion of Georgia is the worst. The Russian Bear is on the march to reclaim her old territory and there is really not much the United States can do about it. NATO is basically us. Germany has a fine military but no will to use it. We drew down our military so much after 1992 (Clinton's Peace Dividend) that our only option would be nuclear and we are not going there.
We could drastically cut ties to Russia, no flights, no dollar transfers; expel all Russian passports and such. It would not help Georgia but it would be the right thing to do.
But it is time America came home. End NATO, pull out of Korea and the Balkans and get out of Iraq as soon as reason allows. As long as we are who we are we will be hated; I for one have no interest in changing to make nice with European, India-Asian or other sensibilities.
America for Americans
The Hell with Europe
Posted by: RGinArizona at August 15, 2008 11:46 AM (y054i)
2
Soros and friends gave big money to McCain's "Reform Institute" after he lost the 2000 bid to Bush(see Michelle Malkin's archived list of donors), it turns out that McCain was another very prescient Soros investment, and McCain is the bait leading the party into an "ambush"...Win-win for Soros, lose-lose for the country.
Posted by: J David at August 15, 2008 12:17 PM (iCa6z)
3
This tells us much more about Matt's vicious hatred of the military than it does McCains words.
Posted by: Capitalist Infidel at August 15, 2008 01:46 PM (kNqJV)
4
By all measures, it seems that Matt Yglesias is unable to chew gum and walk at the same time, so why expect him to understand the possibility that they guy swaggering about with the nukes is just a bit more dangerous than the guy who is swaggering about hoping for the nukes.
Posted by: Neo at August 15, 2008 03:02 PM (Yozw9)
5
What's changed since the cold war. The liberals were always walking around chanting 'better red than dead' ... I fail to see anything different in their current lunacy from the previous lunacy.
Posted by: bill-tb at August 15, 2008 03:52 PM (7evkT)
6
CY, By your argument, that nuclear powers qualify as true crisis, then the ongoing and recent border battles between India and Pakistan qualify. So, you're incorrect, as is McCain, by your own argument.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4425896.ece
Posted by: DJ at August 15, 2008 04:32 PM (B2CQP)
7
Not at all, DJ.
The India/Pakistan conflict has been going on in one form or another for roughly a thousand years, and has roughly stabilized into a simmering, low-grade affair that occasionally sees moderate flares of violence. Though nuclear armed, their cultural similarities and close proximity means the threat of a nuclear conflict is remote. The number and power of the nuclear weapons they have is limited, as is the range of their weapons. It would be a catastrophe for Asia if the went nuclear, but it would not eliminate humanity.
Russian and the United States, however, have literally come within minutes of nuclear war several times in our history, can strike anywhere on the planet, and were they to go to nuclear war, would go with enough force to kill virtually every man, woman, and child on Earth.
Big difference. Kinda surprised you can't get that on your own.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at August 15, 2008 05:10 PM (HcgFD)
8
Ok, DJ, try to follow along, I'll try to go slowly. The key phrase is "international crisis." This may be a stretch but I'm going to assume you know what that means. Do you think Argentina has to worry about getting hit by Pakistan nukes? How about Mexico getting hit by Indian nukes? See where this is heading? "international crisis"........Mexico and Argentina not worried......get it?
Posted by: Capitalist Infidel at August 15, 2008 05:13 PM (kNqJV)
9
CY, you beat me to it, I tried to simplify it since he's obviously a liberal. They're not real good at critical thinking.
Posted by: Capitalist Infidel at August 15, 2008 05:15 PM (kNqJV)
10
One problem is labling Iraq and Afghanistan as wars when they are actually campaigns in a larger war.
What is illustrative (as if we needed more examples) is the thinking that asks "What did the US do to cause this?" instead of placing the blame on the guy who actually sent the tanks in. Reminds me of those who blamed the US for Iraq invading Kuwait, because the US ambassador to Iraq did not unequivocally state that such an act would have the US react with force.
Posted by: Mikey NTH at August 15, 2008 06:01 PM (TUWci)
11
P.S. Isolationism does not work. Ask Tibet about that.
And waiting for the international community doesn't either. Ask Abyssinia about that.
From the international community you will get resolutions without regiments; from isolationism you will find yourself watching allies and potential allies fall until you find yourself the target with no others by your side.
Posted by: Mikey NTH at August 15, 2008 06:05 PM (TUWci)
12
Poor Matthew. His grandfather was a noted novelist, his father a novelist and screen writer of merit, but the literary chops diminished over the years. Matt Yglesias is the unfortunate result of genetic decrescendo.
Posted by: zhombre at August 15, 2008 08:29 PM (kMXIy)
13
Perhaps this brainiac Yglesias needs to be reminded that his fellow lefties viewed Iraq's 1990 invasion as such a grave international crisis that a significant majority of democrats in congress voted against the first Iraq War AUMF. Mind boggling the stupidity and dishonesty just to maintain the meme.
Posted by: daleyrocks at August 15, 2008 08:39 PM (i/fLn)
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August 14, 2008
OTM Strikes Out Again
You've got to hand it to the Obama Truther Movement (a driven mix of Hillary loving PUMAs and conservatives)... they let few things stand in the way of their absolute certainty that Barack Obama is an Indonesian-Kenyan Muslim draft dodger...including the facts.
What I can't get is why they spend so much time focusing on trying to disqualify him using questionable documents,
when his proven record is so much worse.
Who gives a crap
if his last name was Soetoro as a child, when he choses
infanticide today?
Why should I care if Barack Obama was labelled a Muslim (obviously meant to imply he might be a terrorist), when he started his political career at the home of proud, publicly known
domestic terrorists with whom he's had a long relationship?
There are
plenty of real reasons to criticize Barack Obama. Let's stick to those, shall we?
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
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1
I like using all of it against him. The book Obamanation is on its way as well as The case against Obama. I want to use every tool to defeat this fool.
Posted by: Zelsdorf Ragshaft III at August 14, 2008 03:21 PM (J5AYY)
2
Concur. Why not just stack it all together? And by "it" I mean the facts of him, not politically motivated assertions.
Posted by: Dawnfire82 at August 14, 2008 03:44 PM (b8gcU)
3
Zelsdorf Ragshaft III:
I believe the point is to use the Provably True things that disqualify the fool and not the stupid made up bullcrap these morons are using. Using that stuff Helps him by giving a list of False things to hold out and cover the real things by implication that all are false.
Posted by: JP at August 14, 2008 03:49 PM (Tae/a)
4
That was a darn good post. Nice and simple.
Facts = good.
Wild Guesses = not as good.
Posted by: brando at August 14, 2008 05:03 PM (qzOby)
5
The issue, IMHO, is that if the anti-Obama folks (of whom I am one) resort to inane things like Obama not being an American citizen, that opens the door for the anti-McCain folks to make the same claim, and the MoveOnMedia is much better at that sort of smear than the Conservative Alternative Media.
By focusing on the issues rather than vague rumors about Obama's birth, we move the debate into the arena where McCain can kick Obama's tail.
Posted by: C-C-G at August 14, 2008 05:35 PM (MAHZ+)
6
Nice post; I really like the point that the real facts are so much worse than what people come up with.
Couldn't get to the "infanticide" link, though; it presented me with a log-in page. Anywhere I should try to go that I can read without logging in?
Posted by: Doranwen at August 14, 2008 11:03 PM (GwLr0)
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at August 14, 2008 11:12 PM (HcgFD)
8
Good for you for debunking this nonsense. There is plenty of real, provable actions to go after Barak. For example his documented voting record....such as it is.
The engine of much of this is the PUMAs who hope to discredit Barak Obama _before_ the nomination and thus enable HRC to get the nomination.
Posted by: Quilly Mammoth at August 15, 2008 03:27 AM (6YY4G)
9
Isn't it obvious why the juicy rumors are better than the facts?
The PUMAs, at least, often agree with Obama on things like what he has voted for. Do we really think the hard-core Hillary fans number many gun-owners?
So, they take the things that can't come back to bite them, should they win out.
I can't explain why conservatives would prefer the sillier charges. Perhaps it's b/c they're looking for a visceral, emotional outlet, having had to put up with BDS for the past 8 years? That's no excuse, however, especially since, as JP notes, citing falsehoods gives Obama cover for his actual foibles and weaknesses.
Posted by: Lurking Observer at August 15, 2008 04:59 PM (mI7Pe)
10
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Posted by: gmc long buick framingham ma at August 15, 2008 06:43 PM (ONLZ0)
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Live and Let Pie
Chef Julia Child: OSS spy?
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
06:44 AM
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1
First of all, I love this post title! OMG!
2nd, Julia Child has long been my hero for putting the smackdown on Adele Davis so many years ago in the first round of the Health Food Wars.
Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at August 14, 2008 07:55 AM (eDdOG)
2
I don't think this has been a big secret about Julia Child. I remember my Mother telling me about her "spy" life a good 30 years ago and it was also part of one of those documentary bios.
I remember as a young and inexperienced bride watching one of her shows where whatever it was she was baking slid right off the pan and onto the floor. She never missed a beat as she picked the food up and put it back on the pan and said it will happen to the best of cooks. I felt so much better because I had dropped the turkey and watched it roll across the floor. Today, my kids still get a laugh about Mom and her escaping turkey.
Posted by: Sara at August 14, 2008 08:39 AM (Wi/N0)
3
Tried to make a last ditch run for it Sara? Happens to the best of us LOL!
Posted by: Big Country at August 14, 2008 10:18 AM (niydV)
4
There's a wonderful story about a Vermont farmer carving the family's Thanksgiving turkey. It slid off the carving board, and into Aunt Martha's lap.
Farmer: "Martha, can I trouble you for that bird?"
Yes, the info about Miss Child, Mo Berg, et al has been out there for quite a while. There's even a good book about Mo Berg's experiences which I have -- somewhere.
Posted by: Bill Smith at August 14, 2008 12:20 PM (RY+Y/)
5
It's always the ones you would never suspect. Dr. Ruth Westheimer was a sharpshooter for the Israeli army.
Posted by: Pat at August 15, 2008 12:30 AM (0suEp)
6
SNL had a skit the French Chef with Julia Child bleeding in the kitchen. Hillarious.
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78hchef.phtml
Sorry I can't find the video.
Posted by: arch at August 15, 2008 08:51 AM (EQFru)
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August 13, 2008
Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Shot Killed: UPDATE: Shooter Was Fired Employee Former Employee Claim Walked Back
Details are still coming in, but it appears a man showed up at Democratic Party headquarters, asked for chairman Bill Gwatney by name, was denied a meeting, and then pushed his way in and then shot Gwatney before fleeing.
KATV reports that police chased the suspect and that he is now believed to be dead, though that is unconfirmed at this time; Fox 16 only confirms he was
shot by police.
Please pray for Mr. Gwatney and his family.
We'll update as more information becomes available.
Update: Ark Times blog has the most detail on this developing story, including the claim that the shooter switched vehicles during his attempted escape, and that he in custody. There are contradicting reports about the shooter's condition.
Update: Among other sources,
WREG seems to be going the "airing the theory" route, noting Gwatney owns multiple car dealerships and that the suspect made comments about losing his job recently. That does not mean the suspect was a Gwatney employee of course—he could just as easily have some other reason for targeting Gwatney, personal or political—but until the suspect is identified, we simply won't know more.
The most recent update to the
Ark Times blog also notes that Gwatney's dealerships had recent layoffs, the shooter was apparently one of Gwatney's employee's (still not officially confirmed), and that the shooter died en route to the hospital.
The national media is
slow to catch up on the suspected motivations of the shooter. I'm certain that this is out of concerns for accuracy, and not an attempt to
let misplaced anger simmer for as long as possible for those who would ascribe a political motivation.
Like clockwork: The paranoids denizens of the
Democratic Undergound,
Think Progress, and other "progressive" sites have laid the blame squarely at the feet of conservatives, talk radio... and
racists?
Update: Gwatney has died.
There is some disagreement over the suspect's ID but the aforementioned
Ark Times blog presently states:
...the suspect was a former employee of a Gwatney car dealership. News reports are identifying him as Tim Johnson, 50, of Searcy. According to one report, unconfirmed he was a body shop worker at a Gwatney dealership in Sherwood. A woman who answered the phone there hung up after issuing a no comment to a question. A Little Rock police spokesman, however, told Arkansas Business that the shooter was not a Gwatney dealership employee.
RTT News (a source I am not familiar with) cites police sources as confirming Johnson as the shooter.
8:26 PM Update: Significant media backtracking on earlier claims that Johnson was a Gwatney bodyshop employee, and once again returning to the latest iteration of the
Ark Times blog, there may be no direct link at all:
Johnson had no prior police record, according to the Little Rock police and a motive was still unknown. "This is one of those where we may never know," said Police Lt. Terry Hastings.
Immediately after the shooting, police sources said they were working to confirm tentative information that the suspect was a former employee of a Gwatney car dealership. The Little Rock police said, however, at an afternoon news conference that the shooter, whom they did not identify, was NOT a Gwatney employee and, so far as they knew, never had been, contrary to some reports mentioned here earlier in the day. Hastings said they hoped to learn from family more about Johnson's background.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
12:54 PM
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Posted by: Snooper at August 13, 2008 02:29 PM (OZrSP)
2
Wow... just went over and waded through the sewer that the libs are creating over this whole thing... what a mess. No matter WHAT the causation behind this shooting they're over there at the 'stinkprogress' website cookin away like a bunch of demented conspirercy freaks. You would think that BY NOW if us conservatives were REALLY out to get them, that they themselves would have been tracked don, killed and skinned and that'd be that... talk about a bunch of wingnuts
Posted by: Big Country at August 13, 2008 03:32 PM (niydV)
3
Little Rock Police are saying the shooter did NOT work for Gwatney.
Posted by: clear water at August 13, 2008 04:38 PM (2HXgZ)
4
Where's Pam and her Eliminationist garbage?
Posted by: Vercingetorix at August 13, 2008 05:13 PM (V/FgT)
5
That is one weird comments spambot.
Prayers for him and his family tonight.
Posted by: Techie at August 13, 2008 05:56 PM (sPuBs)
6
From the Arkansas Times Blog
Shortly after the shooting, police sources said they were working to confirm tentative information that the suspect was a former employee of a Gwatney car dealership. The Little Rock police said, however, at an afternoon news conference that the shooter, whom they did not identify, was NOT a Gwatney employee and, so far as they knew, never had been, contrary to some early reports mentioned here earlier in the day.
Posted by: clear water at August 13, 2008 06:18 PM (2HXgZ)
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This Is Interesting...
Our buddy Jules Crittenden married up quite well, but did you know she could write, too?
"
Tethered " is her new novel, and it appears to be attracting some buzz.
Proud husband Jules gushes
here.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
11:38 AM
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August 12, 2008
Obama Rumor Conclusively Debunked
Sorry to whiz in the conspiracyverse's corn flakes, but here's one anti-Obama rumor conclusively put to rest.
Now if we can just get
other folks to drop their quixotic quests to target Obama over inane technicalities, we can more focus on dismantling him based upon things that
actually matter, such as his character, his experience, his associations, and his radical political goals.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
12:14 PM
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I don't care if he is an ex-Navy SEAL. He is still an ass.
Posted by: old_dawg at August 12, 2008 01:51 PM (7nc0l)
2
It really is irrelevant, but I don't see how a rumor is debunked. If Soetoro adopted little Barack Obama, it would be called a step-parent adoption, the birth certificate would be changed through the courts and at the recorder's office and the step-father would be listed as the father in father block and the surname of the child would be changed. It happens every day in the U.S., in fact, my adopted daughter is a step-parent adoption and we were told in clear terms that once the new BC was issued, she would never again have any proof she was anyone else but the person listed therein. They even backdated age and employment to time of adopting parent to coincide with the time of orig. birth.
The only way to legally change that new name thru adoption would be another court order.
I don't see what the big deal is. Soetoro and his family seem to have welcomed little BO, unlike his own father who abandoned him and was a bigamist.
Posted by: Sara at August 12, 2008 02:10 PM (Wi/N0)
3
Not to question your honesty, but I find your email from Selective Service to be suspect because:
Do you REALLY think the Selective Service would provide information outside the FOIA via email?
I, personally, have corresponded with Selective Service many times via email and the response is always "a FOIA must be in writting and signed by the requester." see www.sss.gov's FOIA page.
I am still waiting my FOIA request from Selective Service. This sounds like a fake to me. But since there are exemptions to FOIA releases, I doubt they will give it. For example, exemption:
"(b)(6) - records which if released, would result in clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy;"
That has been the excuse I have been given for not getting Obama's information.
But I am a little confused as Senator Obama claims that he was attending College in California (Occidental College) from 1979 until 1980 where he played basketball and was a high scorer. And Occidental college starts its fall semester in August so he was not home for the Summer. (basketball camp starts earlier).
There is a Daniel Amon in the Arlington, VA area:
[redacted by siteowner]
Maybe a call to him will be informative.
If you provided Amon's government email address, that would help support your claim.
Posted by: Stephen bCoffman at August 13, 2008 10:54 AM (7kYO8)
4
Pajamas is really, really stretching. Obama attended a madrassa or are we to believe schools with religious instruction in Asia are solely the province of Roman Catholics?
As far as his selective service registration record goes I'm sure its on the tips of everybody at the Kos Kiddies, but I haven't heard anyone who is the least bit interested.
Now what would be interesting is his SAT scores and who such a dullard managed to get into elite schools given his confessed lack of study. Given his wife's thesis I really would like to see if they scored above a carrot on the IQ scale.
Obama's selective service rating was 4RD. Or draft four people after Rosie O'Donnell.
Posted by: Thomas Jackson at August 13, 2008 08:10 PM (LHaZf)
Posted by: Neo at August 14, 2008 07:36 AM (Yozw9)
6
"target Obama over inane technicalities",
Technical or criminal?
1. Barack Obama had Indonesian citizenship
2. Barack Obama had the legal name Barry Soetoro
3. Barack Obama was a Muslim, despite his “fight the smears” claim that he never has been. (see new story that we just posted on this topic).
In addition, it means that Barack Obama apparently lied to the Illinois Supreme Court when asked to provide former names, according to this Attorney’s Registration Record:
Read it all and for the dense it has photo's:
http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/breaking-photo-documents-barry-soetoro-indonesian/
Of course the (D) excuses all crimes.
Posted by: Scrapiron at August 14, 2008 01:14 PM (GAf+S)
7
Stephen Coffman, keep up the good work! I agree, not impuning B. Owens honesty, but I'd like to know under what authority this info was released, since I was told the same thing regarding the requirement for a FOIA request. I'm wondering if this was a limited, prememptive release of info, perhaps authorized by Obama. Intent (as in birth certificate flap) may be to cover up some embarassing info (e.g., he registered under a different name, etc.)
Regarding the privacy issue, if the SSS hits you with that, there is an exception for notable public figures.
Posted by: NObama Girl at August 14, 2008 08:35 PM (oK81i)
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Sam Jackson... Be Very Afraid
If he's superstitious about the old wives tale of deaths coming in threes, Samuel L. Jackson should be very afraid. Jackon's movie Soul Men is in post-production. Also starring in Soul Men?
Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at
11:36 AM
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