We’ll run this poll (on the right sidebar) until CBS releases the report on the Rathergate scandal and we know the fate of one Mary Mapes. Poll suggestions after that are welcome!
** Update**
Well, lgf has some info that means the poll may be up for awhile if the info is accurate.
I wonder if Webster’s will add this word in the 2005 edition? (h/t Say Anything)
This week Charles Krauthammer takes on the “yawn” from the left as Afghanistan inaugurates it’s first democratically elected president – EVER. There has been little if any mention in the left-leaning media and even Fox News’ coverage has been anemic.
“Miracle begets yawn” has been the American reaction to the inauguration of Hamid Karzai as president of Afghanistan. Before our astonishing success in Afghanistan goes completely down the memory hole, let’s recall some very recent history.For almost a decade before Sept. 11, we did absolutely nothing about Afghanistan. A few cruise missiles hurled into empty tents, followed by expressions of satisfaction about the “message” we had sent. It was, in fact, a message of utter passivity and unseriousness.
Then comes our Pearl Harbor, and the sleeping giant awakens. Within 100 days, al Qaeda is routed and the Taliban overthrown. Then the first election in Afghanistan’s history. Now the inauguration of a deeply respected democrat who, upon being sworn in as the legitimate president of his country, thanks America for its liberation.
This in Afghanistan, which only three years ago was not just hostile but untouchable. What do liberals have to say about this singular achievement by the Bush administration? That Afghanistan is growing poppies.
Good grief. This is news? “Afghanistan grows poppies” is the sun rising in the east. “Afghanistan inaugurates democratically elected president” is the sun rising in the west. Afghanistan has always grown poppies. What is President Bush supposed to do? Send 100,000 GIs to eradicate the crop and incite a popular rebellion?
The other complaint is that Karzai really does not rule the whole country. Again, the sun rises in the east. Afghanistan has never had a government that controlled the whole country. It has always had a central government weak by Western standards.
But Afghanistan’s decentralized system works. Karzai controls Kabul, most of the major cities and much in between. And he is successfully leveraging his power to gradually extend his authority as he creates entirely new federal institutions and an entirely new military.
Again, what should Bush have done? Send another 100,000 GIs to put down warlords with local roots, local legitimacy and a ton of firepower?
What has happened in Afghanistan is nothing short of a miracle. Who is responsible for it? The New York Times gives the major credit to “the Afghan people” with their “courage and commitment.” Courage and commitment there was, but the courage and commitment were curiously imperceptible until this administration conceived a radical war plan, executed it brilliantly, liberated the country and created from scratch the structures of democracy.
The interesting question is: If we succeeded in Afghanistan, why haven’t we in Iraq? One would have thought Afghanistan, with its obviously less-developed human and industrial infrastructure, to be far less conducive to democracy. It is more tribal, more primitive and has even less history of modern political development.
Yet that may have been an advantage. Iraq has for decades been exposed to the ideas of political modernism — fascism and socialism as transmuted through Baathism (heavily influenced by the European political winds of the 1920s and ’30s) to which Saddam Hussein added the higher totalitarianism of his hero, Stalin. This history has succeeded in devaluing and delegitimizing secular ideologies, including liberal-democratic ones. In contrast, Afghanistan had suffered under years of appalling theocratic rule, which helped to legitimize the kind of secularist democracy that Karzai represents.
Furthermore, Afghanistan had the ironic advantage of having just come out of a quarter-century of civil war. As in Europe after World War II, the exhaustion that follows is conducive to pursuing power by peaceful political means. In contrast, Iraq’s Baathists, fresh from 30 years of unimpeded looting and killing, are quite prepared to ignite a civil war in pursuit of the power and privileges they have lost.
And, finally, Afghanistan’s neighbors have largely kept out of the postwar reconstruction. The most powerful and active neighbor, Pakistan, was made an ally in this effort and has supported the democracy project.
Iraq’s neighbors are hostile to the United States and to our democratic project. The Baathist insurgents are heavily supported by Syria, from which some of the sheltered leadership provides funding and operational directives for guerrilla actions in Iraq. Behind Syria stands the Arab League, composed mostly of Sunni monarchs and dictators, carrying water for Iraq’s Sunni minority, which ruled for 80 years.
On the other side is Iran, funneling money, fighters and, by some reports, even voters (waves of immigrants) to help elect not only a Shiite government but a theocratic Shiite government. As Iraq becomes the cockpit for the regional rivalries, internal divisions are greatly exacerbated.
This does not mean we cannot succeed. It does mean that Iraq will be very difficult. It also means that against all expectations, Afghanistan is the first graduate of the Bush Doctrine of spreading democracy in rather hostile places. A success so remarkable and an end so improbable merit at least a moment of celebration.
I guess Bill Moyers missed this one when considering the most important story of our lifetime.
I have to admit I know very little about Bill Moyers but based on his recent comments, it is obvious he lives in the same lefty bubble that most of the MSM does.
“I’m going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee,” says Moyers. “We have an ideological press that’s interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that’s interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don’t have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people.”
That is likely the most laughable statement I have seen since the NY Times tried out the ‘fake but accurate’ line. Biggest story of our time? I can think of a few other things that would qualify, such as the rise of islamofacism, or how many left-wing media outlets (NY Times comes to mind) have dropped all pretense of impatiality. Or, wait, how about the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal? I guess the largest monetary theft in history doesn’t qualify as a big story of our time. I would love to see what Moyers thinks qualifies as right-wing media. I suppose I will have to TiVo his little show.
He is right about one thing though, we don’t have a vigilant, independent press (as a whole) anymore. The closest thing we have to that is the blogosphere.
MSNBC and Fox News just reported that Arafat has been pronounced dead.
Links as soon as they are available, if he is actually even dead.
UPDATE:
UPDATE II:
CNN now has their obviously pre-prepared memorial posted and ready to go. Nice f*ing picture on the front page, CNN. I am sure the victims of Arafat’s terrorism will remember him with such fondness…
With Arafat gone, maybe we can actually have some success on that peace in the middle-east thing.
I have a question for Senator Kerry – To what level must we bring down the number of yearly deaths due to terrorism in order to certify the numbers of deaths merely a nuisance?
2000? 1000? 500? Just how many human lives constitute a nuisance Senator?
Just a few of the nuisances that have occurred in my lifetime that John Kerry is referring to.
God help us if this man becomes President.
Jacques Chirac’s continues to prove he is no friend of the United States or Democracy – all the while John Kerry continues to elevate France as one of those “allies” he could convince to help us in Iraq.
Take, for example, this week’s bucket of bile from Chirac (hardly covered in the MSM):
HANOI President Jacques Chirac of France warned Thursday of a catastrophe for global diversity if the United States’ cultural leadership goes unchallenged.Speaking at a French cultural center in Hanoi before the opening Friday of a summit meeting of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity.
The French president warned that the world’s different cultures could be “choked” by U.S. values.
This, he said, would lead to a “general world subculture” based around the English language. This, he maintained, would be “a real ecological catastrophe.” – IHT
Also this week we learn that France had their hands so far into Saddam’s pockets they could have scratched his balls for him:
“Duelfer’s investigators did find evidence of long-term Iraqi efforts to develop relationships with French businessmen who claimed they could influence French politicians.The report describes a mysterious “Jean Claude,” referred to as “Mr. Claude,” who brought a tank carrier to Baghdad in 1998.
Another, possibly the same man, identified as “Mr. Cloud” in other Iraqi documents, is described as a French expert in electronic warfare – the art of detecting and jamming enemy electronics.
“Cloud” met with Iraqis in November 2002 to discuss “microwave, direction finding and passive radar technology,” according to meeting logs recovered by the Iraq Survey Group.
A top official of the French arms marketer SOFEMA, which sells advanced avionics for military aircraft, also turned up meeting with Iraqis in recovered records.” – NY Daily News
Then there is this:
A human rights group yesterday condemned French President Jacques Chirac for his comments on the arms embargo placed on China by the European Union over the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, saying they dishonored those fighting for justice over the massacre.Chirac, who wants the EU to lift the embargo sparked by China’s crackdown of pro-democracy campaigners in Beijing 15 years ago, said this week that the sanctions were the product of “another time.”
“We will try to get the EU to lift as soon as possible an embargo which is of another time and which does not correspond any more to the reality of the situation,” Chirac said in the interview…
But the comments by the French leader, who arrived in China on Friday for an official visit, provoked a stinging response from Human Rights in China (HRIC) in a statement yesterday.
“President Chirac’s remarks conveniently ignore China’s obligations under international human rights law,” HRIC said in the statement, noting that China had signed and vowed to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
“Crimes against humanity such as those committed by the Nazis in World War II, under apartheid in South Africa and during the genocide in Rwanda, are not diminished or erased by the mere passage of years or even decades.
“Likewise the bloody suppression of unarmed civilians in Beijing in 1989 cannot be considered a matter of `another time’ after 15 short years,” the New York-based rights group added.
Meanwhile media freedom group Reporters Sans Frontieres used Chirac’s visit to China to condemn yesterday a French company’s sale of equipment to Beijing used to block foreign radio broadcasts.
Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) said French defense electronics group Thales had provided the Chinese government with antennae that were being used to scramble broadcasts from foreign radio stations.
“It is regrettable that a French company is involved in setting up a `great wall of sound’ that violates the right of free access to information for hundreds of millions of people,” the group said in a statement.
The antennae were being used to jam programs from stations such as Norway-based Voice of Tibet, the BBC World Service, Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, it said.
Thales had set up such an antenna in the city of Kashgar in northwestern Xinjiang region, where the Chinese government says there is a separatist movement.
There are understood to be around a dozen further such installations, including on Hainan Island, near the eastern city of Nanjing and Urumqi, also in Xinjiang, it said.
The statement said a Thales representative in China told the media group that “there was nothing in the contracts signed with the Chinese that specified the use of the equipment”, sold to Chinese authorities in 2001 and 2002.
The French government should draw the attention of its companies to the dangers of selling certain equipment to the Chinese authorities, it said.
“It would be a shame if French firms became auxiliaries of the Chinese Communist Party as in the case of Italian Iveco vehicles, converted in China into mobile execution chambers,” it said. – Taipei Times
Jacques Chirac proves time and time again he is no friend to America and no friend to democracy and freedom and this is the guy John Kerry is hanging his hat on?
This man cares about two things: making a buck off the misery of others while jamming an extended middle-finger up the collective ass of the United States of America and our true friends.
Well, in the words of Sean Penn, “All best, and a sincere f!@k you.”
HughHewitt.com has this to say:
“Rather’s key defense rests on the assertion that a superscript appeared in one other document in Bush’s file. Think about that –CBS has launched many missiles at the president and it is resting its case on the fact that one other document has a similarity to the documents they have produced –from thin air, in the middle of a presidential campaign– which have been chewed up by thousands of eyes and hundreds of posts. It is as though Rather has rested his claim on the Divine Right of Kings. That defense hasn’t worked for centuries. It isn’t working now.”
Dan Rather has spent the better part of the last 10 years destroying his own career by replacing truth with his own left-leaning perception and now he asks that we simply ignore our own eyes and trust him.
My Word:
I was thinking this afternoon that Dan Rather’s response to this whole thing was like the response that detective going after Dolores Clayborne had when faced with the utter absurdity of his pursuit of her for the murder of Vera and her child-molesting husband before that.
“This report is the truth…,” he said again and again, as if no longer trying to convince them of her guilt so much as trying to convince himself it was true – after 20 years believing it to be true.
Power Line has posted an several updates to the fake CBS document controversy.
Reader Ryan McGrath has kindly forwarded us this story from today’s Dallas Morning News: “Man named in Bush memo left Guard before document was written.” The News obtained Staudt’s 1972 discharge paper among a packet of documents from official sources during 1999 research into President Bush’s Guard service. The News reports:In the disputed memo, Killian supposedly wrote “(another officer) gave me a message today from group regarding Bush’s (evaluation) and Staudt is pushing to sugar coat it.”
It continues: “Austin is not happy either.”
The CBS staffer said that the memo appears to recognize that Staudt has retired, since it differentiates between his displeasure and that of Austin, where he served his final Guard stint.
But another Texas Air National Guard official who served in that period said the memo appears to wrongly associate Staudt with his group command in Houston, and – based on that mistake – the memo distinguishes his views from that of the Austin Guard headquarters.
Retired Col. Earl Lively, who was director of Air National Guard operations for the state headquarters during 1972 and 1973 said Staudt “wasn’t on the scene” after retirement, and that CBS’ remote-bullying thesis makes no sense.
“He couldn’t bully them. He wasn’t in the Guard,” Lively said. “He couldn’t affect their promotions. Once you’re gone from the Guard, you don’t have any authority.”
Danny boy sure did get himself into a pickle with this one!
Before you ask, Shurbet is my last name. Having endured years of the question “Like the ice cream?”, I finally decided to embrace it and what better place to do that than a blog.
Ok, maybe the shrink would be a better place but they aren’t free.
The point of this blog escapes me at the moment. It will likely me a mix of pointing you toward people I think have something intellectually honest to say and my own musings (and rants when I so choose).
Once topic of interest I am monitoring is the recent 60 Minutes II story regarding the memos used in that broadcast and whether they are fake.
For the record, I am convinced they are fake. I retyped one of them in MS Word and it looked exactly like the ones CBS published. There is more of a chance that Scott Peterson DIDN’T kill his wife than there are that the default line-breaks in MS Word would come out EXACTLY like a document that came off a typwriter in 1972-73. I won’t go into great detail myself since so many others are doing a far better job, but I will be posting links when updates arise.
The blog will also likely include, shall we say, “contrasts” between John Kerry and George W. Bush as well as a thorough lashing of John Kerry’s Senate record from time-to-time. This man is not qualified no fit to lead this country and it has NOTHING to do with Vietnam and EVERYTHING to do with the 20 years of consistent left-wingnut positions on just about everything.
I will also laugh out loud the silliness of the whole damned thing from time-to-time too.
Here is something you may find interesting (and will likely be the last time I mention it again): I am a gay Republican. Yes, they do exist. In fact, my partner and I are BOTH gay Repuublicans. What are the odds? AND – are you ready for this – we live in the San Francisco Bay Area!
Talk about diversity…
So welcome, and here’s to the power of the blogosphere!
Robert “Lime” Shurbet
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