Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.26
Contributed by Bill Faith
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Destitute Dog -- Please read this and help if you can.
Bill's Bites -- 2006.09.26
The MSM’s Official Irresponsibility Act
Bruce Kesler
The hysterical editorial in the San Diego Union-Tribune this morning is typical of the half-truths and deceptive practices within the MSM that has brought it so low in respect for its reliability and, consequently, its profitability and viability.
Titled “A Soviet secrets act,” as purposely inflammatory a headline as the editorialist can imagine, the editorial rails against the Senate Bill 3774 that (the editorial only mentions Senator Bond) Senators Chris Bond, Lott, Chambliss, Stevens, Cochran, Burns, Hatch, Santorum, Cornyn, Domenici, Bennett and Alexander introduced last summer, with the endorsement of the 4,500-member current and former Association for Intelligence Officers.
For fairness, more than the editorial considers appropriate, the entire editorial is below. Then we’ll add what the editorial doesn’t consider relevant for the public to know. That epitomizes the abuse of position and public trust and ears that the MSM has fallen to, in effect, demands for official irresponsibility both on the part of government officials to whom we entrust our very lives and on the part of leaders in media who expect it’s their right to ignore that trust. ...
Video: Hill defends Bill, says “my husband did a great job”
[video link]
At a press conference early today Senator Hillary Clinton defended Slick Willy’s actions to prevent 9/11: “I think my husband did a great job in demonstrating that Democrats are not going to take these attacks,” she said. “All you have to do is read the 9/11 Commission [Report] to know what he and his administration did to protect Americans and prevent terrorist attacks against our country.” ...
TV commentator defends Pope,
rips Islamic violence, slams liberal apologists
Guess. The pope’s comment was ironically borne out by the reaction to it; Rosie O’Donnell’s false analogy was also borne out by the (non-)reaction to it. It seems perhaps the wrong person has apologized…
It’s a curious world where [some] liberals decline to focus condemnation on a violent reaction perpetrated in the name of a religious ideology (Islam) that jails women for being raped or declares it legal for women to be murdered in the streets by angry male relatives. Even stranger to side against a religious ideology (Catholicism) that has vigorously opposed the Iraq war, torture, the mistreatment of detainees, and the death penalty…
[T]he idea that Islamic culture would be pristine but for the interference of ugly America is an analysis that ignores how repressive Islamic governments can be even with their own people. ...
Islamist parasite places online personals ad
He’s looking for love, and by “love” I of course mean three more wives: Although already married with three children and reportedly living off £700 a month in state benefits, the 31-year-old is seeking more wives, with the intention of fathering more than nine children.
On the site MuslimIntro.com, Brooks — using his Muslim name Abu Izzadeen — describes himself as the “life of thee party” and admits to watching “a lot” of Al-Jazeera TV, the satellite network which has broadcast video messages from Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
He says he is looking for a “second, third or fourth wife” and does not care about their ages as long as they are older than 16 and younger than 40…
Video Flashback:
Clinton points finger at Jennings, enraged at moral questioning
Last week’s edition of FOX News Sunday was not the first time Bill Clinton jabbed his finger, blamed a network for his problems, and not take any personal responsibility. And it will certainly not be the last. The former President sparred with the late Peter Jennings during a 2004 interview at the Clinton library.
[video link]
Jennings, who passed away last year, received rage after noting Clinton was ranked 41 (out of 41) for moral authority by a C-SPAN organized panel occupied by 58 historians. He responded “they were wrong about that” because “they were wrong about that”. Clinton then went on to wagging his finger at Jennings saying “you don’t have any example where I ever lied to the American people about my job”, to only conclude that he doesn’t “really care what they [the American people” think”. Jennings stopped him right in his tracks and confidently voiced “oh yes you do”, Clinton responds “you don’t want to go there, Peter”. ...
DNI posts NIE on website (H/T)
Get it while it’s hot.
I recommend saving the doc. Their server could get dicey once Drudge links.
Update: People are already having trouble with the DNI site so I went ahead and put it on our server. Download here.
Update: Strong horse/weak horse. ...
Video: Karzai responds to reporter’s question about terrorism;
Update: Reporter was left-wing shill Jennifer Loven (H/T))
We’ve gotten four or five requests for this since it aired this morning. It’s not so much what he says as how he says it: the long pauses, the look of utter incredulity that an educated person — from New York City, no less — might not still appreciate the stakes five years later.
You’ll find the clip at the end of this sequence, which also features Bush’s angry comments about the NIE leak. Rarely has he been so blunt in his criticism of the press. ...
Bloggers gather at White House for pork bill signing;
Update: Video added; Update: Ace spotted; Update: Mary K spotted
Allahpundit
I was taping three different cable news networks at 9:45 this morning in hopes that they might look in briefly on this moronic event, and that within that shot they’d inexplicably pan from Bush to the crowd so we might catch a glimpse of Instapundit, Mary K, and/or Ace.
They’re all in attendance today. Others of us are not. Thus are enemies made. ...
Fox News Derangement Syndrome
Taking the cue from the Democrats' Finger-Jabber-In-Chief. Barbara Boxer gets all Clinton on Fox News with the always gracious Jane Skinner.
And then there was that execrable MSNBC pig daring to call Chris Wallace a "monkey."
Fox's 10th anniversary is just around the corner, ...
Pushback: NRO questions Sabato’s racism charges against Allen
Allahpundit
I said yesterday it sounded like Sabato had heard Allen use the N-word himself. This quote suggests otherwise: “My sources are former classmates who came to me with stories that matched up,” Sabato said late Monday night. “I never solicited them. They came to me during the past few months.”
How does that square with what Sabato told Chris Matthews last night on Hardball, wonders Greg Pollowitz.
The Secret of Ramona
Contributed by George Mellinger
One of the benefits of the collapse of the Soviet Union has been a tremendous opening of information, as thousands of Russians devote themselves to "filling in the white pages" of their past. Much of this concerns the remoter period of Lenin and Stalin. Sometimes the revelations extend into the very recent past. There have also been a small host of independent military analysts and reporters who take their inspiration from the independent commentators and organizations in the U.S.A. Some of these men, such as Pavel Felgengauer have gained a certain following in the West, while others such as the appropriately named Andrei Soldatov remain relatively unknown.
My non-OWD life is devoted to the history of Soviet military aviation, particularly its pilots. But sometimes I find other materials which just seem too interesting, or too important to let them slide past me. ...
Just nuke the damned thing
Contributed by Bill Faith AZ 9/11 memorial: back to the drawing board?
Michelle Malkin
Iowahawk spoofs the first draft of the AZ 9/11 memorial:
[image]
Ha.
We take a serious look at the controversy in today's Vent.
Arizona's GOP candidate for governor, Len Munsil, is going on the offensive: ...
Swift Program Auditor Found No Abuses
The independent auditing company hired by the government to review the intel program that gathered data from the Swift banking concern found no abuses. The New York Times buried the lede at the seventh paragraph -- the end of the seventh paragraph -- in a story that focuses on European complaints about the legality of the program even while they decline to end it: ..
Brits Take Out Osama Protege
Omar al-Farouq had quite an adventurous career as an al-Qaeda terrorist. He had joined AQ in the heady days of the early 1990s, training in Aghanistan and eventually rising in the organization until Osama bin Laden handpicked him to run the AQ network in Southeast Asia. Captured by the Americans in 2002, he escaped last year and fulfilled American expectations by running to Iraq. The adventure came to an end yesterday in Basra: ...
Taliban Assassinates Womens-Rights Campaigner
Taliban assassins shot and killed one of Afghanistan's leading reformers for womens' rights , Safia Ama Jan. It isn't as if Jan was sunbathing at the time, either -- they shot her through her burka on her way to her job as Kandahar's Womens' Affairs director: ...
The Secret Suspenders
Iran has agreed in principle to suspend its uranium-enrichment program while negotiating with the West over the future of their nuclear program, but there's a new catch. According to the Washington Times, Iran has insisted that the suspension be kept secret: ...
Rice Strikes Back
Condoleezza Rice stepped out of character for just a moment yesterday and responded forcefully to allegations Bill Clinton made during his Fox News Sunday interview with Chris Wallace. The New York Post reports that the Secretary of State allowed herself a rare moment of anger when defending herself against Clinton's attacks on the Bush administration: Rice hammered Clinton, who leveled his charges in a contentious weekend interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News Channel, for his claims that the Bush administration "did not try" to kill Osama bin Laden in the eight months they controlled the White House before the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The notion somehow for eight months the Bush administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false - and I think the 9/11 commission understood that," Rice said during a wide-ranging meeting with Post editors and reporters. ...
Deer In The Headlights
The stories accusing George Allen of using the N-word continue to look stranger and stranger. Yesterday's revelation that Larry Sabato, Virginia's most well-known political scientist, joined another former Allen classmate, Christopher Taylor, in publicly accusing Allen of using the racial epithet. However, these sourcings have also begun to look rather peculiar. Now Sabato appears to be backing away from his first-person claim, telling Chris Matthews that he was relaying information from other sources and declining to identify them: ...
Scheuer, Townsend call BS
on Clinton’s alleged Afghan invasion plan
The “invasion” plan, according to Scheuer, was vintage Billy Jeff: airstrikes, a few cruise missiles maybe, then cross your fingers. More: Scheuer, who wrote the book “Imperial Hubris,” said he met every 10 days with top members of Clinton’s anti-terror team and plans for an invasion were never presented or discussed…
Fran Townsend, a former top intelligence adviser in Clinton’s Justice Department and now Bush’s anti-terror czar, rolled her eyes when asked about Clinton’s invasion plan.
“There were lots of things that seemed new” in Clinton’s recollections on Fox, Townsend said…
Video:
Hirsi Ali tells Rushdie, “Forgive me for wanting to burn your book”
The best three minutes you’ll spend today. Thanks to Sugiero, my source for one-stop shopping on all things Hirsi Ali.
Click the image to watch the solution. Click here to see the problem.
[video link]
More (Bryan): ...
Video: Boxer gets snotty with Skinner on Fox News
Looks like it’s open season on FNC for Democratic pols now that Billy Jeff’s given his blessing. Amazing — even when they’re being confrontational they come off as riding his coattails.
Here’s right-wing attack dog Jane Skinner doing “a nice little conservative hit job” on poor Senator Botox by noting that the president disagrees with her. I’m outraged!
[video link]
Update: Here’s a screencap of that raised brow Skinner gives her at the end of the clip. Hilarious.
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White House to declassify NIE after leak?
Update: Bush says key judgments will be declassified
Maybe, and with good reason if so. Go read Spook 86, who’s had select quotes from the NIE provided to him by his contacts in the intel community. Odd that “Threats to the U.S. are intrinsically linked to U.S. success or failure in Iraq” didn’t make it into the New York Times’s article. Or into Howard Dean’s statement, which expresses an admirable ardor in wanting to fight Fox News reporters but not so much jihadis in the Sunni triangle. ...
Call the leakers' bluff;
update: Bush to release NIE
***originally posted 752am...bumping this back to the top...11am Eastern - White House says it is considering declassifying the NIE...1210pm new update: Bush will release parts of the report...video...*** President Bush on Tuesday said it is naive and a mistake to think that the war with Iraq has worsened terrorism, disputing a national intelligence assessment by his own administration. He said he was declassifying part of the report.
"Some people have guessed what's in the report and concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake. I strongly disagree," Bush said.
He asserted that portions of the classified report that had been leaked were done so for political purposes, referring to the Nov. 7 midterm elections. ...
Time To Release The NIE
The National Intelligence Estimate leak to the New York Times has given the Democrats yet another election-time club with which to beat Republicans, the Washington Post reports. The selective quotes have made their way into campaign speeches criticizing the Iraq War, and they hope to use them to maximum effect in their fading hopes of capturing either chamber of Congress: A classified National Intelligence Estimate, completed in April but disclosed in news reports over the weekend, offers the U.S. intelligence community's first formal evaluation of global trends in terrorism since the April 2003 invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials said the report concludes that the Iraq war has fueled the growth of Islamic extremism and terror groups, but White House officials responded that the reports reflected a selective and distorted interpretation of the study.
Pelosi: Behind closed doors
Hmm: House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi asked her colleagues Tuesday to close the House's doors for a highly unusual secret session to discuss a classified intelligence analysis on global terrorism.
Such a session hasn't happened in the House since July 1983, when the chamber went into a closed session to discuss the United States' support for paramilitary operations in Nicaragua. ...
*** 14:37 Islam Fanatics Didn’t Hate Us Before Iraq?
Curt [at Flopping Aces]
I find it curious that the recent leaks to the Post and the Times about the National Intelligence Estimate recently issued seem to say that because of the Iraqi war we have more terrorists then we did before: [...]
So let me see…..fanatics inside Islam didn’t hate us as much prior to the Iraqi invasion? Ok then, please explain 9/11 itself. Why were we attacked with such viciousness and violence if there really wasnt that much radicalism? How about the Afghanistan invasion, they were a little bit miffed about that also. The Danish cartoons? Our support for Israel? Our support for the Saudi royal family? ...
MURTHA in Trouble?
Contributed by 1stCav
Murtha is now in a hellava fight for his seat in PA district 12. Some of our pack of Old War Dogs are helping to make a difference. Keep up the good work this weekend Dogs!. Wish I could be there. Two active duty Marine nephews are telling me that their respective units totally despise Murtha. That fits with the overwhelming majority of veterans and other active duty troops informally polled. Article is HERE. Diana Irey is pulling very close to defeating the once thought well entrenched and funded Murtha.
Remembering Sister Leonella
Michelle Malkin
[image]
To borrow a phrase from Rush Limbaugh, the "drive-by media" gave a few hours' attention to the victims of jihadists' Pope Rage last weekend and then quickly moved on to the next headline.
I think the murder of Sister Leonella deserves a few more seconds of your time. The latest on her case: Three people have been arrested in connection with the murder of Italian Consolata missionary Sister Leonella Sgorbati Sept. 17.
The announcement was made by Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siad, security representative of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which since June 4 controls Mogadishu and a large part of Somalia.
The remains of Sister Sgorbati, 65, were interred on Sept. 21 at Nazareth Hospital cemetery in Kiambu, Kenya, where she once worked as a nurse.
"We have three men in custody; one is a suspect in the killing and two are being held as witnesses", stated Siad Sept. 21, according to the missionary news agency MISNA.
Security forces of the courts are on the tracks "of a second gunman suspected of involvement in the killing," the UIC official said.
Eyewitness accounts indicate that two gunmen opened fire on Sister Sgorbati and her guard Mohammed Mahmud as they crossed the road between the pediatrics hospital and the SOS Village for children in Mogadishu. ...
Line-Item Veto Presser To Pressure The Senate
Now that we have won major battles on the federal spending database and the new House rules on identifying earmarkers, we still have one more effort to shepherd to victory. The group Citizens Against Government Waste will hold a press conference this week in order to put pressure on the Senate to pass the line-item veto bill passed by the House last June. The Senate version, S.2381, has been stalled since May, and with the legislative session winding down, time may start running out for the new line-item veto. ...
A hit piece takes more hits
Paul Mirengoff
Rajiv Chandrasekaran's hit piece on the Bush administration's Iraq reaconsturction program -- "Ties To GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq" -- was unpersuasive on its face. Before long, moreover, we learned that Chandrasekaran failed to get simple facts (those pertaining to Simone Ledeen) at the core of his story straight because he didn't bother to check them with Ms. Ledeen.
Now Pat Cleary gives us "the rest of the story" on another of Chandrasekaran's targets -- Jim Haveman, who oversaw the reconstruction of Iraq's health care system. Haveman was never going to be much of a poster person for Chandrasekaran's thesis that the administration ignored qualifications and focused on political loyalty. He had been the director of International Aid, a faith-based relief organization that provided health care overseas, and also Michigan's community health director. And his only tie to the GOP, so far as Chandrasekaran claimed, was his connection with the well-regarded Republican Governor of Michigan (John Engler) for whom he served.
But Cleary takes the discussion of Haveman credentials one step further. He writes: ...
Paper tiger?
Paul Mirengoff
For quite some time, I've been arguing that there are only two alternatives when it comes to Iran -- sit back and watch the Mullahs develop a nuclear weapons capacity within a fairly short period of time or set back Iran's nuclear program through military strikes and continue to strike thereafter, as necessary. Both options carry huge potential disadvantages, and it has never been entirely clear to me which one is less ruinous and thus preferable.
Fareed Zakaria has no such doubts. In fact, he doesn't think we have anything to fear from a nuclear Iran. Why not? Well, China developed nuclear weapons and it hasn't used them nor, according to Zakaria, has it even been able to leverage these weapons into regional domination. Moreover, Zakaria assures us, "Iran's fortunes will wane" as "Arab regimes. . .get more assertive in responding to the rise of Irananian power."
I find these arguments unpersuasive. ...
What Else Was In the NIE Report?
John Hinderaker
In my addendum to this post by Paul, I repeated a point I've made several times before: one of the sinister aspects of leaks of classified information is that they are by nature selective. The leaker has access to lots of material, but he doesn't leak it all: he only leaks what he thinks will best serve his political agenda. The recent leaks of alleged conclusions from the National Intelligence Estimate that was completed last spring is a perfect case in point. Paul and I talked about an article in the Washington Post by a reporter who obviously had not read the report. All she could do was pass on the Democrat leaker's spin. Which, in all likelihood, she was happy to do.
But what does the report really say? In From the Cold, a web site operated by a former intelligence officer with 20 years' experience, has obtained access to portions, at least, of the intelligence agencies' report. If you are interested in this story, you should read it all. Here are a few excerpts: ...
Video: Michelle talks Clinton on O’Reilly
Allahpundit
This was the first time I’ve had to poke around inside the video clip for more than a few seconds to find a good screencap of the boss. The subject was, after all, Billy Jeff, so her expression for most of the segment was like this:
[image]
Which happened to be exactly the same expression most American conservatives had while watching that interview yesterday.
She pulled it together, though, and knifed him with a smile. ...
Video:
Olbermann calls Chris Wallace a “monkey posing as a newscaster”
And a “bully.” Which, let us admit, is simply divine in its irony.
Watching this douche clumsily trying to channel his paranoid rage into lofty rhetoric has been one of the true joys of blogging these past few weeks. There’s nothing so pathetic, or entertaining, as someone stupid trying to sound smart; the fact that it’s happening on national TV every night makes it almost too good to be true. ...
Video: Larry Sabato tells
Chris Matthews that George Allen used the N-word
He refuses to say how he knows but it sure sounds like he’s heard him use it himself. FYI, he was a classmate of Allen’s at UVA before going on to Princeton, then to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, then on to fame as a political scientist and commentator. ...
Bill's Bite's 2006.09.25
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