Kerry Campaign Attacks NASA

The Kerry campaign has attacked NASA after the release of embarrassing photos of John Kerry in a "clean-suit" were released to the media. Mary Beth Cahill, John Kerry's campaign manager asserted that the release of the photos was a "smear campaign" against the Democratic candidate. She made the allegations in an interview with Fox News, and Drudge has posted the transcript.

The picture is embarrassing and is being compared to the Michael Dukakis flub in which he donned a helmet and rode around in a tank. The comparison should be made, and is just another in a series of embarrassing moments this week for Kerry. It will be interesting to see if Kerry gets the expected bounce from the convention after a week of missteps.

The Democratic Party Then and Now

In his speech at the Democratic National Convention, Ted Kennedy provided an incredibly useful soundbite in comparing the Democratic Party of our grandparents to the modern Democratic Party. In his speech he re-worded the memorable statement of Franklin D. Roosevelt, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself", into "The only thing we have to fear is four more years of George W. Bush".

That is a good summary of the modern Democratic Party. They are unable to see the real threats, the real evil that America faces in the form of Islamofacist terror, and instead have convinced themselves that the true enemy of America is George W. Bush. They can provide no words of comfort to America as FDR did so famously many years ago. They can only provide hate and fear, as their desire to retake the reigns of power in this country have driven the party to extremism. How can the American people give a party that cannot even identify the enemy control of the war?

It is unfortunate that do few people have tuned in to watch the convention. Those who are relying on the elite media to summarize the event's may be fooled into believing that the Democrats are providing a hopedul message for the future. They are not. The Democrats have given stage time to the hard left in their party, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy. The American people have heard these leaders rehash material that has appeared in almost every campaign speech from the past two years: "shattered alliances", "war of choice not of need", "mismanaged economy", and the "hijacked election of 2000". Although the Democrats had said that their messgae would be one of hope and not of hate for George W. Bush, their hatred could not be contained. By the second night the speakers, including Ted Kennedy, were blasting the President. This is to be expected as the Democrats have built their entire campaign for 2004 on hatred. Kerry's base of support is the the Michael Moore/"Anybody But Bush" crowd. The party has tied itself to this, and offers no specific policies except the tired tax and spend policies that have been the core of the Democratic platform for 30 years.

John Edwards will take the stage tonight, smile and most likely give some version of his "Two Americas" speech. The speech, which he gave many times during the presidential primaries, envokes the image of one America that is controlled by the super wealthy, and a second America in which a mother cannot afford to buy her daughter a coat. It is old style class warfare, but the message will be overlooked by the media who will swoon over his smile and accent. Edwards speech is an empty message which seems all the more empty when it is delivered by a multi-millionaire trial attorney.

The Democrats have little to offer this election. The economy is doing great and the American people are more confident than they have been in two years. Despite the continued violence against Iraqi civilians by terrorists, Iraq is on its way to free and fair elections. The Democrats have nominated a Massuchesetts liberal who has taken every side of every issue, including the war in Iraq (although he recently declared himself against the war), and despite their best attepts, they will not be able to hide the fact that the Kerry/Edwards ticket is the most liberal presidential ticket in modern history.

The Lifelong Presidential Campaign of John Kerry

The Drudge Report has posted that a book to be released next month written by the man that took command of Kerry's swift boat in Vietnam, claims that much of the footage that will be included in John Kerry's convention movie was re-enacted for the express purpose of being used in political campaigns. According to the author, John Kerry would return to the site of ambushes and firefights to re-enact events in order to capture them on film.

Read it here.

"Shove it": A lesson on communication and self-defense, by Teresa Heinz Kerry

We've all heard by now the comment of "Shove it" that Teresa Heinz Kerry made to a member of the press a few days ago. Mrs. Kerry defended her position by stating she was defending herself against someone who had attacked her honor.

Yes, defending oneself is important. But how you defend yourself is equally important. We hold our leaders up to a higher standard than the average Joe off the street, hoping that they serve as examples to the rest of us, most especially the President and First Lady. Mrs. Kerry's method of defending herself was crass, the type of response you'd expect from someone ill-mannered and unable to control her emotions. If she wanted to make a point to the reporter about her honor being attacked, she could have communicated that to him in a matter-of-fact but civil manner, one that is much more becoming of a woman who hopes to be First Lady and to represent the United States. Is this a sign of her level of communication skills and her general character? I fear it is, as she made the comment when angry, a time when we let our defenses down to reveal our inner-most personalities.

The Kerry's have been concerned recently that Americans don't know who they are. I think we are now becoming aware. I am sure that this is only the first of many such incidents by Teresa Heinz Kerry that we'll witness as she continues to speak out and reveal herself to America.

President Bush Speaks at the Urban League

President Bush delivered an excellent speech at the Urban League this morning. It was not just the words that made the speech excellent, but the straight-forward honest manner in which it was delivered. It was not the typical pandering that the public became used to under the Clinton administration, or that we saw with John Kerry's performance last week in which he went out of his way to quote scripture (which he mangled). It was an honest assessment of the relationship of the Republican party with the black community of this country. He ended the speech by asking the audience a remarkably candid set of questions:

Does the Democrat party take African American voters for granted? (Applause.) It's a fair question. I know plenty of politicians assume they have your vote. But do they earn it and do they deserve it? (Applause.) Is it a good thing for the African American community to be represented mainly by one political party? That's a legitimate question. (Applause.) How is it possible to gain political leverage if the party is never forced to compete? (Applause.) Have the traditional solutions of the Democrat party truly served the African American community?

That's what I hope people ask when they go to the community centers and places, as we all should do our duty and vote. People need to be asking these very serious questions.

Does blocking the faith-based initiative help neighborhoods where the only social service provider could be a church? Does the status quo in education really, really help the children of this country? (Applause.)

Does class warfare -- has class warfare or higher taxes ever created decent jobs in the inner city? Are you satisfied with the same answers on crime, excuses for drugs and blindness to the problem of the family? (Applause.)

Those are legitimate questions that I hope people ask as this election approaches. I'd like to hear those questions debated on talk radio, I'd like it debated in community centers, in the coffee shops. It's worthy of this country for this debate to go forward and these questions to be asked and answered.

I'm here to say that there is an alternative this year. There is an alternative that has had a record that is easy to see. If you dream of starting a small business and building a nest egg and passing something of value to your children, take a look at my agenda. If you believe schools should meet high standards instead of making excuses, take a look at my agenda. If you believe the institutions of marriage and family are worth defending and need defending today, take a look at my agenda. (Applause.)

If you believe in building a culture of life in America, take a look at my agenda. If you believe in a tireless fight against crime and drugs, take a look at this agenda. If you believe that our men and women in uniform should be respected and supported 100 percent of the time, take a look at my agenda. (Applause.)

If you're struggling to get into the middle class and you feel like you're paying plenty of taxes, take a look at my agenda. (Applause.)

If you're a small business owner who is trying to expand your job base and are worried about excessive lawsuits, increasing taxes and over-regulation, take a look at this agenda. (Applause.)

And finally, if you believe in the power of faith and compassion to defeat violence and despair and hopelessness, I hope you take a look at where I stand. (Applause.)

You see, I believe in my heart that the Republican party, the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, is not complete without the perspective and support and contribution of African Americans. (Applause.)

And I believe in my heart that the policies and actions of this administration, policies that empower individuals and help communities, that lift up free enterprise and respect and honor the family, those policies are good for the nation as a whole. That's what I believe. And I'm here to thank you for giving me a chance to come and express those beliefs.

I'm proud to be with an organization that does so good, so much good for the American people. I'm honored that your Chairman would extend an invitation to me. Thanks for coming, and may God bless you and may God continue to bless the country. (Applause.)

It is refreshing for anyone to hear a ploitician speak so candidly, but this audience that has been pandered to for so many years must have felt particularly relieved. Whether President Bush convinced anyone to vote for him will not be seen until election day, but after this speech many in the audience may for the first time seriously consider voting for a Republican, and that is at least a start.

Pentagon Finds Bush Service Records

The Pentagon announced last week that they believed that some of the records from the president's National Guard service had, at some point in the past, been destroyed. Today the Pentagon said that they had been incorrect and they had found the President's pay records from the time in question.

The Democrat's immediately launched into conspiracy theories, with Terry McAuliffe stating that the timing of the Pentagon finding the documents was suspicious:

According to CNN, some of President Bush's missing records from his time in the Air National Guard were found today. The payroll records that were discovered were initially reported destroyed. In response, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe issued the following statement:

"The supposed discovery of these records on Friday afternoon, as reporters converge on Boston to cover the Democratic National Convention, is highly questionable. If the Bush Administration continues to search, maybe they'll find answers to the long list of unanswered questions that remain about George W. Bush's time in the Air National Guard. Bush's military records seem to show up as randomly as he did for duty."

So according to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee their is a conspiracy between the Pentagon and the president, with the pentagon witholding records that add nothing to the debate until before the Democratic Convention.
If anyone can explain this conspiracy and how it might benefit the president in anyway please leave a comment. The Democrats have devolved into a political party whose knee jerk reaction to everything is a conspiracy theory. Can any Democrat, no matter how badly they hate the president, really be proud of their party?

AP Lies to Discredit Heroic Passengers of Flight 93

The story of flight 93 has been that crashed outside Pittsburgh is well known. However, the September 11th Commission Report describes the heroic fight that the unarmed passengers launched against the hijackers in great detail. It is the struggle of Americans in the first battle of the War on Terror. It would be hard for anyone to read the account of the passengers attempt to retake the plane without becoming emotional.

The AP decided to comment on the struggle as detailed in the report, and it decided to smear the passengers with it's headline. This is the full AP story, including the headline as it appeared on yahoo news:

Panel: Flight 93 Crashed Without Struggle

Fri Jul 23, 5:37 AM ET

Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!

By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 fought back against the hijackers but never actually made it into the cockpit, the Sept. 11 commission concluded.

The assertion, included in the panel's dramatic summary of the harrowing flight, contradicts the firmly held belief by some victims' families that passengers breached the cockpit and fought with hijackers inside during their final moments.

In phone calls from the plane, four passengers said they and others planned to fight the hijackers after learning of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York earlier that morning.

With the words "Let's roll," passengers rushed down the airliner's narrow aisle to try to overwhelm the hijackers.

Relying on the cockpit recorder and flight data, the commission said terrorist-pilot Ziad Jarrah violently rocked the jet's wings and told another hijacker to block the door. With the sounds of fighting outside the cockpit, Jarrah asked, "Is that it? Shall we finish it off?"

Another hijacker, who wasn't identified, replied, "No, not yet. When they all come, we finish it off."

Jarrah then began pitching the nose of the plane up and down to throw passengers off balance.

Seconds later, a passenger who wasn't identified yelled, "In the cockpit! If we don't, we die!" And 16 seconds afterward, another passenger yelled, "Roll it!" Investigators previously have said they believe passengers tried to use a food cart to break the cockpit door.

Jarrah said, "Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest!", and he asked his fellow hijacker, "Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?"

The other hijacker answered, "Yes, put it in, and pull it down."

Roughly 90 seconds later, the jet rolled onto its back and crashed into a Pennsylvania field at more than 580 mph, killing everyone aboard.

The commission concluded that the hijackers remained at the controls of the plane, "but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them."

The commission said the hijackers' destination was Washington. It praised the courage of the passengers and said their struggle "saved the lives of countless others, and may have saved either the Capitol or the White House from destruction."

The Associated Press reported last year that the government's theory about Flight 93 — described by FBI (news - web sites) Director Robert Mueller to congressional investigators in closed testimony — also concluded that passengers grappled with terrorists but never actually got into the cockpit.

The body of the story describes a struggle, but the headline is meant to deceive. Why? Why would the AP decide to lie about the passengers on Flight 93 with the headline of the story? Is there an agenda or is it just another example of the poor quality of today's "journalism"?

The link is here, but the link may be removed by the AP at any point.

Bush 1, Bush Haters 0

During his televised testimony before the 9/11 Commission, and in his subsequent book, Richard Clarke asserted that when he briefed the incoming Bush administration in 2001, National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice had never heard of Al-Queda. The Democrats used his testimony to launch an assault on the Bush Administration’s efforts before the attacks of September 11th, suggesting that the Bush Administration had no plan against terror until after we had been attacked. Of course this was not true, but that minor detail did not stop the press and the Democrats from running with the story for weeks in an attempt to undermine the administrations credibility and place most of the blame for the attacks at the feet of the President.

More recently Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11 played to this assertion in a famous scene of the President at a golf course telling reporters that he planned to unit the world to fight terror just before he asked them to watch his drive. This was used in the movie to “prove” that the Bush administration wasn’t serious about terror before the attacks.

The administration responded to the attacks in the media and the press by laying out the proposals and decisions it had made in the first month regarding fighting Al-Queda. This included scrapping the Clinton era plan of pin prick responses to attacks in exchange for an overall strategy to eliminate Al-Queda in three to five years. The press was not as anxious to cover the administrations response, which was laid out by Condoleezza Rice in her televised testimony. The 9/11 Commission reports addressed the transition period and reports that the Bush administration had indeed had planned to take out Al-Queda from the opening days of their term:

After the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, evidence accumulated that it had been launched by al Qaeda operatives, but without confirmation that Bin Ladin had given the order. The Taliban had earlier been warned that it would be held responsible for another Bin Ladin attack on the United States. The CIA described its findings as a “preliminary judgment”; President Clinton and his chief advisers told us they were waiting for a conclusion before deciding whether to take military action. The military alternatives remained unappealing to them.
The transition to the new Bush administration in late 2000 and early 2001 took place with the Cole issue still pending. President George W. Bush and his chief advisers accepted that al Qaeda was responsible for the attack on the Cole, but did not like the options available for a response.
***
The Bush administration began developing a new strategy with the stated goal of eliminating the al Qaeda threat within three to five years.
***
While the United States continued disruption efforts around the world, its emerging strategy to eliminate the al Qaeda threat was to include an enlarged covert action program in Afghanistan, as well as diplomatic strategies for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The process culminated during the summer of 2001 in a draft presidential directive and arguments about the Predator aircraft, which was soon to be deployed with a missile of its own, so that it might be used to attempt to kill Bin Ladin or his chief lieutenants. At a September 4 meeting, President Bush’s chief advisers approved the draft directive of the strategy and endorsed the concept of arming the Predator. This directive on the al Qaeda strategy was awaiting President Bush’s signature on September 11, 2001.

For more analysis refer to Powerline.

Presidential Race is a Dead-Heat

Despite months and months of the most biased television coverage in the history of presidential politics, despite the unending promotion and publication of anti-Bush books (there are so many now it is impossible to get an accurate count, during a recent trip to a bookstore there were 34 books with anti-Bush titles on one table), despite the complete suppression by the media of any good news from Iraq, despite the suppression by the media of good news about the economy (a recent poll found that 51% of Democrats believe we are in a recession), despite the fact that the Democrats are benefiting from millions of dollars of negative advertising from 527 groups such as Moveon.org, despite the unending publicity for the "crockumentary" Fahrenheit 9/11, and despite the media fawning over the selection of and every subsequent word spoken by John Edwards, the presidential race is a tie at this point. The expected poll bounce for John Kerry after his selection of John Edwards never materialized. Almost every poll shows the two candidates within one or two points, well within the margin of error.

Democrats say publicly that they are in a good position with a challenger that is tied with an incumbent, but that is based more on a pre-convention high than anything else. Other candidates have gone into their convention with a lead and have emerged with a stronger lead. The Democrats and the Republicans were expecting Kerry to have up to a double digit lead at this point, which would be in line with past presidential races. At about this point in the '88 campaign Dukakis held a 14 point lead over the first President Bush, and Bill Clinton went into his convention with a lead over the incumbent and emerged with a 24 point lead over the first President Bush. He went on to win, but by a narrow margin. Some polls have Kerry behind by two, others have him ahead by two, but either way he is not in as good a shape as the most recent Democratic challengers have been. President Bush is vulnerable, but his major opponent in this election is the press. John Kerry is not likeable, his base support is far less solid than the president's, he is still double digits behind the president on national security matters, and the economy is improving and is set to keep improving and creating jobs through next year. Unlike the 1992 election where the economy turned the corner much too late to help the incumbent, this economy turned around last year and the job growth has been phenomenal with approximately 1.5 million jobs added. Kerry may very well emerge from the media attention the convention brings with a lead. If he does it will not surprise anyone, but if he does not come out with a lead it may be a sign that he is in real trouble.

This election is likely to turnin the final few weeks or even days of the campaign. Many people do not pay attention until after labor day, so the entirety of their information comes from newspaper headlines and morning shows that go out of their way to portray the President in a negative light. This may very well be the most event driven campaign history. This is the first presidential election since September 11th, and many of the old markers by which a race is judged are out the window. If the economy continues to improve and the situation in Iraq conitues to stabilize the President will be in good shape on election day. The capture of Zarqawi or Bin laden would have an immediate impact on the race, as would another terrorist strike in the US. The polls will drift up and down, but the American people may have to wait until election day to see a victor emerge.

For analysis of all recent polls, refer to RealClearPolitics.com

US Installs First Phase of Missile Defense

The United States has installed one of the first elements of a Missile Defense shield in Alaska. The installation is the first in a series of installations on Alaska and California. This is good news, especially with the increasing threat from North Korea and Iran and the continued development of long range missile technology by both countries.

In true AP fashion, this story uses most of its space quoting people who do not believe the system will work, but there are a few useful facts sprinkled in amongst the agenda journalism.

Manchurian America

According to the Drudge Report, ultra-liberal movie critic Frank Rich of the New York Times is prepared to say that the remake of the Manchurian Candidate starring Meryl Streep is the most partisan movie ever made, even more than Fahrenheit 9/11. Please note that Frank Rich loved Fahrenheit 9/11 and is deluded enough to believe that the movie contained facts. The movie takes elements of the Bush Campaign and uses them as the tools with which millions are brainwashed. The movie apparently makes use of elements from the Bush campaign and presidency. Drudge quotes Frank Rich:

"The American people are terrified," says Streep's villainous senator early on as, John Ashcroft-style, she wields a national security report promising "another cataclysm, probably nuclear." And so we watch her and the rest of the Manchurian Global cabal exploit that fear in any way possible, using the mass media as a brainwashing tool, manipulating patriotic iconography for political ends. "Compassionate vigilance" is one campaign slogan. A televised election night rally features a Mount Rushmore backdrop (as in a signature Bush photo op) and a chorus line of heroic cops and firemen (reminiscent of the early Bush-Cheney ads exploiting the carnage at ground zero)."

According to the films director, we have been brainwashed:

"This is a movie about political brainwashing, and we're right back there again now," said director Jonathan Demme. "I hope it has the potential for stimulating people to start thinking about the process because Lord knows we could use some stimulation," he added

Yes, we are all brainwashed. Thank you Hollywood for informing us. The president you call "stupid and illiterate" is, at the same time, an evil genius able to brainwash the entire country into believing his lies, and able to control vast international conspiracies that allow him to use the world's most powerful army to go around the world overthrowing innocent dictators and killing civilians for fun in a bloodthirty quest to fill his cronies pockets with oil money. Yes we know. You have told us this before. You told us this four years ago when he ran for president. You have told us with the shameless promotion of book after book that turn out to be lies (Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke), you have told us in the relentless interviews on 60 minutes and the morning shows. You have told us with full page ads in the New York Times, you have told us in anti-war rallies organized by the communist group A.N.S.W.E.R., you have told us in the endless jabs at the president written into the scripts of TV sitcoms. You have told us when we pay money to see you perform and you use the stage as a platform from which to condemn the president. You have told us through the use of editing magic in the movie Fahrenheit 9/11, (a movie that has its major assertions debunked by the 9/11 Commission Report, but why worry about facts) and you will tell us again countless times before the election. We know we are brainwashed, and you in Hollywood and on the far left in academia, you are the enlightened ones, without whom the rest of America would be doomed to the hell that George Bush has unleashed upon the earth.

Thank you for saving us.

9/11 Commissioner: We Were Hijacked By the Kerry Campaign

In a stunning indictment of the Kerry Campaign and Richard Clarke, commissioner Tom Lehman (a republican member of the commission) has stated that the commission was "hijacked" by Richard Clarke, the Kerry campaign and Viacom (owner of CBS & 60 minutes):

"I think we were mugged by Viacom," Lehman told NRO in a phone interview on Thursday afternoon. "Because they changed the release date of the book and geared up 60 Minutes to launch his book to time them with his testimony and they edited his book to take out all of the criticisms of Clinton from his [original private] testimony. Because they wanted to make it a jihad against Bush."

Lehman says that Clarke's original testimony included "a searing indictment of some Clinton officials and Clinton policies." That was the Clarke, evenhanded in his criticisms of both the Bush and Clinton administrations, who Lehman and other Republican commissioners expected to show up at the public hearings. It was a surprise "that he would come out against Bush that way." Republicans were taken aback: "It caught us flat-footed, but not the Democrats."

He stated this in a phone interview with Rich Lowry of the National Review after the release of the commissions report this morning. He continued:

Clarke's performance poisoned the public hearings, leading to weeks of a partisan slugfest. Lehman says Republican commissioners felt they had to fight back, adding to the partisan atmosphere. "What triggered it was Dick Clarke," says Lehman. "We couldn't sit back and let him get away with what he wanted to get away with." He adds, "We were hijacked by a combination of Viacom and the Kerry campaign in the handling of Clarke's testimony."

Although Lehman is a Republican commissioner the truth of his statement was obvious in the televised hearings. The investigation into the deadliest attack on American soil in the history of the nation was used as a campaign pulpit by the Democrats. Richard Clarke used the commission and its public hearings to advertise his book and to campaign against George W. Bush. There is no line the Democrats are not willing to cross in their desire to destroy President Bush. The actions of Richard Clarke and by extension the Kerry campaign during the hearings were disgraceful. However the episode does serve to highlight the fact that the Democrats place a higher priority on their own power than they do the national security of the Untied States. This is a party that cannot be handed the reigns of power during a time of war.

The 9/11 Commission Report

The September 11th commission report released today will not tell us anything that we didn’t already know. There were institutional failings that were exploited after a decade of terrorist planning and attacks, and no single person is to blame. The report does not say that the attacks were preventable because even with 20/20 hindsight no reasonable human being can argue that they were.

The Democrats will attempt to spin the report to their benefit to try to tear down support for the President before the election. Republican leaders will most likely have little to say about the report unless the attacks and the spin from the other side of the aisle are over the top, as they will likely be. President Bush received a copy of the report this morning. He thanked the commissioners for their work and said that the report was important. The commission made a few specific recommendations that the administration will consider, and a few may even be implemented in time. For many, the simple fact that their was an investigation will be enough to make them feel bette. However, after the spin has faded and the report is forgotten by the majority of the public, Americans will make a choice more important to the national security than any recommendation made by the September 11th commission. It is a choice that will decide if we will continue to take the fight to the enemy or revert back to policies that allowed terrorist to plan and attack for over a decade unimpeded. The war on terror and how it is waged is the most important issue of this election. All other issues are secondary, including the economy especially now that it is booming and will continue to do so. No matter what polls show on any given day, President Bush will have an advantage on election day because of his leadership since September 11th. He has proven that he is willing to strike the enemy instead of waiting for the enemy to strike the United States with increasing lethality. That is the choice that must be made, will we continue to fight on our terms or will relent and wait for the next strike on our soil? Let’s hope that Americans have the will to continue the fight with the knowledge that the fiercest battles are those yet to come.

Read news releases on the report here and here.

Download the executive summary of the report here (large file)

Unbelievable - Edwards Cites "Un-named Foreign Leaders"

In a repeat of the ridiculous claim by John Kerry that "un-named foreign leaders" had told him they wanted him to win, John Edwards has now made the same statement on Larry King Live, as reported by Drudge:

"Just a few weeks ago...I was in Brussels at NATO meeting with a whole group of NATO ambassadors and hearing their perspective on this. I just believe that these countries around the world, whose cooperation and alliances we need, believe that in order for them to have a fresh start with America, we're going to need a new president to do that. Now, they're not going to want to say this very vocally, of course, but the reality is that in order for us to reestablish old relations and to establish new relationships, I believe we need a new president. ...
"They didn't say that directly. What they said was they're very frustrated with the way this administration has dealt with them. They believe that in this case our trans-Atlantic relationships are important, should be important to America, are important to them. They want to be treated with some level of respect.

"They understand, because I made it very clear, at the end of the day, the president of the United States is going to do what's in the best interest of the American people. But the vast majority of the time, our interests are aligned with the interests of our allies around the world."

At least Edwards had the sense to state that he saw the leaders somewhere other than New York restaurants.

Berger's Pants Start To Unravel

Since the story broke that he took classified materials from the National Archive, Sandy Berger has maintained that it was an "honest mistake". After the accusations were made that he removed many of the documents by stuffing them in his pants or socks, Berger insisted that he had simply been "sloppy" and that any removal of documents was unintentional, save a few hand-written notes that he knew he had taken with him. He also maintained that the returned the information to the archives as soon as he was informed they were missing. His story never seemed plausible even though the Democrats were quick to get to their talking points, starting with a Bill Clinton interview for the Denver Post, in which he maintained that he had known about the investigation for months and that Berger was very "sloppy", to the point that he was not surprised by the story, but was sure Berger was telling the truth. He then went on to question the timing of the story, as had been done by David Gergen on the morning shows earlier in the day. The next day every Democrat associated with Sandy Berger was on TV repeating the word "sloppy" and was acting indignant over the timing of the story.

However the details of the story do not match the "sloppiness theory": Multiple versions of the same report had disappeared from the archives in multiple visits from the former National Security Adviser, the National Archives staff had witnessed Berger putting documents in various articles of clothing, he had knowingly taken some notes that he wasn't supposed to, but the rest was unintentional.

Last night, as Democrats continued to fume about the timing, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert called for hearings into the missing information. This morning the Washington Post has an article that claim that the archive staff had become so suspicious of Berger's activity that they mounted their own "mini-sting" to catch Berger removing the documents:

The government source said the Archives employees were deferential toward Berger, given his prominence, but were worried when he returned to view more documents on Oct. 2. They devised a coding system and marked the documents they knew Berger was interested in canvassing, and watched him carefully. They knew he was interested in all the versions of the millennium review, some of which bore handwritten notes from Clinton-era officials who had reviewed them. At one point an Archives employee even handed Berger a coded draft and asked whether he was sure he had seen it.

At the end of the day, Archives employees determined that that draft and all four or five other versions of the millennium memo had disappeared from the files, this source said.

Four or five versions of the same document, some of which contained hand written notes from Clinton-era officials? The September 11th commission, which released it's final report on the hijackings today, has stated that it had all the information it needed, and that the Berger case would not have had an impact on the report. Did the commission have access to the versions of the report that contained hand-written notes? Also this morning, James Gordon Meek of the New York Daily News, reports that although Berger was supposed to be monitored the entire time he had documents, he convinced his monitors to leave their posts so he could make private phone calls. He also made many trips to the restroom. Both of these apparently helped to rouse the suspicion of the staff:

"He was supposed to be monitored at all times but kept asking the monitor to leave so he could make private calls," a senior law enforcement source told the Daily News.

Berger also took "lots of bathroom breaks" that aroused some suspicion, the source added. It is standard procedure to constantly monitor anyone with a security clearance who examines the type of code-word classified files stored in the underground archives vault.

The article also states that an employee of the archive saw Berger putting hand written notes in his socks:

The same archives monitors told the FBI Berger was observed stuffing his socks with handwritten notes about files he reviewed that were going to the Sept. 11 panel. It is prohibited to make notes about the secret files and leave with them without special approval.

This morning in The Weekly Standard, Hugh Hewitt (buy his new book, "If It's Not Close They Can't Cheat - Crushing the Democrats in every Election and Why Your Life Depends On It) explains the significance of the fact that these reports are said to have contained hand written notes by principals in the Clinton Administration, and puts that issue in historical context by juxtaposing it with another "gap" in information that we are all familiar with, the 18 minute gap in the famous tapes from the Watergate investigation:

Washington has had to judge gaps in the record before. "[A] few minutes missing from a non-subpoenaed tape hardly seemed worth a second thought," Richard Nixon wrote in his memoir of his reaction on first learning that Rose Mary Woods had deleted a portion of the famous tapes. Nixon would conclude "most people think that my inability to explain the 18 and 1/2-minute gap is the most unbelievable and insulting part of the whole of Watergate." Imaginations ran wild, and Nixon's credibility never recovered.

Now crucial drafts of an important report are missing, and no one has reported if exact duplicates--not "copies"--have been found. Unless and until "red-lined" versions of the previous and following drafts are produced and compared to the "missing" drafts, we will never know what vanished from the record in Berger's pants. Could it have been a reference to Osama's flight from Sudan, or a warning of airplanes as missiles? No one can know unless some other repository existed for all of the drafts, and only if copies of all handwritten notes exist in that same file. The trouble with widely circulated papers is that principals make handwritten notations on all of them, which are then returned to the central record keeper. Every "copy" is an original if a note has been made in the margin.

It does not seem plausible that a former National Security Adviser could inadvertently walk out of the National Archives with several versions of the same report. Especially with the new details that are emerging regarding the steps taken by the staff to monitor Berger and his suspicious activities. Sandy Berger knew the potential consequences of taking classified material, yet he was willing to take the risk on more than one occasion to ensure that certain material was purged from the record and out of the hands of the September 11th commission. The obvious question is: What could the papers have contained that would make the risk of prison time worth removing them? Sandy Berger maintains that he "accidentally discarded" several versions of the reports after he took them home. If there is no record of the documents and their hand written notes, the public may never know the true story. This is a tragedy considering it is possible that the information that Sandy Berger purged may have had a direct impact on the report being issued by the September 11th commission. Sandy Berger should be investigated, the House should hold hearings and the government should make every effort to piece the information back together for the sake of the public.

The Clinton years brought us scandal after scandal, and as we spent time investigating them, and as the Clinton team rehearsed their talking points, the terrorist threat grew and was unchallenged, even after previous attacks. The law enforcement approach to terror taken by the Clinton administration and put forth by the Kerry campaign proved to be disastrous. Whether Berger was "sloppy" or he intentionally destroyed information damning to the Clinton "legacy" this scandal proves one thing, the Democrats cannot be trusted to run the country in a time of war. Let's not forget that Berger was a top adviser to John Kerry, and before the story broke he was set to get a cabinet position in a Kerry administration. The attitude that leads to documents being taken by a former National Security Adviser are not relegated to one man, but to an entire party that has become incapable of defending the country. The current Democratic party is led by radicals that came of age during the Vietnam War. Their attitudes and actions in foreign policy and national security are direct reflections of that time, and they are incompatible with the defense of the country. Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, Al Gore, Howard Dean or John Kerry - it makes no difference. The United states cannot afford another eight years of an administration whose first reaction is to hide threats to the nation or to their legacy down their pants.

Hastert Calls For Hearings

House Speaker Dennis Hastert has called for congressional hearings into "trousergate".

Car Bomb Explodes in Tennessee

The details are scarce at this time, but a car bomb has exploded in the parking lot at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville.

Developing...

Terry McCauliffe Goes Hollywood

Terry McAuliffe has filed to get all correspondence regarding the Sandy Berger investigation between the White House and the justice department made public under the Freedom of Information Act. His stated reason for doing this is the timing of the investigation being made public, stating the leak was politically motivated and timed.

Terry McAuliffe knows that he will not find anything in the documents (if there are any) but this is his misguided attempt to turn an ugly situation for the Kerry campaign around in the press by trying to make the public believe that the real scandal is the timing of the release. Like most of his past ideas this will end up backfiring. The press was doing all it could to squelch the story, and it looked like it might go away. Now McAuliffe has brought the issue back to the forefront. Now the story is likely to drag out through the Democratic Convention, and Kerry will likely have to comment even further. Terry McAuliffe is putting on a show to distract from the fact that an adviser to Kerry stuffed his pants with classified documents, documents that very likely pointed to negligence on the part of the Clinton administration.

Terry McAuliffe has proven to be one of the best friends Republicans have had in the past few elections.

The Fruits of Appeasement

What do you get when you appease terrorists to save the life of one Filipino truck driver? You get six more civilians kidnapped with the same demands. Appeasement kills.

Private War on Terror?

This is a strange story that is just making headlines. It seems that there were civilians in Afghanistan running a private War on Terror. They claim it was under the authority of Don Rumsfeld. They have been arrested for prisoner abuse and are standing trial.

Read it here.

Nuclear Weapons Found In Iraq?

Reports coming from Baghdad raise the possibility...

Developing...

Greenspan Offers Upbeat Assessment of the Economy

Yesterday Allen Greenspan offered an upbeat assessment of the economy, which sent stocks higher. Greenspan noted that the softness in economic numbers for June were due to temporary factors such as high energy prices, but stated that:

"Not only has economic activity quickened, but the expansion has become more broad-based and has produced notable gains in employment"

Greenspan noted that while the numbers for June were soft, numbers for July had already improved, and that the outlook for the future was good.

This is good news for the country and the president.

Be sure to check the current posts for updates.

WSJ on Berger

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent op-ed this morning on the Berger affair. They have zeroed in on the contradictions on Bergers story as well as what infomation the berger might be wanting to keep from the September 11th commission and the public. They make the excellent point that it is highly unlikely that "sloppiness" as Sandy Berger attributed it to, would lead Berger to "inadvertantly" remove drafts of the same report on more than one occassion.

The larger point of the piece is the more important one: whether America wants to go back to treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue under John Kerry, or continue the war on terror. The choice in November could not be more clear.

September 11th Report Will Not Say Attacks Preventable: Media and Democrats Disappointed

The highly partisan and, thanks in part to Sandy Berger, the at least partially incomplete analysis of the September 11th commission is due to be released to the public on Thursday. The report will not state that the attacks were preventable. This will be a big disappointment to John Kerry who, according to his aides, is hoping to use the report to show that President Bush was inattentive to terror before September 11th. To put it bluntly, Kerry wanted, and will still try, to blame the Bush Administration for failing to stop the attacks:

Advisers to Democratic candidate John Kerry have said they hope to use the report to show that in the summer of 2001 the Bush administration was inattentive to threats of a possible attack.

This is beyond disgusting, but it is typical John Kerry. The entire nation, except for the widows that Katie Couric will parade before the nation after the release of the report, realizes that with 20/20 hindsight we can see steps that could have been taken that might have prevented the attack, but in September 10th American nobody could have predicted what happened that morning. End of story.

New ISG Report Will Support Weapons Claims

The new report by the ISG, currently headed by Charles Duelfer, is said to contain new information that supports the intelligence presented by both President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair (as well as John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and scores of other politicians) before the war in Iraq. Senator John Warner made this statement to the press after being briefed on the findings of the ISG:

"I'm not suggesting dramatic discoveries," Warner told reporters, but "bits and pieces that Saddam Hussein was clearly defying" international restrictions, "and he and his government had a continuing interest in maintaining the potential to shift to production of various types of weapons of mass destruction in a short period of time."

He also stated that the report contains a "great deal of new information" that covers weapons that predate the first Gulf war as well as information regarding what he was doing the past few years. The report was initially due to be released this summer, but will now be released in September.

It seems more and more obvious that the reason no stockpiles have been found is that Saddam Hussein removed them in the run-up to the war. He maintained the essential "ingredients" to weapons systems that would allow him to resume production at a time of his choosing. This is analogous to a bootlegger dismantling his operation upon hearing that he would be visited aby a "federal man", as used to happen quite often in certain parts of the country. The bootlegger would dismantle his operation and get rid of any "stockpiles" of moonshine. The authorities would visit, search the place, and find nothing illegal. All the pieces required to reconstitute the business were there, just not in a recognizable form. As soon as the coast was clear, the pieces would be put back together, and the moonshine would flow. It is a game that is as old as the hills. The problem is that the members of UN inspection teams had apparently never played it before, and Saddam Hussein took advantage of them.

Clinton Defends Berger

Drudge is reporting that in an interview with the Denver Post set to hit newsstand tomorrow, Bill Clinton defends Sandy Berger. In the interview, Clinton states that "We were all laughing about it", in reference to the federal investigation. How many Americans will think a former Clinton administration member removing classified documents pertaining to a terrorist attack that killed over 3,000 people on American soil is funny? Clinton goes on to describe it as a "non-story", and continues what immediately became the Democratic spin, that the real story is not a former National Security Adviser willing to risk prison to purge documents from the national archive by stuffing them in his clothes, but that the story was made public just before the Democratic convention. The public is not going to buy this.

These are very serious allegations. Sandy Berger was, until today, an adviser to John Kerry. Hugh Hewitt is asking the questions that the media should be asking John Kerry: What did you know and when did you know it? Bill Clinton has apparently told the Post that he has known about the story for several months. Jim Geraghty at the Kerry Spot at the National Review is reporting that the Kerry Campaign only found out about the investigation yesterday. If Bill Clinton knew about the investigation months ago and "they" were "all laughing about it", how is it possible that the Kerry Campaign just found out about it yesterday? It seems impossible that John Kerry would not know that one of his advisers was under investigation if Berger, Clinton and friends were laughing about it. The idea that Kerry just found out seems like a convenient story to minimize the damage to his campaign.

Sandy Berger and his allies are denying that he put any documents in his socks, and they are demanding that the person who made the allegation come forward and make it publicly. Fox News has reported that it was Berger and his attorney that stated Berger had placed items in his socks:

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

While Fox News may very well have the story wrong, it seems that the first people to report suspicious behavior on Sandy Berger's part were employees of the National Archive who saw Berger placing documents in his clothing:

The FBI searches of Berger's home and office occurred after National Archives employees said they believed they witnessed Berger placing documents in his clothing while reviewing sensitive Clinton administration papers and that some documents were missing.

So it may be that the people that Berger and Co. are demanding come forward with the sock charge is an employee of the national archive who can't because of the ongoing investigation. Also, it is important to remember that multiple copies of the same document disappeared after being reviewed by Berger, and this is what triggered the investigation:

Breuer said the Archives staff first raised concerns with Berger during an Oct. 2 review of documents that at least one copy of the post-millennium report he had reviewed earlier was missing. Berger was given a second copy that day, Breuer said.

Officials said Archive staff specially marked the documents and when the new copy and others disappeared, Archive officials called Clinton attorney Bruce Lindsey.

So, Berger was given classified reports (written by none other than Richard Clarke) to review and they disappeared. The staff noticed they were missing and provided Berger with additional, specially marked copies of the reports later the same day, and they disappeared. Why did the staff put special markings on the copies of the reports after the first version disappeared? It is a question that needs to be answered.

The missing documents include "two or three draft versions of the report as it was being refined by the Clinton administration". Was there something in one of the versions of the draft report that Sandy Berger did not want made public? Although the September 11th Commission has stated that they saw the final version of the report, did they ever have access to the draft versions that are missing? If Sandy Berger wanted the documents there must have been something of value in them.

The Blogosphere had led this story from the beginning, and their is excellent analysis and links at Instapundit.

Berger Steps Down As Kerry Adviser

Sandy Berger has stepped down (in disgrace) as an adviser to the Kerry campaign. The question remains as to what information he gave the Kerry campaign in the months since he took the classified reports from the National Archives.

Donations to John Kerry Going To His Bank Account

If you have donated money to the John Kerry campaign, your money may be going directly into John Kerry's bank account. Last year John Kerry was forced to "loan" his own campaign $6.5 million, now he intends to pay himself back with campaign contributions.

Kerry supporters must feel good knowing their hard earned money is going into the checking account of their billionaire candidate.

The Makings of A Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy?

In the past few days the Bush Administration has seen the sudden collapse of many of its most vocal critics of the past year. Joseph Wilson, the man sent to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had tried to purchase Yellowcake, who subsequently became a media hero and a Kerry advisor by claiming the Bush Administration had misled the public, has been outed and disgraced as a liar by the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report, the Butler Report, and the Roberts Report. Now we have learned that Sandy Berger, a Kerry advisor and Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor, took classified documents pertaining to the September 11th investigation from the National Archives. It is now breaking that some of these documents were written by Richard Clarke who also became a darling of the left and the media with his testimony and book that made outrageous (and mostly false) accusations against the Bush Administration and their fight against terror.

Mr. Berger and his attorney stated that Mr. Berger:

knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

Sandy Berger has chalked the whole thing up to sloppiness:

"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced,"

How exactly is the stuffing of classified documents in his jacket, pants and socks "sloppiness"? Yes, and Joe Wilson was just "sloppy" with the truth.

Until more details of the investigation are released the scope of the fall out will be hard to judge. The September 11th Commission is downplaying the events, as one would expect, to try to shore up the already tattered report that will be released on Thursday.

For their part, the Democrats are trying to portray the fact that this information was made public three days before the September 11th report is due to be released as some discredit to the Bush administration. The chutzpah it takes to try to cover a member of the Clinton Administration stuffing classified information pertaining to an active investigation into his pants, socks, and jacket and taking them illegally by pushing some sort of blame to the Bush Administration is almost too much to believe.

Is anyone in the Democratic Party buying this? How can the "Bush Lied" crowd defend or explain this? Michael Moore, how about a film about the lies told by the administration's detractors and the media's complicity in their lies? The President and his administration have for the past year had their character dragged through the mud day after day by people lie Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke, Sandy Berger and John Kerry. The media has been more than happy to report every lie they have uttered. Will any of them have the character to apologize? Don't hold your breath.


Drudge has done a good job of compiling the big media's responses to the Berger story.

More On Sandy Berger

Hugh Hewitt has more on the scandal involving Sandy Berger and classified documents, including his first thought for a name for the scandal.

This should be huge. The question is what was Berger attempting to purge from the archives? The 9/11 commission was a partisan farce months ago, and this secures its place in history as one of the most useless, partisan wastes of tax payer dollars in the history of the United states. With this breaking story we now know that the commission could not have had all of the relevent information they would have needed to come to any untainted conclusions.

More reports here.

Top Ten Reasons To Buy & Read Hugh Hewitt's Book

For anyone out there that still hasn't purchased If It's Not Close They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats In Every Election and Why Your Life Depends On It, here are 10 reasons to order it from Amazon.com right now:

10. Page 10

9.   As a reminder of the President's excellent leadership since September 11th.
 
8.   So you will know what "permission slip Democrat" means
 
7.   Tammany, Pendergast and Daley, Kennedy in Chicago and Texas in 1960, Clinton  and the Chinese in 1996, Gore and the military vote in 2000, the Torricelli switch of 2002, and the attempted judicial coup in California in 2003
 
6.   218 and 51
 
5.   To understand the increasing importance of the Blogosphere
 
4.   Appendix I
 
3.   To be able to control the tone of debate with a Democrat
 
2.   To be armed with the facts to win any debate against an annoying office or family liberal/Kerry supporter
 
1.   Because "What you don't know about politics could get you killed"
 
If any of the 10 are confusing, then buy the book, read it and then pass it on to someone else who needs it.  If you understand all 10 buy several of the books and give them to your friends.  This election is the most important election in most of our lives, make sure you are appropriately armed to fight for it.

Sandy Berger "Loses" Classified Information

This smells worse than the alley behind Captain D's on a hot summer day. It seems that Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor, illegally took classified information critical of the Clinton Administrations response to terror threats from the National Archives and misplaced them. He also removed from the archives hand written notes he had taken while reviewing classified documents, also illegal. Berger's home and office have been searched by the FBI and he was informed that he was the target of a criminal investigation. The document's that have yet to be found included assessment's of the Clinton Administration's handling of terror threats:

The officials said the missing documents were highly classified, and included critical assessments about the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium terror threats as well as identification of America's terror vulnerabilities at airports to sea ports.

What is more suspicious is that it seems that multiple copies of the same document's are missing:

Breuer said the Archives staff first raised concerns with Berger during an Oct. 2 review of documents that at least one copy of the post-millennium report he had reviewed earlier was missing. Berger was given a second copy that day, Breuer said.

Officials familiar with the investigation said Archives staff specially marked the documents and when the new copy and others disappeared, Archives officials called Clinton attorney Bruce Lindsey to report the disappearance.

Berger immediately returned all the notes he had taken, and conducted a search and located two copies of the classified documents on a messy desk in his office, Breuer said. An Archives official came to Berger's home to collect those documents but Berger couldn't locate the other missing copies, the lawyer said.

There has not been a reaction from Capital Hill, but let's assume for a second that the documents had been taken and lost by either someone in the current Bush Administration. What would the reaction of the press and the Democrat's be? This morning on all of the morning shows indignant Democrats would be paraded out accusing the administration of the worst sort of conspiracy/cover-up imaginable. If Dr. Rice had lost the documents, there would be immediate calls for the her to resign amid calls for multiple Senate investigations. President Bush would be denounced as a "liar" and howls of "cover-up" would be plastered on the front page of every newspaper for weeks until someone was arrested or until all the documents were found. John Kerry would take to the campaign trail saying that this proved that the President could have done more to prevent the attacks, that he allowed this to happen through negligence. Kerry would call on George Bush to make public all the documents his administration is "hiding". We would hear "Watergate!" on the nightly news along with predictions of this being the "final blow" to the President's re-election chances.

But it was Sandy Berger, National Security Advisor to Bill Clinton, who lost the documents, so none of that will happen. There will be a few newspaper articles about it all and then it will simply fade away as if it never happened.

It was irresponsible for Sandy Berger to take classified documents and even more irresponsible for him to lose them. Let's hope he finds them all soon, for the sake of the country.

Kerry Takes the Misery Tour On the Road

Not long ago, Kerry took his tour of misery and pessimism on the road to the town of Massillon, Ohio. The town has been hard hit by lay-offs in the past and is struggling to get back on its feet. If residents of the town did not think they were miserable before, John Kerry is coming to town to ensure they know it. The resident's of the town have warned Kerry that he should not try to use their hard luck for political gain. The Kerry campaign has stated that Kerry will bring specific proposal's to save jobs, which will no doubt amount to an increase in government spending, the raising of taxes and an increasingly isolationist position on the economy.

On the stump Kerry has often referred to this as the "worst economy since Herbert Hoover", despite the creation of over 1 million new jobs this year and very strong economic forecasts. Why would Kerry fall back on economic pessimism in his stump speeches? According to Democratic consultant Dane Strother, "It's the best issue they've got, especially in some of the swing states". It is the only thing they have to cling to. Senator Kerry has been put in a position where he has to hope the economy falters. But, according to Fox News Kerry will have a much harder time selling the poor economy than Reagan did in 1980 or than Clinton did in 1992 when he defeated the President's father:

When it comes to voters' anxiety about the economy, this election year is a far cry from 1980, when Ronald Reagan (search) famously asked: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

Nor does 2004 measure up to 1992, when Bill Clinton's team summed up the campaign's theme with the memorable phrase: "It's the economy, stupid."

Kerry and Edwards have a bigger selling job than Reagan had in 1980 when he defeated President Carter or Clinton had in 1992 when he beat the first President Bush.

In June 1980, three-fourths of Americans disapproved of Carter's handling of the economy at a time of rising inflation and little growth.

In June 1992, three-fourths disapproved of the elder Bush's economic performance when the economy was just starting to revive.

An AP-Ipsos poll this month found that voters were about evenly divided about the current president's handling of the economy, with 49 percent approving and 50 percent disapproving. Also, consumer confidence has been on the rise.

In a twist on the old Reagan question, those in the AP poll were asked: "Compared to four years ago, is your family's financial situation better today, worse today or about the same?"

Four in 10 respondents said better, 34 percent said the same and 26 percent said worse.

In July 1992, only one-quarter of Americans said they were doing better than four years earlier.

The economy is improving everyday and the message is getting to the voters, as evidenced by the steady rise in consumer confidence the past few months. Kerry has to be able to convince voters that despite the fact that the economy has weathered the storm of the past few years quite well, they are doing poorly. As this is the only issue they have any several swing states, voters are assured of hearing more pessimism from John Kerry for the next 100 days.

The Bulls of Baghdad

The Iraqi Stock Exchange is open for business and trading is frantic, with volume quadrupling in five sessions and the value of some stocks rising over 600% since the exchange reopened in a restaurant. The Exchange is seen as a valuable part of Iraqi financial recovery.

Read it here.

Joseph Wilson: The Bell Tolls For Thee

People who have abandoned Katie Couric, Dan Rather, the New York Times and LA Times and have embraced the media of now and of the future on the internet have known about Joe Wilson's spectacular nosedive from credibility since the day the Senate Intelligence Committee Report, the Butler Report and the Robert's Report were released. The members of "old media" (to borrow in part from Don Rumsfeld) are either just catching on, or are just becoming willing to print the political obituary of Joe Wilson.

The AP released a ridiculous article yesterday that stated that the "16 words" in the President's State of the Union Address had gotten "some" support. Today the Boston Herald printed this story about Joe Wilson's lies yesterday. Today the New York Times, via an op-ed by William Saffire, has brought the story out of the last paragraphs of page A27 articles and printed it in a location where it might be read. The USA Today has printed an article by Robert Benedetto that asks the $64,000 question: Where are Democrats and the media — now that Bush may have been right?

Joe Wilson Lied. He was the flag bearer that brought in the parade of "Bush Lied" charges from everyone from newspaper columnists to John Kerry and John Edwards. Now we know that the President did not lie but his accuser did. The Kerry campaign sent out a press release after the release of the intelligence reports that referred to the claim that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake from Niger as "false".

Again, Apologies Can Be Sent To 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Party of the Past

Party of conspiracies, party of the race card. Continuing in the tradition of the Kerry campaign, John Edwards traveled to Florida and gave a speech (to a black church) in which he referred to the election of 2000. His implication was, of course, that black votes were intentionally not counted in 2000. Is that the action of a forward thinking party? The defeat of Al Gore in 2000 by such a small margin may be seen in the future as the point at which the truck that is the Democratic party turned directly toward the cliff that they have now driven over. The party has never recovered, thanks in no small measure to the fact that there isn't a single member of the Democratic leadership that can step into Florida without mentioning the recount. Since that time every conspiracy that was once considered looney and laughable has managed to creep it's way into the mainstream of the party. John Kerry mentions Halliburton routinely in his speeches just to keep alive the idea that we went to war to boost their profits. Michael Moore's conspiracy propaganda film has been embraced by leading Democrats including Terry McCauliffe and Tom Daschle, and although John Kerry has not seen the film, he told Larry King he did not have to because he had lived it the past four years. If the Democratic party had not completely derailed into the land of lunacy, his statement would have been tacit to an admission of insanity. But as the party stands now, after months of Howard Dean screams, red faced rants by Al Gore, Nazi comparisons by George Soros and Moveon.org, and the reliving of the Florida re-count over and over, the statement by Kerry he has lived in an international conspiracy the past four years goes unnoticed and without comment. This party is not fit to lead this country in wartime.

Before you pull the lever for a Democratic candidate, think long and hard about what the party has become.

Sharon Urges French Jews To Flee To Israel

Our oh so enlightened "allies" in France have become so openly and violently anti-Semitic that Prime Minister Sharon is urging French Jews to migrate to Israel. In the first half of this year France has documented 510 anti-Semitic acts, including the fire bombing of synagogues and the desecration of graves.

John Kerry: Appealing To The Un-informed

Powerline has an incredible post that points out that a mere four days ago John Kerry's campaign sent out a press release that referred to the yellowcake claim as false. For background on this story refer to these previous posts on A Time For Choosing: AP: Uranium Claim Gets Some Support, Kerry Holds Joe Wilson Up As Model Of Honesty, The Roberts Report, Apologies Can Be Sent To 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and The Butler Report.

One point needs to be added to the Powerline post. The Kerry press release that is linked by Powerline also attempts to make an issue of the fact that the President did not read every page of the 90 page document that he was issued before the war. Kerry leaves this an open ended assertion, never attempting to answer the "So What?" question and giving the reader the opportunity to draw their own negative conclusion. Since Kerry is attempting to use this against the President, one would assume that before Kerry voted to use force against Iraq he would have read the 90 page document. One would be wrong. According to his aides he did not read it. He voted for the war after receiving briefings from the CIA, but he never read the report. The report is supposed to have contained dissenting views regarding Iraq's WMD stockpiles. Again so what? The president was faced with world wide intelligence (including from the UN) that Saddam had unaccounted for weapons. So if the State Department presented dissenting views could the President have responsibly ignored decades worth of intelligence that reported that Saddam did have weapons? The short answer is no.

AP: Uranium Claim Gets Some Support

This may be one of the most flagrant examples of media bias, laziness or ignorance in a long while. Almost a week after the release of the Senate report on pre-war intelligence, days after the release of Britain's Butler Report and Roberts Report, the AP has gotten around to reporting that Iraq did try to by "yellowcake". However they try as best they can to downplay the story and turn what is a known truth, that Joseph Wilson lied, into a question of partisan politics. The Senate report that found that there was evidence that Iraq did try to purchase nuclear material from Africa was bi-partisan, but the AP attempts to cloud the issue with the suggestion that is only Republicans on the panel that support the claim. The AP makes no attempt to hide their bias in this story, they make it clear in the opening paragraphs:

It was one of the first signs that the intelligence used to go to war in Iraq was wrong: White House repudiation of 16 words in last year's State of the Union speech that had suggested Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium in Africa.

Yet even as two recent reports sharply criticized prewar intelligence, they also suggested President Bush's claim may not have been totally off-base

The AP declares in the first sentence that the pre-war intelligence was wrong. That is something that the Butler report was not even willing to do. The Butler Report stated that weapons of mass destruction may yet be found:

Even now it would be premature to reach conclusions about Iraq's prohibited weapons. Much potential evidence may have been destroyed in the looting and disorder that followed the cessation of hostilities. Other material may be hidden in the sand, including stocks of agent or weapons. We believe that it would be a rash person who asserted at this stage that evidence of Iraqi possession of stocks of biological or chemical agents, or even of banned missiles, does not exist or will never be found.

Maybe the CIA and the US and British governments should have saved time by simply asking the AP whether or not Iraq had stockpiles of weapons because they are apparently in the position to know. The AP continues their sham journalism with the statement that the reports imply that President Bush's claims may not have been "totally off base". What did the Butler Report atually have to say about the statement in the State of the Union that British intelligence had learned that Iraq had attempted to buy large amounts of uranium from Niger? The report states:

We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the government's dossier, and by extension the prime minister in the House of Commons, were well founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush's state of the union address of 2003 that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" was well founded

The President's statement was "well founded". The AP avoids having to mention this fact by never giving the reader any of the text of the report. The difference in meaning between "not completely off-base" and "well-founded" is immense.

Then the AP makes this unbelievable claim (at least in the face of the US and British reports) in the fourth paragraph:

A Senate Intelligence Committee report found inadequate evidence that deposed Iraqi President Saddam had been rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. It cited various reports, however, that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. Thus, although Bush cited only British evidence that was determined to have been inconclusive, other intelligence files clearly contained other inconclusive evidence of the truth of the claim.

As well as being poorly written, this paragraph is misleading. The Butler reports that based on the evidence the claim was "well founded". If all of the evidence was inconclusive as the AP reports, the claim would not have been considered "well-founded". Interesting note, filed at the bottom of this srticle is what appears to be an author's correction to this paragraph:

(SUBs 4th graf, A Senate ..., to correct that inconclusive evidence, not forged documents, was basis of Bush claim; INSERTS new 11th graf, `He said ...,' to UPDATE with Wilson request for committee to look again)

It is difficult to guess what the correction at the end of the paragraph is supposed to mean, but it does appear that it was not meant to be published with the story.

Both the US and British Reports found that there was faulty intelligence given to both governments before the war, but the reports also found that neither the Prime Minister nor the President made any attempt to mislead the public or coerce the intelligence community into producing damning reports about Iraq. The Butler Report did state that Iraq had indeed reconstituted it programs and maintained the capability to produce weapons as soon as sanctions and inspections were lifted:

Even now it would be premature to reach conclusions about Iraq's prohibited weapons. Much potential evidence may have been destroyed in the looting and disorder that followed the cessation of hostilities. Other material may be hidden in the sand, including stocks of agent or weapons. We believe that it would be a rash person who asserted at this stage that evidence of Iraqi possession of stocks of biological or chemical agents, or even of banned missiles, does not exist or will never be found. But as a result of our review, and taking into account the evidence which has been found by the ISG and debriefing of Iraqi personnel, we have reached the conclusion that prior to the war the Iraqi regime:

a) Had the strategic intention of resuming the pursuit of prohibited weapons programmes, including if possible its nuclear weapons programme, when UN inspection regimes were relaxed and sanctions were eroded or lifted.

b) In support of that goal, was carrying out illicit research and development, and procurement, activities, to seek to sustain its indigenous capabilities.

c) Was developing ballistic missiles with a range longer than permitted under relevant United Nations security council resolutions, but did not have significant - if any - stocks of chemical or biological weapons in a state fit for deployment, or developed plans for using them.

The AP fails to mention any of this of course. However the author of the story does make the claim that the Republicans were looking to discredit Wilson:

Republicans said Wilson was trying to boost John Kerry's presidential campaign and looked to discredit him and his mission.

Again, maybe the investigator who is trying to determine whether or not the leak of Valaie Plame's name to the press should just ask Ken Guggenheim of the AP, because according to him it is a fact that Republicans were trying to discredit Joe Wilson. That is an amazing and contradictory claim considering that the AP story does note the fact that the White House apologized for referring to the uranium claim after Joe Wilson wrote an op-ed for the New York Times. If the Republicans were set on discrediting Wilson, why would they apologize for making the statement? Of course we now know from separate government reports that te claim about the Uranium was correct and most of what Joe Wilson wrote in that op-ed was false.

When the AP does finally state in the article that the British and US reports cite evidence that suggest that the claim is true, it immediately tries to cast doubt on the intelligence:

But how much credibility these reports had was not clear. The Senate committee criticized the CIA for "inconsistent and at times contradictory" reports to policy-makers on the uranium issue.

There is an obvious question that needs to be asked of those who believe that Saddam had no weapons or weapons programs at the time fo the invasion: Why would he attempt to buy yellowcake if he did not intend to produce nuclear weapons? The fact is he was intent on producing nuclear weapons, and as the Butle Report found, he had maintained his ability to produce other weapons as well. Despite the blatant spin the AP puts on the story we now know that Joseph Wilson is the only person that has been found to have misled the public.

The AP and other elite are frantically trying to spin the results of the intelligence reports as they undermine the "Bush Lied!" mantra they have been spouting the past year. It also highlights their gullibility when it comes to promoting anyone that has an openly anti-Bush agenda, like Joe Wilson.

Is Fallujah Turning on the Jihadi's?

Yesterday, the AP ran the story Fallujah Savors Quietest Spell in a Year, the majority of which was used to claim that the past violence of the city was caused by the US military and their violent repression of the people. The story is, quite frankly, disgusting. It puts the blame for the violence that the city has seen squarely at the feet of the soldiers and fails to mention the fact that many of the most violent terrorists and their followers are in the city. The article claims that the United States "waged nighttime security sweeps, storming private homes in search for weapons and fighters", which leads the reader to believe that the United States was raiding homes randomly during the night. The article does mention that the US soldiers painted schools, installed water pumps but concludes that this had no effect on the citizens. The article also quotes a volunteer at a hospital that makes the claim:

"All I know is that our American liberators were sniping at civilians and the so-called terrorists were bringing them to the hospital to be treated and were donating blood."

But the article fails to provide the United States the opportunity to rebut that statement.
More important than the obvious bias of the story is it's overall point. The story claims that the military's actions in Fallujah, dubbed the "Fallujah Experiment" have been a "disaster". The article makes its case by stating that the city has become a "den of terrorists and a refuge for foreign Muslim fighters waging global jihad against America".

A lot can change in a day. This morning the AP has reported that the United States struck a terrorist safehouse in Fallujah, killing 14. Permission for the strike was given by the Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi. Allawi has promised full cooperation with the United States in rooting out and destroying the terrorists in Iraq. The AP includes the typical account by people at the scene who claim that the house was owned by a poor innocent family, and it fails to provide any details about the intelligence that led to the strike or who may have been the target. However, in the Washington Times, Jack Kelly, a writer that has been featured many times on A Time For Choosing reports that while the local leaders in Fallujah may be tolerating the terrorists, the citizens are not, and are in fact providing timely intelligence to the United States. It is this type of intelligence that has made successful airstikes like the one this morning possible. Kelly reports that many of the foreign fighters, particularly those from Syria and Saudi Arabia have found the environment in Iraq so hostile that they have begun to return home, giving up the jihad in Iraq. Some of the factions that have stayed behind have apparently started fighting amongst themselves. All of this is good news for the citizens of Iraq, the US forces there, and for the War on Terror as a whole. The AP story is right that many of the the foreign terrorists and jihadi's have concentrated in Fallujah, which may be why many of the citizen's have started to turn against them. Their concentration in one city will make them easier to target for the United States, especially as the population of the city becomes less tolerant of their presence and provides the coalition with more and more intelligence.

Jack Kelly concludes his article by stating that the letter sent to OBL by Zarqawi and intercepted by coalition forces has proven prophetic. In the letter Zarqawi states:

"If, God forbid, the government is successful and takes control of the country, we just have to pack up and go somewhere else again, where we can raise the flag again or die, if God chooses us."

It is too early to tell if the United State's actions in Fallujah have been a "disaster".  At this point it appears that the military's actions may have been a calculated risk that are set to have a big payoff.  Although it has become a refuge for terrorists, the citizens seem to have grown tired of their presence.  If they are driven out of the city by the citizen's providing intelligence to the coalition, Fallujah may end up being the terrorists final stop before they either leave the country or are killed in a coalition raid.  Fallujah, which may be the last hope for the terrorists, may end up being the city where they realize their actions are futile. 

President Bush is Still Right

Ed Koch, former Mayor of New York and life long Democrat, and Representative Pete King have written an op-ed in today's New York Post that outlines why, after the release of the Senate Intelligence report, the Report on September 11, and Britain's Roberts and Butler Reports that the President was still right to go into Iraq.  They also remind us what other politicians were saying about Iraq not so long ago:

We strongly believe that these critics are wrong on both counts. First: The committee unanimously concluded that it "did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence, or pressure analysts to change their judgments." Second: Based on the facts as they were known at that time — and, indeed, based on what we know today — President Bush acted properly in going to war against Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein. Indeed, to have done otherwise in the post-9/11 world would have been irresponsible.

To see all this in proper perspective, consider the reaction if Iraq had attacked Americans with chemical or biological weapons in the Middle East, in Europe or in our cities here at home — or if terrorists carried out these attacks using Iraq's WMD — and the president tried to explain away the attacks by claiming there was no "hard" intelligence that Iraq possessed WMD or had any formal relationship with al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

They continue, citing the statements made by prominent Democrats, including the current nominees for President and Vice President, regarding Iraq before they found it politically convenient to be "anti-war" candidates:

No wonder that, in 2002, Al Gore said, "We know Saddam has stored away many supplies of chemical and biological weapons throughout his country"; John Kerry said, "The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real"; and John Edwards said, "Iraq and Saddam Hussein provide the most severe and imminent threat."

A president cannot disregard the daily warning of the CIA director, George Tenet, not when the latter refers to the existence of weapons of mass destruction as a "slam dunk."

As to Saddam's relationship with al Qaeda, the Senate report acknowledges numerous contacts between the two but said these "did not add up to an established formal relationship." In this post-9/11 world, did anyone actually expect to see Saddam and al Qaeda enter into a formal Hitler-Stalin type accord?

No, we could not have expected that they would have entered into such a pact, and the fact that two sworn enemies of the United States had numerous proven contacts is enough to warrant the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator. President Bush understood the danger that Saddam Hussein posed and he accepted the burden of getting Saddam out of power. It would have been very easy for him to pass the buck to the next administration, hoping that Saddam Hussein would not hand his deadly weapons to terrorists. Yet he and Tony Blair, along with dozens of other countries, took action in the face of tremedous opposition, and forever removed from power one of the worlds worst dictators and the sons that would have followed him to power.

For this effort, Mayor Koch and Rep. King state that "President Bush is entitled to thanks from those with common sense".

Thank you indeed, President Bush.

Victor Davis Hanson: Worth Reading Again

The Victor Davis Hanson article posted yesterday is worth posting again.  In a world of around the clock news coverage from imbedded reporters, it is very easy to lose sight of the bigger picture in the War on Terror and specifically the battle of Iraq.  The United States military under the command of its field commanders, guided by the leadership of George W. Bush,  has overthrown an brutal dictator, freed a people and in doing so they have made the United States and the world safer.  There have been mistakes, and the media and public have had an unprecedented opportunity to see many of the mistakes live on television in real-time.  There are mistakes in every war, as Victor Davis Hanson writes:

In the short period between June and August 1944, military historians can adduce hundreds of examples of American amateurism, failed intelligence, incompetent logistics, and strategic blundering — but not enough of such errors to nullify the central truth of the Normandy invasion. A free people and its amazing citizen army liberated France and went on in less than a year to destroy veteran Nazi forces in the West, and to occupy Germany to end the war. Good historians, then, keep such larger issues in mind, even as they second-guess and quibble with the tactical and strategic pulse of the battlefield.

As will good historians who will write about the campaign that finally overthrew the brutal dictator in Iraq. Mistakes will be written of, but will be minor footnotes in a campaign that liberated 25,000,000 people from dictatorship. As for the need to go to war in Iraq, Victor Davis Hanson states:

Like Hitler, Saddam Hussein was a mass-murdering fascist, whom we had also appeased for years. For all his bluster, Hitler had not been in a prior shooting war with the United States, but after Pearl Harbor he had to be destroyed. In the same manner, after 9/11 there was no longer any margin of error in "boxing in" a rogue dictator that had struck four nations, violated most of the 1991 armistice agreements, ignored over a dozen U.N. resolutions, butchered tens of thousands, ruined the environment of Mesopotamia, constantly tried to recycle petrodollars to terrorists, attempted to assassinate a sitting U.S. president, and was in a stand-off with the U.S. Air Force involving 12 years, 350,000 sorties, and the control of two-thirds of Iraqi air space. Indeed, on September 11, 2001, American military forces were being fired on and firing back at the forces of just one nation in the world: Baathist Iraq.

This is not difficult to understand, and without the media and political spin taking place today, these facts would be self-evident to more Americans. Regardless of whether we find stockpiles of weapons, Saddam Hussein was a threat that had to be removed in a post 9/11 world. A responsible leader could not let the threat remain, and George W. Bush did not. As for the President's opponents and their stand on the war, Victor Davis Hanson writes:

In contrast to all this, John Edwards says that Americans have died "needlessly" in Iraq, although he does not tell us why he voted for the war, or whether he would now change his vote had he known beforehand that CIA estimates of Iraqi WMD seem to have been in error. Yet this same John Edwards once thundered: "The path of confronting Saddam is full of hazards. But the path of inaction is far more dangerous."

He goes on:

With extremists like Michael Moore and ANSWER breathing down their necks, Kerry and Edwards cannot accept history's tragic verdict that there are terrible costs to pay in any necessary war. Yet they also don't know what else could or should have been done to get us where we are now.

We had no choice in Iraq and despite what John Kerry and John Edward's would have us believe today, the soldiers who have given their life in Iraq did not die needlessly. They died in one of the first battles of an historic campaign to rid the world of Islamofascist terror and they died to make the world safer for Americans and freedom loving peoples everywhere. 
 
Read or re-read the article here.

US Developing Huge Bunker Busting Bomb

A Good story if you are an American. The US military is developing a bunker busting weapon approximately 1/3 larger than the MOAB bomb that was developed for and used in the War on Terror.

Read it here.

John Edwards Younger Brother Wanted In Colorado

An interesting story

An Interview That Has To Be Read To Be Believed

Note to Readers: This post is being repeated at the request of a reader.

John Kerry and John Edwards gave an interview to the Washington Post aboard their campaign plane during their recent multi-state tour. The interview is an exercise in hypocrisy and condescension. Kerry and Edwards stated:

President Bush has governed in a dishonest fashion, trampling values on every issue except fighting terrorism and leaving voters "clamoring for restoration of credibility and trust in the White House again," John F. Kerry and John Edwards said in an interview.
"The value of truth is one of the most central values in America, and this administration has violated" it, Kerry said in an interview with The Washington Post aboard the Democrats' campaign plane Friday. "Their values system is distorted and not based on truth."

The President and VP have, during the course of this campaign, been the target of the most vitriolic series of attacks from the Democrats, the press, and innumerable "pundits", ever seen in a Presidential campaign, and that statement by the Democratic candidates is as hate filled as any that has been made. Kerry and Edwards level a series of charges for which they must be made to provide specifics. How, specifically, has President Bush "governed in a dishonest fashion"? Specifically which values has the President "trampled"?

Kerry and Edwards then state that the President's values system is "distorted" and based on lies. This is beyond disagreeing on policies, John Kerry is questioning the President's integrity and honesty. Stating that a person's "value system" is based on lies is serious. It is serious enough that the person who makes the statement should have enough character to elaborate. President Bush is a Christian, is John Kerry saying that the values espoused by Christianity are lies? What does he mean? We do not know because the interviewers did not ask, and John Kerry did not offer examples or specifics. He was simply engaging in demogoguery of the worst kind: vicious, personal attacks with no justification and no examples to back them up.

Kerry then uses this attack to rationalize the vulgarity filled fundraiser he and Edwards had attended two nights before:

The Democratic nominee and his running mate said it was that kind of anger toward the president that prompted entertainers at Thursday's Democratic fundraising concert in New York to attack Bush as a "cheap thug" and a killer. "Obviously some performers, in my judgment and John's, stepped over a line neither of us believes appropriate, but we can't control that," Kerry said. "On the other hand, we understand the anger, we understand the frustration."

Nice try. There is no excuse for the behavior of the performers at John Kerry's fundraiser (the tape of which Kerry refuses to release) no matter how Kerry attempts to rationalize it. More incredible is John Kerry's statement that he could not have controlled the performers at his own event. Why not? If he really thought the performances were as inappropriate as he says why could he not have simply stepped onto the stage at some point to ask the performers to tone down the rhetoric? After all, it was a fundraiser being held in his behalf. Surely if the man of the hour had asked them to tone it down they would have. Kerry did not say anything during the performance for the same reason he didn't voice disagreement with the tone of the evening (as Howard Dean had done in the same circumstance) when he addressed the crowd at the end of the show: because he agrees with it. While addressing the crowd at the end of the evening, Kerry stated that "every performer tonight...conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country." Does John Kerry believe that the performances were inappropriate or does he believe that they represent the "heart and soul of America"? A man that sees fit to question the President's value system should answer that question.

Kerry again attacked the Presidents values by stating that he would campaign on his terms, not on Republicans "little political, hot-button, cultural, wedge-driven, poll-driven values." Then in a statement so hypocritical it is almost comical, John Kerry stated:

"We have not stood up and attacked our opponents in personal ways"

Unbelievable. Immediately after unleashing a series of serious personal attacks against the President, John Kerry has the audacity to state that his campaign hasn't made personal attacks against the President. This was too much even for the Washington Post reporters to take:

This week alone, Kerry has criticized Bush personally in speeches for lying, professional laziness, waiting until right before the election to indict Enron Corp.'s former chief executive, Kenneth L. Lay, lacking values and even having worse hair than the two Democrats. Some advisers are privately counseling Kerry to tone down his attacks on Bush.

The tone of that statement by the reporters indicates that even they were shocked by Kerry's flagrant hypocrisy.

After attacking the President's values for a while, the candidates talked about issues like the definition of marriage:

"Let's be very firm about it. Both John and I believe firmly and absolutely that marriage is between a man and a woman," Kerry said. "But we also believe that you don't play with the Constitution of the United States for political purposes and amend the Bill of Rights when you don't need to when states are adequately addressing this issue."

How exactly are the states handling the issue at the moment? California voters overwhemingly voted down a bill that would have allowed gay marriage, but the mayor of San Francisco, with the help of the courts, ignored the will of the voters and handed out state marriage certificates to gay couples. The Massachusetts Supreme Court also created a right to marriage by same sex couples. Apparently John Kerry's definition of a state handling a situation is that state's courts jamming its agenda down the throat of the citizens. Apparently John Kerry's idea of "being firm" is to state that you believe in something without having the will to take any action to protect it. He believed firmly enough in marriage to talk about it, but not firmly enough to actually do anything about it. By the way, Mt. Kerry, the Constitution itself allows for amendments, even if you think that is "playing' with the bill of Rights. This is the same stance that John Kerry takes on abortion. He recently stated that he believes that life begins at conception. He believes in that so much he has voted in favor of abortion every opportunity he has had, including voting no on the partial birth abortion ban. He actually stated in a primary debate that there "there is no such thing as a partial birth". He prefers to use "late term abortion". He believes in life so much as to be able to make this statement to the Massachusetts Democratic Issues Convention on June 7, 2003:

The Republicans want to criminalize the right of women to choose, take us back to the days of back alleys, gag doctors and deny families the right to plan and be aware of their choices - we Democrats want to protect the constitutional right of privacy and make clear that at the center of this struggle is our commitment to have a Supreme Court that will protect the equal rights, the civil rights, and the right to choose in this nation.

John Edwards took a different approach to answering the reporters questions regarding abortion, he simply refused to say anything:

Edwards twice did not respond when asked if he, too, believes life begins at conception.

He did not respond. Twice. Ironically, it is just after this that Kerry decides to defend John Edwards readiness to be Vice President or President:

"Don't get suckered into the how many years you've been in one job or this job" debate, Kerry said. "You've got people in [Washington] who have been in one job [for] 30 years of what you call experience, and they have done nothing, they don't stand for anything and they don't know how to fight."

John Edwards has been in the Senate five years, does not have his name on a single piece of legislation, and apparently fights for issues by not responding to questions. Unlike John Kerry who fights for issues by talking about them but doing nothing. Edwards went on in the interview to try to convince the reporters (and himself?) that he would learn more every day in preparation to assume office if elected. A Vice Presidential candidate with training wheels.

At the end of the interview John Edwards states that the President's entire career has not been reflective of American values:

"George Bush and others can say whatever they want now about what their values are, but what have they spent their life doing? Have they shown in their life experience, not just in the time they've been in politics, but in their life experience, that they have the values that Americans looked up to and respected?" Edwards asked. "It's just difficult for me to imagine anybody in my little home town in rural North Carolina looking up to and respecting someone more than John Kerry."

Well let's see, what has George Bush spent his life doing? The President spent his life in private industry succeeding and failing at different times building various businesses. Not an easy undertaking. Afterward he was elected Governor twice, and managed one of the largest states in the union. He then ran for, and was elected, President of the United States. John Edwards spent his life before his five years in the Senate making tens of millions of dollars suing American corporations. He had no interest in politics, and had in fact rarely voted, when he decided to throw millions of his own dollars (and millions more from donations of other trial lawyers) into a Senate run. Before serving one full term he realized that he would not be re-elected, so he decided to run for President, again with almost exclusive finacial support and backing support of trial attorneys. After making this decision he rarely made an appearance in the Senate to cast a vote. Apparently to John Edwards that career represents values that Americans can "look up to and respect".

Read the entire interview and pass it around to any undecided voters you know.

VDH Does It Again

Victor Davis Hanson provides some much needed perspective on the war in Iraq. It is a brilliant article by a brilliant author. Read it all.

Polls Tied In Minnesota and Wisconsin

This is good news for the President. These states should be in the bag for John Kerry and the fact that they aren't does not bode well for the Kerry campaign. Powerline has an analysis of what this polling might mean. Regardless of what the details of the polls may be, the fact that these states are a toss up means that the Kerry campaign will have to spend valuable time and resources campaigning where they should not have to. A victory for the President in one of these states would make a Kerry victory difficult, a victory in both would make a Kerry victory all but impossible.

Read the article here.

Whoopi Whines, Kerry Campaign Lashes Out

Earlier this week on A Time For Choosing, the post Slim Fast Drops 150 Unwanted Pounds predicted that Whoopi Goldberg would soon cry "McCarthyism" because Slim Fast had decided to drop her from their ad campaign after her vulgarity laced performance at a John Kerry fundraiser. Well the prediction has come true according to this story in the New York Daily News. Goldberg said in a statement:

"America's heart and soul is freedom of expression without fear of reprisal,"

She went on:

"The fact that I am no longer the spokesman for SlimFast makes me sad, but not as sad as someone trying to punish me for exercising my right as an American to speak my mind."

Yes Whoopi, we know, you are a victim. You are a victim of your own poor taste and bad judgement. It is amazing that celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg and the Dixie Chicks beleive that freedom of speech only flows one way. Whoopi had the right to say what she said, and the public had a right to voice their opinion about it to Slim Fast. It goes both ways.

The Bush Campaign has demanded that John Kerry release the tape of the event. After all, John Kerry took the stage at the end of the show and declared that "every performer tonight...conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country."

In response to the Bush Campaign request Kerry Spokesman Mary Beth Cahill replied:

...he could have the video after Bush releases his military records and details of Vice President Cheney's secret energy task force.

The Kerry Campaign resorts to the disproven slanderous assertion that George Bush was "AWOL" and that there is a conspriracy with Cheney's energy taskforce which he is hiding by not releasing documents. A third grade response from an irresponsible campaign that continues to fall back on conspiracy theories and slander when their back is against the wall.

China Develops New Submarine

According the Bill Gertz in the Washington Times, China has developed and built a new class of submarine that was only recently discovered by the United States.  This is disturbing article in many respects.  First, the Chinese were able to develop and build this submarine without the United States knowing until it was complete.  However,  more disturbing is Bill Gertz account of the Chinese build-up of subs of all class as part of a shifting naval strategy.  The Chinese have made the decision that their best defense against our carriers is a large force of submarines.  This is a shift from their previous coastal defense strategy.
 
Also in a story that failed to show up in the national news at all last week, Chinese leaders told Condaleeza Rice that they "would not sit idly by as Taiwan moved toward independence". 

Read the entire article.

Simply Stated

National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice has an editorial in this morning's USA Today that states simply and eloquently why we are safer now than we were three years ago.  She states:

Our efforts in Iraq have been critical to success in the global war on terror. Afghanistan today is an emerging democracy, no longer providing sanctuary to al-Qaeda. Libya's Moammar Gadhafi has surrendered his nuclear-weapons program. Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's secret nuclear-proliferation network, which sold technology and know-how to some of the world's most dangerous regimes, has been exposed. And the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are U.S. allies in the fight to root out terrorism. All of these developments have made America and the world safer places.

 

It must be getting more and more difficult for John Kerry's speech writers.  The Bush Administration has put together an impressive record on defending the country in a time of war.  The country is safer, as is the rest of the world, thanks to the leadership of Geroge W. Bush.  
 

Buy Hugh Hewitt's Book

If you know someone that is on the fence this election, buy them Hugh Hewitt's book If It's Not Close They Can't Cheat. 

Buy the book. Buy it twice. Read it and then give it away to someone
who needs it. It is companion book for this election.

The Circus Grows

The circus that will be the Democratic Convention is growing. John Kerry has given in to pressure and asked Hillary Clinton to speak.

Pandering Radical Kerry

John Kerry Pander? No! Never. You are seeing what you think you are seeing. That is a picture of John Kerry giving the “Black Power” sign while speaking at the NAACP conference. This is disgusting. If you support Senator Kerry for President and you are not embarrassed by this, you should be.

Kerry Holds Joe Wilson Up As Model Of Honesty

Much has been written on A Time For Choosing about the spectacular implosion of Joe Wilson since the release of the US and British reports on Iraq intelligence. For background info go here and here. Yet despite all that has happened to poor Joe, John Kerry still links to this website. This was obviously created when Wilson was a media darling for calling the President a liar. The text of the page in pasted below, as John Kerry is sure to remove this link soon:

I'm not a politician and I'm not a political partisan. I've served under Presidents from both parties. My loyalty has always been to country and constitution.
The first President Bush appointed me as Ambassador to two African countries and President Clinton put me in charge of African Affairs at the National Security Council. So when this President Bush's Administration sent me to Africa to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy materials for weapons of mass destruction, I was ready to serve.
But I wasn't ready to keep quiet when this President misled the nation in his State of the Union Address. Because of that, leakers in the Bush White House illegally revealed that my wife worked in the CIA - endangering her life and that of my family. They tried to intimidate me and others who were willing to speak up and tell the truth.
"...I wasn't ready to keep quiet when this President misled the nation in his State of the Union Address..."
Some people have said I was courageous to speak truth to the power of the Bush White House. But let me tell you, what I have done doesn't hold a candle to the courage that John Kerry showed as a young man and throughout his political career. I am supporting him for President because he has been willing to tell the truth no matter what the pressure. He is ready to restore truth and honor to the White House. And I hope that everyone else who is outraged by this Administration and who wants to change America will join me in doing all you can to make John Kerry our next President.
"...John Kerry...has the personal courage and integrity that I want in the leader of our great nation..."
In deciding on the best candidate to support in next year's election, I looked for qualities that are important in a President: leadership, experience and courage. There are many candidates who possess admirable traits but only one who has summoned the nerve to stand up to our government and for what's right over and over again: John Kerry.
To speak out against bad policies after a career of accomplishments, as I recently did, is a civic duty. To do so as a young person, as John Kerry did, in the face of the unremitting official hostility to end a bad war, is truly inspiring. John Kerry didn't have to go to Vietnam. He volunteered and served bravely earning a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. And when he came home as a decorated hero, he didn't have to fight the war. But John Kerry helped lead the fight to end the war, he earned the wrath of Richard Nixon and his cronies, and he won the respect of Americans for his courage.
"...I am honored to endorse John Kerry and to commit myself to his campaign to wrest our democracy back from those who have so squandered the public trust..."
Throughout his career in public service he has been ready to hold government accountable again and again. He blew the whistle on Ronald Reagan and Oliver North's secret war in Central America. He exposed Manuel Noriega's drug laundering operation. And he wrote a nationally acclaimed book on fighting global terrorism long before September 11th.
John Kerry is a decorated veteran, an experienced public servant, and a man of integrity. But most of all, he has the personal courage and integrity that I want in the leader of our great nation.
George Bush's Administration has betrayed our trust - I know that personally. I am honored to endorse John Kerry and to commit myself to his campaign to wrest our democracy back from those who have so squandered the public trust.
I hope you will join us.
- Joe Wilson

Note the language of this letter. This is an example of the sickness that pervades the Bush Hater/Michael Moore crowd.

President Bush, The NAACP and John Kerry

President Bush refused an invitation to speak to the NAACP, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In doing so, President Bush once again demonstrated the character that has made him a great leader in a time of crises. The only thing the NAACP has advanced in the years since the campaign of 2000 is hate of George Bush. During the campaign of 2000, the supposedly non-partisan NAACP ran an ad that implied that then Governor of Texas Bush was complicity in the horrible dragging death of James Bird because he refused to sign hate crimes legislation. Never mind the fact that two of the three responsible received the death penalty and the third received life in prison. Since the election of 2000, the NAACP has compared Republican's to the Taliban, called George Bush an illegal President, and called the President's trip to Africa a photo-op. President Bush has refused to speak to the group since 2000. A man with less character would have accepted the invitation to speak as an opportunity to pander to potential voters. The Bush Administration stated in response to the press coverage of his refusal to speak:

The president "has many friends who belong to the NAACP and respects their proud history of championing civil rights," White House communications director Dan Bartlett said. "Differences of opinion and opposing views are of course part of the national debate. Yet the current leadership of the NAACP has clearly crossed the line in partisans and civility, making it impossible to have a constructive dialogue."

"Despite the current leadership's intolerant views, President Bush will continue to reach out to members of the NAACP and African-Americans from across the country," he said. Bush addresses the Urban League, another civil rights group, next week.

He simply refuses to pander to a group that has questioned his integrity. John Kerry on the other hand saw the President's refusal to speak to the group as the perfect opportunity to pander. And pander he did. Kerry rushed to speak at the conference after the President declined and told the crowd:

"I will be a president who is truly a uniter, not one who seeks to divide one nation by race or riches or by any other label."

John Kerry played the race card (the Democrats play the race card in every election, the only question is when it will make its first appearance) It is interesting that John Kerry believes that by not speaking to a group that has called him a criminal, President Bush is responsible for "dividing" the country by race.

This episode highlights the biggest difference between the two men: President Bush has integrity and strength of character, John Kerry is willing to sell his for votes.

Filipino Hostage Thanks Government For Its Capitulation

The Filipino truck driver that is being held hostage in Iraq has been seen on a new video thanking his government for saving his life by giving in to the demands of the terrorists. In the new video he is no longer wearing an orange jumpsuit, the clothing other hostages have been forced to wear, a sign that can be interpreted that he is "safe".

The Philippine government has followed in the footsteps of Spain, who after the terrorist attack against a commuter train days before their election, dumped the popular, pro-U.S. Aznar government in favor of the Socialist candidate who had promised to immediately withdraw all Spanish troops from Iraq. Both actions accomplish one thing: they embolden the terrorists to continue their tactics of terror and murder. The United States have a long standing tradition of not negotiating with terrorists for that reason. No one should be surprised when a soldier or a civilian worker from another of the smaller coalition members is taken hostage and threatened with death unless their country withdraws from Iraq. The soldiers and civilians working to make Iraq a better country already face immense dangers, and the actions of the Philippine government has made it even more dangerous.

Read it here.

The Roberts Report

The British Roberts Report, different from The Butler Report, confirmed the links between Iraq and Al-Queda. That is right, another government report has confirmed that yet another claim made by the administration was in fact true. There were links, they are proven and no amount of media or partisan spin can diminish the fact. According to The Butler Report Saddam was still pursuing WMD at the time of the war and that stockpiles may still be found.

Let's review:

1.Saddam Hussein was still pursuing WMD at the start of the War.
2.Saddam Hussein had ties to terrorist groups including Al-Queda.
3.Saddam Hussein may have had stockpiles of weapons that could still be found.

A question to pose to John Kerry (who has now stated he is
anti-war): If you had been President and were presented with this information after 9/11 what would you have done?

He has yet to answer that question, or to be more specific, he has given every possible answer to that question.

Apologies Can Be Sent To 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

The battle cry of the Democrats for the past year has been that President Bush is a liar. He lied about yellow-cake, he lied about WMD, he lied about Saddam being a threat. As Ted Kennedy so famously stated on the floor of the Senate:

Week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie." – Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., on how the president deceived the American people into supporting an invasion of Iraq.

This has been repeated on a daily basis by any number of leading Democrats, including John Kerry who has worked the theme into his campaign speeches and tv commercials nearly as often as he has mentioned his own Vietnam service. Kerry is, in fact, one of the most egregious offenders, often tossing out the name Halliburton to keep the conspiracy that it was a war based on lies to benefit Vice President Cheney alive.

Well now both the Senate intelligence Committee Report and the Butler Report have been released, and as today's Washington Times editorial points out, both reports found that neither Tony Blair nor George Bush lied, nor did they intentionally mislead the public to go to war. In fact, the only person who has been proven to be a liar in the whole affair is Joe Wilson. Joe Wilson is the former ambassador that was sent to Nigeria to determine if Iraq had attempted to buy Uranium. He became the flag bearer for the Democrats, one of the earliest to suggest that President Bush had lied. His wife Valerie Plame, a covert CIA officer, became the center of a "leak" investigation, partially based on another claim by Wilson that she had had nothing to do with his selection to go to Niger. We now know that even that was untrue. The "16 words" that President Bush used in his State of the Union Address re: Iraq attempting to purchase yellowcake from Africa were well founded. The Butler Report states:

We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the government's dossier, and by extension the prime minister in the House of Commons, were well founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush's state of the union address of 2003 that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" was well founded.

President Bush did not lie, he did not mislead the country, he did not coerce the intelligence community into producing damning material against Iraq. Yet for the past year the Democrats have made this accusation at every turn. Any Democrat with a shred of integrity would apologize to the President and to the country if they have engaged in this type of demogoguery. Will it happen? Will one Democrat step forward and apologize? Not likely. The Democrat's entire campaign has been based on accusations against the President. John Kerry and the Democrats have created a base from the "Bush Haters", many of whom are beyond rehabilitation. The Democrats themselves have, along with a more than willing media, sold themselves into the world of conspiracies (Kerry often mentions Halliburton, the Florida election and "Bush Lied" in his campaign speeches).

Now the truth has come out, and as the Wall Street Journal said in their editorial from today, "The American people can decide who the real liars are".

The Butler Report

Jonah Goldberg at The National Review has pulled relevant paragraphs from The Butler Report. The Butler report is the British version of our own Senate's report on pre-war Iraq intelligence. Read them, memorize them, print them and give them to anyone you know that asserts that the War was based on a lie, or that Saddam Hussein was not a threat. From the Butler Report:

We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the government's dossier, and by extension the prime minister in the House of Commons, were well founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush's state of the union address of 2003 that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" was well founded.

Has anyone seen Joe Wilson? Joe Wilson? Is Joe Wilson here? More from the report:

Even now it would be premature to reach conclusions about Iraq's prohibited weapons. Much potential evidence may have been destroyed in the looting and disorder that followed the cessation of hostilities. Other material may be hidden in the sand, including stocks of agent or weapons. We believe that it would be a rash person who asserted at this stage that evidence of Iraqi possession of stocks of biological or chemical agents, or even of banned missiles, does not exist or will never be found. But as a result of our review, and taking into account the evidence which has been found by the ISG and debriefing of Iraqi personnel, we have reached the conclusion that prior to the war the Iraqi regime:

a) Had the strategic intention of resuming the pursuit of prohibited weapons programmes, including if possible its nuclear weapons programme, when UN inspection regimes were relaxed and sanctions were eroded or lifted.

b) In support of that goal, was carrying out illicit research and development, and procurement, activities, to seek to sustain its indigenous capabilities.

c) Was developing ballistic missiles with a range longer than permitted under relevant United Nations security council resolutions, but did not have significant - if any - stocks of chemical or biological weapons in a state fit for deployment, or developed plans for using them.

The report also concluded
that Tony Blair in no way misled anyone regarding Iraq's weapon's:

"We found no evidence to question the prime minister's good faith," Lord Butler said after releasing his report.

While Blair placed undue weight on thin intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weaponry, Butler told reporters there was "no deliberate attempt on the part of the government to mislead."

This statement in the Butler Report should lead anyone who is interested in the security of the United States and it's allies to breathe a sigh of relief:

Even now it would be premature to reach conclusions about Iraq's prohibited weapons. Much potential evidence may have been destroyed in the looting and disorder that followed the cessation of hostilities. Other material may be hidden in the sand, including stocks of agent or weapons. We believe that it would be a rash person who asserted at this stage that evidence of Iraqi possession of stocks of biological or chemical agents, or even of banned missiles, does not exist or will never be found.

The importance of this cannot be overstated. Not for partisan political reasons, but because this report and the US report calls into question the Intelligence services we rely on for our security. If the allies in Iraq were to find large stockpiles of weapons "buried beneath the sands", then would the pre-war intelligence still be considered flawed. Would the sources and methods used by intelligence agencies still deserve the ridicule they have gotten since the reports were released? The entire world believed because of intelligence that Saddam maintained stockpiles of weapons. Is it not possible that in the months leading up to the war that Saddam buried the weapons, or sent them out of the country?

The fact is it is possible that the weapons will still be found., and Lord Butler Report had the forthrightness to include that possibility in his report.

Slim Fast Drops 150 Unwanted Pounds

It seems that a good portion of the public objected to Whoopi Goldberg's vulgarity laced rant at the Radio City Music Hall fundraiser for John Kerry. Slim-Fast has announced that all ads that feature her will be dropped. A company spokesman stated that the company was "disappointed" in her behavior. A spokesman for Goldberg had no comment, although it is just a matter of time before she or another intellectual heavyweight from Hollywood cries "McCarthyism".

Read it here.

RWN: 10 Questions For John Kerry

As a follow up to their "40 Reasons to Vote For Bush", Right Wing News has posted 10 questions that need to be posed to John Kerry. Some highlights:

1) Conservatives claim your voting record is to the left of Ted Kennedys. Are you a liberal? Do you think your political views compare with those of Ted Kennedy? (10:16)

2) Given that every commanding officer you ever had in Vietnam says you are unfit to be President, do you think voters can still trust your judgement on national defense when your own commanding officers in Vietnam don't? (10:19)

3) In 1984, you recommended the cancellation of the B1 bomber, the cruise missile, MX missile, Trident submarine, Patriot air defense missile, F15 fighter plane, Sparrow missile, stealth bomber and Pershing II missile among other programs. Do you think we're lucky you didn't get your way back then or do you believe we'd be better off today without those weapons? (10:20)

Read the whole thing.

John Kerry, The War and The Democratic Convention

John Kerry has taken every possible position on the War in Iraq. Not long ago, when a Democrat was in the White House and Kerry was not running for President he stated that the United States must be willing to go it alone in Iraq:

..."while we should always seek to take significant international actions on a multilateral rather than a unilateral basis whenever that is possible, if in the final analysis we face what we truly believe to be a grave threat to the well-being of our Nation or the entire world and it cannot be removed peacefully, we must have the courage to do what we believe is right and wise."

After falling behind Howard Dean, the staunch anti-war candidate in the Democratic Primary, John Kerry stated in a debate that he was an "anti-war" candidate. The on January 23, 2003 John Kerry again switched positions declaring that:

Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real.

So far he has been for the war, against the war and at this point he is for the war again, but his contortions do not stop there.

In January 2004 during an appearance on "Hardball" with Chris Matthews, John Kerry had this to say in response to Chris Matthews question regarding the war:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: “Do you think you belong to that category of candidates who more or less are unhappy with this war, the way it’s been fought, along with General Clark, along with Howard Dean and not necessarily in companionship politically on the issue of the war with people like Lieberman, Edwards and Gephardt? Are you one of the anti-war candidates?” KERRY: “I am -- Yes, in the sense that I don’t believe the president took us to war as he should have, yes, absolutely.”

After voting for the war, John Kerry voted against the 87 Billion dollar supplement for the war effort. He obviously thought afterwards that it was a mistake to vote against it, because when he was questions about it he famously said:

"I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

After declaring himself anti-war (at this point), Kerry found that it would be politically expedient to support the additional $25 billion dollar supplement for the war effort in Iraq. He stated:

"The situation in Iraq has deteriorated far beyond what the [Bush] administration anticipated. This money is urgently needed and it is completely focused on the needs of our troops,

Then of course when it came time to vote, he was too busy campaigning to come to Washington to vote for the funding, to which the Bush Campaign responded:

"John Kerry has once again shown himself to be foragainst funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. After saying he would support the President's $25 billion funding proposal, Kerry skipped yesterday's vote on the bill. Only John Kerry could give a speech on modernizing and equipping our military the day after he didn't show up to vote to send money to the troops engaged in essential operations."
-Steve Schmidt, Bush-Cheney '04 Spokesman

After voting against the $87 Billion supplement and mounting a comical defense upon being questioned about it, John Kerry Stated last week that he is now "proud" that he and his running mate John Edwards voted against it:

"Here is the value that John Edwards and I will put in place. I'm proud to say that John joined me in voting against that $87 billion when we knew the policy had to be changed." (John Kerry, Remarks at "Women's Voices: A Luncheon with John Kerry," Boston, MA, 7/12/04)

Apparently John Kerry is proud of voting for the war, but then voting against the funding for the war. Then last Sunday John Kerry drew a political line in the sand during a "60 Minutes" interview. He stated:

"I am against the — the war."

So there it is. John Kerry is against the war. He is proud that he did not vote for the $87 Billion, and it can be presumed that he is proud that he did not vote for the $25 Billion. John Kerry has now clarified the Democratic ticket's position on the War in Iraq. They are against it. As in 1972, the Democratic ticket for President of the United States is anti-war, a position that is supported by the speaking list for their convention. The list includes Al "digital brownshirts" Gore, Howard "bring the troops home now" Dean, Bill "internationalize the war" Clinton, Jimmy "That was a war based on lies" Carter, Ted "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam" Kennedy and possibly Al "Why do they lie? Because they're liars!" Sharpton.

The American people will witness the most liberal party convention in modern history. The convention will also bring together for all the world to see, the radical groups that now make up the core of the modern Democratic Party. The Move.org/Michael Moore contingency will be large and vocal and will cheer Al Gore and Howard Dean when they veer into the world of conspiracy and rabid anti-Bush rhetoric. Based on past Presidential races, John Kerry should get a significant bump in the polls after the convention. This convention however, could quickly spin out of control for the Kerry campaign. The effect may not be seen until after the Republican convention when America can juxtapose the ultra-liberal speakers and the environment of hate displayed at the Democratic convention to the moderate tone and atmosphere of the Republican convention that will feature John McCain, Zell Miller and Rudy Giuliani. Americans will also have the opportunity to see many of the same radical elements that were cheering during the Democratic convention wreaking havoc in the streets on New York as they "protest" the Republican convention.

The Democrats have derailed as a party. As Zell Miller so eloquently wrote, the Democrats are "A National Party No More", and the Democratic convention will be an unedited showcase of what they have become.

British Intelligence Report Finds "No Attempt To Mislead"

The British version of our Senate's report on pre-war intelligence in Iraq has found that although the intelligence was flawed, there was "no evidence to question the prime minister's good faith." In other words just as our senate concluded, the world wide intelligence assessment of Iraq's weapons stockpiles were flawed, neither the President nor the Prime Minister made any attempt to mislead the public or pressure the intelligence community to produce evidence of any sort.


Read it here.

The Circus that Will Be The Democratic National Convention

The list of speakers at the Democratic National Convention reads like a laundry list of ultra-liberal clowns from a bygone era. The Republican's should send John Kerry and Terry McAuliffe a Thank you letter for putting together a group of people that represent everything that is wrong with the Democratic Party. The speaking list includes Bill Clinton(and possibly Hillary), Ted Kennedy, for which an entire day of the convention will be dedicated, Al Gore (fresh off of his unbalanced rant about "brownshirts" in the Bush Administration), Jimmy Carter (no commentary needed), and now Howard Dean. There is also a possibility that Al Sharpton will make an appearance. John Kerry and John Edwards will of course address the crowd. It is a sad statement of the party when the most moderate voice the Democrats have to offer is Bill Clinton. John Kerry will try to strike a moderate tone, but the need to appease the "Bush Lied" crowd that now makes up a large percentage of the Democratic Party will cause him to veer left. The convention may be the time that the Democrats cement their "anti-war" status. John Edwards will deliver some version of the only political speech he has, the "Two America's" speech. The speech in which he references some mythical little girl that has no coat in the winter. A speech that register's with very few voters, and even less when delivered by a millionaire trial lawyer who made millions suing the corporations many people in the crowd were employed by.

The convention will also be teeming with the Moveon.org ultra radical factions. They will be loud, loud enough that it is possible that their antics will be the most memorable part of the convention.

Republican's should hope that a majority of the Democratic convention is played on primetime television. It will offer American's a true glimpse of what the modern Democratic Party has become: a group controlled by the far left fringe, unqualified to lead the country through the war in which we are engaged.


UPDATE

This is perfect. To add to the circus, Jerry Springer will be covering the convention. Absolutely fitting.

Read it here.

Terrorist Threat Highest Since September 11th

A very sobering article. Every citizen has an obligation to be alert. An alert population is the best defense we have against terror.

Read it here.

Da-Coach To Da-Senator?

Former Chicago Bears football coach Mike Ditka is considering replacing Jack Ryan on the ballot for the Senate race in Illinois. Ditka has stated: "I'm getting excited about it," in reference to the possibility that he will run. The Republicans had all but written the seat off, even before Jack Ryan dropped after the race. If Ditka were to join the race, it could give the GOP a shot in the arm in Illinois. He would have a real chance of defeating the Democrat Barack Obama.

Read it here.

Operation "Lightning Resolve" Launched

The United states has launched a major offensive against Taliban and Al-queda terrorists in Afghanistan in an attempt to suppress the threat of terrorism before the upcoming Afghani election. Let's hope we find some people we are looking for.

Read it here.

RWN: 40 Reasons To Vote For Bush

The blog Right Wing News has compiled a fanatastic list of 40 reasons to vote for President Bush. Some highlights:

2) "Speaking on a live local broadcast at a campaign stop in Toledo, Ohio in front of 300 people, Kerry blasted Bush for being an illegitimately elected president in 2000 when he was "selected" by the U.S. Supreme Court. When an elderly Democratic voter in the audience accused Vice President Dick Cheney of murdering women and children in Iraq for the sake of oil profits, Kerry responded by saying, "I know exactly where you're coming from." Kerry added, "I know where that anger comes from, I know where the frustration comes from." -- John Kerry, May 2004

3) John Kerry's official blog links to the Democratic Underground, a left-wing website with very popular forums that is often quoted from by conservative bloggers and radio hosts because it's such a cesspool of lunacy. If you're looking for people who think Americans are just as bad as Al-Qaeda, the US Gov't had Nick Berg killed, or just a little America trashing, there's no better place on the internet to go than the Democratic Underground. In fact, just to give you a better idea of what it's like, here's the #1 quote from The 10 Worst Quotes From The Democratic Underground For 2003...

"I realize that not every GI Joe was 100peeercent behind Prseeedent Booosh going into this war; but I do know that that is what an overwhelming number of them and their famlies screamed in the face of protesters who were trying to protect these kids. Well, there is more than one way to be "dead" for your country. They are not only not accompishing squat in Iraq, they are doing crap nothing for the safety, defense of the US of A over there directly. But "indirectly" they are doing a lot.

The only way to get rid of this slime bag WASP-Mafia, oil barron ridden cartel of a government, this assault on Americans and anything one could laughingly call "a democracy", relies heavily on what a sh*t hole Iraq turns into. They need to die so that we can be free. Soldiers usually did that directly--i.e., fight those invading and harming a country. This time they need to die in defense of a lie from a lying adminstration to show these ignorant, dumb Americans that Bush is incompetent. They need to die so that Americans get rid of this deadly scum. It is obscene, Barbie Bush, how other sons (of much nobler blood) have to die to save us from your Rosemary's Baby spawn and his ungodly cohorts." -- Starpass

14) "Kerry then went on to promise that the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S. would be given a “path to citizenship” in his first 100 days in office." -- Matt Hayes at FOXNews describes a promise made by John Kerry in a speech at the national conference of the race identity group La Raza (The Race).

37) "Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said during last night's Democratic presidential debate that the threat of terrorism has been exaggerated. "I think there has been an exaggeration," Mr. Kerry said when asked whether President Bush has overstated the threat of terrorism. "They are misleading all Americans in a profound way." -- Washington Times on Jan 30, 2004

Read the entire list here.

Kerry Disrupts September 11th Memorial Dedication

In another episode that proves he truly has no shame, John Kerry crashed a private September 11th memorial dedication, arriving late in a caravan with wailing sirens, and glad-handing the crowd as if he were on a campaign stop. Needless to say the families were not impressed:

Sen. John F. Kerry upset some families of 9/11 victims yesterday when he arrived - late - to a private memorial dedication in a sirened motorcade and glad-handed as though he were on the campaign trail. The senator, in Boston for the day, hopped in his motorcade at the Four Seasons, drove around the Boston Public Garden and arrived at the memorial with his sizable entourage in tow. Press were kept away but several family members, speaking privately, said they were miffed that Kerry arrived after most other pols - such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Rep. Martin T. Meehan, and Attorney General Tom Reilly - had all left. And Kerry stayed much longer than the other leaders, shaking hands, posing for photos before he left with just as much commotion. `I bet he couldn't even name anybody on that wall,'' said the wife of one 9/11 victim, who spoke on the condition her name not be used. Others said they were disturbed that the Kerry campaign allowed television crews to film over the Public Garden fence - capturing video of Kerry with grieving family members in the midst of his presidential campaign.

Read it here.

Bin Laden Aide Surrenders

Fantastic News! A close Bin Laden aide has surrendered to authorities, and has been flown from Iran to Saudi Arabia. If OBL is alive and this guy has information, he could prove to be a valuable catch.

Read it here.

Kerry: I Am Against The War

During his "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday night John Kerry finally said what everyone already knew, that he is against the war in which we are currently engaged. Kerry stated:

"I am against the — the war"

There it is. No matter heequivocates between now and the election, he hjas laid his cards on the table. He is an anti-war candidate. He is the man that said he believes that the terror is more of a law enforcement issue, not a war. He voted for the war, voted against the $87 billion, failed to show up for the vote for the additional $25 Billion to support the troops. This after stating in 2002 that "The Iraqi regime's record over the decade leaves little doubt that Saddam Hussein wants to retain his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and to expand it to include nuclear weapons. We cannot allow him to prevail in that quest." and stating on Jan 23, 2003:

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."

Now he is against the war that accomplished what he said we needed to do. We are in a war against men who would like to kill as many Americans as possible, and the man that the Democrats have nominated to be President is incapable of taking a stand on the most important issure before him. He is incapable because he does not have core beliefs. He states what he believes is politically expedient at the time, what can garner the most votes. How can a man that cannot take a stand on the war lead a nation through the most dangerous and turbulent time in our nations history? Decisions will have to be made in the War on Terror without clear cut evidence and the President will have to be decisive and willing to defend the country above all at the risk of making mistakes. No position, vote or statement in John Kerry's career proves that he is capable of of making such a decision. He has waffled and hedged on every major issue of our time. He is the most liberal member of the Unoited States senate, and despite his four months of service in Vietnam, is an anti-war candidate on par with McGovern. Unlike McGovern who chose a more moderate VP candidate, Kerry has chosen the fourth most liberal man in the Senate as his running mate.

We are at war. The President of the United States must be capable of making difficult decisions in the face of opposition, a quality George Bush has proven he has over and over again, and a quality John Kerry has yet to prove he has.

Read the New York Post article here.

Today's Good News

The trade defecit fell unexpectedly last month, raising government growth forecasts for the second quarter. Don't believe the hype the media is feeding the American people about the economy faltering. It is booming and will continue to boom through the next year.

Read it here.

President Bush Defends War/Record

President Bush went on the offensive yesterday during a visit to the Oak Ridge Nuclear facility in Tennessee, touting the record his administration has compiled in three years of service to the American people. The speech was a reminder to the American people that despite what they may be hearing from the Kerry/Edwards cheerleaders in the press the accomplishments of this administration in the war on terror have been considerable and have indeed made America safer. The President also pointed out that despite the ongoing efforts of men and women assigned to protect the country, it is a difficult task:

It's not possible to guarantee perfect security in our vast, free nation. But I can assure our fellow Americans, many fine professionals in intelligence and national security and homeland security and law enforcement are working around the clock doing everything they can to protect the country. And we're grateful to them all.

The President went on to outline specific accomplishments of the past three years that have made the country safer:

Three years ago, the nation of Afghanistan was the home base of al Qaeda, a country ruled by the Taliban, one of the most backward and brutal regimes of modern history. Schooling was denied girls. Women were whipped in the streets and executed in a sports stadium. Millions lived in fear. With protection from the Taliban, al Qaeda and its associates trained, indoctrinated, and sent forth thousands of killers to set up terror cells in dozens of countries, including our own.

Today, Afghanistan is a world away from the nightmare of the Taliban. That country has a good and just President. Boys and girls are being educated. Many refugees have returned home to rebuild their country, and a presidential election is scheduled for this fall. The terror camps are closed and the Afghan government is helping us to hunt the Taliban and terrorists in remote regions. Today, because we acted to liberate Afghanistan, a threat has been removed, and the American people are safer. (Applause.)

Three years ago, Pakistan was one of the few countries in the world that recognized the Taliban regime. Al Qaeda was active and recruiting in Pakistan, and was not seriously opposed. Pakistan served as a transit point for al Qaeda terrorists leaving Afghanistan on missions of murder. Yet the United States was not on good terms with Pakistan's military and civilian leaders -- the very people we would need to help shut down al Qaeda operations in that part of the world.

Today, the governments of the United States and Pakistan are working closely in the fight against terror. President Musharraf is a friend of our country, who helped us capture Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the operational planner behind the September the 11th attacks. And Pakistani forces are rounding up terrorists along their nation's western border. Today, because we're working with the Pakistani leaders, Pakistan is an ally in the war on terror, and the American people are safer.

The speech is a preview of the campaign theme of the President. Read the speech here.

Blackout Hits Athens

The worst power outage in a decade has struck Athens a month before the Olympic Games...

Read it here.

Wall Street Journal: WMD's and Lies

The lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal deals with the Senate's report on the intelligence regarding Iraq's WMD. The editorial makes several important points, a few have which have been discussed on A Time For Choosing. The editorial concludes:

One real danger now is that the intelligence community will react to this Iraq criticism by taking even fewer risks, or by underestimating future threats as it has so often in the past. (The failure to detect that Saddam was within a year of having a nuclear bomb prior to the 1991 Gulf War is a prime example.) The process of developing "national intelligence estimates," or NIEs, will only reinforce this sense of internal, lowest-common-denominator, conformity. If the Senate is looking for a place to recommend long-term reform, dispensing with NIEs would be a good place to start.

Above all, it's important to remember that the Senate report does not claim that the overall assessment of Iraq as a threat was mistaken. U.N. Resolution 1441 gave Saddam ample opportunity to come clean about his weapons, but he refused. The reports from David Kay and his WMD task force have since shown that Saddam violated 1441 in multiple ways.

Saddam retained a "just-in-time" capability to make WMD, even if he destroyed, hid or removed the "stockpiles" that the CIA believed he had. It's fanciful to think, especially in light of the Oil for Food scandal, that U.N.-led containment was a realistic option for another 12 years, or that once containment ended Saddam wouldn't have expanded his weapons capacity very quickly. The Senate report makes clear we need a better CIA, not that we should have left in power a homicidal, WMD-using dictator.

Exactly. Despite the errors in the agency's assessment, invading Iraq was still the right choice.

Kerry Proposals Will Increase Spending $226 Billion in First Year

Any independent or conservative who is upset about the fact that President Bush has increased spending during his first term should take a close look at this article. Over $115 million will be spent on various social welfare programs. John Kerry is the definition of a tax and spend liberal, a charge he freely admits to. He has stated that he will pay for all of his spending by raising taxes on the wealthy, a term he defines as any family, and many small businesses that make over $200,000 per year.

The study by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF), which will be released later this week, finds that Mr. Kerry's budget proposals, which he says would slash the deficit in half over four years, would increase spending well beyond his estimates.

"Despite Kerry's attempts to outflank Bush on the deficit issue and portray himself as the more fiscally responsible candidate, the data behind Kerry's rhetoric tell a different story," said Drew Johnson, the study's author.

If you would like to keep less of your money vote for John Kerry.

Read it here.

Fahrenheit 9/11: Quickly Becoming Just A Bad Dream

Michael Moore's latest propaganda film is quickly sinking beneath waves. It had a good opening weekend, a decent second weekend and then was quickly overtaken by new movies. One reason for its rapid fall may be that other than the far left fringe, few people are willing to pay money to sit through a movie that is full of lies and distortions. John Lott Jr. & Brian Blase expose several of these in today's New York Post, while Gregg Easterbrook also takes aim at Moore's distortions in the New Republic online, not exactly part of Moore's vast "right wing conspiracy".

If you have not seen the movie, do yourself a favor and us the $20 to buy this book. It is a catalogue of Moore's lies and distortions through his entire career, and is an amusing read. It is also currently #9 on the NYT's best seller list.

Kerry Gets No Bounce From Edwards

The choice of John Edwards as his running mate gave John Kerry no poll bounce as was expected, and as is common for challengers when they select a running mate. The Kerry campaign was quick to try to dampen any expectation of a bounce. The article cites polls taken comparing VP Cheney to Edwards, with Edwards faring well. This poll should be ignored. Polls taken by the big media outlets are almost always the least accurate and have, in this campaign season, often been out of line with more scientific polls.

As the country realizes that the most liberal Senator in the country has chosen the fourth most liberal senator as his running mate, polls will slowly start to shift into the President's favor. Unless there is a large event (terrorist attack, capture of Osama Bin Laden or Zarqawi, major event in Iraq) there will be no large or sudden change in poll numbers. If the economy continues to grow and events around the world remain as they are the President will be in good shape for re-election.

An Interview That Has to Be Read To Be Believed

John Kerry and John Edwards gave an interview to the Washington Post aboard their campaign plane during their recent multi-state tour. The interview is an exercise in hypocrisy and condescension. Kerry and Edwards stated:

President Bush has governed in a dishonest fashion, trampling values on every issue except fighting terrorism and leaving voters "clamoring for restoration of credibility and trust in the White House again," John F. Kerry and John Edwards said in an interview.
"The value of truth is one of the most central values in America, and this administration has violated" it, Kerry said in an interview with The Washington Post aboard the Democrats' campaign plane Friday. "Their values system is distorted and not based on truth."

The President and VP have, during the course of this campaign, been the target of the most vitriolic series of attacks from the Democrats, the press, and innumerable "pundits", ever seen in a Presidential campaign, and that statement by the Democratic candidates is as hate filled as any that has been made. Kerry and Edwards level a series of charges for which they must be made to provide specifics. How, specifically, has President Bush "governed in a dishonest fashion"? Specifically which values has the President "trampled"?

Kerry and Edwards then state that the President's values system is "distorted" and based on lies. This is beyond disagreeing on policies, John Kerry is questioning the President's integrity and honesty. Stating that a person's "value system" is based on lies is serious. It is serious enough that the person who makes the statement should have enough character to elaborate. President Bush is a Christian, is John Kerry saying that the values espoused by Christianity are lies? What does he mean? We do not know because the interviewers did not ask, and John Kerry did not offer examples or specifics. He was simply engaging in demogoguery of the worst kind: vicious, personal attacks with no justification and no examples to back them up.

Kerry then uses this attack to rationalize the vulgarity filled fundraiser he and Edwards had attended two nights before:

The Democratic nominee and his running mate said it was that kind of anger toward the president that prompted entertainers at Thursday's Democratic fundraising concert in New York to attack Bush as a "cheap thug" and a killer. "Obviously some performers, in my judgment and John's, stepped over a line neither of us believes appropriate, but we can't control that," Kerry said. "On the other hand, we understand the anger, we understand the frustration."

Nice try. There is no excuse for the behavior of the performers at John Kerry's fundraiser (the tape of which Kerry refuses to release) no matter how Kerry attempts to rationalize it. More incredible is John Kerry's statement that he could not have controlled the performers at his own event. Why not? If he really thought the performances were as inappropriate as he says why could he not have simply stepped onto the stage at some point to ask the performers to tone down the rhetoric? After all, it was a fundraiser being held in his behalf. Surely if the man of the hour had asked them to tone it down they would have. Kerry did not say anything during the performance for the same reason he didn't voice disagreement with the tone of the evening (as Howard Dean had done in the same circumstance) when he addressed the crowd at the end of the show: because he agrees with it. While addressing the crowd at the end of the evening, Kerry stated that "every performer tonight...conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country." Does John Kerry believe that the performances were inappropriate or does he believe that they represent the "heart and soul of America"? A man that sees fit to question the President's value system should answer that question.

Kerry again attacked the Presidents values by stating that he would campaign on his terms, not on Republicans "little political, hot-button, cultural, wedge-driven, poll-driven values." Then in a statement so hypocritical it is almost comical, John Kerry stated:

"We have not stood up and attacked our opponents in personal ways"

Unbelievable. Immediately after unleashing a series of serious personal attacks against the President, John Kerry has the audacity to state that his campaign hasn't made personal attacks against the President. This was too much even for the Washington Post reporters to take:

This week alone, Kerry has criticized Bush personally in speeches for lying, professional laziness, waiting until right before the election to indict Enron Corp.'s former chief executive, Kenneth L. Lay, lacking values and even having worse hair than the two Democrats. Some advisers are privately counseling Kerry to tone down his attacks on Bush.

The tone of that statement by the reporters indicates that even they were shocked by Kerry's flagrant hypocrisy.

After attacking the President's values for a while, the candidates talked about issues like the definition of marriage:

"Let's be very firm about it. Both John and I believe firmly and absolutely that marriage is between a man and a woman," Kerry said. "But we also believe that you don't play with the Constitution of the United States for political purposes and amend the Bill of Rights when you don't need to when states are adequately addressing this issue."

How exactly are the states handling the issue at the moment? California voters overwhemingly voted down a bill that would have allowed gay marriage, but the mayor of San Francisco, with the help of the courts, ignored the will of the voters and handed out state marriage certificates to gay couples. The Massachusetts Supreme Court also created a right to marriage by same sex couples. Apparently John Kerry's definition of a state handling a situation is that state's courts jamming its agenda down the throat of the citizens. Apparently John Kerry's idea of "being firm" is to state that you believe in something without having the will to take any action to protect it. He believed firmly enough in marriage to talk about it, but not firmly enough to actually do anything about it. By the way, Mt. Kerry, the Constitution itself allows for amendments, even if you think that is "playing' with the bill of Rights. This is the same stance that John Kerry takes on abortion. He recently stated that he believes that life begins at conception. He believes in that so much he has voted in favor of abortion every opportunity he has had, including voting no on the partial birth abortion ban. He actually stated in a primary debate that there "there is no such thing as a partial birth". He prefers to use "late term abortion". He believes in life so much as to be able to make this statement to the Massachusetts Democratic Issues Convention on June 7, 2003:

The Republicans want to criminalize the right of women to choose, take us back to the days of back alleys, gag doctors and deny families the right to plan and be aware of their choices - we Democrats want to protect the constitutional right of privacy and make clear that at the center of this struggle is our commitment to have a Supreme Court that will protect the equal rights, the civil rights, and the right to choose in this nation.

John Edwards took a different approach to answering the reporters questions regarding abortion, he simply refused to say anything:

Edwards twice did not respond when asked if he, too, believes life begins at conception.

He did not respond. Twice. Ironically, it is just after this that Kerry decides to defend John Edwards readiness to be Vice President or President:

"Don't get suckered into the how many years you've been in one job or this job" debate, Kerry said. "You've got people in [Washington] who have been in one job [for] 30 years of what you call experience, and they have done nothing, they don't stand for anything and they don't know how to fight."

John Edwards has been in the Senate five years, does not have his name on a single piece of legislation, and apparently fights for issues by not responding to questions. Unlike John Kerry who fights for issues by talking about them but doing nothing. Edwards went on in the interview to try to convince the reporters (and himself?) that he would learn more every day in preparation to assume office if elected. A Vice Presidential candidate with training wheels.

At the end of the interview John Edwards states that the President's entire career has not been reflective of American values:

"George Bush and others can say whatever they want now about what their values are, but what have they spent their life doing? Have they shown in their life experience, not just in the time they've been in politics, but in their life experience, that they have the values that Americans looked up to and respected?" Edwards asked. "It's just difficult for me to imagine anybody in my little home town in rural North Carolina looking up to and respecting someone more than John Kerry."

Well let's see, what has George Bush spent his life doing? The President spent his life in private industry succeeding and failing at different times building various businesses. Not an easy undertaking. Afterward he was elected Governor twice, and managed one of the largest states in the union. He then ran for, and was elected, President of the United States. John Edwards spent his life before his five years in the Senate making tens of millions of dollars suing American corporations. He had no interest in politics, and had in fact rarely voted, when he decided to throw millions of his own dollars (and millions more from donations of other trial lawyers) into a Senate run. Before serving one full term he realized that he would not be re-elected, so he decided to run for President, again with almost exclusive finacial support and backing support of trial attorneys. After making this decision he rarely made an appearance in the Senate to cast a vote. Apparently to John Edwards that career represents values that Americans can "look up to and respect".

Read the entire interview and pass it around to any undecided voters you know.

Evidence of Bias

Jeff Jacoby takes another look at the famous "16 words" from the President's State of the Union address, and wonders why the media that was full of "Bush Lied" headlines one year ago, won't bother to report that the statement regarding Iraq, Niger and yellowcake has proven to be true.

Read it here.

President Bush Calls For Gay Marriage Amendment

In his weekly radio address, president Bush reiterated his call for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. It is misleading to state that it is an "amendment to ban gay marriage".

This is going to be a campaign issue. The Democrats would like to see this issue left to the courts, where it would be pushed through by the will of a selected few, instead of put to vote with the American people.

If the Democrats can keep the issue out of the public, they can avoid taking a stand on an issue that they must support to keep their base happy, but that is very unpopular with the American people. However the Democratic convention is in Boston the epicenter of the fight, and the prospect of gay marriage as a backdrop to the Democratic convention should make John Kerry very nervous.

Today's Good News

This story is from yesterday, but will serve as today's good news. Not only were GE profits up, GE Chairman and Chief Executive Jeff Immelt was sounding extremely optimistic about the economy:

"This is the best economy we've seen in years," GE Chairman and Chief Executive Jeff Immelt said in a statement. "Orders continue to be strong, growing at 13 percent, with services orders up 29 percent."

This is good news for everyone.

WORRY

Why We Cannot Afford To Elect Democrats

The Senate has released its report on the intelligence leading to the Iraq war and despite this statement in the report:

"The committee found no evidence that the [intelligence community's mischaracterization or exaggeration of weapons of mass destruction capabilities was the result of political pressure."

the Democrats are attempting exploit the report for political gain. William Kristol has written an excellent article titled "The 9/10 Democrats" on the Democrats demogoguery and slander of the Administration and the troops fighting the war:

Consider the extremism of Rockefeller's statement. Our global standing has never been lower? Our nation is more vulnerable than ever before? Then consider the facts. Since the 9/11 attacks, the United States and its allies have deposed the Taliban in Afghanistan and overthrown Saddam Hussein's Baathist despotism in Iraq. The Pakistani/Libyan international nuclear weapons bazaar has been shut down. Al Qaeda operatives not already killed or captured are on the run, with no safe base of operations remaining in the world. All this has made us more vulnerable? If that's true, then it is the position of Senator Rockefeller that the American and allied soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq not only have accomplished nothing but have been counterproductive. This is a slander the Bush administration must answer--if not for its own sake, then for the honor of those who have sacrificed so much to make this country less vulnerable than it has been for years.

This is a report produced by partisan Senators from both sides. It is dangerous folly for the United States to conclude that the collective intelligence findings of the best intelligence agencies around the world collected over the course of decades were incorrect and that a report produced by politicians and staffers is the definitive document on Saddam's activities. The Senate can come to the conclusion that the intelligence was incorrect because they are making the assumption that weapons will not be found and that there were never any weapons to find. In effect they are building a question from a known answer. What will be the explanation of their findings if we do, at any point in the future, find the weapons that the world concluded Saddam had before the war? The Senate started with the assumption that we won't find weapons. In the end if the US government and citizens put more faith in the Senate report than the intelligence community, this could prove to be a tragic and deadly mistake.

Boston Herald On Kerry's Vulgarity Party

The Kerry campaign hosted a celebrity filled (maybe "celebrity riddled" is more appropriate) fund raiser at Radio City Music Hall. The event raked in 7.5 million dollars for the Kerry campaign. By all accounts the night was a vulgarity fest (read more about what was said here, here and here ) during which John Mellencamp called the President "just another cheap thug", the once funny Chevy Chase called the President a liar, and the never funny Whoopi Goldberg directed vulgarity after vulgarity at the President while waving a bottle of wine around on stage. John Kerry and John Edwards were both in attendance and neither of them denounced anything that was said. In fact, they were reported to have been amused by the performances. At the end of the evening John Kerry went ahead with his campaign speech without mentioning what had just taken place. John Edwards stated after the event that their campaign would be "a celebration of real American values", and after the event Kerry took the stage and said "every performer tonight...conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country."

The Boston Herald has written a scathing editorial about the fundraiser and what it says about John Kerry. The last paragraph:

That Kerry, by his silence, tacitly endorsed the content of his supporters' remarks says something troubling about the tone of his campaign. That he allowed his military service to be used once again like some prop in a movie, says something even more troubling about his character.

Read the editorial here.


To John Kerry a vulgarity filled evening in which "celebrities" refer to the President as a liar and a "cheap thug" represents the heart and soul of America. He either lacked the courage, the character or conviction (or all three) to say that he disagreed with the tone of the evening.

It was just after this fundraiser that John Kerry taped the Larry King interview in which he stated that he "had not had the time" to accept an offered briefing by the Bush Administration regarding the increasing terror threat to the country. Unbelievable. Democrats should really be proud.

Joseph Wilson , Yellowcake and Lies

Joseph Wilson, the husband of "exposed" CIA officer Valarie Plame, has some explaining to do to the American people. Last year he became a media darling by publicly claiming that the White House had manipulated evidence regarding the Iraqi attepts to purchase yellowcake from Niger. He had been the person dispatched to Niger to explore that possibility for the Bush Administration (although he was very partisan and openly critical of the Bush Administration). He was interviewed by all of the usual suspects, wrote an article for the New York Times (pulled from one of many leftest websites that displayed the article) and eventually wrote a book (one of a long line of Bush bashing books) in which he repeated his assertion that the White House manipulated the evidence. In the mean time, it has been claimed that someone in the Bush Administration leaked his wife's name to Robert Novak of the Chicago Sun-Times. Apparently at the time his wife's name was classified. The leak of her name under certain circumstances could be considered a crime. Joseph Wilson has claimed that his wife's name was leaked as revenge by the White House for his public repudiation of the now famous "sixteen words" from the President's State of the Union speech in which the President referred to British intelligence regarding yellowcake. He also claimed in interviews and in his book that his wife had nothing to do with his selection to make the trip to Niger.

The release of the Senate report on pre-war Iraq intelligence yesterday was very bad news for Joseph Wilson. The report found that many of the public statements Joseph Wilson made in an attempt to damage the Bush Administration were false. The Senate report actually offers backing for the claim that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake from Niger. In fact, the panel found that Wilson's report actually bolstered the case rather than debunking it, as he has repeatedly claimed. The panel also found that his wife, Valarie Plame, played a direct role in his selection to travel to Niger:

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said

This is in direct contradiction with what Wilson has said:

"Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."

Hmm. This may be a major blow to the "Leakgate" case involving his wife. The panel also found that Joseph Wilson had provided misleading information to the Washington Post. Regarding that, Wilson stated that he may have "misspoken".

Joseph Wilson has been exposedlike Richard Clarke before him, as a partisan hack with an agenda. They are able to spread their lies because the media shares their agenda. The Senate panel found that CIA analysis regarding stockpiles of weapons was inaccurate, and that this inaccurate information was given to the President as well as the Congress before the war. The panel also found that the White did not pressure intelligence officials into conclusions that fit a certain agenda. The more important question that needs to be asked is why this report, which will undoubtedly be damaging to our efforts in the War on Terror, was made public at this time. The fact that some of the intelligence that lead to war was faulty did not need tpo be sent around the world, where it will undoubtedly be manipulated to feed anti-American propaganda.

Frequent visitors to A Time For Choosing will not be surprised by the panels findings on yellowcake. Reports on the findings of a British investigation were posted here earlier this week, and other posts (here)in the past few weeks have also referred to the yellowcake investigation.

So Many Social Engagements, So Little Time...

to worry about trivial little things like terrorism. This developing story on The Drudge Report is beyond belief. Kerry has found time to dance around on stage with celebrities, but hasn't been able to find the time to be briefed on the terror threat we are facing. If it weren't so angering that a man who wants to be President would take threats so lightly, it would be funny. But it is angering. The terrorist threat is real. The terrorists are currently plotting to kill Americans and this man that wants to be President cannot find the time to even be briefed on the threat.

The good news is this will be a fantastic campaign commercial for the President, a clip of John Kerry stating that he has no had the time to be briefed. Ouch.

Kerry/Edwards Fundraiser Filled With Vulgarities Aimed At the President

There was a spectacular star filled fund raiser at Radio City Music hall last night that netted 7.5 million dollars for the Kerry/Edwards ticket. Performers included John Mellancamp who called the President "just another cheap thug" and Whoopi Goldberg whose performance was full of vulgarities directed at the President. The two candidates were in attendance and never objected. Powerline has an excellent analysis of the night's events here.

UPDATE

The Bush Campaign is demanding Kerry release the video of the event.

Thomas Sowell Does it Again

Thomas Sowell was featured on A Time For Choosing yesterday, and he has written another excellent article today. This time he pushes through the fog machine of the Kerry/Edwards ticket and exposes them for who they are: limousine liberals. Kerry and Edwards have been criss crossing the country trying to convince potential voters that, despite their ultra liberal voting record, they are conservatives. Kerry went so far as telling a crowd that he personally believes that life begins at conception, but that he did not want to impose his views on others. That must be why he has been one of the strongest allies of the pro abortion groups in the Senate. I was against abortion before I voted for it.

Thomas Sowell is able to see through the fog and concentrate not on what Kerry and Edwards are saying, but how they have voted in the Senate.

Read it here.

A Must Read Article By Charles Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer has written a powerful, if somewhat unnerving article titled Blixful Amnesia for the Washington Post. He writes:

Unlike the French book or the Moore movie, Blix is not deranged. He is merely in denial, discounting the uniqueness of the WMD-terrorism issue by comparing it to global warming and hunger. Yes, hunger is an existential issue to the people suffering it. As are car accidents, heart disease and earthquakes. But they hardly threaten to destroy civilization. Hunger is a scourge that has always been with us and that has not been a threat to humanity's existence for at least 1,000 years. Global warming might one day be, but not for decades, or even centuries, and with a gradualness that will leave years for countermeasures.

There is no gradualness and there are no countermeasures to a dozen nuclear warheads detonating simultaneously in U.S. cities. Think of what just two envelopes of anthrax did to paralyze the capital of the world's greatest superpower. A serious, coordinated attack on the United States using weapons of mass destruction could so shatter America as a functioning, advanced society that it would take generations to rebuild

Please read the whole thing. If you are not registered with the Washington Post please do so (it is free). This article is worth it.

While you are at it, you may want to read this article by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard. It is an expose on the twisted manipulation of the facts by Carl Levin, Democratic Senator.

Kerry Pushes Conspiracies in Florida

On a campaign stop in Florida, John Kerry continued to push the theory that not all the votes were counted in Florida in 2000. A variation of the selected not elected argument that the Democratic Party is still embracing. He stated:

"I got news for you. In 2004, not only does every vote in Florida count, but every vote is going to be counted," Kerry said during a sweltering rally inside an airport hanger. "They fix those machines, we'll fix America."

That's right, as Tom Ridge warns of the potential for attacks within the United States in the coming months, John Kerry is still reliving the Florida recount, trying to convince the voters that the President is illegitimate. This should come as no surprise considering Michael Moore has emerged as the spokesman for the Democratic Party in this election. As Kerry lives in the past, the Bush Administration is working to protect our future.

Do the Country A Favor

...and give this post by James Lileks to anyone you know that has seen or plans on seeing the Michael Moore propoganda film F/911. If they do not start to come around, buy them this
book.

Lileks also included this picture in his post. A good reminder of what Saddam Hussein wanted to do to the United States, and would still be able to do if he had been left in power.

Ridge Warns of Large Scale Attack

We all knew this was coming, call it the Spain effect. Al-Queda is apparently planning a large scale attack within the US before the election.

Read it here.

Thomas Sowell On the Danger of the Dems' Politics

Thomas Sowell, one of the clearest thinkers writing today, has another excellent column on Townhall.com He writes about the willingness of the Democratic Party to throw away future US security for short term political gain. He begins:

This may go down in history as the year when an attempt to win an election, at all costs, led to longer run disasters that make any election pale into insignificance. The biggest and loudest political rhetoric of this year is that President Bush "lied" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Bullseye. This may be the rhetoric that eventually brings down the Democrats hopes to retake the White House. He continues:

It was Saddam Hussein who chose to play cat-and-mouse with the weapons inspectors whom he had agreed to let monitor Iraqi facilities as part of the peace treaty ending the first Gulf War. It was his intelligence failure to think that he could keep on doing that indefinitely.

Emphasis added. That may be the clearest statement yet on the events that led to war. Our intelligence was sound if murky, Saddam Husseins was wrong. How does the Democrats willingness to use the the rhetoric endanger us? Thomas Sowell provides a clear and simple answer:

Iran and North Korea -- the other nations identified as part of the "axis of evil" -- are now playing the same cat-and-mouse game, and North Korea is openly threatening to produce nuclear bombs. Either or both these countries are potential suppliers of such weapons to international terrorists.

Libya backed out of the nuclear weapons game after Qadaffi saw what happened to Saddam Hussein in Iraq. What would have emboldened Iran and North Korea? Only a disunited America, full of loud irresponsible election-year talk about "lies" on weapons of mass destruction, making it unlikely that the United States can muster the political will to strike Iran or North Korea.

An election-year frenzy has let the longer run fate of this country fade away into the background.

Read the whole thing and pass it to you friends.

Today's Good News

Jobless claims have fallen to the lowest levels since 2000, according to the weekly report by the Government...

Read it here.

This along with this report from a few days ago (please not this report was filed after the somewhat disappointing job growth numbers were released for June - 112,000 jobs created instead of the expected 250,000) point to a booming economy through the next year. Good news for America's workers.

McCain: Kerry Never Asked

After weeks of speculation by the press on whether John McCain would accept a VP offer by John Kerry, John McCain says that he was never asked. The Kerry campaign made a deliberate attempt to leave an impression with the American people that he would be willing to ask John McCain to be his running mate. The reality is that he was never seriously considered. The entire episode was an attempt by John Kerry to shake his record as the most liberal Senator in America, to portray himself as moderate, when his voting record is anything but. In the end he stayed true to himself and chose the fourth most liberal Senator to be his running mate. Kerry used John McCain and the press to fool the American people for his own gain.

Read the transcript here.

Keep Iranians in Mind Today

Today will mark the start of week long protests against the brutal thoecracy in Iran by normal Iranians. This is a yearly event that marks the brutal university killings of 1999. This movement should be supported by freedom loving people all over the world. As a matter of fact, if the United States and it's allies are looking for a good date in which to launch airstrikes to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities, this might be a good day.

Read it here. Pass this information to everyone you know.

Media Taking Note of Media Bias

The Investor's Business Daily has done the country a great service. They monitored the Iraq related headlines in the Los Angeles Times for One Month, and have compiled the head lines into a list. Read it here. Here are a few highlights from the list:

June 11:"Going to War Not Worth It, More Voters Say"*
"NATO Not Expected to Send Force to Iraq"
June 13:"Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go"*
"Insurgents and Islam Now Rulers of Falluja"
June 14:"At Least 20 Killed in Baghdad (Car) Bombings"
June 15:"Iraq's Foreign Contractors in Cross Hairs
of Insurgents"
"Iraq Conflict Disrupts U.S. Plans for Military"
June 16:"Ex-Soldier Recalls Beating He Received in
Guantanamo Drill"
June 17:"Spy Work in Iraq Riddled by Failures"
"No Signs of Iraq-Al Qaeda Ties Found"
June 18:"Air Authorities Were In Chaos, 9/11 Panel Says"*
"FAA Staff Blindsided by Attacks"
"Iraqi Leaders Would Consider Martial Law"
"A Killing Puts Courts on Trial in Iraq"
June 19:"Radicals Kill American in Saudi Arabia"*
June 20:"2 Allies Aided Bin Laden, Say Panel Members"*
June 22:"Judge Orders Army Leaders Questioned"*
"South Koreans Weep, Wait for News of Iraq Hostage"

The same could be done using the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Star Tribune, and any number of hundreds of smaller newspapers that take their cues (and sometimes their stories) from the larger papers. It is sickening. This type of media coverage is then repeated on the morning shows and the nightly news broadcasts. Given the coverage it is amazing that there has not been a revolt against the government, and more incredible that in the last Gallup poll the Presidents job approval numbers have climbed back into the low 50's. This is what the President is facing in this election cycle. His most worthy adversary is not the ultra liberal ticket that the Democrats have put together, it is the media that decided months ago to do anything in their power to see him defeated, even if it meant doing to the Iraq War what they did to the Vietnam War. The sad part is the Democrats have sold themselves out to the media, embracing (sometimes literally in the case of Tom Daschle and Michael Moore) any story or lie, no matter how outrageous, if it makes the President look bad.

What has driven the party to this? Their thirst for power, their hatred for the philosophies that drive this President and their understanding that without the media's full cooperation their presidential candidate has no chance of winning.

IBD story found on RealClearPolitics.

Inquiry Backs British Intelligence on Yellowcake

For over a year the Left around the world and the Democrats in this country have used the famous "sixteen words" from the President's State of the Union Speech as an example of how the President lied about Iraq. However, the British investigation into the matter has concluded that the claim is "reasonable and consistent with the intelligence". In other words when the President cited British intelligence as having concluded that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake, he was not lying, nor was he in any way stretching the truth, nor was he citing intelligence Britain knew to be false. He was stating a fat that is "reasonable and consistent with the intelligence".

A UK government inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq is expected to conclude that Britain's spies were correct to say that Saddam Hussein's regime sought to buy uranium from Niger.

Don't expect to see this story in the American press.

Read it here.

US Planning For Reduction of Troop Levels in Iraq

This is long term planning, but this is the key paragraph:

Reducing American forces in Iraq has been a consistent goal of the Bush administration. While any reduction would almost certainly occur after the November elections, the prospects could blunt Democrats' contentions that the administration planned poorly for the period after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government.

Bingo.

Read it here

Marine Kidnapping Investigated As A Hoax

The story has been confusing and now it is growing more strange. The Navy is investigating the possibility that the entire episode was a hoax.

Read it here.

Ken Lay To Be Indicted

Ken Lay, former CEO of Enron, will surrender to the FBI Thursday and the indictment is expected to be unsealed shortly thereafter, as reported by the AP. This is good news for the country, as Ken Lay will be the 30th high profile person indicted in the scandal.

Amazingly, the AP managed to include a jab at President Bush in the story:

Prosecutors have aggressively pursued the one-time friend and contributor to President Bush who led Enron's rise to No. 7 in the Fortune 500 and resigned within weeks of its stunning failure. Barring last-minute delays, Lay is the 30th and highest-profile individual charged.

By including the President's name in the story, the AP can continue to perpetuate the "corrupt politician in the pocket of evil corporation" meme that began when the corruption at Enron was first uncovered. It is interesting that many on the left actually believe that there are close ties between Ken Lay and George Bush. Let's review the most basic facts of the corruption that led to the fall of Enron:

1) The illegal activities that allowed Enron stock to climb to a high of over $90 occurred in the 1990's, when Bill Clinton was President and Janet Reno was head of the Justice Department.

2) The collapse occured before Bush took office and thirty people have now been indicted by the Ashcroft Justice Department, along wih scores of others from other companies across the United States that were involved in similar practices.

End of story.

Many will cry that is too simple a summary, that there was some sort of vague, unspecified conspiracy between then Governor Bush and Ken Lay that allowed the corporate big wigs to profit while the "little guy" suffered. How then do you explain the fact that other companies such as Worldcom were also engaged in the same type of corruption and that all of the indictments have occured under the watch of the Bush Administration?

No matter. To those who would include the President's name in the story and to those who still believe the conspiracy theories the facts do not matter. Ken lay will go to prison as will most of the others who have been indicted, and they will still be in prison when President Bush completes his second term.


Post Script: Just a reminder of how the world press was predicting (hoping?) that the Enron collapse would bring the President down.

Amazing, But True

This front page from the Boston Herald will become the story of this ticket and this election. The Democrats have, in a time of war, chosen the most liberal Senator in the country as their candidate and he chose the fourth most liberal Senator (trial lawyer) as his running mate. As this front page shows, it is not going to be possible for the pair to run away from their voting record, especially on defense. The country may have changed after September 11th, but the Democratic Party has just selected two September 10th "weak on defense liberals" to run for the White House. This is good news for Republicans.

The Fawning Begins

For a good round up of articles regarding the selection of John Edwards please refer to RealClearPolitics.

The articles range from the expected fawning to the potential for the pick to blow up in the face of John Kerry because Edward's not so clean history of gathering campaign contributions from his very wealthy trial attorney friends. There are also those in the Media who already sense the "gravitas gap" and the potential problems Edwards will face in trying to convince the nation that he is a better choice to lead the nation through crises and war than Dick Cheney. Edwards will bring a flash in the pan bump in the polls for the ticket, but in the end brings very little to the race. He will not help John Kerry win in the South, not even in North Carolina where it was assumed that Edwards would lose his bid for re-election before he joined the race for President. The media will play to Edward's likeability, but in the end he is an inexperienced Senator who was the sponsor of zero bills that ever became law. He is a trial attorney who made millions suing, was never interested in politics until 1998, defeated an elderly Senator and was an inconsequential (yet very liberal voting) Senator for four years when he decidedhe wanted to run for the Presidency. His addition makes the ticket the most liberal ticket to ever run for the Presidency, and according to the Wall Street Journal the choice will pit many large corperations (who resent the millin dollar lawsuits by Edwards) against Kerry. Kerry has chosen style over substance, and in this year of peril around the world, that will prove to be the wrong choice.

The Battle For Afghanistan's Airwaves

An interesting article from the Asia Times Online about the struggle to establish free, independant radio stations in Afghanistan. The literacy rate in afghanistan is very low and many of the rural areas do not have electricity, so radio plays an important role in the country. Radio has become an important tool in the liberation of the women of Afghanistan as well:

Slowly, this is beginning to change. Women have begun to work for national media outlets, and at least four stations that are specifically run by women and feature women's issues have begun broadcasting in Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jabul Saraj and Herat. These stations can only broadcast a few hours each day, and face opposition from various forces challenging their effort to participate in society. They have experienced the difficulties of all fledgling institutions in Afghanistan, with conservatives clashing with liberals - many of whom are returning from exile - in a dynamic that affects all of Afghan politics, including the media.

A long but interesting article on a subject that is never covered in US media.

Iranian Intelligence Officers Captured In Iraq

This is huge news. Iranian intelligence officers were captured in Iraq:

American and Iraqi joint patrols, along with U.S. Special Operations teams, captured two men with explosives in Baghdad on Monday who identified themselves as Iranian intelligence officers, FOX News has confirmed.

Senior officials said it was previously believed that Iran had officers inside Iraq stirring up violence, but this is the first time that self-proclaimed Iranian intelligence agents have been captured within the country.

The Defense officials also confirmed to FOX News that in recent days there has been significant success in tracking down "known bad guys" based on information from local citizens. While those captured aren't from the list of former regime members or from terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network, they are "active" bombers and organizers of recent violence

.

Iranian intellegence agents caught in Iraq preparing to launch a car bomb attack that would have undoubtedly killed US soldiers and Iraqi civilians. That should be considered an act of war. Combined with Iran's continued pusuit of weapons of mass destruction, state sponsored Iranian terror is even less tolerable. The world community has a vested interest in reigning in the mullah's of Iran, and time is short.

Read it here.

US Removes Nuclear and Radiological Material From Iraq

A victory in the fight for US security:

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (news - web sites) announced today that the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Defense (DOD) have completed a joint operation to secure and remove from Iraq (news - web sites) radiological and nuclear materials that could potentially be used in a radiological dispersal device or diverted to support a nuclear weapons program.

"This operation was a major achievement for the Bush Administration's goal to keep potentially dangerous nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists," Secretary Abraham said. "It also puts this material out of reach for countries that may seek to develop their own nuclear weapons."

Before the invasion of Iraq this material was under the control of a brutal dictator that had sworn revenge against the United States and had ongoing and increasing relationships with terrorist groups including Al-Queda. The material is now in the hands of the United States and therefore will not be used against us, our forces abroad or our allies. Based on this announcement alone the War in Iraq has made us more safe.

Read it here.

Economy Set For Best Growth in 20 Years

Good news for Americans and bad news for John Kerry. The American economy is set for its fastest growth since 1984, the year Ronald Reagan ran for re-election:

The economy appears headed for a banner year despite a springtime spike in energy prices and a recent increase in interest rates.

In fact, many analysts are forecasting that the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, will grow by 4.6 percent or better this year, the fastest in two decades.

There were strong 4.5 percent growth rates in 1997 and 1999, when Bill Clinton was president and the country was in the midst of a record 10-year expansion.

But if this year's growth ends up a bit faster than that, it will be the best since the economy roared ahead at a 7.2 percent rate in 1984, a year when another Republican president -- Ronald Reagan -- was running for re-election.

Read it here and pass this on to friends.

VP Edwards

GOP.com has posted their take on John Edwards. This includes several quotes by John Kerry regarding Edwards lack of experience that were made during the primaries. An example:

‘In the Senate four years – and that is the full extent of public life – no international experience, no military experience, you can imagine what the advertising is going to be next year,’ Mr. Kerry said. With a grin, he added: ‘When I came back from Vietnam in 1969 I don’t know if John Edwards was out of diapers then. Well, I’m sure he was out of diapers.’” (Adam Nagourney and Jim Rutenberg, “With Hopes Up And Elbows Out, Democrats Give Iowa Their All,” The New York Times, 1/19/04)

There will be no need to imagine what the advertising will be, the selection of John Edwards is a campaign commercial bonanza for the Republicans. In fact, the media campaign has already started with a new ad that features John McCain and portrays Edwards as Kerry's second choice for VP. Ouch.

In the short run the fawning over John Edwards by the media and the Democratic convention at the end of July will give John Kerry a boost in the polls. However, the "new" will quickly wear off of John Edwards and the Democrats and independants will realize that John Kerry has made an uninspired choice for VP. John Edwards is an inexperienced Senator that spent his life making millions suing as a trial lawyer, not the favorite profession of a majority of the American people. He has no foreign policy experience and will be one step away from the Presidency in a time of war and great peril for this country. A good smile cannot stop the terrorists that want to kill Americans and are plotting to do so. John Edwards is a lightweight in a very heavy time and Americans will come to realize that the choice between Dick Cheney and John Edwards is an easy one. John Edwards is a September 10th politician, he is the fourth most liberal Senator (John Kerry is the most liberal) making this the most liberal Democratic ticket since the McGovern/Shriver ticket in 1972. Both Kerry and Edwards will try to run from this label, but their voting records will make it all but impossible to do. Republicans will have to sit through a short term Kerry bounce to see the President pull ahead and stay ahead.

Iraqi Group Vows To Kill Zarqawi

A group of armed Iraqis have threatened to kill Zarqawi and his followers if he does not leave the country immediately, the AP reported today. In a videotaped statement the group calling itself the "Salvation Movement" questioned how Zarqawi and his followers could use Islam to justify their actions against Muslims, the new government and civilians:

"He must leave Iraq immediately, he and his followers and everyone who gives shelter to him and his criminal actions."

This is great news, Iraqis are growing tired of the influence of foreign fighters who are attempting to undercut the new government. As much as the statement is news, the bias of the AP against the United States in this article is also news. The AP inserts anti-US sentiments onto this article that are never backed up in the story itself. One example:

The threats revealed the deep anger many Iraqis, including insurgent groups, feel toward foreign fighters, whom many consider as illegitimate a presence here as the 160,000 U.S. and other coalition troops.

Never in the rest of the article does the AP quote anyone saying that the Iraqis that are threatening to kill Zarqawi feel that he is comparable the coalition troops. This is simply inserted into the article to make it appear that way. Another example:

It was issued a day after U.S.-led coalition forces, who have been targeting al-Zarqawi, launched an air strike in the restive city of Fallujah on a suspected safe house used by his followers.

Yes we know. The city is a peaceable place in which the evil United States randomly targets civilians for death.

The bias in the article continues and is sickening. Their is also an assertion made that the strike on the Zarqawi safe house actually killed 15 members of one family, and describes rescuers as pulling a young childs shirt from the rubble. It is not until later that the reader finds out that the intelligence was provided by the new Iraqi government.

Read the entire article here.

VDH: Fantasyland

Articles by Victor Davis Hanson are often linked on A Time For Choosing, as they are always thoughtfully and eloquently written. They are alos cutting and to the point. This article is no exception. Victor Davis Hanson writes:

We are in dangerous times, because beyond the normal Democratic/Republican, Left/Right natural give-and- take, there is now a growing and very crazy New, New Left. It has transcended both the old Marxism of the 1930s and the counterculture of the 1960s, and transmogrified into a strange sort of aristocratic, boutique damnation of Main Street, USA.

Read the whole thing.

Today's Good News

A Time For Choosing includes a daily post called "Today's Good News" that was started as a way to bring to light some of the good news that the main stream media ignores. The news can be about anything, but it typically comes from Iraq. Another blogger, Authur Chrenkoff occassionally posts a round up of good news from Iraq. His latest is the first round up since the transition and is a good read to start the day. Read it here.

Foreign Fighters Seen In Video of Iraq Attacks

This article makes it clear why Iraq is now the primary battlefield in the War on Terror

Kerry's Veep Choice

The Drudge Report has just posted that Kerry has picked Edwards, while the New York Post is running a headline that Kerry chose Gephardt.

If it is true that Kerry chose Edwards, he has chosen the least qualified individual for a running mate in modern history. Little more than five years ago Edwards was a trial attorney making millions from suing corporations. He did rather poorly in the primaries. To Kerry however there are advantages to choosing Edwards. He is an empty suit with a nice personality. He will bring some likeability to the ticket and doesn't threaten to highlight Kerry's flip-flops by bringing strong ideals to the campaign. Kerry can continue hedging unabashed, with his smiling sidekick at his side.

UPDATE:

It looks like Edwards is the choice for veep for
Kerry. Prediction: Look for Edwards to say nothing of substance during the campaign, and look for a fawning media to lavish praise on the choice.



TEXT

Note to Readers

After brief hiatus for the fourth of July, normal posting will resume today. Thanks for your patience.

The Media and Iraq

The media coverage of the War in Iraq may well go down as one the biggest failures in the history of modern media. The coverage has been abysmal. Before the war there was fear, justified fear, that the oil wells would be set ablaze, that Saddam would launch strikes with WMD, blow the dams and cause intentional environmental damage as he had done during the first Gulf War. There was also justified fear that the war would cause a massive refugee problem. Thanks to careful planning and masterful implementation by the military, none of this occurred. If we look back at the media coverage during the actual war, the swiftest, most successful campaign in the history of modern warfare was called a "quagmire" on every major network when the column of soldiers and machines and supplies paused to wait out a sandstorm. When the sandstorm subsided (after two whole days) the next "failure of planning" reported by hysterical out of breath reporters was that the supply line was "stretched to too thin". "Journalists" peppered the administration and military leaders as to how this error in planning could have happened. There were ridiculous rumors (rumors nevertheless reported on the nightly news) that many soldiers had no food and because of the situation it would be difficult to get meals to them. After none of that proved to be true and the military made their first appearance in Baghdad within days of the start of the invasion, the focus shifted to the "tens of thousands" of soldiers that could potentially be killed in urban warfare in "Fortress Baghdad". This was spouted by dozens of former military men that the networks hired as analysts, and repeated over and over, until the statue fell that fateful day in April. At that point the focus immediately shifted to "winning the peace" and how, in actuality, that would be much harder than winning the war that two weeks before was labeled a quagmire.

Since that day the coverage of the events in Iraq has gotten worse. The media elite have been determined to relive their youth by turning Iraq into Vietnam and using its failure to defeat the President in the fall. Many soldiers have died since the end of major combat, mostly due to terror tactics employed by dead enders and foreign terrorists. Most of the damage in post war Iraq has been caused by road side bombs and car bombs, two tactics employed by the terrorists that would be almost impossible to stop. The civil war that many in the media predicted never materialized. Then the press was given photos of prisoners being humiliated at ABU Ghraib and the rest is history. That story made the front page of major newspapers for weeks and is still bubbling under the surface waiting for a new photo to arrive in the in box of a journalist to elevate it to above the fold status again. So relentless was the coverage that the prison is now synonymous with the United States and the actions of a dozen or so soldiers, while few in America know of the hideous torture that took place there for years under Saddam Hussein. Americans looking for any good news out of Iraq have turned to the internet, where news of all types from every part of the world can be found, including blogs from Iraq (linked to the right). Major American media has been successful in suppressing anything that could be considered good news. Not until obvious events occurred like the transfer of power did most Americans start to see that things in Iraq weren't as bad as they had been told by the morning shows and New York Times.

Eric Johnson, a Marine Corps reservist who served in Iraq has an op-ed in the New York Post that provides a perfect example of how the media operate in Iraq. This is a must read. Pass this article along to everyone you know. It will make your blood boil in anger at the "journalists" that are passing judgment on the operations on Iraq.

Diane West has written an article about how the media coverage has directly effected the soldiers still in Iraq (to the point that they are willing to die to protect a burning humvee so that the news won't be able to broadcast pictures of the terrorists celebrating on its worthless burned out shell). Another article to read and pass around.

The Economy Booms On

The June employment numbers will come out today with an expected increase of 250,000 jobs, bringing the total number created this year to 1.4 million. Other sectors of the economy also continued to boom:

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported that construction spending increased 0.3 percent in May from April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $988.5 billion, an all-time monthly high.

and...

The value of residential projects private builders broke ground on also rose to a record rate of $532.3 billion in May, representing a 0.8 percent increase from April _ a sign that builders still feel good about housing demand, even as interest rates are on the rise.

...Thursday's manufacturing report showed that of 20 industries in the sector, 17 enjoyed growth in June, led by instruments and photographic equipment, rubber and plastic products, wood and wood products and industrial and commercial equipment and computers.

"June represents a strong finish to the first half of the year, and the current picture is very encouraging for the third quarter as new orders and production are still growing significantly," said Norbert J. Ore, who heads ISM's survey committee.

Fantastic news up and down the economy and it looks as though this growth will continue into next year.


Read it here.

Congratulations and Thank Yous

Iraqi blogger Ays at Iraq at a Glance shares his congratulations with the Iraqi people and sends his thank yous to his "occupiers":

..Congratulations..

Congratulations to Iraq and Iraqis on this great day.. A day which is considered a big blow on the heads of those who call the United States and the coalition: ‘occupiers’.. Well.. thank you very much for the ‘occupiers’.. Those who helped us in liberating our country from the tyranny, the ‘occupiers’ who liberated Iraq on the 9th of April, the ‘occupiers’ who sent Mr.Paul Bremer as we did not have a governor at that time..the ‘occupiers’ who helped us in forming a governing council.. The ‘occupiers’ who helped us in the interim constitution.. The ‘occupiers’ who stood against the terrorists.. The ‘occupiers’ who helped us in forming and training our army......etc.. then those ‘occupiers’ handed over the sovereignty to the Iraqis.... they are the best ‘occupiers’ I’ve ever seen.. I hope they’ll ‘occupy’ the countries who are in need to be improved !
Thank you very much...

How easy it is for Michael moore and others who live in the luxury of this country to belittle what has occured in Iraq. Michael Moore can portray pre-invasion Iraq as a happy place filled with children flying kites because from his $1.5 million apartment in Manhattan the 30 years of suffering in Iraq is easy to ignore. It is sad that the Michael Moore's of this world are able to convince many in the public that the United States is an evil occupying force, while average Iraqis like Ays who have lived through oppression, war and turmoil view the United States as a liberator.

Jordan Willing To Send Troops To Iraq

In a reversal of positions, Jordan's King Abdullah stated that he would be willing to send troops to Iraq if asked by the new Iraqi government:

"I presume that if the Iraqis ask us for help directly, it would be very difficult for us to say no," he said during the interview in London. "Our message to the president or the prime minister is: Tell us what you want. Tell us how we can help, and you have 110 percent support from us."

He went on:

"I feel optimistic we have strong, courageous leaders in Iraq ... but the challenges that face them on security is going to be their major problem, and they are going to need everybody's help," he said.

A very encouraging sign that at least one leader in the Middle East understands the importance of the success of the new Iraqi government.

North Korea Declares They Have Increasing Numbers of Heroes

What can be said about this? Posts from the official North Korean News Agency are helpful because they give us a taste of the propoganda that dictatorial regimes feed the unfortunates under their rule.

Increasing Number of Heroes in DPRK

Pyongyang, June 30 (KCNA) -- Five decades have passed since the titles of Hero of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (June 30, 1950) and Labor Hero (July 17, 1951) were instituted. Thousands of heroes have been produced during the period. The history of the victorious Korean revolution is associated with feats of the heroes. The anti-Japanese revolutionary war veterans, who fought against the Japanese imperialists and accomplished the historical cause of national liberation in August 1945 under the leadership of President Kim Il Sung, rallied around him, were the first generation of heroes produced by Korea. By carrying forward their spirit, the Korean people displayed mass heroism to the full in the Fatherland Liberation War against the U.S. imperialist aggressors from June 1950 to July 1953. The Korean war produced 533 heroes and twice heroes of the Republic. They defended the freedom and independence of the country by giving full play to their matchless bravery and self-sacrificing spirit. Among the heroes were a platoon leader Kim Chang Gol and Ri Su Bok, 18, who ensured the advance of their units by covering the enemy's machine guns with their bodies; Kang Ho Yong who rolled down to enemies with a hand-grenade in his mouth after losing his arms and legs during a combat and blasted himself among them; Jo Sun Ok who destroyed a tank with a hand-grenade at the cost of her life; Thae Son Hui who distinguished herself in air battles as the first woman fighter pilot in Korea; and Jo Ok Hui who had a good record of service in the Jinamsan People's Guerrilla Army

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Saddam Goes To Trial

One of the world's most brutal dicatators appeared in court today, and the entire free world should be proud. Nothing is as effective at convincing other dictators that there's is a way will not be tolerated than to see a fellow dictator facing justice.

Read it here.

And analysis of the charges against him here. (via Instapundit)