Monthly Archives: August 2005

The President Spells It Out

President Bush delivered a wonderful, stirring speech to members of the Idaho National Guard yesterday. In ringing terms, he set out his strategy for victory in Iraq and in the Global War on Terror, and vowed to stay the course until victory is achieved. I caught the last part of the speech over the lunch hour; Bush’s military audience was wildly enthusiastic. Here are a few key paragraphs; you can »

Bay invites, Kersten responds

Katherine Kersten’s Star Tribune column today addresses the Crawford media circus and provides a biting critique of the media’s war coverage: “The big picture in Iraq tells quite a different story.” This column seems almost to respond to Austin Bay’s invitation to Power Line readers to advance the analysis of the media’s pitiful performance. Kersten writes: The Crawford campout is a quintessential media event. Its purpose is to gain attention »

Centcom reports, Bay invites

Spc. Claude Flowers writes from Centcom Public Affairs that he has posted a press release Centcom site reporting last week’s successes (August 12-18). The site includes an electronic newsletter with updates on reconstruction projects. Spc. Flowers also directs us to a feature package in last Sunday’s Tampa Tribune: Did you see the Tampa Tribune’s Iraq section on Sunday, and its accompanying request for comments on how the media is covering »

Our man in Baghdad

We have written previously about Minnesota’s own Col. Joe Repya: “Col. Repya reports for duty.” Most recently, Col. Repya had a few words for the fruitcakes on the editorial board of the Star Tribune: “Col. Repya writes the Star Tribune.” Col. Repya is a retired Army Reserve Officer who re-upped for active duty at age 58. He is now 59 and serving in Iraq, where he writes us from Camp »

They distort, you deride

Jewish World Review editor Binyamin Jolkovsky writes: Jack Kelly has an unbelievable column on how the NYT distorts truth. He actually called a source they cited. Well, I’ll let you decide: “Unspinning the New York Times’ military mendacity.” This unsparing column supports a powerful conclusion: “Americans are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the war in Iraq, because all news about Iraq is presented as bad news, even when it isn’t.” »

If the Facts Don’t Fit, Make Them Up

No one has contributed more to the enshrinement of Cindy Sheehan as an antiwar icon than AP reporter Angela Brown. Tonight, however, Brown stepped over the line with an outright misrepresentation of Sheehan’s history. Brown’s article, which likely will appear in hundreds of newspapers, describes Sheehan’s return to Crawford, Texas. It begins: A woman whose son was killed in Iraq returned to Texas Wednesday to resume her anti-war protest near »

Self-parody imitates parody

William Beutler’s Blogometer (via National Journal) does for the blogs what James Taranto’s Best of the Web Today (via the Wall Street Journal) does for the wider media world. Like Taranto, Beutler is tireless, knowledgeable and witty. When Beutler initially cranked up the Blogometer earlier this year, it was a paid, subscribers-only site. Now that National Journal has made it freely available, you might want to take the opportunity to »

Michael Graham lands on his feet

A few days ago, I noted that conservative talk radio host Michael Graham had been fired by WMAL radio, ABC’s Washington affiliate. Graham had said on the air that Islam is a terrorist organization. He was fired, under pressure from CAIR (which itself has been linked to terrorists), after he stood by that remark. Graham has now been hired by RightTalk. He will appear Monday-Friday from 12-1 p.m starting on »

I can lick any SOB in the house

I’ve written from time to time about this year’s gubernatorial race in Virginia, where Republicans are well-positioned to reclaim control. Indeed, it’s been my understanding that the most worrisome obstacle to Republican Jerry Kilgore’s prospects may be the presence of a third candidate, “centrist” Republican Russell Potts. In an unusual move, Democrat Tim Kaine has decided to debate Potts (Kilgore declined to participate). That debate will immediately follow a scheduled »

Fool me twice. . .

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder once again is trying to stave off political defeat by playing himself off against the United States. In 2002, plagued by a horrible economy, he dodged defeat by railing against the impending U.S. military action in Iraq. Now, with the economy still in bad shape and polls until recently showing him trailing Angela Merkel (something of a free market proponent), Schroeder is asking Germans to re-elect »

From a Buick 6?

“I need a dump truck to unload my head,” Bob Dylan proclaimed in Highway 61 Revisited’s “From A Buick 6.” Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune has the latest memorable installment of this summers’s return to Murderapolis. The story doesn’t report whether the call was made from the trunk of a Buick 6, but after reading about it, I need a dump truck to unload my head: “Shooting victim calls cops from »

Striking back at Krugmania

At NRO Donald Luskin bats cleanup and hits a grand slam in nailing Paul Krugman’s outrageous Florida lie and his lame effort to cover his tracks: “It the truth that counts.” Luskin does not note Krugman’s misstatements about the Ohio counties that John exposed in “Krugmania,” or that Krugman made no attempt to resuscitate his lies about the 2004 race in his follow-up column on Monday. »

Diamonds and rant, take 2

Jack Risko is the proprietor of Dinocrat. Jack took note of last night’s post on Joan Baez in Crawford: “Diamonds and rant.” Today Jack writes; Baez’s comment to 200 sad losers in a ditch in Texas is pathetic. At 18, in 1959, at the first Newport Folk Festival, she played to 13,000. At the 1963 March on Washington, she was a headliner, playing to 350,000 live and a worldwide TV »

When Pierluigi met Duncan

What happens when soccer’s most famous referee meets English football’s most infamous hard-man? In this case, Pierluigi Collina disallowed a Duncan Ferguson goal that would have kept Everton’s Championship League hopes alive. Collina is a great ref, but this particular call (apparently for an alleged foul by Marcus Bent, not Ferguson) was questionable, to say the least. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that Everton’s opponent, Villareal, was the better »

Thanks, Rush…

and thanks to all our readers who wrote to let us know that Rush read part of John’s post of last evening: “Some thoughts on casualties in time of war and peace.” We’re especially gratified by our readers’ sharing our own (I hope pardonable) pride in Rush’s recognition. Mr. G. writes, for example: If Mr. Limbaugh is — in his words — “Show prep for the rest of the Media,” »

Passing the straight face test

The Washington Post reports that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has warned that he will ask John Roberts tough questions about whether the Supreme Court holds Congress in sufficient esteem. According to the Post, Specter plans to use the confirmation hearings “as a forum for sharply criticizing what Specter describes as the high court’s tendency to denigrate Congress’s thoroughness and wisdom in passing various laws.” Specter’s stated concern is »

Calling All Junkies

As we’ve said before, Michael Barone knows as much as anyone alive about the nuts and bolts of American politics. His Almanac of American Politics has just been published; for Michael’s take on what it all means, check out his blog: The just published Almanac of American Politics 2006, of which I am co-author, is out and can be ordered: www.aap2006.com. It includes the presidential vote within each congressional district, »