Monthly Archives: November 2004

Positively 52nd Street

USA Today carries one of the better stories on Dan Rather’s announcement that he will be stepping down as the anchor of the CBS Evening News: “Rather: ‘Time for me to move on.'” The story quotes Rocket Man and Jim Geraghty to good effect: Said John Hinderaker, a Minneapolis lawyer and co-author of Power Line (powerlineblog.com): “I wouldn’t say I feel vindicated. I never felt we were in need of »

All’s well that ends well

Yesterday morning we were delighted to receive a first-hand account of Yasser Arafat’s last days that was passed on to us from Jillian Becker. I recognized Ms. Becker by name as the author of the pioneering 1984 book PLO: The rise and fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization. We posted the account she kindly forwarded to us in “Doesn’t sound like poisoning to us.” Later in the day we heard »

Communists Heart Liberal Americans

We’ve already noted what must be the dumbest web site ever: Sorry Everybody! Where liberals can post pictures of themselves, apologizing to the world for the re-election of President Bush. I didn’t expect the post-election madness to get any lower than that. Reader Kimberly Barlow, however, points out the emergence of a site called Apologies Accepted, where people from other countries can post photos of themselves accepting the apologies of »

A rush to bad judgment?

The Democrats have lost both post 9/11 elections in no small part because voters don’t trust them on the issue of terrorism. To turn this around, the Dems and the MSM are on a crusade to tar Republicans for blocking the implementation of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation to revamp the nation’s 15 intelligence agencies and create a national intelligence director. Although President Bush supports this recommendation, he too is tarred »

Cairless love

David Frum has an extremely troubling account of his close encounter with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its modus operandi: “The question of CAIR.” »

Media alert

I taped a brief interview with Major Garrett on the latest Rathergate developments as part of a “package” to be broadcast on Fox News Special Report with Brit Hume at 6:00 p.m. and midnight (Eastern) tonight. »

Rather Relieved

CBS has announced that Dan Rather will step down as evening news anchor in March. Rather’s announcement says he will continue working as an investigative reporter–a scary thought. There was no mention of the forged document scandal, and Rather says he agreed with CBS News last summer that he would retire as anchor after the election. Speaking of Rather, whatever happened to CBS’ investigation? We’ve heard nothing; all I know »

Doesn’t sound like poisoning to us

Our pal Roger Simon has characterized the madcap scramble for Yasser Arafat’s medical records as a “black comedy” — not exactly the appropriate coda to the life of a man driven by insatiable bloodlust. But the premeditated lies imputing responsibility for his death to poisoning by Israelis — perfect! Combine Jewish blood libel with the Arab will to believe hidden hand conspiracies and you have the makings of a worthy »

Team spirit

We at Power Line are not into contests or fundraising. However, all three of us endorse the Spirit of America Blogger Challenge which is raising money to assist the people of Iraq. As the Spirit of America organization puts it: Some of our supporters see Spirit of America as a way to help people who have suffered from repression, terrorism and war. Others see us as a way to support »

The limits of Abbas

Saul Singer of the Jerusalem Post asks whether, if Mahmoud Abbas becomes the elected Palestinian leader, this would mean that there finally are serious prospects for peace. His answer: not likely. Only a leader who proclaims “that Palestinians have no right to move to Israel because Israel will never be part of Palestine” will be able to make the peace. Abbas almost certainly is not that leader. The best we »

Michael Moore Tops Frigid List

Film Threat publishes an annual, year-end list of the fifty coldest people in Hollywood, the “Frigid 50.” Topping this year’s list as the most cold-as-ice person in Hollywood is none other than Michael Moore: There are a lot of Democrats out there that would just like to say »

Small Stockpiles, I Guess

The Chicago Tribune reports on the Marines’ continued exploration of terrorist hideouts in Fallujah. It’s horrifying reading–cages, blood, masks, blood-stained knives, bloody handprints on walls, facilities for torturing and murdering prisoners. Over it all, a banner that says: “There is no God but God.” And this: On a counter in the apparent bomb factory were a disassembled hand grenade, rubber gloves and numerous bottles of chemicals. “This one says potassium »

Sites Speaks

Kevin Sites, the photographer who took the footage of a Marine shooting a wounded terrorist in a Fallujah mosque, has posted an open letter to the Marines on his web site, describing the incident from his perspective. It seems sincere and thoughtful. Although I can’t gauge its accuracy, I’m not aware of any conflict between it and the soldiers’ accounts. »

A match made in heaven

Jonathan Klein is the former CBS executive who famously came to the defense of Dan Rather and 60 Minutes at the outset of Hurricane Dan. On September 10, Klein appeared on Fox News to debate Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes regarding the bogus 60 Minutes II story that had run on the evening of September 8 and that had been exposed as a fraud on the blogosphere on the morning »

Praising Bin Laden

Michael Scheuer, the ex-CIA man who wrote the book Imperial Hubris, has been in the news. Scheuer apparently was the agent who, for a number of years, was in charge of trying to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. He was on Meet the Press yesterday, and made some deeply weird comments about his former quarry, as noted by Real Clear Politics. The show’s transcript is here: MR. SCHEUER: …There »

Applied psephology

Who would stud a column on the accomplishments of Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman in the past election with this observation on voter turnout in rerun elections: Turnout was down in 1956 when Dwight Eisenhower faced Adlai Stevenson a second time. Turnout was down in 1996 when Bill Clinton faced Ross Perot and a decorated World War II veteran a second time. Hint: He’s America’s psephologist supreme. Consider “Reshaping the »

More on the Fallujah marine

Two must-read columns. NRO has posted a column by our friend Mac Owens — former Marine platoon leader in Vietnam, current professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College — arguing the case that the Fallujah shooting was an act of war rather than a war crime: “A shooting in Fallujah.” Sunday’s Telegraph carried a column by Kevin Myers providing necessary context: “A marine’s gotta do what a »