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Carter Aide Calls Jimmah’s Book ‘Filled With Errors’

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Thursday, December 07, 2006 9:55:28 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

All is not well in peanut land…

Aide: Jimmy Carter 'Invented Segments' for Book

A longtime aide to Jimmy Carter has resigned from the Carter Center think tank, calling the former president's new book on Israel and the Arabs one-sided and filled with errors.

Kenneth Stein, the Carter Center's first executive director and founder of its Middle East program, sent a letter that bluntly criticized the book to Carter and others.

Finally, someone with guts that is close to this anti-Semite, self-loathing, anti-American who lamentably once sat at the head of our government.

But, wait. The humor is not over yet…

Carter issued a brief statement saying that Stein had not been actively involved with the center for more than 12 years and was not involved with the new book. Carter did not directly address Stein's allegations.

Jimmah… so what? What does his absence from your service have to do with the accusation that your book is CRAP?

So far, only members of Hezbullah seem to think that Jimmah’s book is a good one, though. So, Jimmah is not in good company.

But, is he ever?
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Wash.Post: More South Bashing - Racist and Pining for Slavery

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Thursday, December 07, 2006 9:54:14 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

It is amusing to me that the South was always considered by Democrats as "the people",  the salt of the Earth, and the so-called rank and file in the "solid South" when the they had a lock on their votes from 1820 all the way until 1980. The South was the all-American region and the Democrats loved them dearly. Yes, for over 160 years the Democrats counted the Southern states as stalwarts and they loved them like brothers. But, now that the Southern states more often vote GOP they are a "problem" and are filled with Bible brainwashed, racists who pine for a return to slavery as far as the left is concerned.

At least, so says Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post today in a screed titled "The GOP's Southern Exposure".

First he begins with a ham-handed attempt to intimate that the GOP sounding "tolerant" is obviously just a ploy and is really a lie at heart.

You've seen the numbers and understand that America is growing steadily less white. You try to push your party, the Grand Old Party, ahead of this curve by taking a tolerant stance on immigration and making common cause with some black churches.

Of course, the GOP "blew" it all by running "racist ads against Harold Ford", as far as Meyerson is concerned... even though neither he nor anyone else can REALLY say exactly what was racist about the ad to which he refers.

After that little jab, Meyerson helpfully explains to us what the "southern problem" is and goes on from there with a laundry list of harangues and slanders against every voter south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Here is a nice compilation of the name calling...

Southerners are:
-knee-jerk militaristic
-anti-scientific
-dogmatically religious
-culturally, sexually and racially phobic

That they are so stupid as to have:
-blocked stem cell research
-disparaged nonmilitary statecraft
-exalted executive wartime power over constitutional niceties
-campaigned repeatedly against gay rights
-thrown public money at conservative churches and investigated the tax status of liberal ones

No, this is not my paraphrasing of what Meyerson wrote. These are DIRECT quotes.

Naturally, Meyerson imagines his leftist policies are but facts of a civilized life and these Southerners are just too much the knuckle-draggaing, troglodyte to "get it".

And, just as naturally for this more civilized and tolerant Washington Post polemicist, it's all Wal-Mart's fault!

 Wal-Mart's practice, for instance, of offering low wages and no benefits to its employees begins in the rural South, where it's no deviation from the norm. Only when Wal-Mart expands this practice to the metropolises of the North and West, threatening the living standards of unionized retail workers, does it encounter roadblocks, usually statutory, to its entry into new markets.

Meyerson is against free enterprise, obviously.

And now the capper... Southerners (because of Wal-Mart) want slavery back.

So: A Southern low-wage labor system is cruising along until it seeks to expand outside its region and meets fierce opposition from higher-paid workers in the North. Does that suggest any earlier episode in American history?

What a creep this guy is! And a complete IDIOT where it concerns reading history, too. The South did not seek to "expand" slavery outside its region -- except to expect to take what they considered their Constitutionally legal property into the western territories. The South did not try to push slavery on Northern states the way Meyerson imagines Wal-Mart is doing now.  Perhaps Meyerson would pick up a book or two he'd come to find that Northern business interests had little problem with profiting from Southern slavery even while it was going away in THEIR backyards. Nor did they have a problem with child labor, slum tenements, and sweat shops filled with workers who were chained to their machines for 16 hour days in their OWN areas of the country?

These poor, Northern wage-slaves -- as they came to be known -- was one of the things that Southerners pointed to insisting that Northerners  were hypocrites over. At least Southern slave owners, as their argument went, clothed, fed, gave medical attention to and housed their slaves whereas the Northern manufactories worked their "slaves" to death and kicked them out the door of the work-shop to feebly fend for themselves.

Did the South somehow force wage-slavery upon the North in the 1840s and later?

Hardly. The North was perfectly capable of handling their own region, thank you very much.

Apparently John Kerry's "nuance" never made it to the Washington Post where cheap shot polemics is all that is required to rank as high-minded political commentary, eh?

Still, I'd accept his proclamations of how the South wanted slavery back if he could but substantiate this claim with a quote or two from any Republican Southern politician -- either state OR Federal -- or any conservative thinker or writer in the South?

He might, though, want to check in with his new Senator from Virginia on this subject. Senator Jim "backturner" Webb is all about re-empowering his "cracker" culture and has written extensively about how the Southern white should take his country back.

In fact, Webb is about the only high profile guy that stands for the purportedly "racist" things that Meyerson seems to hate so much and Webb claims to be a Democrat!

Ah, but there is that "southern problem", again, I suppose.

Chalk Myerson up as a provincial with a penchant for wild-eyed theorizing and a complete lack of historical education. Of course, THAT is what makes him a good leftist.

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Liberalism Just Might REALLY be a Mental Disorder

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Wednesday, December 06, 2006 9:08:59 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

A new book is arriving at booksellers that attempts to clinically explain how Liberalism is a mental disorder. It is a devastating filleting of the liberal mind.


The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness

Like all other human beings, the modern liberal reveals his true character, including his madness, in what he values and devalues, in what he articulates with passion. Of special interest, however, are the many values about which the modern liberal mind is not passionate: his agenda does not insist that the individual is the ultimate economic, social and political unit; it does not idealize individual liberty and the structure of law and order essential to it; it does not defend the basic rights of property and contract; it does not aspire to ideals of authentic autonomy and mutuality; it does not preach an ethic of self-reliance and self-determination; it does not praise courage, forbearance or resilience; it does not celebrate the ethics of consent or the blessings of voluntary cooperation. It does not advocate moral rectitude or understand the critical role of morality in human relating. The liberal agenda does not comprehend an identity of competence, appreciate its importance, or analyze the developmental conditions and social institutions that promote its achievement. The liberal agenda does not understand or recognize personal sovereignty or impose strict limits on coercion by the state. It does not celebrate the genuine altruism of private charity. It does not learn history’s lessons on the evils of collectivism.

Ouch! Is Teddy Kennedy feeling a bit self-conscious after that jab?

In any case, it seems the perfect way to peg the way the left thinks about people as mere cogs in the big government machine that they so love. Leftists, while claiming to love "the people" do not in any way love people. They want a single mind and a single body, not a world of individuals.

What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.” They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”

In other words, the left is merely about slogans all geared to destroy any ability of "the people" to get ahead via any means but THEIR approved government avenues.

Looks like a good book.

Here is the writer's web page

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The Hateful, Intemperate French

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Tuesday, December 05, 2006 9:22:56 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

Imagine if you will the scenario where a seriously considered candidate for president of the United States were to call a European country, one we are ostensibly allied with, insane Nazis. Contemplate how that person would naturally be excoriated by everyone... but also question if it is even possible for such a thing to happen in the first place?

What purported mainstream, serious presidential candidate would ever utter such a thing about an ally? Enemies, perhaps but not friends and certainly such harsh language wouldn't be used on a campaign trail ... even for enemies.

Neither the News media nor the American people would stand for such intemperate language.

Remember the firestorm that Bush's unusual usage of "axis of evil" and Reagan's "evil empire" rhetoric -- both memorable for being unusual in American political rhetoric of late against foreign nations.. And that was mild compared to European rhetoric that is used nearly every campaign, even for dogcatcher, in Europe.

But, then, Americans are not the hate-mongers the French are, I guess.

Royal stumbles in row over attack on Israel as 'Nazi'

Adam Sage, Paris
Segolene Royal, the French presidential candidate, was embroiled in a damaging row on a visit to the Middle East yesterday after appearing to condone a Hezbollah MP who denounced US "insanity" and compared Israel to the Nazis.

In a 20-minute tirade Mr Ammar (of Hezbollah) attacked "unlimited American insanity" for sending troops into Afghanistan and Iraq. He then said that Israeli “Nazism” was no better than Hitler’s Third Reich.

Ms Royal, who is on her first overseas trip since winning the Socialist Party primary, replied: "Thank you for being so frank. I agree with a lot of the things you have said, notably your analysis of the US."

Naturally this socialist blamed her remarks as "accidents" because her interpreter "mistranslated" the comments. Like most Europeans, she won't take responsibility for her actions.

But, this kind of rhetoric goes on against the USA all the time in Europe at all levels of government as well as on the campaign trail. In fact, it always has.For instance, recent German leader, Gerhard Schroder, made his whole campaign one of being against everything the USA stood for.

It just shows that, for all their claims of being more "civilized" and more "tolerant". It is a self-deception as powerful as any ever conceived, obviously.

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Reuters: Americans Just 'Ignorant' About Muslims

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Monday, December 04, 2006 9:17:46 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

Did you know that Americans don't want to "live next door to a Muslim", or that Americans want all Muslims to "carry special identification", or that it is but "Ignorance" that is seen as a "Key Problem" to these foolish American's "hatred" and misperceptions?

Reuters knew, if you didn't. And they are happy to let us all know about it, too.

It all stems from a Radio host misusing his audience to make a point that Americans are no different than the Germans who turned a blind eye to Hitler's "Final Solution" against Jews during WWII.

A DC radio host announced that he thought that Muslims should be forced to have a crescent moon tattooed on them to readily identify them akin to the way Nazi Germany forced Jews to wear the yellow "Juden" star.

He then took phone calls -- no doubt specially screened just to "prove" his point -- to find, lo and behold, everyone in his audience were racists who wanted Muslims marked in such a way.

Naturally, he was not seriously proposing to do what he presented and it was all a hoax to prove that America was filled with Muslim haters. "I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said", he went on to scold his listeners.

"Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous."

Neat little package he created there, eh?

But, Reuters didn't stop with just this story to "prove" that we are all Nazi-like, Muslim haters. They had "studies" and CAIR interviews, too.

Those in agreement are not a fringe minority: A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 39 percent were in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification.

Roughly a quarter of those polled said they would not want to live next door to a Muslim and a third thought that Muslims in the United States sympathized with al Qaeda, the extremist group behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

And who carried out that poll? Why the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) did, naturally.

CAIR claims to have "found that for one in three Americans, the word Islam triggers negative connotations such as "war," "hatred" and "terrorist." The war in Iraq has contributed to such perceptions."

I wonder what the words "9/11" and "Suicide Bomber" triggers? I wonder why THOSE weren't included in the "study"? Is it because such words afford Americans a REASON to suspect Muslims? You know, the same Muslims responsible for such acts of terror?

But, I guess we wouldn't want to add that to the story. After all, it would tend to mitigate our obvious Goose Stepping tendency! So, we have a radio host who created a premise to get a predetermined end, and a CAIR "poll" to do the same, and we call that proof that we are all just Nazis in bluejeans?

Wunderbar!

Next Rueters brings up the self-manufactured "Clerics removal from a place" story to further prove we are all intolerant and helpfully informs us that the only reason we might be so evil as Americans is because "Ignorance Seen as Key Problem".

So, if we are all Goose-stepping, Nazi-like, Muslim haters, there MUST be an awful lot of Americans attacking and mistreating Muslims all across the nation, right? I mean, if there is so much hate around, we certainly couldn't expect nothing to be happening because of all that racism... right?

Well, not so much.

There are no hard figures on how many Muslims have been subject to harassment or prejudice...

What? How can there be racism everywhere yet no racist actions taken against the target of that purported racism?

Seems rather hard to believe that racism is so prevalent if we can't even see a statistical example of the result of racism.

Anyway, the most amusing part of this story is its ending. There we see a sigh of relief in the fact that Keith Ellison (D, MN) won election to a Minnesota House Seat. Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress whose victory could "signal to people who are not Muslims that Muslims have a lot to offer to the United States and the improvement of our country."

And Rueters highlights that Ellison "did not stress his religion during his campaign for a Minnesota seat". No wonder. He isn't a real Muslim, but a member of the racist "Nation of Islam" run by the "Reverend" Louie Farrakhan, a group few Muslims anywhere would claim as an Islamic organization. It's no wonder he ran away from that identification!

In any case, it is a good thing that Reuters is there to tell us how rotten we lowly Americans are and how innocent Muslims are.

What would we do without them?

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End for Union Dues Used for Politics Workers don't Support?

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Sunday, December 03, 2006 8:25:43 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

This is a good sign...

State workers can divert union dues to charity

State employees should be able to donate their union dues to any charity, not just a church, when they have religious objections to how the money’s being spent, state and federal officials agreed yesterday in a settlement.

One of the chief complaints against Unions is the fact that these organizations, ostensibly created to serve their membership, coerces the membership to pay dues which are then used to support politicians and causes whether or not the individual members agree with those politicians or causes.

It has always been a direct contravention to the principle of a union to do so and for years conservatives have wondered why a union member cannot specify that his dues not be used for causes in which he does not believe?

But, like the bullying Union thugs perpetrate on employers, they are no different on their membership. If a member doesn't slavishly accept all tenets of the union leadership, said member is targeted for harassment. But, that aside, their dues are used for whatever purpose the Union officials decide, the member having no say whatever.

In any case, we are beginning to see cracks in this hidebound practice and this case in ohio is one of several, though quote a successful one.

The settlement came in a case involving Ohio Environmental Protection Agency employee Glen Greenwood, who objected to paying union dues because he believed the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association supported abortion and same-sex marriage causes. Greenwood did not belong to a church to which he could direct those dues.

While the union had a policy allowing employees with similar objections to donate their dues to churches, synagogues or other religious organizations, it had no provision for those without church affiliations to donate to a secular charity. The agreement concedes the policy violated equal-protection statutes.

Granted this is a government union, but it shouldn't be too hard to carry this ruling over into other unions.

It's about time Unions had their oppressive powers taken from them. Let's hope this is but one of many.
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LA Judge's Ruling Allows for Terror Funding

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Saturday, December 02, 2006 9:27:32 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

In another attack on our security, U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins declared unconstitutional two provisions of Executive Order 13224 (signed by Bush, Sept. 23, 2001). This will make it easier for money to be raised for foreign terror groups within the USA.

EO 13224 put a halt to fund transfers to groups known to be terrorists and known to have perpetrated violence in their cause. In particular, this case was brought by the self-immolating Humanitarian Law Project -- an imitation of the ACLU -- to protect the funding sources of the Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam- Sri Lanka) and the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK- Turkey), both of which have perpetrated acts of terror for many years in their respective countries.

This fellow traveling LA judge is just part of the nation wide network of those domestic operatives ideologically opposed to our security and who have been doing their level best to knock down every measure taken to find and destroy terror networks both within and without the USA.

On this subject, that of funding outside terror networks, I have always been ashamed that we here in the USA never tried to stop the millions of dollars in donations that went to the NRA in Ireland during the "troubles" there. In fact, I don't ever recall a single voice being heard raising the subject at all.

US citizens who donated money to the IRA contributed to the murder of hundreds of British citizens and gave succor to terrorism for decades and I feel that the USA should have stopped such money transfers. Now we have a chance to do that with the support of the citizens of the USA, at least for other, contemporary terror networks.

But, not if these obstructionist judges have their way. If they have their way we will see Americans funding their own demise with donations sent to terrorist groups. And even if the money goes to terrorism for other causes, ones not turned against our own, does that make it any better to allow our financial support to assist terror against others?

These out of control judges need to be brought under some kind of review. Jefferson had it right...

"The germ of destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body -- working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdication, until all shall render powerless the checks of one branch over the other and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."-- Thomas Jefferson, 1821
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Brits Have Given up on Western Values

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Friday, December 01, 2006 10:11:27 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

In yet another example of Britain bending over backwards to prove that they can ... well, ben over backwards... for fetid "multiculturalism" and self-hatred, Tony Blair has "apologized" for England's part in the slave trade!

Blair to express "sorrow" over slave trade

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tony Blair will express "deep sorrow" for Britain's role in the slave trade nearly 200 years after the legislation that led to its abolition, Sunday's Observer reported.

Why should he?

His nation was the most active nation on the PLANET to try and rid the world of slavery, doing more than any other western nation in its day to eliminate the trade.

"I believe the bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was -- how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition -- but also to express our deep sorrow that it ever could have happened,"

Mr. Prime Minister, DO pick up a history book so that you might discover that YOU GUYS are the ones that "fought for its abolition".

You have NOTHING to be ashamed of and NOTHING to apologize for.

In FACT, we should be focusing on Islam as a culprit of slavery because it is still going on in Muslim countries!

This groveling and bowing and scraping is a demeaning posture and no one should lower themselves to such cowardice.
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Hugh Hewitt a Big Government Guy??

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Friday, December 01, 2006 9:55:15 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, we all love to jump on it when a lefty says something stupid, don't we? We should also point out when an ostensible Conservative news commentator says something ridiculous, too...

Now, I don't usually report what radio guys are doing or saying, not that I don't like them or that I find them somehow illegitimate, but because they have their own fora from which to make their waves and they can get their ideas out without my assistance. But, I do listen to several talkers and enjoy some of them, as well.

One of the talkers I like is Hugh Hewitt. He is the reason I have stepped up my blogging and why I started a Town-Hall blog, too. I find he is usually a Reagan styled conservative and I agree with him very often. So, when he says something I usually give it consideration.

However, he said something in the last hour of his show today that amazed me.

Hewitt had a very short, sort of throw away segment on the last hour of his show last night (Thursday the 30th) where he seemed to advocate one of the worst apostasies in Conservative thinking: a big government take over of a private sector industry.

Worse, it was a take over of an industry that makes Hugh Hewitt's world; Internet domain registration.

Currently, the ICANN (Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers) handles all domain registration, charging $6 a year for that internet domain name, Hewitt reported. These are brokered through hundreds of domain sellers, but the actual issuance of the domain name is handled through ICANN no matter from what service provider one originally purchases the domain. This Brings the ICANN service several hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Yet, despite that ICANN registers and controls these domains, they are given that mandate by the US government. Congress periodically approves ICANN's authority to control all domain names basically issuing them a license to do so and has recently renewed ICANN's rights for another 6 years.

So, what did Hewitt say about ICANN? Well, he wondered aloud why the government has to "allow" ICANN to be the domain registration service and why all the hundreds of thousands of dollars that ICANN makes can't stay with some US government agency or another? He wondered why the government can't just register domains themselves and "keep all that money".

Just think of what Hewitt offhandedly posited! We are paying $6 a year for domain name registration with this privately held corporation. Does Hewitt think that this extremely reasonable fee would stay as low as it now is if domain registration fees were to be turned over to another bloated government agency?

Worse, doesn't Hewitt realize that control of these fees would give politicians just another avenue to continue raising more and more tax revenue, hiking them year after year until fees were so high NO ONE could afford to register a domain name at all?

 And for a man who claims to be an internet guru, does he NOT realize that this would end up putting an end to the wonderful growth that the internet now enjoys? As Supreme Court Justice John Marshall is so famous for saying, the power to tax is the power to destroy!

I certainly hope that Hewitt was not advocating a government take over of yet another private industry! I sure hope he had not thought through his rash suggestion and is not serious that the government should take over the registration of domain names and the fee structures that comes with such! PLEASE tell us, Hugh, that this was just some half-cocked scheme that you did not fully consider before saying?

After all, we ALL say stupid things once in a while. Let's hope Hewitt just spoke out of hand without being truly serious about this ruinous idea.

On the other hand, if this was a serious suggestion by Hweitt, he needs a slap on the hand from EVERY conservative in the country.

Come on, Hugh. What do you say? Mea Culpa, I hope!
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ABCNews: Pays no Attention to Devito's Bush Bashing

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 10:16:42 PM
-By Warner Todd Huston

As reported on Newsbusters by Michelle Humphrey, actor Danny Devito was on ABC's "The View" today and went into a seemingly drunken tirade against President Bush and generally acted the fool on the show.

And, as Michelle added in her update to her original entry, ABCNews issued Devito's "apology" on their website.

But, this "apology" is interesting in that ABCNews mentions all the wild statements and strange behavior by Devito on every subject except his Bush bashing. We are left wondering why it was "proper" reporting to mention Devito's seeming inebriation, his mention of partying with actor George Clooney, his slurred speech, his being bleeped, his Clinton White House story and then his "apology" to Barbra Walters.... yet not a single mention of his attack on president Bush.

Is it perhaps because ABCNews doesn't think Devito's boorish behavior was wrong when he was calling Bush names and making monkey noises in reference to the president?

I'd say it is pretty clear that ABCNews doesn't feel that Devito has anything to apologize for where it concerns his attack on president Bush.

What do you think?
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Boston Globe Laments JFK Not on Historian's Most Influential List

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 10:20:51 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

Has it at long last begun to occur that John F. Kennedy is fading from the perennial lists of historian's picks of the "top most influential" historical Americans? If this latest survey of Historians is any indication, it just may be.

And it is about time, too… unless you are a hero worshipping journalist like Peter S. Canellos of the Boston Globe who is calling foul in his piece this morning titled, In pantheon, whither JFK?.

The Atlantic Monthly asked 10 eminent historians to rank the 100 most influential Americans of all time, and Kennedy did not make the cut. Worse, he was named on only two ballots.

Only TWO. Gosh, this is a calamity.

Canellos goes on to reveal others on the list, a list that includes the presidents before and after JFK, and informs us why these historians didn't put JFK on the list and why the two who did, did so.

But, he also laments that these foolish historians made a huge mistake with a display of near outrage at their malfeasance.

…Now, historians seem ready to believe that Kennedy's fame was entirely a matter of style -- and of grief.

...Still, the historians may have overcorrected

...Kennedy was solidly articulate: He solicited input from a wide range of advisers and outside specialists, deftly debated various approaches, showed respect but not too much deference to the Joint Chiefs, and crafted a combination of military actions and diplomatic thrusts that completely outmaneuvered the Soviets.

…It (the Cuban Missile Crisis) was a textbook example of presidential leadership under perhaps the greatest pressure faced by any chief executive. Johnson and Nixon -- and others of Kennedy's successors -- could have learned from it.

Interesting how people such as Canellos love historians when they say Reagan was not the big deal some think, or that George W. Bush is the "worst" president in history.

But don’t go goring THEIR favorite oxen!

Granted this list is pulled from a larger pool of possible entries than the "Greatest President" lists that we usually hear about considering that a president list gives only 43 choices. But for JFK not to have made in into a top 100 list is momentous, indeed. It may just signal a shift in consideration away from the substance free hero worship inculcated in the 60’s generation and toward a more honest portrayal of his somewhat empty presidency.

JFK may count as one of America's most tragic, unfulfilled potentialities, but he most certainly cannot figure among the country's greatest individuals. In fact, he was in office for such a short time it is not a fair reading of his accomplishments to rank him as a momentous president at all.

His one major moment of crisis in office, the famed Cuban Missile Crisis, may have displayed some of his elements of leadership -- though some claim he gave too much away in the face of Soviet capitulation turning their loss into their gain and our win into a loss -- and some mention his visionary thinking on space – though, left to others to complete -- but Kennedy really had little lasting impact on the country. He did little about the Cold War, he had no part in the Civil rights battles, nor did he effect much change in foreign policy. He did have some temporary effect on the economy, but his successors quickly wiped it out.

His one true legacy seems to be the mourning the country endured upon his assassination compounded by that of his brother and Martin Luther King's.

But there is one more enduring mark that Kennedy has left amongst us. His ability to enamor journalists as Cannellos eminently displays. This is an effect that papers over his lack of achievements in comparison to others in his position for those in journalism. Those who still hang on to that gauzy feeling of "Camelot" that the press was so instrumental in mythologizing even as he was still alive, still look to his short time in office as some sort of Golden Age quite regardless of any real achievement.

Mr. Canellos gives us another example that, while the Media may ostensibly imagine themselves too smart for religion, they won’t have their religious icons attacked or besmirched… or left off of historian’s "best of" lists.
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Lionizing an Anti-war Activist's Suicide

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 9:43:53 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

A man poured gasoline on himself on November 3rd and on the side of the road on Chicago's Kennedy Expressway he lit himself on fire. It caused a traffic jam, but little else. In fact, no one even knew who the suicide was for several days until a friend of his got a letter sent him by the dead man just before his final day.

And still, few cared.

It turns out this was supposed to be some kind of anti-war statement akin to a Buddhist monk's self-immolation in Saigon during Vietnam. Sadly, this protester didn't seem to know that statements don't mean very much unless someone actually hears them.

The man, an activist named Mark David "Malachi" Ritscher, left a rambling manifesto-like web page purportedly explaining his actions that does little but show his rather unbalanced mental state. As Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper put it, the web message "comes across as intelligent, passionate, bitter, angry, disoriented -- and disturbed".

3 weeks after this all happened, the AP posted a sympathetic story about "Malachi" Ritscher that makes him out to be the martyr that he so desperately wanted to be. It is filled with quotes from his admiring friends and laments about his "cause". The AP also goes to pains to make readers believe that "Malachi" Ritscher might not have been mentally disturbed in an obvious attempt to legitimize his final action.

As the AP tries its darndest to turn this man into some sort of anti-war hero, the facts reveal that he was a troubled man. It appears he was estranged from his children and other family members, could not hold a job or finish his schooling, and spent his time wandering around Chicago's music scene, a rootless, distant man. The name he went by, Malachi, wasn't even really his given name. He changed it several years ago for what ever reason, apparently never satisfied with himself.

Again to quote Richard Roeper, "...if he thought setting himself on fire and ending his life in Chicago would change anyone's mind about the war in Iraq, his last gesture on this planet was his saddest and his most futile."

In their attempt to celebrate his anti-war statement, the AP refuses to focus on the manifesto statement Mark David "Malachi" Ritscher left behind on his website. Consequently, and contrary to AP's mythologizing, we should take some time to review what it says to help us evaluate this man's last moments. (Ritscher's final statement can be found at http://www.savagesound.com/gallery99.htm)

Along with all the prosaic anti-war sentiments that can be found on just about any anti-war website, Ritscher startlingly recounts his dissatisfaction that he did not murder Donald Rumsfeld when he felt he had a chance to do so.

I have had one previous opportunity to serve my country in a meaningful way - at 8:05 one morning in 2002 I passed Donald Rumsfeld on Delaware Avenue and I was acutely aware that slashing his throat would spare the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people. I had a knife clenched in my hand, and there were no bodyguards visible; to my deep shame I hesitated, and the moment was past.

Is assassinating a government official something to celebrate? Is it the statement of a sane man? Wouldn't it seem a pertinent thing to mention in a story of this nature? The AP must not think so as they do not mention it. Not even once.

Ritshcer also reveals an utter lack of knowledge about the political system our Founding Fathers created. He writes:

Our government has lost its way since our founders tried to build a structure which allowed people to practice their own beliefs, as far as it did not negatively affect others.

OK, all well and good. But he follows that with this:

A coalition system which includes a Green Party would be an obvious better approach than our winner-take-all system. Direct electronic debate and balloting would be an improvement over our non-representative congress. Consider that the French people actually have a voice, because they are willing to riot when the government doesn't listen to them.

We do not now, nor have we ever had anything like a "Direct ... debate and balloting" in this country. That is a direct democracy and a direct democracy is something that every Founder was wholly against.

He went on to reveal more misunderstanding about what a government is supposed to do.

Our elected representatives are supposed to find diplomatic and benevolent solutions to these situations.

No, Mr. "Malachi", a government is not "supposed" to necessarily 'find diplomatic and benevolent solutions", but ones that are morally right. Diplomacy by its very nature entails compromise and sometimes it is not the correct decision to compromise on true principles. We went to war against both the Confederacy and the Axis powers, both decisions were right and neither "diplomatic". To a lesser degree, LBJ risked the wrath of his own party when he pushed civil rights legislation with Republican support. No "diplomacy" edged that decision to the floor of Congress, but it was the right decision to make none-the-less. And, while diplomacy was the vehicle, Ronald Reagan did not budge when the Soviets wanted him to compromise and this anti-diplomatic stance did more to help end the Cold War than any other.

Diplomacy is not the end in and of itself that so many on the left imagine it to be. Sometimes diplomacy comes to an end and hard decisions must then be made. We empower government to try diplomacy, but not to distance itself from the hard decisions in favor of compromise at all times as compromise is not always a positive thing.

It must be remembered that the world compromised with Hitler and that compromising led to the deaths of millions.

In any case, the wasted life of this particular anti-war protester is a sad affair. But elevating this disturbed individual to the heights of martyrdom does neither he nor anyone else any service. Worse, it shows the AP to be advocates instead of reporting journalists.
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L.A.Times: Repeats Terrorist's Propaganda as News... Again!

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Monday, November 27, 2006 10:16:26 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

Patterico's Pontifications blog has done some stellar detective work on a particular L.A. Times story wherein the Times claims that U.S. forces attacked a town with an ariel strike that killed 30 Iraqis, including women and children.

The Times also reported that widespread destruction resulted from this reported "bombardment".

A Times correspondent in Ramadi said at least 15 homes were pulverized by aerial bombardment and families could be seen digging through the ruins with shovels and bare hands.

Gruesome, eh?

Problem is, the big story that the Times reported upon doesn't seem to have ever happened.

As Patterico so ably demonstrates there was no "U.S. airstrike", no buildings were destroyed (perhaps damage to one, though), and, worse, no women OR children were killed.

It does seem 30 were killed and there does seem to have been a battle between insurgents and coalition forces, but those killed were all men (read insurgents) and they were all killed by ground forces. No air support was utilized in this fight at all. Not even a helium filled birthday balloon hovered over this battle ground.

Patterico has quite a long post filled with his investigation to disprove that Times' story. It is so comprehensive, I will not try to distill it here. Suffice to say, it is fantastic reading and is a must for those who want the truth about our efforts in Iraq. (Patterico's post is titled, Is the L.A. Times Repeating Enemy Propaganda?)

Go read this revealing story. It'll make your blood boil.

I will say one thing further, though. The biggest problem with the western MSM's reporting in Iraq is that they have NO ONE in the zone actually witnessing, filming, photographing, or reporting live from these events they are so willing to splash across the pages of our papers.

The western MSM hires what are called "stringers" to do their in person, ground work. These people are invariably members of the propaganda arm of Hammas, Al Qaeda or any of many recognized terror groups. These "stringers" take their doctored photos and their fake stories straight to Western MSM sources where they are printed up as absolute fact without a single effort by those western sources to check the facts, look for corroborating reports, or even ask the U.S. military for comment. (Extensively reported in the newmedia as Reutergate and Fauxtography, where "news" photos and stories have been faked)

The MSM is undeniably unreliable with their reports on Iraq.

But, is it out of the question to suspect they KNOW they are printing falsehoods against our soldiers and endangering their lives? Sadly, it is awfully hard to escape the conclusion that they are, indeed, fully aware that their "reports" are pure lies because stories of these so-called disasters in Iraq neatly fits in with their desire to lose this war.

The MSM have taken an active hand in the efforts to destroy our war effort. It's fine to have an ideological bone to pick, but when stories begin to harm our soldier's moral and reputations, we have left the arena of discussion of policy and edged dangerously close to treason.

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Russian Spy Murdered Under Londoner's Noses

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Sunday, November 26, 2006 2:23:47 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

Many of you will have heard of this interesting, sinister story about ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko having been poisoned and killed as he lived in England.

but I have a few points I'd like to remind everyone about...

Spy 'Poisoned By Radiation'

A large quantity of radiation, probably from a substance called Polonium 210, has been found in the body of dead ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.

Police in the UK are trying to find out who and what killed the 43-year-old former security agent.

Who can doubt that this defector and vehement critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, was ordered killed by that same leader? After all, half a dozen of Putin's critics in business and journalism have suddenly been murdered over the last few years.

Mysterious?

Not very.

Still, it is interesting to see the British press going gaga over this guy's death. So, I thought it would behoove us to remember that Litvinenko was a spy just like the guy that killed him (whom ever that may have been). And we should realize that Litvinenko probably ordered the deaths of many men in his day... and it is likely he despatched some of them personally.

Who killed Litvinenko?

Alexander Litvinenko was a man who could be taught little about the seamy side of modern Russia. A KGB agent for 18 years, he occupied a world where intrigue, betrayal and ruthless trickery were the tools of working life.

So, yes it is horrible that this assassination took place right in the western country of England where such things aren't supposed to happen. But let's not act as if Litvinenko is some wide-eyed, innocent here.

Reaping what one sowed is an apt axiom.
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MSM Killing Military Recruiting

Posted by Warner Todd Huston on Saturday, November 25, 2006 1:27:01 AM
-By Warner Todd Huston

With the talk of Charlie Rangel’s second try to get the draft reinstated, it is interesting to take a look at how leftists are attempting to destroy our military and one of the ways the left is trying to undermine our military is by attacking its recruiting base in high schools across the country. Activists are trying to persuade kids of military recruitment age to "opt out" from allowing their schools to provide the student's public information to military sources.
 
The anti-military left has also found a constant assistant in the MSM toward this goal. Every few months the MSM comes out with articles highlighting military recruiting and invariably they also give free publicity to the anti-ilitary groups trying to stop recruiting.

For example, a recent USA Today report, titled Some opt out of military options, introduces us to a school in northern Illinois where a large number of parents, totaling about half the class, have signed forms to stop the school from sending the military their info -- a trend that has grown there since at least 2004.

USA Today helpfully supplies a graphic showing the "Opt out" split in the school body. 2004 saw 2,126 opt outers in a student body of 4,505. 2,802 of 4,573 in 2005 and 2,920 out of 4,472 this school year. This stat shows a pretty steady growth toward the anti-military position.

It almost mirrors the voting trend north of Chicago in Lake County, Illinois, where the school is located.

Lincolnshire, Illinois, a northern suburb of the city of Chicago, is in Lake county. It broke close to even in the 2004 election with 50% going for Bush and 48% going for Kerry. And, while they voted overwhelmingly for Democrat Barack Obama in 2004, the rest of the votes were weighted Republican at least since the 2000 general election. But in this 2006 cycle, the GOP took a hit with Democratic votes gaining for most of the top offices, as it did in many areas of the country.

But, what the USA Today article proves most clearly, is that the left is doing what it does best; organize. And they are organizing in an effort to undermine the US military. The article covers several organizations that have organized to fight Military recruiters from having access to school records.

Even cities have taken up the anti-military cause. The school board in San Francisco has recently banned the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps from operating in city high schools, despite complaints from students, over the “don’t ask, don't tell” that supposedly discriminates against gays. School board member, Eric Mar, was quoted as saying "…in many ways, we're preventing military values on students at the high-school level.”

The reason I use this article as an example, though, is in the unusual aspect of it.  It gives both sides of the argument where few others do. This article gives space to military spokesmen and gives some info to mitigate the attacks by the anti-military left. The most salient points being that the military isn't asking for any more information than colleges and Universities get from schools and that the military can get the student's info from other sources quite legally, anyway.

Still, we get a pretty detailed listing