This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Media

  • Christopher Hitchens takes on Islamic Rage Boy

    I met Mr. Hitchens briefly at an event at the National Press Club a few years back – right after he left The Nation for his support of the war against terrorism. We spoke for several minutes and he was a friendly-enough guy – so friendly and interesting that I’ve found it very hard to criticize anything he’s written since.This bit of uncommon sense he’s written for Slate reminds me of those few minutes I spent with him that evening all of those years ago;

    This mental and moral capitulation has a bearing on the argument about Iraq, as well. We are incessantly told that the removal of the Saddam Hussein despotism has inflamed the world’s Muslims against us and made Iraq hospitable to terrorism, for all the world as if Baathism had not been pumping out jihadist rhetoric for the past decade (as it still does from Damascus, allied to Tehran). But how are we to know what will incite such rage? A caricature published in Copenhagen appears to do it. A crass remark from Josef Ratzinger (leader of an anti-war church) seems to have the same effect. A rumor from Guantanamo will convulse Peshawar, the Muslim press preaches that the Jews brought down the Twin Towers, and a single citation in a British honors list will cause the Iranian state-run press to repeat its claim that the British government—along with the Israelis, of course—paid Salman Rushdie to write The Satanic Verses to begin with. Exactly how is such a mentality to be placated?

    We may have to put up with the Rage Boys of the world, but we ought not to do their work for them, and we must not cry before we have been hurt.

    There’s nothing else to add. No matter how hard I try. Good job, Mr. Hitchens.

    Someone tell Rage Boy to get his angryface out – Gates of Vienna‘s Baron Bodissey (by way of Gateway Pundit) reports that some Danes have burned Muhammed in effigy.

  • Leftist hyperbole on parade

      There was a demonstration in front of the White House yesterday called “Voices Against Terrorism” – sounds like a good reason to protest, doesn’t it? Except the “terrorism” they’re “against” is that which is inflicted (supposedly) on people by the Bush Administration. According to Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson;

    In 1996, [Sister Dianna] Ortiz founded the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International, which brings together survivors and advocates for human rights issues, and she began to travel across the country to tell her story. Participants at this weekend’s vigil, the coalition’s 10th, included 75 survivors from some of the 150 countries the organization cites for practicing and condoning torture.

    “We’re not just telling it — we’re reliving it,” Ortiz said. “We feel like we are back in our cell.”

    This year, survivors and activists had a specific mission: demanding the repeal of the Military Commissions Act, which President Bush signed in October. Coalition members say they think the act is unconstitutional, is a severe violation of human rights and essentially legalizes acts of torture, she said.

    The act establishes procedures for conducting military investigations and hearings for suspected terrorists and combatants. One of the activists, Ray McGovern, who was a CIA analyst for 27 years, said the act ignores prisoner rights established by the Geneva Conventions and the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act.

    Well, ya know what, I went to the Military Commissions Act (.pdf), known to the legal world as Public Law 109-366, and read all 39 pages. There is nothing in the law that “legalizes acts of torture”. It doesn’t even address torture except to make it a crime and forbid it’s use to extract evidence. It doesn’t violate the Constitution because it’s mandated purpose (948b) is;

    This chapter establishes procedures governing the use of military commissions to try alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States for violations of the law of war and other offenses triable by military commission.

    That’s it - nothing about American citizens, so it can’t be unConstitutional. In fact, it specifically forbids the admisibility of evidence extracted using torture during Military Commission procedings;

    ‘‘§ 948r. Compulsory self-incrimination prohibited; treatment of statements obtained by torture and other statements.
    ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—No person shall be required to testify against himself at a proceeding of a military commission under this chapter.
    ‘‘(b) EXCLUSION OF STATEMENTS OBTAINED BY TORTURE.—A statement obtained by use of torture shall not be admissible in a military commission under this chapter, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.
    ‘‘(c) STATEMENTS OBTAINED BEFORE ENACTMENT OF DETAINEE TREATMENT ACT OF 2005.—A statement obtained before December 30, 2005 (the date of the enactment of the Defense Treatment Act of 2005) in which the degree of coercion is disputed may be admitted only if the military judge finds that—
    ‘‘(1) the totality of the circumstances renders the statement reliable and possessing sufficient probative value; and
    ‘‘(2) the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence.‘‘(d) STATEMENTS OBTAINED AFTER ENACTMENT OF DETAINEE TREATMENT ACT OF 2005.—A statement obtained on or after December 30, 2005 (the date of the enactment of the Defense Treatment Act of 2005) in which the degree of coercion is disputed may be admitted only if the military judge finds that—
    ‘‘(1) the totality of the circumstances renders the statement reliable and possessing sufficient probative value;‘‘(2) the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence; and
    ‘‘(3) the interrogation methods used to obtain the statement do not amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment prohibited by section 1003 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

    Of course, the Washington Post couldn’t bother to find that section of the law before publishing their story, could they? Nope, they just quote the moonbats – cuz that’s much better copy than some dry old facts;

    “The act needs to be banned for practical and moral reasons,” McGovern told yesterday’s crowd. An opponent of the Iraq war, he accused then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in May 2006 of lying about prewar intelligence during the question-and-answer session of a speech in Atlanta.

    I guess Ms. Johnson couldn’t help but inject a bit of the standard “Bush lied, troops died” meme into her obviously biased “story”. 

    Mr. McGovern would do himself a favor by actually reading the Act instead of going off half-cocked, but that wouldn’t serve his search for fame very well, would it?

    The Act, which grants non-Americans the same Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections as the Bill of Rights, is a reasonable law, under the circumstances. Given that many of the nations from which these suspected criminals come would execute them nearly as soon as they are apprehended, it’s pretty damn civilized.

    I think it’s kind of disingenuous for the Left to be so upset about what they consider terrorism committed by the United States but they wouldn’t dare speak out against Islamofacists who behead journalists for video-fare, send six-year-olds with bomb vests into battle,  and hide under females’ clothing to perpetrate their crimes.

    But the Left, and these want-wits in particular, make wild, unfounded accusations hoping no one will ever have the gumption or the wherewithall to prove them liars. They depend on ignorance and laziness.

    Ms. Johnson concludes her front page piece with a quote from terror victim, Sister Ortiz;

    Ortiz said that the protest and vigil were significant and that her goal is to raise public awareness.

    “When I first came back, very few people were speaking out,” Ortiz said. The torture survivors in this country “believe that we don’t have the right to be silent. We have the moral responsibility to speak the truth.”

    I agree and sympathize, Sister, however, your message is being diluted by Leftist hyperbole and you’ve become a political tool of the anti-Bush moonbats.

  • The Hugo Chavez method comes to the US

    I wrote yesterday about Think Progress’ new report on the Right’s domination of the airwaves, at the same time Michele Malkin was writing about the Center for American Progress’ report that came out on the same day – oddly enough. Now the news services are announcing that Hillary and gal pal Barbara Boxer were overheard trying to strategize to legislate the Right’s dominance on radio away. 

    I’ve always wondered why the Left, who claim to be “liberal” and “progressive” “human rights” and “defenders of the First Amendment” weren’t more vocal about what Chavez, Correa and Moreno were doing down in Latin America – and now I know. In fact, there was even a piece on the DailyKos defending Chavez’ shut down of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) – all because that’s what the Left here in the US intend to accomplish as well.

    From CNSNews;

    Derek Turner, research director of Free Press, said “the potential one-sidedness on the radio dial in terms of political programming is strongly and directly related to ownership and market structure.”

    Turner argued that “increasing diversity and localism in ownership will produce more diverse speech [and] more choice for listeners.”

    Mark Lloyd, another CAP senior fellow, attributed the “imbalance” to “the breakdown in the Federal Communications Commission regulatory system during the Reagan administration in the 1980s and the elimination of caps on ownership in telecommunications during the 1990s.”

    It’s a “structural imbalance” – see a structural imbalance means that it can corrected – if it were a market imbalance, no amount of legislation could MAKE people listen to Moonbattery. The imbalance can’t be because of market forces, it’s because the evil Republican white guys have been plotting nearly thirty years to take over AM radio. Nevermind that AM radio was almost dead before Rush Limbaugh came along. But that doesn’t matter – the Republicans have an advantage, so to “level the playing field” Democrats want to legislate away that advantage. The solution to fairness and equality, you see, is legislation – not hardwork.

    Blake Dvorak of RealClearPolitics quotes an American Spectator interview with a Pelosi aide last month;

    The report would be easy to dismiss if not for the fact that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will “aggressively pursue” reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, according to two House Democrats who spoke to the American Spectator last month.

    A senior adviser to Pelosi explained the Speaker’s reasons to the Spectator:

    First, [Democrats] failed on the radio airwaves with Air America, no one wanted to listen … Conservative radio is a huge threat and political advantage for Republicans and we have had to find a way to limit it. Second, it looks like the Republicans are going to have someone in the presidential race who has access to media in ways our folks don’t want, so we want to make sure the GOP has no advantages going into 2008.

    Again, it’s blind adherence to what the nutroots want (whenever the media says “Democrat base” – they mean that Leftist vocal minority that spends every minute of every day on the internet).

    So now we know why there was hardly a peep from the Congressional Democrats when Chavez started censoring his opposition - Venezuela was a guinea pig test case to see if Americans were paying attention. They weren’t, with the exception of a few, so now the Clinton/Boxer team figures it’s time to strike.

    Monica Crowley calls Clinton “Putin in Drag“;

    The former head of the KGB and current president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, recently made it illegal to engage in so-called “extremist” talk and activity.  In Russia today, you can get arrested and silenced—and often, killed—for publicly criticizing the government.  Over 1000 Russian journalists have been murdered since last year—all for speaking out against the corruption, cronyism, and tyrannical oppression of the Putin regime.

    I’m reminded that Brigette Bardot was arrested and fined in France for “hate speech” – hate speech that warned about Arab/Muslim immigration diluting the french culture in her book. So can ridiculous laws like that be far behind this latest Orwellian plot to silence conservatism?

    What’s next? Blogs?

    Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perpective provides a lot of Spanish language press on goings-on in Latin America in reference to Chavez and our policy towards him. Apparently the Senate Foreign Relations Committe is finally discussing Chavez’ authoritarian tendencies and the House has authorized more radio frequencies to be directed at Venezuela.  But that doesn’t solve our own problems with Chavez-wannabes, the fugly girls of the Senate.

    Kara Rowland in today’s Washington Times talks to local DC radio programming directors about the Center for American Progress report;

    “Nothing in this report addresses the tremendous impact that public radio has,” said Chris Berry, general manager of D.C. conservative talk station WMAL-AM (630). “The fact is, many people, even NPR listeners, consider public radio if not liberal, then certainly in the category of ‘progressive.’ “

    In the Arbitron winter ratings, D.C. public radio outlet WETA-FM (90.9) scored a 4.9 share — although it changed to classical music in the middle of the ratings period — and WAMU-FM (88.5) had a 4.3 share. Together, the public stations top the most-listened-to commercial station, urban WHUR-FM (96.3), which had a 6.9 share.

    Moreover, Mr. Berry noted, the report does not include morning FM radio shows that are topical or cover political issues, especially programs targeted at black listeners.

    WMAL is owned by Citadel Broadcasting, one of the five major broadcasters examined in the Center for Progress study, whose results argue that Clear Channel Communications has the most liberal talk content in absolute terms — 229 hours a week, or 14 percent of its programming. As a percentage, CBS devotes the most time to liberal talk at 26 percent; followed by Clear Channel at 14 percent and Citadel, Cumulus and Salem all at zero percent liberal (and 100 percent conservative).

    “I think that it basically is saying that conservative talk radio is dominated by conservatives,” said Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers magazine. “I don’t know what it means. If it’s an attempt to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, that’s unconstitutional. If it’s to try to end consolidation, it’ll create a bunch of independent radio stations that will go out of business because of the economics of 2007.”

    Which is exactly what the Left wants – no private broadcasts. In the Chavez model, they want everyone listening to the Democrat-approved drivel on NPR. They want radio stations that plug I-Pods into their transmitter and hit “shuffle” – all music, no comments. That’s basically what would result from a new Fairness Doctrine.

    In typical, Democrat hypocrit-fashion the sponsor of the new legislation says there’s not enough “choices”;

    “The American people should have a wide array of news sources available to them. The more opinions they can hear, the more news sources they can learn from, the better able they will be to make decisions,” said Jeff Lieberson, spokesman for Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey, New York Democrat.

    Mr. Hinchey is preparing to reintroduce his Media Ownership Reform Act, which among other proposals calls for a return to the “Fairness Doctrine,” a long-held requirement that broadcasters give equal time to opposing views when covering political issues. The doctrine was repealed in 1987 because it violated the First Amendment.

    “…a wide array of news sources…”, huh? I wonder what Hinchey thought of Fox News being frozen out of Democrat Presidential debates.

    Update: Hillary and Boxer claim Inhofe didn’t hear them saying what he said they said;

    Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer say Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe “needs to have his hearing checked” if he thinks he heard them talking about a “legislative fix” to curb conservative talk radio.

    I tend to believe the worst.

    And, almost completely unnoticed is Amanda of Think Progress explaining how they don’t advocate bringing back the Fairness Doctrine – just take private property away from people to redistribute it;

    The report argues instead that we should address the more significant problem of concentrated ownership and ineffective regulation in order to push the market structure to better meet local needs. As report co-author John Halpin stated, “If we break up concentrated ownership, and encourage greater local accountability over radio licensing, and still end up with lots of conservative talk, then so be it. We don’t think this will happen but at least the playing field would have been made more level.”

    The CAP/Free Press report argues for more speech, not less. Conservatives should get their facts straight before blindly attacking others.

    Yeah, we should have noticed that their intentions were much more socialistic. A report entitled “Right Wing Domination Of Talk Radio And How To End It” should have been more readily accepted by the Right. The basis of the Right’s argument remains that the Left is looking for ways to get and keep their people on the air on talk radio even though no one is listening. That’s even closer to Hugo Chavez’ method than we originally thought.

    It all boils down the fact that they want a new fairness doctrine enforced by the FCC or the SEC or some government agency who will seize private property and redistribute it to the Left.

    I wonder if they feel just as strongly about breaking up concentrated union power in our schools and encouraging local accountability in the education system.

  • More Think Progress panty-wadding

    I just thought this was funny from Think Progress. Apparently, the “progressives” are in a snit because they think that Brit Hume’s Special Report panel called them names the other night. The headline reads “‘Fox News All-Stars’ Bash Progressive Bloggers As ‘Pungent,’ ‘Profane,’ ‘A Pox’”

    Let’s start with the “pox” comment – from their own transcript;

    MORT KONDRACKE, ROLL CALL: Well, I think they do. And they are the leftward pressure on the Democratic Party that the right-wing talk show hosts are on the Republican party. And between the two of them they manage to polarize even further an already polarized politics, making it increasingly difficult to get any American problems solved, like health care, or the war in Iraq, or sensible terrorism policy.

    And all of the candidates are pandering to them. I mean, the democratic candidates are pandering to them just as much as the Republicans candidates are pandering to the right. And they were doing it again today.

    HUME: Which group, would you say, is more influential with in their respective party?

    KONDRACKE: No, I think a pox on both their houses.

    Wishing a pox on both Republican and Democrat candidates means that liberal bloggers are a pox, apparently. I don’t know how they arrived at that one – unless it’s just to get the readers pumped up – or they’re fairly illiterate and unfamiliar with the phrase.

    But Charles Krauthammer is the one that really gets their creative juices flowing with this comment;

    KRAUTHAMMER: It is interesting, there are conservative blogs, but I think, at least the ones I read, they are more analytical and restrained. The more liberal blogs are a lot more pungent and profane, but political.

    So to prove Mr. Krauthammer wrong, one commenter in a very reasoned and thoughtful post answers;

    Foxnews has NO CREDIBILITY.

    Except with Nazi azzhole-lickers of MURDEROUS WAR CRIMINAL Bush.

    Just PURE PROPAGANDA, and by the way, Natalie Holloway is STILL MISSING!!!

    Comment by Mr. Bush Goes To Hell — June 20, 2007 @ 12:07 pm

    How could Mr. Krauthammer have been so wrong?

  • That terrible talk radio again

    Remember the “Progressive” think tank Think Progress where Harry Reid went to complain about Joe Lieberman’s opinion that we should strike Iran? Now this “think tank” is advocating reintroduction of the “Fairness Doctrine” – the unfair practice of government regulating free speech on the broadcast industry. According to Think Progress;

    Two common myths are frequently offered to explain the imbalance of talk radio: 1) the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine (which required broadcasters to devote airtime to contrasting views), and 2) simple consumer demand. Each of these fails to adequately explain the root cause of the problem. The report explains:

    Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.

    […]

    Ultimately, these results suggest that increasing ownership diversity, both in terms of the race/ethnicity and gender of owners, as well as the number of independent local owners, will lead to more diverse programming, more choices for listeners, and more owners who are responsive to their local communities and serve the public interest.

    See? The problem is “ownership diversity” – those rich, white Republicans own too much stuff while us hippies can barely scratch together enough money to buy used roaches for our morning doobie.

    Then how do they explain that Air America, the Left’s answer to the EIB network, filed for bankruptcy just two years and a half after it was founded by Democrat deep pockets. Is it because the hippies don’t have enough money to buy the stuff that’s advertised on Air America? I doubt it.

    “Fairness” is one of those words the Left likes to use like “equality”. It only applies to stuff they want. I had an emailer tell me that it was “unfair” that the Gathering of Eagles held a counter-protest at “their” protest. But I guess they thought it was “fair” that a small band of moonbats tried to crash the “Veterans Against Kerry” rally in September, 2004.

    Let me explain to these folks what fairness and equality are in this country. We are all born equal – we all have the equal opportunity to succeed. It’s what you do with that opportunity that defines you as a person. Everybody, E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y, came to America with nothing except what was carried on our antecedents’ back – so we all come from the same background. You make your own fairness with the sweat off of your own brow, not with the stroke of a judge’s pen.

    You are NOT guarenteed mulligan’s – if you make bad choices, live with your mistakes, but don’t make your neighbors pay for you own stupid mistakes. You are not guarenteed to live equally with your neighbors if they work while you sit on the front porch whittlin’ your life away.

    We are all individuals – we all do different stuff – that’s why life is not fair. The guy who designs and builds medical equipment in his basement is going to be better off than the guy who designs and builds dreamcatchers. That’s just life. The playing field starts off level, what you do in those first couple of steps determines how well you do when the field isn’t in your favor any longer.

    You can’t make us equal, you can’t make life fair by forcing everyone to be miserable. When the Left understands that, then they’ll truly live up their self-proclaimed label “Progressive”.

    Michele Malkin characteristically does a much better job on the Fairness Doctrine and calls it a “Hugo Chavez approach to the radio airwaves”.

  • Shoot out at Walter Reed

    Remember a few months ago when I wrote that the problems at Walter Reed were more about the civilian contract labor than about the Army leadership, and that was due to Walter Reed’s location in a bad neigborhood in DC? Well, the Washington Post reports just how right I was;

    A security officer at Walter Reed Army Medical Center pulled a handgun and fired 10 rounds at a fellow guard during the morning rush hour yesterday at the hospital’s main gate, striking no one but sending stray bullets into two cars and a utility pole, D.C. police said.

    Police said the incident started on hospital grounds just inside the front gate along Georgia Avenue NW after one officer jokingly referred to an armed colleague as “retarded.”

    Of course, The Washington Post doesn’t see it as employee problem;

    The shooting is the latest high-profile embarrassment for Walter Reed, which has faced scrutiny and criticism over its aging facilities and the treatment provided to wounded veterans. The gated hospital complex is set back from one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares.

    The guards involved were contract employees under the supervision of civilians, not military guards. So how can the Washington Post figure this is an embarrassment for the facility? Well, because it sounds better, I guess.

    The only problem I see is that Army decided to use civilians to guard Walter Reed instead of using MPs like they did just after 9-11. But security guards with guns is a problem across DC with the expansion of the need for security personnel at Federal facilities and a decreasingly eligible labor pool.

    My sources at Walter Reed say the argument was over a lady, but my sources are notoriously gossipy, so I’ll stick with the Washington Post’s account – but like I said on Monday, these problems can be fixed by moving the medical facility to Bethesda as determined by the BRAC – if we can get past the Democrat crybabies in Congress who are more worried about traffic jams on Wisconsin Avenue (between trendy Bethesda and trendier Georgetown). 

  • Republicans for Obama?

    Proving that the media doesn’t understand Republicans or conservatives, the Chicago Sun Times ran this bit of wishful thinking as hard news yesterday;

    There is an interesting phenomenon that has arisen over the last few months: a trend of moderate Republicans who want to vote for Barack Obama. It may seem counterintuitive, conservatives supporting a candidate who wants to tax the wealthy and embrace the conventions in the Kyoto Accord, but there is something in Obama’s message about ridding politics of partisanship that is appealing to these Republicans.

    Of course Miss Hunter, the Sun Times columnist supports this contention with tons of evidence – namely three Obama supporters. Let’s look at this crowd, shall we?

     “From a philosophical point of view I still see myself as a Republican,” says Kenneth Wehking, 38, a Denver man who works for a software company. That means being fiscally conservative and moderate on social issues, Wehking believes.

    At one time he supported John McCain for those very reasons, but now he is attracted to Obama and belongs to a group called Republicans For Obama. He likes Obama’s philosophy: the need to rid the country of the red/blue divide that has made it impossible to move forth legislation in immigration or health care.

    “Obama is one of the first candidates who truly seems to embody a spirit of working together and moving forward,” he says.

    Yeah, who cares that Obama is diametrically opposed to every Republican and conservative issue – he wants to move forward while we’re working together. Never mind that we’re moving forward in the wrong direction and working together to bankrupt the nation.

    Randy Cooper, a 60-year-old lawyer from Eaton, N.H. — not a member of Republicans for Obama — says he grew up as an Eisenhower Republican. He supported George Herbert Walker Bush and John McCain. But Cooper began to feel that George II and his acolytes, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, were being disingenuous about the reasons for going into Iraq.

    At first Cooper supported the war “based on what the president told us.” But then he began to ask questions: “I absolutely feel we were lied to. There were other reasons [Bush] wanted to go into Iraq. It wasn’t just about weapons of mass destruction.”

    And Cooper became so disillusioned that in 2004 he voted for John Kerry.

    Yeah, this is the guy the media loves – he swallowed every bit of their red meat and voted for Kerry – cuz Kerry was just like Bush only not Bush. Did you know John Kerry had been to Vietnam – that fact is seared, seared in my memory.

    “I went to India last February,” recalls Chicagoan Dian Eller, who works in philanthropy. “And the first thing my driver asked was if I had voted for Bush.” Eller did vote for Bush the first time around, but not the second because she “was angry and disappointed about the war.” But the pointed questions from the Indian driver made Eller very uncomfortable. “I am so upset about the way people feel about our country.”

    Yeah, it upsets me that an Indian cab driver thinks poorly about my country, too, so much so that I’m willing to vote for a socialist just to appease those ignorant third-worlders who so badly want a say in how our country operates.

    Those three folks accurately portray the entire Republican party, though – in the Bizzaro land of media. By the way, I found this article while perusing the Leftist blogs and they seemed pretty excited that you’re going to vote for Obama.

  • Haditha story wrapping up

    I’ve wanted to write about all of the good news coming out of the Haditha investigation, but there’s no way I could do as good a job at it as Robin, my bestest new buddy, at Chickenhawk Express (who recently added me to her Blogroll – thanks, Robin).

    Robin, who also writes at Newsbusters, has been churning out really good updates on the Haditha Article 32 investigation (equivalent to a grand jury) of Lance Corporal Justin Sharrat over the last week or so here, here and here.

    For my part, I’ve been diligently calling John Murtha’s office every morning to ask when Murtha is going to apologize for calling LCpl Sharrat and his fellow Marines cold-blooded murderers. Every morning, I get the same answer – Representative Murtha hasn’t heard anything about the investigation.

    I think that’s funny because he was so sure about the information he had before the investigation began;

    Murtha, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said at a news conference Wednesday that sources within the military have told him that an internal investigation will show that “there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.”

    So, why doesn’t he have information that been publicly available? A year ago, he told ABC News;

    Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., told “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” in an exclusive appearance that reports a group of U.S. Marines may have killed 24 Iraqi civilians following an IED explosion in Haditha, Iraq, was “worse than Abu Ghraib,” calling their actions war crimes committed “in cold blood.”

    Murtha, a Marine veteran who six months ago called for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, added, “There has to have been a cover-up. There’s no question about it.”

    Wouldn’t a rational person, who staked their reputation on such an damning statement, want to keep up with the story? I guess we’re not talking about a rational person here, though, are we? We’re talking about a hateful little pussbag, fatass who gives not a moment’s thought to this nation’s security or the lives of the people who defend it. I think it’s time Murtha signed his Form 180, too. I have trouble believing that this coward spent even a minute in the Marine Corps.

    And where are the headlines in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the LA Times admitting they were wrong in their initial accusations?