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

Category: Media

  • It’s Sept. 10th, 2001 again

    We all remember where we were on September 11th, 2001, we remember seeing the towers collapse. Some of us forget that the world and history didn’t begin on that day and at that moment. But here to remind us is the Washington Post which has decided to regale us with the Chandra Levy murder story.

    If you shake those pre-9/11 cobwebs from your head, you might remember that the news channels were saturated with the latest photos of then-Congressman Gary Condit or various members of his family and their doings on any given day.  In fact I remember my second or third thought  after seeing the cloud of smoke roiling from the Pentagon while I stood in our conference room window facing west was of how thankful Condit would be that the media would forget about his affair and the speculation of his involvement in Levy’s disappearance.

    So the Washington Post has decided that the war against terror is over and they want to change the subject and distract their audience from real campaign issues by turning the clock back to the day before Mohammed Atta and his posse struck us. After all, if we keep thinking about the war against terror, we might find weaknesses in the Post’s chosen candidate.

  • Tony Snow is gone

    I met Tony Snow briefly outside of the Capitol City Brewery soon after I started working here in DC. We stopped and chatted – mostly I gushed. He was friendly and patient even though I’d cut into his lunch time.

    I always thought he was the hardest working Conservative in this city. I remember there were days he’d sit in for Rush Limbaugh for three hours, then do an hour or so on the old Chris Core show, a local talk show and then he’d be sitting in for Brit Hume on the Special Report on the Fox News Channel.

    I miss him already.

    More at Michelle Malkin.

  • Washington Post; Ignoring progress

    Last year, while General Petreaus was briefing Congress on the impending success in the war in Iraq, the Washington Post ran a week-long series of articles on  Improvised Explosive Devices. It was the WaPo’s way of distracting the readers from the newspaper’s inept reporting from Iraq. Judging by the idiot comments with which I’ve tortured myself, Washington Post’s plan has worked…for them.

    This morning, the Washington Post, while ignoring the fact that Iraqis are under the impression that they can control their own security because of the recent successes there, focuses on the new IED;

     U.S. military officials call the devices Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs. They are propane tanks packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and powered by 107mm rockets. They are often fired by remote control from the backs of trucks, sometimes in close succession. Rocket-propelled bombs have killed at least 21 people, including at least three U.S. soldiers, this year.

    Bill Roggio calls it the “Flying IED;

    The rocket casings shown in the images provided by Multinational Forces Iraq are the same type used in the Chinese-made Type 63 towed 107mm Multiple Launch Rocket. The Iranians manufacture this weapons system and the rockets, according to a former US military intelligence analyst familiar with Iranian munitions and weapons systems.

    The type of improvised launch system and rocket is not new to warfare. The Irish Republican Army used a similar system to conduct a February 1991 attack on 10 Downing Street, the London office and home of the British prime minister.

    Now, I’m not discounting the lethality of the weapons, since American soldiers have been killed they are certainly effective…but do they really deserve a front page story in the Washington Post? The Post counts 21 casualties from the weapons, three are Americans – who were the other 18? Well, apparently, they come from one explosion when a truck used as a launch vehicle exploded. From Roggio;

     The explosions in the Sha’ab neighborhood in the Baghdad district of Adhamiyah, which killed 16 civilians and wounded 29 more, have been “misreported,” according to the US military. The explosions in the Mahdi Army stronghold were initially reported in the media as a car bomb attack that targeted a police commander. The attack was held up as the largest bombing in Baghdad since mid-March.

    But the US military has refuted the reports, saying the explosions were caused by the premature detonation of a Special Groups improvised rocket launching system. The system, which has been described as a flying improvised explosive device, or airborne IED, had received little attention until yesterday’s explosions in Sha’ab.

    Roggio says 16 were killed, but the Post recounts the same incident and says 18;

    The explosions were caused when a rocket on the back of a small flatbed truck exploded, igniting the other four to five IRAMs on the truck, the U.S. military said. The attack killed 18 Iraqis, wounded 29 and damaged 15 buildings, the military said.

    Why the differing numbers? Well, the Post counts the two militiamen who died in the explosion as casualties. From Roggio;

     Two Mahdi Army Special Groups fighters were killed in the subsequent explosions, as well as 16 civilians.

    A big deal? Probably not…unless you go and look at the comments and recognize that it’s just red meat for the peace-at-any-cost crowd. The Post has succeeded in convincing it’s readership that any good news is just propaganda, that connections to Iran are just Bush propaganda, that the war is not winnable. That, to me, is not the function of the press, it’s not why our founders gave them special protections in the Bill of Rights.

  • Obama the Rock Star again

    Cousin Scott alerts me that he saw Obama on the cover of the Rolling Stone (apologies to Doctor Hook) this month so I went and found the cover;

    rolling-stone-2.bmp

    Not surprisingly, I discover that he’s been on the cover of the Rolling Stone (apologies to Doctor Hook) back in March, too. The covers for this year;

    rolling-stone-1.bmp

    I wonder who the editors of The Rolling Stone will be voting for in November.

  • Iraq wants withdrawal timetables?

    This story has been making top-of-the-hour news broadcasts all day. Every news service has been gloating how the Iraqis don’t want us there anymore. Search Technorati using the terms “withdrawal timetable” and you get a whole bunch of equally pleased anti-war types who think they finally have proof that we’re an occupying power.

    Even the Washington Post gleefully publishes the ultimatum;

    Speaking to reporters in the holy city of Najaf, National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie declined to provide specific dates, but said his government is “impatiently waiting” for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops.

    “There should not be any permanent bases in Iraq unless these bases are under Iraqi control,” Rubaie said.

    The commenters at WaPo are peeing their Depends with glee.

    AFP is positively giddy;

    The United States said Tuesday it would not divulge details of talks with Iraq over a security agreement, after Baghdad threatened to reject any pact unless it contained a specific timetable for withdrawal of US-led foreign forces.

    But the part they’re not quoting is surprisingly found buried in an Associated Press article;

    The Iraqi proposal stipulates that, once Iraqi forces have resumed security responsibility in all 18 of Iraq’s provinces, U.S.-led forces would then withdraw from all cities in the country.

    After that, the country’s security situation would be reviewed every six months, for three to five years, to decide when U.S.-led troops would pull out entirely, al-Adeeb said.

    Who else has mentioned that the withdrawals were expected from the just the cities? Who else has mentioned that final withdrawal will be subject to semi-annual review? As far as I can tell, no one. Now, AP has a couple of articles out on the same story, so I screen capped it just in case they decide to keep the disingenuous article over this one. Click the picture for a legible view;

    screen-cap.bmp

    So, we’re not being asked for a time table to withdraw from the entire country. We’re being asked to withdraw from the cities to the countryside – like we were in Germany. So it’s not really as big a deal as the media would like to make of it. AP sure makes it hard to stick to my boycott of them when they tell the truth.

    Welcome Gateway Pundit readers – and thanks, Jim once again.

  • Cohen: Reagan’s problem was his success

    The Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen tells us this morning that Ronald Reagan is to blame for our gas prices today. In a completely intellectually void piece, Cohen claims that all Reagan had was a smile;

    Those of you with keen memories may recall that the energy crisis is not new. In 1977, Jimmy Carter called it the “moral equivalent of war.” In the sort of speech a politician rarely delivers, he told a not-particularly-grateful nation that his energy program was going to hurt, but “a policy which does not ask for changes or sacrifices would not be an effective policy.” The core of his initiative was conservation. Carter had earlier asked us to lower our thermostats and wear sweaters. He wore one himself.

    Reagan, who succeeded Carter in the White House, wore only a smile. For him, there was no energy crisis. Whereas Carter had insisted that only the government could manage the energy crisis, Reagan, in his first inaugural, demanded that government get out of the way. Speaking of general economic conditions at the time, he said, “Government is not the solution to our problem.” He went on to call for America to return to greatness, to “reawaken this industrial giant,” and all sorts of swell things would happen. It was wonderful stuff.

    Except Cohen forgets that it was OPEC who had cut shipments during Carter’s years and they were afraid to do that during the Reagan years. Government didn’t “get out of the way”…we haven’t built a refinery since Carter’s years because of the Democrat Congress. And everytime a Republican, whether the President or in Congress, has made a move to improve our domestic production of energy, there’s always been a Democrat, as President or in Congress, to help us wean off of foreign oil – with promises of alternate energy sources that never seem to materialize.

    Of course, Cohen uses this vacuous point to declare conservatism dead. I think Cohen should hold off counting those chickens just yet.

  • Stroking Obama

    The Washington Post calls Obama’s sudden softening of his stance on the Iraq War “sensible” this morning;

    BARACK OBAMA has taken a small but important step toward adjusting his outdated position on Iraq to the military and strategic realities of the war he may inherit. Sadly, he seems to be finding that the strident and rigid posture he struck during the primary campaign — during which he promised to withdraw all combat forces in 16 months — is inhibiting what looks like a worthy, necessary attempt to create the room for maneuver he will need to capably manage the war if he becomes president.

    Mr. Obama’s shift came when he was asked last week about his withdrawal plan, which he first proposed in late 2006, a time when Iraq appeared to be sliding into a sectarian civil war. Since then, a new U.S. counterinsurgency strategy has helped bring about a dramatic drop in violence, and the Iraqi government has gained control over most of the country. Among other things, Mr. Obama said “the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability” — an apparent acknowledgment that the hard-won gains of the last year should not be squandered. He also said that “when I go to Iraq, and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”

    What the Post doesn’t bother to say is that if Obama had been on the right side in the first-damn-place, he wouldn’t have to “soften”. It was pandering for the votes of the radical Left that has made him “soften”, not any enlightenment, nor any changes on the ground in Iraq. Doesn’t the Washington Post find it strange that the Administration has been touting success for nine months but Obama doesn’t come around to admitting reality until Clinton conceded?

    The Post goes on to praise Obama for his political savvy when instead, they should be criticizing him for contributing to the deaths of US troops by demeaning their mission and pushing a timetable withdrawal, despite the fact that the reality on the ground is diametrically opposed to Obama’s rhetoric. The troops had to overcome an enemy who was convinced that he only had to continue to fight in order to win because Obama and the voters he was trying to attract gave our enemy hope.

    If Barack Obama was really a candidate for “change”, a different kind of politician running a different kind of campaign, he wouldn’t run an “anybody but Bush” campaign like John Kerry on nebulous promises like Jimmy Carter and be a sniffing snob like Al Gore. He’d strop running on leftist pie-in-the-sky rhetoric and tell the anti-war-at-any-cost crowd they were wrong. And he should admit that his anti-war yapping was wrong. And the Washington Post should call a shovel a shovel instead of praising Obama for being the same old politician with whom they’re most comfortable.

  • Sunday link fest

    Time to give back to all of my friends out there;

    im_pro_zombie.jpg

    Me, too.

    Jammie Wearing Fool catches Wesley Clark trashing McCain AGAIN.

    Zero Ponsdorf disagrees with Michael Yon – just this once.

    The American Pundit finds a politician who not only defends Obama and his posse, but he defends Mugabe in the same tone.

    Ziva at Babalu Blog gets nostalgic for pre-Castro Cuba.

    Big Dog recounts the childishness of the Democrats and Baldilocks tells them to grow a pair.

    Uncle Jimbo cuts loose on the Left at Blackfive.

    Bloodthirsty Liberal has little patience for this German revisionist.

    Doubleplusundead takes on the “Dueling Dumbasses” of the Second Amendment revisionists.

    I can’t even summarize this bit of Swedish buffoonery from Rich Horton at Blue Crab Boulevard.

    To show how bi-polar the Obamists are, Robin at Chickenhawk Express finds some hunting for people who bad-mouth B?O for his middle name and DrewM at Ace of Spades finds some changing their middle name to whatever Obama’s middle name is.

    The only guy on the internet who lists me in his blog roll as “This ain’t He**”, my buddy, Steve at Common Cents helps you find cheap gas.

    Confederate Yankee catches AP in an outright lie…once again.

    Don Surber‘s Weekend Scoreboard.

    Lisa and WL MacKenzie Redux at Dust My Broom writes about Jackboot Justice in our neighbor to the north.

    Fausta says there’s a monkey god in Obama’s future.

    Wordsmith’s Sunday Funnies on Flopping Aces.

    Gateway Pundit recounts Lieberman’s charge at Obama’s throat.

    Marooned in Marin reports that Feds are investigating the City of San Francisco for harboring an illegal alien who’s also a crack dealer.

    See-Dubya explains Obama using the McMurthy Lonesome Dove story at Michelle Malkin.

    My buddy Skye at Midnight Blue is still standing against the clowns in West Chester, PA every Saturday.

    Greyhawk at Milblogs pulls back the covers on Obama’s McPeak.

    Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective has nearly-live photos of the protests in Nicaragua.

    Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs lashes out at Olmert’s deal with the Palestinians.

    The Gentle Cricket says McCain has impressed him already.

    D. at The Dillard Doctrine has advice for the pro-mission organizations – join or die.

    Stop the ACLU reports that Think Progress has resorted to outright lies – not a first for them, though.

    Last Reporter at Red Maryland and Unfree State tells the story of Baltimore’s latest corrupt-thug mayor.

    There, that oughta hold ya’all.