Saddam Hussein, along with his sons Uday and Qusay, have won the day, and it’s time to come home. Chemical Ali has beaten us back. The Iraqi Information Minister is declaring to the word that the infidels have been beaten back by the Republican guard.

The war in Iraq “is lost” and a US troop surge is failing to bring peace to the country, the leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, said Thursday.

“I believe … that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week,” Reid told journalists.

Oh, sorry, that was Harry Reid declaring surrender. Easy to get him and “Comical Ali” mixed up.

Odd what some definitions of “lost” are for some folks.

In my hotel room watching the cable news morning shows (FNC’s “Fox & Friends” and CNN’s “American Morning”), I noticed that both were covering many of the same stories.

• The war in Iraq, specifically the new insurgent tactic of reducing suspicion by having kids in cars intended to be a car bomb.
• The issues surrounding the firing of the 8 US attorneys. Both networks had Democrats featured voicing their objections (Fox showed Chuck Shumer, CNN had Rahm Emmanuel).
• The recovery of the lost Boy Scout.

But as much as I looked for it (and I left CNN on longer to see if they would cover it), “American Morning” wouldn’t touch, as far as I could see, the upcoming testimony of Al Gore in front of Congress on global warming, specifically the unprecedented considerations and concessions being made for him and how he’s abusing them. I kept CNN on long enough to start hearing them repeat the same stories (how to eat healthy at Chinese restaurants), so they had plenty of time to deal with it.

If it’s legitimate to cover Democrats questioning why the President will only allow administration officials to testify without being under oath (and it is a legitimate question and a legitimate story), why ignore this other major story about a former Vice President testifying to Congress? Could it be because it doesn’t look good for Democrats or global warming alarmists when Gore ask for more time for his opening remarks than anyone else, and that he requested to submit the written version of those remarks 24 hours ahead of time instead of the customary 48, and that he hadn’t submitted them as of the morning of his appearance? (An update on the website linked notes that Gore finally submitted them just a minute before his testimony in the House and a few hours before his Senate appearance. Not in time to do any research on what he’ll be saying.)

Those, too, are legitimate questions about a legitimate story, but CNN, if they gave it any time, gave it the shortest of shrift at best. And while Fox is covering stories that look bad for both Democrats and Republicans, CNN isn’t. So who’s a shill for whom?

Technorati Tags: Fox News Channel, CNN, Al Gore, media bias

Of all the childish tantrums and manufactured outrage that have come from the Democrats, this has surely got to be near the top. First it was John Edwards, then the Nevada State Democratic Party pulled out completely from the debate they themselves set up to be hosted by Fox News. The far left essentially owns the Democrats now, as it was pressure from the like of MoveOn.org that nixed the debate.

Not content with the charge that Fox leans right (which I’ll grant, but what are CNN and the NY Times; centrist?), they had to make up a reason that might actually carry some weight with the folks who do watch Fox. The supposed reason that “proved” Fox was a right-wing shill were comments by Roger Ailes.

But [state party chair Tom] Collins and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid wrote that comments on Thursday by FOX News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, when he jokingly compared Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, to Osama bin Laden, “went too far,” and prompted Nevada Democrats to end the partnership.

“We cannot, as good Democrats, put our party in a position to defend such comments,” the letter said. “In light of his comments, we have concluded that it is not possible to hold a presidential debate that will focus on our candidates and are therefore cancelling our August debate. We take no pleasure in this, but it is the only course of action.”

And what was this awful comment, comparing Barack Obama to a terrorist?

And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don’t know if it’s true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, ‘Why can’t we catch this guy?’

For cryin’ out loud, this is a joke about George W. Bush! See here for the entire transcript so you can see it in context. If they’re going to boycott Fox for that kind of a remark, are they going to boycott Leno and Letterman for the very same jokes? For the state party leader and the Senate Majority Leader to engage in such blatant partisan lying says a lot about their party and a lot more about those who are fooled by such rhetoric.

And we’re not done with the lies. On the John Edwards site, on the page trying to drum up campaign money over this manufactured controversy (hmm, maybe this was the whole idea in the first place), his headline is “Fox Attacks”. In it, Edwards castigates Ailes for putting forth the perfectly reasonable idea that this sets a bad precedent.

Fox has already started striking backat John for saying no. (There’s a surprise – Fox attacking a Democrat.) Last night, Roger Ailes – the life-long Republican operative who is now Chairman of Fox News Channel – said that any candidate “who believes he can blacklist any news organization is making a terrible mistake” and “is impeding freedom of speech and free press.”

The Left is so ready to yell “McCarthyism!” and “the stifling of dissent!” if their ideas don’t get the publicity they want, and yet here they are dismissing what is a very reasonable concern about McCarthy-like tests for news organizations to pass if they’ll be allowed to air Democrats. The irony is that they’re trying to accuse Fox of not covering Democrats while ensuring that they can’t. What kind of tortured logic is that?

One more thing: the article is called “Fox Attacks” and there is an accompanying graphic, a screenshot of a website. The screenshot is captioned by the Edwards site “Fair and Balanced?” and “You Decide. They’ll Retort.” And the screenshot is of, not the Fox News site, the Drudge Report, with a headline that the Edwards folks considers biased. Talk about bait-and-switch and misdirection. Conflating the two is simply dishonest, but Edwards contributors are just eating it up.

This is a new low for Democrats.

As usual, ScrappleFace nails it.

Technorati Tags: John Edwards, Fox News, Nevada, presidential election, Harry Reid, Roger Ailes, MoveOn.org

The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday. And for three years the FBI has underreported to Congress how often it forced businesses to turn over the customer data, the audit found. FBI agents sometimes demanded the data without proper authorization, according to the 126-page audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine. At other times, the audit found, the FBI improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances. The audit blames agent error and shoddy record-keeping for the bulk of the problems and did not find any indication of criminal misconduct. Still, “we believe the improper or illegal uses we found involve serious misuses of national security letter authorities,” the audit concludes.

This information was discovered, not by a lawsuit, not by a test case, but by an internal audit. Those who would take this as proof that the Patriot Act should be repealed would be jumping the gun, throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and a number of other cliches. The government, in revealing this, shows that it can indeed police itself to some degree, even regarding as sensitive a subject as national security.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller called Fine’s audit “a fair and objective review of the FBI’s use of a proven and useful investigative tool.” The finding “of deficiencies in our processes is unacceptable,” Mueller said in a statement. “We strive to exercise our authorities consistent with the privacy protections and civil liberties that we are sworn to uphold,” Mueller said. “Anything less will not be tolerated. While we’ve already taken some steps to address these shortcomings, I am ordering additional corrective measures to be taken immediately.”

If you think that the Patriot Act should be repealed because it is being misused, you’d best hope that same standard isn’t used against every other government program and department. You couldn’t get a budget passed on that. (As an aside, this is one of the big reasons smaller-government conservatives believe what they do. Too much power and money flowing around Washington is bound to result in waste and misuse.) This is troubling, if non-specific:

Fine’s annual review is required by Congress, over the objections of the Bush administration.

It’s not mentioned what those objections are in the article. However, given how the liberals and the media enjoy outing legal secret programs, you can sort of understand why the administration would have some issues with this. Still, I think the audit is a good idea. (As an aside, where’s all the outrage from the liberals and the media about the outing of legal anti-terrorism measures, instead of the outing of a CIA employee who had a desk job at Langley?) (As an aside, notice how the phrase “the liberals and the media” just seems to keep coming up?) Gotta agree with these guys, though.

Senators outraged over the conclusions signaled they would provide tougher oversight of the FBI _ and perhaps limit its power. “The report indicates abuse of the authority” Congress gave the FBI, said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. “You cannot have people act as free agents on something where they’re going to be delving into your privacy.” The committee’s top Republican, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, said the FBI appears to have “badly misused national security letters.” The senator said, “This is, regrettably, part of an ongoing process where the federal authorities are not really sensitive to privacy and go far beyond what we have authorized.”

The FBI is just asking for further reigning in. If they don’t watch it, these folks will have their way:

The American Civil Liberties Union said the audit proves Congress must amend the Patriot Act to require judicial approval anytime the FBI wants access to sensitive personal information. “The Attorney General and the FBI are part of the problem and they cannot be trusted to be part of the solution,” said Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU’s executive director.

What’s interesting is that John Kerry, while campaigning for President, suggested that terrorism should be a law enforcement issue. Isn’t the FBI considered law enforcement? A little irony there.

Technorati Tags: Patriot Act, FBI, Justice Department, Glenn Fine, Robert Mueller, Patrick Leahy, Arlen Specter, ACLU

At least if you watch the Fox News Channel. John Edwards will simply not tolerate any group that will not tow the liberal line.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards won’t participate in a debate co-hosted by Fox News and the Nevada Democratic Party, his campaign said, as party officials tried to settle a dustup over their partnership with the cable network.

Edwards’ campaign said the involvement of Fox News, which is often accused by liberals of having a conservative bias, was part of the decision to pass on the Aug. 14 debate in Reno.

“There were a number of factors and Fox was one of those.”

Far-left blogs have been pushing for this,and Edwards has caved. The Left has set yet another lower standard. Unless you can name a Republican that has ever skipped a major debate based solely on the slant of the network carrying it. That may be difficult, even considering, for example, CBS’s “myopic zeal” against Republicans. Edwards will take his ball and go home unless you’re slanted his way.

This says as much about the media as it does about Edwards. He knows the networks who are in bed with him, and you don’t get access if you aren’t. Oh, that liberal media.

Technorati Tags: John Edwards, Fox News, Nevada, presidential election

After the election, I noted that some right-of-center pundits were saying that while the Democrats won big in the election, conservative values won big as well. No, that’s not a contradiction. I said that the actions of the Democrats has been a great misreading of the election results which, as had been noted by others, was the election of more moderate Democrats, not the leftist kind.

Today comes proof of it. Blue Dog Democrats are asserting their power.

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi faced scorn from fellow Democrats during a recent closed-door meeting for not moving more aggressively on Iraq, it was conservative Blue Dogs _ her ideological opposites _ who rose to defend her.

The unlikely support reflected an emerging dynamic in the House, where the 43 right-of-center fiscal hawks are increasingly asserting their power, working to moderate the policies and image of a party with a liberal base and leaders to match.

The coalition’s name is a play on yellow dog Democrats, an epithet that came into being in the 1920s to describe party loyalists in the South who, it was said, would vote for a yellow dog if it ran on the Democratic ticket. Democrats who said their moderate to conservative views had been “choked blue” by the party’s liberal flank started referring to themselves as blue dogs and formed their group after Republicans swept control of the House in 1994.

With Democrats in charge again, the Blue Dogs have played a key role in halting an emerging plan to place strict conditions on war funding. Their revolt helped beat back that proposal, by Pelosi ally John Murtha, D-Pa. Leaders are now considering a watered-down version.

These moderate Democrats push fiscal responsibility and are putting the brakes on the Pelosi/Murtha wing who are charting a course for Iraqi killing fields. As much as the anti-war crowd would hope for it, and as much as the Democrat leadership talks it, support for cut-and-run is weak. Further, fiscal irresponsibility (from either party) is not what the election was about, either. The last election was indeed a referendum on how Republicans have been running the government, and while the public doesn’t like how the war has gone, they elected more Democrats who don’t want to just bail out post haste. Any suggestion otherwise is to blindly ignore those very election results they continue to trumpet.

Technorati Tags: Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Blue Dog Democrats

“Scooter” Libby was found guilty on 4 of 5 counts of lying to investigators, and the fallout is landing on Dick Cheney.

In legal terms, the jury has spoken in the Libby case.

In political terms, Vice President Dick Cheney is still awaiting a judgment.

For many weeks, Washington watched, transfixed, as the trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. cast Cheney, his former boss, in the role of puppeteer, pulling the strings in a covert public relations campaign to defend the administration’s case for war in Iraq and discredit a critic.

“There is a cloud over the vice president,” the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, told the jury in summing up the case last month.

Cheney was not charged in the case, cooperated with the investigation and expressed a willingness to testify if called, though he never was. Yet he was a central figure throughout, aggressively fighting back against suggestions that he and President George W. Bush had taken the country to war on the basis of flawed intelligence, showing himself to be keenly sensitive to how he was portrayed in the press, and backing Libby to the end.

The jury considered Libby the “fall guy”, and the prosecutor and Joe Wilson have a lower opinion of Cheney. Yet no one has been charged with the actual leak in this case. I guess, in a similar manner to OJ Simpson looking for “the real killer”, pundits and talking heads will continue the hunt “the real leaker”. In yet another eerie similarity to the Simpson situation, Wilson has filed a civil suit against Cheney.

There is one major difference, though, between this situation and OJ’s. The real leaker has admitted to it. The problem is, the Left doesn’t want to focus on Richard Armitage because he was an Iraq war skeptic in the State Department. No neo-con, he. And going after someone who, if not a Democrat, at least had views that the anti-war crowd appreciated, would not fit the narrative that they have written for this whole kerfuffle. “It was a neo-con revenge hit!” “Karl Rove should be frog-marched!” “The stifling of dissent!”

And in the article detailing who lost face in this whole matter, how many times is Armitage’s name mentioned: 0. He’s not a neo-con, he’s not a White House official, and he was, in fact, a voice of dissent. Doesn’t fit the narrative, so the Left and the Media stop paying attention to him.

If there was any intellectual honesty left in those pounding on Cheney, we’d see Armitage’s name a whole lot more. Instead, it’s not about the truth or the policy or whatever high hobby-horse they’re riding. It’s all about the politics.

Technorati Tags: Lewis Libby, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, Richard Armitage

Via Betsy’s Page comes word of a chance for South Carolinians to get a bit more choice regarding schooling. In the report, Brendan Miniter give the example of a school operating on a shoe-string budget with low-paid teachers and just 42 students, but that is outperforming the local public school on SAT scores by 46%.

The idea that the public school system should be reformed from within has had plenty of time to be tried. It’s not working. one member of South Carolina’s state House has been there and done that.

Two years ago similar reforms were defeated in the state House by seven votes. But school-choice supporters picked up several seats in the last election, one of which is now held by Curtis Brantley, an African-American from rural Jasper County who picked off an incumbent in a Democratic primary last year. “It’s time,” he told me recently while sitting in his sparsely furnished office, “to try something new.”

As a former public school official who, as he tells it, was forced into retirement after trying to reform the school system from the inside, Mr. Brantley is now becoming a powerful voice for reform in Columbia. And he was only too happy to organize buses for school-choice supporters from his district to attend the rally [at the state Capitol].

I wouldn’t call it “something new”, exactly. We’ve had school choice in higher education for a good long time, and it has resulted in one of the best systems in the world, while at the same time not deal a death blow to state schools. It can be done, it has been done, but those with a vested interest in the status quo (and those politicians beholden to them) simply won’t let it happen, if they can help it.

As time goes by, they may not be able to help it.

Technorati Tags: education, school choice, South Carolina, Curtis Brantley

Who said this in a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting while questioning John Michael McConnell, Director of National Intelligence?

I was just wondering, does the military have a plan to, if necessary, to go into Syria to go to the source of any weapons coming from Syria? That are going to Sunni insurgents? That are killing our troops? … I think we ought to take action on all fronts including Syria and any other source of weapons coming in, obviously Iran is the focus – but it shouldn’t be the sole focus.

What member of the committee asked if the military had a plan for dealing with Syria and Iran?

Are you sitting down? No really, are you?

The answer is:

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The movie “Amazing Grace” chronicles the struggle, physically and politically, of William Wilberforce against the slave trade in late 18th century and early 19th century Britian. To this movie review amateur, it is well-written, and very well-acted. And its story is a powerful one, regardless of your religious persuasion.

It is a little hard to follow for some, though. While I was able to follow the timeline of the movie, one of my daughters noted that she had trouble with that. The story starts chronologically, but at one point jumps 15 years ahead to where Wilberforce meets his future wife, Barbara Ann Spooner. At one of their meetings, he spends the night relating to her the events of the skipped 15 years. We are shown what happened, and occasionally jump back to William and Barbara. It allows William to comment to her on what he was thinking at the time without requiring him to recite some soliloquy during the showing of the events themselves. Finally, one he has caught her (and the audience) up to the moment, the movie continues chronologically from there.

Flashbacks aside, the movie holds many ideas for the viewers to contemplate. Some are related to religion, some are related to politics, and some address how the two intermingle. And yes, they can intermingle without becoming tangled. Such are the examples that need to be understood, especially in this present age.

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