So Much for 'Elevating the Level of Discourse'

We often hear Bush-haters denounce the right for "hate speech" and preaching that we should raise the level of political discourse. Their comments would carry a lot more weight if they would lead by example. You'd have thought they would've learned their lesson after the negative reaction to Kerry-Edwards' attempt to use Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter as a wedge issue. Apparently, using personal issues and family tragedies is still considered clever by some. Former CIA officer and New York Times columnist Larry C. Johnson, who blogs at No Quarter has been a real sweetheart lately:

Karl [Rove] is a shameless bastard. This could explain why his mother killed herself. Once she discovered what a despicable soul she had spawned she apparently saw no other way out. It would be one thing if his vile tactics were simply mere smears of politicians like Kerry and Murtha. They are big boys and should be able to defend themselves quite ably against this turd. But Rove, like Josef Goebbels, has used fear and smear as his primary tools to keep George Bush in power. And to what end?

Nice. One could perhaps mark this nastiness up as the hateful ranting of a single individual and not reflective of lefty sentiment in general. Surely Larry's fellow Rove haters will take him to task for stepping over the line? Surely this is going too far, even for the lefty bloggers. Guess not. Check out these "enlightened" comments to his post: more...

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Bad News Is Breaking Out All Over

If you're a Kos Kid, that is...

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More on Zarqawi's Successor

From the Department of Defense:

BAGHDAD, June 16, 2006 – The new lead terrorist in Iraq is a founding member of al Qaeda in Iraq and had a close relationship with the now-killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, coalition officials said.

Officials revealed yesterday that Abu Ayyub al-Masri succeeded Zarqawi following the Jordanian terrorist's elimination June 7 in a precision-bomb attack on his safe house in Iraq. They said Masri fully bought into Zarqawi's bloody tactics that have left thousands of innocent men, women and children across Iraq dead or maimed.

Al-Masri - which means "the Egyptian" - is another foreign fighter who trained in Afghanistan like Zarqawi, coalition officials said. No one knows his real name.

The terrorist is said to be about 38 years old and got his beginning in Egypt, where he joined the Islamic Brotherhood. He fled from Egypt and moved to Afghanistan, where he trained in explosives at the al-Faruq Al Qaeda camp. There he met Zarqawi, officials said.

After the fall of the Taliban, Masri escaped to Iraq and set up with the Jordanian-born Zarqawi. The Egyptian specialized in vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices. He helped establish the Baghdad cell of Al Qaeda in early 2003, officials said.

William Teach comments: more...

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I'd Like To Order 2,880 Virgins

Or is it raisins? I prefer to think they get 72 toothless French whores, myself.

Whatever, they're getting the job done in Afghanistan:

MUSA QALA, Afghanistan - Coalition forces killed 40 militants during combat operations linked to a large-scale anti-Taliban blitz launched across southern
Afghanistan, the military said Friday.

Note the inaccurate use of the word "blitz." But no, they're not biased.

And lest we get accused of just reporting on good news, a mosque is attacked in Iraq.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A shoe bomber blew himself up inside an important Shiite mosque during Friday prayers, killing at least 10 people and wounding 20, as violence persisted in the capital despite a massive security operation aimed at restoring order.

There is a nugget of good news in this piece, though. The fact that the bomber had to resort to a shoe bomb is evidence that the clampdown is having an effect.

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James Carville's Foot

While getting ready to go to work this morning I was listening to James Carville complain about the recent rise in George Bush's (and America's) fortunes. As part of his argument that we're applying the "soft bigotry of low expectations" to the Bush administration he made the comment that the Stock Market is currently 10% below what it was when Bush took office. I grew a bit skeptical of that claim, so looked it up. It appears that the DOW closed at either $10,088 or $10,078, depending on whether we're talking about Clinton's last day or the first market day of Bush's term. Yesterday the DOW closed at $11,015. Using the CPI deflator that is $5976 and $5440 in 1983 dollars, respectively. Carville is right to the extent that the average is down (after accounting for inflation), but 0.6% is a lot different than 10%. [See note below for--ahem--correction.] more...

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Bom Bom Bom Bah Ba Dom Bah Ba Dom

Yes the evil Darth Odie er uh Darth Howie needs to be educated in the moral complexities of simple matters. Like why fighting those who seek to dominate us through fear and terror is just wrong. Check out this loving tolerant piece of reader love mail.

On 6/15/06, leavenow iraq leavenowiraq@yahoo.com wrote:

nigger

I would take the time to educate you on our way of life and our constitution but how? and to what end- augustus bushie II /MacClinton & Heil Hilary Lady MacClinton/ at the end of the day these british socialist shitbags of the left and right that follow the sons and daughters of satan instead of jesus and are british instead of american are not to blame for perverting the american experiment in liberty and freedom into the frankenstein monster of a police state and empire- you are people who don't even want to think just kill f*ck kill f*ck kill f*ck oh yeah and eat and watch tv.

Yes I do watch the news and Andy every night. Next he will attempt to instruct me on how I can waste mental energy by over thinking how to start my car in the morning. Note the racial tolerance of this liberalÂ’s speech. Also note his assumption that we are pro war because we just donÂ’t know any better. A theme IÂ’ve noticed a lot lately," The unwashed masses need sophisticated liberals to look out for them because they are stinky and stupid. So we should take pity and get those foul smelly fools to vote for us. Then we can help them". Thanks but no thanks.
more...

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Isn't Irony Delicious?

This has to be the laugher of the day. Mr. Pot, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce you to Mr. Kettle. You two should get along great together.

From the NY Daily News:

Here are some examples of Olbermann "confronting hate":

"Given how far you are from knowing your a- from your elbow about my industry, you couldn't be stupider, wronger, or dumber ..."

"Go f*ck your mother."

"You 'Americans' still watching that evil f*ck O'Reilly?"

Apparently, they are. Fox News' Bill O'Reilly draws six times the viewership of his 8 p.m. weekday rival.
- -
Ouch. Now you know why envy is one of the seven deadly sins.

Worst. Journalist. Ever.

ht: Michelle Malkin

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Filipina Celeb - Anna Tan, Semi-Celeb

Anna is almost unknown on the web. She is apparently a model without a website or any advertising. Hmmm, maybe not really a celeb, but cute. More here. more...

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Krauthammer Hammers Gaza Terrorists

Charles Krauthammer asks, "Who is to blame if Palestinians are setting up rocket launchers to attack Israel -- and placing them 400 yards from a beach crowded with Palestinian families on the Muslim Sabbath?"

This is another example of the Palestinians' classic and cowardly human-shield tactic -- attacking innocent Israeli civilians while hiding behind innocent Palestinian civilians. For Palestinian terrorists -- and the Palestinian governments (both Fatah and Hamas) that allow them to operate unmolested -- it's a win-win: If their rockets aimed into Israeli towns kill innocent Jews, no one abroad notices and it's another success in the terrorist war against Israel. And if Israel's preventive and deterrent attacks on those rocket bases inadvertently kill Palestinian civilians, the iconic "Israeli massacre" picture makes the front page ,of the New York Times, and the Palestinians win the propaganda war.

Being a terrorist who targets Israel seems like an easy job; you are never to blame for anything, you get to play with guns and rockets, and your victims give your government support. The whole "getting blown up by a missile strike" thing is definitely a downside, though...

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The Media and Iraq

I read several good posts today regarding the phenomenom of poor reporting in Iraq. I will pull them together and provide a few excerpts.

First is JD Johannes via Wretchard:

I get a call (about a month or two ago) from a TV news director who had known what I had done in Iraq. He was hoping I was still there so he could hire me to go out and do what I had done in the past because there was a reserve unit from their area being deployed. But the parent affiliate said: "nope, we don't leave the Fortified Hotel -- ever." So a lot of the employers aren't willing to bear the risk. And that is the structural program that really tilts the war.

Also, and this is probably the most disturbing part, many journalists have not figured out that they're being targeted by the enemy on purpose to help shape the coverage of the war. The insurgents don't want the reporters out and about running around. They're completely satisfied with the "balcony" report and some video shot by a stringer of the daily car bomb. That's the message that the insurgents want to get out. They don't realize that warfare is both the kinetic and non-kinetic. And, therefore, they miss how they're being played by the insurgents. I wish more reporters realized that.

Reporting from the hotel balcony just isn't enough if you want to get the real story. Read the rest of the interview with Johannes to see what the MSM is missing.

The second is from Op-For:

Second, the U.S. mainstream media (MSM) who send reporters to the combat zone do not like to have their people embedded with our troops. They claim that the reporters get “less objective” when they live with the soldiers and marines – they come to see the world through the eyes of the troops. As a consequence, a majority of the reporters stay in hotels in the “Green Zone” and send out native stringers to call in stories to them by cell phone which they later write up and file. No effort is made to verify any of these stories or the credibility of the stringers. The recent serious injuries to Bob Woodruff of ABC and Kimberly Dozier of CBS makes the likelihood of the use of local stringers even higher.

It's not good to see the war through the eyes of American troops; you might understand that this is a war on America through the media. It also shows how easy it is to get an atrocity story into newspapers: just get your local Iraqi stringer a video and some interviewees and the scandal is in motion. The media can't leave the hotel to do any fact checking.

You want worse? I have worse. A study (pdf) shows that the media and terrorists have a symbiotic relationship. From the Washington Post:

The results, they said, were unequivocal: Coverage caused more attacks, and attacks caused more coverage -- a mutually beneficial spiral of death that they say has increased because of a heightened interest in terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.

Even if we ignore any Left-ward bias in coverage, the media causes more deaths by their terrorist coverage. This should not be a surprise, since the goal of terrorism is to cause public pressure on the government through media coverage of carnage. It is interesting that the media gains as well, causing a spiral of violence.

There was a time that journalists were allies of the country and of our troops. Today, their objectivity extends to keeping neutrality between liberal values and fascist terrorists.

Update: Strategypage notes that the terrorists know all about manipulating the media:

Other documents stressed the need to manipulate Moslem and Western media. This was to be done by starting rumors of American atrocities, and feeding the media plausible supporting material. Al Qaeda's attitude was that if they could not win in reality, they could at least win imaginary battles via the media.

Powerline's view: "When it comes to Iraq, the news section of the Post has become an anti-war spin machine, and nothing more."

While it should, I doubt that the Iraq War will make it into journalism case studies as a lesson in media failure.

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BBC : Documented Evidence of "Large-Scale Massacres" in Sudan

The BBC has an update on the Darfur Jihad:

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says he has documented evidence of thousands of killings of civilians in Sudan's Darfur region.

Luis Moreno Ocampo, investigating alleged crimes against humanity, says the killings include large-scale massacres and hundreds of rapes.
. . .

more...

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***Breaking, Must Cite Jawa Report***

A viable 3rd party has been established to challenge the status quo.

Do you have what it takes to be one of us?

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Hajji Girl

If some version of CAIR had existed in ancient Greece, Homer would have been crucified for the Iliad.

But it's not ancient Greece, and CAIR does exist. And despite our best efforts, they have influence in our PC world.

This message is for our military members. You let us do this stuff, and post it for the world to see. You keep your heads down and keep killing the enemy.

You want to sing "Hajji Girl," that's cool with me. Just don't let it get on the internet. Our enemies have enough ammo as it is.

A little perspective for our lefty friends from wars past:

WWI: The Hun

WWII: Krauts, Japs, Nips, Wops

Korea: Gooks, Chinks

Vietnam: Dinks, Zips, (zipperheads), Slopes

And that's just scratching the surface.

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How to Identify a Terrorist, Part II

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled blog posts to bring you an important free message from Jawa Report's ongoing Terrorist Infiltration Effort (TIE) fighting public education program.

As always, please be on your guard. This person, whose sex appears to that of a girl, may be a terrorist. You will note her hairstyle, with its upturned ends, which has been described by a number of witnesses as "horny."

more...

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Daily Kos Blogger on Abandoning Israel

With each passing day, I find myself more and more perplexed by those who claim to love Israel and yet align themselves with the political left. This day is no exception. From Grand Moff Texan over at DailyKos:

Israel is not my problem. Unlike these fringe radicals on the right who put another country first, I can go entire days without thinking about Israel at all. I'm interested in my own contry's priorities, and those are enough of a mess. The US no longer needs Israel to force a Soviet Union that doesn't exist anymore to exhaust itself in the region. The Cold War utility of Israel has been defunct for over a decade, but the think tank hacks who justified it for a generation (largely by calling everyone "anti-semites") didn't want to have to get real jobs. So why is it that the US, and by extension American academics, have to go on supporting a policy that even Israel is abandoning? Because that's the way we discipline intellectuals in the USSA. Much of the American right is still bogged down in the habits of self-deception they cultivated during the Cold War. They have created the "War on Terror" to keep themselves in power.

(Note to self: never rely on a Kossack to watch your back in a fight.)

So, America should be a "fairweather friend" to its closest allies, to cynically use them when it suits America's interests and then drop 'em like hot rocks when they "outlive their usefulness"? Realpolitik, indeed... more...

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He Should Be The One Converted, Into Compost

Abu Bakar Bashir.

A reputed leader of the al-Qaida-linked terror group blamed for deadly bombings across Indonesia on Thursday accused President Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard of waging wars against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir also called on Bush and Howard to convert to Islam, saying it was "the only way to save their souls," adding that families still grieving after the 2002 Bali blasts that killed many foreigners should also become Muslim to find "salvation and peace."

I'm sure Bush and Howard are breaking out the prayer rugs.

Many thanks again to our allies in the GWOT for their harsh punishment of this guy.

In Indonesia, not only can you orchestrate the deaths of 200 people in a nightclub bombing, you get to mock their families later by imploring them to join the religion that teaches it was just ducky to kill their loved ones.

But if you're caught with a little bit of the ganja, you're sentenced to death.

Stein hoist: JW.

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Heather Mills McCartney's Porn Video

Another day, another former Beatle wife nude. Thankfully, Heather Mill's McCartney is no Yoko Ono. This time, the soon to be ex-Maco is in a video. more...

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Carl Rove, Honestly Innocent

Today we have this in from Mr. Right. I enjoy his stuff so it goes up.

The Right Place: Ms. American Spy
(Sung to the tune of Don McLean's American Pie)

A short, short time ago
I can still remember
How the "Plame Game" used to make me smile
And as I read those D-Kos rants
I got a big bulge in my pants
And thought maybe we'd get "Chimpy" for awhile

But then June 12th made me shiver
Fate became an "Indian Giver"
Bad news on the Internet
Precisely what I had fret!

Oh, I remember how I cried
When I thought of Wilson's "outed" bride
Something deep within me fried
The day that Fitzmas died...

I hope you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for your time!

Sincerely,
Mr. Right

Go read the rest and sing along at The Right Place. IÂ’ve not posted on the Rove dismissal (or non-charge) yet. However it seems the left is mighty sad about it. See this comment on Good LieutenantÂ’s post.

General Jack D. Ripper

denjudge@hotmail.com

Rove is a criminal. At best, he is unscrupulous, dubious, and unethical. What about the Alan Dixon incident? Why did Bush Sr. fire the man after leaking sensitive information to the press?

The Republican's secret??? Being able to, like Karl Rove, break the law and not get caughtÂ…

Of course he goes on with his moonbattery suggesting we made al-Zarqawi ourselves. I was surprised he did not claim we bombed ourselves or it was Carl Rove doing the cutting in all those videos.

As you may recall I called on President Bush to reappoint Patrick Fitzgerald. A risky move indeed unless you are confident in your position. Judging from the digging I had to do to find the post not many conservatives agreed with me. Old Pat is a pit bull. He would indict his own mother for jaywalking to church on Sunday morning. I can see how he makes people a bit nervous.

But we conservatives want honest government. There can be no stronger indication that no crime was committed than not being indicted by this man. If he doesnÂ’t find it, itÂ’s not there. Shame about Scooter though, he wriggled himself right into trouble over a non-issue.

For Howie there is no better endorsement than passing a Patrick Fitzgerald investigation. Congratulations Mr. Bush for doing it right. No question now that Carl is innocent and that is what is upsetting the left so. You canÂ’t second guess this guy, look at his record. IÂ’ve seen calls for a final report. I doubt we will get one as Mr. Fitzgerald does not play politics. A grand Jury only accepts prosecutorial evidence to determine if there is enough evidence to proceed with a charge. To release grand jury info on a person who is not indicted goes against the whole reason they are secret to start with. So as to not ruin the reputation of those who are not charged.

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Post-Zarqawi Raid Results

You want results? How about this:
452 raids.
104 insurgents killed.
759 "anti-Iraq elements" captured.
28 weapons caches found.
A captured document: "a blueprint for trying to foment a war between the United States and Iran and also appears to show that the insurgency in Iraq is weakening." (Full text here.)

Summary? National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie called it "the beginning of the end of al-Qaida in Iraq." If we assume that the "anti-Iraq elements" are foreign Al Qaeda fighters, we have probably wiped out the foreign contingent and reduced the number of future attacks on civilians.

Overall, very good news.

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Iran Throws a Geographical Hissy-Fit

Iran has banned The Economist magazine because it used the term "The Gulf" instead of the Persian Gulf. It was done not to offend neighboring Arab states who prefer the term "Arabian Gulf." Now cartographers are torn on who to placate- the Iranians or Arabs.

Good thing Iran does not have bigger problems.

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