No Link?

At the Corner, National Review's brilliant running webblog, Rich Lowry points to some interesting information in the 9/11 Report on the link between Iraq and Osama. Why would Richard Clarke, now an avowed critic of Bush's Iraq policy, be concerned in 1999 about Osama possibly fleeing to Iraq? See p. 134:

"In February 1999, Allen proposed flying a U-2 mission over Afghanistan to build a baseline of intelligence outside the areas where the tribals had coverage. Clarke was nervous about such a mission because he continued to fear that Bin Ladin might leave for someplace less accessible. He wrote Deputy National Security Advisor Donald Kerrick that one reliable source reported Bin Ladin’s having met with Iraqi officials, who 'may have offered him asylum.' Other intelligence sources said that some Taliban leaders, though not Mullah Omar, had urged Bin Ladin to go to Iraq. If Bin Ladin actually moved to Iraq, wrote Clarke, his network would be at Saddam Hussein’s service, and it would be 'virtually impossible” to find him. Better to get Bin Ladin in Afghanistan, Clarke declared.' Berger suggested sending one U-2 flight,but Clarke opposed even this. It would require Pakistani approval, he wrote; and 'Pak[istan’s] intel[ligence service] is in bed with' Bin Ladin and would warn him that the United States was getting ready for a bombing campaign: 'Armed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad.' Though told also by Bruce Riedel of the NSC staff that Saddam Hussein wanted Bin Ladin in Baghdad, Berger conditionally authorized a single U-2 flight. Allen meanwhile had found other ways of getting the information he wanted. So the U-2 flight never occurred.

This one's mostly old news (again, to anyone who reads papers other than the New York Times), but check out this quote on p. 128, with key info emphasized by yours truly:

"Though intelligence gave no clear indication of what might be afoot, some intelligence reports mentioned chemical weapons, pointing toward work at a camp in southern Afghanistan called Derunta.On November 4, 1998, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York unsealed its indictment of Bin Ladin, charging him with conspiracy to attack U.S. defense installations. The indictment also charged that al Qaeda had allied itself with Sudan, Iran, and Hezbollah. The original sealed indictment had added that al Qaeda had 'reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.' This passage led Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was 'probably a direct result of the Iraq–Al Qida agreement.' Clarke added that VX precursor traces found near al Shifa were the 'exact formula used by Iraq.' This language about al Qaeda’s “understanding” with Iraq had been dropped, however, when a superseding indictment was filed in November 1998.

Oh, yeah, al Qaeda and Iraq had nothing to with one another. Righttttt.

Now Bill's Really Ticked That Hillary Will Be There

This story isn't exactly shocking, but it pretty entertaining. In particular this passage:

For weeks, escort services have plastered advertisements in magazines and on the Internet asking women to work the convention.

Even local strip clubs are putting out the word that more women are needed.

... Several sex workers said political conventions were often particularly lucrative. Democratic organizers wanted to point out that many delegates are bringing their families.

"This really is a G-rated event," said DNC spokeswoman Mariellen Burns.

Not if Ted Kennedy is speaking.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

A couple weeks ago, I triggered a debate with some friends (not here) about Kerry's apparent inconsistency on abortion. Kerry said that he believes life begins at conception, in accord with what his Catholic religion says. But he also thinks women should have the right to choose. Peter Jennings and Kerry expanded upon this recently:

Peter Jennings: You told an Iowa newspaper recently that life begins at conception. What makes you think that?

Sen. Kerry: My personal belief about what happens in the fertilization process is a human being is first formed and created, and that's when life begins. Something begins to happen. There's a transformation. There's an evolution. Within weeks, you look and see the development of it, but that's not a person yet, and it's certainly not what somebody, in my judgment, ought to have the government of the United States intervening in. Roe v. Wade has made it very clear what our standard is with respect to viability, what our standard is with respect to rights. I believe in the right to choose, not the government choosing, but an individual, and I defend that.

Jennings: Could you explain again to me what do you mean when you say "life begins at conception"?

Kerry: Well, that's what the Supreme Court has established is a test of viability as to whether or not you're permitted to terminate a pregnancy, and I support that. That is my test. And I, you know, you have all kinds of different evolutions of life, as we know, and very different beliefs about birth, the process of the development of a fetus. That's the standard that's been established in Roe v. Wade. And I adhere to that standard.

Jennings: If you believe that life begins at conception, is even a first-trimester abortion not murder?

Kerry: No, because it's not the form of life that takes personhood in the terms that we have judged it to be in the past. It's the beginning of life. Does life begin? Yes, it begins. Is it at the point where I would say that you apply those penalties? The answer is, no, and I believe in choice. I believe in the right to choose, and the government should not involve itself in that choice, beyond where it has in the context of Roe v. Wade.

Jennings: Can you imagine yourself ever campaigning against abortion?

Kerry: Well, I don't think - let me tell you very clearly that being pro-choice is not pro-abortion. And I have very strong feelings that we should talk about abortion in a very realistic way in this country. It is a very complicated, incredibly important moral issue that people have to face, also. And if you talk to any woman, as I have, who has faced that choice or who's been raped or who's suffered incest or who's faced that kind of choice, there are huge moral implications. I think leadership needs to honor that, those moral implications, appropriately, and I think we need to adhere to the standard that Bill Clinton, in fact, so adeptly framed, that abortion should be rare, but legal and safe. And that's the standard that I apply. But I think we should talk more about alternatives to abortion.

Jennings: If I were really skeptical, Senator, I would say that when you use the phrase "life begins at conception," you're attempting to speak to those people for whom that is a slogan, making them totally opposed to abortion.

Kerry: Not in the least. It's a belief that is a belief of mine. It's consistent with everything I've always said over 35 years of public life. It is not a new statement, but it is consistent with my personal belief system about who chooses and what happens. I do believe we should talk about alternatives to abortion. I think we should talk about adoption. I think we should talk about, I think it is responsible to talk about abstinence, but I also believe you should talk about proper education of people - sex education. You need to have proper knowledge about use of condoms to avoid AIDS. You need to be smart about these things. So what we need to do is have an honest dialogue and not succumb to the cynicism that sort of reduces these things to simplicity. It's not simple. It's a very complicated, highly emotional, very searing decision. I don't want the government making that decision for people, and that is a bedrock belief. But it doesn't change what I believe about how life goes on.

Okay, this is (pardon my French) unadulterated crap.

Give Jennings credit for actually pursuing the question and not letting Senator Ketchup walk away from his statements. In his statements last month, Kerry said he accepts the view that life begins at conception (which I assume accords with Catholic teaching) and that he's personally opposed to abortion, but that he doesn't want to impose this view on others. Fine and good, but the position is blatantly hypocritical and morally repugnant -- and it's really the latter that bugs me. If you truly believe that life begins at conception, then any abortion would have to constitute the taking of a life. Period, end of story.

Here, Kerry's desperately trying to find a way to reconcile his asserted personal beliefs with the opportunity to advocate for the right of women to have abortions. Note, for the record, that I'm not saying that an elected Catholic official should refuse to enforce Roe v. Wade; point in fact, that's their duty as elected officials. But to advocate for a woman's right to choose to abort something you concede is human life is an explicit promotion of someone committing a homicide.

Unless you're John Kerry, who apparently can shut off his own morality in the public sphere in order to pursue votes. According to him, there's a distinction one can draw between "life" and "personhood." What's sad is that some people will believe this. Kerry himself realizes it's BS, since he tries to shift focus to topics like sex education. It's either a life or it isn't; it's either a person or it isn't. This is probably the same type of tortured logic someone might apply if forced to rationalize the abhorrent 3/5ths counting regime in the Constitution. The problem for Kerry is that he can't logically answer the second question -- if life begins at conception, then how can the taking of an innocent life not constitute murder?

To me, Kerry's trying to have his cake and eat it too. I don't necessarily know that you're a bad Catholic if you refuse to accept Church teachings on a particular issue. If he disagrees with the Church's teaching, he should say it. If he honestly believes that life begins at conception yet supports abortion rights, then I'd truly question his character and moral standing. Personally, I think he's just trying to appeal to the voters and doubt that he believes life begins at conception. If he does... well, that's much more frightening.

Aah! They Found Me

by the world's least dangerous man

The following e-mail appeared in my mailbox last week. It appears they've finally tracked me down, hoping to procure some alumni donations -- which is probably fair, since I never had to pay a dime in tuition (I'm still ticked about the book prices, though). On the plus side, Harold Jensen as the President of the Alumni Association means April 1, 1985 will live on forever.

Villanova University Alumni Association

We are currently in the final stages of editing your biographical information to be included in the Villanova University Alumni Directory. But, we need your help! A brief telephone call will ensure your listing is completely accurate and up-to-date.

Please give us a call at your convenience this week so that we may verify your information with you.

CALL TODAY - TOLL FREE 1-800-786-3426
(Eastern Standard Time)

Mon. - Fri. 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Sat. 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Sun. 12:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Thank you, in advance, for your cooperation in making the Villanova University Alumni Directory a success. If you have already called, thank you for your quick response and your help. Please do not send updates in response to this message.

Gary R. Olsen '74 '80
Executive Director

Harold Jensen '87
President

Villanova University Alumni Association

Look Out! It's the SPCA!

by the world's least dangerous man

Jayson Williams was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter and faces a re-trial for reckless manslaughter. Somehow, I'm guessing a $250 fine isn't going to frighten him.

If Only Bill Had Tried This With Paula Jones

by the world's least dangerous man

The New York Daily News reports that Clinton and Friends regularly paid $10-20 million bribes to the Taliban to stop bin Laden from being, well, bin Laden. Like most such cases, the bribery apparently had little effect -- the rich murderous psychopath was still a rich murderous psychopath, just with friends who were $20 million richer. The U.S. considered buying the rights to Osama himself from the Taliban for $250 million, but Bill didn't want to tick off Hillary and women's rights activists.

In retrospect, I'm not sure which part of that last sentance is more disturbing. Either the fact that we'd consider paying $250 million to a band of fanatics, murderers and thieves in order to gain access to a guy we could have killed if the lawyers didn't get involved, or that we wouldn't do so because Bill was afraid of Hillary's reaction. Worst of all, we might have been lowballing the Taliban for the right to capture Osama -- shouldn't we have also sent a player to be named later to the Taliban? I mean, maybe we could have sent the bearded version of Al Gore; he might have fit in.

Jokes aside, this is really disturbing. The next time anyone blasts Bush's pre-emption doctrine, they might want to consult the Clinton Doctrine, which apparently involved bribing the scum of the Earth. To be fair, this is much like the U.N. Oil-for-Food program in Iraq.

Although this could be part of Kerry's platform -- his version of the War on Terror might be to have Teresa cut Osama a check.

Yet Another Example of Why the Cowboys Are Evil

by the world's least dangerous man

They just signed Eddie George, according to ESPN.com. And people wonder why the Cowboys, along with the New York Yankees, are considered a threat to all that is good and decent in our world.

Great -- Now Bush Will Probably Take the Blame for Bad Relations with New Zealand

by the world's least dangerous man

I'm going to blame Tom Jones' song for this atrocity (yes, I'm using that word to honor John Kerry). Do you suppose he was wearing 24 articles of clothing?

The Wedding Update of the Day

by the world's least dangerous man

This update is brought to you by the news agency for idiots, Reuters, which brings us the news that 80% of single German women are happy not being married. Which makes sense if you look at German men. Just kidding, guys. I wouldn't want you to get ticked off and invade France or something... well, maybe...

372 days to go.

The first true wedding-related task has been assigned to yours truly. I need to look for potential DJs to play at the wedding. No, that's not a reference to Tropea -- if I wanted a band, then I would call him. Although the idea of a Stavish-Tropea duet at the wedding is surely a good one.

9/11 Commission on Flight 93

by the world's least dangerous man

I haven't read the 9/11 Report yet, but some of the summaries in the paper are scary. The section on Flight 93, according to this article in the New York Times, makes it clear that the passengers saved some lives by attacking the hijackers in the cockpit. It's terrifying that the plane was only 20 minutes from DC.

My New Favorite Eatery in Boston

by the world's least dangerous man

This guy is my hero.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

First, an apology. I didn't get a chance to do this yesterday, mostly due to laziness. Well, that and I was trying to figure out whether it's possible to stuff documents into my socks and walk out of the office with them.

For those who haven't heard (i.e., New York Times readers) former Clinton National Security Advisor and now-former John Kerry campaign advisor Sandy Berger is under investigation for essentially purloining documents from the National Archives during his review of said docs for the 9/11 Commission. Here's how the Washington Post reported on the story today:

Last Oct. 2, former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stayed huddled over papers at the National Archives until 8 p.m.
What he did not know as he labored through that long Thursday was that the same Archives employees who were solicitously retrieving documents for him were also watching their important visitor with a suspicious eye.

After Berger's previous visit, in September, Archives officials believed documents were missing. This time, they specially coded the papers to more easily tell whether some disappeared, said government officials and legal sources familiar with the case.

...The documents that Berger has acknowledged taking -- some of which remain missing -- are different drafts of a January 2000 "after-action review" of how the government responded to terrorism plots at the turn of the millennium. The document was written by White House anti-terrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke, at Berger's direction when he was in government.

...The government source said the Archives employees were deferential toward Berger, given his prominence, but were worried when he returned to view more documents on Oct. 2. They devised a coding system and marked the documents they knew Berger was interested in canvassing, and watched him carefully. They knew he was interested in all the versions of the millennium review, some of which bore handwritten notes from Clinton-era officials who had reviewed them. At one point an Archives employee even handed Berger a coded draft and asked whether he was sure he had seen it.

At the end of the day, Archives employees determined that that draft and all four or five other versions of the millennium memo had disappeared from the files, this source said.

This source and another government official said that archivists gave Berger use of a special room for reviewing the documents. He was examining the documents to recommend to the Bush administration which papers should be released to the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

...There was bitterness among Berger allies this week in the timing of the disclosure and the wealth of detail -- inaccurate detail, they say -- about the allegations.

"This is a terrible experience for him, and he's embarrassed by his mistakes," [Berger spokesperson Joe] Lockhart said, "but I think he also feels a sense of injustice that after building a reputation as a tireless defender of his country that many Republicans would try to assassinate his character to pursue their own ends."

Okay, let me get one thing straight -- the guy was walking out of the National Archives with classified documents stuffed in different parts of his clothing -- and it's the GOP's fault that he looks bad? I guess we should be grateful, since this is the first instance of people getting upset with a Clinton Administration official for keeping something in his pants. Maybe all those years of lying on behalf of Bill Clinton permanently damaged Lockhart's brain.

But here's the funny part. Bill Clinton knew about the investigation, which has been going on since late last year. John Kerry? Well, we'll let him tell you, from his interview with Tom Brokaw yesterday:

Brokaw: "Did you know that [Berger] was under investigation?"

Kerry: "I didn't have a clue, not a clue."

Brokaw: "He didn't share that with you?

Kerry: "I didn't have a clue."

You know, Kerry's been looking for a campaign theme; "I didn't have a clue" sounds pretty catchy, and it has the added benefit of being true.

Jokes aside, you'd think an important policy advisor would be someone whom you would trust to provide you with information that, if it became public, might prove damaging to your campaign. In the past week, two "advisors" of Kerry, Berger and the King of Yellowcake, a.k.a. Joe Wilson, have been proven to be untrustworthy and blatant liars. In Berger's case, he has committed a serious national security breach, if not a federal crime, and we can only guess at the motives for removing all copies and drafts of an important classified document and stuffing them in his pants (I don't think he was trying to impress the girls by augmenting his groinal area).

In any case, the New York Times emphasized that Berger was an "unpaid, informal advisor" to Kerry. I guess you get what you paid for, Senator.

The Sports Rant

by the world's biggest Eagles fan (who writes on this blog, anyway)

Rumor has it the Birds are in the running for Eddie George if he gets cut by the Titans. Hometown boy, veteran replacement for Duce Staley, great character guy... about the only person unhappy with this idea is probably Reno Mahe (the current third RB).

One week before the first Eagles practice. And yes, I'm convinced this is the year.

The Wedding Update

by the world's least dangerous man

This wedding update is brought to you by Jameson's... because I could use a shot right now.

374 days to go.

I had the first wedding-related dream last night. Keep in mind that I barely think about the actual event, beyond doing whatever wedding-related task is asked of me, and I haven't been asked to do much lately. But I think this is indicative of the fact that I'm stressed because I haven't been working out enough.

This dream was beyond weird; in it, the marriage took place in a small room with only 50 or so seats, but over 400 guests showed up, and they all kept fighting to sit in the first row. Worse yet, all the guys were wearing fedoras.

I'm trying to figure out what it all means. Input would be helpful.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:
 
The Senator's on vacation (and as his Massachusetts constituents know, he's pretty much been on vacation all year, based on his Senate voting record).  But luckily, we have a couple Kerry surrogates providing plenty of fun news.
 
Let's start with raving lunatic Max Cleland, formerly a Senator from Georgia and a war hero.  Cleland's latest ramblings, as reported by Agencie France-Press:
 

Cleland, a national co-chairman of Kerry's campaign, described the Bush administration's arguments that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda terrorists, as a "pack of lies."

The former lawmaker from the southern state of Georgia defended the vote that he, Kerry and others cast in the Senate to authorize military intervention in Iraq, saying the Congress was "flat-out lied to."

Asked whether they were lied to by the intelligence services or the White House, he said emphatically: "By the president, by the vice president and by the secretary of defense."

Cleland said that Bush went to war "because he concluded that his daddy was a failed president and one of the ways he failed was that he did not take out Saddam Hussein" in the 1991 Gulf war. "So he (Bush junior) is Mr. Macho Man."

He added that Kerry, from Massachusetts, agreed with the assessment of Bush's credibility. "About a year ago John Kerry said,'The president lied, he lied to me personally,'" said Cleland, a badly wounded Vietnam war veteran.

Cleland, who has led the cadre of Kerry's Vietnam comrades supporting the candidate, went further than the draft Democratic platform to be adopted next week by the party's convention for its drive to unseat Bush in November.

The draft says, "People of good will disagree about whether America should have gone to war in Iraq, but this much is clear: This Administration badly exaggerated its case."

But McAuliffe did not back away from Cleland's allegation of outright lying. He said only that the platform committee "did an excellent job of representing where this party stands as it relates to issues on national security."

"The platform does not get into specifics on all the different issues. ... It is a document that all Democrats can run on."

 
Oh, where do we start?  First of all, maybe all Democratic Senators from the South become insane when they lose elections; so far we have Gore and Cleland.  Maybe Chuck Robb was too far north or something.
 
Second, Cleland apparently forgot to list other folks who "lied."  Various Clinton administration folks made the case that Saddam was pursuing or already had WMD.  Here's Al Gore in December 1998 on Larry King Live: 

We need national resolve and unity, not weakness and division when we're involved engaged in an action against someone like Saddam Hussein, who is trying to get weapons of mass destruction and threaten his neighbors. ... [I]f you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He's already demonstrated a willingness to use these weapons; he poison gassed his own people. He used poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors. This man has no compunctions about killing lots and lots of people. "

Gore wasn't the only one who believed this.  So did Sandy Berger, President Clinton's National Security Advisor, who is serving as an advisor to the Kerry camp, in an interview with Tony Snow on Fox News in February 1998:
 

FOX NEWS's TONY SNOW: "A lot of people say, well, why should we go to war unless there's an attack on us? Is Saddam going to attack us?"
 
BERGER: "Well, he's going... the danger here is that he is able to have sanctuaries, safe havens, to rebuild his weapons of mass destruction, which he can use to threaten or intimidate his neighbors in a region of the world. And that's something we simply cannot permit to happen. This is not in our own national interest. It's not so much a question of him in the short term delivering these weapons to the United States, but that region of the world - for security, strategic, economic and other reasons... is extraordinarily important to the United States."

 
Even many Democratic lawmakers said so; Cleland's own candidate, the vacationing Ketchup King, said the following before Congress in October 2002:

"It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world... He has supported and harbored terrorist groups, particularly radical Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal, and he has given money to families of suicide murderers in Israel... We should not go to war because these things are in his past, but we should be prepared to go to war because of what they tell us about the future."

 
Third, Cleland can't attack the President's policy substantively -- so he gets into name-calling instead.  This is the same whiny tone he used when he got nailed for his votes on Homeland Security during his Senate campaign.  His statements have no substance and barely pass the level of what one would expect from a DNC staffer in a red shirt standing on Connecticut Avenue.  Actually, that's unfair; the DNC staffers aren't insane.
 
Finally, we have McAuliffe, the open symbol of what's wrong with the Democratic Party.  Terry's able to raise tons of money and lead blistering partisan attacks, even though most of them are about as articulate as Homer Simpson's love letters to Marge.  But when it comes to speaking about the goals of the party, as embodied by its draft platform, McAuliffe can't even take the time to articulate why those ideas are important.  Say what you will about my party of choice, but we're the ones bringing policy ideas to the table for discussion.  School choice.  Social security reform.  Tax cuts to spur the economy.  Tort reform.  And that's just in the domestic policy arena, where people believe the GOP is at a deficit to the other party.  They just never mention what ideas the Democrats actually have.  Seriously, other than maintaining the status quo for the National Education Association, NARAL and trial lawyers, does the Democratic Party stand for anything other than demoguagary?  I'd wait for a response from Terry, but I'm sure he's got his hand out to a trial lawyer and is on the phone with People for the American Way.
 
Stay tuned for tomorrow, when we enjoy time with one JFK II's national security consultants, the aforementioned Sandy Berger, who apparently likes shoving classified documents down his pants...

The Sports Rant

by the world's biggest Eagles fan (who writes on this blog, anyway)

A little more than a week to go before training camp, and the return of football beckons. Birds re-signed the prodigal son Trotter last week. T.O. was on TV on the ESPYs last night.

Last season, I was still kinda hung over from the NFC Title Game loss on Black Sunday. This year, I can't wait for the season to start. Maybe I'm wrong... but I'm really believing this is the year.

I'm ready for some football.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

From the L.A. Times, courtesy of the Associated Press, comes this gem. Our favorite hero's on vacation in Nantucket, and being followed by reporters while he preps his convention speech.

Halfway through Saturday's flight, Kerry, who wore the broad smile of someone headed to a favorite vacation retreat, talked to reporters about his afternoon plans to go kite-surfing across the waves of Nantucket Harbor, a more daring version of wind surfing. He also looked forward to eating at some favorite restaurants, reading and visiting friends and family.

"This may be the last time for a while," Kerry said wistfully. "We've got a pretty solid month coming up."

A few minutes later, an excited and smiling Kerry hurried through the plane pointing out well-known landmarks among the islands: "That's Chappaquiddick," he said. "And over there, that's Martha's Vineyard."

Chappaquiddick? You know, I think heard of that place. Maybe Senator Kennedy, who's out tirelessly campaigning for Kerry, can explain why that place is important when he speaks at the Democratic Convention next week.

Think about the lineup Kerry has preceding him at the Convention: Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy and John Edwards. No wonder he's on vacation; the stress of having to follow a legendary liar, a legendary dirtbag and a legendary trial lawyer would be a lot for any of us.