The Swift Boat Saga, Part VII: The Death of the New York Times

Funny coincidences keep cropping up lately. Yesterday, John Kerry finally had a public comment on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and their book, Unfit for Command. What he had to say wasn't pretty:

Defending his record, the Democratic presidential candidate said, "Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts."

"Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam."

...In his speech, Kerry employed a wartime metaphor. "More than 30 years ago I learned an important lesson. When you're under attack the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attack. That's what I intend to do today."

Speaking of the organization airing the ads that challenge his war record, Kerry said, "Of course, this group isn't interested in the truth and they're not telling the truth. ...

"But here's what you really need to know about them. They're funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They're a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the President won't denounce what they're up to tells you everything you need to know. He wants them to do his dirty work."

Bush spokesman Steve Schmidt said, "That charge leveled by Senator Kerry is absolutely and completely false."

"The Bush campaign has never and will never question John Kerry's service in Vietnam. The president has referred to John Kerry's service as noble service," the Bush spokesman said.

Kerry said, "Of course, the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: 'Bring it on.'"

You know, Senator, I'd bring something else if there was anything else you were running on. But unfortunately, your sole qualification to serve as President seems to be your service in Vietnam, based on your campaign thus far.

But let's get to the substance of his remarks here... wait, there are none. No response regarding his Christmas in Cambodia fabrication. Nothing to refute the specific charges levelled by the veterans in a well-researched book that's #1 on Amazon's best-seller list and has far more credibility than the unsubstatiated allegations regarding Bush's service in the National Guard, let alone the tripe served up by Michael Moore in movie theatres.

The issues isn't Kerry's service in Vietnam per se, but his fantasies and exaggerations regarding it. The gents at Powerline summarize it nicely:

The issue, of course, is not whether Kerry served honorably and bravely in Vietnam. I take it as a given that he did. The questions are: 1) whether he has lied, repeatedly, about his service in an effort to embellish it; 2) whether he has delibertately tried to take credit for engagements fought by other men (Lt. Ted Peck in particular); 3) whether his leadership of the anti-war movement, which was the origin of his political career, was based on a tissue of lies, including not just the Christmas in Cambodia fantasy--the stated reason for Kerry's purported disillusionment with government--but, more fundamentally, his claims that his fellow servicemen were a group of war criminals who routinely committed atrocities.

These are serious questions that go the the heart of Kerry's fitness to be Commander in Chief, but Kerry won't acknowledge them (let alone answer them) unless he absolutely has to.

What does Kerry do? He attacks Bush, claiming he's behind the ad, and maligns the veterans as Republican hacks. Not that he has any proof, of course.

Oh, wait. Now that the Kerry campaign has officially responded, the two newspapers of record, the Washington Post and the left-wing dishrag (a.k.a. the New York Times) , feel comfortable actually writing about the charges made. Let's start with the Post, which spit out an article in advance of the Kerry offensive yesterday. The Post's piece, entitled "Records Counter a Critic of Kerry", notes that Larry Thurlow, one of the more vocal Swift Boat vets, also received a Bronze Star the same day that Kerry did. And despite Thurlow's claims to the contrary, the citation Thurlow received states that he received the citation for bravery under enemy fire. But what's really interesting is Thurlow's response on being confronted -- he doesn't change his story one bit...

"It's like a Hollywood presentation here, which wasn't the case," Thurlow said last night after being read the full text of his Bronze Star citation. "My personal feeling was always that I got the award for coming to the rescue of the boat that was mined. This casts doubt on anybody's awards. It is sickening and disgusting."

Thurlow said he would consider his award "fraudulent" if coming under enemy fire was the basis for it. "I am here to state that we weren't under fire," he said. He speculated that Kerry could have been the source of at least some of the language used in the citation.

In a telephone interview Tuesday evening after he attended a Swift Boat Veterans strategy session in an Arlington hotel, Thurlow said he lost his Bronze Star citation more than 20 years ago. He said he was unwilling to authorize release of his military records because he feared attempts by the Kerry campaign to discredit him and other anti-Kerry veterans.

The man's willing to call his own award fraudulent -- doesn't this lend credibility to his story? Of course, if he needs help getting rid of his medals, I'm sure Kerry can assist, since he's already thrown someone else's medals over the White House fence.

But the hatchetjobs had only just begun. The left-wing dishrag also decided to get into the act with a piece today, concentrating on what it believes to be the key issues. To wit, the Times, which failed to report on the story until now, decides to run a story detailing the group's connections to key Republicans in Texas, and how public statements made by members of the group in the past apparently conflict with their present-day views of Kerry. Keep in mind, the Times did not find the actual charges made by the group to be worthy of news coverage, but is willing to talk about the rebuttal and its investigation into the group itself...

Mr. Kerry called them "a front for the Bush campaign" - a charge the campaign denied.

A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove.

Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.

...Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.

In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr. Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley, provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."

In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."

George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was "an act of courage." At that same event, Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement about the "bravado and courage of the young officers that ran the Swift boats."

"Senator Kerry was no exception," Mr. Lonsdale told the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown Navy Yard. "He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."

Those comments echoed the official record. In an evaluation of Mr. Kerry in
1969, Mr. Elliott, who was one of his commanders, ranked him as "not exceeded"
in 11 categories, including moral courage, judgment and decisiveness, and "one
of the top few" - the second-highest distinction - in the remaining five. In
written comments, he called Mr. Kerry "unsurpassed," "beyond reproach" and "the
acknowledged leader in his peer group."

What's great about the Times piece is how attentuated the connections are to the Bush camp.

The ad team that worked the Dukakis tank ad? The Times later mentions they also worked for John McCain... who's usually cited for condemning the ad.

Rove is friends with a man who's the top Republican donor in Texas, which is shocking. Since this man also cut huge checks to the Swift Boat Vets, this is apparently sinister. But the Times waits several paragraphs to note that Rove has stated that he and Bob Perry, the donor in question, haven't spoken in over a year, and they have absolutely no evidence to refute this.

Despite this, the Times feels the need to produce graph detialing all the "connections" between the Vets and the Republicans. Which of course does not in any way disprove any of their allegations.

Even better, the Times fails to give context to the statements they cite as proof that the vets are contradicting themselves... even though Jim Geraghty at National Review covered the topic over three months ago:

The Kerry campaign also showcased what it appeared to believe was a smoking gun: video of two of Kerry's critics, Capt. George Elliott, and retired Cmdr. Adrian Longsdale, at a 1996 news conference at the Charlestown Navy Yard.

Navy Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, who commanded U.S. Navy forces in the Vietnam War, also appeared with Kerry that day. His son, retired Lieutenant Colonel Jim Zumwalt is among the Kerry critics. The Kerry campaign also made sure reporters got a sheet of quotes from the press conference eight years ago.

But they appear to have omitted that the veterans' 1996 appearance wasn't a typical, "hey,-isn't-John-Kerry-a-great-guy-who-should-be-reelected" backslapping photo opportunity. They were there to defend Kerry against the charge of committing a "war crime" from a Boston Globe columnist.

On October 27, 1996, nine days before Election Day, Kerry was locked in the fight of his political life against Republican Governor William Weld. In the Sunday edition of the biggest paper in the state, business columnist David Warsh wrote about discrepancies in recent accounts of day that Kerry won the Silver Star.

...Kerry was outraged, and his Senate reelection campaign quickly set out
to refute the allegation.

Zumwalt, who commanded U.S. Navy forces in the Vietnam War, said at the conference that the column "was such a terrible insult, such an absolutely outrageous misinterpretation of the facts, that I felt it was important to be here."

Zumwalt said he traveled to Boston from Washington because "a wartime commander has a lifetime responsibility to look out for the guys under him." Kerry's conduct on that day was also commended by retired Capt. George Elliott, Kerry's commander at the time; and retired Cmdr. Adrian Longsdale, who supervised shoreline operations.

...It's worth noting that Lonsdale and Elliot didn't say during that conference what a great president Kerry would make, or that his accusations of war crimes in 1971 weren't distortions or a hurtful betrayal, or even that they endorsed him for the Senate. They just said that they believed Kerry earned his Silver Star in that encounter and that they recalled nothing to justify an accusation of war crimes.

The Times fails to mention this anywhere. But give it credit -- there are legitimate questions about the Swift Boat Vets' accounts versus those of Kerry's supporters. But the left-wing dishrag has decided that the dispute may be worthy of news coverage, but the original assertions were not? Give me a break.

Of course, the Times also waits over 60 paragraphs to mention that the Swift Boat Vets have already been proven correct on their assertion that Kerry lied about his trip to Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968 -- and in reporting this fact, the Times denigrates the Swift Boat Vets as "adaptable." Powerline again notes the Times' inability to report on the claims made by the Vets until after Kerry responded:

What a coincidence! Yesterday John Kerry finally responded to the Swift Boat Vets' accusations, not by dealing with them substantively, but by denouncing the Vets as tools of the Bush campaign. The very next morning, the Times broke its silence with its long-awaited coverage of the issue, which, rather than investigating the merits of the Vets' claims, attacked the Vets as tools of the Bush campaign!

Instead of addressing the point at issue--whether Presidential candidate John Kerry is a serial liar--the Times devoted its vast investigative resources to digging up dirt on the Swift Boat Vets, and came to this blockbuster conclusion: some of the people supporting the Vets are Republicans! Tomorrow, we'll expect to see a similar investigation of Americans Coming Together and MoveOn.org. What do you want to bet some of their contributors are Democrats? I'll bet some of them have even met people who have served in Democratic administrations. What an expose!

But let's take a look at what the Times omitted. Ed Morrissey at Captainsquartersblog nails the Times' coverage of the Cambodia issue...

In an article of over 3,500 words, those 99 [words] are the only coverage the Gray Lady provides for the embarrassing debacle of the campaign's last two weeks. No mention of Kerry advisor Michael Meehan's clumsy geographical explanations of how the Mekong Delta formed the border between Cambodia and Viet Nam, which the London Telegraph noted was a "geographical area not found on maps." Not a word about how the Kerry campaign insisted that Kerry never said he had been in Cambodia, hastily reversed itself when shown the Congressional Record for March 27th, 1986, and then went silent for two days while it concocted the ludicrous notion that Kerry had meant he was near Cambodia -- which makes no sense of this supposed epiphany. Finally, they dragged up Douglas Brinkley to assert that Kerry made secret missions with Special Ops guys and promised to write all about it in the next New Yorker -- and instead has hidden himself from all contact in the media.

None. Not a word over 99. And that 99 comes five paragraphs from the bottom of a 73-paragraph article.

He's not the only one noting this stuff. Deborah Orin of the New York Post outlines some of Kerry's credibility problems and points out some of the key facts the Times opted not to discuss:

Remember Kerry's claim that "I've met foreign leaders" who told him he had to beat Bush? Turned out he hadn't met any foreign leaders in years.

Kerry's campaign Web site claimed credit for Vietnam missions when another man, Tedd Peck, was the skipper (that was removed when he protested) and last week was claiming credit for former Sen. Bob Kerrey's service as Senate Intelligence Committee vice chairman. "John Kerry, Bob Kerrey — similar names," blithely explained Kerry campaign spokesman Michael Meehan, as if Kerry didn't know his own bio.

Not one of Kerry's Swift boat crewmates, even the ones backing his candidacy, recalls being in Cambodia in Christmas 1968 — and anti-Kerry Swift boat veterans cite a host of evidence that he was 50 miles away in Vietnam.

Why does it matter? Because Kerry has said the Cambodia incident — of being sent on a covert mission to "a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops" was "seared" in his mind and changed his view of America.

Team Kerry's excuse is that maybe he accidentally crossed the border or his time frame was fuzzy, but that just won't square with his passionate 1986 claim, on the Senate floor, that the Christmas memory was "seared — seared — in me." Unlike the conflicts over Kerry's medals, this isn't a he said/he said dispute — Kerry either was or wasn't in Cambodia. Eventually a reporter will ask him point-blank if he still claims he was in Cambodia that Christmas — yes or no.

...The other fascinating part of this story is the key role that bloggers on the Internet have played in pointing out the holes in Kerry's story — even as much of the press tries to ignore them.

For instance, when Team Kerry held a press conference featuring his crewmates this week, one was conspicuously missing — David Alston — after the Internet-fueled revelation that he may have only served on Kerry's boat for one week. A Web blogger, captainsquartersblog, began questioning whether Alston (who has spoken emotionally about how they "bled together") ever served with Kerry. National Review examined the records and concluded maybe — for just one week.

This whole story could be a test of the Internet's impact in this campaign. While most papers have been ignoring the story — until Kerry went ballistic at the Swift vets yesterday — bloggers have been examining it in detail.

On Web sites like Instapundit.com, captainsquartersblog.com, hugh-hewitt.com and rogerlsimon.com, skeptical veterans are trading details on Kerry's service and raising intricate questions about his veracity based on their own experience.

Their online dialogue is punctuated with questions about why the "mainstream media" have been mostly ignoring this story — and why the 13 pro-Kerry vets are automatically assumed to have more credibility than 264 anti-Kerry vets.

Just imagine the coverage if 264 vets who served with Bush in the Texas Air National Guard made similar charges. For those bloggers, this story has become a test of the mainstream media's credibility — and its liberal anti-Bush bias.

The best part is in the last two paragraphs, where we have the stories of 264 veterans whom the mainstream press wants to ignore and worse, simply attack. This is in contrast to the unsubstantiated rumors about Bush's military service, which these same "news" outlets were only too glad to report a few months back.

Does it matter? Hugh Hewitt explains why it matters:

The collapse of Kerry's narrative about Vietnam does matter because Kerry made it matter. In fact, Kerry needed it to matter because a focus on his votes over 20 years in the United States Senate could not be sold to the American public, especially not during an economic expansion, and especially not during a war.

So now Kerry's sliding, and there is high dudgeon within the Kerry camp. Wait until the next phase, where Kerry's exclamations of pride in his service in Vietnam are put side-by-side with Kerry's Senate testimony of 30 years ago. I expect this will be considered bad form by the Kerry-boosters as well. Kerry was kid, they'll say, exaggerating his "war crimes" even as he exaggerated his Christmas-Eve-in-Cambodia in 1979, 1986, and 1992, and his CIA missions in 2003 and 2004. They will avoid the questions from the veterans of that war that Kerry slandered then who want honesty now. But it won't work. It is a video and an audio age, aided by the wonderful fact-checking of the internet. Kerry has been many different men. It
bothers a lot of people for a lot of reasons.

There's a lot to the problem Kerry has -- his credibility is slowly disappearing, much like any lead he had in the polls, most particularly among vets, as pointed out in this L.A. Times article...

The attacks may have already hurt. According to a new poll by CBS News, Kerry has lost ground among veterans since the Democratic National Convention, when he ran neck and neck with Bush among those voters. Now, the president has an 18-point lead among that group, according to the poll, which surveyed 1,009 adults nationwide.

Mickey Kaus, who supports Kerry, even rips the left-wing dishrag for this editorial, where it furthers its attack on the Swift Boat Vets. As Kaus notes:

I don't know which side is right. I don't know that I'd even hold it against Kerry if he did exaggerate a bit to get the three Purple Hearts that let him leave Vietnam. I do know that if freedom of speech means anything it means that a group of citizens can get together to bring up this sort of charge against a presidential candidate, subject to the laws of libel...The Times thinks the ad should be stopped because you just shouldn't be able to make such "outlandish" independent charges in a campaign. They're against the speech, not the financing. Like Kerry, they're trying to come up with a "process" reason that avoids the inconveniently messy issue of truth. But their process reason--an attack on "independent" criticism per se--seems particularly dangerous.

P.P.P.S.: Respectable big-time journalist friends who met with the anti-Kerry vets recently found them a lot more credible than expected.

The polls are dropping, and this is without mainstream media coverage. Must be an awful lot of people reading blogs and watching Fox News. But maybe this is more of a funeral for the mainstream media then one would think. As Polipundit noted:

Regardless of whether or not the Swifties story has a lasting effect on the presidential campaign, it has already played a huge role in exposing the reasons that the mainstream media's influence is dwindling, and it will definitely aid in hastening their demise.

Maybe they'll find honest work eventually. Or maybe they can work directly for the Kerry campaign. As one e-mailer pointed out to Instapundit, "With all the fuss and charges about coordination between 527 organizations and campaigns, I wondered, given today's article in the New York Times, if they are coordinating with the Kerry Campaign?"

The John Kerry Post of the Day

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

You know, if I ever run for office, it's questionable that my significant other would agree with the policies I advocate, particularly since I'm a right-wing nut and she thinks Ted Kennedy's politics aren't all that awful.

But it's doubtful that she would follow the lead of Teresa Heinz-Kerry, who seems to think her husband isn't up to the task of running our great country...

TERESA HEINZ KERRY, America’s would-be First Lady, reinforced her reputation for blunt speaking yesterday by admitting that her husband was not qualified to hold the office.

“I think nobody is truly qualified to be President of the United States,” she said, displaying the plain speaking that has become her trademark, a possible liability for John Kerry’s campaign.

“I mean, are you qualified to run the world . . . not run it, but have that influence? No, nobody is,” she said in the latest edition of Reader’s Digest.

Many American voters may be drawn to the evident reasoning behind her argument. But others are likely to be less sympathetic. Presidential campaigns rarely admit to any human frailty on the part of their candidate.

Her honesty apparently fell flat with Reader’s Digest, which said that the message she left hanging in the air was: “Vote for John. He’s less poorly qualified than the other guy.”

Maybe this is actually a trick by the Kerry campaign. After all, maybe Teresa's arguing that only a committee could run America. And as we all know, John Kerry's got enough opinions on each issue to be a one-man committee.

The Next Great Star...

Featured Instigator Kevin Downing returns with a story that deserves notice simply for the last paragraph in the following passage:

China's Yu Zhenhuan sports a thick layer of hair that covers more than 96 percent of his body. Only his palms and the soles of his feet are free of hair.

The 26-year-old singer says he used to feel self-confident about his looks, but now he's decided to turn his unique look to his own advantage.

Yu is betting on a future in rock and roll, and his shows are already winning rave reviews.

His hair was initially an obstacle, however. The thick fur growing in his ears made it difficult to hear.

Yu was forced to undergo a delicate operation to remove the hair in his ear canals. He is now hearing things he never could before.

If this guy starts getting girls, it will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that some women will date anybody who can carry a tune and strum a guitar

The Sports Rant

by the world's least dangerous man

Most people who know me understand that while I'm a very calm and rational person, there are some things which bring out strong emotion in me. Politics. My family. Reruns of Saved by the Bell.

But nothing brings out the same passion as sports does. And since I was raised as a Philly sports fan, I haven't had a lot of success to celebrate over the years, which accounts for my current bitterness, not to mention my otherwise inexplicable hatred of Tampa Bay sports teams (seriously, no one on this planet can explain why the Sports Gods blessed the Bucs and Lightning with titles -- other than maybe the fact that the Lightning had Hulk Hogan's daughter singing the National Anthem at games last year).

But I've learned something from this experience. In sports, the teams you love don't necessarily earn that love. For example, I still bear deep affection for the Phillies, who have done nothing to earn that from me in over a decade. Some nice free-agent signings over the past few years and a new ballpark do not serve as an adequate return on my emotional investment. Firing Larry Bowa several months too late (if they choose to do so) and allowing the team to slip below .500 doesn't exactly indicate that they're worthy of my fandom. I don't even want to get into the suffering I've gone through with the Eagles.

But the teams you hate -- now, they earn that hatred. No one ever hates a sports team without a good reason, and that good reason typically stems from what they did to your team. And it's the rare franchise that earns that hatred, year-in and year-out; typically, you're talking about teams that are division rivals or excel in bring you misery.

What's my point? Well, I think those teams that are truly at the pinnacle of being hated deserve some sort of accolade. It came to mind this morning when I saw this story about how Notre Dame has opted to schedule "more competitively", which means they're looking for more patsies. I despise Notre Dame football. Even when they're bad, the Irish receive tons of press attention, as if most college football fans give a hoot what a middling independant school in central Indiana did in a game against Navy. And yes, I have a complex about this -- four years at Villanova, where most of my fellow students grew up rooting for the Irish, will lead non-Irish fans down the path to seething hatred.

There are other teams that belong with the Irish on this list -- teams that are even more evil, in fact. But there are very few franchises that belong at this level for each sports fan. We're talking about teams that are so evil that you wouldn't root for them if your own mother was wearing their uniform. These teams are so despised that you'd rather see the sport go on strike than see this team win another title. At its essence, we're talking about teams that, if they took the ice to battle the Commies at Lake Placid in 1980, you'd root for the guys in the red sweaters. For each sports fan, there are, at most, four such teams in existence. If you hate more than that, you have no hatred left for your own teams' failures (as a Philly sports fan, I'm an expert on this last element). To me, each fan has his or her "Mount Rushmore of Sports Evil."

Who's on my Mount Rushmore? First, we have the New York Knicks, a team that somehow commands my hatred despite their complete inability to win anything of note during my lifetime. It's probably the close association with the city of New York... not to mention the presence of that overrated stiff Patrick Ewing... a team mainly comprised of thugs throughout my teenage and adult lifetime... Spike Lee... Knicks highlights all over Sportscenter... Pat Riley... well, okay, there's a lot of things.

But they're not alone. There's also the eptiome of current evil, the New York Yankees. If I need to explain to you why the Yankees are evil, (a) you're a Yankee fan, or (b) you're from a different planet. If it's (a), then I feel for you. What's it like, rooting for the Roman Empire?

Then there are the Dallas Cowboys, the George Washington of hated franchises. I don't even want to discuss the Cowboys, other than to note that if they really are America's Team, our country is lost. More so even than if John Kerry wins the White House.

So that's my personal Mount Rushmore of Sports Evil: Notre Dame, the Knicks, the Yankees and the Cowboys.

The reason for all this? The fall is coming, traditionally the high time for all of these teams. There's a time in September where the Yankees are typically in first place, Notre Dame is unbeaten, Dallas has won a game or two and Knick fans are suffering through that delusional time when they think they might win an NBA Title. As much as I love September for the return of football season, I dread that week when all this is taking place. The good news is, this year I can focus on politics to take my mind off it.

What Happens in North Wales...

You know, I'm waiting for someone to blame this story on John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act...

Strippers and pole dancers should be banned from performing in stretch limousines, according to a British report.

Councilors from the mountainous Welsh county of Gwynedd said many limousine hire companies were providing erotic dancers as entertainment for clients, but agreed in-car striptease was "inappropriate."

"Lately, stretch limousines have been used more and more," said the report prepared for the council's licensing committee.

"Some operators are providing entertainment to clients within the vehicle which may involve inappropriate activities such as lap dancing, giving rise to concerns about indecency."

Somehow, in an upset similar in impact to Douglas-Tyson, North Wales just became contender for a lot of future bachelor parties.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

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

Ah, you got to give Kerry credit. He's a flip-flopper, but he wants to be the best flip-flopper he can be.

Take a look at Kerry's response to Bush's re-deployment plan, as reported by the BBC:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has criticised President George W Bush's decision to bring back up to 70,000 US troops based abroad.

In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in Cincinnati, Ohio, he said the US needed to be working in tandem with foreign allies more than ever.

Mr Kerry said he would also fight a "smarter, more effective war on terror".

Nothing wrong with that, of course... unless we take a few minutes to examine some other statements the Senator made. Let's start with something he said way back in 1990, during a Democratic Senatorial candidates' debate in Boston...

"I think we ought to stay on the cutting edge, and I think we ought to be doing an enormous amount more to guarantee research and development. We've seen a horrible shift in the last few years away from civilian R & D into military R & D and R & D that doesn't make sense. But we should not be building a B-2 bomber for 858 million dollars for one bomber. We should not be building more MX missiles to deal with the Soviet Union, and we ought to be making savings in our troops in Europe. We're currently paying for 300,000 troops to be in Germany to save the Germans from the Soviet troops that they're paying to leave then to stay. It doesn't make sense and I think we could help Massachusetts by using that money here."

The transcript actually doesn't make sense in that second to last sentance, but the context is pretty clear. So give Kerry credit -- he was on the cutting edge here, suggesting that with the Soviet threat dissipating, we needed to adapt our strategy. But now, he's gone the other way, which seems odd, since I don't think Germany is in any greater danger today. You could make a case that the Korean re-deployment is a bad idea, as Kerry does... but that position doesn't seem to make sense with regard to the Germans.

But maybe Kerry shifted his thinking on this issue after 9/11, and believes the troops should stay in Germany as part of his "more effective war on terror" (he may also be planning to station troops in France as part of his "more sensitive" war on terror). That could be it... except for this quote from the New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate on January 22 of this year...

"The troops of the United States of America are overextended. Their deployments are too long. The families are hurting at home because they lose money from the private sector when they're called up, and they get paid less in the military, and nobody makes it up to them. The fact is if we are going to maintain this level of commitment on a global basis - for the moment we have to, because of what's happened - we need an additional two divisions. One is a combat division, and one is a support division. And that's the responsible thing to do. I've also said, responsibly, that's temporary, because I intend to be a president who goes back to the United Nations, rejoins the community of nations, brings other boots on the ground to help us in the world, and reduces the overall need for deployment of American forces in the globe - and I mean North Korea, Germany and the rest of the world where we can begin to set up a new architecture of participation of other countries."

Well, maybe Kerry changed his mind more recently, after discussing his position with new contributors to his campaign. You know, experts on military matters, like John Edwards and his cadre of trial lawyers. Kerry probably shifted his position months ago, right?

Not quite. Check out this quote from two weeks ago, from an episode of ABC's This Week...

"If the diplomacy that I believe can be put in place can work, I think we can significantly change the deployment of troops, not just there but elsewhere in the world. In the Korean peninsula perhaps, in Europe perhaps. There are great possibilities open to us. But this administration has had very little imagination, enormous sort of ideological fixation and, frankly, took its eye off the war against al Qaeda and the war on terror shifting it to Iraq at enormous cost to the American people and to the legitimacy of the war on terror."

I guess we just need to wait for that expert diplomacy of Kerry to put the plan into action. Of course, maybe he needs some practice, as his speech to the VFW today didn't get everyone's applause, as noted by this picture. The end of the caption tells the tale...

Kerry received a polite if not overwhelmingly positive reaction from the VFW. But there was a clear divide, with scores of veterans sittings with their arms folded while others clapped.

Maybe Kerry needs to tell the veterans a little secret -- that he served in Vietnam. But he may want to leave out the part about Cambodia.

[A big tip o' the hat to Jim Geraghty at the Kerry Spot, who had these quotes lined up and ready to go.]

The Swift Boat Saga, Part VI

The Kerry Cambodia Chronicles story is slowly making its way out of the blogosphere, with a significant assistance from the bloggers themselves. For example, the gents at Powerline have published the following Op-Ed piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which includes a shot at the mainstream media...

The story of his 1968 Christmas in Cambodia is one that Kerry has told on many occasions over the years. He invoked the story in 1979 in the course of his review of the movie "Apocalypse Now" for the Boston Herald. Most recently, Kerry told the story -- with remarkable embellishments involving a CIA man who gave him his favorite hat -- last year on separate occasions to reporters Laura Blumenfeld of the Washington Post and Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe.

Certain elements of Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story were incredible on their face. Kerry attributed responsibility for his illegal 1968 mission to Richard Nixon, despite the fact that Lyndon Johnson was president at the time. The Khmer Rouge who allegedly shot at Kerry during his "secret" mission did not take the field until 1972.

Moreover, there is no record that Swift boats -- the kind of boat under Kerry's command -- were ever used for secret missions in Cambodia. Their size and noise make them unlikely candidates for such missions. Indeed, the authorized biographer of Kerry's Vietnam service -- historian Douglas Brinkley -- omits from his book, "Tour of Duty," any mention of a covert cross-border mission to Cambodia during Kerry's service.

Over the past few weeks, the Christmas in Cambodia tale, a keystone of John Kerry's Vietnam autobiography, has been revealed to be fraudulent. On Christmas 1968, Kerry was docked at Sa Dec, 50 miles from Cambodia, in an area from which the Cambodian border was inaccessible.

Last week, after the falsity of Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia account became public, the Kerry campaign issued a statement "correcting" the story. According to the Kerry campaign, the mission referred to took place in January 1969, when Kerry "inadvertently or responsibly" crossed the border into Cambodia. However, three of Kerry's Swift boat crewmates have denied entering Cambodia at any time, and no one has corroborated Kerry's claim.

The suggestion that Kerry may have "inadvertently" strayed into Cambodia -- leaving aside whether that was even possible -- constitutes a complete retreat from the point of Kerry's original story: that he lost his faith in government because the president lied about having sent American troops into Cambodia. And, of course, it contradicts his story about ferrying a CIA man to Cambodia.

Given the attention lavished on President Bush's service in the Air National Guard earlier this year, we thought that newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times would want to devote comparable attention to John Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story. We also thought they would want to consider what the falsity of Kerry's story might have to tell us about the uses to which Kerry is putting his Vietnam service in the current presidential campaign.

To date, however, we have been wrong. Neither the influential mainstream newspapers nor the broadcast television networks have reported the meltdown of Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story. Only readers of Internet blogs such as ours have kept current on the exposure of Kerry's tall tale.

The guys from Powerline aren't the only folks finally getting ink stains on the story. The Washington Times (no, not the supposed journalists at the Washington Post) began publishing excerpts from Unfit for Command today, which is still #1 on Amazon's best-seller list. The Times also includes this delightful riff from Tony Blankley...

But the American political jungle is every bit as disorienting and suddenly lethal as the one he emerged from 30 years ago. John Kerry's tangled memory and war braggadocio have been mismanaged by him and his campaign team. They have given too many inconsistent answers, thus forcing the hand of major media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News & World Report, Knight-Ridder and the Boston Globe to start reporting the story.

Even self-admitted Kerry supporter Joan Vennochi wrote in her Boston Globe column this week: "Kerry's statements about Cambodia do have traction for opponents. [His spokesmen's] answer aren't good enough. He should answer every question voters have about it — and he should answer himself."

I love the smell of political lies in the morning. The smell, you know ... smells like ... defeat.

No, the Times isn't the most respected mainstream source of news. But it also includes an editorial that takes appropriate umbrage regarding a mischaracterization of its statements by a Kerry campaign surrogate...

Monday night on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country," John Hurley, the Vietnam Veterans for John Kerry spokesman, falsely characterized this paper's assessment of the book "Unfit for Command." He stated: "It is as the Washington Times, said, 'a pack of lies'." While this paper has not yet made a final judgment about all the details in the book, Mr. Hurley's use of the phrase "pack of lies" is a very partial and obviously intentionally misleading quote from last week's column by the editor of this page.

The quote from the column reads, in relevant part: "Either this book is a pack of lies or John Kerry is in fact a reckless, lying man who misrepresented the facts in order to receive medals he didn't deserve, and is indeed unfit to command even a tug boat, let alone the United States military as president."

That column went on to note that "the book has the ring of sincerity to it, and the mark of careful research and writing." While the column didn't reach a final judgment, it suggested that major non-conservative media organizations should investigate and assess the book and its critics.

... It is a measure of the state of their defenses regarding John Kerry's Vietnam and Cambodia assertions that not only are they using ad hominum attacks against their critics, but they feel compelled to resort to such flagrant misrepresentation of other media comments to bolster their position.

Ouch might be an understatement. But at least the Kerry camp is getting some favorable press on the issue, from our friends at the Boston Globe, who headlined their story on the topic, "Kerry Disputes Allegations on Cambodia." But dig a little deeper, and one discovers that the Kerry camp has little more than the candidate's claims to dispute the issue, especially when his own "band of brothers" won't back up his tale...

James Wasser, who accompanied Kerry on that mission aboard patrol boat No. 44 and who supports Kerry's candidacy, said that while he believes they were "very, very close" to Cambodia, he did not think they entered Cambodia on that mission. Yet he added: "It is very hard to tell. There are no signs."

Another crewmate who said he was with Kerry on Christmas Eve, Steven Gardner -- who is a member of the veterans group opposing Kerry's candidacy -- said Kerry was 50 miles from Cambodia at the time. He accused Kerry of lying about being in Cambodia or by the border. "Never happened," Gardner said.

Separately, according to Meehan's statement, Kerry crossed into Cambodia on a covert mission to drop off special operations forces. In an interview, Meehan said there was no paperwork for such missions and he could not supply a date. That makes it hard to ascertain or confirm what happened. Kerry served on two swift boats, the No. 44 in December 1968 and January 1969, and the No. 94, from February to March 1969.

Michael Medeiros, who served aboard the No. 94 with Kerry and appeared with him at the Democratic National Convention, vividly recalled an occasion on which Kerry and the crew chased an enemy to the Cambodian border but did not go beyond the border. Yet Medeiros said he could not recall dropping off special forces in Cambodia or going inside Cambodia with Kerry.

What's humorous is that the Kerry campaign staged a press conference with members of Kerry's band of brothers yesterday, attempting to defuse the Swift Boat Vets' claims by attacking their ad. Soon thereafter, Kerry announced his objection to a response ad by Moveon.org, attacking Bush's military service. Unfortunately, the Senator's supporters at the aforementioned press conference had continued to question Bush's service...

McCain, a decorated Vietnam veteran with the reputation of a political maverick, had called on Bush two weeks ago to condemn an ad in which several veterans accused Kerry of fabricating his war record.

The White House has declined to denounce that ad. Kerry issued a conciliatory statement minutes after McCain told The Associated Press that he wanted Kerry to condemn the anti-Bush ad, sponsored by MoveOn.org.

“I agree with Senator McCain that the ad is inappropriate,” Kerry said in a statement. “This should be a campaign of issues, not insults.”

Hours earlier, at a news conference organized by Kerry's campaign, two veterans accused Bush of using family ties to get out of combat.

Kerry served and fought, said Wesley Clark, a retired Army general. “The other man scrambled and used his family's influence to get out of hearing a shot fired in anger.”

Stansfield Turner, a retired admiral who was CIA director in the Carter administration, said Bush “used his father's influence to get into the Air National Guard and avoid going to war.”

At the same news conference, Jim Rassmann, who credits Kerry with saving his life while under fire in Vietnam, noted that Kerry has said Bush served honorably. However, Kerry also said in February of Bush's Guard service, which included time in Alabama: “The issue here, as I have heard it raised, is: Was he present and active on duty in Alabama at the times he was supposed to be? I don't have the answer to that question.”

What the AP fails to mention is that Bush effectively refuted the credibility of the ads, as noted in this story...

"Senator Kerry is justifiably proud of his record in Vietnam and he should be," Bush said on the CNN television talk show, "Larry King Live." He referred to Kerry's Vietnam tour as "noble service."

...While declining to condemn the ads, Bush said the broader issue was independent groups known as "527s" that fall outside the boundaries of campaign finance laws and can spend unlimited amounts of money on attack ads.

"They've said some bad things about me. I guess they're saying bad things about him. And what I think we ought to do is not have them on the air," Bush said.

He thinks they should be taken off the air... does anyone need a stronger condemnation than that? It's a nice turn of phrase by Bush to avoid the actual question, but the press would report it the other way if a Democrat (say, Bill Clinton) had made a similar assertion. In addition, the report misses two points.

First, there's absolutely no proof that Bush received preferential treatment in any way, shape or form -- there's just innuendo. The same is true of charges that Bush was MIA in Alabama. However, the Swift Boat Vets have presented a very detailed, persuasive and cogent argument about Kerry's service, and have already proven that some claims (Christmas in Cambodia) were false.

Second, Kerry has made his Vietnam service the centerpiece of his campaign. Bush does not brag about his service in the National Guard -- and there's any number of reasons why he doesn't do so. But Bush's campaign is based on his record as President, for example, his leadership on the War on Terror and his stewardship of the economy. And in each of these areas, Bush's record has been attacked by the other side. Whether they're right or wrong, these criticisms are counter-points made in response to Bush's arguments for re-election. Bush needs to respond to such arguments; it wouldn't do simply to complain about negative advertising.

Similarly, Kerry's case for being elected, based on his campaign since Iowa and particularly the presentation at the Boston Botox Party (a.k.a. the Democratic Convention), in large part depends on his service in Vietnam, to establish both his character and his claims to be a superior leader in the War on Terror. If he plans to use his service in this manner, it becomes a legitimate issue for examination, particularly if he has lied about or exaggerated key portions of his story. Similarly, if Bush claimed that his leadership in the War on Terror had led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, he would be forced to confront the fact that bin Laden is still alive.

In the end, Kerry's thus far been unable to refute these charges. That doesn't mean they're legitimate. But it doesn't mean he's off the hook, either. And as the New York Post pointed out, the ads may be having an impact...

Vietnam veterans opposing John Kerry have scored a hit with a tough TV ad that claims he lied about his war record — it makes swing voters think twice about backing Kerry, an independent study has found.

The ad planted doubts in the minds of 27 percent of independent voters who planned to vote for Kerry or leaned pro-Kerry. After seeing it, they were no longer sure they'd back him, the study found.

At issue is the ad run by an independently funded group known as Swift Veterans for Truth, which features 14 veterans who served in Vietnam along with Kerry as they accuse him of lying about his war record.

"The whole goal of a negative ad is to plant a seed of doubt — and it did," said Professor Chris Borrick of Muhlenberg College, who did the ad study with the firm HCD Research.

"Obviously, the Swift Boat Veterans' intent was to publicly question Kerry's war record, and it looks like they succeeded," said HCD chief Glenn Kessler, who added that viewers found the 60-second ad more believable as it went on.

We haven't seen any information that indicates the same thing for the 527 ads attacking Bush, but that's neither here nor there. This is an ad by a group that the mainstream press wants to ignore, the GOP basically avoids talking about and the Democratic Party villianizes... and yet, this same group and their ad may have more credibility than the Democratic nominee.

And this was the most "electable" candidate the Democrats had.

Not Your Average Bear

The Featured Instigator (who's on his way to a promotion, if we can decide on an appropriate title) points us to this story in the Boston Globe, which he thinks (and we agree) is soon to become a commercial...

Rain-eeeeer .... Bear? When state Fish and Wildlife agents recently found a black bear passed out on the lawn of Baker Lake Resort, there were some clues scattered nearby -- dozens of empty cans of Rainier Beer.

The bear apparently got into campers' coolers and used his claws and teeth to puncture the cans. And not just any cans.

"He drank the Rainier and wouldn't drink the Busch beer," said Lisa Broxson, bookkeeper at the campground and cabins resort east of Mount Baker.

Fish and Wildlife enforcement Sgt. Bill Heinck said the bear did try one can of Busch, but ignored the rest. "He didn't like that (Busch) and consumed, as near as we can tell, about 36 cans of Rainier."

One wonders why this story appears at Boston.com... until you realize that it's just another example of liberal news bias manifesting itself. Why is news media so eager to report a story of a bear disgusted by Bush?

The Swift Boat Saga, Part V

This one is worth reading, as the story's starting to get out, as noted by this piece by Lee Cearnal in the Houston Chronicle...

The same news media that demanded George W. Bush release his National Guard records — and went over them with a microscope — have shown an appalling lack of interest in John Kerry's military service. And as it turns out, there are far more legitimate questions about the latter than the former.

... Just last week, one of his more fatuous claims came a cropper. Beginning in 1979, with an op-ed for the Boston Herald, Kerry has claimed repeatedly that he spent Christmas Eve of 1968 on a secret — and illegal — mission in Cambodia aboard his swift boat.

... He added a fantastic detail in a 2003 Washington Post profile: "A close associate hints: There's a secret compartment in Kerry's briefcase. He carries the black attaché everywhere. Asked about it on several occasions, Kerry brushed it aside. Finally, trapped in an interview, he exhaled and clicked open his case.

" 'Who told you?' he demanded as he reached inside. 'My friends don't know about this.' The hat was a little mildewy. The green camouflage was fading, the seams fraying.

"'My good luck hat,' Kerry said, happy to see it. 'Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia.'

"Kerry put on the hat, pulling the brim over his forehead. His blue button-down shirt and tie clashed with the camouflage. He pointed his finger and raised his thumb, creating an imaginary gun. He looked silly, yet suddenly his campaign message was clear: Citizen-soldier. Linking patriotism to public service. It wasn't complex after all; it was Kerry.

"He smiled and aimed his finger: 'Pow.' "

This story was repeated early this year, in the fawning biography written by a Boston Globe reporter. Problem is, it's not true. His own crewmates say they were not in Cambodia on Christmas Eve. Even Kerry's own diary entry for that day says he was at his base in Sa Dec, 55 miles from the Cambodian border. In his biography of Kerry, Douglas Brinkly quoted the relevant passage: "Visions of sugarplums really do dance through your head and you think of stockings and snow and roast chestnuts and fires with birch logs and all that is good and warm and real. It's Christmas Eve."

With their man caught in a lie, Kerry's handlers last week floated a new
version — he was near Cambodia.

..."On Dec. 24, 1968, Lt. John Kerry and his crew were on patrol in the watery borders between Vietnam and Cambodia deep in enemy territory. In the early afternoon, Kerry's boat, PCF-44, was at Sa Dec and then headed north to the Cambodian border. There, Kerry and his crew along with two other boats were ambushed, taking fire from both sides of the river, and after the firefight were fired upon again. Later that evening during their night patrol they came under friendly fire. . . ."

This won't fly either.

"Watery borders between Vietnam and Cambodia?" The Mekong River does not form a border between Vietnam and Cambodia.

...There is no evidence whatsoever that Kerry ventured into Cambodia during his abbreviated tour in Vietnam. No orders, no after-action reports, no confirmation from others, nothing.

Cernial's not the only one asking questions. Even the Kerry supporter Joan Vennochi at the Boston Globe has stepped up to demand Kerry respond to these attacks:

Kerry's statements about Cambodia do have traction for opponents. He has referred to spending Christmas or Christmas Eve 1968 in Cambodia and coming under fire. At the time Cambodia was neutral and supposedly off-limits to US troops. "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia," Kerry said in 1986 at a Senate committee hearing on US policy toward Central America. "I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there, the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."

The Kerry campaign now says Kerry's runs into Cambodia came in early 1969. "Swift boat crews regularly operated along the Cambodian border from Ha Tien on the Gulf of Thailand to the rivers of the Mekong south and west of Saigon," Michael Meehan, a Kerry adviser, said in a statement last week. "Many times he was on or near the Cambodian border and on one occasion crossed into Cambodia at the request of members of a special operations group."

Answers like that aren't good enough. Kerry put his Vietnam service before voters as the seminal character issue of his presidential campaign. He should answer every question voters have about it -- and he should answer them himself.

Of course, if Kerry's not telling the truth about these charges, then he has a problem. And his claims about special ops and participating in the insertion of Navy SEALs seems to have professional skeptics, if we believe Matthew Heidt at Froggy Ruminations, who claims to be a former SEAL, and who claims his father-in-law served as a SEAL in the Mekong Delta in 1970...

Waterborne infiltrations done illegally into a "neutral" country if performed would be done by small groups of operators (less than 8), at night, in a small tributary, by a boat with a very shallow draft and jacuzzi, not propeller drive. To do otherwise, would be ridiculous.

SEALs also did not trust anyone outside of their immediate peer group. They developed their own intel by snatching high ranking VC out of their beds in the middle of the night. They did not share this info outside the platoon, boat guys, and Seawolves helo crews (close fire support assets). They learned early on that passing intel up the chain was a sure way to be compromised on future operations.

In order to get permission to conduct an illegal incursion into Cambodia by Swift boat the following must occur: 1. Extremely fresh intel of a high value target (think U.S. POW, or VC chieftain). 2. Take that intel outside the group and up to intel at a higher level (risking compromise) in order to obtain boat support from the Swifties to go into Cambodia. That is extremely unlikely to the point of absurdity.

Furthermore, neither myself or my father in law knows anyone who was inserted anywhere by a Swift boat during Vietnam. It just wasn't done. It wasn't something SEALs wanted, and it wasn't something Swifties did.

Bottom Line......Kerry is a liar.

The story will continue to develop, outside the world of the Washington Post and left-wing dishrag. But it won't go away, and they'll eventually have to confront it.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

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

Yesterday's post about Kerry's sporting life apparently missed a key detail. Just like all American sportsmen, Kerry realizes the importance of a good haircut before exerting himself. That's why he needed his hairdresser to stroll out to see him, as noted by the New York Post's Lloyd Grove...

We have to bring back an America that values work and honors working people, day in and day out," Kerry urged in a recent stump speech. But when every campaign stop is a photo op, even a man of the people needs a high-quality haircut.

I hear that when Kerry was in Portland, Ore., last weekend preparing to windsurf on the Columbia River Gorge, he flew his Washington-based hairstylist, Isabelle Goetz, across the country to give him a camera-ready trim.

A knowledgeable source told me that the French-born Goetz - who tends the Massachusetts senator's mane while also caring for Sen. Hillary Clinton's coiffure - caught up with the candidate in Portland on Friday (after flying commercial, I'm told), trimmed his luxuriant salt-and-pepper locks and then returned to Washington the same night. But because of light breezes on Saturday, Kerry's windsurfing photo op never came off.

It was unclear yesterday how much the haircut cost, or who paid: the husband of Heinz ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry or the Kerry campaign. Kerry communications director Stephanie Cutter didn't respond to my detailed E-mail and voice-mail messages.

Goetz - who's a popular and busy woman in the Washington salon of celebrity-stylist Cristophe - told The Washington Post three years ago that she typically charged Kerry $75 for a haircut. But that 2001 fee would not have included a last-minute round-trip plane ticket (today around $1,450 for a coach seat on American Airlines) or a whole day of Goetz's valuable time.

Remember yesterday when Kerry tried to claim that his fellow wind-surfers included plumbers and construction workers? How many of them have hairdressers? As anyone who knows me can testify, I'm probably very jealous of the fact that Kerry was blessed with genes that allow him to avoid thinking about Rogaine. But let's be honest here -- how many plumbers go to see a hairdresser, let alone a French-born one?

Maybe she's one of the foreign leaders Kerry was talking about when he said foreign leaders support him. But then, her picture should appear on their official website.

Held Hostage by... Bees?

Featured Instigator Kevin Downing is on the verge of having his own feature at this site. His latest is a story that scares the holy hell out of yours truly, who has never been stung by a bee...

Kids throwing rocks stirred up more trouble than they bargained for when
they dislodged a swarm of bees from an enormous hive built in the wall of a
Southern California apartment building, authorities said on Friday.

An estimated 120,000 bees held residents of the apartment building and
nearby homes hostage in Santa Ana, California after the children pelted their
500 pound (227 kg) hive with rocks on Thursday, Santa Ana Fire Captain Steve
Horner said.

...An exterminator later fogged the hive and vacuumed out 40,000 dead bees,
then set a trap for returning worker bees, of which about 80,000 were captured,
Horner said.

The quarter-ton honeycomb, which may have accumulated inside the apartment
wall for years, was so big it was threatening the structural integrity of the
two-story building, Horner said.

We're checking with civil engineering authorities to see whether that last line was accurate. One would think this will probably lead to efforts by the California legislature to ban bees, since they have enough time on their hands to ban the names of high school mascots.

John Kerry, Defender of Civil Liberties... Not

We've all seen Kerry's efforts over the past few months to portray John Ashcroft and the Bush Justice Department as a group of evildoers intent on breaking down doors and destroying the privacy rights of most Americans. I guess we should laud Kerry for his consistency on the issue, since he was always critical of Janet Reno... wait, I guess he never really condemned Janet Reno. Hmmm, just one more flip-flop. At least he's consistent about flip-flopping.

But the online libertarian magazine Reason offers us this analysis of Kerry's efforts in the civil liberties area, contrasting his efforts in the U.S. Senate with those of the left's favorite bogeyman, John Ashcroft...

In his 2004 campaign book, A Call to Service, Kerry accuses Ashcroft and the Bush administration of "relying far too much on extraordinary police powers."

In contrast, Kerry positions himself as a civil libertarian—or at least as a proponent of a reasonable balance between liberty and security. "If we are to stand as the world's role model for freedom, we need to remain vigilant about our own civil liberties," Kerry writes in A Call to Service. He calls for "rededicating ourselves to protecting civil liberties."

Kerry, like every other senator in the chamber except Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), voted for the USA PATRIOT Act in the wake of 9/11. Now he is now co-sponsoring the SAFE Act, a bipartisan measure that restricts some of the powers that the PATRIOT Act granted the government. Furthermore, he is critical of the package of proposals from Ashcroft's Department of Justice (DOJ) that has been dubbed Patriot II.

...This isn't the first time Kerry and Ashcroft have been at odds over civil liberties. In the 1990s, government proposals to restrict encryption inspired a national debate. Then as now, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and electronic privacy groups locked horns with the DOJ and law enforcement agencies. Then as now, Kerry and Ashcroft were on opposite sides. But there was noteworthy difference in those days. Then it was Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) who argued alongside the ACLU in favor of the individual's right to encrypt messages and export encryption software. Ashcroft "was kind of the go-to guy for all of us on the Republican side of the Senate," recalls David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

And in what now seems like a bizarre parallel universe, it was John Kerry who was on the side of the FBI, the National Security Agency, and the DOJ. Ashcroft's predecessor at the Justice Department, Janet Reno, wanted to force companies to create a "clipper chip" for the government—a chip that could "unlock" the encryption codes individuals use to keep their messages private. When that wouldn't fly in Congress, the DOJ pushed for a "key escrow" system in which a third-party agency would have a "backdoor" key to read encrypted messages.

In the meantime, the Clinton administration classified virtually all encryption devices as "munitions" that were banned from export, putting American business at a
disadvantage. In 1997 Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain pushed the Secure Public Networks Act through his committee. This bill would have codified
the administration's export ban and started a key escrow system. One of his original co-sponsors was his fellow Vietnam vet and good friend from across the aisle, John Kerry.

Proponents such as McCain and Kerry claimed that law enforcement could not get the key from any third-party agency without a court order. Critics responded that there were loopholes in the law, that it opened the door to abuses, and that it punished a technology rather than wrongdoers who used that technology. Some opponents argued that the idea was equivalent to giving the government an electronic key to everyone's home. "To date, we have heard a great deal about the needs of law enforcement and not enough about the privacy needs of the rest of us," said then-Sen. Ashcroft in a 1997 speech to the Computer and Communications Industry Association. "While we need to revise our laws to reflect the digital age, one thing that does not need revision is the Fourth Amendment... Now, more than ever, we must protect citizens' privacy from the excesses of an arrogant, overly powerful government."

But John Kerry would have none of this. He had just written The New War, a book about the threat of transnational criminal organizations, and he was singing a different tune on civil liberties. Responding directly to a column in Wired on encryption that said "trusting the government with your privacy is like having a Peeping Tom install your window blinds," Kerry invoked the Americans killed in 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. "[O]ne would be hard-pressed," he wrote, "to find a single grieving relative of those killed in the bombings of the World Trade Center in New York or the federal building in Oklahoma City who would not have gladly sacrificed a measure of personal privacy if it could have saved a loved one."

What's amazing about this is that Kerry now condemns the Patriot Act as too far-reaching... and the Patriot Act doesn't even include a provision similar to the one in the 1997 bill Kerry championed. As the article makes clear, Kerry's zealous pursuit of criminals in the face of privacy concerns wasn't unusual...

Even a semi-sympathetic review in the liberal Washington Monthly called [Kerry's book] The New War "a kind of international edition of Reefer Madness," referring to the notoriously overwrought anti-drug movie of the 1930s. Kerry is a drug warrior, and after having discovered some genuine instances of bad guys' stashing their money at the $23 billion Bank of Credit and Commerce International, an international financial institution that was shut down in 1991 by various countries' bank regulators, he became a crusader against banks holding "dirty money." (BCCI had dealings with drug lords, Saddam Hussein, the PLO, and the KGB.) While it may be too much to ask a major-party presidential candidate to ponder drug prohibition's contribution to dirty money, Kerry's solution to money laundering was—and is—to deputize banks and force them to spy on all their customers.

Many on the left and right worried about overreach from the federal "Know Your Customer" regulations of 1997-98, which would have required banks to monitor every customer's "normal and expected transactions." Those proposed rules were eventually withdrawn after the ACLU, the Libertarian Party, and other groups generated more than 100,000 comments in opposition. But from his writings and statements, John Kerry seemed worried that the regulations did not go far enough. "If the standards by which banks accept money were lived up to with the same diligence as that by which most banks lend money, the 'know your customer' maxim would have teeth," he wrote in The New War. "But too many bankers pretend they are doing all they can to know what money crosses their threshold and pretend they are not as key as they are to law-enforcement efforts."

Kerry then expressed his belief that bank customers are entitled to essentially zero privacy. "The technology is already available to monitor all electronic money transfers," he wrote (emphasis added). "We need the will to make sure it is put in place."

What's different since then is that 9/11 took place, and one can make the argument that someone like Ashcroft may have seen the need for expanded governmental power in order to protect public safety. But Kerry has seemingly lurched in the opposite direction, which seems even more amazing, until one realizes the political opportunism at work in the act.

Maybe this is why Kerry doesn't like talking about his Senate record.

Ummmm... McWeed

Featured Instigator Kevin Downing continues to provide information that needs to be brought to light, as per this wonderful story from my wonderful hometown... somewhere on the Internet, some enterprising pothead is complaining about how the dope would be one of the helathier items on a Mickey D menu...

Customers got more than burgers at a Montgomery County fast-food eatery, and the manager has now pleaded guilty to serving marijuana to take-out and eat-in customers.

Denise Stilwagon put new meaning in the phrase "Happy Meal" as she peddled pot along with Big Macs at a McDonald's in Ambler last fall.

But word of the ten-dollar bags got out, and soon Stilwagon was dealing with an undercover detective who bought grass from her at the McDonald's. She also delivered to him at a Lansdale Burger King. Stilwagon has now pleaded guilty and has been sentenced to time already served plus four years of probation. Her boyfriend and supplier, James Harry, has also pleaded guilty and been sentenced to 90 days.

Meanwhile, Stilwagon is staying productive. She has another job, this time at another area fast-food shop.

D'oh!

As a Simpsons fan, it barely gets any better than this -- check out the D.C. Department of Health's logo. As Homer once pointed out, "America's health care system is second only to... Japan, Canada, Sweden, Great Britain, well, all of Europe, but you can thank your lucky stars we don't live in Paraguay!"

A tip o' the hat to Brainwash, which spotted the logo first.

The Sports Rant

by the world's least dangerous man

I suppose that I'm supposed to say a word or two about the Olympics. Unfortunately, there's not much to say.

Look, the Olympic ideal just seems a little corrupted when it's nothing more than network programming and corporate shilling. Not that I have a problem with that in any way, but I just get tired of people placing the Olympics on some sort of exalted pedestal above other sporting events and competitions. Besides, if our kids aren't beating the Commies, it's hard to get excited. I'm waiting for the NFL to start for real and the Phillies to complete their latest collapse. Any spare time I have is devoted to dealing with important things, like watching Comedy Central.

With that being said, I do have the following observations, one for each of the rings. In no particular order:

1. The Opening Ceremonies are much more entertaining when a group of guys are watching them and taking every opportunity to rip Katie Couric.

2. Bob Costas' thinly veiled sarcasm about Bjork's dress during the Opening Ceremonies almost redeemed his overt politeness to Katie.

3. Men's gymnasts must have some sort of brainwashing done to overcome their fears of the pommel horse. Either that or a frontal lobotomy, because the possibility of injury is too gruesome to even consider.

4. 130,000 condoms and 30,000 tubes of lubricant were handed out to the athletes. I guess they're not following Rocky Balboa's training regimen.

5. Our Olympic men's basketball team, assembled by the idiots at NBA Central, somehow lost to Puerto Rico. Which brings up an important question -- why does Puerto Rico get its own Olympic team? Will the men's basketball team lose to North Dakota next?

The Top Ten Responses to the DNC

The Democratic National Committee's little minions are walking around Washington, D.C. in their red shirts, asking everyone, "Would you like to help elect John Kerry?" We're gratified that they now have shifted to actually promoting their candidate, rather than simply attacking the President. But it still seems rather silly to put these folks out on the steets of DC -- even Walter Mondale won D.C., for crying out loud.

But, in the interests of fairness, we now have our list of Top Ten Responses to the DNC Kids... feel free to use them, but speak slowly, because they're Democrats, and as we all know, Democrats lack a sense of humor...

Top Ten Responses to DNC Staffers in Red Shirts Asking If You Want to Help Elect John Kerry...

10. No, I refuse to vote in any of these illegitimate elections, until Al Gore is restored to his rightful place as President.

9. Sorry, my mind is made up. I'm voting for Nader, and I convinced my grandmother and her 200 friends in that Florida nursing home to follow suit.

8. No thank you, but where can I can get a red shirt like that? I've been looking for something to clean up after my new puppy. I assume Senator Kerry uses those things to clean up after his running mate.

7. Well, I watched Michael Moore's movie, and he convinced me -- he needs to go on a diet.

6. I think I'd be willing to say yes, but only if I smoked some crack and fell down a flight of stairs first. But I'd definitely consider it at that point.

5. I've been looking for a candidate who served in Vietnam and brags about it incessantly, has great hair and a snobby attitude, likes French people better than Americans, cannot make a decision to save his life, and has a really annoying wife. But I'm still wondering if John Kerry is the man for me. He just doesn't seem committed enough to bragging about his war service, or to his hair care.

4. I will, but only if he comes out of the closet, like that brave New Jersey Governor did! Will he come out of the closet? Well, why not? Is he a bigot or something?

3. I'm searching for a candidate who favors repealing stalking laws. Those have given me such a problem. Can the Senator help me out on this issue?

2. I'm glad you're making is so easy for me to accomplish my mission. Attorney General Ashcroft thought it might be difficult to track down and kill all the dissenters.

And the #1 Response to DNC Staffers in Red Shirts Asking If You Want to Help Elect John Kerry...

1. I heard he served in Vietnam, but didn't we lose that war? Why would we want to elect a guy who loses wars?

The John Kerry Post of the Day

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

Ah, John Kerry, the man who is at one with the common man. He even purues the same leisure-time activities that the rest of us do, as noted by ABC News' Noted Now...

Undeterred by the lack of wind that thwarted his plans to windsurf in Oregon on Saturday, Kerry said on his plane that he would return to Oregon from Idaho on Monday or Tuesday to windsurf on the Columbia River Gorge.

"Once a year I like to do something fun," he said.

Throughout his campaign, Kerry has made it clear that he is not ready to cede to President Bush what Steve Rosenthal, the former political director of the AFL-CIO, once called "the hang test."

So whether it's been shooting pheasant, playing hockey, tossing a football, or riding a Harley, Kerry has been presented to the public as fun-loving, athletic, outdoorsy, and, most importantly, the kind of Democrat who crosses the "testosterone threshold" needed to be commander-in-chief.

But the exotic nature of some of the sports he plays (say, kite-surfing in Nantucket) and the great lengths he goes in order to play them (say, flying from Idaho to Oregon to windsurf), can have the unintended effect of making him seem out of touch with the hard-pressed middle class whose cares he says have been his concern.

As his plane was flying from Oregon to Idaho on Saturday, Kerry defended his taste in sports, saying, "The guys who do it are all local guys -- plumbers, construction workers."

Asked if these regular folks fly from one state to another, the husband of the condiment heiress downplayed the cost, saying, "What? 250 bucks for a ticket?"

Luckily for Kerry, the moment was not on camera. But it was the kind of moment -- if captured on camera -- that could undo months of work. (Think of George H.W. Bush looking perplexed at a super-market scanner in 1992).

What's truly hysterical about this line is that this IS the real John Kerry, to the extent there is one. He's a pompous, arrogant snob who's accustomed to ahigh-class lifestlye. Not that we're saying this disqualifies someone from being President -- the 42nd President wasn't anything close to a snob, but he wasn't all that great a person either. So maybe a snob isn't the worst thing to be if you're President... but the American people tend not be impressed by snobbery.

Kerry's line about construction workers and plumbers betrays a certain inability to comprehend the obvious. To him, this sort of vacation is a normal pursuit, one he engages in several times a year. Once he'll fly to Oregon, another time he'll hit his ski chalet in Wyoming, another time he'll vacation in Nantucket. Most construction workers and plumbers who like to get out and ski may find time for one trip a year, but they're usually busy trying to pay off the mortgage and working the rest of the year. Well, unless they married multi-billionaire heiresses. Unfortunately, there aren't many of those around.

What's even funnier is the other lines in the article...

Sen. John Kerry, resting for three days in Ketchum, Idaho, is coming off of a warmly received 15-day post-convention tour that brought him into contact with 300,000 people in 17 states.

For starters, he appears to have grown as a candidate. Kerry, who once grumbled "Dean, Dean, Dean" into an open-mic in the fall of 2003 when the former Vermont governor was outshining him, doggedly talked about issues of local concern on this trip.

In just the past week, Kerry talked about health care for Native Americans in New Mexico, funding for National Parks in Arizona, blocking nuclear waste and lowering the cost of prescription drugs in Nevada, cutting taxes for the middle class in California, and a new CBO report he says shows that President Bush's tax cuts have greatly favored the wealthy.

Kerry was also nimble in responding to attacks from the other side. While Kerry was out on his tour, President Bush challenged him to answer "yes or no" to whether he -- knowing what he knows now -- would vote again to authorize the president to use force against Iraq. It was a question that Kerry had dodged in the past.

But while visiting the Grand Canyon on Monday, Kerry, perhaps feeling firm in his hold on Democrats opposed to the Iraq war, said, "Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have." While holding firm to the need to hold Saddam Hussein "accountable," Kerry has also managed to step up his references to bringing the troops home. "I know what we need to do now to get the troops home," Kerry told a cheering crowd of thousands at UNLV on Tuesday after restating what he called his "consistent" support for standing up to Hussein.

Kerry's comments have blocked his opponents from easily painting him as a weak-kneed liberal while holding out hope for anti-war Democrats that a President Kerry would only go to war as a "last resort."

When Vice President Cheney mocked Kerry this week for having recently told a conference of minority journalists that he would fight a more "sensitive" war on terror, Kerry avoided being thrown on the defensive.

He told ABC's Dan Harris in Carson, California that it's "sad that they can only be negative." He reminded a crowd of 10,000 in Medford, Oregon that he defended his country as a young man "when others chose not to." And he told a man in Springfield, Oregon who was afraid to use the word sensitive because "George Bush had screwed that word up": "Don't for an instant be shy about using the word sensitive... If you don't speak your mind, you shouldn't be President of the United States. And I intend to be President of the United States."

Um, yeah. This heartland tour has been so brilliant that the polls haven't moved a whit, as noted by faithful reader RB. Yet the press desperately continues to try to portray Kerry as a man of the people, touching them enough that they're starting to fall for him. The press continues to ignore the Christmas in Cambodia story. Other than the estemmed Robert Novak in the Chicago Sun-Times and an odd article in papers like the Seattle Times, the mainstream press seems obsessed with ignoring the story or simply reporting about the controversy surrounding the ad put forth by the Swift Boat vets.

Or the press, as Chris Mathews put forth in his attack interview with John O'Neill last week, attempts to discredit the Swift Boat vets. Take special note of the sections in italics:

MATTHEWS: No, I mean, if a man shows any courage in the battlefield, he‘s done more than most people do in this country. He‘s gone out and fought for his country and risked his life for his country and shot one of the enemy for his country. That puts him a step above most people, doesn‘t it?

O‘NEILL: I think he is millions of steps behind, because he went over...

MATTHEWS: Behind whom?

O‘NEILL: Behind everybody.

MATTHEWS: You mean Bush? President Bush?

O‘NEILL: Yes. I‘m not going to speak to President Bush.

MATTHEWS: No, because you‘re out here as a proactive indicter of this guy‘s war record. You‘ve chosen to take this role, to write this book, to get these allies to make these case. You‘re a Republican from Texas. You‘re making this case against the guy. And I‘m simply saying, you can‘t just go out here and take these shots without being responded to by me. I‘m going to ask you, is he less a hero than Bush?

O‘NEILL: And I would like to answer, if you‘ll give me a chance.

MATTHEWS: Sure. Sure. Plenty of time. Take all the time you want.

O‘NEILL: First of all, I‘m not a Republican from Texas. That‘s just not true. Second, with respect to what he did, we don‘t challenge that he went ashore that day. With respect to overall, he had very limited accomplishments in the short period he was in Vietnam and he came back here and delivered almost a death blow to the U.S. military by lying.

MATTHEWS: OK, that‘s another issue. We‘ll get to that issue.

O‘NEILL: Just a second.

MATTHEWS: That‘s why you‘re mad at him.

O‘NEILL: Absolutely not. First of all, I believe that his comments and the war crimes claims back here were absolutely wrong. And I‘ll never forget those. Neither will the guys.

MATTHEWS: What war crimes?

O‘NEILL: His claims that U.S. troops committed war crimes on a day-to-day basis, that we were like Genghis Khan. But a wholly separate issue is, did exaggerate his service in Vietnam? And my answer to that is, clearly he did.

MATTHEWS: But you have a record going back yourself. But you go back to the Nixon era, when Nixon was looking for someone. Colson and those guys were looking for somebody to debunk the Kerry record, because all the records show they were scared to death of this guy. And you played that role. You close to play that role.

O‘NEILL: Once...

MATTHEWS: I‘m sorry. I don‘t want to get...

O‘NEILL: That‘s just not true.

MATTHEWS: By the way, disabuse the public who are watching right now what I‘m wrong about. Where do you live?

O‘NEILL: I live in Houston, Texas.

MATTHEWS: OK, you‘re a Texan. Have you voted Democrat recently for president?

O‘NEILL: Absolutely. I haven‘t voted for a Republican since 1988. As a matter of fact, I just backed the Democratic mayor of Houston, Bill White.

MATTHEWS: OK, so you‘ve voted—you‘re generally a Republican or a Democrat when it comes to voting for president?

O‘NEILL: It depends on the person, Chris.

MATTHEWS: Did you vote for Clinton?

O‘NEILL: No, actually.

MATTHEWS: Did you vote for Gore?

O‘NEILL: I voted for Perot twice.

MATTHEWS: OK. Did you vote for Gore?

O‘NEILL: I voted for Gore. I voted for Gore. I don‘t know really why I should go into my voting record.

MATTHEWS: No, because it comes down to the question. We‘re going over the issue here of you going after a guy‘s war record and admitting he was courageous in battle, but then arguing about the nature of the way he was awarded the Silver Star. I‘m just wondering why you‘re doing this.

O‘NEILL: Well, the reason I‘m doing it is, he wildly exaggerated two things. He wildly exaggerated his record, which...

MATTHEWS: Well, let‘s start with that. We‘re going down the record.

O‘NEILL: Can I finish answering the question?

The next time some idiot claims O'Reilly is unfair to his guests, remember this passage. It's scary how offended Mathews is by the mere implication that some of Kerry's own fellow veterans would have the nerve to question his war record. He actively jumps to Kerry's defense, and does so by engaging in the same pathetic attacks on the credibility of O'Neill, who's merely chronicled the tales of his fellow vets. We're just supposed to take it on faith that John Kerry's telling the truth! The critical viewpoint of him is simply not worthy of examination.

Yet most mainstream news outlets like the Washington Post, CNN and the left-wing dishrag had absolutely no qualms about handing out positive reviews to Michael Moore's crockumentary, which had more questionable facts than anything put forth by the Swift Boat Vets. But we're sitting here, at least one week after the Cambodia story became major news, and these places try to dismiss the story or ignore it.

Which basically leaves it to the blogosphere to publicize... and build a rumor mill that may end up hurting Kerry more than anything. After all, Unfit for Command is still #1 on the best-seller list at Amazon. The press can't ignore it forever, which is why the Seattle Times picked up the aforementioned piece by Knight-Ridder. But don't expect the press to give up now. As Evan Thomas of Newsweek noted last month:

There's one other base here, the media. Let's talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win and I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards I'm talking about the establishment media, not Fox. They're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and there's going to be this glow about them, collective glow, the two of them, that's going to be worth maybe 15 points.

And with those fifteen points, he's in a dead heat. Great campaign, Senator.