Talk About Moonlighting

I'm guessing that this isn't that unusual in California...

When his mother found out what porn star Ron Miller does for a living, she was heartbroken. She never wanted him to be a criminal defense lawyer.

"My mother cried a lot about that," Miller said recently between appearances defending accused felons at a Los Angeles courthouse. She had hoped he would be a high-rolling civil litigator,

Miller, who appears in adult videos as "Don Hollywood," has carved out a special niche of notoriety on the fringe of Hollywood's dream factory. In a town where many long to quit their day jobs for the glamour of a career in entertainment, he has managed a unique dual track: litigator and porn star.

Miller makes his rounds at the Van Nuys courthouse three days a week with a certain extravagance of manner and a diamond ear stud that set him apart from the rumpled lawyers with whom he has shared a counsel table for the past 30 years.

At a recent court appearance, he sported a black pinstriped suit and crocodile-skin cowboy boots, with case files under his arm and a defender's zeal in his heavy-lidded blue eyes.

I wear that same outfit to the office every day.

Tell The FEC What You Think

If you use the Internet to express your political opinion, the FEC's rules that will attempt to regulate you (all within the ambit of that piece of trash known as McCain-Feingold) are within their notice and comment period. Both right and left are on the case. Drop an e-mail to the FEC, and make your voice heard.

Blogging While Commuting is Next

The Lord of Truth introduces us to a blogger who rants about her commute, a brilliant idea that should have occurred to yours truly. The things I've said in my car, while stuck in traffic... well, let's just say that I'm less polite than usual. As for the Commuterrant blogger, she's not simply limited to blogging about her commute...

Why do people use their cell phones to call others and talk about NOTHING? Before cell phones came along, we didn't call one another to talk about coffee. Or broccoli. We called when we had something important to communicate, or wanted to catch up. We never called someone and said, "Where are you?" because it was pretty clear that the person on the other end of the line was, in fact, in the place where you called him or her. And we never asked, "What are you doing?" because the person we had called was, in fact, talking on the phone - and only talking on the phone - and we knew it. She wasn't driving, eating, on the bus, in the library, in a restaurant, shopping for tampons, or simultaneously doing at least three of those activities while answering the phone.


And why do people talk on their cell phones in decibel levels far above normal conversation? It's as if, when they pick up that phone, they lose all sense of privacy and personal space. I have overheard deeply personal things coming out of mouths that are mere millimeters from my face: I heard all about the unplanned pregnancy, the date with the convicted felon, the heartbreak of psoriasis. But, more often, I have heard people spending precious time talking about the most mundane minutiae of their lives.

I was in line at Starbucks last week and there was a woman behind me, her ever-yammering mouth approximately half-an-inch from the back of my neck. She could not stop calling people, desperate to fill the void during the 5-minute wait. The second one call ended, she started another. It was the usual cell phone soliloquy:

"Where are you? What are you doing?...I'm at Starbucks. I said I'M AT STARBUCKS. Hello? Wait a minute; you're breaking up. Hello? Can you hear me now?" First she talked to her husband about her son. Then she called her son to tell him that she had just talked to his father and that he'd better do his homework. "What are you doing? Where are you? I'm at Starbucks. Do your homework...I said DO YOUR HOMEWORK."

It's her own fault for entering the wretched hive of scum and villiany known as Starbucks. In any case, she should look at it this way -- we're all simply waiting for the day when they prove cell phones cause cancer, at which point many people die and several lawyers get rich. Hey, I'm just trying to make her feel better.

In The Next Issue, O.J. Hunts For The Real Killers

For those who don't know, Wojr is a comic book aficionado. This allows him the opportunity to make discoveries from other blogs like this...

On Free Comic Book Day, I dug around in the quarter bin at my local book shop and found what might be the worst comic book ever. It's He Said/She Said #5: The OJ Simpson Story. Take a look at the cover and just let that sink in for a little bit.

...The scariest thing about the book though, is that it's number five in a series. Issue one is the Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafucco story.

The Tonya Harding-Jeff Gilooly cover was the one that left me in stitches. You know, this comic book series is actually a pretty good digest of the 1990's -- which says a lot about that decade.

Somehow, This Won't Get Much Press on Bastille Day

Top foreign correspondent JK lets us in on a little secret -- the rest of Europe finds the French annoying, too...

Typically, the French refuse to accept what arrogant, overbearing monsters they are.

But now after the publication of a survey of their neighbours' opinions of them at least they no longer have any excuse for not knowing how unpopular they are.

Why the French are the worst company on the planet, a wry take on France by two of its citizens, dredges up all the usual evidence against them. They are crazy drivers, strangers to customer service, obsessed by sex and food and devoid of a sense of humour.

But it doesn't stop there, boasting a breakdown, nation by nation, of what in the French irritates them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Britons described them as "chauvinists, stubborn, nannied and humourless". However, the French may be more shocked by the views of other nations.

For the Germans, the French are "pretentious, offhand and frivolous". The Dutch describe them as "agitated, talkative and shallow." The Spanish see them as "cold, distant, vain and impolite" and the Portuguese as "preaching". In Italy they comes across as "snobs, arrogant, flesh-loving, righteous and self-obsessed" and the Greeks find them "not very with it, egocentric bons vivants".

Interestingly, the Swedes consider them "disobedient, immoral, disorganised, neo-colonialist and dirty".

But the knockout punch to French pride came in the way the poll was conducted. People were not asked what they hated in the French, just what they thought of them.

"Interviewees were simply asked an open question - what five adjectives sum up the French," said Olivier Clodong, one of the study's two authors and a professor of social and political communication at the Ecole Superieur de Commerce, in Paris. "The answers were overwhelmingly negative."

That first sentance is hysterical, if not quite journalistically unbiased. I'm also stunned the Germans didn't have more complimentary terms, like "cooperative" and "willing to lay down at the drop of a hat." It's also funny to see Italians describing the French as "flesh-loving."

But maybe the depressing truth for Frenchmen is that they're disliked by others in the world, when they care so much about world opinion. At least many Americans (like myself) don't particularly mind if the world can't stand us.

What Annoying Song is Stuck in My Head Today?

If I need to suffer with a song stuck in my head, why shouldn't you have to do the same? Sometimes they're good, most times they're bad... but no matter what, they make you suffer. So I like to share the suffering whenever it happens.

You remember the days before the iPod (for most of you) or XM (for me) when the same song received airplay on radio stations for days on end? I think they used to do this with Green Day back in the 1990's as well. Now they're doing it with their latest hit, which I heard approximately 25 times the other day.

Here's Boulevard of Broken Dreams...

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

You're welcome.

Ah, Memories

The Lord of Truth sends along a reminder of final exam week in college...

Two Waterville, Maine teenagers are in hot water after one was arrested for allegedly skateboarding nude through the center of town as his friend videotaped the stunt.

NewsCenter 5's Ed Harding reported that Jason Bowbly, 18, allegedly skateboarded through a parking lot about 4 p.m. on Friday, May 13, clad only with a strategically placed sock puppet.

The Villanova quad in 1994 had a similar incident that did not involve yours truly, but a fraternity brother who tried a similar stunt with a cape and roller blades. He should have escaped, if the person manning the side door to our dorm hadn't forgotten to be there to open it for him (no, not me). He wasn't dumb enough to videotape it, but having 150 or so witnesses probably hurt his cause.

And no, he wasn't a pledge at the time. A pledge wouldn't have been wearing a cape.

Newsweek and The Press Defense

You all may recall yesterday's post about Newsweek and the mainstream media's efforts to circle the wagons and protect their own by waging a verbal battle with White House press secretary Scott McClellan. It turns out that first reporter to raise the issue was ABC's Terry Moran, who had the guts to go on Hugh Hewitt's radio show yesterday and discuss his questions with Hugh. The transcript provides some insight. There's two exchanges I particularly found enlightening...

HH: I've been a broadcaster for fifteen years. I know demagoguery when I hear it. That's not.

TM: But you practice it.

HH: I do not practice it. I practice good journalism, which is to represent I'm no better than any other American citizen. As a journalist, I don't have...

TM: You're no better than any other American citizen?

HH: Absolutely not. And if the president wants to criticize me, if a Democrat...for example, when Bill Clinton went after Rush Limbaugh, I didn't mind that at all. That's just fine. Rush got a great deal of attention out of it, and the criticism falls where it may. I don't understand...

TM: Well, I defend Rush Limbaugh as well from that.

HH: Why are you guys so thin-skinned? Why don't you understand the contempt the White House press corps is held in by the American public?

TM: Well, I do understand that. I understand it both on the right, people who don't want any kind of challenge to the president they support, and people on the left who think we went easy on the president.

The implied point in Moran's question to Hugh is that he does think he's better than the rest of us. Yeesh -- is there any wonder people don't like the media? There's a fair point to be made, which is that one can counter-balance my points and the views of the man on the street against those of Moran by comparing our resumes to that of Moran, who's had years of experience working in the media around the world.

But Moran's nuts if he thinks that the media practices some black art beyond the ken of the average person. Press people may be able to bring additional insight to an issue related to media ethics, but they don't hesitate to hammer other professions when the opportunity presents itself. Plenty of journalists are perfectly willing off their opinions on activities taking place within other professions without having the necessary expertise to do so. I actually don't have a problem with that, as long as they don't pretend that they're offering straight news. But I don't think I need to be working within the media industry to reach the conclusion that Newsweek was wrong.

There's an even more revealing quote later in the transcript (emphasis added)...

HH: Let me ask you something. Major K, a major in the Army who is reporting from Iraq on his blog all the time says, all this being said, it is no small wonder that a gulf has opened between journalists and the general public. I think even the most John Q. Sixpacks know when they are being fed a line of blank blank blank. My brother called me a journalist once during a conversation about this blog. I was offended. That is a general impression among the American military about the media, Terry. Where does that come from?

TM: It comes from, I think, a huge gulf of misunderstanding, for which I lay plenty of blame on the media itself. There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong. I think that that is a hangover from Vietnam, and I think it's very dangerous. That's different from the media doing it's job of challenging the exercise of power without fear or favor.

Wow. Give Moran credit for admitting this. Now let's see if the press can report it and understand that it's part of the reason the American people hold the media in such low regard.

Dropping the Bomb

It's getting closer...

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday began formal debate on Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen's nomination for a seat on the federal appeals court, moving the chamber one step closer to a historic vote on the future of the judicial filibuster.

"We're going to spend whatever time is necessary to debate all the issues, to really exhaust the discussion on these candidates," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., told reporters Tuesday before submitting Owen's name to the Senate for a confirmation vote.

The long-anticipated floor debate is a prologue to Frist's efforts to invoke the "nuclear option," a parliamentary maneuver that, if successful, would subsequently preclude all filibusters of federal circuit court and Supreme Court nominees.

At the same time, negotiations continued apace by a half-dozen or more moderate senators from both parties to find a solution that will avoid the nuclear option.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has said that if the judicial filibuster is eliminated, his party would bring much of the Senate's business to a halt. Given the Senate's need for unanimous consent for even the simplest actions, that threat could be easy to carry out.

Frist set a schedule Wednesday that calls for each party to alternate one hour of debate on both Owen and, presumably, the validity of the judicial filibuster itself.

Formal debate was set to end at 7:45 p.m. EDT, Wednesday. It was not immediately clear whether debate on Owen, first nominated just more than four years ago for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, will continue today or even until Friday.

All the compromise negotiations should fail. It's well past time for compromise from the Democrats, who chose to play for the GOP to fold for far too long. A smart Democratic Senate leader might have negotiatied a compromise after his party got its clock cleaned in the November elections. Now Bill Frist needs to move, because the people who support his party the most are ready to go the mat on this issue.

Even better, the idiots at MoveOn have launched a new ad campaign against the nuclear option and Frist that uses imagery comparing Frist to Emperor Palpatine from Revenge of the Sith. Here's my favorite part...

The Senate debate over the filibuster is set to begin today; the sixth "Star Wars" movie will begin showing Thursday at midnight. MoveOn said its ads will be shown on CNN.

In a related part of its campaign to preserve the filibuster, which allows Democratic senators to block votes for President Bush's judicial nominees. MoveOn also will send volunteers to some of the more than 3,700 theaters showing the film. Once there, the volunteers will urge moviegoers to call their senators to endorse the filibuster.

Oh, yeah, that will work. I can't wait to see theater owners escort these idiots out onto the front sidewalk. it's funny that I'm in agreement with the LA Times on this one...

We usually like it when centrist senators like John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) try to galvanize the sensible center on behalf of some compromise, but we sincerely hope they fail in their attempt to preserve the Senate's filibuster. Count this page on the side of conservative social activists who are pushing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to "nuke" the filibuster.

We don't share these activists' enthusiasm for the White House judicial nominees triggering the current showdown. But we do believe that nominees are entitled to a vote on the floor of the Senate. The filibuster, an arcane if venerable parliamentary tactic that empowers a minority of 41 senators to block a vote, goes above and beyond those checks on majority power legitimately written into the Constitution.

The filibuster is an inherently reactionary instrument most famously used to block civil rights legislation for a generation. Democratic senators themselves decried the filibuster not long ago when they were in the majority and President Clinton's judicial nominees were being blocked.

Frist is on the verge of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. He plans to bring the nomination of Priscilla R. Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice, before the full Senate today. Democrats have blocked her nomination in the past, and Frist is now threatening to force a change in rules to prohibit filibusters of judicial nominees. That would be a great triumph for the American people.

Hey, maybe I spoke too soon. Maybe the Star Wars analogy does fit. We conservatives do seem to favor the Empire generally. So maybe in honor of Episode Three, let's get this taken care of -- today.

Newsweek and Wendy's

Loyal reader RB sends us the following Wall Street Journal editorial (subscription required)from the CEO of Wendy's regarding the entire fake "finger in the chili" incident. The article itself is not that enlightening, but RB proposes the following idea...

Now, substitute:
"US Military" for "Wendy's"
"reporter" for "customer"
"Gitmo" for "San Jose"
"flushing a Koran down a toilet" for "putting a human finger tip in a bowl of chili"

The result:
There's nothing quite as unnerving as becoming the target of fraud. For us at [the US Military], that nightmare became reality when a [reporter] falsely accused the [US Military] on [Gitmo] of [flushing a Koran down a toilet].

You can make similar substitutions throughout the article. It works surprisingly well.

All of this does nothing to obscure the fact that I'm a complete loser for bailing out on Revenge of the Sith last night due to illness. But it's still funny.

First, Let's Kill All the Lawyers

If it was Hitchcock, they would film it elsewhere...

Like a scene from the horror movie "The Birds," large black grackles are swooping down on downtown Houston and attacking people's heads, hair and backs.

Authorities closed off a sidewalk after the aggressive birds, which can have 2-foot wingspans, flew out of magnolia trees Monday in front of the County Administration Building.

"They were just going crazy," said constable Wilbert Jue, who works at the building. "They were attacking everybody that walked by."

The grackles zeroed in on a lawyer who shooed a bird away before he tripped and injured his face, Jue said. The lawyer was treated for several cuts.

It appears that the birds are protecting their offspring. On Monday a young grackle had fallen out of its nest and adult birds attacked people who got too close, Jue said.

I'm sure the rest of the world is rooting for the animals. Meanwhile, I'm sure the ABA will try to blame Tom DeLay.

Any Excuse for A Simpsons Quote

Wojr sends us another site whose name is just slightly misleading. Which allows us throw out another classic Simpsons quote...

Marge: "Homer, is this the way you pictured married life?"

Homer: "Yeah, pretty much... except that we drove around in a van solving mysteries."

Marge: (pause) "Homer, I want to throw a dinner party."

Homer: "Oh, I hate having parties. The toilet always gets backed up."

Marge: "I don't care if the sink shoots sludge. We're having a party."

(The next day, the Simpsons visit a store named... ahem.... "Stoner's Pot Palace.")

Otto: (walking out) "Man, that is flagrant false advertising!"

And I'm not even using the best jokes from that episode.

The Dems and Their Ponzi Scheme

Mort Kondracke is one of the most respected journalists around. Unlike most of them, he actually does call it like he sees it. And I'm praising Kondrack even though he's a man who's quite clearly to the left of center -- but he's also actually capable of demonstrating reason and objectivity. His column on the Democrats' decision to play like two year-olds on the Social Security issue -- since all they can say is "No!" -- is a terrific piece of advice...

It's time for Democrats to declare what kind of Social Security reform they favor. Even former President Bill Clinton thinks so. Yet the Democrats persist in attacking President Bush's ideas - often misleadingly.

Clinton told ABC's "Good Morning America" - in an exchange curiously not broadcast - "I think Democrats should say what they are for on Social Security in the next couple weeks. ... Democrats should have a plan and they should talk to the president and Congressional Republicans about it."

According to ABC's political blog, The Note, Clinton said he didn't think Democrats deserved criticism for not producing a plan yet and that they still had time to produce one. But he added, "I think they need to come up with a plan of their own."

Democrats had a good opportunity when the Ways and Means Committee launched Social Security hearings. But they blew it.

As in the past, all Democrats did was attack Bush's plan, demand that he take it "off the table" before any bargaining begins and question the bona fides of a Democratic expert, Robert Pozen, whose "progressive indexing" proposal the White House has endorsed.

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), the ranking member on Ways and Means, actually said he didn't care what the substance of Pozen's plan was. It was sufficient to disqualify Pozen that he's an investment banker.

Read the whole thing. Don't hold your breath waiting for the party of Pelosi to follow the advice. They think this 1930's Ponzi scheme is still a good idea. If they keep acting like this, it's pretty easy to see why they keep losing elections.

Why The Mainstream Press is Dying

The Newsweek story continues to amaze me.

There's so many angles on this thing that it leaves me wondering where the analysis will end. But it's Andrew Sullivan's amazing stance that takes the cake for insanity. Reading through Sullivan's litany of posts regarding this story, it appears that he's more offended by the lack of coverage regarding Abu Ghraib compared to the current Newsweek mess. Sullivan's almost on Dan rather's "fake-but-accurate" train.

There's a couple problems with Sullivan's stance in this case. First, Abu Ghraib was a huge story. By comparison, the mainstream press is trying desperately to relegate Newsweek's shoddy journalism to the back page. This may or may not be appropriate -- Abu Ghraib is a bigger story, but the press played the story to the point where people were sick of it. And as much as Andrew is openly angry about other reports of torture and even murder by U.S. agents, he's missing a basic point about the Newsweek story -- screwing up a story like this makes the public less likely to care or believe legitimate stories about torture and abuse.

Now, on to the press. The New Criterion has a great post about Scott McClellan's news conference today, where the White House press secretary had to battle idiot reporters who took offense at his suggestion that newsweek needed to do more than issue a tiny apology for its screwup...

But back to the Mighty Press with the Big Conscience. After Mr. McClellan had the temerity to suggest that Newsweek might want to help diffuse the homicidal cataract it sparked, one of our Guardians of Free Speech and the Public’s Right to Know (or was it the Public’s Right to No?) asked this:

Q: With respect, who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it’s appropriate for you, at that podium, speaking with the authority of the President of the United States, to tell an American magazine what they should print?

Mr. McClellan instantly tried to say that, no, he wasn’t presuming to tell Newsweek what to print, but that brave speaking-truth-to-power soul showed his mettle by repeatedly interrupting him:

MR. McCLELLAN: I’m not telling them. I’m saying that we would encourage them to help --

Q: You’re pressuring them.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I’m saying that we would encourage them --

Q: It’s not pressure?

MR. McCLELLAN: Look, this report caused serious damage to the image of the United States abroad. And Newsweek has said that they got it wrong. I think Newsweek recognizes the responsibility they have. We appreciate the step that they took by retracting the story. Now we would encourage them to move forward and do all that they can to help repair the damage that has been done by this report. And that’s all I’m saying. But, no, you’re absolutely right, it’s not my position to get into telling people what they can and cannot report.

You might have thought that would satisfy these chaps, but no: after wandering off onto a few other subjects, they came back to the Newsweek story.

Q: Are you asking them to write a story about how great the American military is; is that what you’re saying here?

MR. McCLELLAN: Elisabeth, let me finish my sentence. Our military --

Q: You’ve already said what you’re -- I know what -- how it ends.

Liz, Liz, whoever you are: you haven’t a clue about how it ends. And by the way, what would be wrong with “a story about how great the American military is”? Is there any better--I don’t mean better as a fighting force--they answer to that is, No, there is no other military that can hold a candle to the United States military.

Here's what Liz and her high-brow MSM friends are missing -- the American people love freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but they don't love the press. That's because the press doesn't share the ideals of the American people in many respects -- especially when it comes to respect for their own country.

It's a good thing when the press nails a huge story that shows the flaws in our government and in our military. But doing so with absolutely no respect for the fact that we're fighting a war leaves many Americans with a sour taste in our mouths -- because we think the press cares more about getting the scoop to make America look bad than caring about getting the story to help America live up to its ideals.

Better yet, acting holier-than-thou about Newsweek's mistake -- as if it's only Newsweek's business -- shows how out of touch with their customers these self-appointed elitist guardians of the press are. I don't care if the press thinks the White House is trying to edit Newsweek -- it's apparent Newsweek failed to do the job itself.

17 people are dead in the riots, the American military has been wrongly accused of committing offensive acts and our enemies in the war we're fighting now have new ammunition (that's not true) to argue that we're trying to destroy their religion. No, they're not right to riot. But that doesn't mean Newsweek is off the hook.

And if this will be the attitude of the mainstream press, they're more irrelevant than even I believed.

As Long As Jar-Jar Doesn't Get a Blog

Well, A.O. Scott at the New York Times thinks Episode III is the best of the four Star Wars movies Lucas directed. Normally, I'd be apprehensive about agreeing with the Times, but Scott also asserts that The Empire Strikes Back was the best of the original trilogy -- and he's dead-on in this assessment. Scott's review does note the political editorializing that Lucas throws in...

"This is how liberty dies - to thunderous applause," Padmé observes as senators, their fears and dreams of glory deftly manipulated by Palpatine, vote to give him sweeping new powers. "Revenge of the Sith" is about how a republic dismantles its own democratic principles, about how politics becomes militarized, about how a Manichaean ideology undermines the rational exercise of power. Mr. Lucas is clearly jabbing his light saber in the direction of some real-world political leaders. At one point, Darth Vader, already deep in the thrall of the dark side and echoing the words of George W. Bush, hisses at Obi-Wan, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." Obi-Wan's response is likely to surface as a bumper sticker during the next election campaign: "Only a Sith thinks in absolutes." You may applaud this editorializing, or you may find it overwrought, but give Mr. Lucas his due. For decades he has been blamed (unjustly) for helping to lead American movies away from their early-70's engagement with political matters, and he deserves credit for trying to bring them back.

Only a Sith thinks in absolutes. The internal contradictions of Lucas continue.

But I won't let that ruin the lovie. Besides, Darth Vader now has a blog. It figures, now that Arianna Huiffington has every B-list celebrity blogging, that Darth would get jealous. Then again, Darth has actual substance to his posts, unlike stuff like Walter Cronkite's attempt at blogging. Although I guess there's something entertaining about stupidity like Jim Lampley's election conspiracies. Although now I wonder if Lampley got hit by a few of the boxers he used to cover... or Lucas is using Jedi mind-control on him. Regardless, I'll read Vader more often.

Keep Screaming, Howard

The DNC Chairman is a doctor, but perhaps he should seek help from a mental health professional...

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Party, said yesterday that the US House majority leader, Tom DeLay, ''ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence," referring to allegations of unethical conduct against the Republican leader.

Dean's remark, in a speech to Massachusetts Democrats at their party convention, drew an immediate rebuke from US Representative Barney Frank, the Newton Democrat and one of DeLay's harshest critics. ''That's just wrong," Frank said in an interview on the convention floor. ''I think Howard Dean was out of line talking about DeLay. The man has not been indicted. I don't like him, I disagree with some of what he does, but I don't think you, in a political speech, talk about a man as a criminal or his jail sentence."

As Powerline notes, it's somewhat strange to see Barney Frank representing moderation. But that's where the Democrats now stand, with folks like Dean, Nancy Pelosi and Harry "He's a Loser" Reid in charge.

Maybe this is all a secret plan to make Hillary look like a moderate. Either that, or Karl Rove really does have the ability to mind-control the Democrats and make them act like idiots.

Another Limping Wildcat

Johnny Red lets us know that the more things change, the more they stay the same for our alma mater's basketball team...

Villanova junior forward Jason Fraser underwent successful microfracture surgery Wednesday on both knees.

Fraser will be unable to participate in basketball activities for at least four months.

"The operation went very well," Villanova team surgeon Dr. Rob Good said. "The recovery period all depends on how Jason heals. We are hopeful he will show improvement over the course of the summer. We will monitor his situation as he rehabilitates the knees over the next few months."

The surgery is the seventh for Fraser since coming to Villanova and the second time he has undergone double knee surgery. Last week, Fraser underwent surgery for a second time on the right hand he injured in a game at Providence on January 11.

"Jason has gone through more injuries than any player we have ever coached," Villanova coach Jay Wright said. "He has a great reservoir of faith and mental toughness. We are confident he will come back strong from this."

It's a tribute to Wright and his players, especially Fraser, that they keep coming back and fighting though all the pain and bad luck. I'm proud of these guys for their performance, but also for their effort, and I hope this team's attitude and passion rub off on the four freshman who will join up to provide us with some more depth.

No matter what happens next season (and there are very high expectations) these guys will give everything they've got. Here's hoping the reward is what we all want.

Not News, But Weak

It's a shame the U.S. government can't sue Newsweek...

Muslims in Afghanistan gave Washington three days to offer a response to a Newsweek story that claimed the Islamic holy book was desecrated at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, but the magazine apologized Sunday for the report, which prompted deadly riots across Afghanistan last week.

Reaction across the Islamic world has been strong, with daily demonstrations since the May 9 story came out. At least 15 people died in Afghanistan after protests broke out Tuesday following the report that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, placed Qurans in washrooms to unsettle suspects, and in one case "flushed a holy book down the toilet."

Many of the 520 inmates at Guantanamo are Muslims arrested during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, insults to the Quran and Islam's prophet, Muhammad, are regarded as blasphemy and punishable by death.

"The American soldiers are known for disrespect to other religions. They do not take care of the sanctity of other religions," Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the Pakistani chief of a coalition of radical Islamic groups, said Sunday.

Ahmed's comments came a day after Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, both allies of Washington, demanded an investigation and punishment for those behind the reported desecration of the Quran.

In Afghanistan, Islamic scholars and tribal elders called for the punishment of anyone found to have abused the Quran, said Maulawi Abdul Wali Arshad, head of the religious affairs department in Badakhshan province.

Arshad and the provincial police chief said the scholars met in Faizabad, 310 miles northeast of the capital, Kabul, and demanded a "reaction" from U.S. authorities within three days.

But Newsweek apologized in an editor's note for Monday's edition and said they were re-examining the allegations.

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst," Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker wrote.

It's beyond absurd that the story triggered riots, but consider that the next time the press tries to draw an analogy between the Christian right in this country and Islamic fundamentalists. The more important issue is that Newsweek raced a story into print that made the U.S. military and the Bush administration look bad, and the consequences have been horrific to say the least. Instapundit gets it right...

Two points: (1) If they had wrongly reported the race of a criminal and produced a lynching, they'd feel much worse -- which is why they generally don't report such things, a degree of sensitivity they don't extend to reporting on, you know, minor topics like wars; and (2) If a blogger had made a similar mistake, with similar consequences, we'd be hearing about Big Media's superior fact-checking and layers of editors.

People died, and U.S. military and diplomatic efforts were damaged, because -- let's be clear here -- Newsweek was too anxious to get out a story that would make the Bush Administration and the military look bad.

I should probably ignore the liberal news media aspect of this story and focus on the irresponsibility. The press fails to impose standards on itself, and as a result, it damages its own credibility. That's a problem for the press, obviously. Put it this way -- outside of photographic proof, who would believe a report about another Abu Ghraib type torture if Newsweek reported it now? Heck, after Rathergate, who's to say that pictures or documents are legitimate?

But again, that's an issue for the journalism profession. But when the damage also extends to U.S. foreign policy -- well, there's a concern for all of us. Plenty of concern has been expressed about the damage to U.S. credibility following the Iraq War and the erroneous reports regarding WMD. The government can move to reform erroneous intelligence -- but how's it supposed to reform erroneous press reports? Maybe Newsweak needs to stick to ranking high schools.

As a final note, John Miller at the Corner points out that George Washington is on the cover of Newsweek. The man who never told a lie is fronting a magazine that lied. Maybe the nation ought to sue on behalf of the Father of our Country.