Friday, July 16, 2004

Did Iraqi PM Execute Six Insurgents?

This is very disturbing if it is true, but a reporter on an Australian talk show discussed Dr. Allawi shooting, HIMSELF, six insurgents in a police station in front of new Iraqi officers and four American civilians. Read more here.

US, World Clearly Are Safer


By Condoleezza Rice

Lord Butler's panel released a report this week on the accuracy of Britain's intelligence prior to the Iraq war. It is the latest addition to a list of investigations, including those by former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay and the Senate Intelligence Committee.

None disputes that Saddam Hussein had contacts with and ties to terrorists. None disputes that he possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), used them against innocents, desired to resume their production and had capabilities that would have let him do so over time. None disputes his 12-year history of deceit, obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections or material breach of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. And no one disputes his failure to prove he had destroyed his WMD stockpiles as required by U.N. Resolution 1441.

In choosing a course of action in Iraq, President Bush had to consider these facts and answer simple questions: Could the international community continue to accept Saddam's 12-year defiance of its will, or would the world be safer if the word of the United Nations were seen to count and have consequences? Could the U.S., in the post-9/11 world, continue to hope for the best from Saddam, or would America be safer with his removal? The president and an international coalition concluded that Saddam had to go, and events since his removal have proved this judgment right. Iraq is no longer supporting terrorists, threatening the region or pursuing WMD.

Our efforts in Iraq have been critical to success in the global war on terror. Afghanistan today is an emerging democracy, no longer providing sanctuary to al-Qaeda. Libya's Moammar Gadhafi has surrendered his nuclear-weapons program. Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's secret nuclear-proliferation network, which sold technology and know-how to some of the world's most dangerous regimes, has been exposed. And the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are U.S. allies in the fight to root out terrorism. All of these developments have made America and the world safer places.

As democracy gains in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are reminded that no democratic nation in the world threatens America. Saddam's removal has advanced peace and democracy throughout the broader Middle East. America and the world are clearly safer with this tyrant in the jail cell he has earned.

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Waiting for Guffman (Fahrenheit 9/11 Review Part III)



Wading through the first 30 minutes of unadulterated race-baiting by Michael Moore, the movie then takes us into a very emotional montage of peoples reaction to the 9/11 attacks with audio only. Then Moore strings together images of bystanders fleeing from the towers. This is well done. One should question, however, why he did not show the actual horror of the planes hitting the towers, footage of people choosing to jump to their deaths than be burned by fire, scenes of the country’s galvanization and unabashed patriotism that followed only hours after the event.

I suspect that he did not want to ruin his diatribe against Bush and “fly-over” Americans by showing exactly what we are fighting against. His thesis for the next 30 minutes is one wrought with conspiracy theory about Bush and oil. Moore wants us to believe that going after the Taliban and the Baathist regime was only a chapter in a three decade plot to get oil out of the Caspian Sea and Iraq. He shows Donald Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein but doesn’t explain that Rumsfeld was arming an enemy of the Soviet backed regime in Iran that held American hostages for over a year. He throws in some shadowy (rumors at best) accusations about Unocal and a proposed pipeline through Afghanistan. He shows the Taliban visiting Texas, but doesn’t say that their visit was arranged by the Clinton State Department. On and on the innuendos fly and he demonstrates his disingenuous attempt at balance by interviewing the likes of Richard Clarke and Rep. McDermott.

Too many people researched his claims and proved 90% of them wrong so I want to talk more about the deficiencies of his presentation. None of his clips of interviews and statements made by the Bush Administration and its detractors even show the DATE the interview or footage takes place. He does not mention the dates in his voiceover. His deceit requires this because he uses statements made by the administration prior to 9/11 and pretend they were said AFTER 9/11 in an attempt to paint the president as out of touch with the terror. Working of the same page as Al Gore, he attempts to show the “crafty” way the administration began to associate Saddam Hussein with Al Queda. So does he do this with different clips of the administration saying “Iraq” and “Al Queda” in the same sentence? No, he cannot even find footage of Bush et al saying the two names in the same interview or statement.

Flashing Bush saying “Iraq” and “Al Queda” for about thirty seconds, you notice that Bush is never wearing the same suit or in the same location. If he needed to splice together this footage doesn’t that actually demonstrate that Bush DID NOT try to link the two together? I guess not. My point is that even in the second quarter of the movie he fails to provide any HARD EVIDENCE. The only document he produces is Bush’s National Guard record, but the record isn’t used to prove his assertion Bush was a deserter—he uses it to show that Bush was in the National Guard with someone that invested in a failed oil venture: James Bath. OOOOOOOH. I guess I should never keep ties with any of my friend and never include them in any enterprise I think might be successful.

This portion of the movie is awash with accusations, suggestions and little proof: no dates, not source notes, no citations, and no balanced interviews. To Moore’s credit, he never claimed the movie was going to be fair. What he did claim was that it was going to be a documentary and it has yet to show any research other than someone going Googling or doing Nexis searches for conspiracy theories. So far it is still enjoyable but as the “mockumentary” is, I am still Waiting for Guffman to begin leading us in song.

Apologies ARE in Order



From the Washington Times', Time to Apologize to Bush:

Earlier this week, Americans learned from the Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC) report that the Bush administration did not lie about or manipulate intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. To reiterate, the report found "no evidence that the [intelligence community's] mischaracterization or exaggeration of [Iraq's] weapons of mass destruction capabilities was the result of political pressure ... The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."

Yesterday, a British inquiry exonerated the Blair government of exactly the same charge. "We should record in particular that we have found no evidence of deliberate distortion or of culpable negligence [on the part of the Blair administration]. We found no evidence of [Joint Intelligence Committee] assessments and the judgments inside them being pulled in any particular direction to meet the policy concerns of senior officials on the JIC," the report said.

The British report also agreed with the SIC about the nature of Iraq's weapons programs. In short, intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs on both sides of the Atlantic was flawed, but no one "lied" about it. Both President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair acted in good faith given the intelligence provided by their respective agencies. This is the nature of leadership.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the 2004 elections. Soon after the fall of Baghdad, it started to become clear that Saddam Hussein did not have the weapons programs everyone believed he had. Urged along by one dissembling former ambassador, the Democrats soon lost control and began to accuse the president of the United States of lying to, or at least misleading, the American people.

To name only a few, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), in a television ad, mentioned the "yellowcake" reference in the president's 2003 State of the Union, adding "the administration knew it wasn't true ... It's time to tell the truth." (No, it was true, then as now.) The DNC Web site also informed readers about the administration's "year-long campaign of deception involving a bogus intelligence report on Iraq's nuclear program." DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe huffed, "This may be the first time in recent memory that a president knowingly misled the American people during the State of the Union address." According to John Kerry, Mr. Bush "misled every one of us." Sen. Joseph Biden believed the administration "hyped [the intelligence] ... to create a sense of urgency and a threat." Sen. Carl Levin said, "The statement that Iraq was attempting to acquire African uranium was not an inadvertent mistake. It was negotiated between CIA and National Security Council officials, and it was highly misleading."

We agree with the Wall Street Journal on this matter: Apologies are in order.

Also check out Joseph Wilson: Liar, Robert Novak's take on the Errant Former Ambassador, and Ann Coulter's piece on how WILSON Lied, Kids Died!

Fundamental Flaws



President Bush, demonized by the NAACP, made the correct decision to snub them; he accepted an invitation to speak to the Urban League. This will shine a spotlight on a problem my community refuses to face: not all black people think alike! Bush is always well received in black churches and I suspect that he will use the speech at the Urban League to demonstrate a growing division amongst blacks.

The call of "disenfranchisement" applies not to the Florida 2000 recount, but the realization that when your vote is predetermined by your race no one needs to address your issues. Democrats promise black people the world, but in the last 40 years all we've seen is increased poverty, self-hating culture and the destruction of families. Blacks accuse Republicans of being racist because they do not court the black vote--but surely we must realize that Republicans view this as an excersise in futility.

Many black youth are seeking solutions to their problems outside the Democratic Party. Bill Cosby speaks to the culture war my community is losing but does not address the fundamental flaw lies squarely with the doctrine of liberal ideology: let the government do it for you. Republicans follow the doctrine laid out in the Bible: it's better to teach a man to fish than to just feed him one day.

Understanding this reveals why Democrats ridicule black Republicans because they became successful without giving white liberals the ability to relieve some of their "White Man's Guilt." Please check out some good columns:

Education Sec. Paige Blasts NAACP Leaders

Black Conservative to Rebut NAACP Leader's Remarks Against Black Conservatives in C-Span Interview

Kerry Didn't Even Read One Page

While the DNC and Kerry campaign plays the tit for tat dancing game instead of answering questions by asking Bush if he read more than the summary of the 2003 National Intelligence Estimate, we now find out that Kerry himself didn't read it at all--not even the coverpage.

Thanks, Matt Drudge.

Instant Messenger Bashes Bush



Kitty, it's time to switch providers!

CNSNews.com reports:
Computer savvy and interested in presidential politics, 13-year-old Erin was upset to learn that America Online's Instant Message (AIM) robot, "Smarter Child" favored Democrat John Kerry in this year''s election. Erin, whose last name is being omitted in this article, is a fan of President Bush.

But when Erin told the robot that "George Bush is awesome," she was shocked by the response. "No way. George W. Bush is way uncool," the reply stated. She asked, "Do you like George W. Bush?" and the program replied, "I'm a Kerry supporter myself."

Testing the waters, she typed in "John Kerry rocks." The robot's response: "Absolutely. John Kerry rocks."

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Kerry's New Air Force One



From American Digest by way of Michelle Malkin.

Keep Socialist Obama Out of Senate!

Senate Defeats Marriage Amendment



I disagree with Andrew Sullivan that this defeat will prove to be a failure for the Republicans.

MOST AMERICANS do not support gay marriage. And similar to Andrew Sullivan's support of John Kerry ONLY because he supports gay marriage; many people will vote against Kerry for that same reason.

And, of course, Johns Kerry and Edwards did not vote.

Breakdown of Votes

Gangsta Compliant Software

"You'll be happy to know that the public school system has taken a step further in promoting counterculture reading in schools, by encouraging their students to write based on the subject matter they read, using computers furnished with gangsta compliant software."
--provided to Michelle Malkin.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

No Blacks Needed (9/11 Review Part II)

Michael Moore reveals himself as person disgruntled with life. "They're all out to get me because they're all wrong!" tends to be his primary theme. The first portion of the movie deals with the Florida recount of the 2000 presidential elections. Moore presents us with a Donnie Darko-type fog, "were the last four years only a dream?"

All of the footage is intended to race-bait the question. George W. Bush, in collusion with Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush and a relative at FOX News all worked together to steal the election from blacks in Florida. Then he strings together the denouncements by members of the Congressional Black Caucus saying they were “disenfranchised.” (Someone, please tell me what this means!)

This is the most important part of the sequence: Michael Moore cuts to a partisan pundit that says: in every possible scenario of the recount, Al Gore won Florida. Even though this charge has no evidence and every review shows Bush won by at least 500 votes, Michael Moore, in his arrogance, tries to intimate that if only Al Gore reached out to him (he voted and campaigned for Nader), Al Gore would have won (from Stupid White Men).

But to reveal this would take away from the intention of the first segment: Bush hates niggers and stole their election. This race-baiting is not new to Michael Moore. Bowling for Columbine (BFC), as David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke point out in their new book Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man, Michael Moore will intimate racism when there is none.

In BFC, Moore intimates that Charleton Heston is a racist. He does so by flashing a picture of a young black girl shot dead by another black man and suggesting it’s Heston’s support of the NRA that caused it. Not mentioning the fact that Charleton Heston has Alzheimers—as well as omitting that Heston went against the grain in support of civil rights in the 50’s—Moore just says: racist.

The first 30 minutes of Fahrenheit 9/11 uses the exact same techniques. He show’s black outrage (with NO EVIDENCE) over voter “disenfranchisement” (tell me what this means!) and make Bush look like a person who stole the election from black voters. This theme continues throughout the movie.

When Michael Moore interviews soldiers in Iraq, he is careful to only interview black soldiers when he wants to identify the great sacrifice people in the military make. However, more true to Michael Moore’s motives, he interviews white soldiers and paints them as baby killers. This is most true when he interviews tank gunners and asks them what music they listen to when they are out fighting a war.

One white GI admits to listening to Rob Zombie’s, Let the Bodies Hit the Floor. Does Michael Moore show the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers shooting at the tanks and the soldiers killing them? No, he pretends that the soldiers are listening to this song and showing the dead bodies of Iraqi women and children.

He doesn’t stop the race-baiting there. He then goes to his “hometown of Flint, MI,” and talks with black youth there DESTROYED by Bush’s economy. Anyone who’s seen any Michael Moore movie knows he lauds his “humble upbringing in Flynt, MI” to demonstrate his connection with the downtrodden in American society. But since the film Roger & Me, Moore has always shown Flynt as similar to a bombed out ghetto.

How is Bush’s “economy” responsible for this? If, like his first movie suggests, that 30% of everyone in Flint has been unemployed since 1986—what relevance does the downturn in 2000 have on the fact that these people have been living in poverty for almost two decades? Moore, true to form, does not remind us that the poor people in Flint--who have been so since the mid-eighties--are poor because of whoever he’s attacking at the time. When it was Roger & Me, it was GM and Ronald Reagan at fault; when it was Bowling for Columbine, it was Bill Clinton's welfare reform at fault; and in F9/11, it's Bush's tax cut at fault.

Please, will Michael Moore show a statement showing money he's given to the black community in Flint, MI? Or anywhere in the US for that matter?

(stay tuned for parts III - V)

WaPo Statistical Errors

The Washington Post has a new survey out that essentially echos the same poll for the last year: Bush and Kerry in statistical tie.

What I noticed was how the WaPo did the breakdown of the statistics. With each question you can select an option to see it broken down by age, race, education, sex, etc. With each question, I selected "race" to see how minorities are answering these questions.

The only category they include is "black," no Asians, Hispanics/Latinos, Natives, etc. When you click to view the answer's by black constituents you notice something peculiar. The column heading, "blacks," appears in red. If you take the time to read the legend of the poll, you then see that, "a red column header indicates that there were not enough respondents in a particular category to insure reliable results."

HMMMM. If blacks were statistically insignificant, then why do the numbers reflect an equal weighting to the respondents race?

Monday, July 12, 2004

Priorities

I think Bush should hammer this message home; why is the World Court more concerned with a wall in Israel and not say, North Korea or any country in Africa?

Leftists/Anarchists Will Disrupt RNC

Here are some of the tactics they will use reported in New York Daily News:

"Go to a rifle, pistol or skeet shooting range, spend an hour shooting to saturate clothing with smell of gunpowder, go directly to a New Jersey Transit, LIRR or subway train headed for Penn Station.

"Try to have at least two people on a train in different locations, sit or stand near the doors as the train approaches the station, try to get near police and dogs, loiter as long as possible around the dog, try to pet it if possible.

"If the dog alerts on your scent, do not leave or resist; the situation will cause a major disruption of the train schedule. ... If there is more than one person on the train that causes a dog to alert, you can bet that the train will not be going anywhere for a long time ... neither will any trains behind it.

"It is important that the police call in all possible resources to investigate the situation. ... This will result in the maximum disruption. ... With any luck, Madison Square Garden will be evacuated.

"Rush hours are ideal, the final night of the convention, very good, too."

Weezie Jefferson Dead at 86



Prayers go out to the family.

Restoring Truth to the White House by Employing Liars

Kerry and Edwards say they want to bring integrity back into the White House. Well, after the Senate Intelligence Report came out last week, we know that Joseph Wilson is a LIAR. Check out That Liberal Media's great post and follow-up with Tyler and Red Line Rants.

So where does Joseph Wilson work? He is one of Kerry's foreign policy advisers.

I Saw It! 9/11

This is the first part of probably five posts I will write to review Fahrenheit 9/11. I will synthesize it into one piece when done, but I want some feedback and comments on each part.

Fahrenheit 9/11

When my brother said he bought the bootleg in Baltimore I sighed in relief, “I won’t have to spend money to see a movie being distributed by Hezbollah in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates." But then came my brother’s rants about how this movie “proves” why people hate Bush. I tried to discuss with him (he’s 23, urban and not very well read) what propaganda is. Before even seeing the movie I asked Adam, “what if I followed you around with a camera for the last four years and then wanted to make a movie called, ‘Adam Arnwine Is a Moron;’ do you think it would be difficult to splice together footage of you falling down, or snoring or at a loss for words?” He agreed, but said, “Watch the movie, it’s all there on the screen, there’s no way to refute these facts!”

So I watched the movie and after 15 minutes I went up stairs to catch him before he went back home. “Adam, this man hasn’t said one factual thing in the first fifteen minutes. All he’s done is string together RACE-BAITING images to incite anger over voter “disenfranchisement”—whatever that means—and then goes to an “expert” saying that every recount showed that Al Gore won Florida. That’s an outright lie because every recount gives Bush the state by 537 votes.” He replied, “says who?” I said, “CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, Florida Sun-Sentinel…” Here’s the kicker:

Adam said, “that’s their opinion, what makes their truth any more true than what I saw in the movie.”

Without knowing it, Adam said something quite profound and demonstrated why Fahrenheit 9/11 is dangerous…I’ll get back to that later…

There are five major themes in the movie:

1. Bush stole the election.
2. Bush/Bath/Carlisle/Unocal/Oil/Halliburton….ad infinitem.
3. Administration pretends there is a terrorist threat when there really isn’t one.
4. Afghanistan.
5. Iraq/WMD/Bush Lied, Kids Died.

Sadly, the movie is simply a retelling of Dude, Where’s My Country which ...

Ron Reagan, Jr.: Grieving Son or Pompous Ass?



True to the Democratic Playbook, we now learn that Ron Reagan, Jr. will speak at the Democratic National Convention. This is a man who used his father's death to make a stab at president Bush during the eulogy. This is the lowest form of treachery because his father's body is still warm in the ground.

Townhall posts a good piece by Robert Novak. In it he includes a rebuttal 1from William F. Buckley in the New York Times Magazine demonstrating how junior is looking for another 15 minutes of fame by being dishonest:
RR Jr.: The nude picture of his sister Patti in Playboy was "just something that is not too exciting."

WFB: "Why then was there so much excitement about it?"

RR Jr.: As for his father's reaction when he dropped out of Yale to join the ballet, "That was fine with him."

WFB: "It wasn't fine with him and he enlisted my aid in trying to persuade you to stay in college."

RR Jr.: Having three cats while being childless "is like having children."

WFB: "No, it's not like having children."

RR Jr.: As to whether his mother helps him out financially, "Of course not. My father felt that children should make their own way."

WFB: "I know, and you know that I know, something about that question. But to say that 'of course' your mother does not help you out suggests she will not do so even if there were a need. Are you saying she would not acknowledge you in her will?"

RR Jr.: As to the Abu Ghraib prison abuses, "How can Christians tolerate it?"

WFB: "I don't know of any Christians who 'tolerate it.' The perpetrators are reviled."

RR Jr.: In an answer to a question, he said he did not vote for Bush in the last election.

WFB: "Odd that you should permit this invasion of privacy whose only purpose is to remark the political infidelity of the son of Ronald Reagan."

RR Jr.: His father "worked hard to impress upon his children the value of kindness."

WFB: "If he did, he was manifestly unsuccessful."

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