FIFTH COLUMN DISTORTION
In his speech at the Naval Academy Wednesday outlining U.S. strategy in Iraq, President Bush paid tribute to Marine Corporal Jeffrey Starr, killed in a fire fight in Ar Ramadi April 30th. He was 22, on his third tour in Iraq. A letter to his girlfriend was found on Starr's laptop computer: "If you're reading this, then I've died in Iraq," Cpl. Starr wrote. "I don't regret going. Everybody dies but a few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we're in Iraq; it's not to me. I'm here helping these people so they can live the way we live, not to have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. Others have died for my freedom; now this is my mark." In a mammoth article in October taking note of the 2,000th U.S. death in Iraq, the New York Times mentioned Cpl. Starr and his letter, but didn't quote the passages above. All the Times quoted from his letter was: "'I kind of predicted this,' Corporal Starr wrote of his own death. 'A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances.'" The Times' omissions and distortions -- which are more the rule than the exception in news coverage of Iraq -- explain why so many Americans think we're losing a war we're plainly winning.
CASABLANCA ON THE POTOMAC
Here’s a difficult question: Would you spend $80 to make $1000? OK – would you spend $80 million to make $1 billion? If you did so, would you then claim you were ripped off? You would if you were Jack Abramoff’s Indian tribe clients. Everyone in America has now heard of the “infamous super-lobbyist” Jack Abramoff. You’ve heard all about him, but let me assure you that you know very, very little about him – because the Democrat media wants it that way. So let me tell you an illustrative story about him.
CROOKS IN CONGRESS AND CIA ROGUE WEASELS
One liberating silver lining to Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s pleading guilty to bribery charges is that being a Vietnam war hero is no longer a lifetime exemption from moral criticism. When Jean Schmidt (R-OH) last Friday (Nov. 25) denounced John Murtha’s (D-PA) call for retreat from Iraq on the floor of Congress by reading a letter from a Marine asking her to “ ‘send Congressman Murtha a message: That cowards cut and run, Marines never do’,” she caused a riot that came close to being a fistfight between elephant and jackass Congresscritters. Murtha, you see, is somehow invulnerable to criticism because he served 37 years in the Marines and won a number of medals in Vietnam. Howard Dean wasted no time in announcing that a billboard would be erected by Democrats in Portsmouth, Ohio (her disctrict headquarters), declaring: “Shame on You, Jean Schmidt: Stop Attacking Veterans.” John Murtha is a legitimate war hero – unlike John Kerry. He won two real Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star in combat in Vietnam. He deserves our admiration and respect for his military service. Yet his being a war hero did not prevent him from becoming a moral coward – and a crook in Congress.
THE SAGE
The Sage is a comprehensive dictionary/encyclopedia with a completely integrated dictionary and thesaurus that defines words, terms, concepts, historical events and even has an anagram decrypter - with nearly everything cross-referenced, allowing you to jump from word to concept with just one click. What's in a word? Well, according to The Sage, a word is far more than the definition listed in the dictionary; it's a lemma, which means that it really is a "topic" or a chapter heading; for example, a word can be defined as a part of speech (noun, verb), a hypernym (part of a larger category), synonym, holonym, antonym (look them up), or other type. Israel, for example, is a country (hypernym), a part of the Middle East (holonym), the home of Israelis (meronym) and it can be defined in dozens of other ways.
Chapter Sixteen: XICOTENCATL – YOUNG AND OLD
Chapter Sixteen: Xicotencatl – Young and Old
Malinali was stunned that Cortez was speaking this way to the Tlaxcalan elders. She knew how close the Spaniards were to giving up, how they feared another attack. But… but… the Tlaxcalans did not know this. They must have believed what she told the prisoners she had set free! Yet how did Cortez learn of this? She had not told him what she had done. It must be that Cortez was a genio with people as Bernal said. For Cortez’s words had the desired effect on the Tlaxcalan chiefs. They bowed deeply, swore that Young Xicotencatl would come, said that all Tlaxcala will rejoice when the Malinche and his men will be at their capital, and left looking relieved and satisfied. Even more relieved and satisfied were the Spaniards. With turkeys, maize cakes, cherries and other food in abundance, plus the promise of no more attacks, the camp was full of laughter – and no grumbling, not even from de Grado. Cortez was pleased, and made sure everyone saw he was – but he also made sure the patrols and scouts continued, day and night, to search for danger. He had no trust in this Young Xicotencatl.COOLING ON CONDI
For some time now, I’ve been telling you that Condi Rice may replace Dick Cheney (who would step down for “health reasons”) as Bush’s Vice-President, putting her in the catbird seat for the GOP presidential nomination in ’08. I expect this to take place by summer 2006. As I discussed last month in 44, her candidacy would be do more damage to the Democrat Party than Katrina did to the Gulf Coast. She is the only candidate the GOP can put up who could defeat Hillary. (Try this on as a barf alert: John McCain as Hillary’s running mate. Denied the GOP nomination, he’ll bolt his party and team with Hil who’s got the Dem nomination sewed up. Yep, that’s the latest hot DC buzz.) Now it’s time for the other shoe to drop.
TARGETING TEHRAN AND DAMASCUS
More than three years ago, prior to the liberation of Iraq, I lamented that our great national debate on the war against terrorism was the wrong debate, because it was: “About using our irresistible military might against a single country in order to bring down its leader, when we should be talking about using all our political, moral, and military genius to support a vast democratic revolution to liberate the peoples of the Middle East from their tyrannical rulers. That is our real mission, the essence of the war in which we are engaged, and the proper subject of our national debate.” The proper debate has still not been engaged, and the Bush Administration’s failure to lead it bespeaks a grave failure of strategic vision. The war was narrowly aimed against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
LITTLE KNOWN WEB DELIGHTS
The Internet is like what the North Pole and the Moon used to be – a great, unexplored terrain with all sorts of life-changing phenomena, just waiting be discovered, and used for your betterment. Of course, it depends on how you define ‘betterment.’ For many people that means having the computer spit out a can of Coke because they’re too lazy to get up and fetch one from the fridge themselves. If you’re in the neighborhood of MIT, you can use your computer to conjure one up. However, if you want your kids to get fresh air, you might consider the Internet to be the second most useless invention in human history, a close runner up to the TV. But forget TV: the miracle of the Web is that there are sites that are not only fun, but amazingly useful, too.
THE DEMISE OF FRANCE
After two weeks of unrestrained violence across the country, France imposed curfews and a state-of-emergency rule on 24 of its provinces. The government certainly hopes that this wartime measure will quickly scale down the riots and it may well do that. Yet history is more likely to look back on this not as the end of an irrational burst of urban violence, but as the first act in a protracted time of troubles for France and Europe that could ultimately lead to the demise of European civilization as we know it. None of this is even remotely discernible in French political rhetoric or media coverage surrounding the violent events in the Moslem ghettoes. Yet, shying away from reality by France's ruling class does not change reality – and that stark reality is one of a civilized European nation sliding into barbarism.
MOONBAT COWARDS
Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the al Qaeda chieftain in Iraq, has had a bad week. If it turns out Zarqawi was among seven al Qaeda leaders killed in Mosul Saturday, it'll have been a really bad week. But even if Zarqawi got away again, it's been a rotten week for him. It's also been a bad week for antiwar Democrats, who had their bluff called in the House of Representatives.