Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

I was seated in my dentist’s chair this afternoon midway through a very lengthy visit when I hard an NPR report about the U.S. Army writing positive stories of the goings-on in Iraq then paying freelancers to pay Iraqi newspapers to publish them.

Evidently, this operation is conducted in such a way as to conceal any connection between the stories and the U.S. military.

read on…
(more…)

And they do face transplants in France.

(I posted this one at Rathergate.com.)

The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) reveals to us that six of the 61 books listed in the nonfiction portion of the New York Times’ “100 Notable Books of the Year” for 2005 were written by Times staffers. Another four were written by regular contributors to the paper. Several were published by the paper’s own publishing line, Times Books.

read on…
(more…)

What did I see? Well, President Bush was speaking to an audience at the U.S. Naval Academy, not at some MoveOn.org candlelight party and vigil, so the crowd was with him as he spoke of why we went into Iraq, what is happening in Iraq, and what he expects will happen in Iraq.

Even before Bush finished speaking, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid issued a statement claiming that Bush “recycled his tired rhetoric of ’stay the course’ and once again missed an opportunity to lay out a real strategy for success in Iraq that will bring our troops safely home.”

The Nevada senator charged that Bush failed to meet a call by the Senate to tell Americans the administration’s strategy for success in Iraq.

Reid wanted timetable/date certain, and the President said that such an plan would be As indicated in the 35-page National Strategy for Victory in Iraq released before the speech: “No war has ever been won on a timetable and neither will this one. But lack of a timetable does not mean our posture in Iraq (both military and civilian) will remain static over time. As conditions change, our posture will change.

I don’t think Reid has a clue what he wants, but the demand for something, anything, which is not there serves his side politically.

It was a good speech, and it helped clarify the U.S. position on and in Iraq at a time when it needs to be forcibly repeated. Hammered into the national psyche. As more people are speaking highly of the strategy and the progress, the side of the rational needs something with which to swat aside the Dean/Pelosi/Murtha forces seeking political gain by advocating American surrender.

Good morning.

AFTER-WORD: Tuesday, November 29, 2005

At this morning’s press gaggle, White House Press Secretary Scott McLellan told the assembled press that “as part of the speech tomorrow, we are going to be releasing a document called the ‘National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.’ It’s an unclassified version of the plan that we’ve been pursuing in Iraq, and it will be made available to the American people. I think we’ll also be posting it on our website, as well.”

He says that should be out tomorrow AM. The President’s speech on the training – numbers, capability, territory – of Iraqi forces is set for tomorrow evening. This is the first in what promises to be a series of speeches on various elements of our Iraq strategy, including political, economic, and security.

The speech tomorrow will be panned by the press with the parts viewed favorably by them attributed to Joe Biden. It is exactly how this works.

Brace yourself, fading French President Jacques Chirac, but the countries you referred to in 2003 as “not very well behaved and rather reckless of the danger of aligning themselves too rapidly with the American position” are already starting to lecture Old Europe.

The four largest new members the European Union — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — have written a letter to current EU President Tony Blair of Great Britain:

“We expect that a new budget should strengthen economic growth and employment, boost competitiveness and support structural reforms in member countries,” the letter said.

“Without an agreement in December, the response to these challenges together with the ambition of new EU members to catch up would be delayed and confidence in the capability of the enlarged EU to find agreement might be seriously undermined.”

In other words: Get your act together, old Europe, if you want to be taken seriously by New Europe.

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany went even further on his own said that Old Europe’s proposal for a reduced budget was “unacceptable,” and that the newer States “are not going to pretend that they can afford to play this game.”

According to a Reuters report, France is blaming the British for refusing to give up its annual refund from Brussel’s, but the Chirac/de Villepin (poet) government has its own issues:

French European Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna said the agreement on the 2007-2013 budget should not involve cuts in farm subsidies, of which France is a major beneficiary.

“The key to negotiations is not the common agricultural policy,” she told LCI television in an interview. “The key to negotiations is the British rebate.”

Blair meets with the governments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — Baltic new members who side with the letter writers — in Tallinn on Thursday then begins to circulate proposals to other States on Monday.

Most observers do not expect a budget agreement by the end of the year.

A slim volume (96 pages), The Pocket Book of Patriotism, by Jonathan Foreman, is a neat book to browse through, to pick up off the coffee table and spent some time with. The real, unedited history. (As in, they don’t describe this in the public schools.)

Fifty-six pages of the tome aan historic timeline, split on the page between “The Americas” and “Abroad,” as it opens with 30,000 to 20,000 BC with “Bering Straits crossed by ancestors of the American Indians.” Important dates and developments in the southern Americas are staked alongside mainly what was occurring in Europe, though we do see such things as “China unified by Chi’in dynasty; construction of the Great Wall” in 221 BC and “Mohammed begins to recite the Koran” in 625.

In 1607, “The Americas” becomes simply “America,” with the “Founding of a City on a Hill,” which is: “Virginia Company founds Jamestown colony.” The timeline is generously sprinkled with quotes, as is this entry: “Let England knowe our willingness,/ For that our worke is good,/ We hope to plant a nation/ Where none before hath stood” – NEWS FROM VIRGINIA, 1610.

The timeline ends with the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004 and Pope John Paul II passing away this year.

The Pocket Book of Patriotism next turns to Part II: “Patriotic Texts and Essentials.” Excerpts are there from the Magna Charta, the Mayflower Compact. There are excerpts from speeches by such as Washington, Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, JFK, Martin Luther King, and Ronald Reagan. Songs, poems, a list of Presidents, Medals for Valor, and the Federal Flag Code, Title 4, USCA.

There is a lot in this slim volume, and with hardcover retailing for only $8.00 at Amazon.com, it would make a great stocking stuffer. And be sure to buy one for yourself, as it might be the proper tonic after listening to such as Nancy Pelosi and her friend Jack Murtha. America should never be remade to exclude its rich history.

The Mapes quagmire, the Iraq quagmire…

Veteran CBS newsman Mike Wallace was interviewed (on tape) for Bill O’Reilly’s FNC show last night, and I saw only a brief clip. He said that we should never have invaded Iraq, which is his opinion shaped by the people with whom he works.

The MRC’s Brent Baker, to whom I’ll refer as “the big guy,” evidently saw the interview and offers his report over at NewsBusters.

Wallace… agreed that the Bush National Guard story should not have aired if the memos could not be authenticated “beyond a reasonable doubt,” revealed that the weekend Mapes and her colleagues were putting the story together “was chaos” inside the 60 Minutes offices and that Dan Rather has “acknowledged to me that he did not see the finished piece before it went on the air.” … Wallace soon resisted Bill O’Reilly’s characterization of the Memogate story as a “fiasco.”

“Fiasco” is not the word. It was an attempt to influence a Presidential election. It was fraud.

O’Reilly: “Is Iraq Vietnam?”

Wallace: “Well, you know, 58,000 people were killed in Vietnam. It’s a mere — can you imagine, Iraq is becoming a kind of Vietnam. We should never have gone into Iraq. We were sold a bill of goods. Now, whether the President was sold a bill of goods or whether Dick Cheney was sitting in the chair at that time, I don’t know.”

NewsBusters commenter John in CA quips: “The biggest similiarity between Vietnam and Iraq is the MSM proclaiming that Iraq is a quagmire.” Well, that and Joan Baez

(cross-posted at Rathergate.com.)

The Canadians Liberal government has fallen after 17 months, and it is not getting up. The NO-CONFIDENCE vote was 171-133, and the government was brought down by the same financial scandal which brought down the last liberal government.

The next election will be held in January, with the 16th and the 13th as the days most bandied about.

Okay, word is that the Conservatives will have to win some seats in Toronto and other cities – with Montreal being written-off – if they hope to gain a majority. The Liberals will run on the economy, while Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party will probably campaign against the Liberal’s corruption and sleze.

Martin, despite what has happened, is still the most popular politician in the country, and right now, his liberals are expected to win the election, though it now seems unlikely they’ll be able to pull out another majority.

Ramsey Clark, 77 and duly addled, is a member of Saddam’s defense team. He was a member of Milosevic’s defense team back in the ’90s.

He’s Bobby Fischer without the smarts.

Here’s a nice 1999 profile of Ramsey — not to be confused with Ramses brand condoms — by a Ian Williams in Salon.

Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-California) didn’t pay his taxes, and he’s copped a plea.

Admitting to a judge that he took bribes, Cunningham entered pleas in U.S. District Court to charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud and tax evasion for underreporting his income in 2004.

One wonders if “Top Gun” would have fought the charge were he not retiring from Congress after this term to work in the private sector.

‘T is the Season, etc., and the White House has the Christmas tree for the Blue Room. First Lady Laura Bush had a little outdoor ceremony this morning and shook a few hands as the 18 ½’ Douglas fir lay tied in the back of a decorative flat bed.

This was a big deal to someone, namely Earl and Betsy Deal of the Smokey Holler Tree Farm in Laurel Springs, North Carolina. One assumes that they sell Christmas Trees every year – well, for the past 33-years — and take some pride in those trees, and here’s one which will soon sit in the White House.

Smokey Holler Tree Farm won the right to take a tree to the White House by winning a competition at the 2004 biennial convention of the National Christmas Tree Association, with a tree that got 198 out of a possible 200 points.

Earl Deal, a professor emeritus from N.C. State University’s College of Forest Resources, credits his son Buddy for the win. Buddy Deal looked at about 200,000 of the farm’s 500,000 trees before selecting some likely winners. Meg Deal, a CPA in Raleigh, comes to the farm each winter to do the books, pitching in during the busiest season of the year.

“That’s been the beauty of the whole thing,” Earl Deal said. “We’re all working together here. It’s a family operation.”

It’s a lifetime’s honor for a Christmas-tree grower to supply the White House tree, and the Deals said they are honored to represent growers in the state. The trees will be hauled in a trailer furnished by the N.C. Department of Agriculture and bearing the state’s commodities slogan, “Got to be NC,” and a banner on the back that reads “2005 National Grand Champion Christmas Tree.”

Earl and Betty Deal, with son Buddy and daughter Meg – presented the tree to the First Lady, and she shook their hands.

I caught it on FNC.

I’m sorry for not being my usual cynical, sardonic self, but I’m a sucker for these things. And there is another twist: this is the 40th year of the White House Christmas Tree program. Forty years ago Saturday, Earl and Betsy Deal were married.

The Smokey Holler tree farm also supplied the trees for the Oval Office and the President’s living quarters, smaller trees both.

Monday, Monday, etc. Good morning.

Tim Russert set up his show as a pulpit from which could be delivered the Joe Biden Presidential sermon. John Warner was there to provide token opposition, but Warner seemed to tired to go toe-to-toe with Joe Biden.

Joe was allowed to say what he would.

My show notes are below the fold…
(more…)

Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) was George Stephanopoulos’s guest on ABC’s This Week. They had a disagreement about Bosnia, prompting Steph to point out that Feingold might not be electable because he was Jewish, but Russ told the world that he was omniscient, pre-war.

He wants to be President.

My notes from the show are below the fold…

(more…)

The review of the Sunday Morning Talk Shows is not life over at RedState.org. Here is the intro:

Okay… Joe Biden went on Meet the Press and was clear that while Dick Cheney was a liar, the President had only “misled.” Carl Levin argued on FOX News Sunday that President Bush had linked Saddam and September 11. As proof, he offered that many Americans believed that such a link existed. Host Wallace accused him of “distorting the information.”

Historian Joseph Ellis, on the Face the Nation historians’ roundtable, declared that 9-11 was not that big a deal, and that even the Europeans knew that it was all hype. On CNN’s Late Edition, host Wolf Blitzer seemed skeptical of how much Iraqi National Security Advisor Dr. Mowaffak al-Rubaie and the government actually supported the U.S., then super-journalist Seymour Hersh told him that President Bush was living in a religious dreamworld and was incapable of dealing with reality.

Finally, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold declared on ABC’s This Week that he wants our troops out of Iraq by the end of 2006, but that we should still send our Special Forces into the country to do things on the sly. He got into an argument with the host over whether fighting the Bosnian conflict was in our national interests.

for the show-by-show review, click here.

For Sunday, November 27, 2005

Meet the Press (NBC): Host Tim Russert will talk with the dynamic duo, Joe Biden and John Warner. They. will. discuss. Iraq.

FOX News Sunday: Host Chris Wallace will interview the dynamic duo, Dick Lugar and Carl Levin. Then he’ll talk to two partisan pollsters about what’s the deal with the President’s numbers.

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer talks with scads of Presidential historians: Ellen Fitzpatrick, Joseph Ellis, James Reson, Jr., and Stephen Carter. It’s one of those roundtable things.

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos exchanges anti-war banter with Democrat Senator Russ “timetable date certain” Feingold of Wisconsin about the war in Iraq and Feingold ‘08.

Late Edition (CNN): Host Wolf Blitzer has Iraqi National Security Advisor Dr. Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Kissinger and Brzezinsk, Peggy Noonan, and his usual cast of thousands.
~~~~~

I’ll do the review/summary for tomorrow’s Rightsided Newsletter, one of the last times for that venture.

Also, as always, it will be posted at Redstate.org, with a preface. I’ll link to that here, include some excerpts, etc.

Sri Lankan blogger Dr. Politics has taken the decision to propose a Bill or Rights for the people of Sri Lanka, though it sounds as if it might be the one he thought was in use when he wrote the thing. Nevertheless, he describes the post as “[a] comparison between the proposed Bill of Rights for Sri Lanka and the real thing,” with the real thing being the one adopted by the Founding Fathers for the United States.

Binding the leaders in Sri Jayewardenepura Kotte (the legislative capital of the country) are such things as the Fifth Amendment:

Non party-members shall be held to answer for any crime to avoid being tortured into confessions by the CID [Criminal Investigation Department]; any person refusing to be a witness against himself shall be judged guilty as charged.”

The U.S. version, of course, reads:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

So you get the idea of where that’s going.

It’s a fun read, loaded with sarcasm.

I’m lifting this joke from the excellent Ya Libnan site:

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad goes to a primary school to give a speech. After his talk he offers question time.

One little boy puts up his hand and Bashar asks him what his name is?

“Ali”.

“And what is your question, Ali?”

“I have 3 questions.

First, why did Syria rule Lebanon for over 15 years?

Second, why you didn’t know who killed Hariri if you were the ruler of Lebanon?

And third, why did you leave Lebanon now?”

Just then the bell rings for recess. Bashar informs the kids that they will continue after recess.

When they resume Bashar says, “OK, where were we? Oh that’s right — question time. Who has a question?”

A different little boy puts up his hand.

Bashar points him out and asks him what his name is?

“Teddy”

“And what is your question, Teddy?”

“I have 5 questions.

First, Why did Syria rule Lebanon for over 15 years?

Second, Why you didn’t know who killed Hariri if you were the ruler of Lebanon?

And third, why did you leave Lebanon now?

Fourth, Why did the recess bell go 20 minutes early?!

And fifth, where is Ali?!!”

Generals tell him what to do.

Good morning!