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Michelle Malkin: Mocking the Troops.

  Michelle Malkin 
  Originally uploaded by bbbustard.
I downloaded this photo on Thursday. It's awful, yet telling.
Michelle is clearly of an age that she could serve in this war. So, too, is her husband.
But neither serves. They chose not to.
Instead she chose to sport a cocktail dress with a desert camouflage
pattern. It was fun to wear while recording videos of herself making believe she's a rapper.
The first to wear camouflage  in a non-military way were Vietnam Vets Against the War. Since then, many hunters have used it to make them less peceptible to their prey.  Currently, a lot of fashion designers see it as a  fun fabric for partying. Guys like John Galliano for Christian Dior and Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton, have been using it.
No veteran, who is not protesting a war or going hunting, ever wears camo because
it's fun.  Every female soldier in Iraq today who is putting on that fabric hates it. She appreciates that it might save her life, but she hates it.  Ms Malkin's wearing of it only proves how very out of touch she is with the reality of the war in Iraq, and of what our soldiers endure.
Michelle, that is a dress for a fashionista. If you want to claim that you're wearing it in support of our troops, wear it the way the troops do - put on a boxy uniform, and get on the next plane to Baghdad to get shot at.

Now, Lies from The Wall St Journal

I realize that I am going off the deep end with the phony, Roverian SWIFT "scandal" -  but it keeps on infuriating me.
Today's editorial in The Wall Street Journal almost pushed me right over the cliff, but in the end I had to hold tight, because it also showed how hugely important this issue really is.
The thesis of the article is that the Journal committed no wrong, while the Times was evil, because the Journal reports the news just the way that the government wants, and the Times just won't. Here's the story as the Journal tells it: the administration asked the Times not to publish the story, but after considering the government's arguments for quite a while, that grossly irresponsible Times notified them that they were going to publish the story in a week. The Feds asked for an extension - they needed an extra day to get their spin organized. The Times said sure. 
Thus far in its narrative, the editorial has been pretty specific about names and times. At this point it gets all vague. "Around the same time, Treasury contacted  Journal reporter..."  Who at the Treasury made the contact?  Does the reporter really not know the date on which he was contacted?  Their "guess" for why this happened at all is that Treasury thought it would get "a straighter story," one which did not push "a violation of privacy angle."  The Journal, then, would write it the way that government wanted. (In the event, the Times article in no way "pushed" a violation of privacy angle.)
Fearing an accusation, the editorial  defends the Journal's decision to run the story, by saying that it was never asked not to publish, was unaware that the Times had been asked not to publish, and that it was administration officials who were giving them the information. "If this was a leak, it was entirely authorized." Still, the Journal doesn't mention the names of the leaker(s). I already have a hard time with anonymous sources, but an anonymous authorized leaking source is really beyond me.   What respectable newspaper would simply publish "authorized leaks"? Isn't that why the government has its own printing press?
The Journal then speculates as to whether or not it would have published a story that the government did not want it to, and concludes that they would have followed instructions. They characterize Keller's "argument that the terrorists surely knew about the Swift monitoring is his own leap of faith." This from a financial paper? Osama bin Laden owned an import and export business in the Sudan. Another company of his in the Sudan built an 800 mile long road in that country. He had worked for his father's company - which operates in many different countries.  In his first years of fighting and as he climbed up the terrorist ladder he specialized in moving money - both his own and the money he collected from friends and family in Saudi Arabia - all around the world. Buying arms to ship from here to there, arranging travel so a Yemeni fighter could get to Afghanistan. Financing infrastructure building in Afghanistan.  Paying fighters in Bosnia.

As former British Cabinet member Robin Cook noted, the name of the organization he founded , al Qaeda, in translation means the database. Osama's success in the world of terrorism was his ability to organize and to fund a virtual army whose soldiers came from various countires, and who had banded together to oust the Russians from Afghanistan. To imply that assuming Osama's knowledge of SWIFT requires a "leap of faith" is simply a damnable lie on the part of the Wall Street Journal.
Calling the kettle black, the editorial continues it's lament at the level of partisanship on display at the editorial page of the Times. While insisting that the wall between editorial and reportorial be acknowledged and respected at the Journal, no such courtesy is extended to the Times.
In a brief attempt to trick the reader into believing that they are reading something fair, the Journal spends a paragraph in reasonable pontification. They run through a few calculations that the press should make prior to publication:things like a government's need for secrecy being balanced against the public right to know. Fair enough. But the  Journal doesn't actually examine the issues it raises. It simply declares that many Americans don't think the Times "would make those calculations in anything like close to good faith."  It's called the "we've piled onto the campaign of lies and smears about the Times, and now a lot of people have doubts about them" argument. 
With a typically dishonest bit of trickery the Journal then smears the publisher of the Times. Their trick lies in treating an implication as a fact: "Perhaps Mr. Keller has been listening to his boss," and that's why he got everything wrong. They have absolutely no idea what influence Sulzberger may or may not have had on Keller. But they grab onto it as an opportunity to attack Sulzberger, who at a recent graduation talked of a "misbegotten war in a foreign land", of "the stench of corruption in government," of "the horrors and futility of war" as well as problems in the world with human rights. To the Journal this is proof that Sulzberger's "major goal" is "not winning the war on terror but obstructing it." Right, so if you object to aspects of the war, say that corruption exists in government, and that there's room for improvement on human rights issues around the world, what you really are up to is trying to stop the government from preventing another murderous attack on the city where you and much of your family live.

Approaching its conclusion, the editorial give up any pretense to logic or consistency. Instead it talks of a paper in WWII that clearly betrayed real, honest to God, national security secrets. It commends the decision not to prosecute the paper, in part "because it would have drawn more attention" to the actual facts in the revelation. Not for an instant does it occur to the Journal that this administration has done exactly the opposite. It has used every gambit in its power to focus public attention on this "revelation." To me, this is additional evidence that the administration does not really consider this "scandal" anything other than a weapon with which to attack the "liberal" media. Their partisan use of this war continues to be despicable.
But now comes the really scary part. A respected (?) newspaper in this country  essentially argues that if the Times continues to challenge and annoy the administration, it's taking a really big risk. "Once a government starts indicting reporters for publishing stories, there will be no drawing any lines against such prosecutions, and we will be well down the road to an Official Secrets Act that will let government dictate coverage." The Journal is rewriting the First Amendment here, and it's terrifying: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of the Press, unless they are instructed to so do by the President." (Portions in italics added by Bush and agreed to by the Journal.) What you learned about the Constitution in school was pure malarkey: freedom of the press is a luxury that  can berevoked by the President whenever he feels like it.
"Already, its partisan demand for a special counsel in the Plame case has led to a reporter going to jail..."  So by asking for a special prosecutor, which it did against Clinton as well, the Times is responsible for sending its own reporter to jail, who was trying to protect leakers that were members of the administration, and it is also responsible for Bush's upcoming demand that Congress enact an unconstitutional Official Secrets Act.

It sort of takes your breath away.

Catching bin Laden

I've been so enraged at Karl Rove's successful manipulation of the SWIFT "scandal," that I missed the announcement that we are selling new F-16's Jets to Pakistan.

It has wanted to buy some for close to twenty years, and had ordered some. We canceled the order in 1989 because of their nuclear weapons program.  Now that they have helped other countries develop nukes, we have decided to "sell" 18 of the planes to them. I called A.Q. Khan at his villa outside Karachi seeking comment, but his butler informed me that he was unavailable for comment at this time.

These new F-16's are able to carry nukes, and their acquisition will greatly increase the range of Pakistan's nuclear strike capability.

Next year President Musharaff, who has survived two assassination attempts, will face the electorate. Condi Rice is confident that it will be a free and fair election, and that Musharaff will win.  Please remember that the Bush administration's definition of free and fair is special. In this case, it is important to note that the two strongest opposition leaders are in exile, and Musharaff's government has announced they would be arrested were they to enter the country.

So he may remain in power after the next "election."  But for how long? A revolution, or a coup d'etat by Islamic fundamentalists would surprise no one.  Musharaff has always been more secular than most of his population, and the bombing that the U.S.did in Pakistan this spring has only increased the accusations that he is "Satan's Poodle. (Satan is Bush or America, depending on the level of anger that day.)

One of our reasons for "selling" the jets is to express our gratitude to Musharaff and to help increase his popularity.  (aka: Propping up a dictator)

Once again we are "selling" extremely sophisticated arms to a dictator.  How stupid are we?

P.S. "Selling" is in quotes, because the administration is saying it's a sale, a sale that is part of a three billion dollar aid package.

P.P.S. Many have thought that it was George H.W. Bush, then former head of the CIA, who was instrumental in organizing the "October Surprise" that was so important in Reagan's election. Do we think that a "grateful" Musharaff might finally get serious about capturing Osama bin Laden, perhaps in October of 2006? I lean more to the idea that he will be captured in October 2008 - it would make Musharaff's life more difficult if we insisted he bring us Osama before his own 2007 elections. The timing could easily depend on poll results this September. Any bets out there?
The Post put it more gently "But U.S.officials have been wary about pressing Musharraf too hard, seeking to balance demands for action against extremist groups with tangible

U.S. rewards, such as sales of F-16 fighter jets, many analysts say."

Lies: Part III

On both Tuesday and Wednesday, I posted about the hysterical and histrionic lies the Bush administration has been spreading about the NY Times report on tracing financial data through SWIFT. I had hoped that yesterday was my last, but shockingly enough, they are still at it.

• Last night's insomnia enabled me to watch some of Pat Robertson's "700 Club." He  complained how the Press had damaged national security by publishing the story. He expressed his outrage at how horribly the New York Times had behaved. He neglected to mention what the Wall Street Journal had done.  He "especially blamed" the Washington Post.  Their behavior was exceptionally awful, he implied. Of course the Post was not one of the three papers who published the story last Friday.  They were behind the curve. When Pat Robertson is gilding a lie; you can be sure it's a lie.
• Tony Snow, whose faux sanctimony I am already finding repulsive, said yesterday "I am absolutely sure they didn't know about SWIFT." Because of America's size, location, and wealth, very few of us are familiar with transferring money internationally. Thus Tony Snow can make up crap, since most Americans are not particularly familiar with SWIFT.  But someone with Osama's background would be intimately knowledgeable of it - it's the most efficient, reliable  and lowest cost way of transferring money around the globe. The Press Secretary is trying to take advantage of our ignorance; as these guys so often do. Snow is absolutely lying when he says "I am absolutely sure..."

Maria Vasquez

  Maria-Vasquez 
  Originally uploaded by bbbustard.
Photo from the A.P.

This is a photo of Maria Vasquez at the funeral of her son, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, who was brutally murdered in Iraq.  My deepest sympathies go out to her.

She is a 50 year old single mother of two who is an immigrant from Mexico.  The funeral was conducted in both English and Spanish.  Apparently, Ms. Vasquez only speaks Spanish.

While she can lose her son for this country, Michelle Malkin thinks it's just great that she wouldn't be served a cheesesteak in Philadelphia.

Close family members of Pfc. Menchaca would not be allowed to attend his funeral, if the House immigration bill was the law of the land, as much of his family lives in Mexico.


Ms Coulter of course would like to see Ms. Vasquez deported. Writing about which immigrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S., She said:

Istead of choosing immigrants based on the longevity of their lawbreaking, another idea is to choose the immigrants we want, for example, those who speak English or have special skills. (And by "special skills" I don't mean giving birth to an anchor baby in a border-town emergency room.)

When right wing bloggers look back at what they wrote about Mexican immigrants in early May, and then look at this photo - do they feel any shame?

 

Lies: Part II

This is a continuation of yesterday's post in which conclusive proof is offered showing that the outrage expressed by Bush over the New York Times "leak" was a complete fraud.
Yesterday we made two basic points:

• That there were in fact no damaging details in the Times article.  An individual with Osama's sophistication would have expected our examination of SWIFT transfers, since it was exactly what Bush had announced he would do in his Press Conference of Sept 24, 2001.
• That this is part of a pattern of behavior by this administration. The same play was performed over six months ago when the Times committed the "crime" of publishing damaging details of the government's wiretapping program.  It is clear that no one is being prosecuted in any way for that "crime."

Today we will look at other indications that this show of outrage is purely political theater and at the possibility that the play's director may also have been the leak-er:

• The same morning that the  New York Times published the story, it was also published in the Wall Street Journal. Yet no one is calling them disgraceful. In fact the Journal has refused to give definitive answers concerning their discussions with the government about the leaks. When questioned about this, Tony Snow instructed his questioner to ask the Treasury Department. Treasury has not responded to inquiries as of this morning. Snow went on to say that the Times was being focused on because it had the story first. The Times did have the story first, but it did not publish it first. It was asked by the government not to publish, and it withheld publication until it had weighed  the administration's arguments. If we are to believe that any information "damaging" to our nation's security was published, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are equally guilty. Yet they are not being equally condemned by the right.
• Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine"  had already broken the story. It states on page 144 that "Initiatives launched by Treasury and CIA were getting better at tracking money as it passed through accounts across the world...[using] international banking compacts." The most significant "banking compact" is, of course, SWIFT. Why not slam Suskind's book, as they did the New York Times?
• The possibility that Rove was directly involved in this leak is supported by the fact that he has leaked to the press before for vicious partisan reasons. (He leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Matt Cooper.  Ms. Plame's covert status at that time was confirmed by the Republican Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald, who was appointed by Republican Attorney General Ashcroft.) His pattern of spreading lies and disinformation as a campaign tactic is undeniable. (Governor Ann Richards was dominated by lesbians, McCain has a black baby, Gore's receipt of a tape showing Bush preparing for a debate after which Rove screams Foul!, after which a Bush worker admitted that she has given it to the Gore campaign; The Swiftboating of Kerry, Smearing Murtha)
• Just as Howard Dean, and now Hillary Clinton have built relationships on the left side of the blogosphere, I am sure that Rove and his operatives have done the same on the right side.  Thus it is no surprise how the captains of the wingnut-o-sphere spoke so quickly and with one voice.  Powerline supported and quoted John MacEntyre's writing in RealClear Politics "this is a huge win politically for Bush," "The issue plays to Bush's strengths and continues to paint the picture of the President as a stalwart fighter,protecting America's safety while the left-wing press does their best to undermine...[him]." Bill Kristol and MacEntyre see the opportunity to harm Hillary Clinton especially.  Hugh Hewitt asks soldiers serving in Iraq to write letters to the mainstream media saying that the Times was making their lives more dangerous. (Just a few days ago, the right was making the argument that those who suffer personally should have no more influence on the convbersation than any other American.)  Prairie Pundit wrote that "The terrorist rights lobby in Washington would rather lose the war than stop a terrorist ploy by surveillance."

This entire damned episode may not actually have been engineered by Rove. But he certainly took advantage of it in that slimy way he has that is evocative of nothing so much as pond scum. A phony "leak."  A torrent of abuse deluging the N.Y. Times, and only the Times.  A complete diversion from the truth of what SWIFT is and it's place in international finance. And a deafening chorus of croaks and ribbets from the frogs that are the right side of the blogosphere.

The current adminsitration is composed of scum-encrusted liars.

Lies: Part I

His addiction to dirty tricks, coupled with his constant, unprecedented abuse of a war as a partisan battering ram, make a magnifying glass superfluous in identifying Karl Rove's fingerprints on the finance tracking  "outrage" du jour. The inability to recognize his handiwork is akin to blindly accepting  Rush Limbaugh's latest explanation as to why he has once again been caught carrying drugs that he's not supposed to be carrying. At the risk of repeating myself:  Rove is on campaign mode, and it's a particularly vicious one this season.
As some of you might remember (as our President does not) the organization that attacked us on 9/11 was al Qaeda, and it's commander in chief, was, and still is, Osama bin Laden. He is part of a family that does four to five billion dollars in business annually. In Egypt alone, they have 40,000 employees. They have been awarded the contract to rebuild downtown Beirut. They have interests in banks, in The Carlyle Group, as well as in high-tech Boston companies. Osama's eldest son is a graduate of Harvard Law, a part of Harvard University, to which the bin Laden family has given over two million dollars. This is not some unsophisticated guy. 
He knows that when Bush announced on September 24, 2001 that we are "working with our allies around the world to tackle the financial underpinnings of terrorism. We are working through the G-8 and the United Nations," that meant SWIFT. His family surely does several transactions via SWIFT everyday. SWIFT is one of the most frequently used, if not the most frequently used, means of transferring money in the world. It operates in 200 countries, and works with 7,800 financial institutions. Eleven million transfers a day. (The United Nations only operates in 191 countries) The language of International Finance changes slowly, but in my experience, phrases like "International Wire Transfer" or "T.T" (Telegraphic Transfer) usually mean SWIFT.
In November of 2002, the U.S. Navy Post-Graduate School's magazine discussed the "Treasury Department's new Foreign Asset Tracking Center" and the "Paris based Financial Action Task Force [which] is helping coordinate the tracking of terrorist funds through the global banking system." To anyone experienced in international transfers - this means SWIFT. It is not possible to talk of the "global banking system" without talking of SWIFT. Unfortunately, Osama bin Laden is very experienced at international finance, and he knows SWIFT.
No "secrets" were leaked. There were no "details" exposed by the Times. When Bush said that "great harm" was done to the "United States of America," he lied.
It's not like they haven't lied like this before. A little over six months ago the outrage was over the NSA spying revelations.  Did they hire a special prosecutor? Has anyone read any indictments of the leakers? Anyone heard of any grand jury hearings? Have you seen a shred of evidence, of any kind, as to how that revelation harmed our security?

They're lying. Again.

Part II will be posted tomorrow.

Vive le Death Tax!

I sent the following e-mail today to [email protected]. Please do the same. Buffet and Gates both hate the idea of repealing the inheritance tax, so let's ask them to match their fellow billionaires on spending on the issue.

Dear Mr. Buffet,

Your gift of $31 Billion is incredibly generous and impressive. I realize that it is presumptious for me to ask that you give more, but that is why I am writing you now.

I wholeheartedly agree with your comments on the estate tax, as reported in today’s New York Times. In trying to determine its cost to the government, I have come across numbers as high as 1 trillion over ten years. A repeal would also significantly affect charitable donations in this country. Price Waterhouse has estimated that the elimination of the estate tax would result in a reduction of gifts to charity of about $5.2 Billion per year. The value of the gift you made yesterday to charity would be more than offset by the losses charitable institutions would suffer should the tax be repealed. We can only guess at how severely Congress would gut programs in education and health care, as well as scientific research, when faced with a trillion dollar loss in revenue.

The primary actors pressing for elimination of this tax, primarily other billionaires like you and Mr. Gates, have spent about 490 million on lobbying and advertising since 1998.  They have used this money to distort the public’s understanding of what the inheritance tax really does and who it really affects.

I am asking you to spend money now  to correct their campaign of disinformation. I am sure that the public could be persuaded that the inheritance tax is a good thing for a lot less than 490 million. A few large ad-buys in a few selected markets that would make it clear to the Senate that there can be consequences for voting against the tax next week should do the trick. After all the truth is on our side. Because the vote is next week, I must ask you to take action at once.

Sincerely Yours,

bbbustard's actual info

 

 

Rove on the Attack

President Bush looks like he is upset. He isn't.

"For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Bush said, jabbing his finger for emphasis. He said the disclosure of the program "makes it harder to win this war on terror." reports the AP today. He offered absolutely no evidence to back up this assertion.

Is there anyone out there who does not immediately recognize this as just another whopper of a lie made up by Karl Rove? Who does not suspect that the leaks were once again from Karl Rove?

I'm not talking about the outrageous postss of a Michelle Malkin or of a Powerline - these guys  know it's a lie, but it advances their personal  careers to promote the lie, and so they do it. I'm trying to ask someone for an honest, sincere response.

The Times's revelations, such as they were, did not do any harm to our security. The only way that this argument could pass the smell test is if its proponents agree that the Bush adminsitration are such a bunch of liars, and al Qaeda is so keenly aware that they are liars, that when we announced over and over again that we were tracking international wire transfers, al Qaeda thought we were lying.

Michael Barone wrote today, commenting on the NSA wiretaps:

Now, thanks to The New York Times, al-Qaida terrorists are aware that their phone calls can be monitored, and presumably have taken precautions.

They ask us to believe that the guy who successfully engineered 9/11, and has eluded a world wide manhunt ("Wanted Dead or Alive") by the strongest nation on earth for amost five years was not aware that phone calls can be monitored for 4-1/2 of those years -  until "he read it in the New York Times."

At the same time that they want us to realize how smart and resourceful our enemy is, they also need to convince us that they're made up of complete morons in order for them to have us believe that what he Times did caused any harm at all. How else can they drum up the hysteria necessary to make it seem that they are protecting us?

They really want us to swallow bilge. Barone again, today, again:

Why do they hate us? No, I'm not talking about Islamofascist terrorists. We know why they hate us: because we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion, because we refuse to treat women as second-class citizens, because we do not kill homosexuals, because we are a free society.

Right, the reason they attacked us on 9/11 is because we don't kill homosexuals.  It had nothing to do with their perception of our continued support for the occupation of Palestine. It had nothing to do with our maintaining a military base on what they consider holy land. Barone expects someone to believe that?

The Times does not alway make the best choices. This time they did. The idea that they need to ask the government for permission to print is so against the First Amendment  that it would be laughable, were it not part of their campaign to paint the left as weaklings who are borderline traitors.

Hertzberg is Very good

Writing political opinion for The New Yorker magazine cannot be easy. That journalistic cliche "Hot Off the Press" just doesn't apply at The New Yorker. The longer lead time that the magazine requires between the writing of an article and its arrival on the newsstand means that the opinion will never be the most current nor fresh. But when Hendrik Hertzberg is the author, it will often be the best.
Writing of the looming Senate vote on the bill outlawing Desecration of the Flag, Hertzberg explains why its passage would be "almost utterly dispiriting." He ends his piece brilliantly:

"Providence," Lord Bryce,... "has under its special care children, idiots, and the United States of America." The kids are still all right, but unless thirty-four senators hold firm Providence may no longer be able to indulge the second without harming the third."

Hertzberg would never be so inelegant as to call U.S. Senators idiots. Everytime you read one of his pieces, your conclusion the childish spittle spewed by a David Brooks is just a waste of paper and ink, can onlky be reinforced.