But now he's like pro-life and stuff.

Bet you didn't know that, he remarked at CPAC. That is correct. There are many things which aren't true which I don't know.

I don't even want to entertain this because it's so silly. Apart from the undignified bluster, the tackiness, the egotism, etc., there's his two divorces, his frequent support of and donations to Democrats, etc.

On the support of Democrats: I get that, I do, let's face it, he was a businessman in an area of business heavily regulated by government (but I repeat myself; isn't that all businessmen?) and needed to pay off both sides to be left alone; but I don't think I'm buying he's a Republican. Well, sure, maybe sort of a Polite Company Republican, but not a serious conservative or anything.

One thing I have to mention too: When Rosie O'Donnell went after him, he went after her hard. Now that was some of the funniest shit I've ever heard, and I loved every minute of it, and damn if I didn't search around every news channel to see if Trump was on slamming O'Donnell yet again, but in fact a lot of people are going to react badly to seeing that all again. He called her fat, stupid, fat, a loser, fat, a gross pig, fat, etc.

He also said that Rosie's lesbian girlfriend must be horrified to wake up and see Rosie, and said he might just... well, check the clip below.

Now, in terms of comedy: Nine points out of ten.

In terms of presidential gravitas and the sort of blandly nonthreatening personality type the voters like: Zero points out of ten.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 05:35 PM | Comments (42)
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Guess why?

General David Petraeus, the most celebrated American soldier of his generation, is to leave his post as commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan. The Times can reveal that the Pentagon aims to replace General Petraeus, who was appointed less than eight months ago, by the end of the year. Sources have confirmed that the search for a new commander in Kabul is under way. It forms part of a sweeping reorganisation of top American officials in Afghanistan, which the Obama Administration hopes to present as proof that its strategy does not depend on the towering reputation of one man.

So if this story is right -- and here I'll believe the MBM -- Obama is getting rid of our most accomplished and successful general to prove that it's Obama's leadership that is critical, not Petraeus'.

Allow me to dream: If Obama removes Petraeus for such grubby considerations, will Petraeus revisit his determination not to run for President?

Now, he's always said he wasn't interested, and on top of that, we always assumed he'd never leave his post for a political ambition.

But if Obama is removing him, in order to grab credit... why, he doesn't have his post anymore, does he?

There is a lot of talk that only Christie can win in 2012 (and he's not running). That's John from Verum Serum's idea. I heard that from him before I heard it from Coulter.

I think maybe that's right.

Except for the Petraeus Option, which probably isn't an option, but... what... if...?

Denied: According to the Guardian.

The Pentagon has denied that the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, is planning to quit by the end of the year.

...

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, said: "Despite some sensational speculation by one of the London papers, I can assure you General Petraeus is not quitting as Isaf commander, but nor does he plan to stay in Afghanistan for ever.

"Obviously he will rotate out at some point, but that point has not yet been determined and it will not occur any time soon. Until then, he will continue to ably lead our coalition forces in Afghanistan."

Obviously I don't know. Who knows, maybe an ally of Petraeus floated the story in order to get Petraeus more commitment from Obama on deadlines and shooting while negotiating.

Thanks to Tami.

Posted by: Ace at 03:49 PM | Comments (480)
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But, here's the thing: The GOP is walking into the trap because they know it's the right thing to do for America and the gutless cocksucker who's supposedly our president refuses to lead.

Basically, Obama is going to run a platform of irresponsibility and future disaster because he trusts Americans are so stupid they'll reward him for it. And of course the problem with this strategy -- for us -- is that it is 88% likely he's right.

Do I believe in Americans anymore? Less and less each day that passes. I'm kind of tired of conservatives trumpeting American exceptionalism because America seems in short supply of it. Scratch your average "exceptional America" and you find an ordinary decline-and-decay European soft "I want mine" socialist beneath.

So, Obama, having abdicated his responsibility of prudence, leadership, intelligence or idealism (this either proves he is stupid or profoundly cynical), has forced the out-party House of Representatives to take a leadership role -- a role for which they aren't well suited, not because of a lack of individual ability, but because the Constitution is expressly designed for a government led by the President.

But that's what the cocksucker has decided to do -- you guys propose necessary entitlement reforms; I'll just demagogue against then and walk my way into relection.

If I were advising, I'd have strongly advised the GOP to lead on domestic spending cuts -- Jim DeMint's 250 billlion in cuts, not Rand Paul's 500 billiion, just because 250 billion seems less scary to your average American Idiot -- so that they could then announce to the public, "See? We've chopped a fair amount out. But we're still going bankrupt. Do you understand now that this problem can't just be solved with cuts to domestic programs?"

So I'd cut deep on domestic programs now, not just because it's necessary and good anyway, but it serves as a wake-up call to voters -- this is necessary, but it's not sufficient.

But be that as it may, someone has to lead the country, and as our Non-President just wants to fucking golf and talk about how awesome he is, I guess it's up to the people the Constitution doesn't nominate as national leaders to step into the Great Void of Incompetence and Cowardice left by the Bammy-Bam and do something for America.

Okay, here it is, everyone: We've long had a dispute about whether it's better to do the right thing, no matter how unpopular it is or fudge on doing the right thing to stay electable.

We're about to face this dilemma because the GOP is going forward with a plan to reform entitlement spending.

We're probably going to lose the White House in 2012 and a lot of seats from the House, too. We will probably not be able to make any headway in the Senate.

That's the downside. The upside is that this is patriotic and necessary and good.

The only card we have up our sleeve is -- get this -- the media, which knows full well this is necessary and any party addressing it is brave and doing the right thing and any cocksucker abdicating on this issue is a gutless pansy punk who likes to dress the part but who's not really a man down inside, just a vain little boy scrabbling for accolades.

So there you go: Our only possible way of winning on this is if the media goes all-in exposing Obama's and the Democrats' lies on the subject and defends the GOP.

Anyone thrilled? I'm not. But I don't see any other way.

At the end of the day when a gutless, anti-American punk who cares nothing except for his own ego controls the government we face only bad choices.

Coburn: To Close the Financial Deficit, We Must Close the Leadership Deficit: Indeed.

What makes Obama especially gutless isn't just that he's refusing to lead -- that would just be standard cowardice of the voting present variety we've come to expect.

No, it's that the GOP has come to him (as have some Democrats like Dick Durbin and Kent Conrad) and begged him to lead. Telling him, basically, "We know this is hard, but we've got your back -- we'll hang tough on this too, because we know we have to."

Even with that reassurance and pledges of support, he decides he'd rather watch America burn than let his precious ego take the hit of a difficult re-election.

Posted by: Ace at 01:52 PM | Comments (315)
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The elephant in the room.

"The 2009 killings at Fort Hood got their first and possibly only hearing in this Congress today. It followed the release of a report from the Senate's Homeland Security report on Fort Hood, in which researchers argued what conservatives have been arguing -- political correctness might be costing the military the ability to react to Islamic extremism in its midst. That, said witnesses today, is what happened with Nidal Hassan."

Witness Gen. Jack Keane (ret.) went on to say the military should have been able to figure out Hasan "believed the same thing that violent Islamic extremists" believe, and should have been kicked out of the Army.

The complaint from the left is that Lieberman and Collins are simply holding hearings in order to accuse the Obama administration of avoiding the use of the term "Islamic extremists".

Well perhaps they are. Doesn't mean they shouldn't. This administration has invented some pretty silly-assed expressions for the word "terrorism", to wit.

It's one of the reasons I hate it when the word "tragedy" is used in place of "murder" when in fact what happened was "murder". (note: I'm ok with "slaughter", that's usually accurate too.)

Perhaps Lieberman and Collins are simply pointing out it's feeble to use nice-words in place of accurate words, and gives pause as to the seriousness of the person who utters nice-words.

via MelissaTweets

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 01:30 PM | Comments (60)
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Makes sense. Depose a tyrant, why not top it off with a rape of the infidel?

The article doesn't say she was "raped," but sexually assaulted -- I'm not sure what happened. She was ultimately...

saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently in the hospital recovering.

Well, that is something. On the other hand, goddamn if I am not weary of a barbaric desert nomad culture of rape and outrage while carrying around a ton of chip-on-the-shoulder arrogance-hiding-profound-insecurity about it all.

Oh right, a thousand years ago they invented algebra. So, like, they should keep doing victory laps over that.

Posted by: Ace at 12:27 PM | Comments (554)
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I was just talking about Iraqi WMDs with AllenG. in the comments. What is harrowing is, as I understand it, while we had a lot of circumstantial evidence that Saddam had an ongoing WMD program (including the hard-to-get-around fact that he just had one three or four years before, and in fact deployed the fruits thereof against the Kurds), we had little first-hand witness testimony to this proposition.

Enter Curveball, an Iraqi defector working with the German intelligence agencies. He provided that first-hand witness testimony. He saw the program; he'd worked on the program. Or so he said.

I used to believe that our intelligence agencies knew something about foreign governments, that they had a few reliable agents-in-place in most countries.

In fact, they don't. And not just ours, but almost all of Europe's too. Israel seems to still do real intelligence; almost everyone else does it the easy and unreliable way, using only intercepts and paying off sources. And the trouble with paying off sources is of course you're giving them a terrific cash-money incentive to tell you what you want to hear.

(Leon Panetta just confidently winked to the press that Mubarak would be abdicating last Friday. Turns out that's the impression he got from watching tv reports. There's Today's CIA for you, watching the same newsfeeds you do. Open a Twitter account and maybe you too can shape CIA intelligence reports.)

At any rate, we relied almost entirely on one man and he was just making it up. He now says he was doing so for the patriotic purpose of impelling us to remove Saddam from power; I think he's forgetting about the part about the Germans setting him up with a nice apartment and stipend, too.

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."
...

The former CIA chief in Europe Tyler Drumheller describes Janabi's admission as "fascinating", and said the emergence of the truth "makes me feel better". "I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now," said Drumheller.

The Guardian, in reporting this, is of course invested in proving that Curveball had "already" been "proven a liar" when Colin Powell referenced mobile WMD trucks in his United Nations speech. Their evidence? Well, Curveball claimed that the son of an Iraqi official in the Military Industries Commission was abroad for the purposes of procuring WMD. That official said that Curveball was lying. Case closed, the Guardian claims triumphantly.

What? One source says Iraq had mobile weapons lab and the man in the Military Industries Commission accused of facilitating WMD procurement says Oh no we don't and the Guardian thinks that the case has been proven and this should have been oh so obvious to the world's intelligence services?

While knocking Western intelligence for being credulous and not understanding that people might have motive to lie they credulously accept the word of a high military/industrial official in Saddam's regime as the definitive statement on the matter.

Um, doesn't he have a motive to lie, too?

If the Guardian and the left generally wants to demonstrate it's more wordly, savvy, and wise than the dummy-dumb-dumbs in the intelligence bureaus, shouldn't their conclusion be something far more modest like "The evidence was conflicting and scant, and should have given decision-makers pause" rather than "Oh gee, Saddam's accused of something but one of his Top Henchmen says Nuh-uhhh so obviously the case for war was a lie"?

This reminds me very much of Joe Wilson's SuperSpy Investigative Techniques in debunking the claim that Saddam was shopping abroad for uranium in Niger.

In the late 1980s, the Iraqi representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency—Iraq's senior public envoy for nuclear matters, in effect—was a man named Wissam al-Zahawie. After the Kuwait war in 1991, when Rolf Ekeus arrived in Baghdad to begin the inspection and disarmament work of UNSCOM, he was greeted by Zahawie, who told him in a bitter manner that "now that you have come to take away our assets," the two men could no longer be friends. (They had known each other in earlier incarnations at the United Nations in New York.)

At a later 1995 U.N. special session on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Zahawie was the Iraqi delegate and spoke heatedly about the urgent need to counterbalance Israel's nuclear capacity. At the time, most democratic countries did not have full diplomatic relations with Saddam's regime, and there were few fully accredited Iraqi ambassadors overseas... To this very important and sensitive post in Rome, Zahawie was appointed in 1997, holding the job of Saddam's ambassador to the Holy See until 2000....

In February 1999, Zahawie left his Vatican office for a few days and paid an official visit to Niger, a country known for absolutely nothing except its vast deposits of uranium ore. It was from Niger that Iraq had originally acquired uranium in 1981, as confirmed in the Duelfer Report. In order to take the Joseph Wilson view of this Baathist ambassadorial initiative, you have to be able to believe that Saddam Hussein's long-term main man on nuclear issues was in Niger to talk about something other than the obvious. Italian intelligence (which first noticed the Zahawie trip from Rome) found it difficult to take this view and alerted French intelligence (which has better contacts in West Africa and a stronger interest in nuclear questions). In due time, the French tipped off the British, who in their cousinly way conveyed the suggestive information to Washington. As everyone now knows, the disclosure appeared in watered-down and secondhand form in the president's State of the Union address in January 2003.

If the above was all that was known, it would surely be universally agreed that no responsible American administration could have overlooked such an amazingly sinister pattern. Given the past Iraqi record of surreptitious dealing, cheating of inspectors, concealment of sites and caches, and declared ambition to equip the technicians referred to openly in the Baathist press as "nuclear mujahideen," one could scarcely operate on the presumption of

...

The European intelligence services, and the Bush administration, only ever asserted that the Iraqi regime had apparently tried to open (or rather, reopen) a yellowcake trade "in Africa." It has never been claimed that an agreement was actually reached.

...

A few paragraphs later [in a credulous Time Magazine article clearing Saddam of all wrong doing because they said so, yo] appear, the wonderful and unchallenged words from Zahawie: "Frankly, I didn't know that Niger produced uranium at all." Well, sorry for the inconvenience of the questions, then, my old IAEA and NPT "veteran" (whose nuclear qualifications go unmentioned in the Time article). Instead, we are told that Zahawie visited Niger and other West African countries to encourage them to break the embargo on flights to Baghdad, as they had broken the sanctions on Qaddafi's Libya. A bit of a lowly mission, one might think, for one of the Iraqi regime's most senior and specialized envoys.

And what ultimately proved the case, as far as the left is concerned, that Iraq never attempted to re-open the old uranium trade with Niger? Why, Joseph Wilson "drank sweet tea" with an official who swore they had discussed no such thing.

Case closed. I guess.

Did Iraq have WMDs? At the moment, the answer appears to be "mostly no," except for some not-particularly-menacing artillery shells filled with gas which are technically WMD but not the sort of thing we'd mount a massive land invasion over. (We'd just do what Clinton did, bomb the shit out of them; oddly enough, no one ever gets around to pointing out that if Iraq was clean of WMDs during this period then Clinton bombed a country for no particularly good reason.)

Did Iraq want WMDs, and did it continue its practice of attempting to reconstitute their programs? Certainly. Unless you believe The Narrative of the left, in which a confirmed alcoholic-for-WMDs Saddam Hussein goes to AA, admits he's got a problem, and then twelve-steps himself to WMD sobriety, carrying around his 5-Years-Sober chip and telling everyone how great it is to wake up in the mornings with a clear head and clear conscience.

Oh yeah, and you also have to ignore stuff like Zahawie's trip to the bankrupt state of Niger, bankrupt of everything except uranium, and also turn off your skepticism and common sense and just believe everything officials of a hostile foreign regime say in their press releases.

That's the left's idea of "intelligence," and obviously that's a whole lot more sophisticated and savvy than the dunderheads in world intelligence.

That's not to let western intelligence off the hook -- they did a piss-poor job all the way 'round and wound up knowing almost nothing at all. That was the situation Bush was actually faced with -- with a great black void of unknowns shot through with the occasional dim star of sketchy and suggestive data, as well as false stars of concocted defector testimony.

Faced with that, he assumed the worst, and acted. He can be faulted for that -- as I can be faulted for that for supporting him in that assumption -- but the left's whole narrative is not that the situation was murky and shadowy, but rather that it was blazing brightly clear, that they had all the answers, and they know they had all the answers, because Iraqi ministers and ambassadors and military industrial procurement officials told them so.

That's their idea of a sophisticated alternative to CIA analysis. The CIA was unable to find definite proof and so wrongly concluded that where there's smoke there's fire; so the left proposes instead that the proper analysis should be where there's smoke there's no fire, so long as a top Saddam henchman tells you there's no fire.

Omission: I took out an important piece of the Guardian's narrative, because I don't think it's all that important. But the left would, so here it is, and my response:

That claim was proven false, and Latif strongly denied Janabi's claim of mobile bioweapons trucks and another allegation that 12 people had died during an accident at a secret bioweapons facility in south-east Baghdad.

The German officials returned to confront him with Latif's version. "He says, 'There are no trucks,' and I say, 'OK, when [Latif says] there no trucks then [there are none],'" Janabi recalled.

It is upon this [bracketed paraphrase] passage that they base their claim that "Curveball" had already been discredited before the invasion of Iraq. That he apparently said something like "if he claims that, then fine."

Note the Guardian doesn't quote him explicitly, instead resorting to [bracketed paraphrases], and on this point, if the Guardian wants to hang so much on what seems at best to be a weak demurral, I'm going to have to insist on actual quotation. Not the Guardian's version of what he said.

So to me this is guy being pressed for further information or proof and (having none) saying "Fine, if that's what he says." That doesn't seem to sound anything like a confession, and I'm not surprised that no one took it as such at the time.

Furthermore, I don't trust Curveball now, either. We already know, by self-confession, he's a longtime liar who tells interested parties what they wish to hear. His current version of reality is that the spun these lies for the patriotic purpose of deposing a tyrant; he doesn't mention that valued intelligence assets get money and nice little protected apartments, too.

Bear in mind, later in the article, he gets angry when he learns that Germany has shared his stories with the CIA -- he had an explicit agreement with Germany that they would share his intelligence with no other countries.

Why did he stipulate this? Well, in hindsight -- probably because he feared that if his made-up stuff was checked against what foreign governments knew, he'd be exposed as a fraud. Thus he wanted to keep his information private between himself and Germany.

But note how that conflicts badly with his claim that he did this all to topple Saddam. If he wanted his information to serve as a pretext for toppling Saddam Hussein -- Why on earth would he demand, insistently, that the Germans could not tell any other country what he'd told them?

Does that make any kind of sense? That a man is spinning lies for the purpose of generating world condemnation and probably world military action against the tyrant he wants to see deposed, but he, for reasons unfathomable, demands that the world never know this information?

What? Did he expect that pacifist-by-constitutional-edict Germany was going to invade Iraq with no allies?

No. The most likely explanation is that he did not have a larger purpose of dethroning Saddam Hussein; that's a proven liar's attempt to put a gloss of noble purpose on his lies. His reason for demanding the information be kept secret is that he didn't want to be found out, and wanted to just keep briefing German intelligence every few months while keeping the rent-free apartment and occasional injections of walking-around money.

Now, given this, exactly how much credence should I put into his new tale, designed to please his new clientele, the leftist media? A story in which Saddam is no longer the bad guy, but instead the intelligence services that debriefed him are the buffoonish villains?

Apparently, according to the Guardian, I should bet everything on Curveball's new tales. And I should just forget that a man who once created a clientele with pleasing, assumptions-confirming perjured witness testimony just might be capable of pleasing a new clientele with pleasing, assumptions-confirming perjured witness testimony.

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 AM | Comments (262)
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Have at it.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:30 AM | Comments (69)
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I bet you can count on hard hitting pieces from NPR on the Obama administration soon. Any. Day. Now. Of course, that's the problem with government funded media...do we know NPR's coverage of Obama, the GOP and the budget battles won't be shaded by their vested interest it?

"Public broadcasting received a vote of confidence today from the Obama Administration," NPR said in a statement Monday. "The President's FY 2012 budget submission to Congress included $451 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for the two year advance appropriation for FY 2014, an increase of $6 million over FY 2013 funding."

Vivian Schiller, the head of NPR -- and focus of much controversy over the firing last year of commentator Juan Williams -- released a statement saying she is "grateful to the Obama Administration for recognizing the importance of public radio to the life of communities across the nation."

"At a time when our country is confronting many difficult challenges," Schiller said, "public broadcasting is providing an essential service by informing and educating 170 million Americans every month. This mission is more relevant than ever."

To govern is to choose. Obama chose to increase funding for a radio network that could not (or at least, will not) compete in the open market for financial support. They then feel free to mock and attack many of the people who pay the bills.

This is just more proof that Obama isn't serious about the budget. He gave them more money when Stringer herself admits public funding isn't all that important to NPR.

Q: Could NPR live without federal funding?

A: LetÂ’s go on a sidebar. ThereÂ’s a misperception about federal funding and public radio. ThereÂ’s the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They receive $90 million a year and a vast majority goes to member public radio stations. Those stations pull in more than $1 billion collectively a year. ItÂ’s significant and important but not even close to the lionÂ’s share of revenues for public radio. NPR gets no allocation from CPB. Zero. We are a private 501(c)3. WeÂ’ve had journalists call up and ask what department of the government we report to. ThatÂ’s laughable. Have you listened to our shows? We do apply for competitive grants from the likes of the Ford Foundation and the Knight Foundation. As a result, some money from CPB does come to us when we win grants. Depending on the year, it represents just one to three percent of our total budget.

There's no need for the government to be subsidizing a highly partisan 'news' network. If the product they produce is as good as they seem to think it is, they will have no trouble raising the money on their own.

Will defunding public broadcasting put a dent in the deficit or debt? No, of course not but as I wrote when the Juan Williams story broke...

Will this be uniformly popular with voters? No, but it will be a good test to find out if the message of this election is that people are ready to deal with the economic facts of life this country is facing. If the GOP canÂ’t get this done and voters tell them not to do it, then thereÂ’s no real point in even dreaming about real cuts and reform. Better to find out early where things stand.

To govern is to choose. What will the GOP choose?

Posted by: DrewM at 07:02 AM | Comments (281)
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Lexington Green over at the ChicagoBoyz blog thinks it may be the latter.

Green's point is that Obama's laughable budget is simply a way of handing the GOP enough rope to hang itself with, a trembling lamb staked out in a clearing waiting for the wolf to come while the hunters lurk in the trees. Pull quote:

If Obama wins, then the GOP / Tea Party effort is over and the Democrats have won the whole ball game. Obama gets reelected, the GOP is finished as a political party, and we have a mess for some number of years while a new party forms. But odds are it will be too late by then. A majority of people will be dependent on the Government.

Well, as far as having the majority of Americans dependent on the government: that ship has left the port already, or soon will. If you factor in all the various federal, state, and local entitlement and aid programs -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps, AFDC, WICC, etc. -- then more than half of Americans already depend on the government to a greater or lesser degree.

[UPDATE]
For a good discussion of the implications of the liberal welfare state, check out this week's Uncommon Knowledge over at NRO, where they're running an interview with William Voegeli on his book Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State.

Posted by: Monty at 06:10 AM | Comments (248)
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You know what they say: People in glass houses sink ships.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:52 AM | Comments (229)
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