We all know the reason, I think.

It's the same reason why "diversity" doesn't seem so important as regards, say, an NBA basketball team. Diversity there is just a code for "need more minorities," and thus really doesn't apply to an NBA team (although they could use more Samoans, I suppose). And that's fine and all, but let's not resort to euphemism.

"Diversity of thought" always means "need more liberals." When lefty media critics whine about the absence of "alternative points of view" in the media, they're not talking about Fox and Rush Limbaugh, now are they? The "alternative voices" they mean are NPR and Pacifica radio types-- lefties. Never those on the right. Always more liberals are needed.

David Gergen, the current whiner about Bush's lack of liberals in his cabinet, never seemed bothered by Clinton's cabinet. I guess that's because he had a good sampling of both types of necessary political thought-- liberalism and left-liberalism.

Posted by: Ace at 09:56 AM | Comments (9)
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The left is justifiably proud of its history of being in the forefront of the movement for racial tolerance.

The trouble is that they seem to have given up on racial tolerance and colorblindness as a genuine cause. Now it's just one more political club in their bag, a favorite wedge that can always get them out of the rough.

They would do themselves and America a service to begin actually acting as if racial sensitivity still mattered, rather than making self-righteous ex cathedra pronouncements about it while indulging in all sorts of venomous rhetoric they'd scream about were it employed by someone on the right.

Update: Protein Wisdom parodizes leftist race-baiting with a photo-shop.

Posted by: Ace at 09:29 AM | Comments (11)
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Dawn Eden, Petite Powerhouse, has just gotten her first editorial published in the New York Post. "The Grinch Who Stole Messiah" is about a New Jersey school district's wrong-headed decision to ban all music of any religious import whatsoever from holiday concerts.

You know you've screwed up big-time when even Ron Kuby tells you so:

Even First Amendment lawyer Ron Kuby, an avowed atheist, is on the side of the angels. "Unfortunately, it's always easier to stifle the speech than to risk a lawsuit," he says. "But this serves no one's interest. It infuriates the religious community without any corresponding benefit to maintaining the separation between church and state."

Let's assume we're all pretty much four-square behind the notion that we should all be tolerant and respectful of eachother's differing beliefs, especially as regards religion. It seems there are two different ways to get there:

1) We could all actually simply strive to be tolerant and respectful, and treat instances of witnessing divergent faiths with interest-- genuine interest, ideally, those times when we are eager to learn about other people in our world; or politely feigned interest, the rest of the time, say, 95% of the time. In no case should someone run in horror because they heard the Hallelujah Chorus or the Four Questions.

2) We can simply admit we're not nearly mature and enlightened enough for option #1, and rather than simply accepting each other's differences and appreciating them, we can forcibly remove all such differences from the public square. As differences turn out to be too "contentious" (i.e., we all hate anything that's different, although we claim otherwise), we can simply drain the public square of anything cherished or sacred or in any way too darn interesting for polite company. Outside our homes, we will witness nothing except the anodyne, the mediocre, the lame, the corporate-safe, and the focus-group tested. Then we can all spend the next hundred years singing the theme from Barney the Dinosaur and wishing each other "Have a Coke and a smile" when we sneeze.

It seems America is pretty hellbent on Option #2, and I think that's a pity.

Posted by: Ace at 02:11 AM | Comments (18)
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The media won't care, of course, because it's the French firing like Krazy Kapitalist Kowboys at innocent dark-skinned people.

Even the short "sample" video is slow to download. I tried uploading it myself, but at 1MB, it's too big for this site (at least as the rules stand). Daily Recycler, this is a job for you.

Meanwhile, The Age (Australia) reports on rampant criminality of French "terror" squads under Mitterand. (Requires relatively painless registration.)

Some highlights:

A bugging scandal dubbed the French Watergate is finally coming to court more than two decades after the late President Francois Mitterrand ordered the tapping of the telephones of hundreds of French personalities.

Twelve of the former president's closest aides face charges of violation of privacy for allegedly monitoring conversations to prevent damaging facts about his private life reaching the public. The trial in Paris, due to have started yesterday, comes after an investigation marked by a suspicious death and anonymous tip-offs.

...

At its launch, Mr Mitterrand said the unit's task was to "fight terrorism". But according to the prosecution, the unit spent most of its time making sure the French public was kept in the dark over the president's extra-marital affair with Anne Pingeot, and about their daughter, Mazarine, now 29.

Hmmm... maybe we should heed their warnings about overreacting to terror threats. They seem to know the dangers of doing so first-hand.

The unit eavesdropped on a bewildering array of prominent people from 1983 to 1986, recording more than 3000 conversations. Many of the notes bear the word "Seen" in the president's own hand.

...

The man who came under the closest scrutiny was Jean-Edern Hallier, a writer and former confidant of the president, allegedly disgruntled at not receiving a plum post in the Mitterrand administration.

Mr Hallier's every move was noted after he voiced plans to publish a book on the president's flamboyant private life, called Tonton and Mazarine - or The Lost Honour of Francois Mitterrand.

Tonton, which means uncle, was the president's nickname. When he threatened to talk about the book on television, the unit had the show axed..

All French-bashing aside, it's an important caution about unchecked or under-scrutinized state power. Even if you trust George Bush as a man who would never resort to such deviousness and criminality -- and, well, frankly, I personally don't so trust him; in the words of Tom from Miller's Crossing, "Nobody knows anybody-- not that well" -- then it must still be remembered that whatever powers are granted to Bush will more than likely still be extant when Hillary Rodham becomes the 44th President of the United States.

Thanks to Moonbat_One for the video, Stan for the Mitterand story.

Posted by: Ace at 01:44 AM | Comments (4)
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I call the idea hooey, myself. And on that score, A Small Victory seems to agree.

I actually think a decent case could be made. Blogging is of course not the most important story of the year (although it's probably are the most important meta-media story of the year).

But since Time magazine won't give the nod to George W. Bush, they need someone else to give it to, right? It would be a deft, if transparent, PR move on Time's part, I guess. Bloggers would get off Time's case for a least a month or so.

Then again, who reads Time any more anyway?

The Politboro Diktat takes on Michele's case point-by-point and concludes it's a pretty swell idea. He compares blogging to the PC, which was made "Man of the Year" in 1982-- when the home PC had almost no visibility or impact in society yet, but would of course explode within a decade.

One problem I have with the Comrade's analysis: no mention whatsoever on the implications of any of this on that crazy blog-money I've heard so much about. It's a real oversight on his part.

On Second Thought Update: Maybe I don't want Time to do a cover on bloggers, anyway. Senator Philabuster predicts -- with almost guaranteed precision-- that it just means more crazy blog-money for the Daily Kos and Wonkette:

The cover will feature Kos, Wonkette!!!!, Sully, and Oliver Willis (by himself on the fold out page, obviously).

Then within the body of the article Instapundit and Drudge will probably get a head nod, but only during the boxed "Talking Points Memo" interview with Josh Marshall where he trashes them.

So the lefty blogs get all the sweet attention and lucrative endorsement deals, and the blogs straddling the right side of the divide get the same acknowledgment from Time that they did from the recent NY Times article: diddly-squatt.

He's so right. So, Time, do us both a favor and let's not but say we did.

Unrelated Update: Michele posts a link to this long, and often very difficult, quiz on eighties pop culture. A quick once-over tells me I don't know more than 20% of these.

Very Related Update: Who cares if Time takes notice of bloggers? Cranky Neocon has John O'Sullivan from NR (paper edition only) saying nice things about us.

And when I say "us," I mean people besides me, because he's never heard of me. Still, he's almost sorta-kinda maybe heard of people that may have linked me at one time or another, so that's still pretty cool.

Posted by: Ace at 04:34 PM | Comments (14)
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Long story short: these guys are going to do whatever's necessary to protect themselves and their fellow Marines, and they're not going to apologize for it. God Bless Them.

We have a huge disagreement in this country about what is and what is not acceptable in this war. Part of this is all just a proxy fight for the leftists' insistence that war itself is unacceptable under any circumstances; having lost that debate decisively, they attempt to engage in guerilla-rhetorical tactics, simply sniping at each and every event that unfolds, in hopes that the accumulation of the little wounds they inflict will ultimately win the war they really care about-- the war on war itself.

But let's put that aside for the moment. Abu Ghraib, waterboarding Al Qaeda leaders, etc.-- the right and left have a major disagreement.

The left insists that we must scrupulously honor all possible ethical, legal, and moral restraints in our fight, even those which, by their very terms, do not apply (such as the Geneva Conventions' protections for legal combatants, which most terrorists and terrorists/insurgents are not).

The right is a bit more, let us say, "liberal" on these matters.

I cannot accept the proposition that, no matter how inhuman or savage our enemy might be, we must treat him as if he is a lawful and honorable soldier. "Just people who disagree with you," as Chris Matthews says.

We act with perfect legality and honor with respect to those who similarly act with perfect legality and honor. To treat the savage and animalistic with such strict scrupulousness is doubly counterproductive. It obviously restricts our actions more than we might like; and it provides no protection for our own troops, since the enemy knows they can abuse and behead prisoners with impunity and yet we will continue treating them with velvet gloves.

Medieval knights respected a code of honorable combat. But they didn't extend that code to everyone -- only opponents who were, themselves, honorable could expect to be treated with full martial honor. Those who weren't quite honoroble -- like archers and crossbowmen, killing from a distance rather than engaging honorably in close combat -- could expect a knight to lob arrows and bolts back at them in turn. Any other rule -- like the absolutist code of conduct urged on us by the anti-war left -- would have been suicidal.

Occasionally dealing roughly or even savagely with these bastards does not, in fact, make us "no better than they are." Because we are perfectly willing to treat them with perfect regard for honor and mercy-- were they willing to treat us the same in return. They are not so willing, of course, and routinely proclaim just that in their videotaped murder-porn.

If a man says he wants a fair fight, but his opponent immediately gouges him in the eye as a response, that man is not required to actually fight fair. Honor is satisfied by his declaration of his desire to fight honorably. If that offer is spurned-- well, there's no reason for him to encumber himself with rules and restraints that his opponent refuses.

I am reminded again, as I frequently am when confronted with these issues, of Steven den Beste's outstanding essays on the strategic virtue of the childhood tactic of "tit for tat":

One guy decided to run a computer tournament; people were permitted to create algorithms in a synthetic language which would have the ability to keep track of previous exchanges and make a decision on each new exchange whether to be honest or to cheat. He challenged them to see who could come up with the one which did the best in a long series of matches against various opponents. It turned out that the best anyone could find, and the best anyone has ever found, was known as "Tit-for-tat".

On the first round, it plays fair. On each successive round, it does to the other guy what he did the last time.

When Tit-for-tat plays against itself, it plays fair for the entire game and maximizes output. When it plays against anyone who tosses in some cheating, it punishes it by cheating back and reduces the other guys unfair winnings.

No-one has ever found a way of defeating it.

Now let's analyze two different and even more simplistic approaches; we'll call them "saint" and "sinner". The saint plays fair every single round, irrespective of what the other guy does. The sinner always cheats.

When a saint plays against another saint, or against tit-for-tat, the result is optimum but more important is that everyone gets the same result. When a sinner plays against another sinner, or against tit-for-tat, everyone cheats and the result is still even, though less than optimal.

But when a sinner plays against a saint, the sinner wins and the saint loses.

Which brings me back to the point of all this: Is there anything I would rule out in war? Nothing I'd care to admit to my enemies, because ruling out anything is a "saint" tactic. The Tit-for-tat tactic is to be prepared to do anything, but not to do so spontaneously. In other words, if the other guy threatens to use poison gas, you make sure you have some of your own and let him know that you'll retaliate with it. That means that he has nothing to win by using it, and he won't. (A war is a sequence game and not a single transaction because each day is a new exchange. If you gassed my guys yesterday, I can gas yours today.)

Maybe Chris Matthews can't abide an America willing to occasionally fight the enemy with one tenth of the savagery with which he fights us, but most of us are just fine with it.

The moment they stop kidnapping, beheading, blowing up schoolbuses filled with children, etc., I'm willing to discuss a stricter policy as regards the rules of war.

R. Lee Ermey Update: Citizen Smash instructs our troops: YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO DIE!

Posted by: Ace at 12:50 PM | Comments (19)
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Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (8)
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As well they should. While the Pentagon is fighting enemy fighters and terrorists, the liberal pansies at the CIA are fighting American policy.

It seems to me that the liberals at the CIA view their oath of secrecy as provisional at most-- if there's a liberal President, and they support his policies, they'll honor their oath. If they don't like the President, they pretend they had their fingers crossed the whole time.

Typical of this:

[Defense officials] say analysts expressed opposition to going to war with Iraq and filed overly pessimistic reports that seemed to always leak to the liberal press. One senior official told The Washington Times last year of an Iraq station chief's dire predictions on Iraq. The station chief's report leaked to the press within days of its arrival in Washington. What seemed odd to this Pentagon official was that the dispatch contained a long list of "CCs" all the way down to Navy battle group commanders at sea, meaning tens of thousands saw the report.

"This report was designed to leak," the official charged.

Get rid of him. He obviously wants to be a reporter rather than a spook. He'll be much happier as an expert analyst on Aaron Brown's show.

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (5)
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Diggers Realm has a NYT piece on the myster of the disappearing portraits.

There's a sweet and new and important-sounding nugget in there, which I won't tell you about, because, hey, he found it.

I'll give away the funny part, though:

There has been no official reaction from North Korea to the reports. But a North Korean diplomat in Moscow was quoted Tuesday by Itar-Tass as saying: "This is false information, lies. Can the sun be removed from the sky? It is not possible."

You gotta love lunatic-dysfunctional Communist pariah states. They're so damn quotable.

This Is Serious Update: Instapundit notes that NK radio is dropping the "Dear Leader" honorific from reports about Kim.

That's not good for Kim. That's like when the person you're dating suddenly begs out of that that long-planned tour of Vermont's bed-and-breakfasts.

Next thing you know and the North Korean army says "We need to talk."

And then you find all your clothes and CD's out on the curb, which you don't mind all that much, because you're more bothered by the fact that you've been shot three times in the back of the head, which is the totalitarian crazystate way of saying "I like you, but I don't like like you."

I [Heart] Recycling Update: After North Korea media reported, straight-facedly, that Li'l Kim had shot thirty-eight under par his first time on the golf course, my crack research staff discovered these Top Ten Lesser-Known Kim Accomplishments.

Does floating blue and bloated and dead in the Sea of Japan count as a sporting achievement, I wonder?

Update: Power Line has more.

Posted by: Ace at 10:17 AM | Comments (18)
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Kerry went down in flames with $15 million still in the bank.

Maybe it's just a trick he learned as a kept man. If she buys you a necklace or something, take it right down to the jewelers and sell it, and then bank that sweet profit, baby.

WASHINGTON - Democratic Party leaders said Wednesday they want to know why Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) ended his presidential campaign with more than $15 million in the bank, money that could have helped Democratic candidates across the country.

Some said he will be pressured to give the money to Democratic campaign committees rather than save it for a potential White House bid in 2008.

"Democrats are questioning why he sat on so much money that could have helped him defeat George Bush (news - web sites) or helped down-ballot races, many of which could have gone our way with a few more million dollars," said Donna Brazile, campaign manager for Al Gore (news - web sites)'s 2000 presidential race.

...

Congressional Democrats and labor leaders also privately questioned Kerry's motives. One said he would personally ask the Massachusetts senator to donate some of the money to the Democratic House and Senate campaign committees.

Three former Kerry campaign aides, also demanding anonymity out of concerns about alienating their former boss, said they were surprised and disappointed to learn that he left so much money in the bank.

...

While Kerry has likely given more money to state committees than any other nominee, no other Democrat has raised as much as he did. And second-guessing Democrats said Wednesday they couldn't recall a candidate leaving so much money on the table after a campaign.

"He's going to have to give some of it up for 2005 and beyond," Brazile said. "The party will demand it."

George Soros -- you've been Punk'd!

GregS, you are my hero.

Posted by: Ace at 09:53 AM | Comments (7)
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