The liberal media-political establishment -- let's call it for what it is; it is a contiguous organization with offices from ABC to the DNC -- has staked its future on the proposition that there were "no" ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda.

They could be honest and admit there were such ties, and then argue that, despite such ties, they didn't "rise to the level" of the sort of cooperation justifying an invasion. But they know they will lose that political argument, so they dare not make it.

The American people don't much care if the ties were "operational" or not. We've pretty much had it with countries with any ties to Al Qaeda.

Since they cannot make the argument on the actual facts, they've decided to simply change the facts to ones better suiting their position. To wit, they've decided that there were no ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Further, they've decided that even when the 9-11 panel reports there were such ties, they will deliberately lie and claim the panel stated the opposite.

Some headlines:

MSNBC: 9/11 panel sees no link between Iraq, al-Qaida

Washington Post: No Evidence Connecting Iraq to Al Qaeda, 9/11 Panel Says

Reuters: No signs Iraq aided al-Qaeda, says 9/11 panel (running in "The Star," wherever that's from)

AP: 9/11 panel sees no proof of Al-Qaeda-Saddam link (running in The Straits Times)

And of course:

The New York Times: Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie

Is that what the 9-11 commission said? That there were no ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda?

Let's ask Chairman Tom Kean:

"What we have found is, were there contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq? Yes. Some of them were shadowy - but they were there."

But he's a Republican, the liberals rejoin. Of course; nothing is true in America unless a liberal can be persuaded to agree. But never mind. We have such a liberal. Co-Chairman Lee Hamilton, Democrat:

"I must say I have trouble understanding the flack over this. The Vice President is saying, I think, that there were connections between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government. We don't disagree with that. What we have said is what the governor just said, we don't have any evidence of a cooperative, or a corroborative relationship between Saddam Hussein's government and these al Qaeda operatives with regard to the attacks on the United States. So it seems to me the sharp differences that the press has drawn, the media has drawn, are not that apparent to me."

Hell, let's look at The New York Times' own reportage, in the very article headlined "Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie":

The report said that despite evidence of repeated contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda in the 90's, "they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship."

Ah. Just mere "repeated contacts." Certainly not a "tie."

Notice the shift in language. The headline rules out a "tie" -- that's pretty absolute. But the actual article admits a tie, and merely rules out a "collaborative relationship," which doesn't mean much, and in fact seems contradicted by the actual facts. (If you're discussing aiding each other, guess what? You're in a collaborative relationship.)

And how about this:

"There were systematic efforts by Al Qaeda to connect with Iraq - many of them failed," Thomas H. Kean, a Republican and former governor of New Jersey, said in an interview.

Any one notice the word there is "many" rather than "all"? One would think the press would ask the rather-compelling follow-up question of "How many efforts to "connect" actually succeeded?" But apparently this didn't occur to our dilligent Timesman.

On Brit Hume tonight, Mort Kondracke called Hamilton's statement "devastating to the American Media," and he pulled no punches as to why they had so badly misreported the panel's findings: They did it in order to hurt Bush. They lied -- my words now, not his -- to hurt Bush.

I like Mort. I've said before-- I like hearing from him more than Fred Barnes, because Fred Barnes is, let's face it, in the bag for the good guys. I like him, but I can't believe everything he says.

Mort Kondracke, on the other hand, is very definitely a centrist-- the sort of undecided independent certain other pundits falsely claim to be. And if he's willing to make that stark an indictment, you can believe it.

The media has long played the Game of Negatives. For a long time, they have only reported ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in negative terms. If there are ties, they will not affirmatively report the existence of ties. They won't say, "Ties discovered." They will only report what has not been found, such as "no strong ties" or "no operational ties" or "no ties to 9-11 itself."

Whatever is found as regards a tie, they will only give the headline to what has not yet been found.

You could always look at those qualifiers and infer that, if there were no "strong" ties in the media's estimation, of course there must be weak ties, or else they wouldn't have bothered with the qualification.

But as of yesterday, the media changed the rules of the game. No longer would they simply reject the existence of "strong ties" or "operational ties." Now they would deliberately misrepresent the findings of the 9-11 Panel and claim that there were no ties, period, full stop, end sentence.

Hat Tip: Pains me as it does to say this, although I heard Kean's and Hamilton's words on FoxNews, I actually found the transcripts of their words on, egads, the blog of an undecided, independent swing voter who honestly could go either way in this election and really, you oughtn't rush him because he's wrestling with all sorts of difficult issues at the moment.

Posted by: Ace at 10:47 PM | Comments (1)
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...but it's even closer than that. Kerry's lead comes via slim leads in three small states Bush carried in 2000 (NH, WV, NV).

He's got a fun fact concerning the former Republic of Texas:

Under the terms of TexasÂ’s admission to the Union as a state in 1845, the former independent Republic has the right to split into five separate states almost at will. That would be eight more electoral votes for Bush! Why havenÂ’t the PresidentÂ’s supporters in the Lone Star State at least discussed the possibility?

That's the sort of thing Republicans never have the balls to do. Still, it's fun to think about.

Posted by: Ace at 10:28 PM | Comments (3)
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Any chance we'll be getting an apology for this?:

"...

"We entered one of the companies' [offices], and found there an American infidel who looked like a director of one of the companies. I went into his office and called him. When he turned to me, I shot him in the head, and his head exploded. We entered another office and found one infidel from South Africa, and our brother Hussein slit his throat. We asked Allah to accept [these acts of devotion] from us, and from him. This was the South African infidel...."

More -- quite a bit more --at American Digest.

In related important news, American soldiers used dogs to "frighten" Iraqi terrorist prisoners, and Andrew Sullivan is having "heart-ache" over the social ostracism he's received due to his one-time support of George Bush.

Posted by: Ace at 02:47 PM | Comments (6)
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Sometimes I hanker for a hunk of cheese, and I don't know why.

Oh yeah. Because of these cartoon PSA's that used to run on ABC on Saturday Mornings in the early eighties (scroll down; posted on Monday, June 14).

Update: What business is it of the American Broadcasting Corporation if I choose to "drown my food," or even if I have a "Yuck Mouth"?

Seriously-- who's the victim here?

These little brainwashing cartoons are the fluoridation of the mind.

I Wasted My Youth Update: Only the worst sort of couch-potato protonerd could possibly have committed all these dopey tunes and lyrics to memory.

Good Grief! Didn't my dad ever play ball with me? Did I not have any friends at all?

Is this where it all went so horribly wrong for me?

Posted by: Ace at 02:00 PM | Comments (5)
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And what if Chris Lehane and Michael Moore went into business together?

It's like a science-fiction movie. What if we take the best parts of Michael Moore and Chris Lehane and combine them into the world's biggest dickface? It's like a harmonic convergence of interplanetary douchebaggery.

Get me Graydon Carter. I've got a new screenplay for him to pimp.

Or shill.

Posted by: Ace at 01:01 PM | Comments (6)
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...job approval up from 44% to 50% since Reagan's death.

Pew's been one of the polls showing Bush with the worst numbers. Nice to see him break 50% for a change in the Pew poll.

In the actual contest, it's tied in a two-man race, Bush slightly ahead with Nader in the mix.

I just hope that there's no similar "Clinton Nostalgia" that will boost Kerry's support...

Posted by: Ace at 12:55 PM | Comments (1)
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But other things are going on besides the outing of Shrill Shill.

May's readings on inflation were greater than expected:

Prices received by farms, factories and refiners shot up a hefty and more-than-expected 0.8 percent last month, the largest jump since March 2003, the Labor Department said.

While food and energy prices both rose sharply, the department's core producer price index, which strips out those volatile costs, gained a larger-than-expected 0.3 percent, adding to inflation jitters on Wall Street.

They'd expected a .6 rise in CPI, and a .2 rise in the core producer price index.

That's not good for Wall Street.

On the other hand...

Also, a regional manufacturing survey showed strength, though it bore some pockets of softness. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve's June business activity index climbed to 28.9 from 23.8 in May, beating forecasts of a rise to 25.0.

In a separate report, the Labor Department said first-time filings for state jobless aid fell 15,000 to 336,000 in the week ended June 12, their lowest level since early May.

...

Also on Thursday, the Conference Board, a private business group, said its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.5 percent in May to 116.5, suggesting the U.S. economy's momentum is likely to build in the coming months.

Note the word "build." Not "continue." Build. As in quicken in pace.

Finally:

A four-week moving average of claims, which smooths weekly volatility to provide a better picture of underlying trends, slipped 2,750 to 343,250. The average has been hovering since early March near levels not seen since early 2001, before the economy tipped into recession.

Actually, the economy tipped into recession in late 2000, but I take their point.

The markets are reacting fairly neutrally to the combination of inflation worries and very positive economic news. I'm speaking out of my hat here, but I kinda think the markets want that .25 rate hike in June -- or even a .5 hike -- just to get it over with. Maybe it's the current fear of the rate hike -- which everyone knows is coming -- which is keeping markets moving sideways.

Posted by: Ace at 12:01 PM | Comments (4)
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Allah disagrees with my characterization of Sullivan as a shill. The Shrill Shill, actually, in my Dowd-esque cutesey name-calling style.

He is a shill. He's the very definition of a shill.

A shill is someone who pretends to be an independent passer-by but who in fact is working for the house (or the carnival, or the three-card-monte table, or the Miracle Elixer stagecoach).

Falsely claiming to have no affiliation with the house, he encourages his audience to play or buy.

Everyone knows the carnival barker is an interested party; that's why no one much believes the carnival barker. He's honest and upfront about his interests, but that honesty diminishes his credibility.

The shill, on the other hand, has increased credibility, but only because he's dishonest about his interests.

Sullivan has been slamming Bush and promoting Kerry for a half-year under the guise of being a disinterested, independent party.

That's shilling.

Me? I'm a carnival barker. You all know where I'm coming from. I haven't precisely disguised the fact that I'm a pro-Bush partisan. Now, you all can and should discount my carny-barking because you know that I have a clear and announced interest in these matters.

Heck, I even lampoon myself for that on occasion.

But Sullivan hid his interests from his readers. For precisely the same reasons that a house's shill does.

Spooky Action at a Distance Update: Jeremy spoke in class today, and he tips me to this weirdly synchronicitous Hugh Hewitt piece in which he discusses, get this, deliberate deception in the blog world, to wit, posing as a partisan for one side while secretly working for the other:

Similarly, the inevitable backstab blog has to be on some political consultant's mind. Get it started and growing as a pro candidate X blog. Build an audience via tried and true techniques --including the purchase of blog-ads-- and then, late in a campaign, have the blog turn on candidate X. If any of the high profile lefties at work today--the Daily Kos or Atrios, for example--were to suddenly turn on Kerry, citing implausibility fatigue, for example--that would be news and a blow to Kerry. Could Kos really be working for Rove? The costs of starting a blog are so low that the mischief potential is quite high.

Hmm...

Kinda weird.

Update:

I also note the harsh reality that, while Sullivan wrote in the Advocate that his flip was entirely attributable to Bush's support of the FMA, Sullivan's blog has been increasingly hyping problems in Iraq. In other words, it looks like he's building up a pretext.

-- from Strange Women Lying in Ponds

Update: It occurs to me that some of my readers might not have grown up in the colorful world of carny-folk, hobos, and grifters, as I did.

I don't know if everyone knows the original meaning of "shill," but it's this:

The shill is the "independent stranger" who walks up to a three-card-monte table and "wins" three out of three times, declaring "That's easy!" as he walks away with all the money he just won. And then the patsies come to the table and suddenly find that it's actually very difficult to win.

In a con, he's the "inside man," the guy who poses as an ally of the mark, when of course he's working against the mark with the other conmen.

A shill is a con-man working for the house. He's a con-man because he doesn't tell you he's working for the house. He pretends to be just an average joe, just like you, who just keeps getting super-lucky at faro or roulette or who, perhaps, found that the Miracle Elixer the huckster is selling cured him of tuberculosis. He encourages you to play or buy in order to enrich the house.

That's the sense I mean the world "shill" in, not the broader secondary definition of a pitchman for some business or cause.

Posted by: Ace at 10:49 AM | Comments (31)
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Well, that didn't take too long. Sullivan, caught out lying his ass off, decides that now's the time to go through the comments at Lucianne.com and cry "homophobes!"

I'm sure it's just a coincidince that Lucianne Goldberg is Jonah Goldberg's mother.

Some of the posts are homophobic (but what the hell does that have to do with Lucianne?), but a few aren't.

Where's the homphobia here?:

Yeah, I used to read Sullivan's blog on a daily basis, until, I don't know, maybe mid-winter last year. He was going wobbly on just about everything, so I removed him from my bookmarks, and haven't thought about it since--simply don't miss his commentary. I suspect his webstats show a major falloff in readership.

Is "wobbly" some new anti-gay slur I don't know about?

If so-- why wasn't I informed immediately?

And this is cute:

I don't say good-bye, I say good riddance. Kudos to Kathryn Lopez for outing the traitor early on.

Ah, I see. He says "outed." That must be some sort of extraodinarily-subtle anti-gay dig.

Right.

If No One's Going to Pat My Back, Looks Like I'll Just Have to Do It My Damn Self Update: Didn't someone predict that Sullivan would show initial restraint and then proceed to emotional, nasty, and personal counterattacks?

I can't predict the economy. I can't predict the war. I can't predict whether some post I write will get linked.

But I do have a weird super-power:

I can predict Andrew Sullivan.

There's gotta be some way I can, err, "monetarize" this oddball skill o' mine.

Posted by: Ace at 09:45 AM | Comments (27)
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Sullivan's main defense seems to be "I didn't exactly say I was now a Kerry partisan, but I think that should have been obvious." And that makes his failure to disclose his partisan interest harmless.

The trouble is, there's another media-source that doesn't say it's a committed partisan, and yet quite obviously is, and that media-source is routinely condemned for claiming to be objective and unbiased when in reality it is anything but.

And Sullivan has criticized the fundamental dishonesty of that media-source on any number of occasions.

The name of that media-source?

The New York Times.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:51 PM | Comments (11)
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