Looks like the liberals' first defense -- "These are all lies cooked up by Bush partisans" -- has jumped the shark.

Matthews' new defense sounds suspiciously like a variant of "Let's move on." First deny, then claim it doesn't "rise to the bar" and doesn't "affect his job performance." As Pat Buchanan states that John Kerry lied about being in Cambodia, the Blonde Blatherer can only offer, "I'm not interested in that issue at all."

On the other hand, Matthers finds an "inconsistency" in Bob Dole's attack on Kerry. He finds a chapter in Bob Dole's biography in which Dole was wounded by shrapnel by his own poorly-tossed grenade and was then given a Purple Heart. Thus, Chrissy asserts, Bob Dole should understand the sometimes vague nature of Purple Hearts. (BTW, this was not the more-serious injury that resulted in the permanent impairment of his right arm.)

Newstwit Matthews seems to miss the fact that Bob Dole's account downplayed any suggestion of heroism in this action, and in fact denigrated his actions by calling his injury his own fault. He poked fun at himself, and his own clumsiness, even as he related the story of him being wounded.

The difference between Bob Dole and John Kerry is that John Forbes Kerry, and not Robert J. Dole, has turned a minor self-inflicted wound into a glorious spectacle deserving of a Roman Triumphal parade.

Posted by: Ace at 03:25 PM | Comments (8)
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John Kerry calls Bob Dole. Bob Dole tells Kerry off. Bob Dole absolutely pins back Kerry's ears with an attack on Kerry's use of surrogates to call Bush a deserter.

Too Hot for Internet Filters Update! It seems that suddenly Ace of Spades HQ is being labeled "objectionable material" by at least one internet filter. I suspect it may be due to the Top Ten list that follows -- two uses of the f-word, plus a couple of other sexual words in close proximity to the f-word.

So I'm putting the Top Ten into the extended entry thingee, in hopes that the filter in question only reads the front page of the site.

I guess I should have supplied an Mature Content warning in the first place.

Then again, this list is about Bob Dole being on fu-- I mean, being on frickin' fire. How dirty could it possibly be?
more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:58 PM | Comments (21)
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Michelle Malkin, of course, gets there first.

Posted by: Ace at 12:06 PM | Comments (1)
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Joshy says:

The military records all back up Kerry. Back in the old days -- i.e., last month --official military records used to be considered at least presumptively accurate. Now, everyone knows or should know that every after-action report or medal citation isn't necessarily the product of an exhaustive investigation. Yet, they're not meaningless. At a minimum one would assume that the burden of proof would lie with those who dispute their veracity.

This is Chris Matthews' take as well.

But is it true that military records were considered -- up until last month -- presumptively accurate?

I don't remember George W. Bush having the benefit of such a presumption.

His records say he fulfilled all obligations and was therefore honorably discharged. He has pay records from the disputed "AWOL" period showing he was in fact paid. He has records of a dental visit in Alabama to show that he was on the base when he said he was. Sure, he could have just popped in to have his teeth checked, but that record indicates he was "in the system" at the time. You don't blow off military duty, hoping not be noticed, and then remind them that you're supposed to be performing military duty by showing up for a nice fluoridization.

In that situation, the liberals did not afford the official records any presumption of accuracy whatsoever. They were, and remain, quite eager to "look beyond the records" to get to the "truth" (hopefully, a Bush-damaging truth) that the papers don't show.

But now Chris Matthews, Joshy Marshall, and the rest of the sissy squad are claiming that military records supporting John Kerry settle the issue, no matter if dozens of eyewitnesses to the events in question swear that those records are inaccurate and based on Kerry's own self-serving self-reporting.

QandO beats me to the punch on this point (you snooze, you lose):

In order to move the presidential campaign away from what happened or didn't happen in Vietnam 35 years ago, I offer a suggestion. Since the Kerry camp wishes to argue that official Navy records are conclusive proof that Kerry served honorably and with distinction, I suggest that those of us opposed to Kerry offer to accept that argument, as long as the Kerry people accept the logical corollary: the official Air Force records indicating George W. Bush was honorably discharged from his service is conclusive proof that he properly met his obligations as well.

Thanks to Instapundit for the QandO link.

Posted by: Ace at 11:55 AM | Comments (4)
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Remember all the liberal chatter, such as that by Joshua Micah Hezekiah Bucephalus Chauncy Boutros-Boutros Mellencamp Marshall, that Osama bin Ladin would be captured just in time for either the Democratic or Republican convention?

Well, the Republican convention is just around the corner, and no OBL yet.

I find the non-occurrence of this non-capture to be "suspiciously timed," and I blame Democrats for arranging this with sympathetic military officers in the US or Pakistan.

If the non-happening of the non-capture continues during or shortly after Bush's nomination speech, I think we can all agree that the non-event was non-timed to "distract" from Bush and thus provide him with a non-bounce.

I'm "predicting" this now, as John Judis of TNR did, so when the non-event non-occurs I, like him, can use that prediction of proof of my theory's validity.

Posted by: Ace at 11:34 AM | Comments (5)
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Recently, the New York Times accused Republican-leaning citizens of Practicing Politics in the First Degree when it expressed shock and outrage that, get this, conservatives who don't like John Forbes Kerry were donating money to organizations that don't like John Forbes Kerry.

I had to laugh. Just as I was reading all this outrage, I came across this tasty paragraph:

Out of desperation, the Bush campaign has picked the wrong fight with the wrong veteran," said Jim Jordan, former Kerry campaign manager who now runs an outside group airing ads against Bush. "Today's the start of the mother of all backlashes."

So let me get this straight: Kerry is accusing the Bush campaign of having a "Web of Connections" to the SwiftVets. The head of an anti-Bush group, meanwhile, is a "former Kerry campaign manager."

Ummmm.... okay. Don't hold your breath waiting for a NYT article or editorial about that.

But as my pappy always said, a fact isn't a fact until you put it into pie-graph format. This chart showing the "Web of Connections" between Kerry and "independent" liberal 527's isn't technically a pie chart, but it does look snazzy.

Thanks to Kausfiles for the chart.

Update: There's almost nothing you can afford not to read in this Taranto Best of the Web column.

Update: Connecting John Kerry to his former campaign manager is just too easy. Connecting him to Kevin Bacon, on the other hand, is investigative journalism of the first order.

Thanks to Harlan Pepper for tipping me to that. There's also this.

Dollar Democracy Update: Truth Laid Bear compares and contrasts the SwiftVets' donations -- around $150,000 -- to donations to the liberal 527's --just the listed oned have combined donations of $120 million.

Posted by: Ace at 10:30 AM | Comments (9)
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John Forbes Kerry can't be happy about the comparisons being made:

In 1944, another politician of vaulting ambition scored a Silver Star from an obliging Douglas MacArthur after riding as an observer aboard a U.S. bomber. It was the only mission he ever flew and, according to at least one of the surviving crewmen, an uneventful one at that, with no sight of the enemy nor even the slightest whiff of danger, according to author Robert Caro. Yet back in Washington, the former passenger regaled reporters like Time's Hugh Sidey, with tall tales of marauding Zeros "and how the bullets came zinging through the fuselage," according to Sidey's written recollections on the Web.

TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES. That politician was Lyndon Johnson -- the President whose escalation of the war saw Kerry and so many others obliged to fight a conflict that geopolitical constraints doomed to failure, even as the force of U.S. arms never failed to triumph in the field.

Might a Johnson who was less keen to gild his reputation as a man of action been more wary of Indochina's swamp? Might he have thought twice about misrepresenting what happened -- or rather, didn't happen -- in the Gulf of Tonkin as his excuse to escalate a war that should never have been fought?

The world will never know. But with the benefit of hindsight, people can be absolutely sure that, then as now, one truth really does matter in Presidential politics: Boasts and a talent for self-serving fiction are no recommendations for a lease on the Oval Office.

As Boston Globe columnist Joan Venucci wrote (I think): John Forbes Kerry looked at that "I don't consider myself a hero" type of quiet heroism and decided it was for saps.

And even more from Instapundit: a good piece here by The American Thinker about Kerry's possibly-illegal negoatiations with the North Vietnamese while still a Naval officer.

The really juicy part here is Kerry's apparent attempt to conceal/fudge this reality. For unfathomable reasons, the media (and Kerry's website & official biographies) keep claiming he wasn't a Naval officer when he met with the Cong. The actual records show otherwise.

Posted by: Ace at 10:20 AM | Comments (3)
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Bob Dole is a little like John McCain in that he frequently displays an "independent" or "nonpartisan" streak which, conveniently enough for both men, just happens to earn them admiration from the liberal media establishment, especially the NYT editorial page.

As annoying as that is, doing so only makes it more credible, and more welcome, when they deliver a sharp attack on a liberal.

I don't think Senator Bob Dole, War Hero, is earning himself any goodwill from the Times' Gail Collins with this tough attack on Kerry:

"I respect his record - but three Purple Hearts, he never bled that I know of," Dole told CNN's "Late Edition." "They were all superficial wounds."

"As far as I know he never spent one day in the hospital, I don't think he draws any disability pay. He doesn't have any disability. And he's boasting about three Purple Hearts, when you think of some of the people who really got shot up in Vietnam."

Next up: A visibly angered Bob Dole demands that John Kerry "stop lying about his record."

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (14)
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Governor McGreevey Shifts $10 Million From Surplus Fund to Pay for "Public Service Ads" Featuring Himself

So far during the Olympics -- an expensive place to buy ads -- I've seen two commercials featuring Jim McGreevey, and I'm in the New York market. (Also an expensive place to buy ads.) Both ads were NJ PSA's designed to convey the message "McGreevey is fixing this problem." As a non-NJ-resident, there really wasn't any reason to tell me to call the NJ Department of Health "to get the real facts about ecxema," or whatever the ads were about.

It was just a transparent wasted of state funds for the improper purpose of attempting to improve the Governor's image with NJ voters.

Well, the NJ GOP is crying foul, as they should:

Since January, the McGreevey administration has quietly transfered $10 million from the state's surplus into television and radio advertising campaigns that mostly featured the governor, the Asbury Park Press has learned.

All of the McGreevey ads are now being reviewed following the governor's Aug. 12 announcement that he would resign Nov. 15 because of a gay love affair, McGreevey spokesman Micah Rasmussen said.

One television tourism ad has already been edited to delete the McGreevey family from the end of the national spot.

Republicans say until the scandal broke, McGreevey, a Democrat, used state funds to boost his sagging poll ratings and image with the public even as the state raised taxes and borrowed $2.7 billion to balance this fiscal year's budget.

McGreevey has appeared in taxpayer-funded advertisements touting an improved E-ZPass toll collection system, more efficient motor vehicles offices, better business climate, the state's "do not call" list and a need for greater AIDS awareness.

The state Senate Republican office estimates that McGreevey has spent $30 million on ads since the beginning of his term in 2002.

State Sen. Leonard Lance, R-Hunterdon and Senate minority leader, said the multimillion-dollar ad campaign featuring the governor is frivolous.

"There is no way we should be spending money on this advertising when we have such a budget crisis, which will be even greater next spring," Lance said.

Rasmussen said the administration does not track nor total the amounts spent on advertisements featuring the governor.

Rasmussen disputed Lance's comments. He said the advertising was needed to tell residents about such services as new Saturday hours at motor vehicles offices.

"How will people know if we don't tell them?" Rasmussen said. "Maybe there wasn't a reason to let people know about new government services in the past because there were no new government services."

He "needed" to tell me about new Saturday hours at the DMV.

Because, if he hadn't told me, I would not have known.

Upcoming: A new ad instructing the voters that New Jersey is well-prepared to defend against a terrorist attack, so long as that attack comes in the form of Hebraic poetry.

Posted by: Ace at 10:09 AM | Comments (5)
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Earlier I posted an article questioning why John Forbes Kerry had a 1986 citation for his Silver Star, signed during Reagan's second term by the then-Secretary of the Navy John Lehmann.

The facts most likely are on Kerry's side. There is the possibility of shenaningans here, but it's not a strong possibility, and it's less likely that we're talking major shenanigans.

First: I asked if there were earlier reports of Kerry's Silver Star. This was a rather ignorant question. Several posters informed me he got his Silver Star in 1969 or so. The actual question about the citation is over the citation itself, not the actual Silver Star, which wasn't issued in 1986, but fairly contemporaneously with the war.

I was "wrong" in the sense that I was asking a dumb question because I didn't know enough not to ask it.

On Thursday's Brit Hume (I love DVR), Brit Hume asked a Lt. General Cowell (?) about this, and he said he didn't know why a 1986 citation was issued, nor why that fresh citation contained new, more glowing language about John Kerry's alleged heroics. He guessed that Kerry simply asked for copies of his previous citations (they are often lost, and sometimes vets want good, fresh copies for framing), and the Navy sent along the new citation -- with new language -- gratis.

He and Brit Hume seem to think it most likely that the Navy did this of its own accord. And its reason for doing so? John Forbes Kerry was now the junior Senator from Massachusetts. Both men said this wouldn't be the first time one of the services had kissed up to a Senator or an important Congressmen in the hopes that somewhere down the line they might receive a positive vote on a weapons system. (Of course, in the case of John Forbes Kerry, all such hopes were dashed.)

That doesn't exactly settle the issue, and it's possible that Kerry requested new language making him seem more heroic, but it does suggest that this is probably not something which will end in some juicy revelation.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the important stuff:

Over at Shamu's House of Fish Stix, a commenter made this point:

Some of your posts (and the resulting threads) have focused on how Malkin looks in these unflattering shots from the interview. Because of remarks you've made in the past about certain types of personal attacks against you, it surprises me that you would resort to such petty teasing when there is so much actual content to debate.

Sort of a good point, no? Especially considering that Grimmace cries foul when you point out that he looks like Weeble with a metabolic imbalance.

But Grimmace doesn't back down:

I think she has crazy eyes. I'm sorry but it's true. I also think she's quite attractive. She can call me beady-eyed if she wants, because I am.

Well, Oliver sure seems highly restrictive about what personal, looks-based insults Ms. Malkin can offer in return. He deigns to allow her to respond that he's beady-eyed.

Well, he is beady-eyed. But, on the list of things that are unappetizing about Shamu's appearance, anything involving his eyes clocks in no higher than Number 657. The very fact that he has two of them counts in his favor, given his other, rather more compelling problems.

With all due respect, Chubbsy McLipidsac, if you attack someone on what you find to be the worst aspect of their appearance, they're allowed to attack you back on whichever part of your appearance they find most disagreeable, not just some minor flaw you've come to grips with.

And I'm no bodyist or whatnot, but I would say that your biggest problem involves, how do I put this delicately?, your gigantic sagging man-ass and big flopping he-tits.

I'm sorry but it's true. If you must, you can criticize me for my eyelashes, which have just never been as lush or as sultry as I might like. I, like most other men of my age group, have just never gotten over the fact that I didn't grow up to be Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran.

Posted by: Ace at 09:22 PM | Comments (15)
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