Wow. You guys really blogged the heck out of this site.

I want to thank again all the good people who filled in for me while I was out getting sensual massages from Stanley Tucci.

John Wuzzadem, glad you're a Dem no more.

Karol was busy this week and didn't get to post much, but I appreciate her efforts just the same.

The Unpopulist, of course, gets a special shout-out for getting this site Insta-linked. I think that's the key to getting myself Instalanched-- have someone else write the post.

Say Anything, thanks so much. Glad to have your firepower, if only for a week.

Zelda from The Urban Grind I've actually met. She's a great chick and if you're not checking her site, you ought to be.

And finally Dave from Garfield Ridge-- thanks. Not quite as many Professor Zaius posts as I would have liked, but a terrific job nonetheless.

Thanks for doing so much damn work -- and posting so much interesting and funny writing -- while I was away. You don't know how much I appreciate it.

And thanks to the readers who kept coming back in my absence-- you guys are the greatest.

UPDATE [the UnPo]:

To all Ace readers and admirers, and in particular the surlier ones:

Thank you for you time. It was a blast.

God bless.

Posted by: Ace at 07:00 PM | Comments (17)
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Ratherbiased.com has a tease from an upcoming LLM piece on Rathergate, including these tidbits:

* Dan Rather has been observed wandering the hallways of CBS News muttering "elections have consequences," referring to Bush-Kerry presidential race.

* Many within CBS News believe Rather and CBS News president Andrew Heyward should quit out of honor. Says one executive of Rather: "Should Dan resign for his part in this story? Yes. Will he? No. ItÂ’s just not his style." As for Heyward, Blum points out that in the seven years that Betsy West, Heyward's assistant vice president, worked for him, she never did anything that Heyward didn't require her to do. "The fish stinks from the head," he concludes.
Don Hewitt, the founder of "60 Minutes," on the scandal: "This is the worst thing IÂ’ve ever seen in 55 years of working for CBS News."

* "Much has been made of Rather's failure to see the piece before it aired, but that fact isn't very meaningful; he'd read multiple drafts of the script for the story (written by producer Mapes), done most of the interviews, and had a thorough knowledge of the story's content and point of view. He was hardly the uninformed mouthpiece portrayed in the media."

* Rather seems to have been responsible for the disastrous 12-day denial strategy following the initial questioning of the Burkett documents:
"Rather has remained intensely loyal to his disgraced producer Mary Mapes, but those around him feel his loyalties should have been to the truth. 'The producer lied,' one longtime Rather producer told me in an unsolicited, not-for-attribution e-mail, angry that other innocent people had been wrongly punished for Mapes's transgressions. But the commission's report showed that it was the considerable power of Rather—in addition to Mapes—that helped lead Howard, West, and others to trust the reporting on the National Guard story in ways they now must deeply regret."

There's more at the link, of course.

I'm always amused by the comparisons between this story and Watergate. Dan Rather, muttering to himself as he wanders the halls aimlessly -- perhaps speaking to a portrait of Edward R. Murrow? -- is just another example that history repeats itself, especially if you're a retard.

Posted by: Ace at 05:47 PM | Comments (15)
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Check it out.

Posted by: Ace at 03:40 PM | Comments (8)
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Weird:

WASHINGTON - A federal judge ruled Monday that foreign terror suspects held in Cuba can challenge their confinement in U.S. courts and she criticized the Bush administration for holding hundreds of people without legal rights.

Judge Joyce Hens Green, handling claims filed by about 50 detainees at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, said the Supreme Court made clear last yearthat they have constitutional rights that lower courts should enforce.  

"Although this nation unquestionably must take strong action under the leadership of the commander in chief to protect itself against enormous and unprecedented threats," she wrote, "that necessity cannot negate the existence of the most basic fundamental rights for which the people of this country have fought and died for well over 200 years. "

It never occured to me that Nathan Hale submitted to execution so as to preserve the rights of foreign combatants.

Good to know.

Posted by: Ace at 12:08 PM | Comments (17)
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Via The New Vintage (who "questions the timing"), George Soros has the long, luxuriously European knives out for Kerry:

Jan. 30 -- Billionaire investor George Soros, the biggest financial contributor to the failed effort to defeat President George W. Bush in November's election, said Democratic challenger John Kerry was a flawed candidate.

Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC, spent $26 million in last year's campaign that he said was undermined by the candidate he supported.

``Kerry did not, actually, offer a credible and coherent alternative,'' Soros, 74, said yesterday in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ``That had a lot to do with Bush being re-elected.''

...

The Kerry campaign ``tried to emphasize his role as a Vietnam War hero and downplay his role as an anti-Vietnam War hero, which he was,'' said Soros. ``Had he admitted, owned up to it, I think actually the outcome could have been different.''

Once again, The West Wing fallacy: if we just give them old-school neosocialist pacifist liberalism, they'll vote for us.

Nope. It's dishonest as hell, but hiding their actual policies and inclinations is actually their best strategy.

Soros said he also now questions ``what the Democratic party stands for.'' Democrats need to counter ``a very effective conservative message machine,'' he said. ``There really needs to be an alternative.''

Right. The elite print media, all the network news organizations, academia, and Hollywood just aren't enough to "get the message out there."

If that's not enough, I quiver to imagine what Soros has in mind.

More... Just One Minute on the everlong quest to get John Kerry to sign his form 180, releasing his military records.

You must read the post, if only for the "LAST LAUGH" update at the end.

Posted by: Ace at 11:41 AM | Comments (14)
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Andrew Sullivan is for once worth reading; or rather, one of his emailers is.

No, the email doesn't call him the most influential man in the history of the world, nor praise him for his bravery:

They [the Bush-hating left] will take a contrarian position no matter what the topic. They will lie and distort their own past stated positions, The ends justify the means, and all. The same people who claim to have been for the Afghanistan action in order to justify their exceptional opposition to the Iraq action were, for the most part, against Afghanistan. They lie with ease; they don't want us to win anything; they want America to be publicly chastened, especially by our European intellectual 'superiors'. Conceding anything to this crowd, right or wrong, feels like it will lead to giving them something they don't deserve, the higher ground, and, worse, carte blanche to take us back to a pre-911 ostrich-like security strategy.

I think that's on the right track. I think it's pretty clear that the Iraq occupation has not gone as we'd all hoped.

And yet-- my own personal admission of that fact tends to be grudging and sporadic.

When a child does nothing but whine and scream, one becomes less interested in addressing each and every one of the baby's complaints, even if there are a few valid ones mixed in with the constant screeching.

Update: Boy from Troi now rips Andrew a new one, too.

The "excitable Andrew" meme has really taken off. I'm glad that everyone's now seeing through this twit, but I'm also a little saddened that my raison d'etre (a French term meaning "hatred of excitable hacks") has been so broadly swiped.

Posted by: Ace at 11:26 AM | Comments (16)
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Fox reporter Steve Harrigan expected more Iraqis to be cowed by the threat of terrorism, and Johnny Dollar has the transcript.

Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (14)
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Drudge siren: "Hillary in Faint Scare"

"She fainted after not feeling well, got medical attention and is proceeding with her planned schedule," according to a statement released by her office in Washington.

Update: Fox News just did a phone interview with some big-wig doctor, who assisted them in their wild speculation about the possible cause of Hillary's apparent case of 'the vapors'. Said big-wig doctor was kind enough to speculate that she "May have had diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration."

Don't they have a delay? Where is the FCC?

Posted by John from WuzzaDem

Posted by: Ace at 11:00 AM | Comments (19)
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Best night's sleep of my life.

Guest bloggers kicking ass and taking names.

The Iraqi elections going off with only sporadic violence and with 80% participation.

Allah sending along this Washington Post story on, yes, Blue Oyster Cult and the cult of "more cowbell."

Life is good.

Thanks, Dave, Lisa, Karol, Say Anything, John, and Unpopulist. You guys did a great job and you made the site better in my absence than it was with me running things.

Given that-- hey, if you want to keep posting a little today, have fun. I'm not quite in full blogger mode yet.

I want to also thank all of those readers who've been so supportive-- not just of this site, but of wishing me good luck at Sundance. It really felt good to know that I was carrying those well-wishes wherever I went.

Scurrilious Rumors: Fat Kid speculates on where I've really been for the past week.

They're all lies.

Well, there's some truth in Number One, I suppose.

Posted by: Ace at 10:00 AM | Comments (30)
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Might as well post, eh?

Seriously, if he's been kidnapped by militant German nihilists, or worse, gotten a job in Hollywood that started today, then what happens to his site?

Do all of us guest bloggers get to keep it as our second home? Or do we have to give it up to the state, and let the government sell it for parts?

Maybe Ace left a will. Although I shudder to think what would be in such a document. I could see him leaving Ace of Spades to Cedarford, just to screw with everybody else.

Oh well. While we're all waiting to hail the return of Caesar Triumphant, I encourage you to enjoy. . . THIS!

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Ace at 09:43 AM | Comments (6)
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