It's all engineered to help Bush.

As if those who want to bug out of Iraq give a rat's ass about whether Saddam is convicted or not.

And as if a conviction won't set off a paroxysm of violence that may actually hurt Bush.

Posted by: Ace at 02:42 PM | Comments (16)
Post contains 64 words, total size 1 kb.

See? Red on red? Allah digs up stuff like this. Well, MEMRI dug it up, but then Allah pushed it out there.

Good point:

It’s irrelevant, unfair, and demagogic to point this out, of course. The left shrieking that world opinion is aligned with them against Bush? That’s fair game. Us noting that not all of their allies in “world opinion” are liberal secular humanists? That’s a cheap shot which impugns their patriotism.

While the MSM is all too eager to suggest Bush is in the wrong because the nice, democratic Europeans hate him, they refuse to sully their airwaves with Iranian clerics who despise Bush.

Some information the public needs to know. Some information may be misinterpreted by the public, and therefore the public needs to be protected from it.

They're just not smart enough or educated enough to draw the correct conclusions from it, you see.

I thank the Lord every day I have my own team of professional media censors carefully screening and embargoing relevant information from me every day.

God bless their hearts.

Otherwise, who knows what I might do?

Posted by: Ace at 02:03 PM | Comments (27)
Post contains 206 words, total size 1 kb.

Allah linked this, a screencap of an ABCNews website asking if Kerry's "joke" wasn't actually the truth. As in, "Really, come one, isn't it actually true the troops are dumb and uneducated?

Context.

I'd have an easier time believing Kerry would never have intentionally said this, or even thought this, if people on the left didn't actually, you know, intentionally say this, and unapologetically admit they think this, every goddamn day.

Again: Kerry's defense is one of "inconceivability." It is inconceivable such a thought could drift through his mind, ergo, he must not have intended to express it in a speech.

If Kerry said "We must lower taxes," yeah, I'd credit his later claim he'd mispoke and meant "end Bush's tax cuts." Because, yeah, it's inconceivable he'd argue for lowering taxes.

But this?

If it's so damn inconceivable he'd have said this, why do so many of his fellow liberals say it? Why did Kerry say similar things in the past?

The inconceivability argument would be helped were there not so many people, including Kerry, conceiving precisely that which is purported to be entirely, and in all other ways, inconceivable.

Inigo Montoya just emailed to say, "My thoughts on this are fairly well-known and requiring of little further elaboration."

The left's reaction to this is two-pronged: 1) this is such a monstrously slanderous thing to say as to make it entirely imnpossible that Kerry could have meant what he said; and 2) it is also very likely true.

Do those giving Kerry the benefit of the doubt grasp these two reactions are ever-so-slightly in contradiction?

Is it possible that Kerry harbors such contradictory thoughts himself?

More... from a Tennesean newspaper, via Blue Crab Boulevard:

The Massachusetts Democrat apologized for his statement yesterday, but he needn't have, because he said nothing to offend soldiers or veterans

...

The sad fact is, young men and women without a college degree usually earn less, as much as $23,000 a year less, according to a recent U.S. Census report. And many of those have-nots, lured into the military by enlistment bonuses, find themselves in Iraq. Then, in many cases, their tours of duty have been extended, because the U.S. military is currently overextended with troops needed on numerous fronts.

"Stuck in Iraq" says it pretty well.

I hope I'm not being overly-persnickety when I insist the left choose on a claim: either this is so patently false and monstrously slanderous that Kerry couldn't have meant to said it, or he was brave for speaking the truth.

Really? Guys? You can't keep insisting on both simultaneously.

Posted by: Ace at 01:48 PM | Comments (26)
Post contains 439 words, total size 3 kb.

Not fraudulently voting. Not double-voting. Just voting in the wrong precinct.

In Palm Beach, of course.

Anyone beginning to suspect that maybe high-profile conservatives might just be subject to more police/prosecutorial scrutiny than ordinary citizens?

Thanks to Larwyn. And others -- sorry, didn't get to this until today. Thanks for all the tips about it.

Posted by: Ace at 12:58 PM | Comments (80)
Post contains 83 words, total size 1 kb.

He claims I called him "crazy," and then says I'm in "nutroots territory" in my refusal to give any gloss to Kerry's words besides, you know, the words themselves.

Except I didn't call him "crazy." I merely quoted him disputing my interpretation, and then asked "Are We the Only Ones Who Aren't Crazy?"

See? I didn't call him crazy at all.

There's a point to that. more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:05 PM | Comments (134)
Post contains 2634 words, total size 16 kb.

Hey, bodymen are there for a reason -- to keep people who may (or may not) mean the candidate harm a reasonable distance from the candidate. Even an assassin armed with a pistol will find his accuracy fairly low if he's a mere fifteen feet away from his target.

Hot Air has a series of photos showing Allen's guerilla stalker charging at the candidate.

Captain's Quarters says CNN's cameras should have caught this-- so why didn't we see it before? Where's CNN's video?

The Allen staffer pushed aside by Mike Stark ought to bring penny-ante assault charges against Stark (it is, technically, an assault) just for the purpose of subpoenaeing CNN"s footage -- and determining whether or not CNN deliberately omitted this portion of their footage from their reports.

AJ Strata offers three words to lefties who claim Allen's staffers acted inappropriately: Robert F. Kennedy.

"Bodyman:" I used that term because I'm not sure the guys shown here were actually "bodyguards" or Allen's security detail.

I knew a guy in politics, and he was a "bodyman," as he called it, for a fairly major candidate for President. (Well, not the actual nominee; a guy trying to become the nominee, who had an outside shot at it.)

From my limited understanding, a "bodyman" is s not really a bodyguard, he's just more of barrier between the public and the candidate.

Like, he wasn't armed, and he wasn't tough. But he was part of a moving escort keeping people (even friendly people) at a comfortable distance.

He also had political responsibilities, like being friendly and chatting up supporters. And just keeping supporters from mobbing a candidate, and keeping them from slowing him down from his next event/catching a plane, etc. And making the announcement "The candidate has to go now," so that the candidate can always appear like he desperately wants to stay and shake hands, it's just his mean staff preventing him from doing so.

He didn't say "bodyguard" because he really wasn't; he was part of the candidate's political staff who traveled and moved with him. Plus, I think "bodyguard" would seriously overstate his ability to handle a genuine security threat.

Anyway, that's why I used the word. Maybe they were actual security; maybe they were "bodymen." Not sure.

Correction: "The Professor" tells me RFK's "F" stood for "Francis," not Fitzgerald.

Hmmm... never knew that.

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Comments (43)
Post contains 415 words, total size 3 kb.

As the media's liberal spirit squad assembles into a human pyramid chanting "GO, DEMS, GO!," they seem to have overlooked a few incumbents who also might lose their seats in this season of discontent.

Might have something to do with the fact they're Democrats.

Over at Geraghty's blog, he's also notes that Zobgy polls completed three days apart say that DeWine trails Brown by either 2 points (well within the margin of error) or seven points.

Either/or. Who can say?

Pollster's can't, apparently.

Posted by: Ace at 10:11 AM | Comments (14)
Post contains 97 words, total size 1 kb.

Fair enough. But it's a bit worse than the headline suggests:

A woman accused of duct-taping her two children together and leaving them home alone has been charged with child abuse, the sheriff's office said.

Agla Nadia Vincent, 25, was arrested Monday following a seven-month investigation into whether she left her two boys, then aged 2 and 3, taped to each other while she went to work, said Lt. Annie Smith of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

...

In March, a witness heard the children crying and called the police. When military police arrived, they found the children taped in a bedroom with feces and cereal scattered on play mats on the floor, investigators said.

She was an officer at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station.

John Kerry immediately said, "See?" before being gang-tackled by Nancy Pelosi's advance team.

Thanks to CraigC.

Posted by: Ace at 09:59 AM | Comments (26)
Post contains 166 words, total size 1 kb.

Seems odd that he "botched" a line that tracks so perfectly with his previous statements:

During a Vietnam-era run for Congress three decades ago, John Kerry said he opposed a volunteer Army because it would be dominated by the underprivileged, be less accountable and be more prone to "the perpetuation of war crimes."

Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran who turned against the war, made the observations in answers to a 1972 candidate questionnaire from a Massachusetts peace group.

...

In 1972, as he ran for the House, he was less apologetic in his comments about the merits of a volunteer army. He declared in the questionnaire that he opposed the draft but considered a volunteer army "a greater anathema."

"I am convinced a volunteer army would be an army of the poor and the black and the brown," Kerry wrote. "We must not repeat the travesty of the inequities present during Vietnam. I also fear having a professional army that views the perpetuation of war crimes as simply 'doing its job.'"

Thirty-four year old quotes? Certainly he's retracted and apologized for the statements he made in this time frame, right?

Nope.

Asked a couple of days ago on Imus about his 1971 "Jenjis Khan" slanders, Kerry said, more or less, "I apologize to no one:"

"The American people rely on the truth. And when I came home from Southeast Asia, I told the truth. And I'm proud that I stood up and told the truth then. . . "

That's not a reassertion of these '72 quotes, but it's a pretty strong indication that he stands by everything he previously says.

Again: I'm absolutely perplexed at how absurd the right has been about bending over forwards to explain away John Kerry's latest in a long line of insults about the military.

I think Jim Gergaghty (more useful than the Corner, lately) observed that if this were a completely out of character statement -- say, if it came from McCain -- such benefit of the doubt may be warranted.

But this is not out of character. He's never apologized for the slurs he directed at his fellow soldiers thirty years ago. He continues to insist he bravely "told the truth."

The fact that Kerry served doesn't mean he liked or respected the sort of people he served with. His vicious Winter Soldier libels should indicate the level of contempt with which he held his fellow fighting men.

He wasn't a part of them. He was above them, looking down at them.

As usual.

Veteran does not equal "supporter of the troops." Ever had a job where you despised just about everyone you worked with and considered yourself well above working there at all?

I have.

Kerry has. Actually, he's had few jobs were he didn't feel that way.

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 AM | Comments (30)
Post contains 493 words, total size 3 kb.

Cut by the Political Pit Bull.

It would have to be greatly shortened to be an actual ad, but he's got the right idea.

Posted by: Ace at 09:31 AM | Comments (6)
Post contains 36 words, total size 1 kb.