The intellectual forefather of our own Mike.

I don't believe a word of it, but it's still creepy. A chicken living 18 months without a head? Fed and watered directly into its exposed esophagus with an eyedropper?

Eeeesh.

And they kept it alive to honor its will to live? How about honoring its will to not walk around as a headless freak fed through his severed esophagus?

Thanks to Oregon Muse.

Posted by: Ace at 12:39 PM | Comments (35)
Post contains 79 words, total size 1 kb.

Of course, the human element is still unpredictable.

Like, you could still be aboard a plane with this stewardress, or maybe this passenger, or even this one-time movie-actress/pooter-exposer.

Harry Callahan Update: Funny how The Influence Peddler titles his post "If Only They Could Help With the Food", and one of the links off SeatGuru is to just such a site. It doesn't exactly help with the food, but at least you know in advance what you're likely to get.

Posted by: Ace at 12:19 PM | Comments (10)
Post contains 107 words, total size 1 kb.

I think what Iowahawk is trying to say here is that focus groups responded favorably to the words "smart" and "tough."

I guess they think they can sell anything by using the words "smart" and "tough" a lot.

Senator Ted Kennedy

A smart, tough choice to drive your teenaged daughter back home after her prom.

Warning: If there are any bridges between your daughter's prom and your home, it's on you, baby.

Posted by: Ace at 11:36 AM | Comments (28)
Post contains 92 words, total size 1 kb.

10. She's "indepedent" and "concerned"

9. She's just wild about spats

8. She's always "played by the book" and "never deviated from the rules"

7. Claims her favorite cartoon is Doonesbury; her actual favorite, Cathy

6. She's "a person with great integrity"

5. She thinks a really good name for a chocolate lab would be "Pretzel"

4. She's a "good, substative person" and "a good, solid intelligence officer"

3. She's been "meaning to start a blog" dishing about Neil Diamond, cats, the "dreamy" Hugh Jackman, and codeword-clearance national security secrets

2. "She is not a firebrand kind of ideologue"

...and the Number One Fact About Mary McCarthy The Media Tells You, Rather Than Mentioning Her $7700 In Donations To Democrats Or Deep Connections To The Liberal Democratic Security Clacque...

1. She is functionally "frappedextrous," meaning sometimes she calls it a "milkshake," sometimes a "frappe," and feels equally comfortable with either

Note: All even numbered points are taken from real media articles about McCarthy, particularly the NYT article mocked by Dorian Davis on Karol's site, and the WaPo article to which all-around douchebag Walter Pincus contributed reporting fawning ass-kissing.

Odd-numbered points are just ripped off recontextualized from an old Top Ten I did about the Democratic spy Susan Lindauer.

Posted by: Ace at 11:14 AM | Comments (12)
Post contains 264 words, total size 2 kb.

Anyone remember this?

A former Democratic congressional aide was arrested today on charges that she worked as an Iraqi spy. Susan Lindauer, 41, has been charged with conspiring to work with the Iraqi Intelligence Service and engaging in prohibited financial transactions with Saddam Hussein's government, according to the below indictment unsealed today by federal prosecutors in New York. Lindauer, arrested this morning at her Maryland home, allegedly met with Iraqi agents during several visits to the country's U.N. mission, where she "accepted various payments" in return "for services provided to the IIS in the course of her ongoing intelligence relationship with them." Lindauer, who also allegedly traveled to Iraq in early-2002 to meet with IIS agents, has previously worked as a press spokesperson for several elected officials, including former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun and congressmen Ron Wyden and Peter DeFazio.

And the press was equally, um, circumspect about revealing her partisan leanings:

Best point: Charles Austin says he knew the woman must be a Democratic Congressional aide (her party affiliation wasn't mentioned until late in CNN's report) because he knew damn well that if she were a Republican, that fact would have been noted in the headline.

It's similar to the "dog that doesn't bark" clue in stories about terrorism. When they don't mention the terrorists' names, ethnic backgrounds, or religion, you know, with high confidence, that the terrorists were Muslims, because the media is always very quick to note "White Christian Guy Murders 12."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ooooooh, check out this, the official CNN story on the matter.

Now, the fact that the woman worked as a Congressional aide has been scrubbed entirely from the story.

One would think that to be an important piece of information. Hell, the occupation of suspects in crimes is routinely reported, even when it's entirely irrelevant to the actual story; it's reported, just like the irrelevant detail of the suspect's age is reported.

But CNN doesn't want to even get into that; it might raise some follow-up questions they don't want to report on, like "Well, who did she work for in Congress?"

So they have now completely censored that information from the story.

After the media blacked-out the spy's occupation as an aide to a Democratic Congresswoman, they then had the stones to suggest she had REPUBLICAN connections:

An Instapundit reader emails him to note that...

Just saw the NBC evening news: Tom Brokaw not only skipped the substantial aspects of the indictment (her being paid ten grand *and* her willingness to perform aid and comfort when she believed she was aiding the "Iraqi resistance" with Libyan help), but he neglected to mention that she was a former journalist and former Democratic congressional aide.

He did take pains to report that she was a second cousin of White House staffer Andy Card.

Of course! That's obviously the most important biographical detail about her!

Our "objective, neutral" media in action!

ULTIMATE UPDATE! Suprise! Not only is this the left's talking points, but it's the headline in the "objective, neutral" media!

Instapundit links to bloggers who've discovered that the AP story is running with the headline "Suspected Spy is Bush Staffer's Cousin."

No mention of how she might have gotten her hands on sensitive documents in the headline; apparently the suggestion is that "Cousins of Bush Staffers" are just sort of put on the distribution list for secret documents.

At some point, you have to wonder why Congress doesn't just hold hearings on this. Not necessarily to pass laws, but just to "understand" how bias happens. Put these obnoxious bastards under oath and make them explain their reasons for these sorts of headlines.

Yeah, there would be political heat for doing so. Yeah, there'd be whining about "chilling the press' right to spin information to aid leftist causes."

But at what point does the sheer brazeness and obnoxiousness of the liberal media begin to make it worth it for Republicans to haul them in for a bit of questioning?

If the media hadn't already decided on the "McCarthy's a hero" storyline, they'd have her as Karl Rove's secret sex-slave.

Not to suggest that all liberals are traitors, of course. (Although, quite frankly, they're certainly more open to the idea, seeing themselves as Citizens of the World and the idea of fidelity to one's country as an unnuanced position to take.)

But the point is that the media has done this before-- when a Democrat gets caught dirty passing secrets to either Iraq or to the press, they are determined to make her party affiliation a higher state secret than the classified information she passed along.

So, Poland hosts secret prisons for terrorists, which, if revealed, could greatly damage a loyal ally? That's information the public has a right to know.

But Mary McCarthy's political donations and sympathies? Well, goddamnit, that's PRIVATE and you shouldn't be reporting on such sensitive matters.

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Comments (12)
Post contains 876 words, total size 6 kb.

What are they protesting? I have no idea. Because the MSM is embargoing information about the vicious thugs who killed the kid over an MP3 player.

You know what that means -- it's those YOUEE's (Youths Of Undetermined Ethnic Extraction) at work again.

Things you can't print in the media:

1) Pictures of Mohammad

2) Pictures or names of followers of Mohammad involved in brutal crimes

and, soon enough:

3) Any news or pictures which have not been pre-approved by clerics of Mohammad as being "Islamic" enough for public dissemination

The risk of random and vicious violence being committed against followers of the Religion of Peace (TM) is so high that we must countennance an awful lot of random and vicious violence being committed by followers of the Religion of Peace (TM), I guess.

Let's tally up the death tolls:

Violence committed BY Muslim thugs: at least 6000 deaths, just since 1998, and tens of thousands of injuries and maimings

Violence committed AGAINST Mulsims by thuggish non-Muslims who are a bit angry at all the violence committed BY Muslims: Not really too many deaths yet, but there are very troubling reports of a Sikh Wa-Wa owner/operator in Parsipanny, New Jersey, getting a "dirty look" from an as of yet unapprehended man wearing a Quiet Riot concert t-shirt and trucker's cap reading "Hunters always eat what they shoot"

So, you know, I do understand the difficult calculus here. It truly is a "cycle of violence" that we must not allow ourselves to feed.

Or, as Ann Coulter once quipped in relating a "fair and balanced" NYT article about violence in Lebannon (approximately): The NYT notes that both sides are prisoners of a political disagreement that neither can escape from. On one hand, Muslim extremists want to kill all non-Muslims. On the other hand, non-Muslims want to not be butchered in the streets. So it's really all just a difference in opinion and cultural norms which requires dialogue and compromise on both parties' parts.

Perhaps the Muslim thugs can agree to not outright murder us, if non-Muslims are willing to accept a few maimings and gang-rapes here and there. The key to resolving conflicts like this is flexibility on each parties' side.

More Muslim Outrage... Over flags of Saudi Arabia and Iran being flown at a German whorehouse, as part of its World Cup promotion.

I can see why they were so angry. We all know that no one from Saudi Arabia ever has anything to do with common whores.

They can afford $2000/night call-girls, after all. And it's offensive and unislamic to suggest otherwise.

Thanks to Darwin's Moustache for that.

Posted by: Ace at 10:00 AM | Comments (13)
Post contains 453 words, total size 3 kb.

And it's probably a good idea to place a firm pillow on your desk, lest your jaw fall so quicky that you split your chin.

Are you prepared?

Juan Williams defends Mary McCarthy's right to leak... as she has a right to speak out "as a citizen" of the United States.

WILLIAMS: Â…Â…..And here you have his opponents, some of them in the CIA like McCarthy, making a political leak very much intended to say that the administration's policy is off base and taking us down the path of secret prisons that violate our principles as Americans.

So you come to the whole idea that she was trying to defeat this administration because she felt what their activities were doing was hurting the American -- hurting America both at home and abroad in terms of our ideals. Porter Goss says it hurt us, hurt our relationships with...

WALLACE: And she was elected by whom?

WILLIAMS: She wasn't elected by anybody, but she's an American citizen. She has a right to speak out.

KRISTOL: She doesn't have to right. She does not have a right.

WILLIAMS: Oh, she's not a citizen?

KRISTOL: She does not have a right to speak out. Maybe you're not aware that when you join the CIA -- when I went to work in the U.S. government...

WILLIAMS: Sure.

KRISTOL: ... I signed forms saying I would not release classified information. If I had released information like this, I would have been fired. I should have been fired. And let me tell you something.

Incidentally, that exposes the reason, as if it weren't already obvious enough, that "citizens" in the CIA just can't leak because they feel the government is taking actions that "violate our principles as Americans."

My principles do not feel violated at all.

The government makes a lot of decisions that people don't agree with. However, those who cry about "saving the Constitution" should be required to answer how they so blithely justify invalidating the Constitution's provisions that 1, foreign policy shall be made by the President (with the advise and consent of the Senate, as regards treaties), and 2, the elected President is the boss in the Executive branch.

If Juan Williams and other liberals want a new Constitution making bureaucrats the boss of the President, let them go through the amendment process to effect those changes.

But stop claiming you're "saving the Constitution" by subverting it.

In Juan Williams' defense, he wasn't especially lucid yesterday, as his brain was tired and cloudy from spending the whole weekend splitting atoms... with his mind. Some kind of side-gig at the JPL or SkunkWorks or something. Very hush-hush.

Thanks to Brad.

Video Update: Michelle Malkin's new blog, heavy on video clips from idiots, is now up and running. It's called Hot Air.

You can catch Kerry and Juan Williams sketching out the Democratic "leaking is good for national security" argument here.

Thanks to Allah, who's a contributor to the new effort.

Gee, I sure hope this plucky little start-up gets some attention.

Posted by: Ace at 09:09 AM | Comments (154)
Post contains 527 words, total size 3 kb.

Democrats are determined to cast their cut-and-run impulses as tough, strong plans to win wars (by surrendering).

Cylinder has fun with the "tough/strong" wordplay:

Tough. Strong.

We killed the PATRIOT Act.

Tough. Strong.

If you read the FBI reports of American soldiers' actions, you would think it came from the SS, NKVD or Khmer Rouge.

Tough. Strong.

The President cannot spy on al Qaeda - only judges can spy on al Qaeda.

Tough. Strong.

By mentioning the enemy, the President is offering us only fear.

Tough. Strong.

If Iraqi insurgents continue to attack us, we should leave.

Tough. Strong.

US soldiers are the real terrorists in Iraq. They are terrorizing Iraqi civilians.

Tough. Strong.

Al Qaeda accused US troops of desecration. We beleive al Qaeda.

Tough. Strong.

Seems to be grist for a thread. Pick a Democratic plank and then just add "Tough. Strong." after it, and you've got Howard Dean's message for November.

We believe in causing grave political damage to one of our most important and stalwart allies, making them reluctant to aid us in the future, if doing so can knock Bush's approval rating down by 1 or 2%.

Tough. Strong.

Posted by: Ace at 08:55 AM | Comments (33)
Post contains 202 words, total size 1 kb.

Updates incorporated into the main body of the post. If you're big on this story, skim until you see something new.

A lot to cover, mostly having to do with media bias and the media's attempt to push back against the Bush Administration to keep its leakers safe.

John Kerry, of course, has announced that if you're telling the truth when you leak, that should be a mitigating factor as to whether or not your punished for breaking the law.

Absurd. It's only the truthful leaks that can jeopardize national security -- you don't harm national security when you leak something that's not true. So Kerry is basically saying that all leakers should get off the hook.

Yeah, I know, he does the old "Of course I don't support leaking." And then comes the but.

There seems to be a blatant double-standard on leaking, and one political party is up and arms about it. That political party? The Democrats.

Hee, hee, hee. They (as John Kerry did) claim that because the President is empowered to declassify information and leak it or openly announce it as he sees fit, his subordinates in the CIA must have the same right. Or something.

Actually, they just say that's it's "hypocritical" for the President to do something he is empowered to do while punishing those for doing something they are not empowered to do. Why? Who the eff knows.

They're desperate. They need the leaking liberal faction in the CIA to continue their war against Bush, and they're rising to their allies' defense.

Belmont Club notes that Ray McGovern, one of McCarthy's defenders, is an associate of Daniel Ellsberg through something called the "Truth Telling Project," which claims that anyone is empowered to leak if, in their opinion, the constitution is being violated. Oath of secrecy and national security laws and all that, but if, in your opinion, you think the Constitution is being violated, you are free to leak whatever you like.

The media, of course, is not informing you about who McCarthy's defenders are, nor their fairly expansive view of the Right to Leak. If any CIA employee admitted he subscribed to such a view, do you think he'd be allowed to keep his security clearance? Of course not. So people have the Right to Leak, I guess, and also the Right To Lie.

Public intellectual idiot Juan Cole similarly cries double-standard on leaking, and Confederate Yankee rips him apart.

And speaking of McCarthy's defenders -- I mean her defenders that aren't Democratic politicians or their liberal spirit squad in the media. I mean her other defenders. Rand Beers, the go-to guy for nice quotes about McCarthy in the NYT piece on her, quit the CIA to become Kerry's national security advisor in 2004 and also teaches a seminar at Yale with... Richard Clarke.

Dorian Davis, guest blogging at Karol's, archly notes the super-happy-positive treatment the NYT gave McCarthy in that story.

The Corner notes the WaPo's fawning story on McCarthy makes no mention of McCarthy's contributions to Democrats. Even the NYT managed to note ONE donation. The article claims she's no "firebrand ideologue."

But the numbers tell a different story. A reader at the Corner estimates her yearly income and calculates how much of her salary went to Democratic politicians in 2004. An awful lot, as it turns out. Possibly 8.4% (or more) of her 2004 net income (income after taxes).

If someone's tithing that much to the Holy Liberal Church and still not a "firebrand ideologue," I'd like to know how much of your hard-earned cash you have to give away to politicians before you do become a "firebrand idelogue." 20%?

Just One Minute meanwhile notes the NYT similarly continues having trouble finding the full extent of McCarthy's Democratic donations, despite the fact that every blogger on the planet was able to find them at Open Secrets or the FEC disclusre site within about, oh, three minutes.

The Times scratches its pointy little head wondering what McCarthy's motivation for leaking might have been, while studiously ignoring the following information that everyone not reading the Times knows:

1) She was Berger crony and Clinton appointee.

2) Her career was going gangbusters through the Clinton Adminstration, being appointed, ultimately, to the high post of National Intelligence Officer for Warning.

3) Bush then eased her out of this high position into, it seems, a far less influential and much less powerful berth at what seems to be some sort of CIA-affiliated think-tank, the Center for Security and International Studies, which may be where old CIA horses are put out to stud.

4) She was a committed Kerry partisan, giving, perhaps, a full 8.4% of her 2004 net income (i.e., income after taxes) to Kerry and other Democratic politicians and organizations.

The Times just can't figure out what her motivation could possibly be. Must just be because she's an independent-minded straight-shooter with an abundant sense of patriotism and fidelity to the Constitution and who, if she's guilty of anything, is guilty of caring too much.

"This is not difficult," Tom says. He means it's not difficult to find this stuff and write a short paragraph about it. But of course it's extraordinarily difficult for the media to note the partisan leanings of a leaker who hurts Bush.

So difficult, in fact, that most in the media will simply avoid the topic altogether.

Which raises an interesting question, I think. The media and the Democrats are always claiming they're equally, if not more, patriotic and heroic than conservatives/Republicans.

If that's the case-- why are they so reluctant to admit their heroes are liberal partisans? They're clearly giving McCarthy the designation "hero;" they refuse to give her the designation "liberal" or "Democratic partisan."

Do they believe, as some Republicans do, that heroism and patriotism are somehow incompatible with liberalism and Democratic partisanship? If they don't believe that, why not just say she's both a liberal ideologue and a hero?

Andrew ("Pretty In Pink") McCarthy wants to know why she isn't in cuffs yet.

Which is a damn good question. The Democratic politicians and the media should be willing to admit that more was done here than "informing the public" or "holding the government accountable," which are this week's talking points. They should forthrightly admit that grave damage was done to US national security:

In Europe, the reaction [to the Post story] was immediate and intense. The EU said it would launch a probe of both Poland, which is an EU member, and Romania, which hopes to become one. Both countries might be punished if the story were true, EU officials said. Romania denied the whole thing, sort of; in a statement that perhaps sounded more definitive than it was, Romania's premier said, "I repeat: We do not have CIA bases in Romania." In Poland, the new government -- it had been in office for just a few weeks and had played no role in whatever had happened before -- also issued a denial.
But, at least in Poland, the story caused enormous anger and unhappiness behind the scenes.

In an interview with National Review, one source with knowledge of the Polish government's dilemma would not address the facts of the story, but called the damage "horrific." The source cited two reasons. First, the Polish government believes that it is now, as a result of the Post story, on al-Qaeda's hit list, setting off fears that Warsaw or Krakow could follow Madrid and London as European terrorist targets. And second, the leak shook the pro-American Polish government's faith in the United States. Poland has been a loyal ally of the U.S., sending troops to Iraq and keeping them there when others withdrew. That decision has been costly not only in lives -- 17 Poles have died in Iraq -- but also in terms of Poland's relations with largely anti-U.S. European governments. And now Poland worries about whether it can trust its most powerful ally. "The next time we are asked to do an operation in common, we will always think twice about your intelligence community's ability to keep a secret," the source said.

So it would seem that the interest of "informing the public" must be weighed against harming a loyal ally-- possibly making them high-value targets on Al Qaeda's hit-lists -- and embarrassing them and causing them to be cautious about aiding us in the future.

But of course in the media, none of these consequences are mentioned, let alone seriously considered. Hurting Bush trumps all other considerations.

Note that Poland's population tends to be fairly anti-Iraq-War. How come their spooks were able to keep it quiet, whereas Mary McCarthy wasn't?

Does anyone imagine that when Democrats defend McCarthy's reckless criminality, a media-type will confront him with that quote? I don't. The media has a professional and PARTISAN interest in keeping all the liberal leakers leaking, and they are doing their utmost to minimize the damage done by the leak -- in fact, they embargo any news or quote that might suggest it was harmful at all -- while trumpeting the supposed benefits of it ("informing the public").

June 1, 1944. A staffer in the Army's war planning office has been fighting the plan for the D-Day invasion for six months, believing the action is too risky, will lead to far too many Allied casualties, and that better alternatives are available (such as simply increasing the troops landing in Italy).

So he leaks the plan to the press-- on June 6, an enormous amphibious landing will take place at Normandy. His intent is not to kill Americans, but rather to save them-- he believes that another plan is better, and that by leaking, he will force a change in the plan.

His leak is true. It is leaked with good intentions.

Would Kerry or Jane Harmon or the rest of the leak-defenders claim that this was a "good leak" because it was "true" and/or done to "hold the government accountable"?

I would say that what the Democrats and media are doing is greatly weakening the Presidency's national security and foreign policy powers for the next Democratic President. I would say that the "rules" they are now suggesting would apply equally to a Hillary! presidency, and if, say, Hillary! strikes a deal with Iran, they are complicit in giving the go-ahead to right-wing staffers at the CIA to sabotage that plan by deliberately leaking all sorts of derogatory information suggesting that Iran cannot be trusted, etc., leaks that might cause public opinion to turn against her, or cause Iran to withdraw from the deal in a fit of anger.

I would say that they are therefore crippling the Presidency for themselves, when they capture it.

I would say that, but it's not true. Because we all know-- the moment a Democrat becomes President, these new "rules" about how splendid it is when a leaker sabotages the duly-elected President's foreign policy decisonmaking (to hold her "accountable") will go right out the window.

These new "rules" are only in effect during a Republican administration. We know it, the Democrats know it, the entire liberal spirit squad in the media knows it.

The moment Hillary! takes the presidency, all leakers who attempt to thwart her chosen foreign policy through illegal leaks will be fired and probably prosecuted, and the media will cheer her for clamping down on "rightwing ideologues" determined to illegally undermine the foreign policy decisions of the constitutionally-empowered chief foreign policy officer.

Thanks to Allah for several of those tips. If I missed anyone, sorry.

Posted by: Ace at 08:50 AM | Comments (43)
Post contains 1927 words, total size 13 kb.

Christopher Hitchens said on the Hugh Hewitt show recently that he "dislikes" the Republican party but has "contempt" for the Democrats.

More from Mark Steyn on NRO -- including a Trent Lott quote about being sick of hearing from the Porkbusters.

As Steyn says, we know the feeling. We're sick of hearing from Trent F'n' Lott.

Thanks to Traffic Semi-Santa.

Over the past week I've been mulling the possibility and feasibility of boycotting the GOP over their drunken-sailor porkiful spending habits. Let the Dems control Congress for two years, I was thinking (or at least musing); how much harm could they do in two years? It would have the terrific effect of letting the GOP know we're not f'n' kidding on spending and immigration, and that we loyal conservative voters cannot be treated as the Democrats treat black voters.

We're not always there when you need us.

But this latest scandal makes that entire idea seem dangerous. It turns out that a hell of a lot of damage can happen to our national security in two years, and anyone thinking of sitting out the elections is effectively voting for an America too timid to stand up to Al Qaeda or even Vincente Fox.

Still, something must be done.

I suggest a Enemies List of certain Republicans. We keep the list small at first, just the most egregious offenders, as a warning to the rest. Pour encouragement les otres, or however that goes. ("Every once in a while you have to hang a few admirals to encourage the others.")

The Enemies List would be a full blogosphere press on an absolute, full, total boycott on all donations/volunteering to the GOP members on the list. We wouldn't necessarily hold back votes; but we damn sure would make it tougher for these guys to get re-elected.

I think it's about time.

Either they stop with the pork and earmarks and drunken-sailor spending or else. They have a choice between our tax money and our political donation money, but not both, damn it all.

If a few of them lose elections because of this-- well, so be it. We can afford to lose a free-spending Republican here and there without losing control of Congress.

The inaugural entry on the Enemies List is Trent Lott, who richly deserves it.

Let's hit him where it hurts.

Posted by: Ace at 08:44 AM | Comments (15)
Post contains 402 words, total size 2 kb.