I guess I know what I'm doing for the next week.

Slublog sends his first effort.
Heh.

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 AM | Comments (21)
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I'm having trouble watching it myself. It's cringe-inducing, worse than the last Office.

Does Richard Clarke watch The L-Word?

HotAir has choice clips and a digest.

I like the moment his face turns. Damn, Allah didn't get that part. As Wallace first poses the question, Clinton's face changes from friendly to hateful.

#1 Reason Conservatives Ridiculed Clinton: Because he was "too obsessed" with catching bin Ladin.

Uh-huh.

More... Stop the ACLU has his own clips, including the face-darkening moment. It's not really important politically, but it's still fun to watch.

Posted by: Ace at 08:22 AM | Comments (217)
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Just put in mine.

I'm curious as to how many people picked Chicago with their ten point pick.

Here are the standings.

The top of the charts?

Hockeypuck
PukingDog
AnalogKid
moflicky
Chublogga
Pupster
B Moe
chickpea
angler

It's a long season, guys. You guys just have to lose a couple of your top picks for a couple of weeks and then you're right down at the bottom of the pack. With me.

Posted by: Ace at 11:40 PM | Comments (44)
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The MSM wall is breached.

On Drudge, too.

Allah?

Nice Goin', Yo: Just saw the finds you guys are making. Very nice, Nice Deb, Tommy1, and everyone else.

If anyone's up for it: someone mentioned to me it might be a good idea to get a hold of the list of people on the governor's commission that created this hateful piece of shit. If you come across that, let me know.

Going to crash soon, but I'll highlight your finds tomorrow. It's silly to have your research only posted in a main-post text over at HotAir, isn't it?

I'm really proud to be hosting the site this stuff is going on in. I don't really have a lot to do with it, but I'm happy to be associated with it.

The Finds: Allah's prematurely conceding defeat; we're not nearly there yet. Still, it's gaining. Drudge almost never links bloggers; it's just a thing with him. So he waited until a local Arizona paper basically just retyped espressopundit.com's posting and then interviewed him (with espressopundit.com "quoted" saying pretty much the same damn things on his website).

So why couldn't Drudge have just linked espressopundit? If he's such a big damn believer in the new media "Manifesto," why is it so important to him to get the Old Media's imprimatur on a story before running it?

Eh. Whatever. I guess he's struggling for respectability himself and can't risk linking those outlaw bloggers too often.

Anyway, Nice Deb and tommy1 found some good stuff, and Allah has it up on his site.

tommy's catch is pretty telling:

“The attacks gave America a sense of what the rest of the world is feeling, sometimes on a daily basis,” architect Eddie Jones says.

Allah finds another slogan reading

FEELING OF INVIOBILITY LOST

echoing the sentiment of America being (thankfully?) humbled.

The most outrageous statement remains the tribute to victims of an errant US airstrike in Afghanistan -- creating an equivalency between civilians accidentally killed in a legitimate war of self-defense and the 3000 victims of 9/11, killed intentionally by psychotic murder-cultists.

Who is this supposed to be a memorial to?

Incidentally... One of Allah's readers is going down to the "memorial" to videotape it and photograph it more fully.

As I said after the Rathergate story: "Look, Ma! No MSM help!"

The Governor's Commissioners For This Travesty: Wonder what their politics and donation histories might be?

Thanks to WickedPinto. I asked him to break a bitch, and he broke 'er.

Here We Go... Shelley Cohn.

Johnny Basha. Yes, those are both Democratic candidates for Congress.

Benito Almanza. Same.

We're going to tie this horrid abortion around the Democratic Party's anti-American neck.

Ever Feel Like You've Been Cheated? Anyone who donated to this, drop me a line. Let me know what representations were made to you about what the memorial would be, and how you feel those promises have been born out.

Posted by: Ace at 06:03 PM | Comments (456)
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Goodbye, England. You were great once.

We'll miss you.

POLICE have agreed to consult a panel of Muslim leaders before mounting counter-terrorist raids or arrests. Members of the panel will offer their assessment of whether information police have on a suspect is too flimsy and will also consider the consequences on community relations of a raid.

Members will be security vetted and will have to promise not to reveal any intelligence they are shown. They will not have to sign the Official Secrets Act.

Why make them sign it? If you can't trust a "moderate Muslim" to be an enthusiastic support of the war on terror, who can you trust?

Thanks to "someone."

Posted by: Ace at 05:55 PM | Comments (26)
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But everyone knows we rightwingers are as sarcastic as sophomore co-eds:

Congressional leaders were briefed about the planned raid Wednesday night and Thursday morning. For the most part, Republican leaders praised Clinton's decision and urged more aggressive action against terrorism.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich expressed firm support, and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, said, "Our response appears to be appropriate and just."

There were, of course, dissenting voices, given that Clinton had only finally been roused to ineffectual, feckless action by the fact the impeachment vote was the following day:

Others were more critical. Accusing Clinton of "lies and deceit and manipulations and deceptions," Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., said the president's record "raises into doubt everything he does and everything he says, and maybe even everything he doesn't do and doesn't say."

That's from the New York Times, by the way.

So, Senate Majority Leader Lott and Speaker of the House Gingrich, and most Republicans generally, praised the (long overdo, intentionally weak) attack.

But Dan Coats accused him of -- get this -- dishonesty and political calculation.

Why, there's no way a President could have taken action previous to, or subsequent to, this ONE attempt on bin Ladin's life without the crucial support of Dan Coats of Indiana.

Because, you see, Dan Coats personally delivered authorizations to attack enemies from the White House to the target geeks at the Pentagon. No Dan Coats-- no airstrikes.

It's as simple as that.

Thanks to Tommy.

Posted by: Ace at 02:21 PM | Comments (119)
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We must observe the Geneva Conventions in all particulars, lest psychopathic death cultists suddenly get the idea that they, too, may bend the rules in the appropriate case.

To do less, John McCain tells me, is to expose captured US soldiers to the sort of treatment they've already been getting for 60+ years.

An al-Qaida-linked group posted a Web video Saturday purporting to show the bodies of two American soldiers being dragged behind a truck, then set on fire in apparent retaliation for the rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman by U.S. troops from the same unit.
The Mujahedeen Shura Council _ an umbrella organization of insurgent groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq _ posted another video in June showing the soldiers' mutilated bodies, and claiming it killed them. It was not clear whether the video posted Saturday was a continuation of that footage, or why it was released.

It was impossible to identify the bodies, but the footage was believed to be of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, and Pfc. Thomas Tucker, 25, who went missing after being attacked by insurgents on June 16 at a checkpoint south of Baghdad. Their remains were found three days later, and the U.S. military said they had been mutilated.

The video showed masked men dragging the corpses, first by hand, then behind a truck, beheading one of them and then setting them on fire. Below the graphic footage is a subtitle: "The two soldiers belong to the same brigade of the soldier who raped our sister in Mahmoudiya."

Oh, PS: Mustn't engage in collective punishment, either. That might give the terrorists the idea to do what they've been doing since forever.

Posted by: Ace at 01:58 PM | Comments (48)
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And lo, the Seventh Seal was broken when the New York Times assigned an objective critic to review leftist political screeds, heralding the End Times;

And the sun was blotted out by the sky; and the reviews were written in Blood, and dripped with the venom of scorpions.

Yikes. Guess she's not a fan, huh?

The editor emeritus of Harper’s Magazine and its Notebook columnist for more than 25 years, Lapham compares the Bush administration to a “criminal syndicate” and Condoleezza Rice to a “capo.” He likens the United States to “a well-ordered police state” and the policies of its Air Force to those of Torquemada and Osama bin Laden. He calls Bush “a liar,” “a televangelist,” “a wastrel” and (ultimately) “a criminal — known to be armed and shown to be dangerous.”

Well. At least his point of view is unambiguous. But unless you agree with it 100 percent — and are content to see almost no original reporting or analysis in support of these claims — you may feel less inclined to throttle Lapham’s targets than to throttle Lapham himself. For this book is all about Lewis Lapham: the breathtaking lyricism of his voice, the breadth of his remarkable erudition. He goes across the street and around the corner to confirm the worst stereotypes about liberals — that they’re condescending, twee, surpassingly smug. “What I find surprising is the lack of objection,” he writes of the misguided American public. “The opinion polls show four of every five respondents saying that they gladly would give up as many of their civil rights and liberties as might be needed to pay the ransom for their illusory safety.” Wouldn’t Lapham be a more interesting columnist if he took this finding seriously? And analyzed it, perhaps, giving it its due?

Analysis is for stupid people.

The left has often complained that what it needs isnÂ’t polite speech, but voices as pungent as those on the right. Maybe so. But even the angriest people on the right tend to be funny. Books like [Blumenthal's] are a depressing reminder of how important it is for writers to have a slight sense of humor about themselves, if they want to be taken at all seriously.

You're welcome.

I'm not sure where I got this from. I'll just put out a Generic Universal Hat Tip.

Bonus: I enjoyed reviewing hurricane-fan James Wolcott's enormously unpopular novel. The one he'd been working on since he was just a slight 300 pounder as a sophomore in college.

Ah, dreams. How sadly, and how deliciously, they die.

Posted by: Ace at 01:34 PM | Comments (11)
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The brave warriors of Islam seem a little less brave these days. While they used to demonstrate their courage by taking on schoolgirls on buses, now they're remaining out of harm's way entirely.

- Insurgents are now using unwitting kidnap victims as suicide bombers — seizing them, booby-trapping their cars without their knowledge, then releasing them only to blow up the vehicles by remote control, the Defense Ministry warned Thursday.

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The Iraqi announcement — the latest development in the deadly war waged by the insurgency — came as widespread lawlessness swept the capital Thursday with kidnappings, deadly attacks on police, the discovery of more mutilated death squad victims and a brazen daylight bank heist by men dressed as Iraqi soldiers.

It was unclear from the Defense Ministry's statement whether the insurgents are using kidnap victims because they are having trouble finding recruits for suicide missions. Suicide car bombs are responsible for 7 percent of the total Iraqi deaths this year — down considerably from 25 percent of the overall deaths in the last eight months of 2005, according to an Associated Press count.

Car bombing deaths down? Yet another Grim Milestone for the Chamberlain/Quisling Left.

This sounds like an outstanding tactic for us to implement ourselves. Let some of these guys "escape" and find a conveniently placed car loaded with surveillance electronics... and, of course, typhoid.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (15)
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Via Allah at HotAir, an old WaPo article (from 2004), but so utterly damning as to be worth reading in full. Twice.

Here are some of the key bits, but do read the whole thing.

Between 1998 and 2000, the CIA and President Bill Clinton's national security team were caught up in paralyzing policy disputes as they secretly debated the legal permissions for covert operations against Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

The debates left both White House counterterrorism analysts and CIA career operators frustrated and at times confused about what kinds of operations could be carried out, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials and lawyers who were directly involved.

There was little question that under U.S. law it was permissible to kill bin Laden and his top aides, at least after the evidence showed they were responsible for the attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998....

Yet the secret legal authorizations Clinton signed after this failed missile strike required the CIA to make a good faith effort to capture bin Laden for trial, not kill him outright.

Beginning in the summer of 1998, Clinton signed a series of top secret memos authorizing the CIA or its agents to use lethal force, if necessary, in an attempt to capture bin Laden and several top lieutenants and return them to the United States to face trial.

...

Tenet and his senior CIA colleagues demanded that the White House lay out rules of engagement for capturing bin Laden in writing, and that they be signed by Clinton. Then, with such detailed authorizations in hand, every one of the CIA officers who handed a gun or a map to an Afghan agent could be assured that he or she was operating legally.

...

Some of the most sensitive language concerned the specific authorization to use deadly force. Clinton's national security aides said they wanted to encourage the CIA to carry out an effective operation against bin Laden, not to burden the agency with constraints or doubts. Yet Clinton's aides did not want authorizations that could be interpreted by Afghan agents as an unrestricted license to kill. For one thing, the Justice Department signaled that it would oppose such language if it was proposed for Clinton's signature.

The compromise wording, in a succession of bin Laden-focused memos, always expressed some ambiguity about how and when deadly force could be used in an operation designed to take bin Laden into custody. Typical language, recalled one official involved, instructed the CIA to "apprehend with lethal force as authorized."

What?!!? What does that mean? Nothing, that's what it means. As Clinton preferred it.

At the CIA, officers and supervisors agonized over these abstract phrases. They worried that if an operation in Afghanistan went badly, they would be accused of having acted outside the memo's scope. Over time, recriminations grew between the CIA and the White House.

It was common in Clinton's cabinet and among his National Security Council aides to see the CIA as too cautious, paralyzed by fears of legal and political risks. At Langley, this criticism rankled. The CIA's senior managers believed officials at the White House wanted to have it both ways: They liked to blame the agency for its supposed lack of aggression, yet they sent over classified legal memos full of wiggle words.

...

[Clinton] also authorized the CIA to carry out operations that legally required the agency's officers to plan in almost every instance to capture bin Laden alive and bring him to the United States to face trial.

...

Some CIA managers chafed at the White House instructions. The CIA received "no written word nor verbal order to conduct a lethal action" against bin Laden before Sept. 11, one official involved recalled. "The objective was to render this guy to law enforcement." In these operations, the CIA had to recruit agents "to grab [bin Laden] and bring him to a secure place where we can turn him over to the FBI. . . . If they had said 'lethal action' it would have been a whole different kettle of fish, and much easier."

Tenet is to blame too-- if the Commander in Chief is too feckless and cowardly and calculating to give an unambiguous order to kill bin Ladin, either resign in protest or man up and authorize a kill yourself.

Related: DNC Chariman Howard Dean, and other sources in the Democratic Party, don't seem to be as eager to make national security the number one issue in this campaign anymore, as they once promised.

A return to the "pocketbook issues" that won the 2002 and 2004 elections for them.

Sheesh, you'd think there was some kind of fundamental shift of the electorate's focus to security issues that the Democrats are disfavored on, or something.

A Moratorium On The Blame Game? Such is called for by Captain Ed, who notes, truthfully, there's a lot of blame to go around.

Allow me to disagree with his conclusion, however. Clinton himself just made this an issue again, by 1) claiming Bush "did nothing" for the seven months and 21 days he was in office to get bin Ladin, and 2) blaming his fecklessness, cowardice, and gross malfeasance on "rightwingers."

I don't bash Clinton an awful lot. I have MovedOn.org. Largely, anyway.

But this cowardly shit scuttled every one of his chances to kill bin Ladin back when he wasn't hidden immobile in a cave and entirely "off the net." If he wants to defend his choices, fine -- I'll criticize those, too, but without so much rancor.

If he wants to claim that "rightwingers" -- such as myself -- blocked him from getting bin Ladin, well, fuck that noise and fuck him sideways. I was enraged throughout the late ninteties that we weren't going after bin Ladin. He had every opportunity to kill him, but insisted on only giving authorization to "apprehend with lethal force" -- which just means "apprehend using guns rather than bolas and nets and Nerf bats."

This miserable coward couldn't even risk the insignificant political blowback of a mission going wrong, and he blames others for his well-nigh-criminal malfeasance?

We didn't elect you to get blowjobs from zoftig interns, asshole. And I know, because I did vote for Clinton in 1992, and I'm pretty sure "Let terrorists attack us with impunity while wetting your dick in the help" wasn't one of the top ten reasons for my vote.

In fact, now that I think about it, had he announced that as a campaign promise I probably would have voted for Bush.

Full Transcript Of Interview: Awesome. Compare his claims about authorizing people to kill bin Ladin with the article above.

It's also amusing that he says he "had a plan" to invade Afghanistan. Yes yes yes. Dude, we have "plans" to invade Britain, should that ever become necessary.

His only defense is Richard Clarke, over and over again.

Newsflash: Richard Clarke is a Democratic hack who advises Democratic candidates.

He questions the timing, too:

CLINTON: well every even number year right before an election they come up with some security issue. In 2000 right before the election Â…In 2002 our party supported them in undertaking weapon inspections in Iraq and were 100% behind them in Afghanistan and they didnÂ’t have any way to make us look like we didnÂ’t care about terror. And so they decided they wouldÂ…the homeland security bill that they opposed and they put some pill in it that we wouldnÂ’t pass like taking the job rights away from 170,000 people and then say that we were weak on terror if we werenÂ’t for itÂ… This year I think they wanted to make the question of prisoner treatment and intercepted communications the same sort of issue until John Warner came and Lindsey Graham got in there and it turns out there were some Republicans who believe in the constitution and their convictionsÂ…some ideas about how best to fight terror.

...

WeÂ’re going to win a lot of seats if the American people arenÂ’t afraid. If theyÂ’re afraid and we get divided again then weÂ’ll only win a few seats.

WALLACE: Do you think the White House and the Republicans want to make the American people afraid.

CLINTON: Of course they do. They want another homeland security bill and they want to make it not about Iraq but some other security issue. Where if we disagree with them we are by definition endangering the security of the country. And itÂ’s a big load of hooey..

Imagine -- making security a political issue during political campaigns largely about security.

Odd that Democrats wanted to make security the number one issue in this campaign -- until recently -- and that wasn't hitting below the belt then.

It's only hitting below the belt when the issue seems to favor Republicans, I guess.

Thanks to Larwyn.

Posted by: Ace at 11:01 AM | Comments (51)
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