Surpise: CNN's Cooper Calls Out Pelsoi, Democrats On Broken Earmarks-Reforms Promises
— Ace

It's nice to see this, but this is hardly the full-court press we'd see if Republicans were behaving this way -- after promising "the most ethical Congress in history" to win a power-shifting election.

ANDERSON COOPER: Drew, it's just amazing that nothing has changed. What happened to all those promises about transparency, about having this whole process be open? I can't believe you had all those interns calling for days and some 330 lawmakers said they just wouldn't even give out the information.

GRIFFIN: Anderson it's mind-boggling. One congressional aide even sent us an e-mail saying, listen, my congressman is an advocate of the open process and at the same time said we're not going to release our earmark requests.

It's just been an eye-opening experience, but quite frankly the more we're doing this, the more we're keeping them honest and other groups are, the more open they are grudgingly becoming so tonight we have posted at cnn.com the results of our surveys. We're going to show you who did send us the earmarks and their earmark requests, who said no, who wouldn't respond and even, Anderson, who was rude to those poor little interns when they called asking what Congress wants to do with our money.

COOPER: The fact that people would be rude, that is really annoying, you know. This is -- this is, A, what journalists are supposed to be doing but it's also what citizens should be able to do, you know, to the people who represent them.

GRIFFIN: Clearly it's annoying to them. They don't like to be called on the carpet, especially, I mean, I hate to get political here, but have you to. The Democrats promised in December open, transparent process. Now they are being called to come up with that open, transparent process and it's been difficult because for so many years and decades, quite frankly, business as usual has been slipped in those earmark requests and we'll continue to pay for them.

CNN should be praised. More, though, please.

Posted by: Ace at 05:32 PM | Comments (10)
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BBC Seeks Tips On Coalition Troop Movements; Issues Fulsome Apology
— Ace

Seeking tips from Iraqis on where our boys are headed. Information that just so happens to be of no use to BBC's audience but tremendous usefulness to Al Qaeda.

The BBC has issued an apology and has promised they wouldn't make "the mistake" again. And by "the mistake," I don't mean seeking information on classified troop movements, which they haven't apologized for. (They've simply taken down the inform-on-the-troops website form.)

What they've apologized for is for accurately calling Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

The BBC apologized this week for referring to Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and promised not to repeat "the mistake," following a complaint by four British organizations.

Arab Media Watch, Muslim Public Affairs Committee, Friends of Al-Aksa and the Institute of Islamic Political Thought sent a joint complaint to the BBC after a presenter on its Football Focus program on March 24 mentioned that Jerusalem was Israel's capital and "historic soul."

I don't know why people get the idea that the BBC is anti-British, anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Israel (in that order, according to rising intensity).

Oh yeah: From the BBC's own internal reports documenting this vile bias.

Incidentally, Jimmy Carter's best-buds Hamas sacked and desecrated a Christian church. The BBC, and in the Western press generally, will begin the wall-to-wall coverage of this outrage any minute now.

Posted by: Ace at 05:19 PM | Comments (9)
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Thanks, Nancy! (And Lindsay, And St. John, And Teddy): Congressional Approval At All-Time Low At 14%
— Ace

Liberals will of course claim this is because Congress hasn't yet acheived its purported mandate to end the War in Iraq.

I think it's time to bring other possible explanations "out of the shadows."

Posted by: Ace at 05:11 PM | Comments (18)
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Good Piece On The Romanticization of The Journalistic Ankle-Biter
— Ace

When the very smart "Jeff Larkin," late of Football Fans and Beyond, tells me this is a "brilliant, must-read piece" from James Bowman of the New Criterion, I take notice.

It's wide-ranging and hard to simplify into a slugline, but the article's subhed, "David Halberstam and the media's ethos of irresponsibility" is a good enough tag. Basically it traces the rise of agenda journalism from David Halberstam to the present.

After noting how, since Halberstam, it has become part of the romance of being a reporter to question the bona fides of America's leaders, Ambassador Holbrooke added: "But everything depended on David getting it right, and he did." This strikes me as being equally revealing. "Getting it right" is of course an admirable ambition for a journalist, but it is an exercise that has little in common with what generals and politicians must do, which is to lead others through situations of mortal peril with appallingly incomplete and inaccurate information to guide them. Getting it wrong is a given. That's what the romance of the Halberstamian example has made journalists--and not only journalists!--forget when they try to apply his lesson from Vietnam to the Iraq war. For the man who must act and not just observe, the only question that matters is how quickly he can recognize and recover from his mistakes and how strong is his will to keep fighting in spite of them and the inevitable setbacks they cause. On the first of these tests, the Bush administration has done rather badly, I think; on the second it has done rather well. But part of the reason for its failures has been that the mind of the media remains obsessed with the question only of its prescience--as if "getting it right" were the only thing that mattered and getting it wrong a fatal disqualification for leadership.

This odd prejudice may be partly owing to the huge social premium we put on intelligence in the era of the cognitive elite. People who have no idea on earth what to do about the war or any of the problems we face as a nation think it is some kind of program to ridicule the intelligence of the President. Even the political opposition has fallen into this trap by making mere perspicacity in the anticipation of evils rather than the determined effort to combat them its test of political success. Thus in Sen. Jim Webb's reply to the president's State of the Union Address in January, he had no alternative to suggest to the measures for dealing with Iraq that had been proposed, but he was full of indignation on the grounds that the mistakes of the administration had been foreseeable. He knew that they were foreseeable because he himself had foreseen them. The implication was that he was much cleverer than President Bush--as if that was all that need be said to the credit of the former and the discredit of the latter.

The fact that the opposition and the media frame the debate in this way means that much of the administration's energies have to be expended in defending itself against endless second-guessing, which in turn means that it is even less inclined to recognize and correct mistakes. This is infantile politics. Meanwhile, on the question of what is now to be done about the mistakes, no one seems to know any better than Sen. Webb, whose policy amounts to saying that we ought not to have made them in the first place. This is also the view of much of the Democratic Party, and almost all of the media, who repeat mechanically that we need a "change of course" in Iraq but never get around to telling us what they would change--short of surrendering, which is now becoming the default option. In April, Sen. Harry Reid finally bowed to the logic of his own position by acknowledging that the war was already lost. At any rate it had better be, if he wants to preserve the reputation for shrewdness and sagacity that he, like so many others, have cultivated by being wise after the event.

Meanwhile, of course, American soldiers are actually doing right in Iraq. But they're no longer romanticized; who cares about their physical and moral courage, after all, which pales in comparison to the intellectual courage of Truth-Tellers like Stephen Colbert?

More Ankle-Biting: The AP whines that war is hard.

Posted by: Ace at 05:00 PM | Comments (10)
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Man Grabs Shotgun In Response To Scream Of Gunshot Woman; Fired By His Employers
— Ace

"Gross misconduct."

When a neighbor screamed she'd been shot, Colin Bruley grabbed his shotgun, found the victim and began treating her bloodied right leg.

Tonnetta Lee survived Tuesday's pre-dawn shooting at her Jacksonville apartment, and her sister and a neighbor praised Bruley's actions. But his employers, the same people who own the Arlington complex where Bruley lives, reacted differently. They fired him.

Bruley, a leasing agent at the Oaks at Mill Creek, said he lost his job after being told that brandishing the weapon was a workplace violation, as was failing to notify supervisors after the incident occurred....

He never fired the shotgun.

"I was expecting work to give me some kind of commendation," said Bruley, 24. "I was totally blown back. It was a crisis that most people don't go through.
"
...

A complaint Bruley said was given to him by his supervisor Tuesday said he violated several company policies found in an employee handbook. Those procedures were also explained in a recent meeting and an e-mail, the complaint said. One policy prohibits any type of weapons being used in the workplace. The complaint cited him for "gross misconduct."

"Colin demonstrated extremely poor judgment in responding to this situation," the complaint said. "Colin's failure to immediately report this incident ... could have serious ramifications to the property, its associates and residents."

All weapons are bad and all shows of force are wrong, no matter what the circumstances.

More nuance from the nuanced-obsessed Liberal Establishment.

Posted by: Ace at 04:12 PM | Comments (24)
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Vendors vs. Veterans
— Slublog

Here's a little story out of my hometown. A little background - after the first Gulf War, some veterans in Maine thought it would be nice to greet the troops coming back from that conflict. Many of them were Vietnam Vets who still remember the less-than-warm welcome they received upon coming home, and wanted to give today's vets a better memory.

The idea really took off. According to the organization's website, the troop greeters have met over 400,000 troops and provided free cell phones, cookies and hugs.

I've been at the airport when some vets have returned and watched the greeters at work and the response of the troops. It's pretty moving stuff.

Thanks to some bureaucrats at the Bangor International Airport, the troop greeters will no longer be able to provide a taste of home to troops coming home from the war.

Homemade treats long provided by the areaÂ’s volunteer Maine Troop Greeters disappeared at the airport about a month ago after BIA began enforcing a ban on such giveaways.

"I think I speak for most everybody when I say I think itÂ’s very sad we cannot do it," greeter Gary Mock of Hampden said Tuesday. "The cookies, candy and everything we have here is all in support of the troops and to thank them."

Some greeters grumble that the rules changed because of jealous airport vendors, but BIA blames liability and strict rules that must be followed by airport concessionaires.

Liability and rules. Because you just know some guy coming home from Iraq will sue the pants off some lady who made him cookies if he gets sick.

Not sure I buy the thing about airport concessionaires, either. The troop greeters aren't selling this food, they're giving it away. Different circumstances, different rules, right? To be honest, though, it's hard to tell exactly why they did this, considering all the excuses used by BIA assistant director Tony Caruso:

Tony Caruso, the airportÂ’s assistant director, said Tuesday the issue revolves around liability. "We have people who bake things at home, and that is very hard to regulate."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has strict regulations on preparation, temperature control and handling that all airport concessionaires must adhere to, Caruso said. Ensuring that all food is properly prepared and stored is a safety and security issue, he said...

He said the airport wanted to make sure it did not violate any contracts it has with concessionaires, since they hold the exclusive agreement to provide food to travelers.

So which is it?

Safety and security? Liability? Or respect for concessionaires? I'm thinking the latter...

Next door to the troop greeter room in the airport is the Red Baron Restaurant and Coffee Shop. No managers returned phone calls Tuesday.

The city and BIA officials have vowed to hold a meeting in the near future with the airport concessionaires and troop greeters to devise an agreement and outline foods that greeters can provide, Caruso said.

Wait...if it's about liability or safety and security, why allow greeters to provide any food at all? Why get the vendors involved in creating an "agreement?" If this were about following USDA or FAA regulations, one would think the conversations would take place between the regulators, the airport and the troop greeters. There's no reason to include the vendors if compliance with federal regulations is the explanation.

It seems to me some angry vendors see every veteran eating a donated cookie as money out of their pockets. Since they've won this battle, I hope they at least have the decency to offer the troops a free cup of coffee or something.

Oh, I'm sorry...would that be a liability issue?

Posted by: Slublog at 03:02 PM | Comments (63)
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Charleston Mourns Fighters Lost In Blaze/Collapse
— Ace

“One on No. 16 came back,” Jones said. “Nobody from 19 came back.”

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Update on Isakson: For A Man Leaning Against Cloture, His Blast-Fax Sure Seems To Be Laying The Groundwork For A "Yes" Vote
— Ace

The sort of "look how hard I've fought" email that suggests a man is done fighting and just wants credit for his past efforts.

Not good.

Posted by: Ace at 12:29 PM | Comments (7)
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Reid: im in ur senate, collectin 61 votez for cloture
— Ace

So he says. But we've heard the votes were there before.

And as Allah's update notes, 16 of the Republican votes Reid is counting as pro-clouture haven't yet committed.

Once again, Ingraham's list of the 15 flippable Republicans.

And Democrats Are Flippable Too: Kaus names Tester, Webb, and McCaskill as possible comprehensive piece of shit opponents. If they catch enough heat from their consituents.

A Greenville/Carville poll of swing states shows that even among Democrats, the bill is unpopular. You know what does garner majority support? Plans to enforce border security first.

And also from Kaus--

Last night I ran into a veteran D.C. Democratic aide/strategist who confirmed one suspicion about the immigration bill: The House Dems are lowballing the number of votes they have for it. No way they need 70 GOP votes--though that is a number still being reported in the press. ... Senators who vote for the bill thinking the House will kill it are probably deluding themselves

Well, the "need" for 70 GOP votes was never, if I understand it right, an actual need in terms of getting the thing passed; it was a need in terms of bipartisan political cover. The Democrats don't want this massively unpopular piece of shit hung around their necks, and only their necks, so they "need" 70 GOP votes to claim that they weren't the only ones acting with reckless disregard of the interests and wishes of actual American citizens.

Still, we've heard a lot of wiggle room on this -- Pelosi will, I'm sure, be happy with only 20 or 30 GOP votes. She knows the media will still call it "bipartisan," and that's all she needs.

Kaus also mentions a conspiracy of sorts I wondered about -- are these claims about the House being prepared to vote the bill down really a bit of Kabuki designed to reassure Senatorial fence sitters they can vote for the bill knowing the House will save the country from it, when, in fact, the House will pass it as well?

Aggravated Vehicular Manslaughter, Yet Another Job Americans Won't Do: An illegal alien has been busted DUI four times before. Want to guess the final bodycount?

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Tancredo: "Are Being Smart And Being Competent... Are Those The Qualifications We Republicans Want?"
— Ace

Tancredo attempts to knock Romney by observing he looks presidential, presents himself well, is "very smart" and also "competent."

Which makes Romney, he implies, precisely the sort of man the GOP can't afford to nominate.

Is there a word for a sort of backhanded compliment which actually is extremely complimentary and not really backhanded at all?

Posted by: Ace at 12:02 PM | Comments (3)
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