Sorry to post this story for the third time, but I think the PDF attached to the Newsbusters version of the story is kind of funny.

I had thought that this site only used "cocksucker" on rare occasions. I guess I was wrong. But then, a lot of that is you guys, too.

Just to compare... bear in mind profanity in comments very much counts here.

Ace of Spades: 20 uses of "c*nt," 1,330 uses of "cocksucker"

Glenn Greenwald: 44 uses of "c*nt," 0 uses of "cocksucker"

Just sayin'.

Matthew Sheffield overlooks one big curse word, maybe because a lot of people don't even think it's much of a curseword at all -- "Goddamn." It's technically a true profanity (profaning against God) rather than an obscenity like the others. I refrain from using it for that reason. I'm guessing it gets a lot of use on the left and very little on the right.

On the top nine political sites on the right (which feature comments, note), "cocksucker" has only been used 43 times in total.

That's almost 99%.

To keep from garnering this distinction again, I will stop using the obscene "cocksucker" in favor of the unobjectionable, family-friendly "sucker of cock."

Posted by: Ace at 01:54 PM | Comments (66)
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The AP's story, which CNN edited/redacted, actually notes the threats made against both men.

Now, CNN just took this story from AP and re-wrote it. Why? Why do the extra work to write a less informative story?

Confederate Yankee guesses at the likely reason: To portray Obama as a victim, and a hero, and presidential (presidents are, alas, associated with assassinations), etc., while being very cautious to not allow the hated George W. Bush share in Obama's spotlight.

It's pretty breathtaking, when you think about it. For no particularly good reason, a CNN editor chose not to simply post AP's story as written (which would have taken three minutes), but to spend a half-hour or more re-writing the story to take important news out of it.

Call it the Cable Narrative Network. The news is sometimes messy and contradictory; not so the polished, hand-crafted Narrative, which is always clean, clear, and admirably uncomplicated about What You Are Supposed To Think About All This.

Alternately... Maybe this CNN editor is so blinded by Obamania that she considers Obama newsworthy, but the sitting president of the United States to be so marginal a figure as to not even be worth mentioning. (Again, I stress: She actually had to do more work than was necessary to omit Bush from the article; so she actually judged that not only was Bush not worth the energy to mention, but was worth the energy to affirmatively delete from the story.)

Obama: New Hotness

Bush: Old and Busted

Whatever the reason this CNN Democratic Communications Director in Training chose to actually invest the time and effort to subtract Bush out of the story, it doesn't reflect well on her, nor CNN's culture.

Posted by: Ace at 01:21 PM | Comments (33)
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Well, it's surely not the first time most people have read this, but it's a welcome example of the news of the American (near) victory in Iraq finally making it into the n news.

Somebody has to write this. The United States has won the war in Iraq.

I'm compelled to proclaim victory because, these days, winning wars has become politically incorrect in Western societies. So much so that some political leaders opposed to the war refuse to recognize the definition of victory or to utter the word.

More than five years after the invasion, I still come across people who say they don't know what victory in Iraq means. That's on purpose. Feigning ignorance allows them to deny the obvious political and military progress that has been made and continues to be made each day.

The truth is, President Bush has been consistent in defining victory. Bottom line, it's leaving behind a functional and democratic Iraq capable of defending itself from internal and external threats. Iraq is on an irreversible path to meeting those goals. Even Bush has raised the specter of "time horizons" for troop withdrawal. Previously, the president eschewed timelines, maintaining that troop reduction would be dictated by conditions on the ground. Security has improved so much in the past 18 months that Bush is not only open to troop withdrawals, American forces in Iraq could actually dip below 100,000 by the end of this year, down from approximately 140,000 today.

The reason for victory is simple -- the 30,000-troop surge that began in early 2007 and concluded less than a month ago has worked.

I have to wonder what the average, non-news-junkie American thinks of the media. Surely they must be noticing that currently the media is not only embargoing a newsworthy story about a onetime Democratic Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate having a love child and arranging a massive, donor-funded cover-up of that, but the media is all but embargoing the fact that we have either largely won or almost entirely won the War in Iraq.

Is the media also embargoing news of the (near) victory in Iraq only in order to protect Elizabeth Edwards, too? After all, she is a very partisan, very liberal, and very anti-war woman; perhaps the media just doesn't wish to discomfort her with further bad news about American victories.

And does the average American appreciate having MSM Censors decide what he should and shouldn't know about major political figures and major wars? Does he appreciate that "gatekeeper" service the media is providing to him, or is he beginning to find it creepy and sorta fascist?

Posted by: Ace at 01:06 PM | Comments (24)
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I always hate these articles.

Dividing the number of instances of profanity by the number of pages of the sites on which they appear, then multiplying the result by 100 yields what might be called a "profanity quotient."

The top 10 liberal sites (Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, Talking Points Memo, Crooks and Liars, Think Progress, Atrios, Greenwald, MyDD and Firedoglake) have a profanity quotient of 14.6.

The top 10 conservative sites (Free Republic, Hot Air, Little Green Footballs, Townhall, NewsBusters, Lucianne.com, Wizbang, Ace of Spades, Red State and Volokh Conspiracy) have a quotient of 1.17.

(CORRECTED PARAGRAPH That's quite a disparity. Liberals are more than 12 times likely to use profanity than conservatives on the Web.

One thing that is interesting to note is that the profanity ratio of a particular site seems somewhat related to the writing style of the bloggers who run it.

For instance, the Ace of Spades blog has the highest profanity quotient on the right. This is likely due to the fact that "Ace," the anonymous proprietor of the site, regularly uses profanity in his own writings and therefore is much less inclined to want to crack down on readers who respond using it.

I guess we (including you motherfuckers) are letting the team down.

Matthew Sheffield speculates about the reasons for this -- a combination of social stigma about profanity on the right and utterly missing on the left, and "anger" on the left.

The left is much concerned about "authenticity," which itself is evidenced by an outpouring of emotion (both real and feigned, to indicate how "authentic" the author's make-pretend outrage is), and the left has decided there's really no better way to demonstrate their often-feigned authentic emotion than by dropping the f-bomb around here and there.

I really wish I weren't so compromised on this issue, because it seems like the sort of thing I'd really like to rip the fucking left about. Alas.

Whoops: Ninjaed again.

Posted by: Ace at 12:28 PM | Comments (90)
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I seem to remember this story making news last year, and maybe even the year before. As if you didn't know it already, you muthafuckas who comment at the AoSHQ have the goddamn filthiest vocabularies on the conservative side of the Blogosphere. How do I know this? Because someone wrote an article and posted it on the internet.

Hey, if reading something on a website is good enough for the NY Times to wind up the smear machinery, then it's good enough for me to confirm what I already knew - that I ain't exactly comfortable sending my Mom over here to read my work. Shockingly, my wife tells me that my Sister has come over here to read my rants, which sort of keeps me more subdued than I would be otherwise. Not that I can't swear in front of my sister, but I try to stay away from "some of the combinations with a higher degree of difficulty", ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkyoudo. She probably wouldn't blush to hear me say "Shit, Obama is a complete douchetool", but if I were to "explore the studio space" with more creative combinations, that could make for uncomfortable silences at Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Anyway, enough about me: This post is about all you Moose-fucking Ass Spelunkers and how you're valiantly fighting to keep the political right from falling victim to a "cocksucker gap". I'm sure that if we set our minds to it, the readership at Ace's could increase our profanity content by a factor of two or three over the closest competitor from the right. We'll never catch a site like Firedoglake (hell, Jane Hamsher ALONE is responsible for 19.3% of ALL profanity on the internet herself), but we CAN reinforce our position as the Foremost Pottymouths of the American Right. Let's not make Ace do it all by himself, people. It's no wonder that he's making himself so sick, what with trying to coarsen the whole right side of the blogosphere all by himself.

After all, like that great Patriot Thomas Jefferson once said, "At times, my Garden of Liberty requires that some Buttfucking ugly-assed English Motherfuckers have a Cap busted in their Asses in order for it to grow like a mofo."

(I think he dictated that to Sally Hemmings during a "key party" at the Boston Hooters, but my American History is a little rusty, so corrections are appreciated)

Share your best profanity combinations in the comments, or decry the coarsening of American culture if that's your thing.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 12:20 PM | Comments (62)
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Whoops, Gabe beat me to the Hamdan sentencing.

Posted by: Ace at 11:44 AM | Comments (14)
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Breaking now...still waiting on the exact sentence.

Prosecutors asked for at least 30 years. His five convictions for materially supporting terrorism each carry a penalty of up to life imprisonment.

I will be updating shortly.

FIVE AND A HALF YEARS: Hamdan sentenced to only five years and six months!

More: I can't emphasize how important this case is. Something which should have been fairly straightforward---convicting and punishing unlawful enemy combatants---has dragged on for seven years. Hamdan's fate has been addressed by no less than three district court judges, three appeals court judges, and the Supreme Court, in addition to the CSRB and the military commission which just passed judgment on him.

He may now appeal to a military court of appeals set up specifically for the Guantanamo Bay detainees and after that to the federal courts.

And yet more: CNN is reporting that Hamdan is getting credit for time served. He therefore has only six months left to serve on his conviction for material support for terrorism. (DrewM. pointed out this possibility in the other thread.) At that point he will be reintegrated with the general population at Guantanamo Bay. He is still subject to indefinite detention as a combatant in wartime, but, like all combatant-detainees he may be released if it is determined that he no longer poses a risk of returning to combat activities.

What happens now? Hamdan serves the remaining six months on his sentence. Then he gets held as a combatant for as long as the military and the administration believes he remains a security threat.

The military commission goes ahead for child-soldier Omar Khadr, whose trial has been set for October 8.

The Pentagon still plans to continue with military commissions for the al Qaeda big fish: 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 9/11 coordinator Ramzi Binalshibh, financial backer Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Mohammed's number 1 Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, and USS Cole bomber Walid Bin Attash.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:41 AM | Comments (24)
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And if this winds up hurting Obama more than it otherwise might have, the MSM can blame itself. There is no way an MSM outlet of medium size or larger could fail to confirm and report on this story within a week, were they to dedicate to it even a handful of good reporters. But they're deliberately avoiding that -- they know damn well what reporters would find -- and so they leave their precious Democratic Party in the hands of the Enquirer, which of course wants maximum sales and profits from their scoop.

With the Democratic National Convention in Denver just two weeks away... details of that timetable appear to be crystallizing. "It took seven months to go from the December story to the [Beverly Hilton] meeting....But if it happens to be a happy coincidence—if the story just happens to be breaking around that time, in terms of maximum exposure—" he told the National Review before cutting himself off mid-sentence.

In a telltale moment, Democratic officials are acting more quickly on this than the supposedly-objective MSM. It's the Democrats who are capable of admitting the obvious, whereas the MSM are exposed as the most guileless, naive True Believers and Kool-Aid drinkers:

If Edwards fails to clear up the story in short order, he risks party officials deciding not to have him speak or, if they do, creating a distraction from a week focused on Barack Obama accepting the nomination.

"If there is not an explanation that's satisfactory, acceptable and meets high moral standards, the answer is 'no,' he would not be a prime candidate to make a major address to the convention," said Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chair.

So admitted, overt partisan political operatives are demanding more answers from Edwards than the supposedly nonpartisan press.

Ann Coulter snarks:

The mainstream media's reaction to the National Enquirer's reports on John Edwards' "love child" scandal has been reminiscent of the Soviet press. Edwards' name has simply been completely whitewashed out of the news. Say, why isn't anyone talking about John Edwards for vice president anymore? No, seriously –- hey! Why are we going to a commercial break?

I suspect that if I tried to look up coverage of the Democratic primaries in Nexis news archives, Edwards' name will have disappeared from the debates. By next week, Edwards won't have been John Kerry's running mate in 2004.

Do you know what this means? At this precise moment in time, I could call Edwards a name that would send me to rehab, and the media wouldn't be able to report it!

A Washington Post reporter defended the total blackout on the National Enquirer's John Edwards' love child story, telling the Times of London: "Edwards is no longer an elected official and he is not running for office now. Don't expect wall-to-wall coverage." This was the perfect guy to talk to because if there's one thing they're careful about in London, it's tabloid excess.

Isn't there some level of coverage between "wall-to-wall" and "double-secret probation, delta-force level total news blackout" when it comes to a sex scandal involving a current Democratic vice presidential and Cabinet prospect?

Hey, what sort of "elected official" was Ted Haggard again? He was the Christian minister no one outside of his own parish had ever heard of until he was caught in a gay sex scandal last year. Then he suddenly became the Pope of the Protestants. And yet, despite the fact that Haggard was not an "elected official," the Post gave that story wall-to-wall coverage. And what sort of "elected officials" were Mel Gibson, Rush Limbaugh and Bill Bennett?

It seems to me that Edwards will either suddenly discover his schedule does not permit him to attend the DNC, or... the DNC will quietly instruct Edwards to discover his schedule does not permit him to attend the DNC.

In that case -- with Edwards glaringly missing from the convention -- will the MSM even then mention the possible reasons for his absence? Will they even bring themselves to allude to "rumors swirling" around Edwards, or continue blacking it out entirely?

I think the former.

Incidentally, I read that Jay Leno had a good crack about this. Paraphrased--

"The National Enquirer is reporting that John Edwards paid Rielle Hunter $15,000 a month to stay quiet about their affair. Makes you wonder what he's paying the mainstream media."

Pathetically, of course, he's not paying them a nickel. This is just their idea of "good journalism."

As the convention approaches, we might actually see the liberal press begin reporting on the story, as "Protect Barack" becomes more imperative than "Protect Elizabeth."

Posted by: Ace at 11:40 AM | Comments (33)
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A huge story I didn't write about: The British actually made a secret pact with Moqtada al-Sadr's thugs and theofascists to let them have free reign in British "controlled" areas, so long as they did not attack British forces.

That's the reason the British were, um, "late" showing up for Maliki's Basra offensive. The British Army had standing orders not to engage the enemy without the express permission of a British minister, and that permission was late in coming. And thus, the need for the US to sweep in and clean up.

Greyhawk runs down previous media reports on how much more "nuanced" the British forces were, how much savvier and smarter, contrasting their understated and even-keeled approach to that of the Americans, who violently and stupidly clashed with the enemy.

How much of the Iraq War's spiral into near-civil-war is attributable to the Brits' protection of, and therefore support of, Moqtada al-Sadr? How many supporters did he gain because he was the only actual power source in town? How many needlessly died due to this policy?

We don't know and will never know. We do know the answer is at least "some" and probably "an awful lot."

When forces actually did stand up against the Sadrists, the Sadrists turned out to be paper tigers.

And thus appeasement is tried yet again, and once again found to be a far worse policy than open confrontation.

After years of patting themselves on the back for all their combat-adverse nuance, an official admits:

A senior British defence source agreed that the battle for Basra had been damaging to Britain’s reputation in Iraq. “Maliki, and the Americans, felt the British were morally impugned by the deal they had reached with the militia. The British were accused of trying to find the line of least resistance in dealing with the Shia militia,” said the source.

“You can accuse the Americans of many things, such as hamfistedness, but you can’t accuse them of not addressing a situation when it arises. While we had a strategy of evasion, the Americans just went in and addressed the problem.”

It's my guess that the US knew about this secret deal. The British probably told us about it, or at least strongly hinted about it. It was probably an attempt at appeasing the United States. They didn't want to be in the war in the first place, and wanted to bug out the moment it got tough. Perhaps they offered this horrid compromise as the only scenario in which they'd stay in Iraq at all. Stampeding out of Iraq, shortly after the UN did, would have been politically troublesome for Bush and the US.

So I'm guessing the British didn't really stab us in the back; rather, they stabbed us in the front. After politely explaining they were going to do so, and they were quite sorry about it, but they really had no choice.

Posted by: Ace at 10:53 AM | Comments (51)
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A lot of caveats and assumptions packed into this, including of course the assumption that the situation does not deteriorate, the IA is able to carry each extra combat load that the US sheds, and that the US will have forces in Iraq until at least 2013, though, hopefully, from 2010 on they will be mostly involved in training, logistics, and as an always-ready emergency backup force.

It's not Obama's plan, except to the extent he's changed his plan to accord with current reality, and of course this optimistic schedule is only possible due to Bush and McCain's firm rejection of Obama's previous withdrawal plans.

Nevertheless, he'll claim victory.

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (10)
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