It's hard to explain how egregious this is without the details -- someone sent me the headline hours ago and I took no interest.

Not a big deal, I thought, if Burris wrongly sought the death penalty for an innocent man. Mistakes do happen.

But that's not really what happened here. His own prosecutors kept telling him the man he wanted the death penalty for was innocent, and even resigned in protest.

Burris didn't care.

While state attorney general in 1992, Burris aggressively sought the death penalty for Rolando Cruz, who twice was convicted of raping and murdering a 10-year-old girl in the Chicago suburb of Naperville. The crime took place in 1983.

But by 1992, another man had confessed to the crime, and Burris' own deputy attorney general was pleading with Burris to drop the case, then on appeal before the Illinois Supreme Court.

Burris refused. He was running for governor.

...

Burris' role in the Cruz case was "indefensible and in defiance of common sense and common decency," Warden said. "There was obvious evidence that [Cruz] was innocent."

Deputy attorney general Mary Brigid Kenney agreed and eventually resigned rather than continue to prosecute Cruz.

Once Burris assigned Kenney to the case in 1991, she became convinced that Cruz was innocent, a victim of what she believed was prosecutorial misconduct. She sent Burris a memo reporting that the jury convicted Cruz without knowing that Brian Dugan, a repeat sex offender and murderer, had confessed to the crime. Burris never met with Kenney to discuss a new trial for Cruz, Kenney told ProPublica.

"This is something the attorney general should have been concerned about," Kenney, now an assistant public guardian in Cook County, said in an interview. "I knew the prosecutor's job was not merely to secure conviction but to ensure justice was done."

Kenney was not alone in her beliefs. Prior to Cruz's 1985 trial, the lead detective in the case resigned in protest over prosecutors' handling of the case, according to news reports at the time.

And rather than argue Burris' case before the state supreme court, Kenney also stepped down.

"What I took away was that [Burris] wasn't going to do anything to seem soft on crime," Kenney said. "He didn't have the guts."

In her resignation letter, Kenney claimed Burris had "seen fit to ignore the evidence in this case."

"I cannot sit idly by as this office continues to pursue the unjust prosecution of Rolando Cruz," she wrote. "I realized that I was being asked to help execute an innocent man."

Burris' response at the time: "It is not for me to place my judgment over a jury, regardless of what I think." (We have also left a message for Burris at his office and will post an update if we hear back.)

State prosecutors carried on with the prosecution, even after DNA evidence in 1995 excluded Cruz as the victim's rapist and linked somebody else, sex offender Brian Dugan, to the crime.

DNA exoneration, and implication of another man. That other man confessing. A lead detective and top prosecutor resigning in protest.

I believe they call these "red flags" in the legal business.

Posted by: Ace at 01:53 PM | Comments (103)
Post contains 551 words, total size 3 kb.

The 40-kegger parties he and Ted Kennedy would throw for all the DC undgergrads would be legendary.

The former president is among several boldface names being touted as possible "caretakers" for New York's Senate seat -- people who would serve until the 2010 elections but wouldn't be interested in running to keep the job.

As the process of picking Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's replacement gets messier, the option may become increasingly attractive to Gov. David Paterson, who has sole authority to name a successor.

A big name like Bill Clinton or Democratic former Gov. Mario Cuomo could have an immediate impact for New York in the Senate while letting the large field of hopefuls duke it out in 2010, according to three Democratic Party advisers in New York and Washington who are close to the discussion with Paterson's inner circle on this issue.

Two others in the party confirmed that Paterson is still considering the caretaker option.

In related news, I just hanged myself in the garage. I am typing this with the last oxygggggggen in my brrrrrrr

Posted by: Ace at 01:19 PM | Comments (80)
Post contains 184 words, total size 1 kb.

Sullivan, of course, believes this too (unless I've missed a retraction, or even an acknowledgment of the birth of Tripp).*

But Sullivan can't say it, or he'll be fired.

So who knows, maybe this new poster at Kos is Andrew Sullivan. Still trying to get the truth out, while avoiding unemployment.

But you know there is one more thing that really bugs me about the whole baby thing. So Bristol has that baby pretty much right on schedule, but we never saw her again after they announced her preggers, and the convention, with daddy to be in tow.

Sooo, what if she actually didn't have a baby at all, and they just scrambled around, and adopted a baby, from another woman/girl. Now that's crazy thinking, but come on, Sarah Palin isn't worried about a little thing called the truth.

Correction (Sorta): DrewM tells me I did miss a mention -- but just the AP headline, no mention of the inconvenient mathematics of Tripp's birth, no mention of what implication this has for his pet lunacy.

Posted by: Ace at 12:48 PM | Comments (63)
Post contains 193 words, total size 1 kb.

From the Washington Times. Man of the Year? David Petraeus.

Newcomer of the Year? Ah, so obvious.

Newcomer - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The Republican vice-presidential candidate galvanized the conservative base and injected much-needed energy into John McCain's election campaign. Her grand entry at the Republican convention in which she squared off boldly and defiantly against her critics signaled the emergence of a new generation of conservatives. “What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick, she said to a roaring crowd. And a star was born.

They name Obama for the "Political Performance of the Year." Yes... but.

It's rather easy to deliver a great political performance when the press endlessly covers for your and refuses to report your gaffes and disgusting terrorist political supporters. It's like playing a trivia game being told ahead of time what all the questions and answers are.

If we're going to give Obama political performance of the year, then I think we also have to acknowledge the Harlem Globetrotters.

Ever notice that Globetrotters sometimes hide balls under their shirts, throw buckets of confetti in their opponents' faces, and routinely use props like trampolines to illegally score baskets?

Yeah. The refs don't notice either. Why, the refs give the Globetrotters such a complete and utter pass that you'd almost think they were working for the Globetrotter organization.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:33 PM | Comments (25)
Post contains 352 words, total size 3 kb.

I don't know. Seems that this has raised enough hackles on the conservative side that I should mention it.

On camera, she taunted some hecklers (I think) with the old, old, old (and yet still mildly amusing) anti-heckler standby, "I don't come by where you work and slap the dicks out of your mouth."

I really have no comment. She's the female, less funny (natch) Howard Stern; her humor is all personal experiences recounted in a humorous way, plus the shock stuff like giving a finger and yelling "suck my dick" to people who win Emmys she was nominated for.

I dunno. Yeah, it was on TV, but it was cable, and it was midnight or thereabouts. And it's kind of expected. She goes for the headlines. That's how a D-lister gets any press at all.

Shrug.

I guess there's some angle here about the old double-standard -- liberals can go to the old "homophobic" anti-heckler stuff like this without any fear of being criticized, whereas if I note that Gleen Grenwald has had more cock in and out of him than a Tyson Chicken Regional Distribution Center, I'm called a "hater."

Some Oddness: Just noticed. Kathy Griffin is of course very popular with gay men. In fact, gay men seem to be exclusively her audience.

Not that I'm saying she's not funny at all. She is mildly funny. But I'm afraid she loses me when she talks about "celebrities" I've never heard of. Pretty much you have to read Perez Hilton six times a day to keep up with her act.

So, anyway, Kathy Griffin, a commedianne patronized pretty much exclusively by aging yuppie homosexuals, keeps being featured as prominent guest on Anderson Cooper's New Year's bash.

What gives? How does he even know about her in the first place? It's a mystery to me.

GriffiN, not Griffith: Sheesh, I misspelled her name like ten times.

I did that on purpose.

Just trying to show I'm so straight I don't even really know who she is.

Posted by: Ace at 11:45 AM | Comments (90)
Post contains 345 words, total size 2 kb.

Hot Air has the link.

But if there is no reason to doubt Hamas' ability to pulverize Israeli schools, there's also no reason to think this unending jihad will improve Hamas' ambitions for a decent state....

The constant terror bombs may even strengthen Israel's hawks in the longer run and weaken its more moderate secular rivals, such as Labour. As Hamas should know by now (as we all should know), dropping bombs in densely populated areas is a surefire way to radicalize civilians and get them to rally around the home team, however flawed.

...

Hamas has no viable political endgame here: There's just no clear route from bombardment to a sustainable peace. But the damage caused by this new conflagration won't be limited to the Israelis and Palestinians. Hamas' military offensive already has sparked outrage and protests throughout the Western world...

It's time for the United States to wake up from its long slumber and reengage -- forcefully -- with the Middle East peace process. Only the U.S. -- Israel's primary supporter and main financial sponsor -- can push Hamas to make the hard choices necessary for its own long-term security, as well as the region's.

Oh wait-- I misread. Rosa Brooks passed on judging the efficacy of Hamas' strategy of terror-bombing Israel with 3000 rockets this year. It is only now that Israel hits back that she rouses herself to ponder the usefulness of war.

I substituted "Hamas" whenever she said "Israel" and made similar small changes in her wording to make her anti-Israeli column anti-Hamas instead.

I did of course have to invent that bit about "outrage in the Western world." We all know there is never such outrage.

Although this is a childish little exercise, it does demonstrate the fact that leftists such as Rosa Brooks will tolerate terror attacks on Israel for a full year without rousing themselves to even mention it. But the moment Israel fights back, they are full of chin-stroking advice as to What Must Be Done.

Hamas counts on precisely this phenomenon, of course. They trust the Arab governments and the anti-Jew apologists in the Western press to press "peace" on Israel alone, which is of course no peace at all, but rather an unending war in which only one side bombs the other and kills its civilians.

Perhaps if Rosa Brooks and her other anti-Jewish fellow-travelers could question whether Hamas has a "viable endgame" in its constant warmaking, these... unpleasantries could be avoided.

Israel does have a "viable endgame," of course. The same "viable endgame" the US has in its own war on terror. Terror forces cannot be defeated as regular forces can. You cannot simply destroy the opposing army and its industrial capacity to create further weapons of war. Terror forces are light guerrilla forces, living among the civilian population rather than massing in large formations, and furthermore their weapons are largely supplied by outside actors -- Iran, chiefly -- which are considered off-limits to attacks, so their stocks of weapons can never be significantly reduced.

Israel's strategy is the same then as Hamas' -- exhausting and attritting the enemy forces, slowly grinding down their manpower and, crucially, their willpower to continue making war.

This is neither an easy strategy nor a quick one. If a conventional war lasts four or five years, a non-conventional war can last decades. And it's unclear if one side can ever impose enough pain on the other to produce what would be called a "victory."

And yet this is precisely the strategy Hamas has been pursuing for decades. Rosa Brooks never seems to question whether such a strategy should be pursued at all -- at least when it's Hamas doing the warmaking. It's only when Israel retaliates with a similar strategy (but a far more humane and moral implementation of that strategy, as they attempt to avoid civilian casualties, whereas Hamas seeks to inflict civilian casualties almost exclusively), that the Great Geopolitical One-Woman Think-Tank Rosa Brooks troubles herself to pen a column about oh how futile and terrible this all is.

Make a New Year's vow, Rosa, to engage that gigantic peace-seeking brain of yours a bit earlier in the process next time, and work up the energy to attack Hamas for making wars with no "viable endgame" the next time this process begins.

Or does that ask too much?

VDH: Hamas' Enablers. Ah, to always be beaten to the punch, and with a better punch, by VDH.

Eh, what can I expect. He's good. I'm not.

His bit is more about that Hamas' constant barrage of terror-rockets failing to spark any outrage at all among the Western press.

Thanks to CJ for that.

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (34)
Post contains 817 words, total size 5 kb.

Little Jenny Fischer (nom de guerre Sheikh Nizar Rayyan)
had dreams of one day becoming a veterinarian
and/or ridding the world of Jews.

So sad:

Sheikh Nizar Rayyan, 52, a senior Hamas leader and cleric, was killed along with several others on Thursday when an IAF aircraft dropped a bomb on the eight-story Jabalya apartment building he lived in, the IDF said.

Palestinian medics said that nine people were killed, including two of Rayyan's four wives and four of his 12 children, and around 30 were wounded in the air strike.

...

Rayyan's house was serving as an arms and ammunition warehouse and as a Hamas communications center, a statement released by the government press office said.

According to the statement, many secondary explosions were identified as a result of the attack, thus proving that the house was used for storing weaponry.

Security officials said that Rayyan was not only the religious leader of Hamas's military wing, Izzadin Kassam, but also one of their military commanders. He was often seen in uniform, and participated in military exercises. He was considered one of the most fanatical Hamas commanders, and was said to be close to Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh, who was killed by the IAF in 2002.

He was both the director and the financier of the 2004 terrorist attack at Ashdod's port which killed ten Israelis.

I have no idea how we can ever break this cycle of violence.

Oh, wait, yes I do: Palestinians can stop murdering people. That should do the trick.

Via Hot Air's Headlines.

Posted by: Ace at 10:32 AM | Comments (40)
Post contains 302 words, total size 2 kb.

Thank God when Barack Obama takes office we'll finally have a president with the balls to target Osama bin Ladin in Pakistan.

Three more were seriously injured by an avalanche of candy canes and fruitcake.

our Al Qaeda militants were killed and several others injured Thursday in a suspected US drone attack in northwestern Pakistan, an official and residents said.The drone fired two missiles targeting a vehicle carrying several Islamist insurgents at around 11:15 a.m. in Kari Kot area of South Waziristan tribal district, a known sanctuary for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, bordering Afghanistan, a security official said.

“Four militants died and three received serious injuries. According to the information we have received from the locals, all those killed were Al Qaeda militants of Turkmen origin,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

I have said this before, but I would dearly love just one guy in our armed forces -- just one -- to paint a missile or bomb with the greeting "It's not you... it's me," snap a picture, and send it to me.

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Comments (64)
Post contains 233 words, total size 2 kb.

I can haz Noo Year?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:15 AM | Comments (17)
Post contains 13 words, total size 1 kb.

Apparently Puget Sound isn't that sensitive to salt after all. Or at least it's not as sensitive as thousands of downtown retailers whose stores were made inaccessible by this absurd policy, nor as sensitive to hundreds of people who crashed their cars driving on the packed snow the roads were deliberately turned into.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced this morning that the city will reverse its decade-old policy and use road salt to melt ice in future storms.

The mayor set certain conditions for using salt: on hills, arterials or snow bus routes, and on routes to hospitals and other emergency facilities when at least 4 inches of snow is predicted, if ice is predicted, or if extreme cold is expected to last more than three days.

The city earlier refused to use salt, saying it's bad for the environment, and instead spread sand over the roads.

"In normal Seattle winters, this practice has served us well," Nickels said in a City Hall news conference today. "This time, liquid de-icers were not enough. People were frustrated, and so was I."

Nickels has faced criticism over the city's reaction to back-to-back snowstorms over the past two weeks. Buses could not run in many parts of the city and roads remained icy and rutted days after snow had fallen.

Thanks to jenjhis.

Posted by: Ace at 10:15 AM | Comments (40)
Post contains 248 words, total size 2 kb.