Year: 2005

But I did.

Michele Catalano has shut down ‘A Small Victory’. She’s going to do other things now…like write a book. That’s cool. I’ll miss the music surveys though, and her unique perspective on life ‘stuff’.

Good luck Michele.

Former CBS News producer Mary Mapes, angry and unrepentant as ever, still hasn’t learned anything.

In her first interview since being fired, former CBS News producer Mary Mapes maintains that her controversial “60 Minutes II” story on President Bush’s National Guard service was “true” and that “no one has proved that the documents were not authentic.”

Mapes says she is continuing to investigate the source of the controversial documents whose authenticity was seriously questioned by the CBS panel.

And just as soon as O.J. hunts down and captures the real murderer of his ex-wife Nicole and her buddy Ron, Mary will follow suit with the results of her tireless quest to find the actual source of the Rathergate documents.

Of course there is that problem of the average human life span being only 77 years, but hey.

The French are upset at the way the world’s media characterize the rioting. Well, boo-hoo.

A barrage of critical world media reporting on the violence in its rundown suburbs is rubbing nerves raw in France, which is more used to hearing praise for its food, its countryside and its opposition to the Iraq war.

In tones ranging from outrage to rueful agreement, French media are now reporting daily on the harsh terms that foreign television stations and newspapers choose to describe the unrest among France’s angry youths of Arab and African origin.

France laughed off “freedom fries” — as French fries were renamed in Washington — and other anti-French sentiment in the United States at the start of the Iraq war in 2003, but its reaction to the riot reporting carries a between-the-lines admission of hurt pride.

“From Italy to South Africa, Poland to China, from CNN to al-Jazeera, the newspaper headlines and television commentaries set against a background of blazing cars are really hyping it up,” the popular daily Le Parisien complained.

The Foreign Ministry has criticised some foreign reports as excessive and at least one cabinet member, Labour Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, has hinted the critical reporting was meant to hit back at France for opposing the U.S.-led Iraq war.

Heh, that’s a good one. The U.S. somehow controls the world media and can influence it to write negative sounding (albeit accurate) headlines in order to punish France.

If only.

If there was ever a reason to arrest someone…

Thomas DeFrank writes in today’s NY Daily News that the relationship between George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is tenuous, at best. Don’t believe it.

The CIA leak scandal has peeled back the veil on the most closely held White House secret of all: the subtle but unmistakable erosion in the bond between President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Multiple sources close to Bush told the Daily News that while the vice president remains his boss’ valued political partner and counselor, his clout has lessened – primarily as a result of issues arising from the Iraq war.

“The relationship is not what it was,” a presidential counselor said. “There has been some distance for some time.”

This is exactly what the Democrats want moderates and leftward leaning Republicans to believe. They’re counting on a ‘snowball’ effect in order to bring just enough doubt into the thinking of swing voters (if there is still such a thing). Their goal, of course, is to propagate a notion that the GOP is on the brink of destruction, and that voters will regret reelecting Republicans in 2006, and extending our stay in the White House past 2008.

Meanwhile, has anyone heard any new ideas from the Democrats?

As far as I’m concerned, they can keep up this effort. Go ahead lefties – use the willing media to push the lie that George and Dick are enemies. Use Democratic ‘consultants’ to regurgitate talking point after talking point about how George and Laura are ‘on the rocks’ (a rumor that I’m betting will surface sometime soon). Exhaust all your resources to dish the dirt. It won’t bring you power. It won’t get you elected.

As long as Republicans can lead the dialog on solutions to today’s problems and ideas for tomorrow’s problems, we’ll stay in the majority, and we’ll stay in the White House. Americans want leaders who work at moving forward. They don’t want a party who’s primary objective is to relive the ‘90’s.

Blogs for Bush is two years old today. Go over and send your well wishes to Matt and the gang.

Two guys set a new ‘stupid’ standard.

Reuters: A hand grenade being used instead of a ball in a game of catch exploded early on Saturday killing three youths in this Bosnian town, police and news agencies said.

Two youths aged 19 and 20, one of them from neighboring Croatia, were killed instantly while a 20-year-old woman died on her way to hospital, police said. Her sister was slightly injured but two other youths suffered serious injuries.

Not your average game of pickup.

If these guys were 9 and 10 years old, I might be able to understand this, but 19 and 20? Jeez.

Now, lest you think they had all of their 10 brain cells working when this happened, the story goes on to mention that this tragedy occurred at 2:00 AM, which makes it likely that the grenade wasn’t the only thing loaded at that hour.

h/t Ace

11 Days, 300 Towns, and no end in sight.

Rioting youths have taken over the country of France as the leadership passively stands by hoping it will all magically end without a heavy hand.

As President Jacques Chirac struggles outwardly to appear strong and resolved in his desire to quell the unrest, he has already lost the battle. He has lost because his government is pointing an unloaded gun. Instead of being filled with bullets, it is filled with a liberal ideology, top heavy in words but void of action.

President Jacques Chirac, in private comments more conciliatory than his warnings Sunday that rioters would be caught and punished, acknowledged that France has failed to integrate the French-born children of Arab and black African immigrants in poor suburbs who have been participating in the violence, according to Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who met with the French leader on Monday.

She said Chirac “deplored the fact that in these neighborhoods there is a ghettoization of youths of African or North African origin” and recognized “the incapacity of French society to fully accept them.”

The problem is plain to see. When liberalism guides ones thinking, choices quickly become limited. Throw tear gas? Nope, can’t do that. We might actually blind one of the rioters and that could cause more unrest! Rubber bullets? No way. We can’t have pictures taken of our policemen shooting guns, even if the bullets aren’t lethal. That might damage our reputation as an ‘open, non-violent’ society. Arrest and jail the youths? They’re just children! What good could come of it? If we simply throw away these individuals and make no attempt to ‘help’ them through rehabilitation, we won’t ever understand their root problems. What they need is care, support…ALL THEY NEED IS LOVE!

The liberal must first ‘understand’ the plight of the rioter, the terrorist, the dissident, or the contentious objector before they have enough information in which to construct a program of solutions. Meanwhile, violence ensues, cities burn, and eventually, people die.

The French will attempt to end the unrest in the same way the approach the War on Terror. They’ll use words, programs, and collective thought with a wide variety of political and socio-economic experts. It won’t work. Their liberalism will ensure them one thing – France will continue to transform into a fractious society led by groups holding radical fascist ideologies on one side and groups with leftist ‘hold me til I’m loved’ ideologies on the other. 

Don’t think this couldn’t happen in America. If we become distracted by the bias propagated through the media, and start to believe the distortions sold as fact by the Democratic leadership, we could elect a leftist government to power in 2008 and watch as they passively lead America down the same path of liberal understanding and enlightenment growing throughout Europe today. Just as France is becoming less ‘French’ day-by-day, America won’t be very ‘American’ anymore.

Liberalism – The risk is just too great.

MORE from Joseph Loconte

England’s House of Bishops released a report entitled – “Countering Terrorism: Power, Violence and Democracy Post 9/11″. In it, one of the Bishops was quoted as stating the following:

“Terrorism, however destructive, has to be understood, first of all, in political terms.” The real problem, is U.S. foreign policy, and the solution is “a political settlement” that “meets some of the terrorist concerns.”

Young men who blow themselves up in cafés, behead civil servants and murder women and children do not have “concerns.” They have ambitions, stated openly and repeatedly. These include: the eradication of Western influence from Muslim lands; the forced conversion or elimination of alleged infidels; the use of nuclear weapons against civilian populations; and the establishment of a Taliban-like empire extending from Iraq to Indonesia.

And if we ignore the leaking drip of liberal thought as it attempts to breach the walls of our free society, this Taliban-like empire will go beyond Europe and Asia – straight to your front doorstep.

And less Defense.

AP – Bush Declares: ‘We Do Not Torture’

President Bush vigorously defended U.S. interrogation practices in the war on terror Monday and lobbied against a congressional drive to outlaw torture.

“There’s an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again,” Bush said. “So you bet we will aggressively pursue them but we will do so under the law.”

He declared, “We do not torture.”

I’m tired of this funk.

Bush is stuck in a defensive response mode right now, and he’s not making the news. He needs to step back into that ‘newsmaker’ role as soon as possible. As Republicans, we need to step up and start making news too. It’s time we take over the podium again.

Well, I’ve looked and looked and there just isn’t anything worth blogging about today that isn’t being blogged here, or here, or here. I’ll wait to see what Monday brings. Hope you had a good weekend.