baldilocks

What's in Your Coconut?

I notice patterns, more so now than back when I was a young woman--likely because my head was filled with fruitless things with which, all too often, young, single women occupy themselves. It was too crowded in there. Too bad. The ability to recognize patterns could have done me some good back then, both professionally and personally. But, it was what it was. And now, the patterns of life are pretty much all I think about. Allow me to expound on at least one.

Many people subscribe to subjective truth--that each person possesses his/her own truth that may be different from another individual's truth and I have noticed how normalized this way of thinking has become.

Not long ago, I had a conversation with a man, a friend of a friend, on the definition of earning money. For whatever reason, he thought that any money that a person legally possessed was automatically earned--that legal possession and earning were synonymous. We went back and forth about this until I put forth the following scenario: a man is walking down a street and sees a dollar on the sidewalk. He picks it up and puts it in his pocket. Is it legally his? We agreed that it was. But did he earn it? I'd like to think I won the argument. But I found it alarming that, somehow, the gentleman I was talking to--a reasonably intelligent man--had bound up earning and the legal possession in his mind.

Then there was another conversation with another person about the ethnicity of Jesus the Christ. This lady was adamant that Jesus in the flesh was not a "white European" in the manner in which He is often rendered. I agreed, but in the conversation, the passage in The Revelation describing Jesus' hair was cited. Here it is:

His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow…

--Revelation 1:14 (KJV, emphasis mine)

The lady contended that this passage was describing the texture of His hair; that it was like wool, and, therefore concluded that Jesus was "black." When I countered that the passage only described the color of His hair and nothing about the texture, she said that I wasn't "interpreting" the passage correctly. This particular conversation did not end as hopefully as the previous one. (As for Jesus' "race," I am...ahem...agnostic on the subject. Moreover, I don't think it matters.)

But whatever one thinks about the truth of the Bible or the proper translation from its original languages into English, it's fascinating to note that even an English description of a thing is open to "interpretation" in the minds of some; that an explicit mention of a color has many meanings outside of its scope.

And, by fascinating, I mean scary.

I don't think this type of thinking is an anomaly and I certainly don't think that the widespread inculcation of this type of thinking is accidental.

A few years back, I coined the term Coconut Treatment. It didn't catch on but it's still useful for the purpose of recognizing this particular pattern:

Take a coconut, slice it in half, scoop out the meat from both halves and toss the meat—the substance--into the garbage disposal. Then take a pile of dog manure that Fido deposited into your yard, fill both halves of the coconut shells with it and glue the halves back together. What do you have now?

A "coconut."

This is what has happened to words and concepts in the minds of many and it is the fruit of primary, secondary, and collegiate education also known as the Great Dumbing Down. The fruit has been emptied of its nutrients and then painted over or glued back together and called "fruit." At some point, individual words and concepts became subjective. That is, they became fluid and not set in stone. My old blog friend, Jeff Goldstein, has a series of posts on this phenomenon, and a lot of people didn't get that he was talking about this very thing.

(I was going to say that the idea of subjective definition is more common among those with bachelor degrees or higher, but, in the past few years, I've noticed that many who don't have much formal education also subscribe to the notion. The difference between the two groups is this: the latter are less likely to believe in subjective meaning and, even those who do will shake off this idea once it is pointed out and explained. The former tend to be too well indoctrinated.)

Being one of those with less formal education, I had long observed this phenomenon, but until I read Jeff’s intentionalism series, I didn’t know how to articulate it. Then, in last week’s Sunday Morning Book Thread at Ace’s place, OregonMuse, the book thread master, added to my informal education by posting the following

Postmodernism is a complex of concepts that asserts that all our constructs are just that, constructs; that there are no grand narratives or abiding truths; that all such grand narratives are illegitimate power moves; and that every perspective is necessarily a limited and local one.

and said, jokingly, that

One year of free AoSHQ Premium content goes to the first [person] who spots the giant logical hole in this worldview.

So, being insufficiently indoctrinated with the Coconut Treatment, I was the first one to point out the hole.

According to postmodern logic, postmodernism itself is a construct and, therefore, limited and local.

And, of course, that means that postmodernism, itself, is false, illegitimate and a mere power move, by the postmodern narrative’s own logic.

I started writing this post weeks ago, and, after reading OregonMuse’s post, it occurred to me that postmodernism is the very fecund parent of subjective definition. Oh, I’m know that I’m not the first person to come to this conclusion, but, keep these things in mind: I have only a two-year degree and, what little I do know and think about comes from volitional reading, observation and from thinking ideas through to the end. (I had heard of postmodernism, but whenever I began to read anything written by its adherents, my eyes began to close.)

Something else that occurred to me about postmodernism, besides its logical fallaciousness, is that its advent has been long predicted. Speaking of the perilous times in the Last Days, Paul in his second letter to his protégé, Timothy, writes this:

But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

--2 Timothy 3:13 (KJV, emphasis mine)

Lying and being lied to.

Postmodernists like to make their written offerings seemingly complicated, but such are really quite simple, and I mean that in both senses.

It is but one big gigantic lie, negating itself even. Above, I likened postmodernism to a mother with countless children and those who read the Bible know who the father is. Subject truth and definition? The Lie-baby.

It’s up to each individual to see the lies for what they are, to shake off the indoctrination.

 

Guardian Writer--"I Wish My Mother Had Aborted Me" (KingShamus)

The pro-choice movement:  They thirst for death.

An abortion would have absolutely been better for my mother. An abortion would have made it more likely that she would finish high school and get a college education. At college in the late 1960s, it seems likely she would have found feminism or psychology or something that would have helped her overcome her childhood trauma and pick better partners. She would have been better prepared when she had children. If nothing else, getting an abortion would have saved her from plunging into poverty. She likely would have stayed in the same socioeconomic strata as her parents and grandparents who were professors. I wish she had aborted me because I love her and want what is best for her.

Abortion would have been a better option for me. If you believe what reproductive scientists tell us, that I was nothing more than a conglomeration of cells, then there was nothing lost. I could have experienced no consciousness or pain. But even if you discount science and believe I had consciousness and could experience pain at six gestational weeks, I would chose the brief pain or fear of an abortion over the decades of suffering I endured.

An abortion would have been best for me because there is no way that my love-starved, trauma-addled mother could have ever put me up for adoption. It was either abortion or raising me herself, and she was in no position to raise a child. She had suffered a traumatic brain injury, witnessed and experienced severe domestic violence, and while she was in grade school she was raped by a stranger and her mother committed suicide. She was severely depressed and suicidal, had an extremely poor support system, was experiencing an unplanned pregnancy that resulted from coercive sex, and she was so young that her brain was still undeveloped.

Nihilism disguised as selflessness.   

Beyond that, look at the amazing speculative leaps Lynn Beisner makes in order to prove her point.  If the mother had aborted Ms. Beisner, she asserts that her mom probably would've been better off.  In the next paragraph, she runs through the long laundry list of reasons why her mother was in really awful shape at the time she was pregnant with Ms.Beisner.

Well, since we're playing "What if?" counter-factual history games, what makes Beisner think it all that likely that her young abused brain-damaged depressed rape victim mother would've finished high school in the first place?  A person with that many strikes against them--and a truly tragic personal history to boot--is far more likely to drop out of high school then to finish with a diploma, regardless of whether the person has an unplanned pregnancy or not.  That means no college.  It also means no 'feminism or psychology or something' to help her cope with her extremely difficult circumstances.

Now it's true that Beisner's mom had a horrible life before she had her child.  Let us suppose that her life was made more difficult by taking an unplanned pregnancy to term.  Concede for a moment the idea that caring for a child under less than ideal circumstances was a substantial burden on Mommy Beisner.

The fact remains that the writer Lynn Beisner lives and breathes because, even though her mother was ill-suited to the role of parent, she still decided to give her daughter a life.  Isn't there even a speck of nobility to be found in that act?  Even if Beisner's mother was a train-wreck, the fact remains that she cared enough to bring her child into the world.  While it might be a mundane occurrence, it's still an amazingly selfless thing to do for another human being.  

Sadly, Ms. Beisner isn't done pwning herself.

The world would not be a darker or poorer place without me. Actually, in terms of contributions to the world, I am a net loss. Everything that I have done – including parenting, teaching, researching, and being a loving partner – could have been done as well, if not better by other people. Any positive contributions that I have made are completely offset by what it has cost society to help me overcome the disadvantages and injuries of my childhood to become a functional and contributing member of society.

Conservatives are often accused of reducing people down to dry statistics.  But what has the theology of abortion done here?  Beisner is asserting that her life is pretty much meaningless.  She is, in her own words, a net loss.  That's about as reductive as it gets.  

It is said that a liberal is a person who won't take their own side in an argument.  Beisner's thesis is the barren withered endpoint of the pro-abortion movement:  "We support infanticide because we are pointless."

This is far beyond just giving women reproductive 'choice'.  This Abortion Above All Else philosophy argues against humans and everything they do.  Work, being a good parent, romantic love; all these things are to be reduced down to a finite quantifiable value which can be used to determine whether a person made a positive contribution to the world.  Because Ms. Beisner clearly hates herself, she sees her own life as something unworthy of her mother's initial sacrifice to give birth to her daughter.

Are the people within the pro-abortion movement prepared to look at their own lives with the same kind of self-loathing criticism?  Is the anti-life cause ready to apply Ms. Beisner's criterion for judging a 'good' life to themselves and everyone else?  If Ms.Beisner' essay is any indication, the answer is a very chilling yes.

UPDATE (baldilocks): Welcome to Ace of Spades HQ ONT Morons^tm and Moronettes^tm!

Was He or Wasn't He?

Well. Would you look at that?

I still don’t believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.  But please don’t react before considering my reasoning.

As most of my readers know, like Barack Obama, my biological father is Kenyan and my mother is American. Mom--no fan of the president’s, to be sure--does not believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya either.  Her reasoning makes sense. 

Mom went to Germany as a young teen—she’s a military brat—and, as a result, is familiar with the international transport procedures of the 1950s and 1960s. (Coolness factor: she returned to the United States by sea.)

Additionally, Mom gave birth to me in the same month and year that Stanley Ann Obama gave birth to Barack Obama.  Armed with intimate knowledge of travel and child-birth in the Dark Ages, Mom says that there is no way that Stanley Ann Obama could have given birth in what was then British East Africa, gotten papers, immunizations, etc. in order, and made it back to the other side of the world in time to apply for extension courses from the University of Washington (state) two weeks after her son was born.

Assuming that the details surrounding the president’s birth and his mother’s actions during that period are accurate (yes, I know), I don’t think the birthplace was a mistake by his literary agent as that agent claims.

It was a purposeful inclusion by the author.  Roger Simon agrees and thinks that this issue is related to the MSM’s refusal to vet the president’s college transcripts.

Barack Obama has a history of dissembling—much of it designed to make himself look better than the average American, especially the average black American.  It wasn’t enough for him that his father was Kenyan; he had to make himself even better by claiming to be born there. “Better?” I hear you ask. Yes, better, from the perspective of a person long-simmered in hatred of this country.

Allow me to give a little insight to the mindset. Often, when I mention that my biological father is Kenyan, people assume that I was born in Kenya as well, usually in the context that it is better to have been born somewhere other than in the United States.  The assumption is an irritant for two reasons: 1) I am “proud” and grateful to have been born in the United States of America, and 2) If I had been born in Kenya, there would be no reason whatsoever to mention the birthplace of my father.

If Barack Obama did lie on his literary bio, did this bit of lying in the service of pride of self and hatred for this country back-fire on him?  Can't say that it has. That bio has been in the public domain for all to see since 1991, but no entity of the mainstream media saw fit to present this very pertinent fact to the American voting public.  Fancy that.

Then, again, what happens if he wasn’t lying?

 

DeWayne Wickham: Get Back On The Democrat Plantation, Gay Republicans! (KingShamus)

Hey, I don't know if you've heard but President Obama has come out in favor of same-sex marriage.

The Obamatron's announcement that he now supports gay nuptials--after he was against it which came after he was for it--has led to some strange reactions in the leftoversphere.  Most have been positively proggasmic.  But some have used the occasion to go on offense against their hated enemies. 

Here's syndicated columnist DeWayne Wickham  (D-Obama Stenographer Media), chastising the Log Cabin Republicans for attacking Obama on his newly-found support for gay marriage while not criticizing Mitt Romney for his belief in traditional marriage.   

The Log Cabin Republicans are outcasts within the GOP. The marital equality they seek is opposed by Romney and many of the right-wingers whose votes he hopes will help him defeat Obama in November.

The Republican homosexual group seems bent on subjecting its members to an unyielding brand of political flagellation.

It is apparently willing to pay any price, bear any burden and endure any insult to maintain a toehold in the GOP ranks — a political obsession that is as oxymoronic as a black joining the Ku Klux Klan, or a Jew becoming a follower of Hamas.

Of course, he's correct.  

I'm sure you remember the Republican Party's long sordid history of firebombing Greenwich Village cosmetology schools and orchestrating drive-by shootings at San Francisco antique stores.

Worse than the dickbag moral equivalency ploy is the Wickham's narrow-mindedness when it comes to gay and lesbian voters.  It simply doesn't occur to him that a homosexual person could possibly be a Republican too.  Ergo, these freaky-deaky pink elephant GOPers should go back to being good dutiful soldiers for the Democrat Party rather than sucking up to the hate-fueled Republicans.

Let's flip the script for a second:  Suppose there was a large chunk of union-member Democrats who really hated Cap-n-Trade.  They agreed with almost everything else on the DonkeyPuncher agenda--ObamaCare, tax hikes, the role of government in citizens' lives--but they really disliked a government-mandated carbon credit trading system.  According to Wickham's logic, those anti-C&T union guys should stop being Democrats and join the Republican Party.  After all, they aren't marching lockstep with the Democrat Party on Cap-n-Trade, so union people must be barking up the wrong political tree.

Seen this way, Wickham's premise starts to look like chicken-fried nonsense wrapped in a flaky breaded crust of illogic and glazed with a zesty bullshit marinade.

Back in the real world, gay and lesbians make political decisions the same way everybody else does.  They base their partisan affiliation on feelings, ideologies, gut instincts and what they generally want out of the government.  There are still a few pro-life Democrats, even though the Dems are overwhelmingly pro-abortion.  Ron Paul and many of his supporters are Republicans who are against the large well-funded US military most GOPers have embraced.  In both cases, the reason why these people remain in their respective parties has nothing to do with some sort of  sycophantic apple-polisher's desire to be liked that Wickham ascribes to the Log Cabin Republicans.  Instead, pro-life Democrats and pro-military cuts Paulians have all made calculations based on their political priorities.  Why Wickham thinks gays and lesbians are incapable of making the sorts of sophisticated voting decisions that everyone else does is a mystery.          

I mean, is it so wacky to think there are gays and lesbians who support smaller government, tax cuts and strong national defense?

Is it all that odd that those same homosexuals wouldn't make gay marriage the make-or-break issue that keeps them in the Republican Party?

It's only strange if you're DeWayne Wickham.

Yes, We Do Need To See Obama's Transcripts (KingShamus)

And a whole lot of other paperwork too, even though Doug Mataconis insists that we don't.

My response to this question is another question, why do we need to see the transcripts? Of what possible relevance are the grades that Barack Obama got at Occidental, Columbia, or Harvard Law School to judging his time in office and whether he deserves to be re-elected? What would it reveal about his Presidency that we don’t know? To ask the same question about Romney, what possible relevance to evaluating whether he’d be a good President his grades at Brigham Young University and Harvard (where Romney simultaneously obtained a J.D. and an M.B.A.) could possibly be. It’s been 37 years since Mitt Romney finished his college education, and 20 years since Obama finished his, as James Joyner asked back in 2008, isn’t there a statute of limitations on the use of college achievements as evidence of achievement? If there’s not, there should be.

To be fair, Mataconis stipulates that Obama's college transcripts might have been more revelatory back in 2008 than they would be today. Good point and its one I'll concede.  Obama's record as President is plenty damaging all on it's own.  How he did in Western Civ I is not as important as his current position on entitlement reform.

However, here's a question:  Do businesses and organizations use college transcripts as a way of judging prospective hires?  Do companies demand college records as part of the application process?  Are college transcripts used as a way of comparing and contrasting several candidates who are going for the same job?

Let me get this straight:  Getting the assistant regional manager position at Staples means showing college scrips, but scoring the US President gig doesn't require any presentation of higher education records.

Okay.

Makes perfect sense.

Especially in modern America, where getting college credit isn't necessary for hardly any jobs.

But Mataconis isn't done.

...the demands for transcripts is often linked to the equally erroneous belief that he wasn’t properly vetted in 2008. As I noted earlier this month, that’s a ridiculous idea:

Barack Obama has been President of the United States for nearly four years now, and he’s been on the national scene as either a candidate for President or as President since 2007. The idea that we have no idea who the man is, or that he hasn’t been “vetted” is simply an absurd fantasy that partisans are using in what looks for all the world like a desperate effort to find something, anything that they can use against him in the upcoming election.

Yes, because the press didn't have to be dragged kicking and screaming to report that Obama ate dogs.

Mataconis seems to be arguing that conservatives should focus on 'important' issues rather than on demanding the media do a better job vetting the President.  Now that's a noble sentiment.  But why did the Right have such a good time hammering the Exotic Food Connoisseur In Chief about chowing down on Fido-burgers?  It wasn't simply to playfully zing Barack Obama for a few days.  There was a political motivation in answering back as well.

In 1983, Romney took his family on vacation and, faced with a packed station wagon, put his Irish setter Seamus in a travel kennel strapped to the roof of the car. Romney constructed a special windshield in an effort to make the dog more comfortable, but Seamus ended up relieving himself on the roof, which reportedly caused much consternation among the Romney boys. Ever since the story got out -- it was reported by the Boston Globe in 2007, during Romney's first run for president -- Romney opponents have used it in semiserious and sometimes fully serious ways to portray him as insensitive.

In late January, for example, top Obama campaign aide David Axelrod sent out a tweet that included a photo of Obama with his Portuguese water dog Bo in the back seat of the presidential limousine. "How loving owners transport their dogs," Axelrod wrote.

It wasn't a random comment. "They're obsessed with the dog thing," liberal journalist Chris Hayes said on his MSNBC program Sunday morning, referring to the Obama campaign. "And the reason is that, I have heard, in focus groups, the dog story totally tanks Mitt Romney's approval rating."

Under Mataconis' rubric, Team Barry is engaging in yucky politics when bringing up Mitt's supposedly poor treatment of his dog.

When this or any other charge of allegedly dirty pool is brought up against the Obama campaign, Axelrod and Co. inevitably answers with a hearty "So what?"  A fair fight is the other guys problem.  That means they really don't give a shit what Doug Mataconis or anybody else  thinks should be discussed.  When they brought up the Seamus story, it was because they knew it damaged Mitt Romney's chances of beating Barack Obama in November.

Mataconis thinks that elections are about winning arguments.  They're not.  They're ultimately about winning votes.  Which is what Obama was trying to do by beating Romney over the head with the Seamus story.  But when the Right engages the issue to turn it back against Obama--again, in the hopes that their preferred candidate would get more votes than his opponents--guys like Mataconis wring their hands over distractions.

Worse than that, Mataconis doesn't see the larger issue, which is the utter stinking corruption of the mainstream media.  Think about the most recent example.  Barack Obama stops fighting his feelings and embraces gay marriage. Naturally this causes everyone in the media to simultaneously proggasm over the President's new-found enlightenment.  The next day, the Washington Post runs a story about a school age Mitt Romney possibly bullying a classmate who may or may not have been gay.

Forget that Robert Stacy McCain has spotted the flaws, baseless insinuations,White House/media coordination and outright lies in the WaPo story.  The fact is the Washington Post blatantly tag-teamed with Camp Obambi to damage Mitt Romney on a political issue.  Not MSNBC, the Daily Kos or The Nation.   Instead, it was the completely nonpartisan, totally unbiased, nope-no-sir-no-dog-in-this-fight Washington Post that was Obama's press enabler here.

Whether it's the MSM making Barack Obama's college years terra non grata or coordinating an attack on the Republican nominee for president, the result is the same.  The American media is a major component of the President's re-election campaign.  They are actively participating in the fight to marginalize St. Barry's opponent.

Mataconis wants us to ignore all that.  He'd have the Republicans and conservatives fighting by the Marquess of Queensbury rules while the Democrats and the MSM bring a shotgun into the ring.  That's the smart move here.

Because Obama's college transcripts are not 'relevant'.

They're only irrelevant if you don't want to see how badly the media is gaming the system.

Ultimately, getting the President's college transcripts is not really about vetting the President.  It's part of vetting the mainstream media.  The MSM, which hates anything to the right of Noam Chomsky and desperately wants Obama to win in November.

The President needs to be investigated.   But the left-wing press corps and the Gulfstream Jacobins in the entertainment industry need to be vetted as well.  After all, they're playing for the same team.  Only a person who has deliberately blinded himself to reality would fail to see why the goverment-media complex needs to get taken down.

Sarah Palin Pwns The Media--Again (KingShamus)

The Crack Emcee brings us a CNN anchor dude getting emo.

You’ve got to love this. They went after her – again – and they got nothing! All they’ve exposed is the media’s craven nature and it’s willingness to act as the go-to guy for the Democratic Party. Watch the clip. At one point the reporter looks *stunned* because he’s got to admit the person he’s “investigating” is somebody good who he clearly admires. It’s like he was given the job of killing a kid and he,..just,..can’t,…do it.

Da Emcee nails it...again.

How about we call the former governor by her rightful title. Sarah Palin: The Most Vetted Non-Presidential Candidate Ever.

Did anybody go through Barack Obama's e-mails as US Senator when he announced his run for the Presidency? If the media did, you never heard about it. Ya gotta think that if the lamestreamers did find anything in an Obama email nit-pick expedition, some producer or editor at one of the big media dogs would dutifully toss it down the memory hole. Wouldn't want the general public to get an unfoavorable impression of the Left's Chocolate Jesus sacred worship figure.

Numerous news outlets have decided to crowdsource the Palin e-mails. Did these same media organs go with this tactic when ObamaCare was being debated? How about Cap-n-Trade? What about the Porkulus? Nope. None of that got our Fourth Estate a-rolling like Palin's e-mails.

Amazing.

I'm a Herman Cain supporter. I hope he is the GOP nominee in 2012 because I think he's got the best shot at beating Obama. Having said that, here's an argument for a Sarah Palin presidential run: Nobody can touch the chick. They can't lay a glove on her. Her detractors couldn't hit her with an RPG if she
was the broad side of a barn and they were standing ten feet away.

The Left throws everything at her. They have fired every salvo they possibly can. They've had squirrelly weirdo reporters move next door to her house. They engage in bizarre conspiracy theories about the 'true' mother of Trig Palin. They blow her verbal 'gaffes' into week-long exposes, then get cranky when it turns out that she was right.

The progressives almost always come out looking worse than she does whenever they get into a food fight with Palin. She makes them look ridiculous. Better still, because the left cannot stand to get humiliated, they forget the first rule of holes: when you've put yourself at the bottom of one, the first thing you should do is stop digging. Instead, they continue to take shots at her, hoping that just once they'll get lucky and put an end to her career in public life.

Chances are that the media has found every possible trouble spot Sarah Palin might have in her background. Barring something completely out of the blue, there are no scandals lurking in Palin's history. If there was, you can be sure the MSM would've reported it by now.

You can argue against Palin on stylistic grounds. You might think her snowbillyisms and folksy demeanor won't translate into a winning formula in a national election. You can even question some of her policy emphases.

The one big advantage Sarah Palin has over everyone else in the 2012 presidential field is that there will be no surprises. Every rock has been turned over. If she runs for the White House, you can be sure the media will keep digging into her past. You can also be sure that Palin will beat them more often than not. In a race that is certainly going to be a media-driven death march against whoever the GOP nominates, being a proven MSM slayer is no small thing.

Keep Being Douchebags, Howard Fineman & Paul Krugman (KingShamus)

By now, most people have heard about the shooting in Tuscon, Arizona that left six people dead and wounded eighteen others, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords.  This pointless act of violence by a deranged young man should be denounced by every right-thinking person.  Unfortunately, some of our allegedly right-thinking media commentators are trying way too hard to make their ridiculous political points.

First up, here's Howard Fineman, calling on Obama to use the Tuscon shooting for his own purposes.

Now comes Tucson. The deaths there are not about politics, ideology or party. From what we know, Jared Loughman's acts were those of a madman divorced from reality, let alone from public debate.

But that doesn't make Tucson politically meaningless. The president need not, and should not, speak of ideas or programs or parties. What he can speak about, and what perhaps he will speak about, is civility.

Arizona has become a ferociously divided and dangerous place, in which our indispensable need to argue--arguing is, after all, who we are as a people--seems at times to veer into an abyss.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords--"centrist" Democrat, survivor in a district with more Republicans than Democrats and more independent voters than either--has prospered in Congress by crossing lines and doing so with a sense of earnestness and good will.

Like her, the president has been attacked harshly of late from both sides: by progressives who regard him as a sellout, by Tea Partiers who regard him as a power-mad socialist usurper.

He and Giffords think of themselves as fellow travelers on a middle path of civility and compromise in a dangerous world. The president will likely argue that, implicitly if not explicitly.

Fate works in strange ways. This event is the first on the watch of Obama's new chief of staff, and a deal-making, turn-the-heat-down approach to politics is what Bill Daley is all about.

As was the case with Clinton, Obama may be able to remind voters of what they like best about him: his sensible demeanor. Amid the din and ferocity of our political culture, he respectfully keeps his voice down, his emotions in check and his mind open.

That is the pitch, at least. The trick is to make it without seeming to be trying to make it. He will, after all, be speaking at a funeral.

Jeeeeeeeebus.

There is so much fail here, it almost overwhelms reason.

First, Fineman strains mightily against observable reality to draw a connection between Giffords, an actual moderate, and Barack 'I Won'Obama, a hard left statist who has to be dragged kicking and screaming to split the difference with Republicans.  In fact, there is no comparison between the Representative and the President besides the fact that they're both Democrats.  Quick tip for Fineman: When you call your partisan opponents hostage-takers, you're reaching across the aisle with a sharp left hook to the jaw.  If there is a mood of partisan rancor in Arizona--or America--Obama hasn't done anything to alleviate it and done much to perpetuate it.

Even worse is Fineman's fetishization of 'civility'.  Note that liberals only care about civility when they're the one's catching a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whooping at the ballot box.  The 2010 midterm elections are still a giant source of pain for Democrats and their media enablers.  Now that conservatives have a tiny chance to enact some small-government ideas, the professional Left wants Republicans to 'tone down' all this 'hot rhetoric'.  In Fineman's five brain cell math, the GOP's insistence on dismantling Obama's health care reform bill = Tucson shooting.

Here's another problem.  Homeboy wants America to have more 'civil' political debates.  Forget for a moment that for Fineman, a well-mannered conversation means the Democrat Party gets it's way on every issue forever.  The bigger issue here is that Fineman wants Barack Obama to score political points at what sort of event?  Oh yeah, a funeral.  You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a scenario more impolite than somebody throwing partisan bon mots over the body of a nine year old child.

Wait, did I say 'impolite'?  What I meant to say is 'vulgar and nauseating'.

But hey, maybe Howard Fineman is right.  After all, the Paul Wellstone funeral was a rousing success.

Next up, here's Paul Krugman.  He's a New York Times columnist and a massive douchetool, but I repeat myself.  Watch as this Nobel Prize winner completely beclowns himself.

A Democratic Congresswoman has been shot in the head; another dozen were also shot.

We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that “the whole Tea Party” was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list.

...You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.

This is what it sounds like when liberals wet the bed.

Let's break this down.  Krugman wants us to believe that elements of the conservative movement created a climate of hate that led to this shooting.  A cursory glance at the artifacts left behind by the shooter proves Krugman wrong.  Take a look the alleged murderer's Youtube page.  Here are his favorite books.

Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver's Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.

Funny.  I don't see Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, or Rush Limbaugh mentioned in there.  Try as I might, I can't find any Tea Party pamphlets or conservative manifestos either.  Why, it's almost as if Paul Krugman is using his own political template for what he thinks the American conservative movement is and projecting that distorted image onto the Tucson shooter. 

Again, Krugman is arguing that his right-wing bogeymen pushed the attacker to violence.  If that were the case, there should be something, even a minute scrap of evidence that suggests that the shooter was influenced by conservatives.  In fact, the shooter's most beloved tomes seem far less like a Tea Partier's book club assignment and far more like a slightly off-kilter high school sophomore's summer reading list.

If we want to really pick through the books and find a pattern, you'd be hard-pressed to find any real partisan trend.  "Animal Farm", "Fahrenheit 451" and "Brave New World" are well-regarded works of fiction loved by members of the Right, Left and apolitical.  If "The Odyssey", "Gulliver's Travels" or "The Old Man and The Sea" are right-wing calls to arms, they're the most well-disguised revolutionary tracts ever.  "We The Living" was written by Ayn Rand, so in some bizarre left-wing fever dream, this could be evidence of the shooter's right-wingery.  But then what are we supposed to make of "The Communist Manifesto" and "Mein Kampf"? These are the holy texts of international and national socialism and not exactly beloved political tracts within the conservative movement.

Contrary to Paul Krugman's bullshit on stilts masquerading as sober analysis, there is no coherent political philosophy to be found in the shooter's favorite books.  But surely for Krugman to tar the Palin/Beck/Limbaugh axis as inciting violence, there must be something going on in the shooter's intellectual life.  Perhaps the attacker's Youtube videos showed Krugman the indications he needed to make his accusations.

 

Nope.  Nothing here.

Maybe this video?

 

Once more, we find nothing in the attacker's personal statements that indicate that he had any intellectual connection to the Tea Party, conservatives or Sarah Palin. That begs the question: From what part of the political spectrum did the shooter come from?  If you answered "Insane Street In The Nutbar Development Right Smack Dab In the Middle of Crazyville", give yourself a gold star.  You just did better at examining the motivations of the Tucson gunman than an overpaid undersmart New York Times hack.

Howard Fineman and Paul Krugman:  Kindly go to the back of the short bus, sit down and shut the hell up.  Your services are no longer required.  For anything.  Ever.

UPDATE:  RE-Violent political rhetoric. 

Paul Krugman had a pathetic crying jag over Sarah Palin's 'infamous' targeting of vulnerable Democrat representatives for the 2010 midterms.  If that picture...which I had never seen until today...is so inflammatory, what about the DailyKos?  Jim Treacher finds this little gem.

 

"[Gabrielle Giffords] is dead to me."

BoyBlue posted this diary on January 6th, 2011.  By Paul Krugman's dainty standards, this is eliminationist rhetoric that contributes to a climate of violence.  But since this angry missive came from the a left-wing site, I guess this doesn't count.  It's just sober political talk, right Paul?

What's even cooler is that Markos Moulitsas took down the post.  Yup.  It's gone down the memory hole.  If it was done out of a sense of class or fear of political blowback is anybody's guess.

The Giffords shooting has already turned into a left-wing cluster bang.  The problem is that it's only going to get worse.

UPDATE II:  Of course, more elements of the progressive movement have chimed in blaming conservatives for the shooting.  One problem:  It's not right-wingers publicly calling for violence.

 

Hey Eugene Robinson, Joshua Marshall, and Keith Olbermann:  Your propaganda cartoonist, your socialist-apologizing little pissant artist, your tantrum-throwing scribbler is the one that is saying that America needs violent revolution to fix it.  It's not the Right that's saying this stuff.  It's Ted Rall, respected member of the statist movement, that's proposing a violent overthrow.  Then you have the nerve to use some maniac with no political motivation beyond his own insanity as a tool to try to make your patent lies about conservatives stick.

The fact that this leftist narrative coalesced so quickly tells us a few things about liberals.  They're liars.  Ironically, for a political movement that breaks it's arm patting themselves on the back for being geniuses, the left revels in group-think.  Worse, there is absolutely no tactic too low for them.  The only thing they care about is if the strategy works to wound their enemies.

UPDATE III:  Eugene Robinson says that the Right has a monopoly on violent political rhetoric.  Check out this link [WARNING: Not Safe For Work] and you tell me-Is Eugene Robinson senile or is he just conveniently lying about the eight years of liberal demonstrations during the Bush presidency when Robinson talks about the Right's supposed lead-pipe lock on inflamatory partisan rhetoric?

Face facts.  Many elements of the Left spent the Dubya years using the most vile, disgusting, hate-filled language against America, Israel, the American conservative movement and others that progressives deemed as enemies of their movement.  MSNBC, The New York Times and many other left-of-center media organs did nothing to condemn this broiling leftist rage.  In fact, many of them stoked the fires of partisan hate while pretending to be sane comentators.  Eugene Robinson and others in the 'respectable' liberal camp want us to forget all that vitriol--again, emanating solely from the Left--and focus on a single political graphic used by Sarah Palin as evidence that the Right is the only part of US political life that employs violent rhetoric.

Amazing.

Thanks to Political Math, who found the Lefty Hall of Shame link (NSFW) and posted it on his twitter feed.

You want a perfect summation of the RINO? (King Shamus)

Here it is, courtesy of Bob Belvedere.

Here before us is another reason we, the outsiders, the TEA Party folks in action and spirit, must show no quarter towards the GOP Establishment.  Besides living in a collegial and congenial past that no longer is [call it what you will, the Gerald Ford or Bob Michael Era], the GOP and conservative Elites have a track record that is strewn with utter and abysmal failures.  In fact, historians not yet born will label them as the Useful Idiots of the Left who, by their weaknesses and naiveté, help bring about the lamentable situation we now find ourselves in.

Bingo.  Read the rest of his post; Bob's got some good stuff in there.

This is what kills me when people talk about the Republican establishment and their fetishization of electability.  It's one thing to acknowledge that RINOs and moderates can often get elected easier (in certain states/districts/campaigns) than a rock-ribbed across-the-board rightwinger.  This is a fact that we shouldn't simply dismiss out of hand.  For instance:  looking back on the particular circumstances of the race, Mike Castle probably had a better chance of winning the Senate election in Delaware than Christine O'Donnell.

However, what would we--actual factual conservatives--have gained by getting Castle into the Senate?  He would've voted for Cap-n-Tax in a potential dead-duck congressional session.  He was still going to be pro-choice and anti-Second Amendment.  Knowing his record, his first term in the US Senate would've been marked by ArlenSpecterian hands-across-the-aisle moments of capitulation to various facets of the liberal nanny-state agenda.  A hug for Obama would not have been completely out of the question.

Would a guy like Mike Castle, a classic go-along-to-get-along DC establishmentarian, have the stomach for repealing ObamaCare?  What makes anybody think Castle would be capable of defunding the utterly wretched NPR or abolishing  the utterly useless Department of Energy?  In what possible scenario would a guy like Mike Castle vote against illegal immigration amnesty?  Could Mike Castle, famous for his chummy, clubby attitude towards Democrats, actually go along with his own party on something substantive like real free-market entitlement reforms?  Many signs point to an emphatic 'no.'

Not only would a potential Senator Mike Castle be a thorn in the side of conservatives, he'd be doing everything he can to damage the already-tarnished Republican brand.  While he was busy building a media-backed Fiefdom of Royal RINOLand, he'd also happily throw monkey wrenches into GOP-backed fiscal discipline measures.  

So conservatives would get lots of drawbacks and almost no benefits from a Senator Mike Castle.  But the Tea Party and it's allies were supposed to forget all that because Mike Castle happened to have a weak 'R' behind his name?  Really?

(Cross-Posted at Blog De KingShamus)

Pretty Much What I Like And Dislike About TED In One Go

The TED conference--started as one Big Deal, and snarled the traffic in Monterey when I was studying there, and infiltrated my mailbox and now there are TEDs everywhere--has some great lectures.  This one right here (via Instapundit) is a pretty neat lecture.  Creative ideas about creative stuff presented, uh, creatively.

But notice the language the guy is using here.  He's speaking to one political party, one political tradition, about another political tradition or two.  The entering argument is that everyone at TED, each of those well-off fancy schmancy hoi polloi types, is assumed to be of one political persuasion.

I think that's a real shame.

Associated Press: US is Winning the Iraq War

You don't say!

Despite the occasional bursts of violence, Iraq has reached the point where the insurgents, who once controlled whole cities, no longer have the clout to threaten the viability of the central government.

That does not mean the war has ended or that U.S. troops have no role in Iraq. It means the combat phase finally is ending, years past the time when President Bush optimistically declared it had. The new phase focuses on training the Iraqi army and police, restraining the flow of illicit weaponry from Iran, supporting closer links between Baghdad and local governments, pushing the integration of former insurgents into legitimate government jobs and assisting in rebuilding the economy.

Notice that the authors still couldn't resist taking a shot at the president.

The following gentlemen asked and answered the question about possible victory in Iraq long before AP woke up:

• Michael Yon

• Michael Totten

• Greyhawk

One wonders why AP is admitting the truth now.

(Thanks to the other AP)

A Parent Appearing Apparent

I love this:

With the swearing in of the new Cabinet – as [Kenya's Daily Nation] put it – the Kibaki-Odinga unity “...appeared apparent...” I was girding my loins to attack it immediately on the spot, but other more urgent issues came up.

In addition, moreover, it happened to occur to my mind that, perhaps maybe, I duly owed the writer some more thoughtful consideration. It was probably likely that, if I tried to make an effort to enter the young juvenile’s mind, I might understand him adequately enough.

But it seems evident that repeated reiteration is an incorrigibly permanent feature of our newsrooms. It seems apparent that, as writers, our scribes simply cannot be able to see that appearances are not what they look like.

It's from my father's weekly grammar column, in which he sometimes injects politics, but is primarily used to lambaste instruct his colleagues in the art of wielding English: definitions, word usage and sentence construction. Redundancies are the topic today (yes, that statement may be redundant, but someone will ask). I don't doubt that I may have committed some of the same sorts of errors, but I still find this op-ed particularly funny.

My diplomatic abilities appear to be genetically acquired.

The politics:

The Kibaki-Odinga unity is a phenomenon of such material objects. Nobody else can see it exactly for what it is. For outsiders, it only appears or seems. Some think of it as mere make-believe. They do not accept it as a reality.

But the Nation reporter was two-minded about it. On the one hand, it was apparent because it was real.

But, on the other, its “apparentness” seemed like that of the will-o’-the-wisp – which was why it appeared apparent.

Kenya Crisis

Kenya: The Basics

Moral Equivalence Illustrated (UPDATE: Video at Newsbusters)

This is what happens when they just don't get it.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

UPDATE: The reason why from TIME managing editor Rick Stengel: "We're experts in what we do." The interviewer, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, doesn't even ask about the World War II imagery or the sacredness of Iwo Jima. "Experts" indeed.

Tear it Down

Yesterday, Barack Obama addressed the Associate Press Annual Meeting; a speech which Power Line’s John Hinderacker characterized thusly:

That's sort of like the Virgin Mary talking to a Knights of Columbus convention.

(I guess Catholic metaphors are to be expected today.)

Other reports of the meeting pointed a perennial and amusing gaffe made by AP chairman Dean Singleton—one which happens all too often when people try to wrap their tongues around the junior Illinois senator’s Luo last name.

SINGLETON: Can you imagine shifting a substantial number of Afghanistan -- a substantial number to Afghanistan where the Taliban has been gaining strength and Obama bin Laden is still at large?

OBAMA: I think that was Osama bin Laden.

John says that the entire transcript should be read for laughs, but I sure wish that Osama-Obama mix-up hadn’t happened—simply because I want to know what Obama has planned for Afghanistan.

See, I’ve been contending for some time that the anti-war Left is building up to the point at which it can characterize Afghanistan in the same manner as it has done with Iraq—as a lost cause. I’ve seen the rhetorical beginnings of it here and there (and I think Singleton's aborted question was part of that) but no one prominent is ready to say it straight out. The foundation hasn’t been sufficiently laid yet.

I say that the overt denigration of our efforts in Afghanistan is on the way (and, no, it won’t have to make sense). Why? Because every Bush effort must be demonized and scrapped--every single one, even the so-called righteous War.

The Bush edifice must be torn down. Feel free to tell me that I'm wrong.

(Thanks to Instapundit)

Grave Digging

The Right has been musing about Obama's late father--a dyed-in-the-wool commie and from a Muslim family--for some time now, with most of the musing being irrelevant since the junior Obama was abandoned by his father. Now it's the Left's turn.

At Politico, Ben Smith features an article written by the senior Obama, in which the latter discusses the Kenyan president's economic positions; Senior is basically asking whether the president should impose hardcore Communism on his country or go with baby steps. The president in question? The Kenyan Republic's first, Jomo Kenyatta. The year? 1965.

You know what? I am really less than impressed with the ability of all too many "professionals" to separate what matters from what does not--the ability to analyze information.

A bit of assistance: if a person has only had contact with his/her father twice in a lifetime, it's pretty much impossible for that father to have any meaningful influence on that person's political ideology. (Do I have to repeat myself about my own father and our divergent politics?)

Yeah, I'm helping the Left but...call it charity.

Now another decision looms--do I want to read some sixties-era economic tome written by some African dude who just received his undergrad?

(Thanks to Ed Morrissey)

More Citizenship Games

The question of whether John McCain is a "natural-born" citizen of the United States will go up before a federal judge here in California today--presumably, since the article doesn't specify when. To recap, McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 while his father, a Navy officer, was stationed there (along with his mother, of course). At the time, the PCZ was owned by the US until President Jimmy Carter gave it away during his one seventies term--a done-deal in 1999.

A two-page complaint filed March 6 in U.S. District Court in Riverside, Calif., argues that a judge should step in because the constitutional language is not precise, opening questions about the Arizona senator's standing.

The complaint was filed by Andrew Aames, 52, a Riverside lawyer who has dabbled in local politics, including volunteering for a Democratic congressional campaign. He said he is a registered Republican but previously was a Democrat. [SNIP]

Columbia University Law School professor Richard Briffault said he saw little room for debate over McCain's status — he qualifies.

"I find it hard to believe it's really an issue," Briffault said. The Canal Zone "was a territory when he was born there. Why is it any different from the District of Columbia?"

Former Solicitor General Ted Olson will be examining the case for the McCain campaign. Readers already know what I think about the situation, but here's a more learned take on it from the Volokh Conspiracy--one which reminds us that our laws are based on precedent and not on the whims of definition.

If the drafters of the Constitution had wanted to require that presidents be born in the United States, they could have done so. Instead, they invoked the then-standard idea of natural citizenship as reflecting natural allegiance to the king or the state.

(Emphasis mine.)

You know, of course, that taking this nonsense further will cause the usual suspects to make things up about whether Barack Obama is a citizen or not, right? Because when it comes to politics, even the idiotic can be used as a weapon and even the childish excuse that "they did it first" can be uttered without shame.

This election year is so much fun.

Not Shocked (UPDATED)

Bob Owens publicizes the written statements made during the military investigation related to Scott Beauchamp's "Shock Troops" series.

Observation: these guys have the worst handwriting! Casualty of the keyboard.

UPDATE (January 22, 2008): Bob now has two of Scott Beauchamp's written statements posted.

War is Hell

Recently, the New York Times ran a misleading, much-bashed and discredited series on the " widespread violent actions" perpetrated by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans subsequent to their return home.

Iowahawk, however, documents the widespread violent actions rampantly committed by veterans of another sort.

These people could snap at any minute!

...claims one expert. I'm scared!

(Thanks to Blackfive)

Kenya: Covering the Coverage And More

Daily Nation (Kenya): Foreign Media’s Harsh Verdict of Disputed Election

In one span of a week, Kenya has made the dubious journey from a prospering democracy to a tribal battleground, said the [Financial] Times online. [SNIP]

Jeevan Vesaga of The Guardian described Kenya as an African exception and a role model.

“Kenya’s economy is one of Africa’s best. Its highlands are blessed with the ideal blend of sunshine and cool altitude for growing tea, coffee and flowers — it’s the world’s biggest exporter of tea and supplies Britain with many of its Valentine’s Day roses. It has a hardworking, educated workforce, many of whom speak good English. Mombasa is one of Africa’s finest harbours and Nairobi is an air transport hub for the continent.”

The two journalists warned that if Kenya descends into anarchy, one of the continent’s brightest lights would have flickered out.

Guardian (UK): Condescension and Ignorance are No Help to Kenya

Africans played no part in the creation of their nation states. Their boundaries were drawn on maps in Europe by Europeans who had never even been to Africa and with no regard for existing political systems and boundaries. Half a century later, Africans were given flags and national anthems, airlines and armies and told they were now independent; Kenyans, Nigerians or Chadians. [SNIP]

So while tribalism is an issue in Africa, it is not some weird atavistic African sentiment but a logical result of Africa's imposed history. Most Africans I have met speak three or four languages, intermarriage is common and there is, in normal times, little personal conflict between people of different ethnicity. What always astounds me in Africa is how well people of completely different cultures, customs and languages get along with one another.

Al Jazeera (Qatar): Odinga Changes His Mind, Cancels Rally Scheduled for Tuesday, Toll Climbs

Speaking to Al Jazeera's Africa bureau chief Andrew Simmons after his meeting with Frazer, Odinga said: "There has been a major breakthrough ... I have talked to [African Union chairman and Ghana] President [John] Kufour, who has confirmed to me that he is on his way and that he will arrive [in Nairobi] tomorrow evening. [SNIP]

Amid the nascent signs of political reconciliation, Kenya's government said that more than 480 people have been killed and 255,000 displaced by the post-election violence.

But aid workers say the toll could go much higher.

And so it does continue to climb…

AFP: Kenyan opposition cancels protests, unrest toll soars to 600

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga on Monday called off protests over disputed presidential elections, as mediation efforts accelerated and the death toll from post-poll violence surged to at least 600.

The opposition announcement came ahead of the arrival Wednesday of the chairman of the African Union, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, who is expected to push for a compromise between re-elected President Mwai Kibaki and Odinga, his defeated challenger.

All Africa: Kenya Crisis Hobbling Uganda

Landlocked to the west of Kenya, Uganda suffered the biggest shock of countries that rely on the Mombasa sea route for imports and exports. [SNIP]

Traders in Kampala's trading hub of Kikuubo told this news paper that, "We are suffering, business is not good, we do not have fuel." One trader who preferred not to be named also posed the tricky question: "they are talking about fuel coming, but will our goods come?"

This was in reaction to reports that the Uganda government has negotiated with the Kenyans to provide armed escort to fuel tankers through the volatile western Kenya so as to replenish stocks in Uganda.

You know, of course, that there will be updates.

(Thanks to Charlie Beckett)

PREVIOUSLY:

As If This Changes Anything
Is Odinga a Muslim?
No Rest for the Wicked
Ganging Up
Uhuru Park Up Close
Six Degrees
Slaughter Postponed
Dreading Tomorrow
Kenya: Up in Smoke
Winds of Kenyan War
Kenyan Tribal Violence

Hoaxes--Media and Otherwise

American Thinker's Randall Hoven adds twenty-one new names to the "Media Hall of Shame," featuring a number of hoaxes targeted at corporations.

The most notable instances of deception in the addendum include:

• Gary Webb's series in which he claimed that the Reagan-era CIA introduced crack cocaine to LA's drug dealers and users
• The Hurricane Katrina myths
• CBS (and Dan Rather)--three cases occurring well before Rathergate

Hoven also includes MLK's plagiarized doctoral dissertation among the new instances.  I'm wondering why, however, since that case wasn't a media fraud.

(Thanks to Lucianne)

Miniter Gets the Goods on Beauchamp

Pajamas Media's Richard Miniter puts his loafers on the ground in order to get to the bottom of the Beauchamp-TNR hoax.  He talks to:

• Robert McGee, former assistant to TNR editor Frank Foer who is rumored to have been was fired for leaking that Beauchamp is married to a TNR staffer--Elspeth Reeve; Reeve happens to be one of TNR's fact-checkers
• Beauchamps ex-fiancée--a German lady--who was engaged to Beauchamp until just before he married Reeve

Miniter uncovers a host of new nuggets and quotes, including this one from Beauchamp's ex:

He hates the army. The only reason he joined was because he wanted to have more experience to write about.

Okay, that wasn't exactly a revelation (except for the source of the quote). However, quite a bit of the report is, especially the attitude that Foer allegedly has about other military bloggers.

[Re-edited with caffeine added]

TNR Editors, Please Cut The Crap

Yesterday, TNR’s editors claimed—without a hint of irony--that the Army had "rejected our requests to speak to Beauchamp himself, on the grounds that it wants ‘to protect his privacy,’” and, thereby “stonewall[ing] our efforts to get to the truth.”

From those assertions of "truth," TNR requested that the Army

make public Beauchamp's statements and the details of its investigation--and we ask the Army to let us (or any other media outlet, for that matter) speak to Beauchamp.

One problem, the Army doesn’t simply "want" to protect Beauchamp’s privacy, it is required to do so by that law passed back in 1974; the one which the Left holds so sacred. (Call this "Things Which The New Republic’s Editors Don’t Know About The Military, Episode 5970.")

Today, Michael Goldfarb Bill Roggio published a letter he received from Col. Steve Boylan, General David Petraeus’s PAO. Col Boylan:

We are not preventing [Beauchamp] from speaking to TNR or anyone. He has full access to the Morale Welfare and Recreation phones that all the other members of the unit are free to use. It is my understanding that he has been informed of the requests to speak to various members of the media, both traditional and non-traditional and has declined. That is his right.

We will not nor can we force a Soldier to talk to the media or his family or anyone really for that matter in these types of issues.

We fully understand the issues on this. What everyone must understand is that we will not breach the rights of the Soldier and this is where this is at this point.

Busted yet again, eh TNR? End this.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

UPDATE: Bob Parks:

For 18 months or so, I worked in the Public Affairs Office onboard the USS Midway so, unlike Pvt. Beauchamp and The New Republic, I have a good understanding of how these things work. [SNIP]

While The New Republic continues to refer to Beauchamp as their "writer", the private is under contract exclusively with the United States Army, and I would doubt they would formally recognize any relationship with TNR as valid, that is unless Beauchamp was given prior approval up the chain of command.

The New Republic may believe they have a right to speak to Beauchamp, but that illustrates their ignorance of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which for military personnel, is the U.S. Constitution. Certain rights do not apply, such as the right to free speech. This is for the obvious need to maintain discipline and morale. So the Army has no obligation to allow Pvt. Beauchamp to speak to the New York Times, let alone The New Republic. It's apparent they do not understand this.

That TNR's editors were ignorant of these facts is obvious--it's why TNR felt that it made sense to blame the Army for the former's "lack of access" to Beauchamp. Even if the Army were still restricting his communication access--which it apparently did during the time period of Beauchamp's administrative punishment--it has every right to allow or restrict the privileges of its members. As Mr. Parks said, it's in the contract.

But the fact that the Army claims that Beauchamp's communication privileges are not--or, rather, no longer--restricted is hilarious. TNR ran with the "nefarious, secretive" Army trial balloon and the Army shot it down most effectively, if you'll pardon the pun. Beauchamp simply refuses to talk to them.

Again, I call on TNR to cease and desist. You're making yourselves look really, really bad.

(Thanks to Gerard Van der Leun)

TNR Responds to Beauchamp Report

And I'm back just in time to find this from The Plank:

We've talked to military personnel directly involved in the events that Scott Thomas Beauchamp described, and they corroborated his account as detailed in our statement. When we called Army spokesman Major Steven F. Lamb and asked about an anonymously sourced allegation that Beauchamp had recanted his articles in a sworn statement, he told us, "I have no knowledge of that." He added, "If someone is speaking anonymously [to The Weekly Standard], they are on their own." When we pressed Lamb for details on the Army investigation, he told us, "We don't go into the details of how we conduct our investigations."

Note that TNR isn't exactly standing by its previous statement; TNR's editors simply don't know what the Army's actions have been with regard to Beauchamp and, per usual in such cases (privacy issues), the Army isn't officially talking. But, as Major Lamb reportedly said to Michael Goldfarb regarding the outcome of this saga, Beauchamp is quite free to tell what happened--at least when he gets his communication privileges back.

Allahpundit suggests (sarcastically, hopefully) that TNR Editor Frank Foer should offer Michael Goldfarb a deal:

you burn your sources and we’ll burn ours.

and points out that there's

one new detail here: since there’s no evidence of criminal conduct, he’ll face administrative punishment only.

That means that Beauchamp will probably receive only a Letter of Counseling/Reprimand (and not an Article 15 or worse). These sorts of actions have two flavors. One is basically a "don't do it again" type and can be torn up once the member has a long period of subsequent good behavior under his/her belt. The other type will follow the member around and become the anchor which will weigh heavily on the person's career advancement. I'm guessing that Beauchamp's administrative punishment will be of the latter type.

Meanwhile, Rick Moran at Rightwing Nuthouse warns Right Wing bloggers not to crow too much about this "small victory":

Regarding Scott Beauchamp, everyone take a step back, inhale deeply (put the bong DOWN first), and let’s look at what the blogs hath wrought.

Blogs have exposed a military fabulist in Scott Beauchamp. His lies did not contribute to a lessening of war fervor among the American people. George Bush, the Pentagon, the left, and the Iraqi government have all seen to that little detail, thank you. Nor did Beauchamp’s fairy tales embolden al-Qaeda, the insurgents, the Iranian backed militias, or any of the other bloody minded, murderous thugs who are making Iraq a living hell for the people there. And while Beauchamp’s fibbing did not do the reputation of the military any good, Jesse Spielman and his 4 compatriots, the soldiers just convicted of raping and murdering a 14 year old Iraqi girl and her family, harmed that reputation on a scale that poor little Scotty Beauchamp and his stories of dog killing and teasing disfigured women could never approach in a million years.

I agree with Rick to a point. None of us who have been in the military longer than a minute will deny that some of the people with whom we've served are knuckleheads and even occasionally, are monsters like Spielman and crew--though, thankfully, such evil people comprise a much smaller percentage of today's military than is so for the civilian population, for reasons endemic to how the services select who may join.

Of course, no screening process is fool-proof and, sometimes, monsters like Spielman commit evil acts during their service. But the main issue regarding Spielman is this: when the acts which he and his cohorts committed were discovered, the military investigated them, found the perpetrators guilty and delivered justice from a system that is set up to deliver it--as was so with Abu Ghraib, which, by the way, was being investigated before the incriminating photos became part of the public domain.

In other words, today's military isn't some rogue, out-of-control entity whose members can behave like monsters--or even knuckleheads--without said monsters and knuckleheads receiving appropriate justice once their actions are uncovered.

My problem with Beauchamp is that he, via TNR, put forth as truth anecdotes which portrayed the military in the opposite manner. I keep repeating that Beauchamp's anecdotes sounded implausible simply because no formally designated leader--trained to act to correct such breach of military discipline--stepped up to make the necessary corrections. Such leaders are an integral part of the military's justice system--and its honor. Had the Beauchamp anecdotes actually occurred with no such subsequent correction, the idea of a rogue US Armed Forces, composed of stupid-brutal members, would have gained that much more traction. This would have been no small thing.

I contend that the Beauchamp chronicles, small though they may have seemed, were like drops of water on a rock; intended to slowly wear down the American public's high opinion of the military and, therefore, the military's mission in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that's why this "tempest" deserved every bit of the scrutiny it received.

[Re-edited]

Beauchamp Admits to Falsehoods (UPDATED)

From Michael Goldfarb:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned from a military source close to the investigation that Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp--author of the much-disputed "Shock Troops" article in the New Republic's July 23 issue as well as two previous "Baghdad Diarist" columns--signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in the New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods--fabrications containing only "a smidgen of truth," in the words of our source. [SNIP]

According to the military source, Beauchamp's recantation was volunteered on the first day of the military's investigation. So as Beauchamp was in Iraq signing an affidavit denying the truth of his stories, the New Republic was publishing a statement from him on its website on July 26, in which Beauchamp said, "I'm willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name."

May we who doubted Scott Beauchamp's stories be allowed a snarky "we told you so?" Yes, I think so.

(Thanks to reader Pablo)

OTHER RESPONSES:

Ace busts out the Flaming Skull and quotes himself:

Franklin Foer Doesn't Want To Tell Ellie Reeves Her Husband Is A Liar.

(Thanks to Michelle Malkin)

Allahpundit:

The question now is how much tougher TNR wants to make things for him and the guys who corroborated his story. If they challenge the recantation and burn their sources, they’re putting six men in potential criminal jeopardy...No one cared that I’d basically figured out the whole story without talking to or emailing anyone in Iraq, or talked to anyone married to anyone at TNR, or anything. But that’s just how it goes sometimes.

Yes.

More as responses come in.

UPDATE: From one of Good Lt.'s guests (at Jawa):

of course it took several sessions of torturecrippling his mindthoughts with waterboarding while he was 'in the shit' to get him to recant...

As a matter of fact, its rumored Jack Bauer was there conducting the whole thing!

You laugh, but that's how Beauchamp's defenders will play it...for a while. (Thanks to NonParty Politics)

ArmyLawyer:

Here’s the thing, if he was lying, there’s not much that he can be charged with. At most it would be some variant of an Article 92 violation for publication without permission or something similar (presuming such a prohibition existed within his command). At most, that’ll get him 2 years if it’s a general order, more than likely it’d be violation of an “other lawful order” which is 6 months max confinement.

Now some may argue that he’s lying to investigators but he told TNR the truth. Problem there is that the penalties for a False Official Statement are far harsher (7 yrs and a dishonorable discharge). Lying to investigators is often worse than the misconduct itself. So even if Beauchamp IS lying, he sure can’t ever say so while in uniform, as that subjects him to the more serious Article 107 charge.

UPDATE:

As of 8:51 PM, PDT, no comment from The Plank, TNR's blog.

Jeff Goldstein:

[A]s I wrote earlier in response to [John] Cole’s hysterics, it does matter — and those who were instrumental in preventing Beauchamp’s fictions from becoming established “truths” should feel proud that they pestered and needled and investigated and fact-checked until the bogus tales were revealed for the opportunistic fictions that they are.

Resurrection Song:

[TNR] trusted [Beauchamp] when they ran the stories (because, yes, it made good copy and it reinforced their beliefs about the war in Iraq), and they supported him when he came under scrutiny, and they issued statements supporting the details of his writing while he continued to ensure them that, yes, it was all the truth. Pretty much. Then Beauchamp (which, is that pronounced “Beechum"--and does anyone else know why I’m asking that question?) turned around and stabbed them in their literary heart by admitting to having falsified the stories. [SNIP]

You know who else Beauchamp f*cked? His fellow soldiers, all the soldiers who have served with honor, and all the people who believed his BS. [SNIP]

Beauchamp pisses me off like you wouldn’t believe. This is on the same level of dishonor as false accusations of rape, child abuse, and racism. There is enough bad in the world that you shouldn’t have to make up horrors in hopes of aggrandizing yourself or building a new writing career. And when you throw fellow troops under the bus--inventing stories that make them look like bloodthirsty a**holes--to make a few bucks, your screwing a group of people that has already managed to shoulder more than their share of bad PR, poor pay, and sh*tty working conditions. Not, of course, to mention the grave potential of extreme bodily harm, the family sacrifices that our troops make, and those damned glasses they issue in basic training.

Army Concludes Investigation on Beauchamp Stories

Since I had some out-of-house business to attend to this morning, many people are out in front of me on Matt Sanchez’s report regarding the conclusion of the Army’s investigation of Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp’s anecdotes from Shock Troops.

After a thorough investigation that lasted nearly a week the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division has concluded that the allegations made by Private Thomas Scott Beauchamp, the "Baghdad Diarist", have been

"refuted by members of his platoon and proven to be false"

The official investigation the 4th IBCT Public Affairs Office qualified as "thorough and professional" concluded late August 1st. Officials would not speculate on the possibility of further action against Private Beauchamp, nor would they confirm his current whereabouts or status.

Additionally, Sanchez reports some other good news.

In the month of July, Operation Dragon Hammer resulted in the capture of over 110 detainees and "no mission has been delayed or adversely effected by the investigation into Private Beauchamp's allegations of misconduct among the soldiers of his unit the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment", said [Acting 4th IBCT Public Affairs Official Sergeant First Class Robert ] Timmons.

As a bonus, Confederate Yankee (Bob Owens) sent an email to Major Renee D. Russo, Third Army USARCENT PAO in Kuwait to inquire about the existence of a

a female civilian contractor at Camp Buehring with severe facial burns, and if so, when she was there.

Major Russo’s response:

We have received other media queries on the alleged incident, but have not been able to find anyone to back it up. There is not a police report or complaint filed on this incident during that timeframe. Right now it is considered to be a[n] Urban Legend or Myth.

I am still researching the incident and will have to get back with you later with any new developments.

Confederate Yankee will remain on the case:

I've also attempting to get verification form a total of five PAOs in Kuwait to see if they have any record of Franklin Foer or any other reporter or editor from The New Republic attempting to contact them prior to publishing the revised Camp Buehring claim to see if TNR made a good faith effort to verify that a contractor matching this woman's description was based in U.S. military bases in Kuwait.

There still may be a disfigured female contractor out the somewhere who would like the opportunity to kick Beauchamp in a tender place. That's about the only reason that I hope she exists.

Meanwhile, observe as TNR's credibility circles the bowl. I'm not that happy about it, however. TNR does put out some good work more than occasionally. Too bad that the Beauchamp chronicles aren't in that number.

Commentary: Today's New Republic Statement

Okay, now I’m ready to discuss The New Republic’s latest bit of information regarding Scott Thomas Beauchamp’s anecdotes in "Shock Troops".

Today’s TNR statement:

In the first [“Shock Troops” anecdote], Beauchamp recounted how he and a fellow soldier mocked a disfigured woman seated near them in a dining hall. Three soldiers with whom TNR has spoken have said they repeatedly saw the same facially disfigured woman. One was the soldier specifically mentioned in the Diarist. He told us: "We were really poking fun at her; it was just me and Scott, the day that I made that comment. We were pretty loud. She was sitting at the table behind me. We were at the end of the table. I believe that there were a few people a few feet to the right."

Shock Troops:

Then, on one especially crowded day in the chow hall, she sat down next to us.

TNR statement:

The recollections of these three soldiers differ from Beauchamp's on one significant detail (the only fact in the piece that we have determined to be inaccurate): They say the conversation occurred at Camp Buehring, in Kuwait, prior to the unit's arrival in Iraq.

One of the main lessons hammered repeatedly into a new recruit of any of the services is the ability to recognize the uniforms of all service members. However, in case of brain fart, the combat uniforms of all are labeled something like “U.S. Air Force,” “U.S. Army,” etc. above the left breast pocket.

But let’s leave that aside. TNR characterizes Beauchamp’s location discrepancy as a "regretful error." But was it a purposeful one?

In Shock Troops, Beauchamp idly wonders whether he is a monster after he says that he

saw [the disfigured woman possibly injured by an IED] nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq.

He did well to ask himself that, still presuming that this particular anecdote is true. "Shock Troops":

"Are you kidding? I think she's fucking hot!" [Beauchamp] blurted out.
"What?" said my friend, half-smiling.
"Yeah man," [Beauchamp] continued. "I love chicks that have been intimate--with IEDs. It really turns me on--melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses ... ."
"You're crazy, man!" my friend said, doubling over with laughter. I took it as my cue to continue.
"In fact, I was thinking of getting some girls together and doing a photo shoot. Maybe for a calendar? IED Babes.' We could have them pose in thongs and bikinis on top of the hoods of their blown-up vehicles." [SNIP]

Even as I was reveling in the laughter my words had provoked, I was simultaneously horrified and ashamed at what I had just said. In a strange way, though, I found the shame comforting. I was relieved to still be shocked by my own cruelty--to still be able to recognize that the things we [two] soldiers found funny were not, in fact, funny.

But if he teased such a woman before he arrived in Iraq, I’m guessing that it’s a question he probably should have asked himself long before he joined the Army. (Call me crazy, but I’m betting that the Army isn’t teaching its Boot Camp and Infantry School students to be callous toward those who bear obvious injuries inflicted by America’s enemies.)

Furthermore, by placing the location of such an occurrence at the FOB Falcon Dining Facility in Iraq, rather than one in Kuwait—the staging country for entry into Iraq—I contend that Beauchamp was counting on implanting the idea that such bad behavior on his part could be attributed to the effects of “the Horrors of War.” Still assuming that the anecdote is true, had he set the scene in Kuwait—before he had actually experienced “the Horrors of War”—his actions had more of a chance to be judged to be evidence of his own flawed character and that of one other man who also hadn't yet been to Iraq . (And, for the record, I’m still calling BS. I’ll explain why—again—further on.)

TNR Statement:

In the second anecdote, soldiers in Beauchamp's unit discovered what they believed were children's bones.
Beauchamp didn’t characterize the discovery as “children’s bones.” He said that “it was clearly a Saddam-era dumping ground of some sort.”

Publicly, the military has sought to refute this claim on the grounds that no such discovery was officially reported.

And the military was correct. No Saddam-era dumping ground was officially reported. The relocation of a children’s cemetery, however, was and TNR even links to the Michael Goldfarb post—one which demonstrates the difference between a cemetery and a “Saddam-era dumping ground” and how the confusion got started.

For the "Saddam-era dumping ground" and the Bradley anecdotes, TNR again relies on anonymous tips and assertions, proving that TNR's staff has yet to learn its lesson.

And then there's this:

[L]ate last week, the Army began its own investigation, short-circuiting our [TNR's] efforts.

No. The Army’s investigative arm isn’t “short-circuiting” TNR’s efforts. It is taking over what is its province: to investigate violations of the UCMJ and of military policy, which is what Beauchamp says that he and others did. That TNR would characterize such a thing using a term with such negative connotations demonstrates that it views itself as the official arbiter of military justice--because the stupid-brutal military can't be trusted to follow through on such things. (Well, in at least one case--Beauchamp--they're right.)

Look, no one is saying that every person in the military is an angel. There are too many incidents—well-known and anecdotal—which would refute that supposition. But nearly every endeavor in the military is a team effort—especially in a combat zone. And when one member misbehaves, it doesn’t just reflect on that individual (unlike civilians), it reflects on the entire US Armed Forces and the country it represents--especially when it (the person's unit) is deployed to a foreign country.

Not only does the military encourage its leaders to correct infractions which can harm its image and, therefore, its mission, it demands this of them. Which is why I could possibly believe that these incidents occurred had the men been placed in settings in which they could have plausibly been unsupervised/unobserved by commissioned officers and/or NCOs.

However I absolutely (still) do not believe that every single commissioned officer and NCO who would naturally be present in all such cases stood by and let these things happen.

And nothing TNR has said today has convinced me otherwise.

UPDATE: Hey, John! Happy now? :-)

TNR: Right On Cue

TNR responds today.

All of Beauchamp's essays were fact-checked before publication. We checked the plausibility of details with experts, contacted a corroborating witness, and pressed the author for further details. But publishing a first-person essay from a war zone requires a measure of faith in the writer. Given what we knew of Beauchamp, personally and professionally, we credited his report. After questions were raised about the veracity of his essay, TNR extensively re-reported Beauchamp's account.

In this process, TNR contacted dozens of people. Editors and staffers spoke numerous times with Beauchamp. We also spoke with current and former soldiers, forensic experts, and other journalists who have covered the war extensively. And we sought assistance from Army Public Affairs officers. Most important, we spoke with five other members of Beauchamp's company, and all corroborated Beauchamp's anecdotes, which they witnessed or, in the case of one solider, heard about contemporaneously. (All of the soldiers we interviewed who had first-hand knowledge of the episodes requested anonymity.) [SNIP]

The recollections of these three soldiers differ from Beauchamp's on one significant detail (the only fact in the piece that we have determined to be inaccurate): They say the conversation occurred at Camp Buehring, in Kuwait, prior to the unit's arrival in Iraq. When presented with this important discrepancy, Beauchamp acknowledged his error. We sincerely regret this mistake.

In the second anecdote, soldiers in Beauchamp's unit discovered what they believed were children's bones. Publicly, the military has sought to refute this claim on the grounds that no such discovery was officially reported. But one military official told TNR that bones were commonly found in the area around Beauchamp's combat outpost. (This is consistent with the report of a children's cemetery near Beauchamp's combat outpost reported on The Weekly Standard website.)

More important, two witnesses have corroborated Beauchamp's account. One wrote in an e-mail: "I can wholeheartedly verify the finding of the bones; U.S. troops (in my unit) discovered human remains in the manner described in 'Shock Troopers.' [sic] ... [We] did not report it; there was no need to. The bodies weren't freshly killed and thus the crime hadn't been committed while we were in control of the sector of operations." On the phone, this soldier later told us that he had witnessed another soldier wearing the skull fragment just as Beauchamp recounted: "It fit like a yarmulke," he said. A forensic anthropologist confirmed to us that it is possible for tufts of hair to be attached to a long-buried fragment of a human skull, as described in the piece.

The last section of the Diarist described soldiers using Bradley Fighting Vehicles to kill dogs. On this topic, one soldier, who witnessed the incident described by Beauchamp, wrote in an e-mail: "How you do this (I've seen it done more than once) is, when you approach the dog in question, suddenly lurch the Bradley on the opposite side of the road the dog is on. The rear-end of the vehicle will then swing TOWARD the animal, scaring it into running out into the road. If it works, the dog is running into the center of the road as the driver swings his yoke back around the other way, and the dog becomes a chalk outline." TNR contacted the manufacturer of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle System, where a spokesman confirmed that the vehicle is as maneuverable as Beauchamp described. Instructors who train soldiers to drive Bradleys told us the same thing. And a veteran war correspondent described the tendency of stray Iraqi dogs to flock toward noisy military convoys.

I'll comment more later, but I just wanted to get this one out there.

UPDATE: For the commentary, see the next post.

Beauchamp as "Whistleblower"

A Daily Kos diarist, Unstable Isotope, paints Scott Beauchamp as a "whistle-blower."

I started thinking more about what [Right-Wingers are] doing and I realized they are actually playing a very deep game. They are intimidating whistleblowers. They may have been too late to stop Pvt. Beauchamp, but how many other potential whistleblowers out there see what is happening with Pvt. Beauchamp and decide it is not worth the trouble?

Would-be whistle-blowers in the Army who would prefer to remain anonymous can call/email the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) to report violations of the UCMJ. For Air Force personnel its the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI); Navy personnel (including the Marines) have the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). Of course, one is supposed to try to report violations up through his/her chain of command first and see whether the chain takes steps to correct problem behavior.

Did Beauchamp tip the CID about the events depicted in "Shock Troops" before he anonymously tipped TNR? Did he report those events up his chain before that? I'm guessing that the answer is 'no' to both questions.

The Incredibly Nerdiness of Being (Hyper-)White (UPDATED: Two and a half years later)

UPDATE (January 21, 2010): Those of you who are reading this post because it has been linked to by Guy White on January 20, 2010 should know that I commented twice on that post on that same day.  However, Mr. White keeps my comments in moderation while he lets subsequent comments through moderation to be read.  While I did disagree with Mr. White, I said nothing rude or out of line, but as of 11:25 AM PST, my comments to that post languish in moderation.  Therefore, I will post the important one here--the second comment was merely a compliment on Mr. White's site design. (Other readers: please read Mr. White's post and comments for context.)

First commenter: If a white bride and groom dance to black music, how is that an indicator of black cultural dominance? Is music the sole indicator of cultural dominance? No.

Are white guys having trouble attracting white women? I see white couples everywhere. And black ones. And others.

GuyWhite (clever) says: “This is not our America anymore and we don’t belong here. In this New America, we are inept socially and have to pretend to be like the ‘diverse’ populations.”

Give me a break. The very, very few white guys who act black are usually doing so to attract black women.

Let’s stipulate this: the Left has been trying to foment racial discord for a very long time. Some whites were only too happy to go along with it when they were on top. Now some blacks are foolish enough to buy into the reverse which our new overlords are offering.

It’s a losing battle either way for all.

Forget about the silliness of nerd/”hyper-whiteness”–a concept typical of Leftist discord mongering–and join the few Americans who are trying to educate the others about the gift of God to us all–freedom.

Those of you who take the time to read: thanks for considering my thoughts.

ORIGINAL POST: With America’s culture being more diverse (sorry) in recent decades, one often sees white kids acting “black” as Mary Bucholtz--a linguist at the University of California, Santa Barbara—points out as she unpacks the “hyper-whiteness” of being a "nerd."

Nerdiness, [Bucholtz] has concluded, is largely a matter of racially tinged behavior. People who are considered nerds tend to act in ways that are, as she puts it, “hyperwhite.” [SNIP]

By cultivating an identity perceived as white to the point of excess, nerds deny themselves the aura of normality that is usually one of the perks of being white.

Keep the last sentence in mind for later.

Bucholtz sees something to admire here. In declining to appropriate African-American youth culture, thereby “refusing to exercise the racial privilege upon which white youth cultures are founded,” she writes, nerds may even be viewed as “traitors to whiteness.” You might say they know that a culture based on theft is a culture not worth having. On the other hand, the code of conspicuous intellectualism in the nerd cliques Bucholtz observed may shut out “black students who chose not to openly display their abilities.” This is especially disturbing at a time when African-American students can be stigmatized by other African-American students if they’re too obviously diligent about school.

(Emphasis mine.) Back when I was a school girl, the schools I attended had majority black student bodies (one school was all-black). In such schools a black kid—a “nerd”--who used proper English and/or did well in school could indeed count on occasionally being “accused” of acting “white,” as Professor Bucholtz points out. This sort of thing still happens to me when I use my natural speaking cadence. (On the other hand, I once had a white person at another blog say that I “sounded ridiculous” when I used a phrase that’s common in “black English.” What’s a girl supposed to do? I did and will continue to use such phrases, however, if a particular phrase gets a point across better than an identical Standard English phrase does. Ya feel me?) What confused me about the professor’s assertion about “nerdiness” was the notion that white kids who appropriate things from black American youth culture are stealing from that culture and, thereby, exercising the “white-privilege” of white (American) youth culture. White nerds, however, in asserting their "hyper-whiteness" are denying themselves the "aura of normality" that is inherent in being white by foregoing this "theft." Let's turn this idea on its head. If black youths who are academically proficient and who speak Standard English aren’t “stealing” from white American culture or trying to become white themselves, how is “acting black” some sort of theft? And if the black kids are committing some from of theft, is the professor asserting that blacks should “stay in their lane” and not speak Standard English or aspire to obtain academic achievements? Is she saying that choosing to remain uneducated and unarticulate is a “black thing" and, therefore, an "aura of normality" for this particular group of Americans? And then there’s this:

Even more problematic, “Nerds’ dismissal of black cultural practices often led them to discount the possibility of friendship with black students,” even if the nerds were involved in political activities like protesting against the dismantling of affirmative action in California schools. If nerdiness, as Bucholtz suggests, can be a rebellion against the cool white kids and their use of black culture, it’s a rebellion with a limited membership.

This passage is also confusing. Is Bucholtz saying that people cannot be friends unless they have identical sub-cultural references? (From my experience in the military, the answer is ‘no.’) Or is she saying that there are no black “nerds” or too few of them? Or is she saying that, in order for white “nerds” to become friends with black people that they have to “steal” from the American youth subculture in question? Darleen Click, who opined on the article at Protein Wisdom—and from whom I stole the link—says that the notion of sub-cultural theft in the context of a singular American culture in which the whole is sum of its parts is an assumption

that African-American youths are somehow less “American” than American youths of pallor[.]

Heh. She said "youths of pallor." More than that, it’s an assumption that most black American kids, because of their race, do not inherently have in them the natural ability to better themselves and those who do have somehow aspired to shed their “blackness.” The notion that any endeavors requiring innate intelligence and/or hard work are not “black” endeavors covertly displays one of the more common tenets of anti-black racism: intellectual inferiority and indolence.

CJR's McLeary Responds

Yesterday, I received a response from Columbia Journalism Review's Paul McLeary who opined Friday that the milblog community "isn't brave enough to volunteer to serve in the military" like TNR's Scott Beauchamp.

Juliette,

I'm getting slammed with emails about this, but I want to answer
every one, because I think that it's important. Here's the email
that I sent to the Mudville Gazette milblog, who posted part of it
Sunday afternoon.:

I really walked into this one.

I actually spend a lot of time on milblogs. I was careless in my
choice of wording when I wrote the piece. What I meant was the
whole community of blogs that have sprung up in the same universe
as milblogs -- Hugh Hewitt, etc., who act tough about the war, but
have never served, and have never left the comforts of their
air-conditioned offices to see what might be going on in Iraq or
Afghanistan.

I've written a lot about milblogs, actually: Interviewed Matthew
Currier Burden for CJR, as well as a couple soldiers who were
blogging for the New York Times. I've also spoken to, and exchanged
emails with Yon and Bill Roggio and such, and I blogged the whole
time I was in Iraq back in '06, which doesn't make me a milblogger,
but hey, it's something, I guess.

Like I said, I really stepped in it because I didn't take the time
to clearly define what I was talking about.

Stepped in it? That's for sure.

It's nice that McLeary is taking the time to clean up his mess, but he might also want to take the time to read what many of us milbloggers think about using the "chickenhawk" epithet--as should a few commenters in the last post who responded to my use of the word.

UPDATE: McLeary may also want to note that Michelle Malkin--the main target of his original ire--and Bryan Preston have both "left the comforts of their
air-conditioned offices to see what might be going on in Iraq," as have many conservative/moderate civilian bloggers like Bill INDC and Michael Totten. Michael is there right now.

A New Kind of "Chickenhawk" (UPDATED)

When I said yesterday that most of Beauchamp's defenders had sense enough to steer clear of the milbloggers, I had no idea that Columbia Journalism Review's Paul McLeary had run out into the open, bare-a** naked.

This childish game of name-calling, mostly led by the know-nothing Michelle Malkin's of the world--anyone remember the Jamil Hussein embarassment--has been going on for the better part of a week. Now the Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb dug up some particularly damning evidence against the young soldier:

We do know that Beauchamp worked on Howard Dean's presidential campaign, that he edited a liberal student magazine in college, and that he marched with pro-choice demonstrators in 2004. Further, we know that he enlisted in the military "just to write a book" about his experience--not the noblest of reasons, but neither does it discredit his work. Writing under a pseudonym, though, did prevent readers from understanding that his perspective was not merely that of a soldier on the ground, but of a political activist.

How dare a college grad and engaged citizen volunteer to join the Army to fight for his country! (Which is something that most of the brave souls who inhabit the milblog community prefers to leave to others.)

(Emphasis mine.)

Is McLeary saying that most of the milbloggers haven't been to college or that they haven't joined the military? :-)

Apparently McLeary's Ivy-honed intellect didn't help him to deduce that milbloggers=military bloggers. Nor did that "superior intellect" lead him to discover that all military officers have an undergraduate degree, at minimum, and that half of enlisted men/women have obtained the same.

He denigrates the military bloggers then has the nerve to quote Andrew Sullivan approvingly in the next sentence. :::shakes head:::

I hope that he came to my blog, saw that "101st Fighting Keyboarders" link on the top right and got fooled. What a clown.

UPDATE: Welcome LGF readers (et al.)!

UPDATE: CJR's McLeary Responds

Milblogs

View My Milblogging.com Profile

Beauchamp Violates OPSEC

That's Operations Security for the layman.

Before deploying to Kuwait last year, Scott Beauchamp posted movement dates for both personnel and equipment.

We finally got official dates on Iraq deployment:
May 15 - Our Bradleys get shipped to Kuwaite
June 11- Advanced Units move in
June 28 - Bravo Team, second squad, first platoon, Alpha Company, first battalion, 18th brigade, first infantry division (the breakdown of who I belong to) deploys.
Were probably going to sit in Kuwaite for some unknown amount of time, and then move into Baghdad.

This was a big, fat ugly no-no. I had mentioned the possible OPSEC violation to some of the folks who had been running with the story, but no one picked up on it. Confederate Yankee, however, emailed Major Kirk Ludeke, PAO at FOB Falcon, to confirm that the publication of deployment dates was a violation and received an unequivocal 'yes' for an answer.

Too bad--for Scott.

Beauchamp: Milbloggers Round-up

One thing I’ve noticed about Scott Beauchamp’s defenders is that they are very careful not to disparage the Milbloggers--Beauchamp’s strategically stupid slam on those who’ve never been to Iraq notwithstanding--whose doubt about Beauchamp’s stories have twofold characteristics: 1) most of them have actual experience—in the Army, in other services and/or in Iraq, and 2) whose expressed doubt about the veracity ofthe Beauchamp stories generally have a , shall we say, more direct character. Remember that in Saturday’s Washington Post, TNR editor Frank Foer asserted that

Conservative bloggers make a bit of a living denying any bad news that emanates from Iraq.

In today’s WP, Foer again takes a shot at conservatives.

It is really unfortunate that someone like Scott, who was really only trying to tell his particular story, has become a pawn in the debate over the war and the [conservative] Weekly Standard's efforts to press an ideological agenda."

Foer is very careful to avoid mentioning the military bloggers who’ve given the Beauchamp offerings a heavy battering. Why? Because any criticism of the Milbloggers will result in a harsh and ugly blowback that Foer isn’t quite prepared for. (Again, Beauchamp wasn’t clever enough to avoid this.)

This is no slam on the efforts of civilian doubters of the Beauchamp’s stories. On the contrary, people like Ace, Michelle Malkin, Allahpundit, Charles Johnson, Bryan Preston [correction: it turns out that Bryan is a USAF veteran. -ed.] , Dean Barnett and Hugh Hewitt lend their credibility to the dissection of these stories and their thoughts are more difficult to ignore than are those of lesser-known bloggers—military and civilian alike. However, their lack of military service makes them a better target-of-opportunity for their critics when it comes to using the ‘chickenhawk’ epithet. (Remember what I said about that rhetorical weapon; it's aimed at the civilian defenders of war, but troop morale is the casualty.)

In light of that, I thought it may be useful to collect a small roundup* of what military bloggers are saying about the Beauchamp controversy. Here goes, with some missives edited for…directness.

Jonn Lilyea, SFC, USA (ret.):

[P]utting a child’s skull on your head - sorry, but infantrymen never know when their next shower will be - putting an exhumed skull anywhere on your body is just unsanitary and his squad leader would’ve knocked the troop into his next rotation. I know it seems trivial to most people, but anyone who has really been an infantryman, not the kind in the movies, knows the importance of personal hygiene - and the dangers of ignoring personal hygiene.

From reading Beauchamp’s blogs, I get the impression that the little weasel heard some stories in the latrine while he was pounding his pathetic little pecker, blew them out of proportion and then marketed them to The New Republic - which swallowed them hook, line and sinker. I guess it’s not really their fault since they wouldn’t know a track pad from sh*t-on-a-shingle, what with them being a bunch of chickensh*t civilian p*ssies and all.

Crotchety Old B*stard, retired Army NCO and field grade infantry officer:

[E]very unit has one of these useless morons. It’s almost like standard issue in the Infantry Company MTO&E. It’s listed right after the company barber kit.

Nomenclature: Dirt Bag, whiny, useless; permanent Private

Disposition: UCMJ action and eventual separation for the good of the service

I would be willing to bet that the Commander and First Sergeant immediately guessed [who] this spoonful of owl sh*t [was] as soon as the company was identified as A Co. 1-18.

Neptunus Lex, current USN officer:

It’s sad to think that with Western civilization locked in a mortal struggle with an implacable and murderous ideology, that nearly half of us would prefer not just to have us tie one hand behind our backs, but actively conspire to shove their heads up their a**es while they’re at it.

Dadmanly, Iraq War veteran, Army:

Beauchamp admits in his writings that he joined the Army despite an anti-war disposition so that he would earn “credibility” for later criticism of Government defense policies (and presumably, the war). He admits to wanting to turn himself into an accomplished writer. He clearly practiced fictional accounts of combat, based on his training, before he was deployed. Objectively, it’s clear that the kind of “war is hell,” apocalypse now kind of Iraqi war stories are infinitely more salable than less violent, more honorable narratives. Match prior intent, with motive, opportunity, and willing accomplices, why is it so difficult for media types to entertain skepticism in the face of this kind of war reporting? They exhibit tremendously greater skepticism about Multinational Force press releases. [SNIP]

No, we just don’t tolerate people who fabricate stories, misrepresent their “combat” experience, malign and slander their fellow soldiers with partisan intent, or otherwise attempt to portray US military (as a class of persons) as cruel, evil, deranged, stupid, homicidal, etc. Don’t try to do to any of us today what you so successfully did to veterans of Vietnam – denigrated and disgraced their services with outright lies and disgusting caricatures that became the public face of the Vietnam Vet for a generation. [SNIP]

Get real veterans, honest men and women of integrity. Ask them. Check out some agenda-free reporting, from independents and real embeds. Discount those oppositional voices with stark partisan objectives, or who have deeply invested their reputations on “Iraq is a quagmire,” “we’ve lost already,” “our army is broken” kinds of agenda-reporting (New York Times, AP, et al).

By mutual consent, acknowledge that there are always bad or dishonest or criminally violent among our soldiers, as there are among the rest of society. But see that they are recognizable by the fact that they are rare exceptions, not the norm.

If we ever reach a day when there cease to exist active partisans out to discredit our military and its efforts, to find evil and misdeed where there is none, then military, veterans, families and friends will not need to step forward publicly and call BS on those peddling slander.

Ever the blunt one is Blackfive’s Uncle Jimbo (James Hanson), retired SO NCO, USA:

Your character, or more accurately, your complete lack of it has already been noted and your experiences, being mostly fiction matter little. If any of them happened, you will face punishment, but as we know telling BS stories is not a crime. As far as writing under your own name, as I noted above JD Johannes had already identified you down to Company (100+ troops) level and you used your first and middle names as your pseudonym you freakin' pinhead. You were already fronted out and I would assume it was some members of your unit that "politely" invited you to name yourself. You are a disgrace Beauchamp, a wannabe intellectual lacking the brainpower to do much more than embarrass yourself in public. Well Bravo, you have shown yourself to be a back-stabbing petty BS artist. Congratulations on that.

No cardboard cut-outs are the Milbloggers. John Cole, Army veteran, says that the Beauchamp controversy means little in the scheme of things:

The funniest (and again, saddest) thing about the Beauchamp nonsense is that despite the hysterical cries that he is HURTING THE TROOPS AND LIVES ARE AT STAKE, no one really had read the TNR piece before the outrage pimps started linking it massively. I hadn’t read ‘Shock Troops’ until it was linked repeatedly by the usual suspects and made it to memeorandum.com As I stated yesterday, the terrorists and the insurgents are not reading TNR. They are not going to justify their next IED, their next suicide bomb, their next sniping of a Baghdad patrol, their next, well, whatever, on the tales offered by Beauchamp.

The usually (and deceptively) mild-mannered Greyhawk, retired USAF NCO, is direct as well:

Some people might somehow consider this a political issue. They are wrong. There are a**holes in the Democrat and Republican Parties in the United States. There are probably a**holes living on your street. There are a**holes in the Army. Those who think no soldier could be an a**hole are wrong. Those who think all soldiers are a**holes are wrong. While some a**holes aren't exposed prior to their military service, those who think the Army transforms good people into a**holes are wrong. (Beer can do that, but that's another story.)

And, finally Cheryl McElroy, SFC, USA (ret) published a communiqué from Beauchamp’s first sergeant:

Numerous soldiers within my unit have served on several deployments and this is my third year as a First Sergeant in this unit. My soldiers conduct is consistently honorable. This soldier has other underlining issues which I’m sure will come out in the course of the investigation. No one at any of the post we live at or frequent, remotely fit the descriptions of any of the persons depicted in this young man’s fairy tale. I can’t and won’t divulge any information regarding this soldier, but I do sincerely appreciate all the support from the people back home. Again, this young man has a vivid imagination and I promise you that this by no means reflects the truth of what is happening here.

(Thanks to John Donovan and to Michael Goldfarb)

*Many of those currently in Iraq are not commenting on this subject--yet.

Thomas Exists (UPDATED)

He's Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp and he thinks we're all "chickenhawks."

I am Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division.

My pieces were always intended to provide my discreet view of the war; they were never intended as a reflection of the entire U.S. Military. I wanted Americans to have one soldier's view of events in Iraq.

It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join. That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name.

You're whining, Private. I'm sure that they didn't teach you that in boot camp or infantry school. Apparently you also never learning that citizens of this country have a right to question anything put forth as "truth" for public consumption, whether we actually had the same experience or not.

Now, if you're done with dancing around the issue, let's see some corroboration for those anecdotes.

UPDATE: Bryan of Hot Air found Beauchamp's old blog which contains some very interesting entries, presumably written before the private deployed to Iraq.

UPDATE: Photos of Beauchamp:

PREVIOUSLY:

Greyhawk Calls Out The New Republic
"Scott Thomas": Poseur?
Still Looking for "Scott Thomas's" Cohorts
Further Comments from Foer
A Note From New Republic's Foer
Digging into New Republic's Anonymous Source
Gruesome Stories from Anonymous Sources

Greyhawk Calls Out The New Republic

To wit:

I hereby call on The New Republic to stop covering for this little dirt bag and turn him in to proper authorities. The New Republic's new "war hero" is not exposing bad behavior of others that's condoned by his seniors - he's confessing to that behavior himself. Since the New Republic won't release his identity, we can only conclude that either they support this sort of behavior by US troops or know that he isn't one. Neither option speaks well for anyone involved.

PREVIOUSLY:

"Scott Thomas": Poseur?
Still Looking for "Scott Thomas's" Cohorts
Further Comments from Foer
A Note From New Republic's Foer
Digging into New Republic's Anonymous Source
Gruesome Stories from Anonymous Sources

"Scott Thomas": Poseur?

I've seen this estimation of the "Scott Thomas" persona linked all over the place. In it, John Barnes, a self-described 'book doctor' gives a diagnosis:

I see manuscripts with all nine of these symptoms [identical to those in the "Shock Troops" anecdotes] – you might think of it as one syndrome with nine common symptoms – about a half dozen times per year, generally from agents rather than as offers to book-doctor them since the creators usually have no money and the books have only limited commercial potential. And they all come from pretty much the same sort of person...[SNIP]

Barnes lays out the observable characteristics of such story-tellers, and states,

I can say that every single time I have been in a position to find out, the "used to be a cop," "I was a Green Beret," "I was a roof man for the Cleveland Fire Department," etc. etc. etc. has turned out to be a fake. Not that there are not guys with adventurous and romantic backgrounds around writing programs or in professional writing – I've known, among others, highly talented writers who were one-time paramedics, professional boxers, police, private eyes, back-country prospectors, and so forth.

But none of those guys [that have actual dangerous backgrounds] wrote like "Scott Thomas". (For that matter they don't write much like each other, either).

"Scott Thomas", however, writes exactly like the mid-20s macho MFA student who is lying about an adventurous background.

It's a "read the whole thing" sort of piece.

PREVIOUSLY:

Still Looking for "Scott Thomas's" Cohorts
Further Comments from Foer
A Note From New Republic's Foer
Digging into New Republic's Anonymous Source
Gruesome Stories from Anonymous Sources

Still Looking for "Scott Thomas's" Cohorts (UPDATED)

New Republic’s Frank Foer talked with the New York Times today about the “Shock Troops” controversy.

“Now that these questions have been raised, we’ve launched an inquiry. We’re putting the full resources of the magazine to look into the story,” Mr. Foer said. “It’s taking me a little bit longer than I wish it did. The author, not to mention some of the participants in the anecdotes he described, are active duty soldiers and they’re on 20-hour active combat missions sometimes, and it’s very difficult for me to get them all on the phone to ask them the questions that I’d like to ask.”

No doubt, but, one wonders how long it took to discover “Scott Thomas” in the first place and get him to work for TNR. (And email, anyone?)

If these other soldiers (marines?) exist, likely they are not as willing to violate standing military orders in the manner that Mr. “Thomas” has (by going to the media, rather than to a superior, about alleged violations of the UCMJ and/or in-theater policy). And, if the incidents in question actually did occur and none of these soldiers (marines?) reported them to their superiors, that makes two issues--violating DoD media policy and covering up violations of the UCMJ--for which these GIs will have to stand, inwardly quaking, in front of their CO.

Meanwhile, Foer says that “he had met the writer and that he knows that he is, in fact, a soldier.” We’ll see.

(Thanks to Michael Goldfarb)

UPDATE: I noticed that in this post and in the other posts about the New Republic controversy, I typed "Steve Thomas" instead of "Scott Thomas" several times. I was kicking myself for it, but then I got over it. It's not his real name anyway.

UPDATE: In TNR's blog, the Plank, Foer again asserts that "Thomas" is an actual soldier (marine?) in Iraq, but does not yet assert that the stories related by this "Thomas" are true. For entertainment purposes, check out the comments.

UPDATE: Yesterday, Goldfarb received a note from a Major Kirk Ludeke who is stationed at FOB Falcon in Iraq--the scene of the allegedly-committed crimes which "Thomas" documents in "Shock Troops".

I've been watching the events on the New Republic's "Scott Thomas" piece with interest.

As the 4th IBCT Public Affairs Officer- I can tell you unequivocally: there was NO mass grave discovered [one of the stories told by "Thomas"] in this area of operations in conjunction with the building of a coalition outpost anytime in the past 12 months. None. Zero. Zip. And Frank Foer's assertions to the contrary, there is no way that his mystery soldier "Scott Thomas" can prove it. Foer can produce all of the alleged "eyewitnesses" he wants- unless these individuals are willing to back up their claims with real evidence, it's just so much garbage on a computer screen. Some people seem to forget that the burden of proof should be on the New Republic to back up his unsubstantiated claims and not the other way around.

PREVIOUSLY:

Further Comments from Foer
A Note From New Republic's Foer
Digging into New Republic's Anonymous Source
Gruesome Stories from Anonymous Sources

[Re-edited]

What the Anti-Warriors Cannot Grasp (UPDATED)

[Re-edited for spelling, grammar, emphasis and clarity. Readers are welcome to point out any other deficiencies in these areas or others.]

I’ve never talked about MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann here before but, of course, when others have feature clips from his evening news show, I’ve watched. People on the Right make fun of the guy and they should. From my amateur shrink perspective, the episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann in which that guy could have a full-on meltdown may happen at anytime. Listen to the tenor of his voice, the oscillation. The barely suppressed hysteria is almost palpable and each time I watch a clip of Olbermann I keep expecting to hear the Son-of-Dean-Scream--one so startling that it would even make the DNC Chairman say "dang, that fool is crazy!"

So when Olbermann stupidly suggests that President Bush should go to Iraq and fight the war himself, who could get angry at it? Even the Nazi references are laughable; it'€™s just Keith tuning up for a primal bellow. However, the 'chickenhawk'€™ meme isn't only used by Olbermann. Though its usage seemed to have fallen out of favor for a short time, as public opinion moves toward favoring the end of the US presence in Iraq, it is again becoming fashionable for anti-warriors to wield the word as a rhetorical weapon.

For this reason, I think we need to understand what the actual purpose of using "chickenhawk" is. Some think that the usage is intended to shame silence into supporters of the troops --and supporters of their mission--who have never served in the military. That's one of the goals, but it's only a secondary one; a means to an end.

People who wield the 'chickenhawk' epithet have but one primary objective. This objective is identical to that of journalists like Joel Stein and William Arkin (who openly express contempt for the troops); identical to that of the exploiters of Jesse MacBeth and of Amorita Randall (two emotionally-disturbed individuals who were used to feed the idea of large-scale brutality perpetrated by the US military); and that objective is identical to that of the "shapers of the narrative." CBS (Rathergate) and The New Republic (see below) are but two of the more well-known “shapers.”

This is the main objective: to demoralize the troops so grievously that the war will end.

It's like this. Troops thrive on support from those who they defend--whether those defended have served or not. When U.S. soldiers/marines/airmen/sailors volunteer to go to a hot, sandy, alien place, to help people very different from Americans build a democratic nation-state, they want to know that we back home ‘have their backs.' It isn’t such a difficult concept to grasp.

However, those who want non-military supporters of the troops to shut up say that if pro-war persons really believed in victory, they would join the military themselves or would “make” their adult offspring join the military (however that’s supposed to work). And if neither of these has occurred, the anti-warrior says that he/she is justified in calling the pro-war person a ‘chickenhawk’--that is, a hypocrite. This bit of reasoning is a feel-good ploy for those who think that feeling good about themselves is the most important thing in the world. And that’s where the US military comes in.

What the anti-warriors really want is for military members to feel bad about themselves; to feel unloved and unappreciated. Anti-warriors want GIs to beg to come home in disgrace; and the anti-warriors calculate that if the folks back home stop expressing their support for the troops, these goals will be reached that much faster.

Anti-warriors who wield the chickenhawk IED want to emotionally castrate the troops.

As many others have observed, the anti-warriors have used all manner of pinhead-conceived, insulting methods designed to either cajole the “stupid-brutal” GIs out of Iraq or shame them out of there--methods using condescension coupled with factual and historical inaccuracies (Reggie Rivers); methods using laughably counterfeit facsimiles of military life (Rathergate, Macbeth, TNR); methods displaying an insensitivity so outrageous--and depraved--that we observers can scarcely believe that those methods have been going on for two years (CODEPINK’s weekly “protests” before the gates of Walter Reed Army Medical Center). Using these tactics has no different purpose than does using the 'chickenhawk' label.

And they do this because the anti-warriors are unable to comprehend other mindsets, other values, other priorities, other fundamental beliefs. The anti-warriors can never understand why any person would volunteer to serve in the military during a war (as Steve Lopez demonstrated). That this same deficiency coexists with the inability to understand that the Jihadists cannot be talked out of their ultimate desire--making the world over in Islam’s image--makes sense.

And because the anti-warriors can't this get this about Jihadists, they aren’t able to understand that whichever road we had taken back in 2003, we’d still be fighting Jihadis today--or tomorrow. So it is that anti-warriors like Olbermann will continue to spout of all kinds of crazy ahistorical nuttiness.

But, don’t worry, anti-warriors. When the Jihadists bring the “struggle” to America (again), we “stupid-brutal” GIs--present and retired--will still have your backs.

UPDATE: Lots of people are wondering what "undisclosed location" Howlin' Howie is tied up holed up in. None of his foot-in-mouth musings have been ridiculed by the Right side of the blogosphere for some time. Come back, Howard Dean! We miss you.

UPDATE: There are some Dean missives here.

Further Comments from Foer

From Howard Kurtz's Media Notes, TNR editor Frank Foer has no further reports about the accuracy of "Scott Thomas's" accounts, but has this to say:

"A lot of the questions raised by the conservative blogosphere boil down to, would American soldiers be capable of doing things like the things described in the diarist. The practical jokes are exceptionally mild compared to things that have been documented by the U.S. military. Conservative bloggers make a bit of a living denying any bad news that emanates from Iraq."

The Empire strikes back! The link embedded in the words "U.S. Military" is copied from the Kurtz op-ed. When I clicked it, I thought that it would lead to actual examples of "things that have been documented by the U.S. Military." Alas, no such luck; Foer was simply planting ideas, feeding the meme.

Odd that Foer doesn't mention that many members of the conservative blogosphere blogging this topic are actual veterans and, therefore would have some real idea--as opposed to a cinema-influenced idea--of what soldiers would or would not do.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

A Note From New Republic's Foer

From Frank Foer, TNR's Editor:

Several conservative blogs have raised questions about the Diarist "Shock Troops," written by a soldier in Iraq using the pseudonym Scott Thomas. Whenever anybody levels serious accusations against a piece published in our magazine, we take those charges seriously. Indeed, we're in the process of investigating them. I've spoken extensively with the author of the piece and have communicated with other soldiers who witnessed the events described in the diarist. Thus far, these conversations have done nothing to undermine--and much to corroborate--the author's descriptions. I will let you know more after we complete our investigation.

How many other soldiers know about the events alleged to have occurred in "Shock Troops?" Not one of them took it up their chain of command?*

More than ever do I think that "Scott Thomas's war chronicles" are the product of fantasy.

(Thanks to Dean Barnett)

*I realize that this was said before but I guess that the magnitude of it is just now sinking in.

Digging into New Republic's Anonymous Source

Greyhawk, fellow USAF veteran and founder of Milblogs, weighs in:

How far into The New Republic's fabricated war story did I have to get to recognize it was a fabricated story? Answer: Not very far. Here's the first line:

I saw her nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq.

Here's a true war story. One late night near Baghdad, my unit's First Sergeant and I went to the local USAF passenger terminal to pick up a newly arrived troop. Because food is important to survival and morale, the first place we took our newbie was the DFAC - the Dining Facility. (Pronounced DEEFAK with emphasis on the first syllable.) AS I said, it was late, so as we pulled into the parking area Top asked a passing soldier "Hey, what time does the chow hall close?". His response was a blank stare, and a "huh?". He moved closer to the vehicle.

"What time does the Chow Hall close?" The First Sergeant repeated. The soldier began to appear confused, and was unable to respond. Something clicked in my head. "He doesn't know what a chow hall is" I said. The term is outdated, appearing now only in old war movies on TV, but Top and I are old school. "What time does the DFAC close?" Asked the First Sergeant.

"Twenty hundred hours" he replied smartly. He wasn't being a smart ass, he was completely unfamiliar with the term "chow hall".

Excellent observation. (See? Now I feel old, because I would have called such a place a 'chow hall' as well. ) Be sure to read the rest.

Ray Robison does a bit more sleuthing and concludes--with benefit of the doubt--that "Scott Thomas's" real name is Clifton Hicks:

Clifton Hicks is a former army soldier who did serve in Iraq. Hicks has become that most cherished item for the anti-war crowd, a soldier who fulfills their need for first-hand accounts of war atrocities. Hicks was granted conscientious objector status and a release from the Army after receiving administrative punishment for unprofessional conduct. Since then, and especially recently, he has tapped into the anti-war establishment for self-promotion.

The evidence that links these two identities is strong but not conclusive. Clifton Hicks was quoted in a Newsweek article, Probing a Bloodbath, which focused primarily on the "Haditha massacre". Of great interest is the name of the Newsweek reporters:   Evan Thomas and Scott Johnson. Keep in mind that our TNR writer took the pseudonym "Scott Thomas". Is this a coincidence?

In the Newsweek article, Hicks states "One guy in my squadron ran over a family with his tank."

"Scott Thomas" writes for TNR:

I know another private who really only enjoyed driving Bradley Fighting Vehicles because it gave him the opportunity to run things over. He took out curbs, concrete barriers, corners of buildings, stands in the market, and his favorite target: dogs.

It seems that both writers focus on stories from Iraq of running over people and things with armored vehicles. Both write in a distinctive soul-searching, near self-loathing and existentialist style.

Michael Goldfarb links to a few more musings and wonders

how long can the New Republic hold out without bowing to the legitimate questions raised by the best and brightest of the blogospehre, and how long can the mainstream media avoid taking this issue up for themselves?

Until they're backed into a corner--as usual. They're not there yet.

UPDATE: Bryan Preston of Hot Air adds another nail into the credibility of TNR and its anonymous "Thomas." After reading this line from another of Thomas's missives from the front "Dead of Night,"

Someone reached down and picked a shell casing up off the ground. It was 9mm with a square back. Everything suddenly became clear. The only shell casings that look like that belong to Glocks. And the only people who use Glocks are the Iraqi police.

Says Bryan:

Weapons are flowing into that country from every which way. Surely one or more of all of the arms dealers have Glocks that they’re willing to sell to anyone with the cash to buy them. The battlefield is just too chaotic for an infantryman who can’t tell the difference between a military and a civilian to be able to go SNAP–this lone casing proves that someone in the Iraqi police did this. That might work on CSI, but not in the real world.

It's amazing how often Big Media entities try to get away with this sort of thing. I read the first two "Scott Thomas" stories also (the third story, "Shock Troops," is the one that has been subject to dissection over the past few days) but since I'm less than familiar with things Army I couldn't see anything wrong with them. From what I can tell, other than the Glock information, there is nothing that stands out as bogus in the first two stories and, as a result, no one in the know raised an alarm. Because of that, TNR's editors became emboldened enough to put out such egregious B(D)S as "Shock Troops." Hubris makes one careless.

Hitchens' "Religious" Ritual

Right on cue comes noted atheist Christopher Hitchens' "tribute" to Jerry Falwell. Hitchens, who seems to take a perverse delight in trashing notable figures upon their deaths, especially those who were publicly religious, predictably excoriates Falwell for his acknowledged sins but in the midst of the rant, goes off on a tangent about certain anti-Semites who call themselves Christians. At first that seemed odd in a Falwell obit, since the reverend was a great supporter of Israel.

But it isn't clergymen who are Hitchens' enemy, per se; they're merely useful tools for the venting of Hitchens' ire (some being more useful than others). It's religion itself, especially Christianity--whether interpreted properly or not--to which Hitchens sets himself up as adversary.

At the end of the piece, Hitchens says that "[i]t's a shame that there is no hell for Falwell to go to..." That statement is refreshingly unhypocritical, since all too many atheists pretend to believe in Hell only when someone they hate passes on. The rest of the sentence reads as follows:

and it's extraordinary that not even such a scandalous career is enough to shake our dumb addiction to the "faith-based."

What Hitchens forgets about the only faith-based religion he could be talking about--assuming he ever knew it--is that if faith were not the sole criterion to get into Heaven, then no one could go since no one is capable of not doing wrong whether accidentally or willfully.

Perhaps Hitchens does take this into account but, as many do, finds it easier to believe that there's nothing else but the physical world. Understandable. However, judging from his many tirades against religious persons, especially faith-based Christians, I suspect that Hitchens does believe in the existence of God. And hates His guts.

To the Local Paper of Record

Since the average age of newspaper readers is fifty-five and I am only forty-four, please, Los Angeles Times, stop calling me and trying to sell me your newspaper. Why should I pay for something that I can get for free?

Last night, one saleswoman even tried this selling point: that I couldn’t read the pixelated version of the LAT at the breakfast table. Have these people not heard of laptops? I don’t have one, but Sheesh! At least I know they exist.

Evolve…

The audience for network news on TV has dropped faster than for newspapers, he said, and radio news has almost disappeared.

Or die.

(Thanks to Roger L. Simon)

Oklahoma's Latest Bomber and the Press

Mark Tapscott notes that the Oklahoma would-have-been homicide bomber, Joel Hinrichs, was known to the Norman Police Department.

Norman, Oklahoma, feed store owner Dustin Ellison's Sept. 28 encounter with University of Oklahoma suicide bomber Joel Henry Hinrichs was witnessed by a plain-clothes police officer who happened to be in the store at the time, Tapscott's Copy Desk has learned.

Ellison declined to sell any of the fertilizer [ammonium nitrate, which Ellison says that Hinrichs attempted to buy on the date in above; the bomb that blew Hinrichs up used hydrogen peroxide] , which was a main ingredient used in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Hinrichs could not explain why he wanted to buy a large amount of the fertilizer. Ellison recorded the license plate number of Hinrichs' car as he drove away.

Mainstream media in OK confirm this. Read this one and the rest of Mark’s posts on the bombing “accident.”

Additionally, Hinrichs had tried to enter the stadium during the OU-KSU football, but ran away when authorities requested to search his backpack.

If it walks like a duck…

What can we speculate from this incident? If all the previously reported information is true, then some Islamist elements are inculcating non-traditional (read: white/Hispanic American-born) converts into their ideology. Hinrichs was known to be a book-smart loner with emotional problems (according to his own father); a ripe pick for any creed that might give a semblance of direction and structure to a world that such a person—especially a young one—might find frustrating; the old “order out of chaos” phenomenon.

Did Hinrichs detonate on purpose? That’s something that we’ll never know, obviously, but something to consider. He was depressed already and when he failed to reach his target, he might have felt like even more of a failure. And since he just happened to have a bomb in his backpack, why not?

(I shudder at the depths of despair that people like Hinrichs experience; Hell on Earth. The Evil One whispers all manner of lies into the ears of the depressed. I know.)

And, what of more nationally-known elements of the press? The reluctance to report on this story could stem from the fact that no one but the bomber was hurt. If this is the reason that little information is forthcoming from, say, the New York Times regarding Hinrichs, then it is a short-sighted decision. As I said earlier, this is the second suicide-bomber incident on American soil in four years and that is no minor incident to relelgated “National Briefings” section of the so-called Paper of Record. We all need to be mindful of what can happen every time a large crowd gathers and authorities--public and private--need to be thinking about, re-thinking and implementing security measures.

If the mainstream media thinks that it has responsibilities toward the public, one of them, IMO, is to get information out that helps keep the public safe. Perhaps these entities are hesitant after the Katrina reporting fiasco—believing authority figures, who, by virtue of their office, should know what’s going on. If, that’s the case, however, they are swinging too far in the other direction: they’re not reporting at all!

Sorry, NYT, but we need to know about incidents like the one that occurred in Norman, OK this past weekend. Report on it; but don’t be lazy like you were during Katrina. It shouldn’t be too difficult to verify information, put out a disclaimer or, at the very least, issue a correction. You folks are doing that last all the time anyway.

(Thanks to Michelle Malkin)

Previous Post:

Splodey Chronicles

UPDATE AND RELATED: NYC is under terror alert for a threatened subway bombing.

NEW YORK - Authorities stepped up mass transit security Thursday after receiving a credible threat that the city's subway system could be the target of a terrorist attack in coming days.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at a news conference the threat originated overseas. Bloomberg said it was the most specific threat New York officials had received to date. He said no one in New York has been arrested.
A law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the threat is "specific to place, time and method" and involves a bombing.

Katrina: Maybe Not Racism

So the murder, rape and mayhem that allegedly went on in the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center in the wake of Hurricane Katrina turned out to be gross exaggerations.

Dr. Louis Cataldie, the state Health and Human Services Department administrator overseeing the body recovery operation, said his teams were inundated with false reports about the Dome and Convention Center.

"We swept both buildings several times, because we kept getting reports of more bodies there," Cataldie said. "But it just wasn't the case."

Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan said authorities had confirmed only four murders in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina - making it a typical week in a city that anticipated more than 200 homicides this year. Jordan expressed outrage at reports from many national media outlets that suffering flood victims had turned into mobs of unchecked savages.

Many bloggers are deriding this state of reporting as racism—that the mainstream media were too ready to believe the worst of a population that was poor and black and to report such. I’m not quite ready to take that plunge just yet, however; not all the way.

What I would like to know is this: who was passing the information to the media about these non-existent murders and rapes? I’m betting that the source was a believable one, one that had no sinister reason to lie about this sort of thing. (Surely in a city that had as high a murder rate as New Orleans did, such stories would be a bit plausible.) Would some of the evacuees themselves tell reporters about some rapes and murders so that the reporters would broadcast the (mis)information and, therefore, fuel the national public outcry to get those people out of there?

After all, that’s pretty much what happened.

I think the professional media is quite liberal-to-leftist and regularly bristle as they proverbially pat us black folks on the head and say, “we’ll protect you from those evil conservatives.” But instead of jumping to lightly supported conclusions (like they often do), let’s sit up and think this thing through minus the emotionalism.

The media believed ugly rumors about black people told to them by black people: by the evacuees and by the (black) New Orleans police chief. And, in the media mindset, why would they these sources say things to make other black people look bad unless it was true? That’s laziness (on the media's part), not racism.

No matter how much disdain many of us have for the mainstream media, we shouldn’t mistake sloth for malice.

(Thanks to Wizbang)

UPDATE: Dean Esmay emphatically disagrees.

See:

More on Media Racism

Ugly Americans

When ABC got access to photos of unexploded bombs found in London on July seventh, the UK’s Scotland Yard asked the news agency not to publicize the photos just yet, for the sake of two of the most important parts of investigation and/or intelligence: secrecy and its cousin, the element of surprise.

ABC’s response was a hearty “whatever, dude” and now the whole world has the photos. Hey, what were the traditionally free press-loving Brits going to do? Give ABC the boot? Of course not.

It appears, however, that, in another case, ABC's arrogance has overreached its common sense.

When the Russian Foreign Ministry asked ABC not to put a microphone under a Chechen terrorist (remember those guys?), ABC shrugged its collective shoulders, did so anyway and discovered that Moscow is a long way from London, in more ways than one.

MOSCOW - Russia's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it will not renew permission for ABC-TV to operate in the country after the network broadcast an interview with a notorious Chechen warlord.

In a statement, the ministry said ABC would be considered "undesirable" by all Russian state agencies because of an interview with Shamil Basayev, which was broadcast last week on "Nightline."

The ministry called the broadcast a "clear fact supporting the propaganda of terrorism" and said it "resounded with direct calls for violence against Russian citizens."

As a result, the ministry said it decided "not to renew the accreditations of employees of this television company after they expire." [SNIP]

On Sunday, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said he was barring military personnel from contact with ABC and said the ministry now considered the network "persona non grata."

Russia has no long tradition of free expression to uphold and, therefore, is not shy about hindering that expression, especially when provoked.

Sheesh, didn't ABC bigwigs learn about other countries and their recent histories in Journalism School? /tongue meet cheek

(Thanks to Tonecluster)

UPDATE: Welcome Peter Daou's readers! Be advised, however, that manners go a long way with me. Please mind them.

UPDATE: Commenter chicagochamp points out that the UK has on occasion been as willing to muzzle her local terrorists as Russia is. That, however, doesn't have an effect on my Schadenfreude over ABC's predicament with the Russians.

Sounds Scared

The left is developing quite a flair for bathos.

"This is the most pathetic thing I've heard in a long time. They should be ashamed of themselves," Peter Beinart, editor of left-leaning The New Republic magazine, said.

What’s Mr. Beinart talking about? Why a group of talk-radio hosts who are headed to Iraq to see what’s going on for themselves and report back, that’s what.

"The reason why we are doing it is we are sick and tired of seeing and hearing headlines by the mainstream media about our defeat in Iraq," Melanie Morgan, a talk radio host (search) for KSFO Radio in San Francisco and co-chair of Move America Forward, said.

Morgan said the media is "imposing a Vietnam template on this war."

"This is not Vietnam," she said. "War is war, and it's dangerous, and the killing is taking place all of the time. At the same time, where there is danger, there is success and there is a mainstream media that is determined to shut out that success."

But Mr. Beinart thinks going to Iraq in an attempt to balance the bad news with the good carries some shame with it, for some reason. I always thought that people should have shame when they are doing something wrong, something selfish and/or are hurting others. By going to Iraq to survey the scene and report back, who could these radio host possibly be hurting?

"They have no idea what journalism is, and to pretend they are journalists is laughable," Beinart said.

Now I see. These people are invading the "elite" territory with guns PDAs blazing. Additionally--and unlike their betters with j-school degrees--they're going over there with their biases out front instead of pretending to cloak it behind some bogus professional concept called impartiality. (Who the heck is impartial about the Iraq War, anyway? Either you want us (and the Iraqis) to win or you don't.)

Anyway, those pathetic non-journalists are hurting the flow of narrative that “professionals” like Mr. Beinart keep attempting to shape for the “ignorant” masses.

Shame on these wicked talk-radio hosts for ruining Mr. Beinart’s fairytale like that! How selfish can they be?

(Thanks to Michelle Malkin)

UPDATE: Welcome Daou Report Readers; always a party when you folks are here! :-)

Durbin: The Big Four Coverage

New York Times: The Gray Lady’s reports are perfunctory and to the point. Actually, that’s a bit of a relief. Too bad all of its reports aren’t like that.

Washington Post: I was all set to rip into the Post when, minutes ago, I saw this.

It must have been a glitch, because I tried it again and got 33 results. The Post does indeed report that only two Republican senators have openly criticized Senator Durbin for his remarks and neither of them is Bill Frist or John McCain.

Los Angeles Times: No reports; only an op-ed by David Gelernter in which he excoriates Durbin. It’s on the editorial page, however, and embedded in a rant about general historical ignorance.

Chicago Tribune: Of course, the newspaper has the entire coverage regarding the controversial senator from its home state; or so it seems.

Reporting: None

Op-eds (some disguised as reporting):

• Jill Zuckerman stands by her man. Read before eating.
• John Kass tries to make light of the situation, if you can believe that.
• Eric Zorn:

But to cite the Nazis, the Soviet gulags and Pol Pot -- even for a very limited purpose -- is another.
Not because the analogy is wholly inapt and not illustrative.

But because it’s so easily twisted into a patently illogical and hysterical argument by opportunistic critics who seem deliberately obtuse when it comes to simple logic.

Yes, don’t call American military personnel ‘Nazis’ because it gives those crazy conservatives ammunition. The fact that it’s wrong, disgusting, slanderous and treasonous coming from a US senator has nothing to do with it. ::rolls eyes::

Overall grade: D-plus.

UPDATE: Welcome TownHall.com readers! And thanks to columnist Mary Katharine Ham for the link and the great column.

The Gloves Come Off

Likely all of the pertinent comments have been made on the Eason Jordan slander of the US military at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, but as a retired military member, I can only say what I’ve been saying for months: The most of the mainstream media *hates* the military.

It’s no big surprise to most of us. The only surprise is that someone who is as prominent as CNN’s Mr. Jordan would feel free to vent his hatred for the troops in such a public forum and would figure—in this age of warp-speed information exchange—that no one would notice.

Because of the furor created by the comments—including outrage expressed by two Democrat congressmen who attended the forum--Mr. Jordan resigned his position.

A SEAL's Excellent Humanitarian Adventure

Doesn't one have to actually know something about the military to make an educated *guess* as to what they do and don't like? Heck, people like Eleanor Clift couldn't even figure out why the candidacy of someone like John Kerry would cause more veterans to cast their votes for GWB.

Froggy rebuts Clift’s…um…knowledgeable assertion that “The military doesn’t like to get involved in humanitarian missions, and needed prodding.”

(Thanks to Blackfive)

Paid Pundits

Here's a sample of the commentary that I've been reading of late:

Henninger: The Ahabs of the world go fishing.

Kinsley: Hyperlinking like rabbits!

Krauthammer: Even a Jewish guy is defending the beleaguered Christmas.

Barber (yes, that one! ): The little blogs played big roles in the Rather-gate dustup, too.

Tremoglie: Donald Rumsfeld and the armor controversy in context.

(Thanks to various bloggers)