Foaming at the mouth site Ankle Biting Pundits is outraged over the open seat in Ohio's 2nd District. The election is getting a fair amount of attention because a Marine recently back from Iraq, Paul Hackett, is running on the Democratic ticket in what I understand is a generally Republican district.
Anyway...the fourteen year old tough guys over at Ankle Biting Pundits are outraged that Hackett has the nerve to call President Bush a chickenhawk for ducking service in Vietnam. While I prefer the more straightforward "coward," chickenhawk sounds about right. One of the genius Ankle Biter supporters chimes in with his support:
It is funny how the Bush haters like to say the Bush did not put his life on the line when he volunteered for the Texas Air National Guard and therefore is a chicken hawk. The fact is that at the time he served, he flew the most dangerous plane flown by the Air National Guard and the Air force. The Delta Dart had a much higher accident rate then the F-4 that was the top of the line fighter at the time. Also at the time he volunteered his unit had pilots serving in Vietnam and if he would have had enough flight hours he would have gone to Vietnam unlike the left’s hero Bill Clinton who really was a Chicken Hawk. Clinton served no time in the military and sent men in harms way whenever he needed to wag the dog. The hole argument is bogus anyway as some of our greatest wartime presidents where Chicken Hawks. FDR, Truman, and Lincoln never served.
My response to this is reproduced below:
A few things:
1) So Bush flew "the most dangerous plane flown by the Air National Guard"? Wow. What a brave Bush is. Was it more dangerous than, say, actually going to Vietnam? I've heard some lame excuses defending Bush, but this has to be one of the worst. Truly Pravda like in it's transparent, weak attempt to burnish the great leader's bravery credentials.
2) Repeat this to yourself: Clinton didn't support the Vietnam war. Bush did. This difference is what makes Bush the coward that he is. He was prepared to send others to die for his cause, while he worked on a campaing in Alabama.
3) The lament that Bush didn't log enough hours is pathetic. If he had bothered to show up, or not campaign in Alabama, or not failed to show up for his physical, he could have logged the requisite number of hours. Oh what could have been!
4) Yes, FDR never served. He was also a cripple. What do expect from the guy? And Lincoln was a veteren of the Black Hawk War. If I thought you were smart enought to know what that is, I would explain it.
5) It's spelled "whole", not "hole," you fucking moron.
Michael Tomasky over at The American Prospect sums up in a sentence what I've been thinking regarding Karl Rove's apologists.
But in the meantime, it’s a pathetic thing to watch supposedly respectable conservative intellectuals act like they’re running for the editorship of Pravda in 1921.
Tomasky mentions the primates over at National Review Online. He's right that this crew has been among the worst of the apologists. Worst because The National Review is supposed to be a serious magazine. More serious than Fox News, and certainly more serious than websites like those run by Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Powerline, etc. But I guess this is what happens when you turn the keys over to adolescents like Jonah Goldberg and Rich Lowry.
The Pentagon says it "doesn't do body counts." Here at Mike's Blog, we do body counts.
From an Iraqi humanitarian agency via UPI:
An Iraqi humanitarian organization is reporting that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003.
Mafkarat al-Islam reported that chairman of the 'Iraqiyun humanitarian organization in Baghdad, Dr. Hatim al-'Alwani, said that the toll includes everyone who has been killed since that time, adding that 55 percent of those killed have been women and children aged 12 and under.
'Iraqiyun obtained data from relatives and families of the deceased, as well as from Iraqi hospitals in all the country's provinces. The 128,000 figure only includes those whose relatives have been informed of their deaths and does not include those were abducted, assassinated or simply disappeared.
The number includes those who died during the U.S. assaults on al-Fallujah and al-Qa'im. 'Iraqiyun's figures conflict with the Iraqi Body Count public database compiled by Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. According to the Graduate Institute of International Studies' database, 39,000 Iraqis have been killed as a direct result of combat or armed violence since March 2003. No official estimates of Iraqi casualties from the war have been issued by the Pentagon, which insists that it does not do "body counts." The Washington Post on July 12 reported that U.S. military deaths in Iraq now total 1,755
That doesn't include the 27 Iraqis killed today, half of them kids
If Max Power were still posting, he would come up with a reason why you shouldn't believe this number.
President Bush's chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, declined to repeat his earlier assertions that Mr. Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff, had nothing to do with leaking the name of the operative, Valerie Plame of the Central Intelligence Agency, to get back at her husband, a former United States ambassador who had publicly challenged Bush administration policy.
Nor would Mr. McClellan repeat his earlier statements that any White House staff person who had leaked the name should be fired.
Every question that McClellan fields until we see some resolution to this case should begin with, "When will the President follow through with his promise to fire Karl Rove, now that we know that Rove was responsible for breaching national security..."
I'll consider anything less than a Rove resignation a defeat.
You’ve seen the movie Gremlins, right? If you’re anything like me, you’re wondering to yourself right now, “What if Al Qaeda has also seen that movie? What if the decide to unleash a Gremlin attack on the United States?”
Super-Patriot and Fox-News contributor Bo Dietl is with me:
Dietl said, "I think that this liberal bunch of people out there, worrying about these people over here, in Gizmo [sic] prison down there, worrying about a guy being blindfolded, are they worried about those poor people going to work this morning to make money for their family, that were blown apart, probably children also?
Can't beat that sentence. Only terrorists use periods! Fox then sought commentary from a homeless man who followed up with: “Blarggggg!!!!! The spiders are eating my mind!!!”
And how do we protect ourselves from the Gremlin/Mind Spider army? Profile brown people of course!
Cavuto asked why Dietl insists then, that NYC will be attacked. Dietl said, "I feel as though we were, and still are, a target." The only way to avoid an attack is "with intelligence." Dietl said people need to look for suspicious packages, or "I'm sorry to say, profiling, Neil. If there are six Middle Eastern men in a grocery store down the block together," and they "come and go" and "act suspicious," call the police. "I'm sorry Mr. Middle Easterner. If you're an American, if you're here legally, if you're doing the right thing, I'm sorry, you're gonna get investigated." That's the "only way we're gonna stop an attack in New York."
Yeah, I mean, how often do you see Middle Eastern people in grocery stores? Especially grocery stores in Middle Eastern neighborhoods. You know, “coming and going?” Who does that? Terrorists, that’s who. Hungry ones.
And I love the warning for people who “act suspicious” (sic). How does one “act suspicious?” Like, wave a machete around? Wear a mask everywhere you go? This guy scares me, can I call the police on his ass?
He ends with this sage advice: Dietl said "England is our brother country." We should "be strong together." "I'm so happy," he said, kissing Cavuto's you-know-what, "about the markets ending up," but "this should get us more stirred up and more fighting and we should get really mad now, and really pissed off and go back over there and drop some more bombs and wipe out that Taliban a little faster.
This should get us more stirred up and more fighting...arghh...brain..hemmorage...Gremlins...gah...
http://www.newshounds.us/2005/07/07/the_blood_isnt_dry_but_blame_the_liberals_anyway.php
So Judith Miller was actually ordered to jail, eh? I have to say, I have no clear cut feelings about this. I have seen some pretty lame arguments, however, both pro and con. Among Miller’s defenders, the lamest argument has to be the “but she didn’t even write a story” line. Whether she “only” gathered background information in preparation of a story, as is the case, or actually published a story is irrelevant. William Safire, Bill Keller, and crew all have to know that. The information she (supposedly) has is the same in either case.
On the other hand, there’s a whole lot of irrelevant antipathy towards Miller out there regarding her shitty Iraq coverage for the Times. Tim Grieve over at Salon nails it:
“For those of you -- and you know who you are -- who see the prospect of having Miller jailed for refusing to testify in the Plame case as some kind of rough justice for the way she reported the run-up to the Iraq war, [Special Prosecutor] Fitzpatrick's vituperative tone may seem just about right.”
Using Miller’s reporting record as a sort of divine rationale for her current situation is pathetic. I wish more of her critics could separate the two issues.
On the whole, I think I’m siding slightly more with the prosecution here. I understand the principle of source confidentialty, but this is not Watergate. Miller isn’t protecting the identity of someone who’s blown the whistle on some act of official wrongdoing, she’s protecting the wrongdoer himself. There’s gotta be a difference here.
And of course, where the fuck is the weasel Bob Novak in all of this? You’re a brave man Novak. Miller could avoid jail if this guy would step up to plate. He's the cause of this shitstorm after all.
And please, stop calling her “Judy.” It makes her sound like a little girl and it’s patronizing.