January 11, 2007
Jan 11 00:39 Keith Ellison, Military Expert Jan 11 06:38 Presidential Straw Poll Jan 11 07:14 Barry Bonds Tested Positive for Amphetamines Jan 11 08:15 The President's Surge Speech Jan 11 11:24 A Democrat With A Spine? Jan 11 12:42 Oil Prices Keep Dropping, Part III Jan 11 16:28 Dems' Iraq Policy: What We Know, What We Don't Know Jan 11 18:32 Carter Foundation Advisers Resigns In Protest
Prior Years: 2006
Keith Ellison, Military Expert
Keith Ellison hasn't even attempted to sound like a moderate since getting sworn in last Thursday. For that matter, I can't be certain that he ever attempted to sound like a moderate. Based on this article, it's safe to say that Ellison's stance on the war is akin to Dennis Kucinich or Ned Lamont. Here's what the newly-minted Ellison had to say about Iraq:
"I think we need to have a political and economic and diplomatic engagement, and we need to encourage the forces that are in Iraq to begin to resolve the violence in Iraq," Ellison said Tuesday during an interview with The Associated Press.I've heard other defeatists before but that's as defeatist as I've heard. Ellison's message is essentially "We can't win. Let's do what's inevitable. Let's abandon our allies; let's destroy our credibility; let's declare defeat."
Ellison argued that President Bush's expected plan to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq is "way too late, way too little" to make a difference.
"So rather than do something small and ineffective, why not get about the business of what we're going to have to do eventually, which is to begin to end the occupation?" he said.
Minnesotans should ask Ellison why he's so certain the U.S. military can't win in Iraq. They should also ask what qualifications he has for making such predictions. Frankly, I don't know why he was quoted in a news article. He's a newly-elected freshman representative whose prior public service has been in serving the Minnesota House of Representatives for a total of six years. According to Wikipedia, here are the committee assignments he had in the Minnesota Legislature:
- the Governmental Operations & Veterans Affairs Policy Committee
- the Judiciary Policy & Finance Committee
- the Local Government & Metropolitan Affairs Committee
Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 6:49 AM
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Presidential Straw Poll
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Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 12:05 PM
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Barry Bonds Tested Positive for Amphetamines
Barry Bonds' credibility is pretty much shot with this news:
Barry Bonds failed a test for amphetamines last season and originally blamed it on a teammate, the Daily News reported Thursday.Talk about a stand up guy. He's dirty according to a 2006 test, then he blames his teammate for giving him the illegal substance. I'd ask what type of man would do that but I think people already know what type of man Barry Bonds is.
When first informed of the positive test, Bonds attributed it to a substance he had taken from teammate Mark Sweeney's locker, the New York City newspaper said, citing several unnamed sources.
"I have no comment on that," Bonds' agent Jeff Borris told the Daily News on Wednesday night.
"Mark was made aware of the fact that his name had been brought up," Sweeney's agent Barry Axelrod told the Daily News. "But he did not give Barry Bonds anything, and there was nothing he could have given Barry Bonds."
As a lifelong fan, I'm appalled with Bonds' actions but I'm sickened by his total unwillingness to accept responsibility for anything he's ever done. That isn't what real men do. That's what total losers do.
For the record, I hope that Barry Bonds never eclipses Henry Aaron's 755 home run total. I hope that his body continues deteriorating and that he's forced to retire without the record. That said, I don't want MLB to put an asterisk after Bonds' name if he breaks Aaron's record. I don't want MLB to keep him out of the record books because, statistically, he will have broken the record. What I do want is for the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), responsible for Hall of Fame voting, to not give Bonds serious consideration for the first decade that he's eligible for Cooperstown. In fact, if he's ever inducted into Cooperstown, I hope fans show up and boo him at the ceremony.
I also hope that books get written telling everyone what a dirtbag of a teammate he was, what a prima donna he was, how he didn't talk often with reporters. In short, I want him utterly stigmatized for being a poor excuse of a human being.
UPDATE : ESPN has picked up my post about Barry Bonds. They're just linking via California Conservative's link. It's all good, though.
Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 5:12 PM
Comment 1 by Heeblwenzinko DeFoogy at 11-Jan-07 12:40 PM
Thank you!
I read and hear so many people saying that records should be stricken, and asterisks placed in the record books. It's good to finally see someone else who realizes that what happened happened, and it's not the job of the record book to make value judgements. It's the job of the record books to record what happened.
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 11-Jan-07 02:43 PM
Historical achievements are historical achievements. The only way they should be stricken is if he's found guilty of using steroids. THAT would be grounds for changing the numbers to reflect his illegality.
Comment 3 by Heeblwenzinko DeFoogy at 11-Jan-07 02:47 PM
I disagree. Even if he's found guilty of using steroids, the home runs were still hit, and counted. Pundits can argue about a record's meaning, or who is really the best, but not about who hit the most home runs.
Comment 4 by Gary Gross at 11-Jan-07 06:36 PM
The principle that counts most to me is that criminals shouldn't be rewarded for criminal behavior. That's a more important consideration than all other considerations combined.
Comment 5 by Heeblwenzinko DeFoogy at 12-Jan-07 09:57 AM
The role of the record books isn't to reward achievement. It's to accurately record what occured. Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in a year. Those home runs counted; the runs scored, and the games' outcomes were affected. To strike him from the record book is to present a false account of history.
Note that I don't view Hall of Fame election the same way. That's subjective, so a person can be left out for cheating if the voters say so.
Comment 6 by Gary Gross at 12-Jan-07 10:03 AM
I agree with you on the HoF but I'll respectfully disagree about the records. If he cheated, then the statistics must be stricken.
Comment 7 by Heeblwenzinko DeFoogy at 12-Jan-07 11:41 AM
Should Gaylord Perry's strikeouts be stricken?
Comment 8 by Gary Gross at 12-Jan-07 03:03 PM
Should Gaylord Perry's strikeouts be stricken?
If he committed a crime, yes.
Comment 9 by Heeblwenzinko DeFoogy at 12-Jan-07 03:22 PM
It's known that he cheated -- greasing the ball.
Comment 10 by Gary Gross at 13-Jan-07 11:23 AM
Breaking the rules isn't the same as breaking the law.
Comment 11 by Heeblwenzinko DeFoogy at 16-Jan-07 10:26 AM
You wrote "If he cheated, then the statistics must be stricken." Not "If he broke the law..."
Comment 12 by Heeblwenzinko DeFoogy at 16-Jan-07 04:26 PM
And just to clarify, for me the issue is that if I look up who hit the most home runs, I want to find out who hit the most home runs, regardless of moral depravity.
If you think establishing a moral standard as an admission requirement for the record book, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
The President's Surge Speech
Hugh Hewitt thinks that " President Bush was at his best tonight ", saying:
President Bush was at his best tonight: serious, detailed, and above all, resolute. He spoke to many audiences.Powerline's Paul Mirengoff said:
To the public weary and grieved by the death of many of the finest Americans, the president spoke of the crucial issue: "For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq."
It isn't, he explained repeatedly, just about giving Iraqis hope, but maintaining American security for all of the reasons he detailed.
Iraqis who desire peace heard the commitment, but they also heard its contingent nature: The Iraqi government has run out of time to dodge the tough choices.
Our enemies did not hear what they had hoped to, a declaration of surrender, whether phrased as a "timetable" or a simple "We quit." They know that as long as Bush as in office, they will not win in Iraq.
Crucially Iran heard a hint of measures beyond the borders of Iran, though in the sort of terms that none can object to. When the president spoke of destroying the networks aiding the terrorists, he meant the Quds Brigades and the other Iranian agents at work in Iraq, and the placement of the paragraph cannot be misunderstood.
"The first few minutes of the speech weren't well-delivered, but I thought the substance was good throughout. I've had several reservations about a surge, perhaps the biggest of which is that at some point (a year, 18 months or whatever) we'll pull out and the sectarian violence will ratchet up again. That's why we need not only short-term military success but also political progress that will change the dynamic once we pull back. I have confidence in our military, but not in Iraqi politicians. But there is some relationship between the two; the better we're doing militarily, the more influence we have with Iraqi politicians."Captain Ed live-blogged the speech here. Here's the two best sections in Ed's post:
8:04 - A failure in Iraq would be a catastrophe. Bush outlines a few reasons why:
The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On September the 11th, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.
8:07 - Why will this effort be different from earlier efforts? Nancy Pelosi asked that in her press conference today. Bush has an answer, which boils down to this: either we take on all of the militias, or we'll pack up and leave Maliki to their tender mercies. I guess Maliki chose Door #1.Last weekend, President Bush held a video conference with al-Maliki, which was described by some as al-Maliki's "Come to Jesus" conference. I suspect that President Bush told him that he'd better 'repent of his past ways' or suffer the consequences. As Captain Ed said, it's obvious that al-Maliki didn't choose to 'suffer the consequences.'
I agree with the views expressed by Hugh, Paul and Ed. I'd add that I was encouraged with this section of the President's speech:
Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity, and stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.It's long past time to interrupt the flow of Iranian and Syrian support for the militias, terrorists & insurgents. As I noted here, Iran is playing both sides against each other:
Iran is supporting both Sunni and Shiite terrorists in the Iraqi civil war, according to secret Iranian documents captured by Americans in Iraq.Here's something else that the President said that I liked:
In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of the enemy, by advancing liberty across a troubled region. It is in the interests of the United States to stand with the brave men and women who are risking their lives to claim their freedom, and help them as they work to raise up just and hopeful societies across the Middle East.I didn't want this to be a lofty, ideological speech, which it certainly wasn't. That said, throwing in this type of paragraph to remind Americans why we're fighting is entirely appropriate.
Finally, this is my favorite section of the speech:
Honorable people have different views, and they will voice their criticisms. It is fair to hold our views up to scrutiny. And all involved have a responsibility to explain how the path they propose would be more likely to succeed .In other words, politicians like Ted Kennedy, John Murtha and Dick Durbin will be held to account for their plans to leave Iraq before victory is achieved. Criticism won't be tolerated but plans for victory will be listened to. In effect, he's telling the Defeatist Wing of the Democratic Party that they either do something useful or shut up.
Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 8:26 AM
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A Democrat With A Spine?
I didn't know they existed until I read this article. Look for John Murtha to give him the evil eye after this.
[Jim] Marshall left Princeton University in 1968 to join the Army and serve in Vietnam. Now a member of the Armed Services Committee, he has toured Iraq 10 times.The first thing you notice is that Marshall isn't thinking about the best way to cut our losses. He isn't thinking about graceful exit strategies. He's thinking about winning, a trait he shares with exactly one other Democrat in Washington: Joe Lieberman. What's got to be more upsetting to Ms. Pelosi is this statement:
After watching President Bush's speech Wednesday night in his office on Capitol Hill, Marshall told me, "The most significant thing is that this is an Iraqi plan. If you think about it, what has the government of Iraq tried to do or suggested doing anything as significant as this, with Iraqis attempting to take the lead? This is a big deal."
"There's going to have to be one heck of a great speech by Maliki to the Iraqis because this is Maliki's plan," he said, referring to the prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki. "And that's wonderful, frankly, that this is an Iraq plan to secure Iraq."
"People need to be thinking about this not as some sort of last stand or next-to-the-last stand, but as a reasonable thing for America to do in order to support the Iraqis."I've been pretty dismissive of Democrats' opinions on Iraq because the vast majority publicly talk about President Bush's Iraq policy as utter disaster. Privately, I suspect that they get reports telling them that there's positive things happening there all the time. I further suspect that they're thankful that the Agenda Media keep those stories far from the front page.
There's something else that's disquieting about Mr. Marshall's statements: He's a combat veteran who has infinitely more credibility on fighting and winning wars than 'Cut and Run' Murtha ever had. Notice that Marshall thinks that this is fight that's winnable, unlike Murtha.
The article also notes various other politicians' views of the new policy, including Barack Obama, who calls it "wrong-headed." This is laughable. It's also understandable why they quote him. He's the fair haired child who's getting all the attention. Obama isn't interested in winning in Iraq, something that I've documented before. For that matter, I haven't seen evidence that he's all that interested in the GWOT, much less having a thoughtful strategy for winning it.
Then again, that's typical Democrat for you.
That's what makes Jim Marshall's views so refreshing. Rep. Marshall, congratulations for having the courage to separate yourself from the Defeatocrat wing of your party. You're now the third Democratic politician to enter the LFR 'Profiles in Courage' Hall of Fame. You join Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller as the only known Congressional Democrats to believe in victory.
Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 11:26 AM
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Oil Prices Keep Dropping, Part III
According to this article, those pesky markets keep doing what they're supposed to. Here's the details:
Oil prices fell below $54 a barrel Thursday, as funds resumed bailing out of the energy markets on forecasts of warmer weather in the United States that could leave the country's heating fuel supplies barely touched this winter.The continuing moral of this story: MARKETS WORK!!! (if you keep socialists from meddling with them.)
The commodity has fallen more than 11 percent since the beginning of the year, a drop that was kindled Wednesday by U.S. government data that showed a larger-than-expected increase in domestic inventories of gasoline and heating oil.
UPDATE: Crude oil dropped below $53 at the close of trading today.
"The impact of the weather should not be overstated. Heating demand is a comparatively small part of global consumption," said Antoine Halff, an energy analyst at Fimat. "There's potential for a rebound."
Light, sweet crude for February delivery plummeted $1.83 to $52.19 in early afternoon trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after dropping as low as $52.07. The commodity, trading at new 19-month lows, has fallen more than 11 percent since the beginning of the year.
Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 2:52 PM
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Dems' Iraq Policy: What We Know, What We Don't Know
Tim Walz, the freshman congressman from MN-1, has given us a quote that tells us what the Democrats' plan for Iraq is. Here's Walz's quote:
Walz said he expects lots of "voices and debate" on how the new majority in Congress will withdraw from Iraq. He said Democrats have "no set solution, just the ability to thin through it logically to try to find a solution."This adds to what we know about the Democrats' Iraq policy. Here's a roundup of other things we know about their 'plan':
- We know that Harry Reid "would look at everything to wind down the war effort, short of cutting off support for troops already there."
- We know that John Murtha advocates a God-forsaken 'immediate redeployment' policy.
- We know that Barack Obama doesn't have a plan for victory.
- We know that Obama appeared this morning on NBC's "Today" Show, saying "We're not going to baby sit a civil war."
- Just once, I'd like to hear Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Hillary or Barack Obama tell us that leaving Iraq now wouldn't endanger us in the future.
- Just once, I'd like to hear Tim Walz, Amy Klobuchar or Keith Ellison explain why terrorists wouldn't turn Iraq into a breeding ground for future 9/11's aimed at America and elsewhere.
This begs another question: If they know that losing isn't an option in Iraq, why aren't they making specific proposals for winning in Iraq? Why aren't they interested in stabilizing Iraq while making America safer?
The answer is found in Dingy Harry's flip-flop on a troop surge. Here's what Dingy Harry said before Christmas:
"If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that," said Reid.Here's what Dingy Harry's saying now:
"Surging forces is a strategy that you have already tried and that has already failed...Adding more combat troops will endanger more Americans and stretch our military capability to the breaking point for no strategic gain."I'm reminded of John Kerry's infamous statement that "I actually voted for it before I voted against it" when I read Harry's polar opposite statements. Here's the rough translation of Dingy Harry's statement:
I was ok with a troop surge until the Democratic leadership met. I was ok with a troop surge until Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama set me straight on what our political strategy should be on this. Now that they've shown me the focus group results showing that opposing a troop surge isn't popular with our base, I'm abandoning my prior statement.
There's something else that's worth noting. Nancy Pelosi was for a troop surge before she was against it. Here's the proof:
Thus former House minority leader, now Speaker Nancy Pelosi, citing General Shinseki in May 2004, on "Meet the Press": "What I'm saying to you, [is] that we need more troops on the ground." Thus, too, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, just four weeks ago: "If it's for a surge--that is, for two or three months--and it's part of a program to get us out of there as indicated by this time next year, then, sure, I'll go along with it."Now we know what's driving the Democratic policy on Iraq: They're for anything that President Bush is against and they're against anything that President Bush is for. Democrats aren't the loyal opposition, they're just the opposition.
JFK, FDR and Harry Truman would be ashamed to associate with such a spineless, fickle bunch.
Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 4:29 PM
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Carter Foundation Advisers Resigns In Protest
That's what this article is reporting. Here's the main details on the resignations:
"It comes to the result of deep soul searching and a tremendous amount of angst," said Steve Berman, a member who was appointed six months ago.In other words, these Carter Center advisers couldn't tolerate Jimmy Carter's stretching the truth any further. In their words, they said that Carter portrayed opinion as fact and that he'd stopped being an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians. They said that he's become an unabashed pro-Palestinian advocate.
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Liane Levetan, a former Georgia state senator who served on the board for about 10 years, said Carter's book "really hurt me."
"To me, it's a situation of telling the facts that are the facts. This is not a piece of fiction," Levetan said. "There are some things in life that you just cannot overlook. The truth is something that has got to be told. And certain portions of this book do not tell the truth."
Levetan said despite her respect for the Carter Center, she could not remain quiet over concerns of the book.
"When you are convinced that there's something that's wrong or not truthful, you can't sit by on the sidelines and let things get by," Levetan said.
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The members say the book "portrays the conflict between Israel and her neighbors as a purely one-sided affair with Israel holding all the responsibility for resolving the conflict."
It gets worse, too:
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights group based in Los Angeles, received more than 23,000 signatures for an online petition urging action against "Carter's one-sided bias against Israel."I totally agree with Rabbi Hier on both statements. The 14 members were right in cutting their ties with Carter and that sorry excuse for a book isn't worthy of a former president. Then again, this isn't just any U.S. president.
Hier said he agrees with the 14 members decision to cut ties to the Carter Center because the book offers a distorted view of the Middle East. "I think they did the right thing," Hier said. "I think that the book was unworthy of a former president of the United States."
As I've said in the past, the list of Jimmy Carter foreign policy failures represents the worst foreign policy record of any American president in history.
Not only do his own advisers disagree with him but former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross is claiming that the maps in Carters books are maps that Ross commissioned:
Last month, Ambassador Dennis Ross, a former Mideast envoy and FOX News foreign affairs analyst, claims maps commissioned and published by him were improperly republished in Carter's book. "I think there should be a correction and an attribution," Ross said. "These were maps that never existed, I created them." After Ross saw the maps in Carter's book, he told his publisher he wanted a correction. When asked if the former president ripped him off, Ross replied, "It sure looks that way."Ross's reply is diplospeak for saying that a former U.S. president had used Ross's maps without his permission. In the real world, we'd call that plagiarism.
It isn't a stretch to say that Jimmy Carter is a worse ex-president than he was a president, which is saying something. I didn't think that was possible considering the length and breadth of Carter's presidential failures. Let's remember that Carter presided over the Iranian hostage crisis, which experts now point to as the start of the global jihad movement, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the creation of the term misery index (the combination of inflation rate and unemployment rates), gas rationing and the worst economy other than the Great Depression.
Posted Thursday, January 11, 2007 6:34 PM
Comment 1 by william shea at 21-Jan-07 02:04 AM
The resignations represent to me intellectual cowardice. For too long the mantra in the US has been one sided portrayls for Israeli positions. The historical facts have been forgotten.
