Web Reconnaissance for 03/24/2008

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention updated throughout the day…so check back often.

In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Patients' Data on Stolen Laptop - A government laptop computer containing sensitive medical information on 2,500 patients enrolled in a National Institutes of Health study was stolen in February, potentially exposing seven years' worth of clinical trial data, including names, medical diagnoses and details of the patients'... (READ MORE)

Both Obama And Clinton Embellish Their Roles - After weeks of arduous negotiations, on April 6, 2006, a bipartisan group of senators burst out of the "President's Room," just off the Senate chamber, with a deal on new immigration policy. (READ MORE)

In Fallujah, Peace Through Brute Strength - FALLUJAH, Iraq -- The city's police chief, Col. Faisal Ismail al-Zobaie, a husky man with a leathered face and a firm voice that resonates with authority, ordered an aide to shut his office door. He turned to his computer. Across the screen flashed a video, purportedly made by the Sunni insurgent... (READ MORE)

U.S. Deaths in Iraq War Reach 4,000; Green Zone Is Shelled - BAGHDAD, March 24 -- A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers on patrol in southern Baghdad late Sunday, the military said in a statement Monday, taking the overall U.S. death toll in the five-year Iraq war to at least 4,000. Earlier, mortar and rocket attacks pounded the Green Zone, the heavily fortified U.S.-Iraqi military and government complex, on a day when more than 60 people were killed in violence across the country. (READ MORE)


On the Web:
Star Parker: Republicans should focus on the right, not Wright - Hillary Rodham Clinton has reason to be a happy camper. Over recent days, for the first time in months, she has moved significantly ahead of Barack Obama in Gallup's national polling. And, defying Milton Friedman's famous dictum that there is no such thing as a free lunch, she's made these gains at no cost. Clinton has remained quietly on the sidelines, smirking like a Cheshire cat, as Republican commentators have done all her work for her. They've dragged out the tapes of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and have helped sully what everyone thought was Obama's picture-perfect and Teflon-coated image. (READ MORE)

Suzanne Fields: When the Past is Past: Some Bad Things are Dead and Buried - When my father died several years ago, friends invited me to the Sabbath services at their synagogue. I looked forward to spiritual healing, and the rabbi kindly took note of my mourning. But his sermon was more political than religious. He talked of what was in the news, of Rev. Jesse Jackson declining the opportunity to repudiate the anti-Semitism of Louis Farrakhan, of civic responsibilities and of the then-campaign getting underway to select a new president. Such reflection of political issues of the day in the synagogue, especially as they relate to anti-Semitism and Israel, is not unusual. But I felt cheated. I wanted reinforcement of faith, a meditation on the mysteries of mortality -- not ruminations on politics and prejudice. Jews, like many Christians, are familiar with politics from the pulpit, which is sometimes all for the good. But politics from the pulpit can reside uneasily inside a religious message. (READ MORE)

Robert D. Novak: Deepening Democratic Dilemma - WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Barack Obama's speech last week, hastily prepared to extinguish the firestorm over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, won critical praise for style and substance but failed politically. By elevating the question of race in America, the front-running Democratic presidential candidate has deepened the dilemma created by his campaign's success against the party establishment's anointed choice, Hillary Clinton. In rejecting the racist views of his longtime spiritual mentor but not disowning him, Obama has unwittingly enhanced his image as the African-American candidate -- not just a remarkable candidate who happens to be black. That poses a racial dilemma for unelected super-delegates, who as professional politicians will pick the winner since neither Obama nor Clinton can win enough elected delegates to be nominated. (READ MORE)

Carol Platt Liebau: Barack Obama's Big Mistake -- and How He Fixes It - It was a fateful decision – and a significant strategic mistake. Battered by the controversy over the remarks of his mentor and pastor, Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama delivered a speech designed to switch the national conversation from Wright to race. It’s easy to understand why. The speech allowed a candidate on the defensive to shift the issue from his “mentor’s” over-the-top rhetoric to the larger issue of America’s race relations. It was intended as an opportunity to regain the high ground, and perhaps even the moral authority so deeply eroded by his embrace of a man given to anti-American tirades. But both the decision to speak on race and the speech itself damaged the Barack Obama “brand.” (READ MORE)

Mike S. Adams: Is Atheism Only a Bundle of Sentiments? - Tony Snow recently reviewed Dinesh D’Souza’s compelling new book (What’s so Great About Christianity?) for the magazine Christianity Today. At the end of his review he thanked Dinesh for exposing atheism “more as a bundle of sentiments than a coherent doctrine.” My recent failed efforts to encourage campus debate with atheists have led me to believe that Snow might be on to something. This semester, I learned that one of my colleagues is teaching our Sociology of Religion course with two supplemental texts, neither of which could be characterized as sociological in nature. One is The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. The other is God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens. (The latter is an especially odd choice because it merely documents all the bad things members of each religion have done. The professor, who also teaches a course in Race and Ethnicity, would certainly never choose a course that merely documented all the bad things done by every race other than his own). (READ MORE)

Hello Iraq: We will be there and “our battle cry” will be, “Never Again!” - The Department of Defense has issued a directive to its military civilian personnel to be careful on and off base because of the escalating of events by the anti war crowds. The movement has taken on a new momentum that now encompasses protesting outside recruiting offices and even the bombing of one such office in New York City. Berkeley has even passed laws in an effort to force the Marines out of Berkeley as unwelcome intruders. Their whole campaign sickens me. Soldiers across the nation are spit on and harassed in increasing numbers. Graves and Memorials have been destroyed or defaced. Even the “Wall” was defaced! (READ MORE)

Eugene Volokh: Oh, Those Hypocritical Conservative Justices - Here they talk about "strict construction, federalism, and judicial modesty." And now we see that the Heller Second Amendment argument "is about" "the abandonment of every principle of strict construction, federalism, and judicial modesty in which the Roberts Court ever purported to believe." "After all these years of deep conservative suspicion of turning over policy matters to the courts, the Roberts Court has fallen in love with a new constitutional right." That's what Dahlia Lithwick (Slate) reports. Here's the trouble: To some people, the Second Amendment is not a new constitutional right. It's an old constitutional right, right there in the text. To say "that 'when a fundamental right is at stake, there is a role for judicial review,'" as Lithwick quotes Heller's lawyer saying, is not "in the spirit of Roe v. Wade." It's in the spirit of every case (say, every First and Fourth Amendment case) that is applying a constitutional right that's right there in the constitutional text. (READ MORE)

Jay Tea: Troooooth And Doody: Mary Mapes Speaks - Well, I've made it through Chapter 8 of Mary Mapes' book, "Truth And Duty: The Press, The President, And The Privilege Of Power," and it's the worse for wear. I have tossed it across the room in disgust an average of three times per chapter. It's a fascinating read, though. I was a bystander during the whole Rathergate mess (while Kevin and Paul did some yeoman's work on the story), but I was cheerfully following Mapes' detractors as they tore that shoddy hit piece to shreds. Mapes' book gives me a glimpse into the other side, and it's just as pathetic, as self-aggrandizing, as full of BS as I could have imagined. (READ MORE)

Jules Crittenden: “This Is Not a Crackpot Church” - Maybe not, but Obama’s still saying he never heard the crackpot remarks. Politico. I’m having trouble keeping track, what he is supposed to have heard or not heard in the last 20 years, and exactly how we’re supposed to be expected to believe he didn’t hear it. Who cares? Well, here’s a conservative commentator smitten with Obama’s tale and the telling of it. Kicker says you have to respect the tale even if you don’t respect the politics. Sure, fine. Except that the politics are abominable. Then, there’s that crackpot thing. UPDATE: Crackpot church’s new pastor says national attention to Wright’s crackpot remarks was a “lynching” just like Jesus got. (READ MORE)

Ed Morrissey: Why do terrorists stop? - Michael Jacobson asks why some high-profile terrorist attacks didn’t happen, and relates how defections and resignations plague even the most extreme terror organizations — and the petty reasons why. One terrorist quit the follow-up to the 9/11 attacks because he tired of the extremism. Another al-Qaeda terrorist quit because Osama bin Laden wouldn’t pay for his wife’s C-section. Jacobson wants us to find a pattern that we can use to defuse the biggest weapons AQ and other terror groups have: “Why do some terrorists drop out? We rightly think of al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups as formidable foes, but the stories of would-be killers who bail give us some intriguing clues about fault lines that counterterrorism officials should exploit.” (READ MORE)

Allahpundit: Hosting company that suspended Wilders’s site also hosts … Hezbollah? - Too bad to check, but check it I did after someone sent me the link to this post. Can Network Solutions’ terms of use be so exquisitely nuanced that a Dutch MP’s critique of Islam qualifies as “objectionable material of any kind or nature” but a top terrorist group’s propaganda organ doesn’t? Behold: (READ MORE)

Don Surber: Is Hillary getting screwed? - The delegate gap is bigger than the popular vote gap. So much for proportionality. The threat from Camp Obama is that Hillary had better not be the nominee because he is winning the popular vote. But what if the reverse is true? What if she gets more popular votes than him and he is nominated. That could easily happen. Hillary has to do 8% better than him just to stay even. Looking at their popular votes and delegates, we find that Hillary has 13,833,671 votes and 1,497 delegates, or one delegate for every 9,241 votes. He has 13,921,532 and 1,628 delegates, or one delegate for every 8,551 votes. Now those totals include Florida and Michigan, which were stripped of their delegates. (READ MORE)

Captain's Journal: Taliban and al Qaeda Strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan - When U.S. intelligence analysts were claiming that a Taliban offensive in Afghanistan would not occur due to focus on Pakistan, The Captain’s Journal laid out the case for dual Taliban campaigns (one focusing on Pakistan and the other on Afghanistan), and pointed out that the spring “offensive” would be waged differently than in direct, head-to-head kinetic engagements with U.S. forces. The influx of foreign jihadists into the tribal areas of Pakistan (particularly the NWFP and FATA) has brought fighters into the cultural milieu that, unlike the older Taliban fighters, have no moral inhibitions regarding suicide tactics. (READ MORE)

The Belmont Club: Unclear and future danger - Is this censorship or what? “U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said that in the past year, 39 al Qaeda members in Iraq responsible for producing and disseminating videos and other material to thousands of Internet Web sites had been captured or killed.” It's not censorship, but war. Information war. “We think the vast majority of this media network has been degraded at this point," he said, adding that the arrests had led to fewer Internet postings of al Qaeda beheadings, kidnappings and other attacks in Iraq…” (READ MORE)

The Sniper: WRAMC BNCOC- Also civilian Friendly - OK, in order to go from SGT (E5) to Staff Sergeant (E6), a soldier must attend and pass the Basic Non-commissioned officers course. For the first time ever, this is being offered to wounded troops currently at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. See pic above. Anyway, they graduate on Friday, and the Senior Group Leader (Teacher) wants to get these soldiers the credit and media they deserve by getting some people at the graduation, and getting some positive stories out in the media about it. Hopefully we can do both. I know some will be there, like me, and Anon (Hey James, quit goosing Nicki). BNG is hoping to make it. We've also had good support from the Usual suspects, Gathering of Eagles, the Freepers etc. Blogs have chimed in and will do posts on these guys and gals. So, things are on track right now. (READ MORE)

The Midnight Sun: AL GORE AND THE 10 INCONVENIENT UNTRUTHS - Al Gore, the high priest of global warming is not being spoken about so enthusiastically these days. Could it be that some people have discovered he’s not all that? And while those of us not consumed with Gaia, the religion, shake our heads at the gullibility of those of the moonbat persuasion, the more cynical of the world of the Left continue to push for environmental policies which have already taken an economic toll. We’re talking about the jobs and the livelihoods of humans here, people, but somewhere along the line, the Left stopped caring or even the pretense of caring about the working class humans, or any humans at all. If Al Gore is wrong, shouldn’t it follow that maybe, just maybe there are plenty more out there who are wrong as well? (READ MORE)

This Ain't Hell: Preaching to the choir - Everyone seems surprised about Rev. Otis Moss III, Jeremiah Wright’s replacement at the Trinity United Church of Christ, who compared Wright’s forced removal from Obama’s campaign this last week to a public lynching, as written about at Sweetness and Light: “Sunday’s sunrise sermon, delivered by Rev. Otis Moss III, was called “How to Handle a Public Lynching” and focused primarily on the media firestorm that has focused international attention on this Chicago ministry, which is the church attended by the Democratic presidential candidate.Moss did not directly mention his spiritual mentor by name, but implied to the congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ that Wright, who has delivered sermons in which he likened the U.S. to the Ku Klux Klan and said it is damned for its state-sponsored terrorism, is facing the same challenges Jesus did. “No one should start a ministry with lynching, no one should end their ministry with lynching. The lynching was national news.” (READ MORE)

Navy Gal: And the verdict is....... - Well, as you can see from the addition to my title, I am going to Iraq. I didn't plan on going to Iraq when I started my adventure since I was sure I was going to the safer option to the south. But, that is not the way things have turned out. So, with as much guts and I can muster, I will be heading up north to [OPSEC], Iraq. Some of you may know it by it's alter ego of "Mortarritaville". (gosh I hope my mother never reads that!) I'm both very excited and honored to get the opportunity to go, but on the same hand I'm scared shitless! In other news, my training team is on a much needed and deserved break this weekend for Easter. We have the entire weekend off unless you have a watch on Saturday. I plan on spending Easter morning at church and then off in the afternoon to a big amusement park nearby. (READ MORE)

Meryl Yourish: Grim Milestone Watch - The AP has been salivating over this number for weeks: “US Death Toll in Iraq War Hits 4,000” And the depressing lede: “BAGHDAD (AP) — A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000. The grim milestone came on a day when at least 61 people were killed across the country. Rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone, underscoring the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups despite an overall lull in violence.” The thing about the AP death toll—it isn’t a total of American soldiers killed in action. (READ MORE)

Westhawk: China may regret hosting the Olympics - The Chinese government has hoped that the Summer Olympic Games, to take place in Beijing in August, would introduce China as a great power to world’s mass audience. There are few other events that achieve such a sustained and mass worldwide attention. The Summer Olympics will certainly bring attention to China, but probably not the kind of attention that the Chinese government was hoping to receive. In 1936, the German government used the Berlin Summer Olympics to display to the world Germany’s resurgence under National Socialism. That occasion set the standard for using the Olympics as a stage for national propaganda. In 1964, Japan used the Tokyo games to “re-brand” itself as a peaceful and modern country after the memories of World War II. And in 1988, the South Korean government used the Seoul Olympics to show its arrival as a modern and mature democracy. (READ MORE)

The Tygrrr Express: Mr. Obama, apologize to Dr. Rice - Dr. Condoleeza Rice called Barack Obama and apologized to him for an incident that was not her fault. Mr. Obama might wish to show the same class and courtesy towards her and offer an apology of his own. For those who spend way too much time focusing on political nonsense (this column), rogue members of the State Department (redundant, I know) took a peek at the confidential files of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama. While there is no evidence at this time that anything other than curiosity by low level people was involved, already the conspiracy mongers want to blame President Bush. These people would be willing to hold impeachment hearings after he has already left office. Perhaps they can camp on his Crawford Ranch and try to evict him from his living quarters. (READ MORE)

Jimmy J @ Shrinkwrapped: A Liberal Manifesto - I first got the idea of writing down some of the things I think I know/believe from another Navy pilot, Lex, who blogs at Neptunus Lex. He expounded on a long list of his beliefs. Mostly one or two pithy lines. Not surprisingly, I agreed with many of them. I had never seen someone express his personal manifesto in such a fashion. His work stimulated me to take a closer look at my beliefs. There are many things we are confident we know because they can be demonstrated scientifically or mathematically. Such things as: Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, 1+1 = 2, there is a mysterious force called gravity. However, many things that we know or think we know are not necessarily subject to scientific / mathematical proof. And they may or may not be believed by others. For that reason I have been examining my beliefs and setting them down on paper so I might see if they are consistent and why I hold them. Here are a few of my beliefs about our federal government. I realize one could write a book about the few items I have covered here. This is only intended to be a brief outline of my "manifesto." (READ MORE)

ShrinkWrapped: Conspiracy Theories and Victimization - As the reactions to Barack Obama's speech continue to emerge, there is a striking disconnect that appears repeatedly in the pieces written by some of the liberal white supporters of Obama. Nicholas Kristof is typical. In his op-ed piece on Obama and Race in the Times this morning he addresses the different world view that blacks and whites have in America: ‘Many white Americans seem concerned that Mr. Obama, who seems so reasonable, should enjoy the company of Mr. Wright, who seems so militant, angry and threatening. To whites, for example, it has been shocking to hear Mr. Wright suggest that the AIDS virus was released as a deliberate government plot to kill black people. That may be an absurd view in white circles, but a 1990 survey found that 30 percent of African-Americans believed this was at least plausible.” (READ MORE)

Dan Riehl: Obama Misrepresented The Truth - While I'd agree that the subject of Obama, Wright and "The Speech" has been discussed about enough, it turns out that Obama played fast and loose with some important facts and it hasn't yet been pointed out. h/t to reader Paul and this questioning post for causing me to dig a little deeper on this. Obama led us to believe Jeremiah Wright's anger was justified by resentment born of years of frustration and struggle. Guess what? That isn't the case at all. And stripped of that rationale, it's really nothing more than plain old anti-white racism from a junior member of a highly accomplished black family. As Krauthammer points out, led on by Obama - Wright is being cast as a man representing a very troubled past. (READ MORE)

McQ: Assorted election news - Bill Richardson gives us the ultimate "I love ’em, but...": “‘I am very loyal to the Clintons. I served under President Clinton. But I served well. And I served the country well. And he gave me that opportunity,’ Richardson told ‘Fox News Sunday.’ ‘But you know ... it shouldn’t just be Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton,’ he said.” Well there you go - the thinking man’s reason for backing Obama. And then there’s the exchange between Ed Rendell, Gov. of PA and Clinton supporter and Richardson about superdelegates: (READ MORE)

Dale Franks: Theopolitical Musings - I haven’t strayed too deeply into the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama. The surface reactions and counter-reactions are moderately interesting to me as a political junkie, of course, because they effect political outcomes in the nomination race. But this is, really a subject that deserves far more than surface treatment, because it goes directly to the heart of the nation’s political and religious culture. The church which Barack Obama attended—and Rev. Wright pastored—for over two decades, is Trinity united Church of Christ (TUCC). TUCC is a church that espouses "Black Theology", or as it is also commonly known, "Black Liberation Theology". (READ MORE)

Jon Henke: Into the Abyss - Paranoid conspiracy theorist Glenn Greenwald proclaims the story of Barack Obama’s long-time pastor/personal advisor’s sometimes-racist and segregationist behavior to be the merely "manufactured Wright "controversy". This same Glenn Greenwald was just weeks ago claiming that the controversy over John McCain’s acceptance of an endorsement by the also bigoted (but far, far less relevant to the candidate) John Hagee was "growing, though still not as much as it ought to" and that the mere personal "alignment" with such a bigot "ought to be the story". What’s more, Greenwald actually claimed at the time that a Presidential candidate should not be "held responsible for the views of those who support them, unless the candidate seeks out that support and/or expressly welcomes it." (READ MORE)

John Hinderaker: If It's Intentional, Is It Malpractice? - Patterico does an excellent job of deconstructing a front-page Los Angeles Times hit piece on John McCain. The Times article includes this howler: “But McCain openly disputed Bush administration claims that Hussein appeared linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ‘I doubt seriously if there’s this close relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein,’ he told CBS News in September 2002.” We know that op-ed columns sometimes appear in print without ever being read by an editor, but I assume that front-page news stories are reviewed by at least one person other than the reporter who writes them. It is hard to believe that there are both a reporter and an editor at the L.A. Times who don't know that this statement about "Bush administration claims" is false. (READ MORE)

Susan Katz Keating: Resurrecting Antiwar Shenanigans - An Illinois street theatre (read, "bad actors") group chose Easter Sunday as the moment to enact their unique take on resurrection. "Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War" breathed new life yesterday into the long discarded technique of using outrageous tactics to spread the word of peace - make that, one-sided disarmament. This quaint six-some burst in on Easter Sunday Mass yesterday at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, squirting fake blood on parishoners during the homily being delivered by Cardinal Francis George. Why, pray tell, this particular church on this particular day? Well, the six Schoolgirls (three fun-loving guys 'n three whoopie-making gals) were steamed that Cardinal George did not confront President Bush about the war in Iraq. (READ MORE)

Patterico: Not from The Onion — Kmiec Endorses . . . Obama - Doug Kmiec has endorsed Barack Obama, in one of the most puzzling pieces of writing I have ever read. Kmiec, who claims to be a Republican, literally does not advance one single reason why Obama would be a better President than John McCain. Instead, his piece is full of generalized reasons why (in Kmiec’s opinion) it wouldn’t necessarily be that bad if Obama were to win: “As a Republican, I strongly wish to preserve traditional marriage not as a suspicion or denigration of my homosexual friends, but as recognition of the significance of the procreative family as a building block of society. As a Republican, and as a Catholic, I believe life begins at conception, and it is important for every life to be given sustenance and encouragement. As a Republican, I strongly believe that the Supreme Court of the United States must be fully dedicated to the rule of law, and to the employ of a consistent method of interpretation that keeps the Court within its limited judicial role.” (READ MORE)

Richard S. Lowry: March 23, 2003 - Nasiriyah Revisited - It is hard to believe that it has been five years since Jessica Lynch and the 507th Maintenance Company rolled through the dusty streets of Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003. Eleven of Jessica’s fellow soldiers were killed that morning, five were captured and a dozen more injured. Lynch was critically injured and near death when she was brought into a military hospital near the site of her ambush. Within hours of the ambush, the North Carolina Marines of Task Force Tarawa moved to secure the bridges in An Nasiriyah. LtCol Rickey Grabowski’s 1st Battalion, of the 2nd Marine Regiment rolled into the city and encountered stiff resistance. By midmorning they had rescued nearly half of the soldiers who had been ambushed and by noon the Marines were charging forward through a hail of RPGs, AK-47 gunfire, mortar and artillery barrages. By sunset, Grabowski’s Marines had secured their objectives but at a terrible cost. Eighteen of America’s finest died and another dozen were wounded. (READ MORE)

Phyllis Chesler: Scapegoating Israel is Fashionable. Balancing Feminist Sorrows with Israel's Right to Exist - In June of 1982, in the pages of Ms. Magazine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin earned her reputation as a Jewish feminist by writing about anti-Semitism among feminists. She did so by standing on the shoulders of other Jewish feminists who had been wrestling with this “problem without a name” since the early 1970s and whose cries Pogrebin finally heard. Pogrebin’s article in Ms. Magazine was brave and she was, at the time, both attacked and disbelieved. But she was also respected for writing the piece. By 1991, Pogrebin had expanded her article about Jew-hatred among feminists into a book about Judaism and feminism, Deborah, Golda and Me. (READ MORE)

Have an interesting post or know of a "must read?" Then send a trackback here and let us all know about it. Or you can send me an email with a link to the post and I'll update the Recon.