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)
Spitzer Linked To Prostitution Ring by Wiretap - New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer's political future was thrown in doubt yesterday after he was identified as an anonymous client heard on a federal wiretap arranging to pay money and buy train tickets for a high-priced New York prostitute to meet him at a downtown Washington hotel. (READ MORE)
Ritual of Repentance - We are riveted, but why? Nearly every post-scandal news conference is like every other. There's a script to these things, as we all know, and New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer followed it to the letter yesterday in seeming to acknowledge his involvement with a prostitute and apologizing for it. (READ MORE)
Bush Vows He Will Upgrade Poland's Air Defenses - President Bush promised yesterday to upgrade Poland's antiquated armed forces with a plan to be developed before he leaves office in January as he sought to secure an agreement that would allow the United States to establish an antimissile system in Eastern Europe despite vigorous Russian... (READ MORE)
CIA chief: Don't outlaw tough methods - CIA Director Michael Hayden argued today in favor of permitting his agency to retain harsh interrogation techniques that are not spelled out in the latest Army field manual, which was revised in the fall of 2006 amid controversy over the handling of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. (READ MORE)
Militants launch rocket in Gaza - Palestinian militants in Gaza launched a rocket today at the Israeli city of Ashkelon, causing no injuries but threatening to upset a recent period of calm. (READ MORE)
Obama nixes talk of joint ticket - Sen. Barack Obama yesterday charged that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to "hoodwink" voters by calling him inexperienced and questioning his qualifications to be commander in chief, while hinting they might share a ticket. (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Matt Sanchez: View to a Governorthat - There's a lot of media attention surrounding our New York governor, Eliot Spitzer, but if you really want the inside story, don't bother with the "paper of record" The New York Times, when no one covers New York politics better than the New York Post. Take a look at this juicy morsel: “March 11, 2008 -- Gov. Spitzer, who crafted a national reputation as a crusader against corruption, was exposed yesterday as the penny-pinching client of a $1,000-an-hour hooker.” What makes the NYPost coverage a cut above the rest is not only the detail. (READ MORE)
A Newt One: Pentagon Says Saddam Had No Operational Ties To Al Qaida - The key word is "operational" but the report goes further to emphasize "direct operational" ties. Now, the Pentagon hasn't released the report yet the Houston Chronicle has begun the usual Leftinistra Damage control spin: Study: Iraq had no link to al-Qaida And there ya have it. Simply amazing. Must have been one of those mysterious and undisclosed secret leakers that cannot be identified for fear of being exposed as a damn liar moments. We all know the drill. It was all spelled out in the 911 Commission Report and the ISG Reports. Also, Ray Robison of the ISG has spelled it all out for us...with Pentagon approval...in his book Both In One Trench. I am just about finished with my third time through the book. (READ MORE)
Lawhawk: Sex, Lies, and Spitzer - This post updates my earlier coverage. A copy of the complaint filed in the Southern District of New York relating to the prostitution ring bust is here. No direct mention of Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-NY), but he's apparently Client No. 9. He was brought down by the very kinds of prosecutorial tools that helped Spitzer rise to the pinnacle of New York politics. Stay classy governor, for what's going to be a very short remainder of your term in office. Reports and rumors suggest that he's likely to file his letter of resignation tonight and will be replaced by Lieutenant Governor David Paterson. (READ MORE)
A Soldier's Mind: Village Of Hope - After many months of being oppressed by al-Qaeda, many places around Iraq are beginning to come to life. The markets are reopened, citizens fill the streets without fearing for their lives and many people are returnng to work and school. In one community in southern Baghdad, that has never been so evident. The community of Hawr Rajab is returning to normalcy after months of being terrorized by al-Qaeda operatives. Because security in Hawr Rajab has improved so much, Troops and the Iraqis themselves are beginning to focus their attention on rebuilding the economy. One such rebuilding project, the “Village of Hope,” is a vocational school that is designed to teach the students attending there, the basics of construction. They recently had 50 students enroll for classes. (READ MORE)
Ace of Spades: Guess! That! Party!: The Lightning Round - This is fucking amazing. It's like they're not even bothering to hide it anymore. This is a slideshow by ABCNews displaying pictures of 13 politicians caught up in sex scandals. Check out the big brain on Piglito as he runs it down for us: “ABC News has a slideshow recounting 13 (12 involve elected officials) famous political sex scandals. The 12 break down thusly: five are Democrats, seven are Republicans. Of the Dems listed, only one is identified as a Democrat [one out of five]. Of the listed Repubs, six are IDed as Republican. [Six out of seven.] Media bias quantified.” (READ MORE)
Donald Douglas: In Search of the American Mind - “For more than a decade there have been growing symptoms of this affliction, from fundamentalist assaults on the teaching of evolution to the Bush administration’s willful disavowal of expert opinion on global warming and strategies for prosecuting the war in Iraq. Conservatives have turned the term ‘intellectual,’ like the term ‘liberal,’ into a dirty word in politics (even though neo-conservative intellectuals played a formative role in making the case for war against Iraq); policy positions tend to get less attention than personality and tactics in the current presidential campaign; and the democratizing influence of the Internet is working to banish expertise altogether, making everyone an authority on everything. Traditional policy channels involving careful analysis and debate have been circumvented by the Bush White House in favor of bold, gut-level calls, and reasoned public discussions have increasingly given way to noisy partisan warfare among politicians, commentators and bloggers alike.” Noisy partisan warfare? I'll say! Not only that, when everyone's an authority, nobody is. There goes that Ph.D. in political science! (READ MORE)
The Anchoress: Are alt energies harmful? Do we really need them? - The trend toward “clean” biofuels seems to be one that bears caution. We’re already seeing food prices soar (and the risk of hunger issues in third world countries worldwide) due to the rush to replace fossil fuels with grain. Now a troubling story of biofuel pollution: “After residents of the Riverbend Farms subdivision noticed that an oily, fetid substance had begun fouling the Black Warrior River, which runs through their backyards, Mark Storey, a retired petroleum plant worker, hopped into his boat to follow it upstream to its source. […] According to the National Biodiesel Board, a trade group, biodiesel is nontoxic, biodegradable and suitable for sensitive environments, but scientists say that position understates its potential environmental impact.” (READ MORE)
Baldilocks: My President--and Yours - There are many reasons that I’m glad to not be a liberal Democrat. One of them is that I'm relatively free of the mindset which produces the dilemma in which many black female Democrats find themselves just now: race or gender--which trumps which when one is trying to decide who will be the President of the entire United States? Which one should be taken into consideration more when one is trying to decide who will protect the entire country from enemies foreign and domestic? And—best of all—how will my pride in being a woman be affected if I choose the black (male) candidate? And what about the reverse? /irrelevancies Countless times have my Democrat relatives and acquaintances referred to President Bush as “your president” when discussing him with me. (READ MORE)
Bear Creek Ledger: Winter Soldier Redux - There’s another group of military detractors called IVAW (Iraq Veterans against the War) imitating John Kerry’s lying VVAW (Vietnam Veterans against the War). This group has all sorts of vague accusations about war atrocities, only this time the posers or fake soldiers have already been exposed. Most of the IVAW members reference stories they “heard” about but have no direct involvement. CJ at Soldier’s Perspective has an accounting of the upcoming Winter Soldier II taking place on March 13 - 16th and it’s members. This event will be just as disreputable as the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation led by now Senator John Kerry. However, this time around those testifying could be subject to a new law which was adopted in 2000 (for you Bush haters note this is during the Clinton Administration). (READ MORE)
Dafydd: The Power of the Big Idea: O'Billery Reduced to "Me Too!" - If Barack Obama represents the New Left and "youth" vote, while Hillary Clinton represents the Paleo-Left and gender-feminist vote, how can John McCain possibly compete? Simple, though not easy: He must lock up the "big idea" vote. Between now and the election, I want to see two big ideas per month come bubbling up out of the McCain campaign -- both foreign policy and domestic. Let the Democrats hog the headlines with an increasingly nasty and personal slugfest; McCain will slide into public consciousness with a high-minded campaign of real ideas to solve real, everyday problems bedeviling ordinary people... such as congressional corruption. And McCain's off to a grand start. Today, both Obama and Hillary were forced to chime in with a hearty "what he said" on the issue of congressional earmarks, those nasty bits of business where members of Congress steer federal money to specific home-district companies -- usually after said companies donate mucho dinero to the senator or congressman. (READ MORE)
Blue Star Chronicles: McCain Shoots Down Latest Rumor Started by the New York Times - As you know, the New York Times has been tying itself in knots trying to find SOMETHING on John McCain that they can hammer him with. They keep throwing rumors out there to see if something will stick. So far, nothing. There was the non-affair and the ‘but … but …. but …. he was born in the Panama Canal Zone!!!’. Then they tried to bait him into losing his temper and when he DIDN’T lose his temper but called the reporter on her baiting they played the video of that over and over and told people he had lost his temper. Frankly, if THAT is an example of him losing his temper than I’m pretty comfortable with that. He was obviously irritated, but definitely not out of control. Give me a break. That was not an example of a man losing his temper. Their latest is to try to revive people’s fears that he’ll succumb to cancer since he had a bout with it a few years ago. (READ MORE)
Jeffrey Imm: Jihad, Islamism, and the American Free Press - In the war with global Jihad, words and definitions matter, and in fighting anti-freedom ideologies, the free press and media should be America's greatest ally. Yet the confused and inconsistent reporting on Islamism and Islamist terrorism is another key fault line in America's struggles with global Jihad. Without a precise definition of the enemy by American political leadership, major segments of the American free press have made their own foreign policy decisions as to who is and is not an enemy, made their own decisions on what terms like "Islamism" and "Jihad" mean (if they use such terms at all), and largely provided "isolated incident"-style reporting on such subjects, with the exception of the largely anti-war colored reporting on Iraq. (READ MORE)
Don Surber: No recession? - Democrats will cry. Alex Veiga of the AP has some good news. Economists see a tough 2008 but no recession. Unemployment, now at 4.8%, may rise to 5.5%. Veiga cited the quarterly Anderson Forecast by UCLA. “We don’t see that happening,” said Edward Leamer, director and co-author of the forecast released Tuesday. “This is a tough call, but I will be very surprised if this thing actually precipitates into recession.” As with all academic studies, I am cautious. But when you are shedding jobs and unemployment goes down, that must mean productivity is up — and maybe illegal aliens are leaving. (READ MORE)
Ed Morrissey: Ferraro still shocked, shocked! to find identity politics in play - Usually, when a politician sticks a foot in her mouth, she endeavors to remove it as quickly and quietly as possible. Not Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a major-party presidential ticket, who rode Walter Mondale’s nomination to a big 1984 win — of one state. A week after asserting that Barack Obama would still be cooling his heels in the Senate if not for his race, she continued to sound that theme on behalf of her candidate, Hillary Clinton: “When the subject turned to Obama, Clinton’s rival for the Democratic Party nomination, Ferraro’s comments took on a decidedly bitter edge. ‘If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,’ she continued. ‘And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.’” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: Harvard prof: You know what Hillary’s “3 a.m.” ad reminds me of? Birth of a Nation - There had to be a murky racial subtext in there somewhere; every attack on Obama contains one if you’re just willing to look hard enough. I thought TPM would be the ones to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but instead it’s Orlando Patterson, drinking in a critique of a black candidate that features sleeping non-black children and concluding, naturally enough, that it’s quasi-Klan propaganda. “I have spent my life studying the pictures and symbols of racism and slavery, and when I saw the Clinton ad’s central image — innocent sleeping children and a mother in the middle of the night at risk of mortal danger — it brought to my mind scenes from the past. I couldn’t help but think of D. W. Griffith’s ‘Birth of a Nation,’ the racist movie epic that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, with its portrayal of black men lurking in the bushes around white society.” (READ MORE)
Matthew Levitt: Globalized jihad, then (1993) and now - Fifteen years from now, when classified documents produced today begin to be declassified, we will surely look back with some discomfort and see just how far off some of our judgments were when written in 2008. Such is the nature of intelligence assessments. What would be worse, however, would be for us to look back fifteen years hence and find ourselves stuck in much the same place we are today. This reflection is prompted by reading a recently declassified August 1993 report, “The Wandering Mujahid: Armed and Dangerous,” written by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). Its subject was the possible spillover effect of Afghan Mujahidin fighters and support networks moving on to fight in other jihad conflicts, alongside other militant Islamic groups worldwide. Much of the report could be applied to the themes Daniel Byman raises in a recent post on this blog, about Al Qaeda in Iraq. (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin: Anarchists heart the Times Square biker bomber - Yesterday, I told you about multiple threats against pro-military activists headed to Washington, D.C. this week to counter the anti-war mob and spotlighted the Left’s continuing silence about the escalating war on military recruiters. Today, I point you to a “solidarity sticker” that was distributed at last week’s national anarchist conference (no joke) in Washington, D.C.: These people are truly, truly unhinged. Preparations continue for the counter-demonstrations I’ve been telling you about. More from Eagles Up about the so-called “Winter Soldier II” hearings: (READ MORE)
Patterico: A Challenge to Nullification Proponents - Those of you who think that juries should be allowed to judge the fairness of the law as well as whether the defendant is guilty: answer me this. If you’re going to judge something, shouldn’t you be given all the facts relevant to that decision? Because you aren’t getting them under the current jury system. So, for example, if you’re going to take it upon yourself to decide whether to vote guilty or not based on the sentence you think the defendant will get, shouldn’t you be told exactly what the sentencing options are, and the full details of the defendant’s record — including the facts of his previous offenses and how long he spent in prison for each offense? Shouldn’t you be told about similarly situated defendants and what they received? You aren’t getting those facts under the current jury system. (READ MORE)
Pros and Cons: Why Democrats’ talk of multi-lateralism and smarter, more cooperative foreign policy is just that - talk - Colombia, a US ally through and through, and a nation that just exposed: “There is a third explanation for Mr. Chávez’s panic when he learned of the strike: He was alarmed about the possibility that his links with Reyes would be exposed. Sure enough, when the Colombian national police retrieved Reyes’s body from Ecuador, it also brought back several computers from the camp. Documents on those laptops show that Mr. Chávez and Reyes were not only ideological comrades, but also business partners and political allies in the effort to wrest power from Mr. Uribe. <…> Though it is far from clear, Colombian national police speculated from this that a dirty bomb could be in the making. An April 2007 letter to the FARC secretariat lays out the terrorists’ effort to acquire missiles from Lebanon. When Viktor Bout, allegedly one of the world’s most notorious arms traffickers, was arrested in Thailand on Thursday, the Spanish-language press reported that he was located thanks to the Reyes computer files. The maneuvers of thugs seeking power are no surprise. The more significant revelation is the relationship between the FARC and Mr. Chávez” really, the slimy relationship between Latin America’s ‘new left’ and some really dreadful drug-running terrorists, is now public enemy number one for Congressional Democrats (see below). (READ MORE)
Kim Zigfeld: Our New Paper of Record - I continue to be favorably impressed by the way the Washington Post is covering Russia these days. For my money, the Post has wrestled the moniker "Paper of Record" away from the New York Times. As I've previously noted, the Post reported prominently on the fate of leading Russian opposition leader Oleg Kozlovsky after he was illegally drafted into the Russian army as a means of halting his activism in the run-up to the presidential elections, while the Times ignored the story. And now the Post is leading the way in calling for NATO to extend its protections to former Soviet slave states like Ukraine and Georgia which are now facing relentless Russian imperialist attacks. In an editorial last Saturday, the Post stated: (READ MORE)
McQ: Canada’s "Blacklock Principle" soon to be the US’s? - In the past I’ve made several attempts to point out that once government has control over your health care, it will use all sorts of justifications and excuses to exert more and more control over your life as a result. As libertarian, I don’t wear seat belts because the government says I should. I wear them because I think they are a critical safety device for any rational human being who drives an automobile. I feel the same way about a motorcycle helmet and would wear one even in a state which doesn’t require them. In both of these cases I think the choice to do so should be mine, not government’s. But as you’ll see in the following story, the rationalization for taking those choices away from you once government pays for your medical care is quite easily done. From Canada’s National Post: (READ MORE)
The Redhunter: Book Review - U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24 - In a way this is the oddest "book" I have reviewed. For one, it's not really a book at all in the traditional sense, but more a manual, and a government publication at that. It's written for the soldier, marine, and to a lesser extent airman, yet is vital for civilians and policymakers. It's also freely available for download on the internet; a quick search in google and it yours free of charge (I purchased mine hardcopy from Amazon). Lastly, it's a government publication. There is also no single author, and other than one appendix no one is given direct credit for any section. The The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (For the Army, it is referred to as "FM 3-24". For the Marines, "Warfighting Publication 3-33.5") was released on December 15, 2006, and has been the bible for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan during the "surge" of 2007 (READ MORE)
Reverse Spin: David Wilhelm, Teflon man - Like a hit-and-run driver who helped cause a massive pile up on the freeway, David Wilhelm has left a mess behind in Illinois and the state and national media won’t ask him about it. Wilhelm is doing interviews these days in Ohio as a supporter of Barack Obama, that guy who is lecturing us on cleaning up government. It would be a perfect time for journalists to ask David about a giant Illinois scandal he was part of, but that hasn’t happened yet. Wilhelm was Rod Blagojevich’s campaign chairman in 2002. He also headed Blagojevich’s transition team as he took office in 2003 after defeating former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan. The Tony Rezko trial that is taking place in downtown Chicago is about the massive corruption related to the Blagojevich fundraising operation in 2003 and 2004. (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: A Tawdry Greek Tragedy - hubris [hyoo-bris, hoo-] – noun excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance. Eliot Spitzer is not the first, nor will he be the last, person brought low by the machinations of his own desires. It is a classic tragedian theme since the ancient Greeks. Two years ago in The Suicidal Pursuit of Perfection I described a fragment of the treatment of a very bright, sophisticated, angry feminist, who insisted upon living as if the world adhered to the rules she demanded rather than the imperfect world of reality as it actually existed. The early months of her 4 day a week treatment felt like a gauntlet in which she decried my inability to help her, daily expanded upon the ways in which I was inadequate (in all spheres) and attempted to provoke me to attack and fail her as so many men had before. After several months of what felt increasingly like a stalemate, her analysis truly began: (READ MORE)
Socrates' Academy: The Virtue of Liberality - There is a virtue that has fallen on hard times. The virtue of Liberality is that trait in a person willing to share with others and to extend grace, to assume the best in others, even against the evidence of past behavior. It is trust in the goodness of others, and a willingness to give more than one gets in return. It's a fine trait, a high virtue. But like all virtues, it is not observed in the excess. That is, it is not virtue but folly to be found in one who gives away the rent money. Another connotation of liberal thinking is the eager acceptance of new ideas and ways, even if nothing can be found wrong with the old ideas or ways. (READ MORE)
MasterGunner: Fifteen Months (Part One) - As you all know, I'm back. First thing's first: I want to send my most sincere thanks to Ros, Tracy, A_C, and everyone else who contributed for their hard work while I was gone. I honestly don't know how Tanker Brothers would have continued in my absence without your hard work and tireless efforts. Second: I want to thank YOU, the readers, for checking this every day and reading some of the incredible stories and articles that have been shared here. I especially want to thank you for your comments on here, and for your letters and prayers while my brother and I were gone. Every day that went by in Iraq, I was more and more convinced that Tanker Brothers was a family that pulled together while we were gone. (READ MORE)
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