PrairiePundit

Salute comparisons

The 9-10 Dems Mark Steyn: ... ...the real distinction is not between pro- and anti-war, but between September 11 Americans and September 10 Americans. The latter group is a coalition embracing not just the hardcore Bush haters - for whom, as the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 makes plain, it all goes back to chads in Florida - but the larger group of voters who've been a little stressed out by the epic nature of politics these last three years and would like a quieter life. That's what John Kerry's offering them: a return to September 10. He doesn't quite put it like that, of course. He talks about an America "strong" and "respected" and all the other poll-tested words, while the Democratic platform asserts that Republicans "do not understand that real leadership means standing by your principles and rallying others to join you". Say what you like about Bush, but on Iraq he stood by his principles and rallied the British, Au

Veterans who do not respect Kerry Sunday Telegraph: John Kerry stepped straight from his coronation stage in Boston into a political firefight yesterday over his relentless use of fellow Vietnam veterans to bolster his campaign . As the Democratic presidential candidate began the long march with his 'band of brothers' towards the November elections, he was ambushed by a second group of navy veterans who, like him, fought on Swift Boats on the Mekong Delta - but who dissent from Sen Kerry's own account of his war record. Rear-Adml Roy Hoffmann, who ran the Swift Boat campaign, said: 'I do not believe that John Kerry is fit to be commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States. This is not a political issue. It is a matter of judgment, truthfulness, reliability, loyalty and trust - all absolute tenets of command.' Adml Hoffman, who is now retired, leads a group of fellow officers calling themselves the 'Swift Boat Veterans fo

What is Kerry's policy on first strike? Belmont Club: ... If a combination of failures could produce false warning signatures not just in the United States but in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, what standard of proof would a President Kerry require where indications of imminence are not 2,200 missile booster flares but human intelligence or chatter gleaned from intercepted signals? We now know that not only Western intelligence, but Arab capitals were convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in the days prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, a consensus unlikely to be matched by any operational warning a President Kerry would have available to him. General Tommy Franks says that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah both told him that Saddam had WMDs and would use them against Frank's command if he invaded Iraq. In an interview with Parade, the former CENTCOM CINC said: The biggest surprise for him was that th

War is more than a mood Amir Taheri: FOREIGN policy was expected to be at the center of this year's duel between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry. Kerry, in accepting the Democratic nomination on Thursday, raised expectations by admitting that America was "a nation at war." Nevertheless, Kerry's speech of more that 5,200 words devoted only around 500 words to foreign-policy in general and the war against terrorism in particular. Even then, Kerry used those words for sloganeering. Kerry's speech revealed a man who, though vaguely conscious that the world has changed, prefers to assume that it has not. "The world tonight is very different from the world of four years ago," Kerry told the convention. "We are a nation at war — a global war on terror against an enemy unlike any we have known before." Yet Kerry did not say in what ways the world is different. And when it came to dealing with this different world

Al Qaeda takedown NY Post Editorial: The arrest in Pakistan of top al Qaeda operative Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is a significant reminder that — despite what you might have heard from the folks up in Boston this week — America and its allies are making real progress in the War on Terror. Ghailani, a 30-year-old Tanzanian who ranked high on the FBI's list of the 22 most wanted Islamist terrorists, is the biggest find since Pakistani officials last year nabbed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Ghailani is under indictment in Manhattan, facing a possible death sentence, for his role in the 1998 twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya — which took 224 innocent lives, most of them his fellow Africans. According to the FBI, which had placed a $5 million price on his head, Ghailani bought the truck that was used in the attack on the embassay in Dar-es-Salaam and loaded it with the bomb elements. He's also played a key ro

Marines not impresed with Kerry NY Post: John Kerry's heavily hyped cross-country bus tour stumbled out of the blocks yesterday, as a group of Marines publicly dissed the Vietnam War hero in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Kerry was treating running mate Sen. John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, to a Wendy's lunch in Newburgh, N.Y., for their 27th wedding anniversary — an Edwards family tradition — when the candidate approached four Marines and asked them questions. The Marines — two in uniform and two off-duty — were polite but curt while chatting with Kerry, answering most of his questions with a "yes, sir" or "no, sir." But they turned downright nasty after the Massachusetts senator thanked them "for their service" and left. "He imposed on us and I disagree with him coming over here shaking our hands," one Marine said, adding, "I'm 100 percent against [him]." A sergeant with 10 years of service und

Kerry the neocon David Brooks: There were so many military men at the Democratic convention I almost expected John Kerry to mount the stage in full body armor and recite the war speech from "Henry V." As it is, he called for bulking up the military, doubling the size of the Special Forces and crushing the terrorists. He hit Bush from the right, and when he got around to bashing the Saudis, I thought I'd wandered into a big meeting of The Weekly Standard editorial board. Not only that, Kerry's speech followed an all-hawk medley. Gen. John Shalikashvili called for appreciably increasing the size of the Army. Joe Lieberman called for muscular and idealistic internationalism. Joe Biden said we must "win the death struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism." Gen. Wesley Clark said we're in "a life or death struggle" against terrorists seeking nuclear weapons. John Edwards gave a speech that eschewed talk about Halliburton, W

A breach of faith Zell Miller: ... Worst of all, Sens. Kerry and Edwards have not kept faith with the men and women who are fighting the war on terror--most of whom come from small towns and middle-class families all over America. While Mr. Bush has stood by our troops every step of the way, Messrs. Kerry and Edwards voted to send our troops to war and then voted against the money to give them supplies and equipment--not to mention better benefits for their families. And recently Mr. Kerry even said he's proud of that vote. Proud to abandon our troops when they're out in the field? I can hear Harry Truman cussing from his grave.

The politics of fraud Some liberals are already asking if conservatives will be as angry if Kerry wins as liberals are with George Bush. Based on Kerry's current campaign, the answer would probably be yes. The rank dishonesty combined with pompous arrogance is enough to anger anyone who wants to see an honest debate on the issues. Kerry's assertion that Bush mislead the country into war is patently false. To mislead you have to know the facts are "x" and say they are "y." Since President Bush was saying the same thing that President Clinton said and John Kerry said about Saddam's WMD you would have to conclude that Kerry was either trying to mislead the country into war too or he is trying to mislead the country about Bush now. This whole "Bush lied" nonsense is leftest fantasy disguised as argument. It is mainly pushed by people who also believed that Saddam had WMD and they still did not want to liberate Iraq. Their logic no

The salute Outside the Beltway: The opening salute with "reporting for duty" was lame beyond words. Jay Severin, interviewed on the Don Imus show this morning, observed that it was more "Village People" than "John Wayne." I must concur. Not only was it incredibly hokey but it was one of the most half-hearted, limp wristed salutes of all time. Didn't the Navy teach the man how to render a hand salute? Plus, while I get that he's apparently basing his entire campaign on the facts that 1) he went to Vietnam and 2) he's not George W. Bush, I'm constantly bemused that a man who has been in the public spotlight for thirty-odd years wants us to think that he left Vietnam and suddenly emerged last week wanting to be president. His entire political career has been elided for the purposes of the campaign. I honestly can't recall a presidential nominee who didn't point to any achievements from his adult career. Joynor all

Al Qaeda "crumbling" after arrest of embassy bomber Reuters: A top al Qaeda operative, one of the world's most wanted men, has been captured in Pakistan and a senior government minister said Friday that the network supporting Osama bin Laden was crumbling. The Tanzanian-born Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani had a $5 million reward on his head, and is wanted by the United States for his role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed 224 people. Investigators are scouring a computer and several disks seized when they captured Ghailani and 13 others after a 14-hour gunbattle with security forces last weekend in the city of Gujarat, 110 miles southeast of Islamabad, intelligence sources told Reuters Friday. Pakistan's Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told Reuters he was sure the African would prove a rich source of information on the al Qaeda network that is supporting the fugitive bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri.

Kerry prevokes criticism Lileks: ... ... Later tuned in to some highlights from the Kerry speech. He said he would respond if America was attacked. Well, duh. I take something else from this distinction: he will not attack if America is provoked . "I defended this country as a young man, and I will defend it as President." This really intrigues me. I agree that Vietnam was a defense of the United States, inasmuch as we were trying to blunt the advance of Communism. So: only Nixon can go to China. (Only Kirk can go to Chronos, for you Star Trek geeks.) Only Kerry can confirm that Vietnam was a just war. This completely upends conventional wisdom about the Vietnamese war, and requires a certain amount of historical amnesia. Why does this get glossed over? The illegitimacy of the Vietnam war (non-UN approved, after all) is a key doctrine of the Church of the Boomers; to say that service in Vietnam was done in defen

Dems bright shining lie David Horowitz: Now we can understand why Democrats spent the last year attacking the President as someone who lied to take America into an unnecessary war and destroy brave young American lives for his corporate friends in Texas. They did it to disarm and anesthetize us, to deconstruct the very idea of what truth is or what a fact is or what is is -- and prepare us for the most shameless charade in political memory, the phoniest convention for the phoniest party ever to mount an American electoral stage. In Boston the Democrats -- the party of Al Sharpton, Jimmy Carter, Teddy Kennedy and Michael Moore -- presented themselves as the party of patriotism and military glory and American military strength, and John Kerry as a man whose life has been one long preparation to be commander-in-chief. "I am John Kerry," he saluted his audience to begin his convention speech, "reporting for duty." Pardon me while I hurl. This is a man who

Strategic myopia NY Post Editorial: Give John Forbes Kerry credit for being honest as he accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president last night. Because in his 55 minutes at the mike, he was truthful about how he'd fight the War on Terror. He won't. "The United States never goes to war because we want to," Kerry said. "We only go to war because we have to." At best, this is a gross calumny: President Bush never "wanted" war — and it is repugnant even to hint otherwise. At worst, it is telling evidence of a profound misunderstanding of America's proper place in a fractious world. It is a world in which new forces — hostile to America and its commitment to freedom and human dignity — were unleashed as the four-decade-long standoff between superpowers came to an end. Those forces need to be confronted. Let's be frank: John Kerry spent four months in Vietnam — and an entir

Between Rhetoric and reality Debra Saunders: AT THE DEMOCRATIC National Convention, the gulf between rhetoric and reality is breathtaking. John Kerry and his surrogates have spent the week telling America that if Kerry and John Edwards are elected, America will not go to war, as the script reads, "because we want to, we only go to war because we have to." But Sens. Kerry and Edwards did not have to vote in favor of the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. Yet they did. Now they say they were misled -- which suggests that they now think America didn't have to go to war. Why should Americans listen to them now? Bottom line: The Democratic Party did not have to nominate a candidate who supported the war, but Democratic voters for some reason chose to do so. Item: According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, three-quarters of Democratic voters opposed the war. Item: The same poll found that 86 percent of convention deleg

Kerry's big idea John Podhoretz: ... The speech, like the Democratic Convention that it concluded, was spectacularly disingenuous. Kerry and the Democrats kept insisting that they were taking the high road and that they were accentuating the positive. "In the weeks ahead," Kerry said directly to President Bush last night, "let's be optimists, not just opponents. Let's build unity in the American family, not angry division. Let's honor this nation's diversity; let's respect one another. . . . The high road may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And that's why Republicans and Democrats must make this election a contest of big ideas, not small-minded attacks." That's wonderful. But that passage came only after Kerry had launched an astonishing volley of highly incendiary charges at George W. Bush and his administration. He directly accused Bush of fighting a war not because it was in thi

Kerry's incoherence on preemption Washington Times Editorial: ... Mr. Kerry, by contrast, has been all over the map on pre-emption over the past two years. In his Oct. 9, 2002, Senate floor speech endorsing the use of force against Saddam Hussein, Mr. Kerry made a powerful implicit case for pre-emption. "In the wake of September 11, who among us can say that this master of miscalculation will not develop a weapon of mass destruction even greater — a nuclear weapon — then reinvade Kuwait, push the Kurds out, attack Israel, any number of scenarios? ... [C]an we afford to ignore the possibility that Saddam Hussein might accidentally, as well as purposely, allow those weapons to slide off to one group or other in a region where weapons are the currency of trade? How do we leave that to chance?" Yet, minutes later, Mr. Kerry blithely asserted that the resolution he was about to vote for did not represent an endorsement of the Bush pre-emption doctrine.

Kerry's speech not important For specific commentary try the Corner . Whatever Kerry says he will find a pompous way to avoid if it becomes inconvient. By the way, aren't US troops still in the Balkins even after Clinton's "brilliant" plans for victory. For a man who self riotiously says it would be irresponsible not to vote to support the troops then votes against supporting the troops what difference does anything he says mean. What ever the issue he will be for-again.

A Bush basher make sthe case for Bush Tom Junod: ... As easy as it is to say that we can't abide the president because of the gulf between what he espouses and what he actually does , what haunts me is the possibility that we can't abide him because of us—because of the gulf between his will and our willingness. What haunts me is the possibility that we have become so accustomed to ambiguity and inaction in the face of evil that we find his call for decisive action an insult to our sense of nuance and proportion. The people who dislike George W. Bush have convinced themselves that opposition to his presidency is the most compelling moral issue of the day. Well, it's not. The most compelling moral issue of the day is exactly what he says it is, when he's not saying it's gay marriage. The reason he will be difficult to unseat in November—no matter what his approval ratings are in the summer—is that his opponents operate out of the moral cert

Woman admits she entered US illegally CNN: Authorities have detained a woman who had six pages ripped from her passport and are investigating whether she has ties to terrorist organizations, government officials said Wednesday. Authorities arrested the woman, who identified herself as Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed, on July 19 in Texas, and are trying to confirm her identity and nationality. ... According to an FBI affidavit filed in the case, Customs and Border Protection agents questioned Ahmed last week at the airport in McAllen, Texas, after she tried to board a flight to New York. They discovered that her South African passport had missing pages and lacked a stamp for entry into the United States. When asked if she had a U.S. visa, Ahmed said she had left it in New York, the affidavit said. According to the affidavit, however, she does not have a current visa. Michael Shelby, the U.S. attorney in Houston, said Ahmed previously had a visa to the

Al Qaeda suspect caught at Texas border airport Federal News Radio: A South African woman picked up in Texas almost 10 days ago may turn out to be a key, high-level al-Qaida operative. Her name is Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed. She was stopped at McAllen Miller International Airport on July 19. She was headed to New York. Eddie Flores of the U.S. Border Patrol office in McAllen, Texas, tells FederalNewsRadio.com that a review of her papers raised some concerns. "In looking at her documents, they did not find any entry documents in her passport where she was legally admitted into the United States," says Flores. Ahmed produced a South African passport to the agents with four pages torn out, and with no U.S. entry stamps. Ahmed reportedly later confessed to investigators that she entered the country illegally by crossing the Rio Grande River. Ahmed was carrying travel itineraries showing a July 8 flight from Johannesburg, South Africa, to London. Six days later,

Veterans not mentioned at convention Drudge Report: ... Capped by Kerry's primetime speech to accept the Democratic Party's nomination, Thursday's program will include appearances and remarks by Kerry's Swift Boat crewmates, the Kerry-Edwards campaign announced in a press release this morning. But a group of veterans will soon try to convince a nation how what is presented on the convention stage tonight -- may not be the full story: "Only 2 of John Kerry's 23 fellow Swift boat commanders from Coastal Division 11 support his candidacy today." A new bombshell book written by the man who took over John Kerry's Swift Boat charges: Two of John Kerry's three Purple Heart decorations (#1 and #3) resulted from self-inflicted wounds, not suffered under enemy fire. The startling Purple Heart accusations, outlined in detail for the first time, are found in UNFIT FOR COMMAND, Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.

Manufacturing fear (of Bush) Lileks: ... As Teddy Kennedy said in his convention speech: “The only thing we have to fear is four more years of George Bush.” It’s really quite simple, isn’t it? We live in a manufactured climate of fear ginned up by war-crazed neocon overlords. There is no threat. The only thing we have to fear is Bush, who sits as we speak in the Oval Office sucking the marrow from Whoopi’s shin-bones. If so, I wonder why anyone agreed to the stringent security policies that characterize this year’s conventions. Why the bomb-sniffing dogs? Why the snipers? Why the metal detectors, the invasive inspection of bags? Is it all an elaborate defense against Bush crashing the party and setting off a bomb belt, shouting God is Great, y’all! No, they’re fearful of something else.

From the General who did not want to go after bin Laden Jeff Babin: General Shalikashvili's shallow shilling exercise last night left me a bit puzzled. Shalikashvili is a real warrior, or was. And he's a very bright man. Or was. While chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he encouraged the development of the joint operations doctrine that we now call "netword centric warfare." On the modern battlefield, all our forces--air, land, sea and space--are combined at the strategic and tactical levels, enabling the application of firepower more quickly and more intensely than the world has ever seen before. It's that "jointness" in strategy, equipment and tactics that enables us to win so quickly, with so few casualties. Last night, he bought into the Clintonian theme of the convention: We can't win this fight alone. Two things are wrong with that. First, we can. If we have the political will to do what needs to be done, we can win the war against t

Dems biggest contributor is alleged to have mob ties ABC News: As Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards arrived in Boston today for the Democratic National Convention, so did the California man who is their single biggest contributor. He is Stephen Bing, a wealthy film producer who, with little fanfare, has managed to steer a total of more than $16 million of his money to Democratic candidates and the supposedly independent groups that support them. ... In fact, Democratic Party officials said they knew nothing about the man who law enforcement officials tell ABC News is Bing's friend and business partner — Dominic Montemarano, a New York Mafia figure currently in federal prison on racketeering charges. Montemarano has a long criminal record and is known to organized crime investigators by his street name, Donnie Shacks. "Donnie Shacks' main activity was murder. No question about it. That was his main function for the Colombo fa

Kerry to undecideds--"I am one of you" Scrappleface parody: In a leaked excerpt of the nomination acceptance speech John Forbes Kerry will deliver tonight at the Democrat convention, the presidential candidate will tell undecided voters: "I'm one of you." Political strategists agree the message should resonate with the independent and undecided Americans who Democrats and Republicans alike view as their most valued constituency. "If you don't know for whom you should vote, or how you stand on the important issues of our day," Mr. Kerry will say, "you have a brother in John Kerry. I'm one of you."

Onward Muslim soldiers BBC: US and Iraqi officials have given a cautious welcome to a Saudi proposal for a new military force drawn exclusively from Muslim countries. US Secretary of State Colin Powell described the idea as interesting. Meanwhile Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi called on the leaders of Arab countries to close ranks to help Iraq. A number of Islamic nations have been approached and further discussions will be held, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has said. This could raise an interesting dilemma for the kidnapping strategy of the terrorist. Cutting Muslim throats is not likely to build support in the Muslim community. The proper reaction to the kidnappings is for the countries involved to increase their support for Iraq. Making the kidnapping counter productive will stop it quicker.

What Kennedy fears Jonah Goldberg: Kennedy could have declared, in that booming, back-of-the-bar voice, "Ladies and gentlemen. There is no parking in the red zone!" And these delegates would have cheered wildly. Instead, he declared —à la FDR — "The only thing we have to fear is four more years of George W. Bush" — an odd statement from a party determined to prove that it takes the terrorist threat seriously.

Slippery bluster Jeff Jacoby: ... All candidates are slippery sometimes. But Kerry is slippery as a matter of course. His rhetoric may be forceful, even aggressive, but his positions don't stay still. In Boston yesterday, the Republican Party released an 11-minute compilation of Kerry's ever-shifting stands on Iraq. It is a remarkable video -- both for the sheer number of Kerry's lurches on the war and because of the adamance with which he expresses incompatible views. (Kerry in July 2002: "I agree completely with this administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq." Kerry in August 2003: "The fact is, in the resolution that we passed, we did not empower the president to do regime change.") It is a hallmark of Kerry's political career: Rarely does he take a stand and hold his ground -- not if there may be a price to pay for doing so. A John McCain he isn't. The blunt truth about Kerry the 60-year-old politician is

Dems still embrace discredited Wilson Deborah Orin: DEMOCRAT John Kerry's campaign yesterday gave a ringing endorsement to Bush-bashing Ambassador Joe Wilson — even though a bipartisan Senate committee just found so many holes in his story that even his own wife won't back it up. Wilson claimed President Bush lied about whether Saddam Hussein was seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger, and Wilson knew it because the CIA sent him there. The Senate report says, if anything, the truth is the opposite of what Wilson claimed. But that doesn't seems to bother the Kerryites, who yesterday hailed Wilson's "integrity" and said he's still very much a part of the team that Kerry hopes will make him commander in chief. "Joe Wilson has served for many months as an informal adviser to the Kerry campaign and continues to do so," said Kerry foreign policy adviser Susan Rice. "As far as I know, we have no reason to believe that Mr. Wilson

Shaky convergence David Broder: The Democrats have convinced most of the journalists covering their convention here that their party has eliminated most of its internal differences. That is true, unless you count the gap between the party's head and its heart. ... It shows in startling clarity when you ask: What do Democrats really believe? The answer for the activist heart of the party is suggested by a Boston Globe poll of a cross section of 400 delegates. As the Globe reported, 80 percent of them say they opposed the decision to start the war in Iraq and 95 percent oppose it now. Unlike Kerry, 62 percent support gay and lesbian marriage. Almost nine out of 10 describe themselves as supporters of gun control. Similar surveys at earlier Democratic conventions have confirmed that the activists -- the people who have done enough work in their communities and states to claim a delegate badge as their reward -- are not only to the left of

Dems bogus charge of underfunding education John McCaslin: Leaders of the Democratic Party have charged repeatedly that federal education-reform initiatives such as President Bush 's No Child Left Behind Act are "underfunded." Well, says Rep. John A. Boehner , Ohio Republican and chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee, get a load of these apples. The chairman has produced new Education Department figures showing that states have access to more than $16 billion in "unspent" federal education funds — including more than a half-billion dollars appropriated during President Clinton 's administration.

Airlines filling seats Washington Times: World airline traffic has climbed just above the levels of the industry's last "normal" year in 2000, before international air travel collapsed from the September 11 terrorist attacks, the economic slump and the SARS crisis. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said yesterday that the outlook for the rest of 2004 also is good, with double-digit growth expected for the year. Passenger traffic was 20.4 percent higher for the first six months of the year compared with a year earlier, while cargo traffic was 13 percent higher, IATA said. The number of passengers was 8.4 percent higher than in 2000. This is bad news for Democrats and the terrorist. Higher traffic is a reflection of the growing economy as well as a customers who are no longer terrorized.

Dull Dems turn off viewers Reuters via NY Times: With roughly 10 percent fewer Americans watching than four years ago, the Democratic convention may be headed for an all-time low in TV viewership for a national party meeting, according to ratings issued on Wednesday. ... The critics say that adding insult to injury, network journalists are conveying a message that viewers are missing out on little. ``You have to take a speed-yawning course to get through some of this stuff,'' CBS News anchor Dan Rather told the Dallas Morning News. ``If we were on for three hours a night, in a lot of places a test pattern would get better ratings.'' In a journal entry posted on the CBSNews.com Web site, Rather further lamented, ``This convention really is duller than those ... held four years ago. Inside the (convention) hall, it's scripted down to the nanosecond.''

Destroying the Dems Scrappleface Parody: President George Bush today threatened to destroy the Democrat party with "endless waves of exploding Republican martyrs in order to cleanse the earth of the poisonous evil of liberalism." The statement from the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign confirmed what Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-MA, told delegates last night at the Democrat convention in Boston: "The only thing we have to fear is four more years of George Bush." "There is no greater terrorist in this world," said Mr. Kennedy, "than the fundamentalist religious zealot who has hijacked the White House and would welcome even death if it resulted in the obliteration of our Democrat way of life." The senior senator from Massachusetts said the Bush threat should make Democrats ponder the question, "Why do they hate us?" "If we retaliate against George Bush, we'll only help his recruiting," said Mr. Ke

Thank you Hollywood? Brothersjudd: Hilarious note in Entertainment Weekly: Liev Schreiber is filming a book called Everything is Illuminated and went out of his way to hire an aspiring Iraqi filmmaker who he'd seen on MTV's True Life : "We felt really guilty about what our country had done to his country," says producer Peter Saraf. "And then, of course, he gets here, and it never occurred to me that he would say something like 'But I love George Bush--he changed my life!'"

Catching up with lies about the Patriot Act PAUL ROSENZWEIG: Falsehood, according to Mark Twain's famous dictum, gets halfway around the world before the truth even gets its shoes on. Time and again, outlandish stories seem to grow legs and find wide distribution before the truth can catch up. A good example is the USA Patriot Act. It's so broadly demonized now you'd never know it passed with overwhelming support in the days immediately after Sept. 11, 2001. Critics paint the Patriot Act as a cauldron of abuse and a threat to civil liberties. Advocacy groups run ads depicting anonymous hands tearing up the Constitution and a tearful old man fearful to enter a bookstore. Prominent politicians who voted for the act call for a complete overhaul, if not outright repeal. But the truth is catching up. And the first truth is that the Patriot Act was absolutely vital to protect America's security. Before 9/11, our law enforcement and intelligence ag

Some blacks may sit out election Zev Chavets: On Sunday, I was sitting in a rear pew of the Allen Memorial Church of Mount Vernon, ears still tingling from two hours of inspired gospel music, when I heard the Rev. Carlton Spruill compare the Democratic Party to Sodom and Gomorrah. "George Bush is a meanspirited man," Spruill declared. "He's gone back on his promises about faith-based charity. Everybody knows he's lying about Iraq. But the Democratic Party supports same-sex marriage. Homosexuality is a perversion that will destroy America, just as it destroyed Rome and Sodom and Gomorrah. If the Democrats are right about same-sex marriage, then God has to apologize to Sodom. And God's not about to apologize." The congregation responded with applause and amens. "I know that voting is a precious right," Spruill told them. "But this time I don't see how I can vote. Sometimes you've just got to sit out an election."

Making the ludicrous sound profound Jonah Goldberg: "The Republicans in Washington believe that America should be run by the right people — their people," Bill Clinton declared to thunderous applause here Monday night. Rarely has a more banal statement been offered with such an air of truth-telling bravado. Here's more news for you: Catholics believe that the Pope should be ... Catholic! And, just in case the point is lost on you, Democrats in Washington believe that America should be run by — wait for it — Democrats! Of course, Clinton is a master of making the ludicrous sound profound — when talking about himself — and damning when talking about others. This was, after all, the president who made school uniforms sound like an issue of world-historical significance. But given the Children of the Corn -like mesmerization of the Democratic delegates who flocked to Clinton like lemmings to a cliff (and the groaning Clinton nostalgia of the media), it'

Politics of hate Tony Blankley: ... What is one to make of a political party in which, according to the Boston Globe, more than 90 percent of the delegates oppose the Iraq war — the defining issue of this election — while the candidate and the platform support it. And there isn't even a murmur of complaint? The easy answer is that it's just about power. The Democrats will do anything to get back into power, so it is said. But that is not it. Of course, both the Democratic and Republican parties can't stand being out of power and yearn to regain the power, the patronage and the sheer pleasure of being in office. But until now, neither party has been willing to go against its most heartfelt convictions to gain power. No, I think the clever boys and girls in the backroom of the Democratic Party have created a monster in this carefully manufactured Bush-hatred. Let's remember where this hatred started — in Florida. From Al Gore, through the De

Bad news for Dems Washington Times: Consumer confidence surged to a two-year high this month as Americans took note of the steadily improving job market, the Conference Board reported yesterday. Job gains have averaged about 200,000 a month this year after three years of job losses. But consumers — distracted by record-high gasoline prices and problems in Iraq — were slow to notice the trend until gas prices eased this month. The better job prospects have helped to keep home sales at record levels despite higher interest rates. New-home sales stayed just shy of a record annual rate of 1.33 million last month, the Commerce Department reported yesterday, while existing-home sales jumped to a new high of nearly 7 million. Double-digit gains in home prices in Washington and other areas have helped to bolster confidence while increasing household wealth and purchasing power. And while the surge in home sales since March partly reflects a rush to market