Sunday, November 05, 2006

Check Out the New Site!

I don't know if I have enough readers to get my own domain, but I figured I'd take the shot. I imported all of the posts and comments, so this site is just here for posterity's sake. See you there!

www.pos51.org

Friday, November 03, 2006

Ain't It the Truth?

Dan K. Thomasson, Scripps Howard News Service:

"Kerry should not be let off the hook easily. ... The senator is enough of a political veteran to have known that his remarks could be easily construed as an attack on those who volunteer for military duty, especially with his history. Even if he meant only to imply that Bush was stupid, he had to have been aware that the president's record at Yale University was better than his. ... Under the circumstances, he should not be making jokes about intellectual acuity."
Mm-hmm.

And while I'm talking about Kerry, liberal and Democratic bloggers, columnists and TV hosts have made it very clear that we should realize that Kerry meant to insult President Bush. So his mistake shouldn't be held against him, because we all know what he meant.

But this brings me back to the Mitt Romney and Tony Snow "tar-baby" incidents. They both meant it as an innocuous reference to a "sticky situation". The term originated in a Brer Rabbit story. But everybody went crazy. So we only judge Democrats based on intent?

Thank You, New York Times

So, in the new tradition of liberals accidentally speaking the truth that will hurt their cause, the New York Times has now told the world that Saddam Hussein was really pursuing nuclear technology. Their own words:

"Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away." "

In September, the Web site began posting the nuclear documents, and some soon raised concerns. On Sept. 12, it posted a document it called “Progress of Iraqi nuclear program circa 1995.” That description is potentially misleading since the research occurred years earlier.

The Iraqi document is marked “Draft FFCD Version 3 (20.12.95),” meaning it was preparatory for the “Full, Final, Complete Disclosure” that Iraq made to United Nations inspectors in March 1996. The document carries three diagrams showing cross sections of bomb cores, and their diameters.

On Sept. 20, the site posted a much larger document, “Summary of technical achievements of Iraq’s former nuclear program.” It runs to 51 pages, 18 focusing on the development of Iraq’s bomb design. Topics included physical theory, the atomic core and high-explosive experiments. By early October, diplomats and officials said, United Nations arms inspectors in New York and their counterparts in Vienna were alarmed and discussing what to do."

It's all there. Iraq was researching and trying to design nuclear arms. But notice how they are still trying to say that the research and the weapons we found were not "what we were looking for."

But, looking at translations here and here, it seems pretty clear that Saddam had weapons and was trying to develop more. But the NYT framing this discussion to say that Bush is incompetent, because he allowed these documents to be posted. Imagine that! The people that have no problem telling the world about any confidential info that might hurt their cause, are upset because the thing some things should remain secret. Give me a break.

I don't doubt that there was plenty of Iraqi research documents on the site. But, more importantly than this being a questionable decision about what gets released to the public (the Times has some experience there), it shows that as late as 2002 Saddam was rebuilding nuclear and chemical weapons facilities.

So why weren't the headlines reading "SADDAM WAS WORKING TOWARD NUCLEAR IRAQ", or something similar? I hope I don't need to answer that for you.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Chairmen and Apologies

So, Ken Mehlman got a lot of bad press recently over the whole Harold Ford, Jr. ad, because he said it wasn't racist, and said he couldn't pull it. I won't quote it, because you've already seen/read/heard it. What you probably haven't seen or read is that in November of 2005 Howard Dean, chairman of the DNC, was asked by Mehlman to condemn and apologize for racist remarks directed at Republican Michael Steele. In response Dean said that he hadn't received an apology for being called an anti-Semite.

If you aren't getting it, it's something like this: Dean is refusing to apologize for racism, because someone called him a racist. Gee, what could be wrong there.

I'm interested to know what Democrats think about these two incidents side by side. "The Corker ad was openly racist," you say, despite the fact that there were no overt or clear racist statements made. [Some] Democrats have not only used racist terms to describe him ("token", "Uncle Tom"), but black Democrats said it's OK to do it, because he's Republican (this story linked in the post "Black on Black Crime"). "But 'token' and 'Uncle Tom' are not nearly as offensive as 'tar-baby'," you say. The only problem is, when Tony Snow and Mitt Romney used the phrase, they meant it as a noted metaphor for a sticky situation. You said they shouldn't use it ever, because it used to be a racial slur. But when Steny Hoyer and Mike Miller used the aforementioned terms, they meant them as racial statements. So, are we no longer judging on intent, just on word choice?

I just read this article at Ace of Spades about the issue. It's a year old, so it doesn't take into account the recent outcry by Dems about Republican racism. But it nails the issue down pretty sqarely.

I'm so very glad the election is less than a week away. I'll finally be able to stop talking about it.
__________________________________________________

Also related:

Not Black Enough

Students at Bowdoin College in Maine are shredding the College Republicans there for inviting a black conservative to speak on campus during Black History Month, according to the student paper there.

The critics say North Carolinian Vernon Robinson is not really a black guy; he is, they say, an "Uncle Tom" who has no right to speak on campus. One writer said (with a straight face, presumably) that the Republican student group "displayed its lack of openness by inviting" him.

"To have Robinson speak at this school as a representative of Black History Month destroys the racial peace movement that has been formulating on this campus," one wrote.

For more doses of politically correct nuttiness, head on over to the TongueTied daily edition.

Not Black Enough For Libs

Flags flew at half-staff in Charleston in honor of Rosa Parks, while editorial writers at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel took a swipe at the only black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. “In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.”

See the rest.



Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Black on Black Crime

Thanks to Mahatma Dandhi for this.

Apparently it's OK to use racial slurs against black Republicans
, but not black Democrats. I guess it's because black Republicans don't like black people either. The double-standard rears its ugly head again.

Will They Ever Get It?

Ah, Bob. It seems he is so set in the fact that Democrats are right and Republicans are wrong that he can't see what's going on in front of his face. He posts this about the recent Republican campaign happenings.

How can you be so scathing against these tactics when employed by the opposition, when your party will use (and has used) them time and again? I had this to say:

Bob,
I think it's interesting that you offered no defense of Jim Webb, you just threw his name in there. Maybe thats because the content of his writing is just as important as Allen formerly displaying the Confed. flag (which he denounced and apologized for, as opposed to Webb's defense of his novels). And don't give me the free speech nonsense, unless you're prepared to give the same leeway to Allen. He can say it if he wants, no one's trying to arrest him. But does he have to be elected to the Senate?

And Harold Ford? He went to a Playboy party. It's fact. Move on. It's not racist. And I can say that with impunity, since I'm black. I'm as far above criticism for that comment as Michael J. Fox is for his stem cell research commercial. And speaking of MJF, in his commercials he lies about the Republican candidates, saying they want to "restrict" stemcell research. The research is legal in all of those states. In February Jim Talent withdrew his name from a bill that would restrict embryonic stem cell research. And Ben Cardin, one of the people he's supporting, actually voted against the research.

What makes me mad is that the left always gets mad at the right for telling the truth. I don't remember you coming to the defense of Mark Foley when every news outlet in the US printed his IM's. I don't recall you comparing the incident to the Gerry Studds incident. And how do you feel about Robert Byrd being re-elected, in light of his comments in his 2001 interview with Tony Snow? Patrick Kennedy?

These "attacks" that you reference are making you so mad because they are based on the truth. Yes they have political spin, but no more than saying that Bush hates black people because he screwed up Katrina, and not saying anything about Byrd. No one spoke out when Michael Steele was called an "Uncle Tom" and a "token" by white Democrats, nor when the DSCC stole his credit report. They just blamed the staffer and the higher-ups claimed no knowledge (*cough*FOLEY!*cough*). I could go on for days. But I'll just say that the one that pisses me off the most is the Steele thing. But the rest is bad. Progressives and Democrats have just as much a problem with this as conservatives and Republicans.
Every once in a while I find something on one of these progressive blogs that makes sense, so I keep reading. But this trash ruins my mood. And if you live in Maryland, vote Michael Steele.