Here's a few of the interesting stories I've run across in the blogosphere today:
The Real Ugly American interviews Mary Katherine Ham:
TUA: So it’s a much more free format blogging than vs. hard news in an MSM setting at least.
MKH: I think so and a lot of you know what a lot of obviously liberal journalists run in to ; is that they do have these beliefs and they are not acknowledging them where as when I am writing about the news at least I’m telling you listen this is where I stand. So if it colors the way I am covering this you will know up front this is where this comes from. I think that’s important.That’s one of the things that pushed me to get out of newspapers was the whole; It felt dishonest to me because everyone was acting as if there was no slant at all in my newsroom but at the same time I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was like if I am the only conservative you guys have ever met then there’s a problem.
A Blog For All writes about Lieberman:
From supporting his opponent in the primary election to undercutting him at every turn, even Lieberman's supposed ally is suggesting that he run as an independent.
Why should Joe have to do any such thing? Oh wait, it's because the Democrats have moved fully to the far left of Lieberman and he's not tacking to the left with them. Lieberman supports the war in Iraq and the general war on terror, much to the chagrin of the anti-war left, and this is all part of their revenge. There is no big tent for Democrats – you either are an anti-war candidate, or you're going to suffer the consequences. Never mind that Lieberman has been to Iraq and has seen first hand teh reconstruction and hard work done by the US Armed Forces unlike say Rep. Murtha, and has supported the military time and time again, the anti-war types want him gone.
All Things Beautiful on the left's anger:
The Left knows how to dish out but can't ever take it. As Ann Coulter pointed out in her latest book, the form of attack favored of late, is to bring an array of victims out on display "to give their political points credence" and further their cause.
And the root cause for such ironically domineering attitude, as it has been shown time and time again in the Left's campaigning style and content, is that the vast majority of its base is driven in their personal lives by destructive emotions such as envy, resentment, bitterness and most of all, pure and gut-wrenching hatred which, like any pressure cooker under too much heat, needs to release its steam through the emergency valve.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler on the Gorebots:
LC & IB Michelle Malkin suggests that “Gore to train 1,000 to spread word about climate” might qualify as Scary Headline of the Day.
His Majesty is not one to readily or easily disagree with the Lady Malkin, he likes to be right every once in a while, and she does undeniably have a point. The mere thought of a thousand Gorelets touring the nation is enough to induce narcolepsy in a hummingbird on methamphetamine, so we’ve banished it from our minds, lest this website fall into a death-like stupor while his Majesty’s family tries to keep the health care system from convincing the courts that his comatose self would be better off dead.
Personally, however, His Sithness was more concerned when it was reported that the Algore had, jokingly we hope, suggested that he might make a nude appearance in his next “movie”, for lack of a more accurate word for whatever he decides to waste celluloid on.
Blackfive is calling for a boycott of Car & Driver:
Well, it's come to this. Hopefully, you either visited Michael Yon's site to get the latest or heard him on Pundit Review Radio telling the story of how HFM agreed to stop using his image and make a donation to Fisher House, and then changed their tune.
I work with a few photographers in my civilian job. They all warned me to tell Mike that magazines run roughshod all over photogs because a photographer will not engage in a huge legal fight over a picture that is only worth a few hundred dollars. So, in the normal operation of their businesses, magazine publishers tend to get away with a lot of nonsense at the expense of photographers.
HFM really misjudged Mike Yon. They tried to placate him long enough to get by, and then changed the deal and tried a strongarm tactic on Mike. So, how can we help?
We already might have done in Shock, but that's not enough…
So I am calling for a boycott of HFM's flagship magazine Car and Driver. Boycott's are legal. Contact your clubs, friends, family, work groups, professional organizations, etc. You have more influence here than you might think.
Villainous Company takes a reporter to task over Guantanamo:
In today's Washington Post, David Ignatius excoriates the leadership at Guantanamo Bay for insensitivity in the wake of three coordinated detainee suicides
[…]Mr. Ignatius should follow his own advice. Has he ever been to Guantanamo Bay? What personal experience (other than writing a forward to a book written by a recently-released radical Islamist) does he have with Islamic jihadists, their ideology, or their behavior? Well, no matter. He is a pundit, you see. His comforting distance from messy reality lets him indulge his sense of outrage without the bothersome necessity of taking real world circumstances into account.
Ignatius derides the military's tendency to view jihadists "as if they inhabited a different moral universe", but two of the defining characterists of radical Islamists are their deliberate slaughter of innocent non-combatants and their continuing use of suicidal attacks on their enemies. Where exactly, one can't help but wonder, does deliberately killing innocents (not to mention suicide attacks) fit in the West's "moral universe"? His failure to "view the detainees as individuals" and "make distinctions" leads him to assume the detainees view the world through the prism of Western values, an act of cultural chauvinism that is hard to square with an ideology which views sawing the heads off still-living non-combatants as morally justifiable.
New England Republican on John Kerry's new but old "Cut and Run" policy:
Now is the time to turn our tails and run? Yes, the Iraqi’s are ultimately responsible for their fledgling democracy, and we want our soldiers back home as soon as possible. But conceding defeat with an artificial deadline is not an option.
Preaching the gospel of defeatism launched John Kerry’s political career during the Vietnam era and now he hopes it’ll launch him into the White House. Give him some credit though because at least we know where he stands. Gone are the days of flip-flopping Kerry saying things like, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”
What Kerry always failed to grasp is winning is the most important goal. He fought for defeat in Vietnam. He fought for defeat during the Cold War. And now he fights for defeat in Iraq. Imagine the chutpah of voting for the War in Iraq, but then refusing to fund it. Maybe one of these days he could put a little effort into helping us win.
Mike's America on Pelosi's recent admission that the "culture of corruption" mantra wont work anymore:
Well how about that? That whole "culture of corruption" thing backfired so badly with the misdeeds of Dems like Harry Reid, Patrick Kennedy, William Jefferson and Cynthia McKinney and Francine Busby, among others, making headlines for months.
And now the Dems are going to tell us what they stand for? Easy: 1. Surrender in Iraq, 2.Gut the Patriot Act, 3. Raise everyone's taxes, 4. Feed every whacko lefty special interest group in sight with endless obstruction of everything that Bush stands for. Pretty much business as usual.
Iraq The Model on the Baghdad Operation:
Baghdad looked tense today as the city witnessed the launch of the new massive security operation "Forward Together". The feeling here ranges from anxiety to hope which I saw clear in the voice and looks of the people I met; in addition to the understandable anxiety that accompanies every new military operation I saw a lot about hope that this new operation may be able to stop or even reverse the deterioration of security in the capital.
Well maybe this is our best chance to achieve some progress security-wise and there's a growing feeling (I won't say dominant but it's here and it's visible) that the new government has the real and serious desire to end this tragic chapter of Baghdad's history.
GOP Bloggers on the latest Murtha idiocy:
While Murtha is a useful idiot of the Democratic Party, advocating a cut-and-run strategy in Iraq, as Majority Leader, he'd no longer be an asset, but rather a liability to the Democratic Party. If Murtha started campaigning for the post now, he'd contribute to the image of Democrats being weak and soft on terror — which is already true, but he'd just contribute to it more — and he'd probably spark an internal debate within the Democratic Party about Iraq… which is the last thing they want. As of right now, Democrats have no unified position on Iraq. They have their outspoken critics of the war who either support finishing the job, or cutting and running. A lack of a unified position insulates them from offering a plan for Iraq, which clearly they haven't the foggiest idea how to come up with a plan. Democrats can't risk exposing their incompetence before the 2006 election. They need to be elected and given power before they can start pretending they know what they're doing.
Lastly we have Dr. Sanity on the mental derangement of the left:
I suspect that even after a contentious 2000 election, Bush never imagined for one moment that he would be so completely abandoned by the opposition party during one of the greatest challenges ever imposed by historical forces upon the United States and liberty.
Why should he? Until the last 15 years or so, the underlying insanity of the left has been relatively dormant as they have quietly readied themselves under the cover of a Democrat president and the "end of history"; they patiently waited to make their next move in the international chessboard, wallowing in their victimhood–promoting it, even. Having slowly and almost effortlessly inserted the doctrines of political correctness and multiculturalism –two of the most obvious postmodern talking points of the left–into all aspects of the wider culture and its media, they awaited the perfect moment to unleash the awesome destructive power of their fully-armed and operational "death star" at America and its fundamental values.
Check them all out, great reads for your Wednesday afternoon.
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