Category: Grave

From President Bush’s address to AIPAC (President Speaks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), Washington, D.C., Tuesday, May 18, 2004:

The Israeli people have always had enemies at their borders and terrorists close at hand. Again and again, Israel has defended itself with skill and heroism. And as a result of the courage of the Israeli people, Israel has earned the respect of the American people. (Applause.)

The very next day, from “Explosion rips through crowd of Palestinian demonstrators, killing at least 10”, San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, May 19, 2004:

An Israeli missile and four tank shells ripped through a large crowd of Palestinians demonstrating Wednesday against the Israeli invasion of a neighboring refugee camp, killing at least 10 Palestinians. Hospital officials said all the victims were children and teenagers.
Israel’s military acknowledged that soldiers fired four tank shells, a missile and machine guns to stop 3,000 Palestinian demonstrators it said were heading toward a battle zone in the Gaza Strip.
“There were armed men in the midst of the demonstration,” Brig. Gen. Ruth Yaron, the army spokeswoman, told Israel TV’s Channel One.

For what it’s worth, there are some additional reports indicating that some of the demonstrators and protesters were throwing rocks, which I guess makes the whole “missiles” and “tank shells” response fair enough.

On some indeterminate date between A.M. Rosenthal’s leaving his position at the New York Times in 1999 and subsequently penning his column for the Daily News, Crazy Abe really lost it. I mean, totally, completely, lost it.
How else to explain the tormented editorial screed appearing (via Romenesko) in today’s New York Sun? In reading Rosenthal’s psychotic litany, we’re privy to the Times’ former executive editor’s musings on the media’s coverage of the prisoner-abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib and, in particular, the manner in which the media failed to provide proper context for the abuses and the concomitant photos.
What context, you ask? Perhaps some Sy Hersh-esque examination of abuse-related directives having come from the top down? No? Well, maybe some broader examination of a climate of governmental deception, in the tradition of Rosenthal’s own 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning Times coverage of Poland’s misdeeds? No, you are soooo wrong, young whippersnapper!
That prisoner-abuse context that the media failed to provide over the past few weeks was Saddam Hussein and his since-toppled government’s having used “poison gas on civilians they wanted to eliminate, like the Kurds.” Thank you for the refresher course, Abe Rumsfeld.
Furthermore, Rosenthal continues, “We are uneasy even at the very idea of bringing up the mass Iraqi torture and murder. That is an insult to all those murdered masses of Iraqis, Kuwaitis, Jews, and Iranians. It is essential that we remember, ourselves, and the young members of the American armed forces know that they are fighting a government that is fascist in organization and in its slavering sadism.”
Bear in mind, then, that the next time you see images of prisoners of war chained to bedframes with panties on their heads, the reason these sundry havoc-wreakers, as well as uncharged shopkeepers and wives of Ba’athist officials, are naked and/or have undergarments covering their visages is due to Saddam’s having gassed 100,000 Kurds during the Reagan and Bush I administrations fifteen years earlier. And on a factual basis alone, please disregard Rosenthal’s assertions that America’s armed forces (his tense, not mine) “are fighting a government”, contrary to the image of American forces having helped to famously topple Saddam’s statue one year ago, and their current occupation of the Republican Palace in Baghdad.
And back to that “litany” idea again, Rosenthal repeats, “Since the latest torture story, many editors have failed to present background stories about the millions killed by Saddam.” That’s right, “millions”, even though the heretofore-most-liberal estimates of deaths under Saddam’s regime maxed out at 300,000 or therabouts. But, much like Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz’s being drastically off the mark a few weeks ago in his own detailing of the number of American military casualties in Iraq, numbers are notoriously flexible when you’re trying to provide support for an otherwise reprehensible idea.
Finally, there’s this indignant gauntlet from Rosenthal: “In the years before World War II, officials of the New York Times shamed the paper by squeezing stories about millions of Europeans suffering and dying in the Nazi concentration camps, into meager and insufficient space. Years later, the paper tried to find out exactly who made those decisions. It could not, but it published an apology from its heart.” Except, as far as “context” is concerned, those were current events at the time.
Dear, sweet, Abe: perhaps newspaper editors can feel comfortable about revisiting the events of the late 1980s on their front pages as they pair those particular Kurdish history lessons with coverage of that era’s U.S. government support for both Afghanistan’s various insurgencies and Saddam Hussein himself in his war with Iranian Shiite fundamentalists.
See, that’s the problem with “context” and “history”: unlike President Bush’s war of Good-vs.-Evil, there are no absolutes.

From “Telephonic Interview of the Vice President by Tony Snow, Fox News,” a.k.a, “Speed Dating with Tony Snow and Dick Cheney,” The Vice President’s Office, 11:08 A.M. EDT:

SNOW: Thirty seconds. Why is Ted Kennedy so mad at you?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Me personally?
SNOW: Yes.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I didn’t know he was.
SNOW: Okay. Vice President Dick Cheney, I want to thank you for joining — and by the way, is “Red River” really your favorite movie?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: (Laughter.) Well, it’s right up there at the top of my short list.

Click here for another stellar interview with the Vice President.

Father, and son: Nick Berg and his family
While the media reacts with outrage over the release of videotaped footage of the beheading of 26-year-old civilian contractor Nick Berg in Iraq this week, the bigger story seems to have fallen through the cracks.
Namely, we’ve finally found that elusive connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda that the American public heard so much about from the President and his advisors for the past two years.

“An Islamist Web site posted a videotape Tuesday showing the decapitation of an American in Iraq, in what the killers called revenge for the American mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
The Web site said the man who carried out the beheading was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant linked to al-Qaeda who the Americans believe was behind some of the deadliest terrorist attacks here.”

Admittedly, America-hating lefties may point out that this new connection technically falls under the rubric of a “post-Saddam Iraq”, and, furthermore, the occupying American army more or less created the terrorist-supporting circumstances which lead to this connection, but regardless: Well done, guys!
In tribute to this development, and to our baseball-loving commander-in-chief, I’m off to go watch a film about the American pastime, Field of Dreams. You know the movie…”If you build it, they will come.”
(NOTE: This entry has been ‘corrected’ from its originally-posted form. See comments for more info.)

John Negroponte, newly-appointed President of Iraq, erm, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq
From today’s statement by President Bush at the Pentagon:

“In the next few weeks, important decisions will be made on the make up of the interim government. As of June 30th, Iraq’s interim government will assume duties now performed by the coalition, such as providing water and electricity and health care and education.”

Maybe he meant to add “…and governing Iraq” at the tail end there, and carelessly left it out?
No, wait, that would contradict Article 26 of the Iraqi Constitution recently implemented by the occupying Coalition:

“(A) Except as otherwise provided in this Law, the laws in force in Iraq on 30 June 2004 shall remain in effect unless and until rescinded or amended by the Iraqi Transitional Government in accordance with this Law.
(C) The laws, regulations, orders, and directives issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority pursuant to its authority under international law shall remain in force until rescinded or amended by legislation duly enacted and having the force of law.

All captions come from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s notorious leadership tract of January 29, 2001, “Rumsfeld’s Rules: Advice on government, business and life,” which appeared in the Wall Street Journal when Rumsfeld initially took office three years ago.
As you’re surely well aware by now, some of the Iraqi prison torture images from Abu Ghraib are rather, well, foul, so the captioning continues below…

“Enjoy your time in public service. It may well be one of the most interesting and challenging times of your life.”

In preparation for our enthusiastically volunteering at this fall’s Republican National Convention in New York City, we’ve begun heartily agreeing with a number of Republican opinions of late, including obsessive madman Dick Cheney yesterday, and, today, Representative Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has decried the Bush administration’s latest efforts to clamp down on Cuba’s government as the continuation of an historically ineffective methodology of dealing with our petite Communist neighbor to the south, and little more than primitive election-year antics targeted to Florida’s Cuban voters. Specifically, Flake is addressing administration plans to further impede the ability for Americans to visit the island nation, while increasing funding for flying U.S. military C-130 aircraft over Castro’s homeland while broadcasting pro-American and pro-democractic messages.
From the May 7, 2004 Washington Post:

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is a leading proponent of congressional efforts to lift ever-tighter restrictions on travel to Cuba, a proposal that won majorities in the House and Senate last year. He said trying to use a C-130 to defeat Cuban jamming of U.S. government broadcasts is laudable but insufficient.
“If we’re really serious about letting Cubans hear a voice other than Castro’s, why not let Americans travel there?” Flake asked in a written statement. “After all, Castro can’t scramble a firsthand conversation.”

From “Remarks by the Vice President to the 16th Annual National Fire and Emergency Services Dinner“, Hilton Washington, Washington, D.C., May 5, 2004, 7:12 P.M. EDT:

“And I’m told Joe Allbaugh is in the audience tonight. Joe shouldn’t be hard to spot. (Laughter.) He — that’s Joe.”

Earlier, as part of this rare moment of kinship with Dick Cheney, we, too, had already ragged on this Allbaugh guy, but, again, he deserves it.