Your "liberal" media

The popular theory among conservatives that the mainstream media tilt toward the Democrats, especially with respect to the war in Iraq, is demolished at length in this piece by Jamison Foser.

A math lesson

This is from MoveOn.org:

Uh-oh! Newtie's making sense again

As I've noted here on several occasions recently, Newt Gingrich has been speaking some truths of late.

Today, for example, Gingrich told a group of reporters that the Republican presidential nominee next year will be toast if he doesn't represent a "clean break" from the policies of George W. Bush.

I, for one, hope that Newtie takes the presidential plunge himself. I won't vote for him, but I'm sure he'll make the process much more interesting.

Another example of how stupid Americans are

A new survey shows that less than one-third of the American populace is aware that rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court cannot be appealed to another court.

Such ignorance reminds me of an episode of 12 or 15 years ago when I was in a newsroom and overheard one side of a phone conversation between a young reporter and an attorney in the local prosecutor's office.

The attorney apparently had called with news that a defendant in a criminal trial had been acquitted of the charge against him. The reporter asked if prosecutors planned to appeal the acquittal to a higher court. There was a pause before the reporter asked the attorney to explain something he apparently had just mentioned, something about a legal doctrine known as "double jeopardy."

Prebuttal to Bush's speech

This is from the National Security Network:

Petraeus for president?

The general reportedly has big political ambitions.

UPDATE: Newtie's got the itch, too.

UPDATE II: Petraeus won't likely get a vote from Admiral William Fallon, who considers him an "ass-kissing little chicken-shit."

It's fun to feel superior

I suppose I should be alarmed at the fact that most Americans, according to a poll released today, believe that the nation's Founding Fathers wrote Christianity into the U.S. Constitution.

But I'm not alarmed. Instead, I take great pleasure -- smug pleasure, to be sure -- in knowing that most of my fellow citizens are so stupid. It gives me a feeling of superiority to have actually read the Constitution and to have noticed that it makes no mention whatever of God, or Jesus, or the Creator or any such thing.

Hey, world, look at me! I'm fully aware that the Constitution is entirely a secular document. Most Americans can't say that. They're not aware. Most Americans are stupid. I'm so proud of myself!

There was a time when such widespread ignorance worried me. What's going to become of us, I asked myself, with so many of our people so unaware of even the most basic of America's founding principles? But I learned to chill. There isn't much I can do about it, anyway.

Most Americans also say they don't believe in evolution, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting it. Not much I can do about that, either. All I can do is feel intellectually superior, which, as I say, is not without its pleasures.

Petraeus report not a big hit at the Pentagon

Those Americans who were favorably impressed this week by the rhetoric from Gen. David Petraeus need to know that not everybody at the Pentagon was buying it, as Newsweek reports:

NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.

John Arquilla, an intelligence and counterinsurgency expert at the Naval Postgraduate School, is even harsher in his assessment of Petraeus. “I think Colin Powell used dodgy information to get us into the war, and Petraeus is using dodgy information to keep us there,” he said. “His political talking points are all very clear: the continued references he made to the danger of Al Qaeda in Iraq, for example, even though it represents only somewhere between 2 and 5 percent of the total insurgency. The continued references to Iran, when in fact the Iranians have had a lot to do with stability in the Shiite portion of the country. And it's not at all clear why things are a little better now. Is it because there are more troops, or is it because we're negotiating with the insurgents and have moved to small operating outposts? On any given day we don't have more than 20,000 troops operating. The glacial pace of reductions beggars the imagination.” [...]

According to a former senior civilian official in the Coalition Provisional Authority, Petraeus is a “total performer.” This reporter observed Petraeus’s political skills up close while flying with him above the Iraqi city of Mosul in a Blackhawk helicopter in early 2004. Speaking through headphones over the loud whirring of the chopper engines, Petraeus pointed out to then-Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer III how many satellite dishes had popped up on Iraqi homes during the general’s tenure as commander of the 101st Airborne Division. Citing the dishes as a sign of progress, he proposed that Bremer go national with Petraeus’s “Mosul’s most wanted” TV show, launched to get locals to call in with insurgent tips. And Petraeus called in a large press gaggle to observe training exercises at his local Iraqi military training academy. Later, back in Baghdad, Bremer shook his head and laughed indulgently. “He loves headlines,” Bremer said.

What liberal media?

The syndicated columns in American newspapers are more often conservative than liberal.

Ads for the surge

I like this:

Seven brave soldiers (cont.)

Last month, we referred here to seven U.S. soldiers who had bravely spoken out against the war in Iraq.

Today, we learned that two of those seven soldiers have been killed, and a third has been shot in the head but is expected to survive.

Light blogging alert

Work crews will begin major renovations here at Rockford Rascal World Headquarters on Tuesday morning, which means blogging likely will be light at best until Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, lots of dandy stuff is accessible from our archives on the right-hand side of this page.

Why does the V.A. hate our vets?

An internal investigation shows that V.A. medical facilities have been giving vets the run around while top bureaucrats have been lying about it to Congress.

In one case, a veteran with eye problems had to wait 259 days for a scheduled appointment at a V.A. clinic.

Liberals are more intelligent than conservatives

This study proves it.

If the Petraeus Report doesn't snap your stick...

Check out this report (and wonder, when it's over, why the pseudo-patriotic jingoists in this country won't face up to the difficult truths):

Guess who REALLY hates our troops -- Iraqis!

A new poll commissioned by the BBC, among others, says that most of the Iraqi people want U.S. troops out of their country, and most think the surge has only made matters worse, and most think attacks on Americans are justified.

So, why do we continue to waste the lives of our sons and daughters over there? Why do we continue to waste tens of billions of dollars on this misadventure? Why do those Americans who support this nonsense consider themselves patriotic?

"Universal Soldier"

In anticipation of Gen. David Petraeus's report on Monday concerning the war in Iraq, let's take a few minutes to ponder the Buffy Sainte-Marie song "Universal Soldier," as rendered by Scottish folk-rocker Donovan:

The pols should heed what this guy says

Matthew Dowd, who was chief strategist for President Bush's re-election campaign in 2004, offers this analysis of how Americans view the war in Iraq.

Politicians of all stripes, but especially the Democrats, would do well to consider its implications.

Most Americans are still cowardly, unpatriotic, cut-and-run surrender monkeys

Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary from most of the Republican presidential candidates, most of the blunderbusses on talk radio and the entire right wing of the blogosphere, most Americans still think the war in Iraq is wrong and want our troops withdrawn.

Oh, and most folks also expect that Gen. David Petraeus will be peddling exaggerations, if not falsehoods, when he reports to Congress next week on how the war is going.

Here's the skinny from the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Xenophobes froth at Rudy's truism

Rudy Giuliani managed to say something true Friday, and much of Republicandom, which generally shuns truth like the plague, recoiled in horror.

Rudy said (brace yourself) that illegal immigration is not a crime. "I know that's very hard for people to understand," he added, "but it's not a federal crime."

Mitt Romney, among others, waxed apoplectic at Giuliani's audacity. Not a federal crime? The nerve of the guy!

Indeed, illegal immigration is not a federal crime, which means the Republican candidates for president are now likely to scream for adoption of a law making it a federal crime. They'll probably also want the death penalty for illegal immigrants who happen to be gay.