A Double Dip of Double H - Hugh Hewitt has served up a double helping that is being featured today at the WoT. The first Hugh Hewitt masterpiece is over at the WeeklyStandard.com. “We May Yet Find Them”- Watching John Kerry tackle the issue of weapons of mass destruction. Hugh aptly starts out the article commenting that the Meet the Press and GMA appearances were “Train Wrecks”. Give Mr. Kerry enough airtime and he will hang himself. He digs the hole even deeper on Hardball, which should have been a good interview for him because Chris Matthews was his lap dog, asking easy questions that should have had easy answers. John still bungles. Here is the key exchange between Matthews and Kerry on WMDs and Iraq:

Matthews: If there was an exaggeration of WMD, exaggeration of the danger, exaggeration implicitly of the connection to al Qaeda and 9/11, what's the motive for this, what's the "why?" Why did Bush and Cheney and the ideologues around take us to war? Why do you think they did it?

Kerry: It appears, as they peel away the weapons of mass destruction issue, and--we may yet find them, Chris. Look, I want to make it clear: Who knows if a month from now, you find some weapons. You may. But you certainly didn't find them where they said they were, and you certainly didn't find them in the quantities that they said they were. And they weren't found, and I have talked to some soldiers who have come back who trained against the potential of artillery delivery, because artillery was the way they had previously delivered and it was the only way they knew they could deliver. Now we found nothing that is evidence of that kind of delivery, so the fact is that as you peel it away I think it comes down to this larger ideological and neocon concept of fundamental change in the region and who knows whether there are other motives with respect to Saddam Hussein, but they did it because they thought they could, and because they misjudged exactly what the reaction would be and what they could get away with.


After months of attacks by Dems, Kerry admits they might still find WMDs? We the people should find the “neocons” reference more than a little troubling. Quoting Hugh,

“Kerry's answer is a jungle of dependent clauses and asides, but it deserves intense focus. Put aside the obvious reference to the left's theory that Bush took out Saddam to avenge Hussein's assassination attempt on the first President Bush, as well as the reference to the "neocons," which is verbal comfort food to the anti-Semitic loons in the audience. Let's take Kerry seriously for once.”

Hugh goes on to comment on all the threats to America he has been wrong about. The Vietcong, the Soviets, the Sandinistas, and basically every other enemy that the U.S. has faced.

The second helping of Hugh comes from WorldNetDaily.com. The Torricelli Option: Will the Dems dump Kerry? Hewitt recounts the Good Morning America fiasco and all the parties that are a little worried about their candidate. The Democratic Party, Streisand, Daschle (or is he worried at all), the Clintons in exile… the list goes on. Funny comment about Howard Dean:

“And Dean – what's he thinking when he can get the voices to quiet down? He was robbed, you know ... by the same people now conspiring against Kerry. Dean doesn't forget, and there's not enough Ambien in America to get him a night's sleep. What if, with another yell, he decides to demand an open convention. "Let the delegates vote!" isn't a bad slogan. Bring back all the orange hats and the blog and all that. Quite a party could be had by all.”


Will the Dems really dump Kerry this late in the game? Can they? He actually is a horrible candidate to run against an incumbent president, a president that has led this country through times of tragedy and adversity. The media robbed Howard Dean, the only real candidate the Democratic Party had going for them. Not that I would have voted for him either…

Party for the Prez - I attended a National Party for the President at my friend Slublog's place last night. I obviously need no convincing to re-elect President Bush (if the many posts against John Kerry on this blog aren't enough of a clue), but it was nice to hang out with other Bush supporters. Plus I got some new Bush/Cheney '04 swag for my truck. That's always a big hit with my fellow co-workers (they haven't seen the light yet). The nationwide conference call with VP Cheney was cool, especially when a boy came on from New Mexico or someplace like that and asked the VP to comment on the declining Cowboy culture in the West and what to do about it. I can just picture Cheney with his hands around the throat of the guy who set up the conference call as he was answering the question.

While I was at the party, I signed up to volunteer at my local Bush headquarters. If you would like to see President Bush re-elected go to GeorgeWBush.com and sign up to volunteer. There are many ways to help out the campaign, and it is going to be people like you and me that help in the re-election effort. My own state of Maine has apparently been determined a swing vote state, so I feel the need to do everything I can to help swing the vote in favor of George Bush. Besides, it will be fun to show up at a Kerry rally with a pair of flip-flops...

Superman Wednesday Roundup - Yesterday was the much anticipated release of Superman #204 featuring the writing talents of Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets) and artist Jim Lee (last year's Batman Hush series). Some trepidation has been floating around the old Inet about a gritty, dark writer like Azzarello taking over the helm of such an inspirational character. I personally have always felt Supes could handle some darker storylines without compromising his iconic status. Jim Lee on the other hand can only help the book with his superstar status. His incredible art combined with Jeph Loeb's stellar writing made the Batman Hush series a huge hit.

Now for the debut issue. I really have to say I am reserving judgement until the story arc is more developed. Azzarello/Lee are doing a 12 month run on the title so this one is going to take awhile to really hit its stride. Like most comic story arcs the first issue isn't a real judge of what's to come. In this issue we get the basic background for the arc. Superman confides in a Father Leone (Superman speaking confidentially with a priest? I was skeptical when Supes was having some sessions with a shrink, somewhere in the early #170's realm, but we will see where this goes). Supes tells the Father about him hearing the three words that are his Holy Trinity, "Superman. Save me." He rushes into outer space to aid his friend Green Latern. Upon returning (cool panel by Lee illustrating Superman on re-entry) Supes listens in on the world with his superhearing to see if he was needed while he was gone. The world's voices cry in unison about a single event. The Vanishing. Millions of people worldwide just disappeared. As disturbing as this is to Superman the one person he can find no trace of is the most troubling. "My wife...was gone," he confides in Father Leone. The writing is good, and Lee brings a slightly grittier version of Superman to the pages than he did in the Batman series. This is gonna be a good one so go down to your local comic shop and get one today. Worth the read.

Kerry Under Attack - Mr. Kerry is having a tough time of late. Now that the primaries are over and there are no other liberals to make Mr. Kerry look good, he is in trouble. Discrepancies in his service records raise doubts about his combat service. Questions are being raised about the true story of relinquishing his Vietnam medals. Complaining about the flag draped coffins of those fallen in the war on terror kept from the media and the people of the U.S. The more Mr. Kerry talks, the more he gets himself in trouble. And this thing he has about trying to be on both sides of an issue at once started long ago. An excerpt from a FoxNews.com article:

This whole medal ribbon story and its various versions over the years are really symptomatic of a larger problem Kerry has, which is trying to be on both sides of every issue," Republican consultant Barbara Comstock told Fox News on Monday.

Fred Malek, a Republican consultant and Vietnam veteran conceded that Kerry "served his country honorably," but added that discarding medals "shows a choice of personal vanity over loyalty to the people you fought alongside."

Kerry did a TV interview in 1971 and could not remember what he supposedly “threw away” in the ceremony where other anti-war veterans threw their medals over a fence of the capitol. Did he really discard them with the other veterans, give them back to the government, or are they in a chest somewhere, hidden from the world? Read more here.

Mr. Kerry is running into more believability issues with his war record. While Kerry documents have him commanding Navy boat No. 94, the actions described took place before Kerry became the skipper. And to top it off, another man by the name of Edward Peck claims to be the skipper of the craft while these actions took place. Kerry replaced him when he became wounded in battle, after the time period in question. More credibility issues surfacing…

And then John starts in about the Pentagon policy that keeps photos and images of the war dead returning home from the media and public. Mr. Kerry claims:

"We shouldn't hide that from America," Kerry said to loud applause from his supporters. "If they are good enough to go and fight and die, they're good enough to be received home with full honors in America." .

The problem with this is that America knows full well that its sons and daughter, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers are dying in the war on terror. They are received home with full honors. There is no “hiding”. But out of respect for those that have given the ultimate sacrifice of their lives in the war on terror and respect for the grieving loved ones of those fallen, the images need to remain sacred and hidden from public view. Mr. Kerry just wants to exploit them for his own gain.

Mr. Kerry is alienating many voters every time he opens his mouth. Americans are not going to elect a man that has no regard for his comrades, credibility issues, and no regard for the dead. Veterans that earned medals and ribbons in various wars aren’t going to vote for him. Veterans that should have gotten the same accolades as Kerry and didn't aren’t going to support him, because he gave his medals back. He is an angry whiner, and that does not fly with the American people either. He cannot keep his story straight, and his duplicity started way back in ’71. These are horrible qualities to be exhibited by anyone, especially someone running for president.

True Hero - As I was flipping through the channels this weekend I saw a bit on a guy named Pat Tillman, who was wearing an Arizona Cardinals football uniform and carrying the football toward the goal line. I thought nothing of it and was about to change the channel when the commentator started talking about how this guy gave up a multi-million dollar deal with the Cardinals to become an Army Ranger in the wake of the September 11th attacks. Tillman gave up what most would consider a dream job to get paid $18,000 a year and continually put himself in harm’s way to defend our freedom. Pat Tillman paid the ultimate price for our freedom last week. He died in a firefight in Afghanistan, doing what he felt was his part to combat terrorism and make the world a better place. He is an example of a true hero.

Why did Jesus have to die? - Mark D. Roberts is doing a series at his website looking into the reasons Jesus had to die. He is going to be looking at four different perspectives which include the Romans, Jews, Early Christians, and Jesus himself. Worth a read if you don't know Christ and are looking for answers or if you want to learn more about the events surrounding Jesus' death and resurrection.

John, John, John... - Mr. Kerry, whose official blog said he is "far and away the best qualified candidate to be the next president of the United States", uh-huh, shows his duplicity on Meet the Press with Tim Russert. First, Mr. Kerry claims that he will release all of his military records, just like the President did earlier in the year on the same show. All you and I have to do is go to the Kerry headquarter's to see them. But when a Boston Globe reporter shows up to look at these said records, the staffers declined to give the reporter access.

Mr. Kerry is not going to release any new records above and beyond what has already been released. Records that are staying hush-hush in the Kerry campaign are all of his evaluations by superior officers. What kind of story do these documents tell? Do they give some insight into what kind of person John Kerry is (We have already seen plenty in the media that shows his true persona, and it ain't pretty). Both President Bush and Wesley Clark fully disclosed all of their military records, hundreds of pages from each, containing medical records and evaluations. Is that to much to ask of Mr. Kerry? I don't think so. Once again John is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He'll say one thing in the morning and completely change it by the afternoon. He lied to Russert, and to you and I. But, the official Kerry blog calls his appearance on Meet the Press a "home run". Must be a small park or the Ump is on the Kerry payroll.

Read the Boston Globe article on John Kerry and his refusal to relase more military records here.

For some really entertaining reading, check out the full transcript of Mr. Kerry on Meet the Press here.

Superman/Batman #9 - Out tomorrow. Continues the story arc The Supergirl from Krypton featuring writer Jeph Loeb and artist Michael Turner. I can hardly wait. Superman/Batman #8 sold out and DC has already done a second printing.

VDH- Check out Victor Davis Hanson's latest offering at his website. A tribute to the efforts of our troops abroad and our poor behavior at home.

In, But Not Of - After compulsively checking my Amazon.com account to see if my copy of Hugh Hewitt's In, But Not Of had shipped (Don't ever do the Super Saver Shipping. It took almost a month to get my order. Saved about $5.00 on shipping though...), it has finally arrived. My friend Peter over at Slublog has read it and thought it was great. I thoroughly enjoy reading Mr. Hewitt's stuff at his website, and can't wait to see what his book has to offer. The complete title is: In, But Not Of: A Guide To Christian Ambition And The Desire To Influence The World.

Master and Commander - I just finished reading Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander (sans Russel Crowe on the cover). Excellent read. O’Brian has a descriptive style that could make a pile of dung sound interesting. But this book isn’t for everyone. If you want to read a period novel about the high seas, then this book is for you. The author puts you right on the deck as the canons roar, the hammocks are slung, and the grog served. O’Brian writes about the adventures of Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend, surgeon, and intelligence officer Stephen Maturin during the Napoleonic Wars. The book was written in 1970, but the writing style is just like it is right out of the 19th century. There are a total of 20 books in the Aubrey/Maturin series. That’s a lot of days at sea Matey…

Keep Wagner Out of the Car - An article from the Associated Press warns that Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” has been deemed to loud to play in the car while driving, because loud music can cause accidents. The RAC Foundation for Motoring in Britain named Wagner’s masterpiece the No. 1 song to avoid playing when you drive. Other songs that topped the list as off limits for driving were “Dies Irae” from Giuseppe Verdi’s “Requiem”, and the modern songs “Firestarter” by the Prodigy, “Red Alert” by Basement Jaxx and “Insomnia” by Faithless.

Songs judged calm enough to listen to while driving were Norah Jones’ smash hit “Come Away with Me”, “Mad World” by Gary Jules, “Another Day” by R&B singer Lemar, “Too Lost in You” by girl group The Sugababes and “Breathe Easy” by Blue.

Fun Stuff - Well, I am really in the mood for some fun, useless stuff today. I just read a commentary at MSNBC.com by Christopher Bahn about comic books that deserve to be turned into movies. Comic book movies are definitely taking off in terms of popularity and me being a comic book fan I love it. As a kid, I dreamed of seeing the Hulk on the big screen (sans Lou Ferrigno) leaping for miles through the air or Wolverine flashing his claws as he takes on Sabertooth. With today’s technology, these fantasies are becoming a reality. With great casting, such as Tobey Macguire as Spidey and Ron Perlmann as Hellboy, these comic book icons turned big screen flicks are awesome. Here are some of the comics that Bahn thinks should be Hollywood’s next big-ticket comic book movies and the stars that would be great and believable in the roles.

Sandman
What is it? Writer Neil Gaiman's mythic tale of the King of Dreams, one of seven beings known as the Endless who personify universal constants such as Death, Destruction and Desire.
How to film it: Put Johnny Depp in goth makeup and hair similar to his “Edward Scissorhands” role, and he'd be perfect. His sister Death's sardonic sense of humor might be a good match for “Buffy's” Alyson Hannigan.

The Dark Knight Returns
What is it? Frank Miller's exploration of Batman's dark side rescued the character from the excesses of the campy 1960s Adam West TV series, and was one of the most influential comics of its decade.
How to film it: Miller's story takes place in a dystopian future decades after Bats has retired, and tells how he's driven to put on his mask again to fight both new and old evils. He'd have to be played by an older actor whose persona exemplifies cold, distant aloofness and bursts of intense rage, someone who could still believably beat up a room full of thugs even at age 65 or 70. So if Clint Eastwood isn't available, call Charlton Heston's agent.

The Fantastic Four
What is it? Given strange powers by a burst of cosmic radiation, four astronauts return to New York City and take on foes including the megalomaniacal Dr. Doom. It was the first big success for Stan Lee's Marvel Comics, and the only one of its major titles (the others are “Spider-Man,” “The Incredible Hulk,” and “X-Men”) lacking a feature-film version.
How to film it: Even George Clooney admits he made a bad Batman, but we think he'd be great for Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards, the rubber-bodied scientist and leader of the FF. Paul Giamatti, who was wonderfully grumpy in “American Splendor,” has the right slouch and salt-of-the-earth attitude for the rocky-orange Thing. Dr. Doom, the egotistical antihero and longtime enemy of Mr. Fantastic, would be well played by Gary Oldman. Namor the Sub-Mariner, the undersea prince who's got a love-hate relationship with us surface-dwellers, could be Ray Liotta (“Goodfellas”). He has the right physical proportions, but more importantly can get an angry glint in his eye that's especially Namorian.

Watchmen
What is it? Alan Moore's masterpiece reinvented the superhero genre by injecting it with a dose of gritty realism, and features a plotline that is as beautifully structured as a fine Swiss clockwork.
How to film it: First, don't do this one as a feature film — the story is so intricate it needs more than two or three hours to unfold. Make it a miniseries for television. Then, find director Terry Gilliam, who spent years battling to get the funding to film “Watchmen,” and hand him a magical winning lottery ticket. And who to cast? We could see Greg Kinnear as the blow-dried, apparently harmless supergenius Ozymandias, and or perhaps Ralph Fiennes, so powerful in a similar role in David Cronenberg's “Spider,” as the paranoid vigilante Rorschach. Robert De Niro would be terrific as the right-wing assassin known as the Comedian, and as for the all-powerful Doctor Manhattan, we can't improve on a recent fan-created poster circulating the Internet that puts Ed Harris in the blue makeup.


Other notables from comic strip fame were Marmaduke and Peanuts. The Peanuts bit sounded interesting because Bahn suggests setting the film 30 years after the comic strip and cast actors such as Kevin James (King of Queens) to play Charlie Brown, Matthew Broderick as Linus, Sarah Jessica Parker as Sally Brown, Roseanne Barr as Lucy, Jack Black as Pigpen, Tom Hulce (Amadeus) as Schroeder, and Ellen Degeneres as Peppermint Patty.

"We serve the cause of liberty, and that is, always and everywhere, a cause worth serving." - The President held a press conference last night to reassure the people of our country about our role and goals in Iraq. You can find a transcript of the address here. The Washington Times has a relatively good sum up of the address. John Podhoretz at the New York Post has a great column today about the press conference. Some highlights:

THE purpose of last night's presidential press conference was to show purpose, and rarely has a president seemed quite so purposeful as George W. Bush did last night.

The purpose of the White House press corps was to make the president confess to weakness - to corner him into creating the soundbite of all soundbites, in which Bush would acknowledge his errors as president and thereby give John Kerry all the material he would need for a killer TV ad or two.

The president achieved his purpose. The press corps did not achieve its purpose. He would not fall into their astonishingly blatant trap. He simply refused to offer a satisfactory answer to four - four! - different questions demanding that he either enumerate or apologize for his failures.

No one should be fooled by the way he stumbled through some of his answers about his mistakes as president. Bush knew exactly what he was doing, as he always does.

Rather than apologize to the 9/11 families for the terror strike that day, the president said the responsibility for the attacks rested squarely on the shoulders of Osama bin Laden. And it's a mark of how demented the debate has gotten in the past few weeks that this simple statement of truth seemed bracing and even daring.


Why doesn't it surprise me the press corps were trying to lure the president into confessing some sort of wrong doing. While Richard Clarke is apologizing to the families of 9/11 for our falilure, like the Bush administration is directly responsible for Mohammed Atta flying a plane into the Twin Towers and killing thousands, the president places the blame on the responsible parties, Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. By no means is the PDB (read text here) a document that clearly telegraphed the terrorists' bold plan to use airplanes as missiles.

I'll leave you with comments from another John Podhoretz column:

How on earth can anybody say that the Aug. 6 PDB is a warning of 9/11 when it never mentions suicide bombing?
It's vital to remember that what happened on 9/11 wasn't just the same old thing al Qaeda had done in the past. Nobody - no terrorist organization, no government, nobody - had ever done any of these things:

* Used 19 people at the same time as a suicide-attack squad.
* Hijacked four planes within an hour of each other.
* Slammed passenger jet planes into skyscrapers.
* Flew a jet plane into a government building in Washington, D.C.

On 9/11, al Qaeda did all these things - and did them simultaneously.

When government officials from President Bush to Condi Rice to Donald Rumsfeld say nobody could have imagined the attacks of 9/11, they're right - and everybody who says otherwise is delusional, stupid or dishonest.

Finish It or Forget It - Victor Davis Hanson on the war in Iraq, our military power, and thugs in Clerics' robes. Here is a sample:

We should simply ignore most supposed Islamic restrictions on war-making since they are entirely one-sided, asymmetrical, and self-serving. All during the Afghanistan campaign we worried about Ramadan, and were warned by the impotent Arab Street about the repercussions to follow if we shot back at Taliban thugs who hid in mosques and sniped at us during their holy days. Did we remember that when Egypt invaded Israel during its sacred Yom Kippur holidays it bragged of the sneak attack as the "Ramadan War"—and in pride, not shame? Did we hold back from attacking Nazi Germany on Hitler's Birthday? And was it really wise to impose what turned out to be a one-sided truce at the Tet holiday in Vietnam?

Putting non-explosives in GPS bombs at the end of the war to avoid collateral damage beyond targeted artillery pieces and tanks parked in Iraqi mosques, or not wishing to hurt religious militias as they carted off the material future of Iraq and cached them in mosques after the liberation, may have been humane and logical, but that and other efforts at restraint have consistently sent the wrong message to jihadists and thereby emboldened killers—namely, that we would respect their own holy sites far more than those who had desecrated them with munitions. As way of illustration, the world should ask in April 2004, right now how many Churches, Temples—or Mosques—concurrently serve as weapons depots?

As I recall the radical Muslim world canonized armed Islamic criminals who desecrated the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem without apology to its Christian clergy. A general rule then: once armed combatants enter mosques for sanctuary, the United States military must declare that such shrines are immediately no longer holy sites, and then allow 48 hours for Islamic clergy to remove such killers before it does it for them. A mass-murderer in a wheel chair, or a street tough wearing a turban really is not a holy man—and the Islamic world needs to realize that when the fatwas of mullahs and imams invoke the name of "God" to murder, then they have sacrificed the sanctuary of religion.

Read the entire piece here .

The Last Seven Words of Christ - Mark D. Roberts, a pastor and blogger, has been doing a series on the last seven words of Christ on the cross. This is great reading as Easter approaches. Certainly more edifying than bunny whipping...

What kind of message is this? - Apparently, the new way to illustrate the love that Jesus showed for us humans and the incredible sacrifice he made to redeem us is to flog the Easter Bunny?

It may not have been as gruesome as Mel Gibson's movie, but many parents and children got upset when a church trying to teach about Jesus' crucifixion performed an Easter show with actors whipping the Easter bunny and breaking eggs.

People who attended Saturday's show at Glassport's memorial stadium quoted performers as saying, "There is no Easter bunny," and described the show as being a demonstration of how Jesus was crucified.

Melissa Salzmann, who brought her 4-year-old son J.T., said the program was inappropriate for young children. "He was crying and asking me why the bunny was being whipped," Salzmann said.

What was this church body and its leadership thinking? Not trying to sound to dramatic, but that kid will probably be scarred for life and will never want to become part of the church, who was responsible for whipping the Easter Bunny.The sole reason I observe Easter is to remember the incredible sacrifice of Christ for me and to celebrate his resurrection. But the boneheaded actions like those of the people at this church will continue to turn people off to the amazing experience of knowing Jesus. Stories like this always find their way to the mass media for all the world to see, and continue to give Christianity a bad name. Christians are not all radical, Easter Bunny flogging freaks. Unfortunately, this is just another case of the few defining the reputation for all.

The Bleat - Make sure that you go check out James Lileks' Bleat today. Great stuff on Ted Kennedy, Iraq, and Kerry's "diplobabble".

Daschle vs. Thune - I am adding a few links to the World of Tomorrow related to the South Dakota election battle between Tom Dashcle (Democratic filibustering encumbant) and John Thune. Hugh Hewitt brought this issue to light at his website and I am passing on the info. Support John Thune unless you want more of Daschle's liberalism and obstructionism.

Daschle v. Thune
South Dakota Politics
John Thune

The Mirror of Fallujah – VDH on the Middle East and why there should not be any more excuses for the violence there. Here is just a few of the highlights.

The enemy of the Middle East is not the West so much as modernism itself and the humiliation that accrues when millions themselves are nursed by fantasies, hypocrisies, and conspiracies to explain their own failures. Quite simply, any society in which citizens owe their allegiance to the tribe rather than the nation, do not believe in democracy enough to institute it, shun female intellectual contributions, allow polygamy, insist on patriarchy, institutionalize religious persecution, ignore family planning, expect endemic corruption, tolerate honor killings, see no need to vote, and define knowledge as mastery of the Koran is deeply pathological.

When one adds to this depressing calculus that for all the protestations of Arab nationalism, Islamic purity and superiority, and whining about a decadent West, the entire region is infected with a burning desire for things Western—from cell phones and computers to videos and dialysis, you have all the ingredients for utter disaster and chaos. How after all in polite conversation can you explain to an Arab intellectual that the GDP of Jordan or Morocco has something to do with an array of men in the early afternoon stuffed into coffee shops spinning conspiracy tales, drinking coffee, and playing board games while Japanese, Germans, Chinese, and American women and men are into their sixth hour on the job? Or how do you explain that while Taiwanese are studying logarithms, Pakistanis are chanting from the Koran in Dark-Age madrassas? And how do you politely point out that while the New York Times and Guardian chastise their own elected officials, the Arab news in Damascus or Cairo is free only to do the same to us?

I support the bold efforts of the United States to make a start in cleaning up this mess, in hopes that a Fallujah might one day exorcize its demons. But in the meantime, we should have no illusions about the enormity of our task, where every positive effort will be met with violence, fury, hypocrisy, and ingratitude.
If we are to try to bring some good to the Middle East, then we must first have the intellectual courage to confess that for the most part the pathologies embedded there are not merely the work of corrupt leaders but often the very people who put them in place and allowed them to continue their ruin.

Read the whole article here.

Open mouth… - The more John Kerry speaks the more the voters are truly going to see what a nasty man he is. According to a New York Times article, Mr. Kerry became combative when told some conservatives were criticizing him for being a Roman Catholic that supported abortion, which is against Catholic teaching. From the article:

"Who are they?" he demanded of his questioner. "Name them. Are they the same legislators who vote for the death penalty, which is in contravention of Catholic teaching?"

He added: "I'm not a church spokesman. I'm a legislator running for president. My oath is to uphold the Constitution of the United States in my public life. My oath privately between me and God was defined in the Catholic church by Pius XXIII and Pope Paul VI in the Vatican II, which allows for freedom of conscience for Catholics with respect to these choices, and that is exactly where I am. And it is separate. Our constitution separates church and state, and they should be reminded of that."

A little testy are we Mr. Kerry? Besides, there was no Pius XXIII. Maybe he meant John, or Ringo…

Catholic officials continue to criticize Kerry. He invents doctrine to excuse his liberal views that are in direct conflict with not only Catholic teaching but Christian beliefs.

The New York Times article also reported this comment from Mr. Kerry:

Mr. Kerry suggested that he would not allow himself to be pigeonholed as a liberal and said that he expected to win some states in the South, although he declined to name them.

Pigeonholed as a liberal? Little late for that isn’t it John? The whole abortion thing really pigeonholes him as a liberal and lends to the Catholic church criticizing his invented doctrines. Ted Kennedy’s support doesn’t really help him either…

Swift Retribution - Peggy Noonan posts an article at OpinionJournal.com about the death of the American civilians in Fallujah and what our response needs to be. There needs to be swift and decisive retribution for that atrocious act by the Iraqis. This will not be another Somalia where we cut and run. In antiquity, during the era of Roman rule, when a trouble spot popped up, much like it has in Fallujah, the Romans would be quick to act and would eliminate the trouble spot so that it wouldn't fester and grow, only to be a bigger ailment later. Not only do our troops need to act swiftly, decisively, and justly, but the Iraqi government needs to flex their muscles and say, "We are no longer going to tolerate Saddam-type actions that negatively reflect on our new way of life". We know who the perpetrators are because they committed this heinous act on film. Now we need to bring them to justice.

Remind you of someone? - Hugh Hewitt's newest offering is available at WeeklyStandard.com. Hugh writes that John Kerry reminds us of someone, but we can't quite put our finger on it. Hewitt offers up two answers: Major Frank Burns of M*A*S*H fame and the literary Icabod Crane. I am not that familiar with Icabod, but certainly know all about Major Burns from watching re-runs of M*A*S*H during my youth. Very good comparison.