April 11, 2005

The Prowler at the American Spectator explains that that albatross "GOP" talking points memo on the Schiavo matter wasn't fake, but it was inaccurate;
apparently a staffer of GOP Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida coughed up the fact that he had prepared it, given it to Sen. Martinez (who didn't really read it himself, it seems), but who gave it to Sen. Tom Harkin...who then "leaked it" (like a good, loyal Dimocrat) to fellow Dem Sen. Harry Reid...
I think. (Frankly, I'm a bit confused still. LOL)
So, even though it technically originated in the office of a GOP senator, it wasn't written on an official Senate letterhead with the usual signatures and protocols and no-one on the GOP side of the Senate had read it or used it to pass the Schiavo Amendment.
The Spectator asks,

While it is clear that the Martinez office was the source of the memo, questions remain. For example, Why, when it now is clear that the Washington Post and ABC News both got tipped to the memo by Democrats, did both initially report that the memo was being handed out by Republican leaders to Republicans?

Prowler also points out that neither ABC nor the WashedUpPost can produce a copy of this infamous "memo," even though ABC had a "copy" of it posted on their website for 3 weeks--What's up with that?
I have another question:
Why would Martinez or even a member of his staff prepare such a "ham-handed" analysis of the Schiavo issue when Sen. Martinez was from the very state in which Terri Schiavo's case was unfolding?
Martinez was more than familiar with the flurry of activity in Florida to save Terri, including passage of a law to do just that by the Florida legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush's efforts to enforce that law or otherwise protect Ms. Schindler-Schiavo's life anyway the state could.
Would the Senator from Terri's state have to say things like these taken from that "memo?":
"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.

This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats."
This is all too sophomoric and simplistic, even for the self-absorbed US senators and sounds like an excerpt from "Senate Politics for Dummies."
I don't think we've heard the end of this story yet and No, Dems, I'm not eating crow because we Republicans supposedly embarrassed ourselves saying it was a fake!
Either the memo was fake or the staffer Brian Darling who admitted to "creating it" was a plant or both!
Brian Darling isn't darling at all!

April 10, 2005

Ahmad, author of the Iraqi Expat blog, is pleased about the election of free Iraq's 1st PM and President:

[...]
For the last 50 years, this is Iraq's first elected government, first Kurdish President, first non-Arab President of an Arab majority country, first elected Shia Prime Minister, first President to become Vice President, and certainly it is the first government that will be criticized by and accountable to the people (the voters) and their representatives (the MPs).
I know some people have criticized the National Assembly sessions as being choatic [Sic]; but I loved it, members are criticizing the government, asking questions, debating, etc. What is not to love? It's called democracy and they are learning it, like we are. I don't want to see any council were everybody agrees on what the leader says, what's the point of such useless council of parrots?
I am not worried - and you shouldn't be - that Al Jaafari might turn Iraq into Iran, since he only has executive powers but no legislative powers; also his cabinet will have many seculars, Kurds and other minorities. I personally believe that Al Jaafari is a rational, moderate and tolerant Shia, even though he represents Al Da'awa Party which is a religious party. He is a well respected soft-spoken diplomat who might lack the charisma and the strength required for this period! But I might be proved wrong on this one.
I wish him and his cabinet the best of luck.

So do I, Ahmad!
Godspeed to Talabani and Al-Jaafari and Long live the Free Iraq!
But, it does seem that there are some Iraqis who weren't too happy about this week's winners:
Officer commits suicide after Kurd made President
This man, a Sunni Baathist intelligence officer for Saddam, knows that the "jig is up" and that once the new Iraqi government tries Saddam and his top officers, they'll get around to guys like him for "crimes against the Iraqi people."
But the most upset person in Iraq had to have been "Uncle Saddam" himself:

Saddam Hussein watched the televised election of Iraq's new president from his jail cell yesterday and was "clearly upset", a senior official said.

Jalal Talabani, a former Kurdish guerrilla commander and sworn enemy of Saddam, was elected to the highest office in a parliamentary ballot, bringing a new government a step closer.

Under Saddam the only way Mr Talabani would have left his northern redoubt was in chains or a coffin, but yesterday he arrived in Baghdad in a blaze of triumph.
[...]

It was galling viewing for Saddam, according to Bakhtiar Amin, the human rights minister,
[Don't you know he was a busy guy?!-Jen]
who said the former dictator had chosen to view the recording of the parliamentary vote.

"He was clearly upset. He realised that it was over, that a democratic process had taken place and that there was a new, elected president," Mr Amin told Reuters.
[...]
Mr Talabani, 72, promised pluralism and respect for Iraq's Islamic identity in his acceptance speech.

"After being liberated from the most hideous of dictatorships our people - the Arabs, the Kurds, the Turkomans and the Assyrians - want to build a new Iraq free from dictatorship and tyranny, a democratic, unified Iraq," he said.

Without naming Syria or Iran, he warned neighbouring states against helping insurgents, and promised to build up Iraq's security forces.

Woo-hoo, Talabani!
You GO.

The (right, Right wing of the) blogosphere is buzzing with news of the controversy surrounding the AP's recent receipt of the Pulitzer Prize for war photos and the concurrent evidence of collusion between the MSM and the terrorist "insurgents;"
Power Line, of course, has the whole rundown, but the short version of the story behind how the AP "happened" to get a picture of the Iraqi "militants" killing election workers is that while they maintain on their own web site that their man was "300 meters" away from the murders, he was, in fact, 50 meters meters away, as they admitted to Powerline in an email.
Further, the photographer(s) confessed that they were on the scene to get the picture because the terrorists had "invited them to a demonstration," but not an execution.
John and Scott of Powerline got former NYTimes photographer D. Gorton to analyze the Haifa Street image and his expert opinion was that the AP assassination photo "had all the earmarks of a planned image."
Here's that image for the curious:

Wretchard of Belmont Club has more thoughts on the subject.
And how do we view this story in light of what happened the other day, when a CBS news reporter was taken into U.S. military custody for actually being one of the "insurgents?"
CBS stringer arrested in Iraq
The AP insists it is "deeply offended" by any charges that it might be sleeping with the enemy, yet they admit they knew they were being used for propagandistic purposes by enemy combatants.
Maybe Eason Jordan was right: our soldiers are targeting the media in Iraq because they are, in actual fact or at the very least in sympathy with, the enemy!
We all would like to know what really happened on Haifa Street, but I'd also like an answer to another question: If the AP photog was only 50 meters away from the murders, did he do anything to stop this execution from happening?
Those Iraqi election workers were, in effect, the allies and comrades of any American, including one of its MSM.
Wasn't this execution staged for the cameras and not the reverse, the cameramen just "happened" to photograph an Iraqi "lynching" "at random?"