May 13, 2005

Newspaper Columnist Resigns After Inquiry

The Sacramento Bee announced Thursday the resignation of an award-winning columnist, the latest in a series of cases across the nation in which journalists had been forced from their jobs because of questions about the veracity of their reporting.
[...]
Last week, USA Today Pentagon correspondent Tom Squitieri resigned under pressure after lifting quotes from another newspaper and using other quotes without attribution.

That followed on the heels of the resignation of veteran Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Al Levine, who pilfered information from two Florida newspapers without crediting them.
Los Angeles Times reporter Eric Slater was dismissed last month when editors at the newspaper could not verify information in an article he wrote about fraternity hazing at Cal State Chico.
The recent headliner in the string of news scandals was bestselling author, sports columnist and TV personality Mitch Albom, who was suspended from the Detroit Free Press for describing a scene in the stands at an NCAA basketball tournament game before the game had been played.

With polls showing journalists already held in low esteem, the run of bad news has alarmed many in the business.
[You don't suppose their falling subscription rates have anything to do with their "alarm," do you?--Jen]

Some reporters and editors theorize that shortcuts and sloppiness have increased because of more competition from Internet news sites and 24-hour television news.
[Notice how careful they are not to even mention we dreaded bloggers!]
Others think standards have been raised and that newspapers insist on more exact reporting than they did in the past.

Those hard-*ssed old-fashioned editors!
They're insisting that reporters use facts, truth and real people for interviews instead of the usual made-up crap that fits their agenda and has always passed for the "news" before someone could "fact-check their *sses!"

While this story makes clear that there has been more than one incident at more than one paper, they still left out Jason Blair at the NYSlimes, Andrew Gilligan and his "sexed-up" story on the BBC, the reporter at the Boston Globe that made up a PETA-enraging seal hunt story and similar mis-reporting on WiredNews.com.
Who knows how many reporters, papers and editors have to bite the dust before they figure out that they have to report the NEWS or else face extinction like the dinosaurs?
Their audience is heading for the exits as the folks in Old Media give us plenty of reasons to leave!
And long live the Pajamahadeen--let's keep after these snakeoil salesmen who pretend to be purveyors of truth!

Here's today's "cartoon" from Arab News, if you thought that radical Muslims had given up the idea of crashing planes into our buildings:

So, the system worked in so far as the immediate area of central D.C. was evacuated.
But if there's a "next time," I don't want my government to hesitate for a moment to shoot down an "errant" plane in a no-fly zone!
In fact, it makes me more than a little furious that they did this time.
We know only too well how it took waaaaayyyy too long for our fighters to get up in the air on 9/11 and even if we have to shoot down someone who's "innocent," it will teach other careless pilots and any number of would-be terrorists an important lesson.

H/T Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs

Reid cites FBI file on judicial pick

Minority Leader Harry Reid strayed from his prepared remarks on the Senate floor yesterday and promised to continue opposing one of President Bush's judicial nominees based on "a problem" he said is in the nominee's "confidential report from the FBI."
    
Those highly confidential reports are filed on all judicial nominees, and severe sanctions apply to anyone who discloses their contents. Less clear is, whether a senator could face sanctions for characterizing the content of such files.
[...especially a senator like Reid who's not supposed to have access to these files!--Jen]

"Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway," Mr. Reid said on the floor yesterday, about the Michigan Appeals Court judge who is nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
   
 "All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and I think we would all agree that there is a problem there," Mr. Reid continued.
    
Republican staff members and supporters of Mr. Bush's nominees were outraged.
[Include me in this group, please!--J.T.]

"Can you think of a better way to trash someone's reputation?" Sean Rushton of the conservative Committee for Justice asked after seeing a transcript of the remarks. "Say that there is bad stuff from an FBI investigation in a file somewhere and leave that hanging. This is character assassination of the lowest order and completely improper."
   
 Republicans on Capitol Hill weren't saying much publicly, but several denounced the action privately as an "underhanded smear" or worse.
[I'm thinking "or worse..."]

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican who was chairman of the Judiciary Committee when Judge Saad faced his latest background investigation, declined to discuss the matter.
    
"As important as Senator Hatch thinks these comments are, he never comments on FBI reports or anything pertaining to them, and he doesn't believe anybody else should either," Hatch spokesman Peter Carr said.

Republican aides pointed to Standing Rule of the Senate 29, Section 5: "Any Senator, officer, or employee of the Senate who shall disclose the secret or confidential business or proceedings of the Senate, including the business and proceedings of the committees, subcommittees, and offices of the Senate, shall be liable, if a Senator, to suffer expulsion from the body; and if an officer or employee, to dismissal from the service of the Senate, and to punishment for contempt."
    
Furthermore, a "Memorandum of Understanding" covering the use of FBI background reports limits access to committee members and the nominee's home-state senators. Mr. Reid would fall into neither category.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley referred to an incident in June when the Senate Judiciary Committee met behind closed doors to review Judge Saad's file and inadvertently left a microphone turned on that broadcast part of the secret hearing onto the Internet.
[Woo-hoo! The Web strikes again!
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!-Jen]
    
"The fact that there's an issue regarding Henry Saad's background is well-known," said Mr. Manley, who noted that Mr. Reid did not disclose any specifics from the file. "It's been discussed both in committee and on the floor before."
    
Still, Mr. Reid's comments weren't part of his prepared remarks.
["Poor Harry.", as Ann Richards would say, "He can't he'p it!" He just had to blab what he knew to show what a cool guy he was.]

 "One of the three 6th Circuit nominees who were previously filibustered -- Henry Saad -- would have been filibustered anyway because there are serious concerns about his suitability to be a federal judge," said his prepared statement, provided by his office.
    
Furious Saad supporters said they had never heard about the previous committee leak and called Mr. Reid's remarks an "unfounded smear" indicative of how nasty the debate over judges has become.
[And virtually all of that nastiness is down to the Dimocrat side of the Senate, let the record show.
I'm sick to death of the Dims trying to say that "both sides" are responsible for the contentious tone in our public discourse!--Jen]

"Harry Reid is a disgrace to the Senate and to [his] Church of Latter-day Saints," said Manuel Miranda, who was forced to resign as a Republican Senate staffer after downloading files on judicial nominees from Democratic computer servers.
[WHY in the world do the Dims have the access to these???
I want answers and I want them now!]
    
"Both bodies should censure him," said Mr. Miranda, who leads a private advocacy group for Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.
    
Michael Bouchard, sheriff of Oakland County in Michigan and a personal friend of Judge Saad, said he is "absolutely" certain that the FBI file doesn't contain anything damaging.
   
 "I think Harry Reid is lying," he said. "He's hiding behind something he knows he'll never be asked to show. Harry Reid is a coward."
    
Confidants of Judge Saad said yesterday that the judge would release the file but that he has never seen it, let alone obtained copies of it. Judge Saad is not permitted to see the file, Senate staffers said.
 

What a mess!
The Libs complain that the Patriot Act "violates civil liberties" while they make GOP politicians confidential files public reading on the Hill, although the subjects of those files aren't allowed to read them.
Sounds like Hillary to me: she's never had to cough up or otherwise account for the thousands of GOP FBI files she "borrowed" for light reading while she was First "Lady..."
Harry Reid can and must be both censured and expelled from the Senate for this egregious malfeasance!
And he had the nerve and stupidity to call President Bush a "loser!"
(I'm sorry...who's the loser, loser?)
Get busy in Washington, GOP Senators!
You've got a lot of work to do before you recess for the summer.

May 12, 2005

War in Iraq looks like last stand for al Qaeda

The war in Iraq is increasingly looking more like a showdown with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda followers than a battle primarily against Saddam Hussein loyalists.
    
The shift is making the fight a focal point of the U.S. global war against Islamic terrorists and one that might dictate whether the U.S. wins or loses, said a senior official and an outside expert.
    
"If they fail in Iraq, Osama and his whole crew are finished," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, a military author and analyst.

The changing dynamic was highlighted this week when the U.S. military launched a major offensive in western Iraq, primarily against foreign jihadists who crossed the border with Syria to join the al Qaeda network in Iraq led by Abu Musab Zarqawi. In a troubling sign, U.S. officers said Zarqawi's terrorists seemed well-trained and well-equipped.
    
The U.S. offensive, code named Operation Matador, entered its third day yesterday in the dusty border towns west of Baghdad near Syria. The command said three Marines and more than 100 enemy fighters have been killed.
[I hate to see even one soldier killed in this war, but a 100:3 kill ratio is pretty terrific.
God rest the souls of these brave fallen Marines.--Jen]

In the Muslim world and extremist world, this fight for Iraq is their key battle," said Gen. McInerney. "If they lose it, they lose the war. And so the imams are inciting young people, not particular well-educated, to head to Iraq. Most are going through Syria via Damascus.
    
"This is why Iraq is such a fundamental part of the global war on terrorism.
[No matter how many times the Left keeps telling it it isn't!--J.T.]
When we finally defeat Muslim extremists, it will be the battle in Iraq that defeats them."

The war's changing nature is also illustrated by the list of the high-ranking enemy announced as captured by the new Baghdad government. Virtually all of those caught since December have been identified as lieutenants of the Jordanian-born Zarqawi, not operatives for Iraq's former dictator Saddam Hussein.
    
Since the January elections of the new Iraqi parliament, Zarqawi's suicide terrorists have unleashed more than 100 car bombings, killing hundreds.
    
On the plus side for the U.S., it is receiving a record number of intelligence tips from Iraqis that have resulted in scores of captures of Zarqawi's terrorists.

But the number of arrests also present the coalition with a sobering reality. The fact that Zarqawi has in place a larger number of cell leaders and planners means that he has built up a sizable terror network since the March 2003 invasion.
[Thanks, Axis of Weasel and their ally, the Turks!
Putting the war off by 6 months to try and get the weasels to come around in the UNSC really cost us a lot and we're still paying with this "counterinsurgency."
The fact that we've supported Lebanon in her bid for independence from Syrian control has also gotten a lot of recruits for the bad guys from both Syria itself and from Iranian-based Hezbollah, too.]
    
"Clearly, the insurgents are more lethal, and that is a better measure than numbers," said a senior Pentagon official, who agreed that Iraq has become pivotal in the overall global war on terror. "They continue to adapt to the changes we make. They are a thinking enemy."

Outside analysts, such as Gen. McInerney, estimate that Zarqawi has as many as 2,000 operators. The Pentagon official said Zarqawi has the ability to quickly replenish his ranks once suicide jihadists kill themselves and their targets.
    
The constant reinforcement is one reason that the U.S. command launched Operation Matador in an attempt to flush out and kill insurgents who found safe havens in towns near Syria.

Gen. James T. Conway, the Joint Chiefs director of operations, said at the Pentagon yesterday that the battle plan called for the 2nd Regimental Combat Team to cross the Euphrates River, then set up blocking positions near the town of Rommana, as other forces flushed out insurgents.
    
But most foreign fighters chose to fight instead of running toward the Marine position.
    
"They were decisively engaged," Gen. Conway said. "A fairly significant battle followed. ... If they are intending on being martyred, that has to be cranked into the equation with this particular enemy."

He said the fighting yesterday involved Marines and soldiers finding fixed enemy positions and then hitting them with ground and air power. He said Marines received one unconfirmed sighting of Zarqawi in the past three weeks in an area between Qaim on the Syrian border and Husaybah.
    
A Marine officer told a Los Angeles Times reporter, "These are the professional fighters who have come from all over the Middle East. These are people who have received training and are very well-armed."

Lord knows the LATimes certainly needs enlightenment about what's really happening anywhere!

The Left has told us all now millions of times that there was no connection between Iraq and Al Queda and that our war in Iraq was an unnecessary "blood for oil" campaign by President Bush--I said they were wrong when I first started my blog and I'm delighted to say that they're wrong now.
With great sagacity, President Bush knew exactly why we needed to send troops into Iraq as the next campaign in the WOT after liberating Afghanistan from the Taliban terrorists.
I think the military spokesmen here are being very cautious in talking so guardedly about our military successes in Iraq because battle is still being joined, but I'd say that even with 2,000 "thinking enemies," our soldiers and our allies' are more than a match for these dead-enders.
Please continue to pray for our troops, though, and do continue to support them any and every way you can.
Visualize this victory in Iraq over Al Queda--it is within reach!

(As ever, since OIF began, Wretchard at Belmont Club has the 411 on the war, but his post Hearts and Minds is particularly good. Check it all out!)

Senate accuses two in oil scandal

A US Senate report says two veteran French and British politicians were granted potentially lucrative oil allocations by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

It says British MP George Galloway and former French minister Charles Pasqua were given the right to buy oil under the UN's oil-for-food scheme.

Such allocations could be sold on for a commission, although the report offers no evidence either man received money.
[They did it "for the chirren!"--Jen]

Both men deny claims that they were involved in such sales.
[Of course, they deny it--they're hoping the proof has been destroyed and they'll never get nailed.]

"I have never traded in a barrel of oil," said Mr Galloway, formerly a Labour member of parliament but re-elected as a MP for his own Respect party last week after campaigning against the Iraq war.

He told the BBC it was "patently absurd" to think that, as an MP being closely watched by UK security services, he could have become an "oil billionaire" on the sly.
[Absurd to think, perhaps, but yet it could and very likely did happen.--Jen]
[...]
"This is a lickspittle Republican committee, acting on the wishes of George W Bush."
[Galloway was heard to say...
Gee! Nice to know he has such a elevated opinion about our American governmental officials, huh?]

The report by a Senate committe investigating the oil-for-food scandal says Saddam Hussein's regime was keen to gain allies with influence abroad.

It alleged that Baghdad had given Mr Pasqua the right to buy 11 million barrels of oil, while Mr Galloway had received some 20 million.
[And France wouldn't sanction military action against Iraq on the UNSC in 2003 and Galloway did his damndest to keep the UK out, too.]

The committee says it has evidence from documents drawn up by the Ministry of Oil under Saddam Hussein and interviews with "high-ranking Hussein regime officials".

The oil-for-food programme was a $60bn (£32bn) scheme set up in 1996
[...established under Bill Clinton's steady gaze...]
which was supposed to allow Iraq to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies with the proceeds of regulated oil sales, without breaking the sanctions imposed on it after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The programme aimed to relieve the suffering of Iraqis under the sanctions and was formally ended in 2003 after the US-led invasion of Iraq.

The scandal over the way the programme was conducted emerged in early 2004, after an Iraqi newspaper published a list of about 270 people including UN officials, politicians and companies it alleged may have profited from the illicit sale of Iraqi oil.

US Senate investigators later found that Saddam Hussein's regime made $17.3bn from abuses.
[Very little of which went for food or medicine, but most of which went into "other" humanitarian supplies, for the barely human Saddam, Uday, Qusay and their sycophants.]

About $13.6bn allegedly came from selling oil to neighbour states keen to breach the sanctions.

The programme has already been the subject of several corruption investigations.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has been criticised over his son's work with the programme, but he himself, in an interim report by a UN committee issued in March, was cleared of wrongdoing.
[Uh...not really.
Several weeks ago, I blogged Volcker's statement that he had not cleared Kofi Kup!]

Mr Galloway won a libel suit against London's Daily Telegraph newspaper over an article relating to his alleged role in the oil-for-food programme.
[But they're appealing that decision, as they should.
Find the Telegraph's own very fair reporting of this story

Galloway was elected, in large part, by a heavy Muslim vote in his district;
in the days, since the British election, articles like this one have abounded in the world press:

Galloway win seen as Muslim vote triumph

Galloway won over a black Jewish woman using inflammatory, bellicose, anti-U.S., anti-war, anti-Blair, and if not anti-Semitic then certainly pro-Islamist rhetoric.

George Galloway, a radical expelled from the Labour Party for attacking Tony Blair over the Iraq war, snatched victory on Friday in a Labour stronghold seat where Muslims make up half the population.

Galloway took Bethnal Green and Bow in East London, which is dominated by Muslims of Bangladeshi origin, after one of the most heated battles of the British election.

The win by the flamboyant Scot, nicknamed ‘‘Gorgeous George’’ for his permanent tan and smart suits, over Labour’s Oona King, a black candidate of Jewish origin who had a 10,057-vote majority, was a stunning reverse for the ruling party.

Galloway declared his victory as a victory for Iraq.
[What happened to Britain in his priorities?--Jen]
‘‘All the people you killed, all the lies you told, have come back to haunt you,’’ Galloway said in a message to Prime Minister Blair. ‘‘The best thing the Labour Party could do is sack you tomorrow morning,’’ he said to cheers from the audience.

Could be that Gorgeous George has million$ of reasons he wants to back Saddam's Iraq so badly.
In the past, Muslims haven't been known to vote in numbers large enough to make a difference, probably due to their imams' traditional teachings that democracy is a "heresy," but with freedom on the march in the Middle East (good) and now this development in England (bad), we may seem some horrible new developments in future EUrabian elections given EU countries' growing Muslim populations.

As for Norm Coleman and his Committee, good on you for going full steam ahead with this investigation and not listening to that UN puppet Volcker!

CNBC Canceling Dennis Miller's Talk Show

CNBC is canceling comic Dennis Miller's low-rated political talk show after less than 16 months, replacing it with a business show rerun.

Miller's prime-time program, featuring a mixture of comedy, interviews and his conservative political opinion, was seen by an average of 168,000 viewers since its January 2004 launch, according to Nielsen Media Research.

That number has dipped to 114,000 this year with the presidential election campaign over.

[...]
CNBC, which has struggled to find an audience for anything in prime-time...

How predictable was this?
In fact, I think that NBC's plan was to get Miller away from FoxNews, control him and then get him off the air, as crazy as that sounds.
It just wouldn't do for the extreme Right Wing knuckle-dragging, hick, evangelical Christian crazies to have a sensible, savvy guy like Dennis as one of our spokespersons!
(Plus, he not only campaigned for President Bush's reelection, he rode on Air Force One with him--and for that, he must be purged and humiliated.)
But then NBC, primo mouthpiece for the Dimocratic Left, has done crazier things than this!
(Turn on Tardball or Olberman any weeknight, if you doubt.)
And Dennis is in "good" company--Tina Brown's show was cancelled, too.
I tried to watch DM's show, but when he got shouted down by his "varsity" panel every night which had been stuffed with Libs, it made for excruciating viewing, much as I like him.
Time for him to get FNC to take him back and get the standup gig with HBO away from that awful putz Maher.

May 09, 2005

Variety.com - Bound for 'Heaven'?

Given the Islam-Christianity conflict that's central to Ridley Scott's Crusades epic "Kingdom of Heaven," the film's release across the Mideast was nonetheless generating huge interest -- and nervous speculation.

Pic opened on 21 screens in the United Arab Emirates, nine in Lebanon, six in Kuwait, three in both Qatar and Jordan and on single screens in Bahrain, Oman and Syria.

"We're expecting admissions of over 100,000 in both Lebanon and the U.A.E.," says Hiyam Itani of Circuit Empire, which is handling the pic for Fox in the Mideast. "People are really interested in it. They can relate to the story and the religious aspects. After all, it happened here."

But the film has also been dogged in recent months by accusations that it short-shrifts real history. Jonathon Riley-Smith, one of Britain's leading authorities on the Crusades, labeled it b,>"Osama Bin Laden's version of history" and said, "It will fuel the Islamic fundamentalists." Islamic professor Khaled Abu Fadl of the U. of California accused the film of "teaching people to hate Muslims."

Shame on Ridley Scott for incorporating the worst kind of moral equivalence into this film!
"Kingdom of Heaven" doesn't sound heavenly...in addition to Scott's vapid Kumbaya-type attitude as embodied in the movie, word has it that the film isn't so great on its merits.
Check out the reviews here from Rotten Tomatoes, most of them pans and of that variety, almost all of those being pretty hilarious reactions to a "serious" film:
"KingdomofHeaven"
"Kingdom" may do OK box office in the Middle East and Asia, but it's bombing in the USA!
And yes, I think Mr. Riley-Smith is correct: The film will fuel Islamist terrorism.
Thanks again for helping the wrong side in the war, Hollywood!

U.S. Military Band Marches on Moscow

When someone called to strike up a stirring military march for a parade through central Moscow, hardly anyone ever imagined it would be "The Stars and Stripes Forever."

Or that the Stars and Stripes itself, hoisted aloft by an Army sergeant, would lead the U.S. Army Europe Band up the Russian capital's main thoroughfare, past cheering crowds, to greet a train full of Russian war veterans.

"I've met every president. I've met hundreds of kings and queens. But marching through Moscow behind three of my soldiers carrying the American flag is pretty much the highlight of my career," said Lt. Col. Thomas H. Palmatier, commander of the Army band, which came here along with President Bush and other U.S. officials to help mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.
"We played inside the Kremlin walls! We played 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' on the streets of Moscow! It was a pretty emotional experience," Palmatier said.
[...]
On Sunday, though, it was the U.S. Army that was the big crowd pleaser in central Moscow. Though it wasn't the first performance by an American military band in Russia, it marked the first time such an ensemble has played inside the Kremlin, or marched down the streets of Moscow behind the American flag. Enthusiastic onlookers applauded, hung over balconies and stopped members of the band to take photos.

"The crowd seemed overjoyed to see us," said Sgt. Daniel Halsey, a 32-year-old New York native who carried the American flag, flanked by a two-member color guard. "People in the street were coming up to us. I personally had over 100 pictures taken of me with the flag, by everybody from vets to young children."
[...]
The Russian band warmed up Sunday with "The Holy War," a deafening call to arms against the German forces of World War II: "Rise up, great country/ Rise up for mortal combat/ Against the dark fascist force,/ Against the damned horde!"

Gerhard Schroeder was there, you know...I'd give a pfennig for his thoughts when they struck up "The Holy War!"
I know that President and Mrs. Bush just loved our band marching down the streets of Moscow and in the Kremlin behind the Stars and Stripes playing "Stars and Stripes Forever" and somewhere in Heaven, Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill were smiling to beat the band!
U.S.A.! U.S.A.--victory over both the Nazis and the Soviet Communists is sweet indeed.
The V-E day celebrations have occasioned a host of strange sights, not just that of our Army band marching with the flag in the Kremlin.
There were also moments like this, when Basil Fawlty could remark, "We're all friends now!":


President Bush loves PM Koziumi, but isn't it remarkable to think that 60 years ago, the Japanese were our hated enemy?
(Check out that backstabbing snake Chirac grinning like a fool, too!)

The night before, I got a big kick out of seeing President Bush driving Pooty's 1956 Volga:


To Vlady, this must be like having a classic T-Bird!

Could be he's returning the favor of George Dubya riding him around Crawford in his pick-up (It's a guy/car thing!)

Troops Kill 75 Terrorists in Iraq Operation

 U.S. forces launched an offensive against terrorists in western Iraq near the Syrian border, and about 75 militants were killed in the first 24 hours, the military said Monday.

It said the offensive, being conducted with U.S. air support in a desert area of Anbar province north of the Euphrates River, was targeting a sanctuary for foreign terroirsts[Sic] and a smuggling route.

What is the news? The AP finally calling the bad guys terrorists or the fact that we put 75 killers away?
You be the judge, but I'm happy about both!
(And Syria's support for Islamist terrorism is still part of our problem...)

May 08, 2005

Bush: U.S. Had Hand in European Divisions

Second-guessing Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Bush said Saturday the United States played a role in Europe's painful division after World War II - a decision that helped cause "one of the greatest wrongs of history" when the Soviet Union imposed its harsh rule across Central and Eastern Europe.
[Well, Hallelujah!
The 8-ton elephant in the living room was finally acknowledged!
'Bout time, too!
Between "reforming" Social Security and beginning the demythologizing of Yalta, President Bush is finally popping the balloon of the Dimocrats' great and infallible "god" Roosevelt and putting his legacy in the cold light of reality. Once again, thank you, President Bush!--Jen]

Bush said the lessons of the past will not be forgotten as the United States tries to spread freedom in the Middle East.

"We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability," the president said. "We have learned our lesson; no one's liberty is expendable. In the long run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others."

In recent days Bush has urged Russia to own up to its wartime past. It appeared he decided to do the same, himself, to set an example for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

Bush also used his address to lecture Putin about his handling of the emergence of democratic countries on Russia's borders. "No good purpose is served by stirring up fears and exploiting old rivalries in this region," Bush said.
[This is in response to Vladimir's displeasure that Bush was even visiting these Baltic countries as the leader of the free world and its chief promoter of democracy and denouncer of tyranny.--J.T.] "The interests of Russia and all nations are served by the growth of freedom that leads to prosperity and peace."

Bush spent the day with the leaders of three Baltic republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Many in the Baltic countries are still bitter about the Soviet annexation of their countries and the harsh occupation that followed the war for nearly 50 years. Acknowledging that anger and frustration still linger, Bush said that "we have a great opportunity to move beyond the past." His message here - and throughout his trip - is that the world is entering a new phase of freedom and all countries should get on board.

While history does not hide the U.S. role in Europe's division, American presidents have found little reason to discuss it before Bush's speech.
[I wonder why...except that it's clear that even 60 years on from the end of WWII and Roosevelt's death, that poking holes in the fabric of the mythically marvelous legacy of the Great FDR isn't for the faint-of-heart.
Not even President Reagan, by his own admission a former Democrat, had the honesty and courage to admit the truth about Yalta...or maybe he was just too busy dealing with the consequences of Yalta, as were Bush's other post-war WWII predecessors.
Sad to say, President Eisenhower didn't do anything when the Russians reined in Hungary's growing democratic revolution with an iron fist in 1956 and President Nixon sat by and watched Russian tanks roll into Czechoslavakia in 1972, which the Commies did also for the purpose of crushing a democratic uprising.
We can only presume that this was because of Yalta and that every U.S. President after FRD felt bound by it, until Chief Two Stones President Bush came to town.]

"Certainly it goes further than any president has gone," historian Alan Brinkley said from the U.S. "This has been a very common view of the far right for many years - that Yalta was a betrayal of freedom, that Roosevelt betrayed the hopes of generations."
[It's not just a "view...of the far right"--Oppressive Communist occupation and domination was a fact for the peoples of Eastern Europe from the end of the war until the evil empire fell and this was made possible by concessions we made at Yalta to Stalin.]

Bush said the Yalta agreement, also signed by Britain's Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, followed in the "unjust tradition" of other infamous war pacts that carved up the continent and left millions in oppression. The Yalta accord gave Stalin control of the whole of Eastern Europe, leading to criticism that Roosevelt had delivered millions of people to communist domination.
[Well, yes. Exactly.--Jen]

"Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable," the president said. "Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable."

Bush said the United States and its allies eventually recognized they could not be satisfied with the liberation of half of Europe and decided "we would not forget our friends behind an Iron Curtain."
[...]
At a news conference, Bush rejected the suggestion that Washington and Moscow work out a mutually agreeable way to bring democracy to Belarus - the former Soviet republic that Bush calls the "last remaining dictatorship in Europe."

"Secret deals to determine somebody else's fate - I think that's what we're lamenting here today, one of those secret deals among large powers that consigns people to a way of government," Bush said.
[Again, good call, Mr. President!]
He called for "free and open and fair" elections set for next year in Belarus, now run by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
[...]

Bush placed a wreath at the Latvian Freedom Monument, a towering obelisk symbolizing this small country's struggle for independence. While he is unpopular across much of Europe because of the Iraq war, Bush got a warm welcome here.

Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga presented Bush with the nation's top honor, the Three-Star Order, calling him a "signal fighter of freedom and democracy in the world."

Bush has irritated Russia by bracketing his visit to Moscow Sunday with stops in two former Soviet republics, Latvia and Georgia. He arrived in the Netherlands on Saturday night, ahead of a speech Sunday at an American cemetery.

Good old Al-Presseera strikes again with their Bush-bashing and America-hating!
I don't suppose we'll ever know what really happened at Yalta, but my own theory is that FRD was too sick and tired at that time, literally weeks away from his untimely death, to press Stalin for real concessions in Eastern Europe.
(Some on the "far right" claim that Communist-sympathizer Harry Hopkins, who served as FDR's right-hand man and the eminence griseof that Administration, was responsible for the many concessions the U.S. made to the U.S.S.R. at Yalta.)
Seeing his weak state, Churchill went reluctantly along, fearing he couldn't stand alone against both Roosevelt and FDR.
While the U.S. hadn't lost as many men as the USSR, we lost a lot and paid just as dearly for liberating Western Europe from the Nazis as the Russians did in the East.
All in all, Gen. George Patton was right: we should have stayed there, finished the job and kick the Soviets' butts back to Moscow while we had the men and materiel handy.
Soviet Communism was every bit as bad as Nazism and probably worse.
I'm delighted that President Bush came out and dealt honestly with these ex-Soviet satellites about the folly of Yalta and what freedom and democracy should and must mean, since Vladimir Putin seems so desirous of reconstituting the USSR and returning totalitarian communist rule to the same countries that suffered under the Hammer and Sickle before.
Needless to say, Bush's meeting with Pooty Poot later today(Sunday) should be very interesting!