Author: Kevin

When the first paragraph references Bloom County and merely the fifth paragraph of one of Steven Den Beste’s epic-length essays starts with that line, you know to pop open a cold beverage of your choice, fix a bag of popcorn, and settle in to be educated and entertained.

Go read The Truth Is…

It will be, as always, worth your time.

Another Example that “Journalists” Need to be Beaten with a ClueBat™

The Heartless Libertarian links to this CNN report from a journalist embedded with the Marines in Falluja.

Read the whole thing, but pay special attention to the part at the bottom where the reporter is dumbfounded by the high morale and the eagerness to go back to the battle exhibited by all the Marines, especially the wounded.

On the same note, Michele whacks Ted Koppel about the head and shoulders with the ClueBat™ for his completely unbiased decision to announce the names of the soldiers killed in Iraq on Nightline Friday night. And of course the date selection has nothing to do with the fact that “Sweeps Month” starts Thursday and ends before memorial day.

That’s right, it sweeps month, beginning on Thursday! Do I detect ulterior motives – say something besides altruism and patriotism – from the esteemed Mr. Koppel?

But wait! There’s more!

Just what kind of impact is Ted trying to make? From where I sit, it looks like it’s the kind of impact designed to fan the flames of anti-war sentiment.

Oh, and if you know of anyone who died in Iraq while defending freedom, but they did not die in actual combat, don’t bother waiting up for the name to be read. There’s no room for friendly fire or accidents in this sweeps extravaganza.

“I have always felt, and I said it when I was in Iraq last year, that the most important thing a journalist can do is remind people of the cost of war,” Mr. Koppel said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Yes, and the most important thing a newscaster can do is to drive home those liberal talking points of hopelessness and defeat.

I’m not asking Koppel to do a two hour piece on Iraqis throwing flowers at the feet of U.S. soldiers. I’m just asking him to be honest in motives, and asking ABC to not take its viewers for idiots.

That’s asking a bit much, Michele.

I don’t plan to watch it, but if they run something similar on Memorial Day, I might. There’s a difference between honoring the dead and using them. And there’s a reason morale is high among the Marines in Falluja: They know that despite media and political protestations of “QUAGMIRE!” the majority of Americans support them, and that they’re doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Koppel and the leftist media can keep preaching the Vietnam analogy as long as they want. We’re not listening. And it’s driving them nuts.

First up we have this piece from KPIX TV, Channel 5 from the People’s Republic of San Francisco:

Top SF Officials Speak Against Assault Weapons (Why am I unsurprised?)

Catherine Tyson has good reason to fear and hate an AK-47.

“I never saw a gun before in my life,” she said. “But when I saw the size of those guns, it was overwhelming to me that someone would actually use a weapon like that.”

She’s intimidated by the SIZE?

Someone used an AK-47 to kill Tyson’s son Brian on New Year’s Eve four years ago.
“Today it’s my child. Tomorrow it could be your child, day after that it could be their child,” said Tyson. “As long as those weapons are around, it’s going to keep happening. As long as those weapons are on the street, there are going to continue to be murders.”

Right. AK-47’s are responsible for San Francisco’s homicide problem, which in 2002 numbered some 68 victims. According to this table from 1993 through 2002 rifles were used in an average of about 3.6% of all California homicides, while the total number of homicides in California committed with rifles has been on the decline from a high of 154 in 1993 to a minimum of 62 in 1996. In 2002 there were 80.

It would seem that, regardless of whether AK-47’s are around, homicide is going to keep happening. But then, my child isn’t dead, and I’m still capable of reason.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and the city’s top law enforcement officers want Congress to continue the current ban on AK’s and other assault weapons. The ban is set to run out in September.

Said “ban” having not prevented this particular murder. Perfectly logical.

Note the really interesting fact that this story makes absolutely no mention that California’s Roberti-Roos Assault Weapon ban, which is both more strict than the Federal ban and older, having gone into effect in 1986, didn’t prevent this crime either.

Why not?

“These are weapons of war, plain and simple,” Newsom said. “They have no place on the street. It’s about as clear cut as that, from my perspective.”

Wait for it…

And the police are on the front line. San Francisco Police Officer Issac Espinosa was killed by an assault weapon two weeks ago. But Chief Heather Fong would not commit to giving more officers assault weapons of their own.

What? You mean some officers already have these “weapons of war” that have “no place on the street”?!?!?! What about the BAN?

“We’re addressing the problem by looking at what options there are to the department,” she said.

When Brian Tyson was gunned down with an AK at the corner of 3rd and Kirkwood, it was apparently a case of mistaken identity.

“One of the bullets ruptured a main artery,” Catherine Tyson said. “He bled to death. They said if it wasn’t for the type of gun — if it wasn’t an AK-47 — he would have lived.”

Ms. Tyson, you were lied to. If the bullet hit a major artery, it doesn’t matter if it had been an AK-47 or a 9mm handgun. He’d have bled to death. My condolences, but your son wasn’t killed by an AK-47, your son was killed by a goblin wielding an AK-47. Put the blame where it’s deserved.

On the other hand, there’s this bit of sanity – also from San Francisco – in a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Examiner (third letter down the page):

Gun ban

The federal “assault weapon” ban, which applies to all states, has been in effect almost 10 years. California’s own brand has been on the books even longer. Yet neither law, nor the thousands of other guns laws kept one of the banned weapons off the streets or out of the hands of Officer Isaac Espinosa’s killer. How could anyone be so dogmatic as to cite a decade of demonstrable ineffectiveness as an argument in favor of renewing these laws?

Eric Williams
Richmond

I’m surprised they printed it.

And finally, there’s this piece – also from the Examiner, which probably inspired Mr. Williams’ letter:

Gunning for assault ban

Police Officer Isaac Espinoza joined the tragic and swelling ranks of cops killed with assault weapons when he was fatally shot with an AK-47 April 10. Activists say his death is yet another compelling reason to push for the renewal of a ban on the deadly guns.

When U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein stood up at Espinoza’s funeral and called for support to renew her legislation banning assault weapons nationwide, she was met with a standing ovation from mourning cops. If Espinoza’s death galvanizes anti-gun activists locally, it will not be the first time San Francisco is at the forefront of the campaign to ban assault weapons.

It will hardly be the first time San Francisco has been at the forefront of any number of harebrained campaigns destined to fail at their stated goals. That’s never stopped them in the past.

Feinstein’s legislation, the Federal Violent Crime Control Act of 1994, banned the manufacture and import of assault weapons and was spurred by a brutal massacre at 101 California St. In July 1993, a disgruntled client stormed a downtown law firm, killing eight people and wounding six. The shooter, Gian Luigi Ferri, was armed with two TEC-9 assault weapons. The legislation inspired by the tragic killings is due to expire Sept. 13, unless Congress passes it again.

Which, by all appearances, isn’t going to happen because the nation’s newspaper editors don’t have the influence they used to.

Supporters of the renewal of the assault weapon ban cite the Espinoza killing as a prime example for the need for such a law.

See letter to the editor immediately above.

“This police officer could have been killed on any day doing his job, with any number of powerful weapons but you always have to wonder, had that shooter not had access to that kind of fire power, would he be dead?” said Coalition to Stop Gun Violence member Eric Gorovitz.

Assault weapons are used in a small number of crimes but they killed at least 41 of the 211 law enforcement officers slain between January 1998 and December 2001, according to a Violence Policy Center report.

An assertion I dissected back in May. According to the available evidence, the answer to Mr. Gorovitz’s question is: “Yes, he probably would have died anyway.”

“They give criminals comfort. You often find them among drug dealers who know they might need them in a shoot-out against competitors,” Gorovitz said. “They are an emboldening tool. I don’t know that [Espinoza’s killer] would have behaved in that way had he not known he had the firepower behind him,” Gorovitz said.

And we all know that drug dealers are so law-abiding when it comes to firearms laws, right?

Indeed, it is an issue that troubles cops in the line of fire.

“We have vests that are bullet-resistant, but not bullet-proof,” said one cop from the Bayview who asked not to be named. “But those things go through a wall of concrete. What do you think they are going to do to a piece of Kevlar?”

Glad you asked. We all remember the wonderful CNN report that showed that post-ban “assault weapons” couldn’t penetrate a concrete block, while pre-ban “assault weapons” were fully-automatic and could destroy a cinderblock wall, right? And what of the awesome .30-30 “assault weapon” that fires ammunition “capable of puncturing light-armored vehicles, ballistic or armored glass, armored limousines, even a 600-pound safe with 600 pounds of safe armor plating” according to Senator Edward Kennedy? The “Assault Weapon Ban” doesn’t even address this ‘weapon of mass destruction.’

And now for the final fear-inducing lies:

Although California has an assault weapons ban, it is imperative that the national ban on the weapons does not lapse to at least slow the guns trade into the state, said Andrew Spafford, senior staff attorney at grassroots advocacy group, Legal Community Against Violence in San Francisco, which was founded after the 101 California St. massacre.

But Spafford said that the recent fifth anniversary of the Columbine massacre did not seem to inspire President George W. Bush to push for a renewal of the assault weapons ban, and House Republican leaders are opposed to it, bad signs for the legislation’s future.

Once again, why should it? Harris and Kliebold used a Tec-9, but they also used TWO SAWED-OFF SHOTGUNS – weapons illegal to possess without a LOT of NFA paperwork, and undoubtedly more lethal than the Tec-9. The law against short-barreled shotguns didn’t dissuade them, why would an “assault weapon ban”?

And aren’t the gun-grabbers up in arms about the fact that the Federal AWB didn’t stop manufacturers from making perfectly legal “post-ban” guns that are functionally identical?

&ltsarcasm&gtOh, wait, I forgot. CNN showed that post-ban guns weren’t as powerful. My mistake.&lt/sarcasm&gt

Despite the federal ban and California ban on the high-powered guns, assault weapons continue to arrive in The City and across the state in a “vast and robust underground distribution system,” advocates said. The most common way criminals obtain guns is from shows in nearby states with less stringent laws, such as Nevada.

“So a felon can go to a gun show in Nevada … buy a trunk-load of assault weapons and drive them in to the Bayview and sell them on the street,” Gorovitz said.

Absolute, blatant, unrepentant, naked LIE. Note, it’s the last line in the editorial, and there is absolutely no corroborating evidence for this statement of “fact.”

Is there a “vast and robust underground distribution system” in California supplying guns to the criminal element?

I don’t see why California would be exempt from the economic law of Supply and Demand. After all, England certainly isn’t, even with bans that included confiscation.

Banning guns is, at best, useless. Worse, it can be counterproductive. But the gun-grabbers refuse to recognize the flaw in their philosophy. That cognitive dissonance requires them to “turn up the power.” Or, as I put it: Do it again, only harder!

And don’t worry about lying – it’s for a good cause, and the ends justify the means!

UPDATE: SayUncle has an associated piece.

Read this.

NOW.

Oh, Now THIS is Interesting

In relation to my piece below (He Really Doesn’t Do Nuance) Technorati reports several bloggers have linked to the PressThink piece. Of course, the interpretations of Bush’s position vary, bipolarly. Here’s just a sample:

From Weird is Relative:

A verrry interesting discussion on pressthink, posted yesterday, discusses whether or not the press has a right to investigate stories that they view to be in the public interest.

This looks like yet another obvious attempt by the current administration to (a) tar the media with the “liberal” brush and (b) deflect the President from having to answer embarassing & revealing questions…. yet it appears to be more successful than most. Can Bush effect a power coup by simply telling the media they are less influential than they think they are?

Uh, right. (I’m sorry, but I must have missed the part about Bush denying the press their right to do investigative journalism. Can you point that part out to me?)

Next up, Blog on the Run:

One other interpretation of this thesis that just occurred to me — is that Bush is bashing the press, which never wins any popularity contests, precisely because he does indeed know that the press fills a vital function and that if it became more popular, it might be more emboldened to do its job properly. And even before 9/11, this administration wasn’t winning any Freedom-of-Information awards. There’s evidence both ways on this one. Discuss amongst yourselves.

I think Lex is stretching here. This would be another example of how Dumbya – who is so stupid he has to be reminded to breathe, apparently, is somehow exercising one more brilliant strategy to foil his Democrat nemesis?

Then there’s 100 Unfair and Unbalanced moonbats Monkeys Typing and his interpretation of Bush’s comment:

“You assume I give a shit.” Why does this surprise the media?

Daily Pundit seems to have a better grip on reality:

Jay Rosen identifies the growing horror of the liberal mainstream media, which is apparently discovering that GWB represents their worst nightmare: a sitting President who does not regard their propaganda machine with the proper amount of awe and terror.

In fact, he doesn’t give it much regard at all. Nor is there any reason that he should, as degraded and perverse as what passes for the media establishment has become at the dawn of the 21st century.

The Emperor has no clothes, boys and girls. Get used to the chilly drafts.

Moe of Obsidian Wings said:

For my own part: no, I don’t consider the media to represent the public. Big surprise there: nobody does, actually. I mean, does anybody here think that, say, Eric Alterman wrote What Liberal Media? because he thought that pushing the media to the Left would make it less mainstream? I take the position that it doesn’t matter what your political affiliation is: you’re likely to see the press as a funhouse mirror distortion of your own beliefs.

Having read a lot of Lefties, I tend to agree. But there are perceptions and then there is reality.

Whispers in the Abyss perceives reality:

The whole mess goes to the heart of considerations I’ve had about the nature of news media, which has been revealed to even the casual consumer as a morass of lies, obfuscations, and manipulations by the simple fact of access to the real facts for Joe Average American to make his own mind up about. No Average Joe has to wonder what Condaleeza Rice said to the 9/11 Commission, the transcripts are public knowledge, to the word. If you really wanted to know what people on the street in Iraq were thinking, 30sec search would turn up a list of Iraqi bloggers, any of whom are 5min of email and half a planet away, available for any question you might want to ask. If you want to know about the military side of operations in Afghanistan, you can go hit bloggers from there.

In short, if you can read this LJ, you’ve got wider, deeper, more 1st-hand access to the news as it happens than ever in the history of mankind have reporters or journalists. You can pick up the phone and call anyone listed in the phone book (and if you’re cunning enough, even get to mock Fidel Castro). If you don’t feel like collating the info yourself, you can surf the net more easily than surfing channels and find someone who, over time, earns your respect for their ability, like Glenn Reynolds, Steve Antler, or Wretchard. But even from one of your primary sources, you can always surf and find corroboration or invalidation, seek out different opinions (typically delivered directly in their Comments links), and generally prove that the world is not strictly push, but that you have the power to pull as much, as deeply, as you like.

Yup.

Thought Mesh has an interesting point:

The thesis of that article is that President Bush is dealing with the press less by trying to out-play them than by dealing them out of game. Bush stated to one journalist ?You?re assuming that you represent the public. I don’t accept that. I agree with both the tactic and the view of Big Media it is based on.

—

I think that the majority of American citizens are more likely to believe Bush than Big Media in any dispute if no other facts are known. As Rosen says, journalists might ask themselves how they got to this state.

Not bleeding likely.

The interestingly named zerotwofivesixfourdotnet has a short but pithy post, with a link:

Elite media hates Bush because he calls them on their B.S., and aims to identify with ‘normal people’, the hoi polloi that intellectual-types quietly despise.

So when Bush tells them “You’re assuming that you represent the public. I don’t accept that”, they – needless to say – don’t particularly like that, or realize its probably true. And Mark Steyn deconstructs why the numbers show that ‘normal people’ – despite what the media tries to tell us – agree.

Interesting stuff, especially the comments to some of these. Instapundit has quite a long piece with commentary from readers, too.

Corrupting the Process: The Torricelli Precedent

I’ve said for a while that I believe that the DNC is soon going to realize that John F’ing Kerry is a loser when it comes to the run for the Presidency. Others have said that the DNC wants to lose 2004 because that will put Hillary on the 2008 ticket in position to win.

I don’t think so.

I think the Democrats are slowly, dimly beginning to realize that a landslide loss (or even a mudslide loss) to Dubya will signal that the moonbat contingent has destroyed the Party and made it totally ineffectual. They cannot afford to lose. After Gray Davis’s recall, a loss in November will be their nadir.

The New Jersey Democrat party decided that it could not afford to have a Republican win one of New Jersey’s Senate seats in 2002. So, in violation of State election law and with the active partisan support of the New Jersey Supreme Court, the legal candidate – Robert Torricelli – was dropped and Frank Lautenberg was substituted on the ticket. Lautenberg won, of course.

I honestly believe it’s going to happen again. Now there’s evidence that such thoughts are making the rounds within the moonbat brigades.

Instapundit links to this Village Voice piece, John Kerry Must Go. Excerpt:

With the air gushing out of John Kerry’s balloon, it may be only a matter of time until political insiders in Washington face the dread reality that the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn’t have what it takes to win and has got to go. As arrogant and out of it as the Democratic political establishment is, even these pols know the party’s got to have someone to run against George Bush. They can’t exactly expect the president to self-destruct into thin air.

The piece suggests nominating John Edwards or “staging an open convention” in Boston. This would be, of course, regardless of whether Sen. Kerry has acquired enough delegates to be the Democratic nominee.

I think they’re going to nominate Hillary.

As James Hudnall wrote back in September, “only Democrats and dictators are afraid of Elections.”

Spain Completes Troop Pullout From Iraq

MADRID, Spain (AP) – Spain has completed the withdrawal of its peacekeeping troops from Iraq, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Tuesday.

“No Spanish member of the Plus Ultra II brigade remains in Iraq,” Zapatero told Parliament in a debate on his decision to withdraw the 1,300 troops.

The Plus Ultra brigade is the name for the Spanish contingent, which was stationed in the south-central cities of Najaf and Diwaniya.

Zapatero said the only Spanish military personnel who remain in Iraq are logistics experts assigned with shipping home military equipment. He said these people should be out of Iraq by May 27.

Or, as Mike Ramirez put it in the LA Times:

He Really Doesn’t Do Nuance

(Via Acidman)

Another reason, despite his being “the best Democrat President in my lifetime” that I actually like Dubya: read this PressThink piece about Bush and how his administration views the media. Money quote:

…a reporter says to the president: is it really true you don’t read us, don’t even watch the news? Bush confirms it.

And the reporter then said: Well, how do you then know, Mr. President, what the public is thinking? And Bush, without missing a beat said: You’re making a powerful assumption, young man. You’re assuming that you represent the public. I don’t accept that.

Which is a powerful statement. And if Bush believes it (a possibility not to be dismissed) then we must credit the president with an original idea, or the germ of one. Bush’s people have developed it into a thesis, which they explained to Auletta, who told it to co-host Brooke Gladstone:

That’s his attitude. And when you ask the Bush people to explain that attitude, what they say is: We don’t accept that you have a check and balance function. We think that you are in the game of “Gotcha.” Oh, you’re interested in headlines, and you’re interested in conflict. You’re not interested in having a serious discussion… and exploring things.

Further data point: The Bush Thesis. If Auletta’s reporting is on, then Bush and his advisors have their own press think, which they are trying out as policy. Reporters do not represent the interests of a broader public. They aren’t a pipeline to the people, because people see through the game of Gotcha. The press has forfeited, if it ever had, its quasi-official role in the checks and balances of government. Here the Bush Thesis is bold. It says: there is no such role– official or otherwise.

Heh. Indeed.

Read the whole thing.

I’m in Trouble Now!

For Christmas I got the game Medal of Honor – Allied Assault for my PC, with the Spearhead expansion pack. I’ve played them both to death. Great games. But I’ve heard that Call of Duty was better. Well, I hunted around and found it for $35 online last week plus $4 shipping, so I ordered it.

It came in today.

Essay or Call of Duty?

Essay? Call of Duty?

I guess I’ll find out when I get home tonight.

UPDATE: 11:05PM. Call of Duty ROCKS!