Leave it to CNN to spin this one in favor of John Kerry. The Bush campaign puts together an ad complaining about the fact that George Bush has been compared to Hitler by several leading Democrats and Democratic organizations. In this ad, they show the "Bush is Hitler" images from moveon.org interspersed with some of the more hysterical recent democratic campaign speeches. What's the headline? "Hitler Image Used in Bush Campaign Web Ad." True, this is not technically a lie, but the intellectual dishonesty is painfully obvious. The rest of the article is worded in such a way as to make it seem like the Bush campaign simply interspersed some Hitler footage in with footage of leading Democrats, rather than making it clear that the Hitler images are from the moveon.org ad.

I realize that it's easy to sound like a paranoid partisan when you complain of media bias, but anyone who can't see the spin here is either an idiot or is simply choosing to ignore fact. The Bush ad is pretty weak and could have made its point much more effectively, to be sure. But are we supposed to believe that the Bush campaign has somehow done something more inappropriate than the people who made the moveon.org ad or who gave those speeches? I guess the use of Hitler is now kind of like the "N" word; Democrats can use it freely but if Republicans use it, even when paraphrasing Democrats, they have crossed the line.

We've touched on the whole "real news vs. editorials" thing a few times on this site. Here's the only difference: Editorials are honest about the fact that they are giving an opinion about the news.

The US backs down on its position regarding the ICC. Isn't this just lovely. According to this article, Kofi Annan personally stepped in to give us the shaft:

"He urged members to oppose the resolution, questioned the legality of an exemption and warned against dividing the council."

I love the "questioned the legality" part. So the US asserts that it's not under the jurisdiction of this little tribunal put together by the UN, and we're somehow breaking the law? Guess what Kofi: we never signed up to begin with. Just because these muppets see themselves as the sovereigns of the world doesn't mean they can force us to participate in their little charade of a court. Anyone who believes this wouldn't be used as another tool to "keep the US in line" is a damned fool. If we signed on for this, you can bet your arse that George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and half the command structure of the US military would be put on trial with some Hans Blix clone as the judge.

Assuming John Kerry isn't elected and we don't sign the most gross violation of US sovereignty in history, it will be really amusing watching the masters of the ICC try to bring Americans to trial. What are you going to do, Kofi, draft 12 resolutions against us?

A couple of weeks ago we were all up to our eyeballs in Reagan nostalgia. As might be expected, there were cries from some on the right that some liberal journalists were trying to rewrite Reagan's legacy, and in some cases they had a point (I found it interesting that all three of the major network news anchors complained publicly about the over-coverage of Reagan's funeral when we were still in the midst of a month long media orgy over Abu Ghraib.) Now we have Clinton's new book, and to nobody's surprise the media is all over this like a cheap suit. So what are the pundits on the right doing? The same damn thing their counterparts on the left did with Reagan. The fight is now over Clinton's legacy; the only difference is Clinton is still around to tell his side. To paraphrase Jaques Chirac (what the hell am I doing), the pundits on the right missed a great opportunity to keep their mouths shut. All they are doing is adding to Clinton's spotlight, and looking extremely biased and petty in the process. I've heard all day about Clinton "losing it" in a BBC interview, and because of this I was suckered into watching a 40 minute stream of this interview from the BBC website. You know what? It's no big deal. He gets a little pissed off, but he's far from "losing it" in my opinion. Other than those few moments, it's classic Bill Clinton, spinning effortlessly and getting away pretty much unscathed. The fact that some conservatives are all gaga over this interview shows how starved they are for revenge for some of the attacks on Reagan. It's too bad, because had they mostly ignored this whole thing, it would have blown over far sooner, and they would have looked much better in the end.

I'm pretty ambivalent about Bill Clinton. I don't think he was a great president, but I don't share the seething hatred for the guy that many on the right do. If he was that bad, history will figure it out. Trying to out shout the Clinton worshipers in the media just puts more money in Clinton's pocket and more shine on his legacy. Enough already.

What happened to intelligent, civil political debate in America? It was never here.

Kevin, someone? Can you possibly defend/explain non-citizen voting to me? This just COMPLETELY boggles my mind.

Gulp? What's going on???

1°) Clinton backs Bush

Noting that Bush had to be "reeling" in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Clinton said Bush's first priority was to keep al Qaeda and other terrorist networks from obtaining "chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material."
"That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff unaccounted for," Clinton said in reference to Iraq and the fact that U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in 1998.

Wonder how JFK II will welcome this news.


2°) McCain backs Bush

(CBS/AP) Before cheering troops, President Bush got a strong endorsement on Iraq and a boost for his re-election campaign Friday from Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican courted by Democrat John Kerry to be his running mate.

Invited by the White House to accompany Mr. Bush, McCain introduced the president, saying, "he has led this country with moral clarity about the stakes involved and with firm resolve to achieve unconditional victory," reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller.

So much for a Kerry/McCain ticket.


3°) Putin backs Bush

ASTANA, Kazakhstan - Russia gave the Bush administration intelligence before the Iraq war that suggested Saddam Hussein's regime was preparing attacks against the United States and its interests abroad, President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

Not bad from Pootie-Poot.


Does all this have to do with the realization among The Powers That Be that the whole world is in for the long haul with regards to The War on Terror and that we are better off with a unwavering President who has shown that he's got guts and knows how to handle the crisis? I tend to think so. I read Blackfive, Glenn Reynolds, Jeff Jarvis plus the major media outlets today and, like it or not, I guess we will all have to get used to the fact that Islamism has revealed itself to be the 21st Century Communism. True, they don't field the Warsaw Pact's massive armies. But a dirty bomb in, say, Denver, or a civil war in KSA - for which the current regime would only have itself to blame - can distrupt our lives more than Brezhnevs USSR ever did. Apart from the civilian loss, the world economy could take a devastating blow and all of us could be plunged in a crisis dwarfing the 1929 recession.

Islam is a body being taken over by Islamism. Europe is in very grave peril and can possibly not muster the courage anymore to face its homegrown monster. If you think I'm drooling go read LGF for starters. That is why the US's effort to democratize the ME has become of paramount importance to the Free World. I don't believe Kerry is the person to maintain the momentum in Iraq, and, judging from the above articles, neither do Clinton, Putin or McCain. In 1940 Winston Churchill, upon the RAF's final victory during the Battle of Britain, famously remarked "Never before in the history of mankind have so many depended on the actions of so few". Well, without much exaggeration one could say the welfare of the world's populations dependson those Americans who will vote GOP come November.