Kerry gets a new plane. Wow.

I was on The Command Post and saw a link to an article about Kerry getting a new plane. Figured it was a slow news day. Then thought, "perfect story for Kerry. It's an inanimate object. No fear of flip-flopping; no floating dumb and dumber ideas." The link to the USA Today article came back with an intra-USA Today error.

So, being a truly slow news day, I put the search string into Google and back comes an article from ABC News.

Wow. I cannot fathom what would prompt either a campaign or a news organization to publish such an article. It portrays the Kerry campaign like children, and the writer of the article like a toddler. You just have to read it to believe it.

One thing that rubs against my grain is the cost of this plane. A 757, two bars, first-class seats generally throughout. What was the price tag? Did people who donated to the campaign hoping to fund the "Kerry Message" (whatever that is)? Did an elderly widow's hard-parted-with $20 go towards painting the logo? Instead, they have paid for Kerry and his butler to travel in comfort. What a waste of money; how sad.

One bit of news, at least to me: Kerry has a catch-phrase, the "Real Deal." I almost fell off the couch laughing at this. You just know that Bullwinkle puts on that "serious" face, the "I'll kick some butt" look in his formerly furrowed forehead, when he says, "I'm the Real Deal." Oh my. Boxing fans out there? When Evander Holyfield took his chiseled body and said he was the real deal, you knew exactly what he meant. You knew not to ask for clarification. Kerry the real deal? Any real deal? He should get off Madison Avenue and onto Main Street.

"Kerry turned serious as he recalled Vietnam 'Freedom Birds' which took soldiers home. The Senator then proclaimed, 'This is my freedom bird now.'" Oh, my sides are hurting. Is this guy for real? "Today, I come before you as the Real Deal. It rained this morning. See that puddle? That reminds me of a rice paddy I once had described to me when I was in Vietnam. As an officer, a leader of men, I never saw that rice paddy myself, of course ..."

This is the last line of the article: "And while the Kerry campaign has dubbed the new plane 'Freedom Bird,' many in the press corps still prefer 'Hair France.'" The last line. Can you believe it? How unprofessional is that? It's kinda cute, not funny in a lasting way. Juvenile, actually.

This article is an embarrassment to Kerry and ABC News.

Liberals are cornered and gravely wounded

A wounded and cornered liberal is a curious thing. The thought of present escape has left, perhaps even the thought of survival is gone. All that remains is the lonely thought that if it dies true to its convictions, then surely it will receive some benefit from a God that does not exist, surely its death struggle will be told and retold thus inspiring more to rise in its wake.

The liberals will be honest about their present political plight in a decade or so, when the writing on the wall no longer needs Daniel to explain to King Belshazzar what it means. But for now, we need to listen to their claptrap. Never lose, however, even for a moment, the view before us: a cornered and gravely wounded animal.

The current idol of their eye is Michael Moore. It is wrong, I guess, to condemn someone based upon their physical appearance. But must it be ignored in toto? Doesn't the outside give some insight to the inside? Doesn't an overweight, unshaven, disheveled outside lay peaceably with an overweight, unshaven, and disheveled inside?

In one of this loser's books, he writes of an interview with Fred Barnes. It is so banal. Barnes makes a literary reference on a talk show one night - referring to two classic books - and, so the story goes, Moore calls him the next day and asks him what those books were. Barnes, according to Moore, did not know. In real life, the phone call never took place. Further, Barnes did know - he read them as a freshman in college.

Has Moore been called out as a fraud? Certainly this Barnes incident is not isolated. And if Moore is going to lie that badly ...

I have two kids - 13 and 14. They are good kids. They don't make a habit of lying, but c'mon, they're kids. They do stuff, get caught, and try to lie their sorry butts out of trouble. As a parent, I do not approve; as a former kid, I evaluate the novelty and ability-to-be-true-under-certain-but-not-present-circumstances of the lie. I found myself years ago telling my son - if you are going to lie, do it better. Then I would go about deconstructing his statement and showing him where he contradicted himself and deviated from known fact. If you are going to lie, son, always always survive the first frontal assault.

Moore should not lie so badly. Have you ever listened to Fred Barnes speak? The guy is a tri-syllable-or-more-walking-dictionary. I'm 45. When I grow up, I want to be just like Fred Barnes. Does he speak beyond himself? Make literary references that he doesn't understand? Uh, "what is 'no,' Alex."

But Moore survives to fight another day because the liberal animal is cornered and mortally wounded. If it were not, the animal would tend to its own, would act from strength and correct this guy's wanderings. But it cannot. "Any wandering is better than no wandering at all," goes the liberal mantra.

The other recent example of liberal hysteria is chronicled by Peggy Noonan. She seems angry. Some clown gives a commencement speech at a university and uses the opportunity to bash W. The students boo; the faculty give a standing o. An aging author with no recordable sales in 30 years. Truly, a gravely wounded, panting, no-longer-able-to-constructively-move liberal. "Die bravely!" the faculty yells. How sad; how pathetic; how joyful to be a conservative.

The South will be virtually swept by the pubs in the Senate. Pubs will not just hold but will expand its grip in both chambers. W will leave 300 EVs in the dust - he will not only hold everything he had in 2000, but will make significant in-roads in large cities. History will write of the death of the liberals being marked by the 2004 election. The libs will be reborn, they will be back. But a house-cleaning will happen first - Bubba, his present wife, Gore, Pelosi, Daschle ... names that will be shunned for an extended period.

The liberal animal will fight ugly for the next 5 months. Then its vision will blur; its motor control will lessen; its thinking will circle back upon itself, no longer able to observe and process new information; recollections of times gone by will occupy it - defending the "good" name of Alger Hiss; placing flowers in guns; defending oppressed inmates in a prison in Attica, NY; defending an adulterer and possible rapist because, after all, his personal life is his own; and finally fighting the good fight against a God-fearing POTUS.

But then the vision will go from blurred to narrowed. Then a feeling of being detached from the body will occur. "I'm looking down at me!" the startled lib thinks. "Look at those nasty republicans, circled around me, growling and throwing spittle, how uncivilized." But then the focus changes from where it was to where it is going. A neon sign flickers in the distance.

"On a dark desert highway. Cool wind in my hair. Warm smell of colitas. Rising up through the air. Up ahead in the distance. I saw a shimmering light. My head grew heavy, and my sight grew dim. I had to stop for the night. There she stood in the doorway. I heard the mission bell. And I was thinking to myself. This could be Heaven or this could be Hell."*

No, trust me, oh dying lib, it ain't Heaven. Bu-bye!!!!!!

(Lyrics copyright whomever - Hotel California, The Eagles)

Arrogance and distance

Remember when Kerry spilled on the slopes and was asked about it at the bottom? His response was to blame that son of a b#*$& Secret Service agent that cut him off. "I don't fall (or spill or whatever)," he concluded. I thought that episode was the high watermark of arrogance for Bullwinkle. But no .....

So W is riding his bike and falls. In the article, Kerry has a concluding sympathetic line.

But (Paul Harvey voice-over), now, it's time for the rest of the story.

Drudge is reporting (yes, a little bit of a contradiction in terms - but even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while), that the immediate response of Kerry came as follows: President fell off bike today... Kerry told reporters in front of cameras, 'Did the training wheels fall off?'... Reporters are debating whether to treat it is as on or off the record... Developing... "

Whether it is true or not is an interesting issue. Because it seems so consistent with Bullwinkle's persona that it is immediately thought of as probable. From the "I don't own any SUVs, my family does" to being subjected to the sagging breasts of his daughter in the south of France - the more we get to know this guy, the less and less he seems like one of us.

We are here; Kerry is over there. Viewed from a distance, he is palatable, perhaps even likeable. Viewed up close: he wears too much of both baby powder and cologne; his shoes shine because they are always new; his teeth are white but his breadth has an underlying rancid quality that he constantly battles with both spray and Tic Tacs.

Now we are beginning to find out something: you can't make silk out of a sow's ear.

The Narrow Vision of the Media and Liberals

I got working on things other than this blog. The Prison Labor blog, the garden, making a trough water-tight (ten patches and counting). As I sat here I finally realized why. The idea came from an e from a friend. She has been very busy with the end of the school year (another teacher) and with her dad's recuperation. She asked me what was going on in the election, said she felt like she was losing touch with all of that. I wrote her back and told her of the disconnect between W's patience and a 24-hour news cycle. The is like a large dog that eats constantly. W knows November is a few months away. W knows that Labor Day is a turning point. W knows that his re-election hinges not on today's hot story, but on macro-economic issues like the economy and the war on terror. I told my friend to feel good about checking out for a while.

So I am browsing lucianne.com to see what stories are floating to the top, and I read a story about Kerry thinking of postponing his nomination so he can circumvent campaign spending rules, allowing him to exhaust the money he raised before he has the federal restrictions placed on him.

My first thought was, how arrogant. This is his as a matter of right? Weren't the minions mumbling about a brokered convention? This old news was bolstered by a bit on Inside the Beltway - Hilary is the left-leaning dems choice, not Bullwinkle.

My second thought was, must be a slow news day. Drudge also reported this story about the coronation delay. And by the way, what does "Let America be America" mean? Isn't it the dems that paper the walls with laws and regulations? Isn't it the dems that want judges making decisions about abortion and same-sex marriage rather than America?

So I got to thinking about how narrowly the dems and the press report life. I went to Nexis and searched the "major newspapers" for "Nick Berg." Got 267 hits. Same source, but now I searched for "Iraq Prisoner Abuse." The search truncated at 1,000 hits. We interrogate some prisoners using humiliation techniques and it is more newsworthy than cutting off an American's head and sending the videotape to the net? Clearly an agenda underlies the unbalance.

Since I am on Nexis, I searched for "Kerry Misery Index." Remember that? Boy, talk about a losing idea. 9 hits. Funny, drop the word "index" and leave "Kerry misery" - 3 more stories get picked up. "Kerry loser" gets 70!! (Note - on all of these searches I am doing single-word Boolean with "and" rather than quotes strings.)

So anyway, we've established that Kerry is a loser. Back to the narrowed visions.

William E. Jackson, Jr., puts the NYT on the spot and quite deservedly. The NYT is all for Ahmad Chalabi. Jackson quotes an intra-paper e-mail"

"In fact, one must painfully recall the now famous May 1, 2003, e-mail to the paper's Baghdad Bureau Chief John Burns from star Times reporter in Iraq, Judith Miller, who wrote: 'I've been covering Chalabi for about 10 years, and have done most of the stories about him for our paper. ... He has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper.'"

Ouch. But the real rub is still to come - quoting the NYT: "The Bush administration should have known what it was doing when it gave enormous credence to a questionable character whose own self-interest was totally invested in getting the Americans to invade Iraq. ..."

Man. These people are pathetic. Can't admit a mistake if their life depended on it.

Apologies? Remember the hue and cry for apologies from W and Rumsfeld? Where's my apology from Bubba because I had to explain to my 8 year daughter what a "blow job" was? No, I didn't tell her. But she asked. I have never forgiven that pig for entering that phrase in the lexicon of American youth. Yeah, I knew the words when I was young. But I never uttered them. I can still taste the soap my gramma crammed into my mouth for another set of words, and that was almost 40 years ago.

How big a story is the collapse of Air America? Boy, it sure took off like a shiny airliner with full press fanfare. From the papers, who would know that they miss payrolls, the founders are bolting, they are losing stations and advertisers?

I guess I am just fed up with the narrow, mindless, biased reporting of the media. I'll get over it. Right now I am just tired of these fools. And it is only May!!!! God strengthen us all.

A Second Blog by Me

I have been researching and setting up a second blog. It is very much in its infant stages. The subject matter is prison labor in the United States, and is intended to be scholarly rather than opinion-based. Here's the link - Prison Labor.

I'll be back ...

The end of the semester - exams, grades; prepping and planting the garden; wife sick; prep for start of summer semester.

Kinda busy. Will find my routine in just a little bit. ckm

Boston Strangler

I picked up this Swift Boat article from the American Thinker (one of my links to the right). Just an amazing, informative read. Had to share it ...

Dandelion Liberals

I don't just mow my lawn, I give it a manicure and pedicure. Every thing that grows has its place. The smell of freshly mowed grass abounds. I breath deeply and forget the sweat-drenched clothes, the legs and shoulders that never used to ache like this. The feeling lingers even after my shower, like a teenage love. It fills me to overflowing. My lawn is all I can think of. It is still on my mind as I drift to sleep hours later and think I can catch a whiff of it carried along the night's breeze.

Then I wake up in the morning. {Poof!} What lawn? I push blades of cut grass out of my way as I go to my car. I wipe grass off my shoes before I go into the building. The lawn is no longer a friend for me. Then a couple of days later, I notice the dandelions. Little yellow medallions that were pretty 40 years ago but now just bring memories of my dad making wine with one of his buddies. He tried to tell me how good it was, but I noticed he never made it again.

Dandelions have come to represent something evil to me. They only come when the hard work is done. In fact, they cause some of the hard work. And only young, uninformed, and inebriated people like them.

So Iraqi war combatants, perhaps mercenaries from Iran and Syria or simply leftovers from Saddam's version of F-Troop (no disrespect intended to Larry Storch), are captured as they attempt or plot to kill us. Literally, to kill us - to burn our bodies and hang them off of bridges. In return, we incarcerate them and intend to extract information through interrogation. They are non-responsive to simple Q&A, so we weigh our options.

We could bring in the Israelis. That would require soundproof rooms and a burial area. They bring their own tools.

We could bring in the Brits. That would require a little more time. Sleep deprivation is one of their main tools. They also need access to water pressure for the fire hoses. It may seem like an odd request, but it is a technique they perfected on the Irish and it is known to work well.

We could bring in the Turks. But they always seems to believe the prisoner when he first says, "I don't know anything," then they kill him. Doesn't really fit our end objectives.

We could bring in Saddam for advice. He's had years and years of practice in amputations, rapes, torturing children in front of their parents, a little shred here, a little shred there. But I'm not sure we could get the paperwork through.

OK, let's do it ourselves. But how? Well, Arab men are very prideful. Anyone willing to strip away the political niceties knows that lying is an intricate part of their life. They lie themselves into great and fanciful accomplishments. That's the only explanation for why they continue to go after Israel - they begin to believe their own lies about how strong they are. Let's go after their pride.

Get one naked and put him on a leash. Have GI Jane walk him around like a dog. I know - this is a change in culture. Men pay for that treatment here - and pay a lot more if a whip is in the other hand. But for Iraqi men, they will collapse under the shame of it all.

Let's also get them naked and show them a video of the National High School Cheerleading Competition. "Hey, Joe, get the interpreter and tell them I want them to do that one. You think we can get a CD of some marching music anywhere in this desert?" We are at war. And war isn't pretty. But if cheerleader re-enactments will save the lives of some of our boys, then cheerleader re-enactments it is.

Then, while we paying close attention to the life and death situations abroad, to the intracacies of the economic balance between expansion and inflation, to the world oil supply and how we can break this stranglehold that terrorist-sponsoring Saudi Arabia has, to the scandal in the UN that explains why France and Russia wanted to prevent Saddam's ouster at any cost ... while we are devoting our attention to the important stuff in this world ... the dandelions sprout at home.

Teddy (Make yourself useful, get me a drink, and don't drown yourself in the process) Kennedy finds some righteous indignation: "On March 19, 2004, President Bush asked, 'Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still be open?' Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management."

Wow, talk about a drunken misperception. The only thing we ever reopened under new managment was Club Fed - the old Mustang Ranch in Neveda when the owners filed bankruptcy and we didn't want the girls out of work. In Iraq, we splash water on their faces, and Kennedy acts as if we are drowning them. Well, I guess one typically goes to what one is familiar with.

By the uproar, you could easily be mistaken into thinking this was a newly discovered issue. Turns out the Congress knew about it in January and March. "But wait, you can't expect us to actually read, can you? You have to come over and talk to us," the Dandelion Liberals chant in unison. I guess they score a point for consistency - even though it is their job to declare war, most never bothered to read the intelligence made available by W before the votes to go into Iraq.

What I find most amazing in the liberal response is their utter lack of peripheral vision. They cry and scream to anyone who will listen. All they want is attention. Surely, they think, this will hurt that dastardly Bush. Yet they are blinded to Arabs in Pakistan looking for any reason to cause trouble - now they are digging up 90 year old graves of fallen soldiers from WWI.

Dandelion Liberals. It is time to cut the grass.

Picking a fight with the wrong dog

Democrats just don't get it. The Bible does not support abortion. It fact, it is quite clear in its condemnation of it. It isn't a matter of privacy - it is matter in stopping a process that left uninterrupted would result in a new human being.

Further, the Bible teaches us that God has little interest in "Sunday Christians." American politicians have long worn their religion on sleeve, boldly going into church with a look of seriousness, emerging with a look of deep thought. The deep thought loosened, apparently, within hours, perhaps even minutes.

I recall Clinton doing that on Easter Sunday a few years ago, and then met Monica with a little afternoon fun. I recall Howard Dean sharing the depth of his Biblical analysis as he said something like, "we think ..." as he talked about possible alternative endings to the book of Job and his pedagogical grasp on those variations. Both men thought supporting a right to end the life of a fetus was only natural.

Everyone knows the church is finally taking a stand on this dichotomy saying, in essence, you want to benefit from associating yourself with our name - then you must adhere to our teachings. No Sunday Christians need apply. Seems reasonable enough.

Some politicians don't like it. Feels it is bringing religion into politics. Bummer. I think the politicians did that some time ago. I have no sympathy whatsoever.

Where this gets interesting is with whom the politicians are fighting. Trace the dictates back into the Vatican and you find Cardinal Francis Arinze. Cardinal Arinze, it seems, is a contender to be the next pope.

Ut-oh. Isn't this like being a tad cocky in a bar and then realizing your flippant remarks were addressed to Mike Tyson?

Gear Shift

Mark Steyn in the Washington Times does such a fine job of nailing Kerry's rhetorical nuances that it is clear he can never be elected on his own - just like he wasn't nominated on his own. That took Dean's Independence-Day-in-January celebration to occur.

So now the gears shift from watching Kerry bumble his way through the national spotlight to watching W handle a hot potato in the prisoner abuse situation.

First, it's a shame that it occurred. But I write that lightly. They are not civilians that happened to walk past the prison. They are enemy combatants that were captured rather than killed. Their focus in life before incarceration was to kill us. We need to interrogate these rogues. Pride is a big issue in Middle Eastern men - so take away their pride. I have no problem with that. None whatsoever.

Would you rather a good ole-fashioned beating? Or perhaps just a kind smile and a politely posed question?

W is taking a beating, speaking of those, in the press because the liberals love to express indignation. They love to seize upon an issue. Their problem is they did the same thing with out-sourcing of jobs, until they learned that out-sourcing actually had a net increase of jobs to the US because of higher profits and resulting higher investments in research and development - the type of jobs we do not out-source.

They did the same thing with overall job loss - then 300,000 new jobs a month became reality and they moved on.

Anyone hear of Kerry's Misery Index since its launch? Rather like a Soviet rocket. Lots of fanfare leading up to launch day, everyone gathers with great expectation. The countdown. Ignition. Liftoff. Such spectacle. Truly the Soviet system is great. Wow. Watch it go!! Ut-oh. It seems to be listing to the right. Look out!! Incoming!!!

Now the prisoner abuse. New photos to come. First - who is the clown who decided to memorialize this as a Kodak moment? That person should be shot at the break of daylight.

I saw a cartoon today that summarized it all nicely. A guy was in his high rise office watching a report on TV about the situation. Says something like, "Oh my, stacking naked men. What could be worse?!?" In the next panel, as he continues to watch TV, in the window behind him is a commercial airliner headed straight for his window.

This is war. W did not ask for it. But when September 11 happened, we gave him no choice. We wanted him to go to war. So he did. We made him a war-time president. So we need to take all the ride with him. Not just the happy times. Are we going to do bad things? Of course. Have we done bad things in every war? Of course we have. Do we torture people to obtain information? I sure hope so - and I trust the information we get has more than once saved the life of an innocent at the expense of pain to a enemy combatant.

Is hurting someone's pride torture? Maybe, if your mirror is a bit concave here, a bit convex there ... if you consider the alternative is cable TV and three meals a day, a Koran and a prayer blanket ... and ignore that the real alternative is Saddam's way - amputation, kill your children as you watch, rape your wife and daughters as you watch, shred your father in a plastic shredding machine. You want a more civilized version of torture? Go to the 1970s and 1980s and read about England's treatment of the IRA prisoners. That was torture. Water hoses, sleep deprivation, beatings.

Maybe under some dementia-laden minds, incapable anymore of assessing current actions in the long view of history, these prison actions are torture maybe. But perhaps that is why Sen. Robert KKK Byrd is a leading spokesman. Just curious - just what did the KKK do to black Americans? Did they humiliate them like this? Or just frighten them with burning crosses and then hang the men? Gee, such a long time ago ...

The liberals had better remember Shakespeare - "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Hamlet (III, ii, 239).

W Bring Cal into Play

I expect a better headline from Real Clear Politics than "Boxer Leads Jones by 9." The real information in the poll is that Kerry leads W by only one point - 46 to 45.

The internals are even better - 80% of W's voters are voting for him (as opposed to voting for W because of who his opponent is); Kerry garners only 35% voting for positive reasons. W has more work to do with Hispanics, down 38% to 49%. But Cal looks like the red/blue map from 2000 - W has the rural and suburban areas, the Dark Side has the urban areas.

This poll is not what Kerry needed to see. Too bad.

Carter as Worst Ex-President

Love hurts. A surgeon needs to cut before he can heal. A penny saved is one less penny supporting the economy. John Kerry was wounded in Viet Nam by enemy fire. Jimmy Carter is in full control of his mental faculties.

True. Generally true. An argument can be made for true or false. Generally false. False.

Finally someone is taking Jimmy Carter to task. A new book is being released, entitled The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry. The author is interviewed by FrontPage here.

It is curious to look back at our ex-presidents and see how they have acted since leaving office. Clinton has created a cash machine, is releasing a book in the middle of a presidential campaign, and generally can't shut up. Bush the Elder is generally quiet. Reagan was quiet by choice, but now by default. Carter has opened his mouth time and again in criticism of W. Ford is generally quiet. Nixon became the elder statesman he deserved to be.

Do you detect a pattern? Pubs seem to know their place in history and exercise their considerable force as an ex-POTUS quietly. Dems seem to crave center stage again. The quiet, guiding hand of a parent versus the loud, open mouth of a young adult. How sad that their party encourages such undignified behavior.

At least they are consistent.

Bandaids & Purple Hearts

George Washington must be spinning in his grave like Linda Blair above the bed.

The requirements to receive a Purple Heart are clearly delineated. An example of an injury not worthy of a Purple Heart is found in paragraph (b)(5)(h) - "Self-inflicted wounds, except when in the heat of battle, and not involving gross negligence," while one deserving is found in paragraph 5(a) - "Injury caused by enemy bullet, shrapnel, or other projectile created by enemy action."

Paragraph (b)(6)(c) is also instructive - "Individuals injured as a result of their own negligence; for example, driving or walking through an unauthorized area known to have been mined or placed off limits or searching for or picking up unexploded munitions as war souvenirs, will not be awarded the Purple Heart as they clearly were not injured as a result of enemy action, but rather by their own negligence."

A wound is defined in (b)(2) - "A wound is defined as an injury to any part of the body from an outside force or agent sustained under one or more of the conditions listed above. A physical lesion is not required, however, the wound for which the award is made must have required treatment by a medical officer and records of medical treatment for wounds or injuries received in action must have been made a matter of official record."

That brings us to the doctor who treated Kerry and as a result of which Kerry received a Purple Heart.

"I have a very clear memory of an incident which occurred while I was the Medical Officer at Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay.

"John Kerry was a (jg), the OinC or skipper of a Swift boat, newly arrived in Vietnam. On the night of December 2, he was on patrol north of Cam Ranh, up near Nha Trang area. The next day he came to sick bay, the medical facility, for treatment of a wound that had occurred that night.

"The story he told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.

"Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.

"That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.

"What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.

"I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.

"The wound was covered with a bandaid.

"Not [sic] other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any reported damage to the boat."

Kerry went in the next day. His story was different form his crewmates. His "wound" was consistent with an ill-advised launching - by Kerry - of a mortar round into a mound of rocks. The shrapnel was one centimeter long (about 0.39 inches) and 2 to 3 millimeters in diameter (about 0.04 inches). It rested about 1/10 of an inch into his skin. He got a bandaid.

This shows leadership? This is courage under fire? A whiner with a pedigree.

Fred Barnes Need to Stop Reading Novels

I like Fred Barnes. He is very articulate, very capable of formulating and expressing complex ideas. But sometimes he seems to get bored. I guess it isn't fun to pick on Kerry anymore. No sense in kicking a guy when he isn't just down, but is inside his grave and scooping dirt onto himself.

He writes here of a possible shift in the control of the Senate. Like some quickly churned out paperback novel, there are several plot lines - limited loss in the South, sweep of the four (alleged) vulnerable Pub seats, and re-election of the Dark Lord of the Sith - Tom Anakin Daschle.

Such a confluence of events is akin to purposefully soft-pushing your putt on the 18th green at Pebble Beach because you know that the San Gregorio fault was about to twitch. Sound plausible? Of course not. But the thinking exists - what else could explain Phil Mickelson's 1 and 854 record in Majors? "C'mon baby, twitch for daddy ... twitch ... awwww!"

But let's ride along with Fred for a while.

The first issue is the lay of the land. The Pubs hold a 51-48-1 advantage in the Senate. Class III is up for re-election - which includes 19 Dems and 15 Pubs.

Townhall has an easy to digest list in the far right column of this article.

Fred's first folly volley is that the Dems limit themselves to two lost seats in the South. The Dems have Southern races in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The Pubs in Alabama and Kentucky. The Dems hope to survive the 2-6 exposure by coming out 4-4.

In Alabama, Shelby's switch to the Pub party in 1994 hasn't affected his popularity - he easily won re-election in 1998 with over 63% of the vote. Wayne Sowell and Johnnie Swanson III are vying for the Dem nod in a late primary - June 1. Mr. Sowell has been active running in but not winning campaigns for several years. Mr. Swanson has a JD, industry and military backgrounds, no public office experience, and no chance. Shelby's seat is secure. Pubs 1, Dems 0.

Kentucky is a shade more interesting. Bunning is running against one of sixth Dems (the primary is May 20). As an example, take Dem state senator Daniel Mongiardo. Mondiardo has a few structural problems - Kentucky looks like Bush country so Kerry will probably steer clear and spend his limited money elsewhere; Mongiardo calls himself a "conservative democrat" then goes around showing pics of him and Teddy (Make yourself useful - get me a drink) Kennedy; and Mongiardo is a doc - and wears it on his sleeve like Dean did. Bunning can be vicious in a campaign, and I suspect W has coattails in November. It is Bunning's to lose. Pubs 2, Dems 0.

The Dems six seats begins with Arkansas. Although Lincoln is not impressive, neither are the three Pubs trying to face off with her. The primary is May 18, and the field includes a former KFC commercial actress, a state senator, and a former sheriff. Not top-shelf competition. Oh well. Pubs 2, Dems 1.

The Florida primary is a laughably late August 31. This means that the people with present statewide recognition have the greatest opportunity to win - and the Pubs hold big names including Bill McCollum and Mel Martinez. The Dems are pushing their equivalent to an education secretary - Betty Castor. She has won local and state elections handily since 1972, but her only statewide elections have been in education - an area heavily dominated by Dem political activists. Her ability to take McCollum or Martinez is highly suspect. Pubs 3, Dems 1.

One of Georgia's seats is open because of Zell Miller stepping out. Among the 3 Pubs and 8 Dems respectively squaring off in the June 20 primaries, no one has national prominence. The Pubs include Mac Collins, a five-term US Rep, and Johnny Isakson, who replaced Mr. Newt. The Dems most prominent candidate is a one-term Congresswoman, and the least a 41-year old guy whose never run for anything. Pubs 4, Dems 1.

Louisiana pits two House members against each other - Dem Chris John and Pub David Vitter. Louisiana politics, with its open system, is as screwy as its recognition of Civil Law over Common Law. Who will take? The Pub and here is why - there is no possible way that one of these guys will pull a simple majority in the first round. That will require a run-off. By the time a run-off happens in December, W will have been re-elected and the Pub majority in the Senate will have expanded. John will lose heart. Pubs 5, Dems 1.

North Carolina. Do you believe that Erskine Bowles is running? Look at his positions - typical Dem. Refuses to provide answers. What a loser. Pub Rep Richard Burr is in his sixth term and is well respected on the Hill. No contest. And don't forget the supposed "tight, close, can't call" race that Libby Dole won in 2002 by over 8 points. Pubs 6, Dems 1.

South Carolina. The dems are offering another education secretary - Inez Tenenbaum. The Pubs have a mixed bag of a former governor that lost his bid for re-election, a sitting US Rep, and a former AG who lost a primary bid to be governor. Rep Jim DeMint has money and the edge. The problem Pubs have is the shadow of the retiring Fritz Hollings. Maybe a sympathy vote. Pubs 6, Dems 2.

I'll save the Fred's other races for discussion later. Dem-controlled Senate? Not a chance.

Kerry's 4th Purple Heart

Kerry is beginning today to spend $25MM to define himself. Seems to be money wasted. The people who knew him best in Viet Nam have spoken loudly and clearly.

Some quotes:

"He arrived in country with a strong anti-Vietnam War bias and a self-serving determination to build a foundation for his political future."

"He was aggressive, but vain and prone to impulsive judgment, often with disregard to specific tactical assignments. He was a loose cannon."

"He showed me a scratch on his arm and a piece of shrapnel in his hand that appeared to be from one of our own M-79s."

"Kerry would be described as devious, self-absorbing, manipulative, disdain for authority, disruptive, but the most common phrase you would hear [was] 'requires constant supervision.' "

And I truly believed that no one could have been a worse CINC than Clinton. Just goes to show you that you never stop learning.

The Battle has been Joined

I will thank Kerry for one thing - perhaps now we can finally address and bury the decades of mixed feelings we have about Viet Nam.

Viet Nam was lost by the politicians who either were conceptually off-base or didn't have the courage to understand that war is best fought as Ghengis Khan fought it - not just to defeat, but to remove the enemy. But the unrest thirty years later only partially rests upon that footing.

Our generation was divided as all generations asked to go to war are divided - between those that shut up and serve, and that don't shut up. Serving is not just in theatre - it is wherever and however according to your capabilities or lot in life. Likewise, not shutting up can be in any locale.

President Bush served in the National Guard. He was not in the Delta, he was not listening to air break around him as either an enemy bullet passed by or someone was sitting on the latreen. But he shut up and did his stint. He also learned to fly - that pushed the envelope of his service. He's lucky he wasn't called in.

Kerry went in theatre. Then he bugged out as soon as possible, whining about little red lines that shopped droplets of blood the whole time. Then he came back and talked. And lied.

Kerry is the poster boy for why Viet Nam has become such a albatross around our generation's neck. He lied and impuned us all. He lied. He lied. He lied.

Now, those that had shut up before are silent no longer.

Time to cleanse our history.

Live by Vietnam; Die by Vietnam

THUD!!! That is the sound Kerry will hear tomorrow as his butler brings his papers that will cover the story of his "band of brothers" who are fed up with his dual positions on everything - his Vietnam history included.

Claiming that Kerry is "unfit to be Commander-in-Chief," hundreds of vets will come together tomorrow and present their argument. Included is every commander Kerry ever served under.

Kerry cannot complain. He is the one who brought Vietnam to the forefront. He is the one who wants the challenge to be made - "bring it on," he said.

Now we shall see the stuff of which Senator Kerry is made. Will he respond with understanding and acknowledge that reasonable minds can differ? Or will he repeat his GMA performance and try to change the topic? Can he turn to face himself? Will he end his proclivity to equivocate even the most direct of questions?

With a mixture of surprise and shock, I suspect he will be consistent and present a nonconvincing response. Even though I have a horse in this race, I still want to see a good contest. Kerry is a pathetic challenger. Almost scratched from the race, he entered the starting gate only because the other horses reared. Now that the gates have opened, he sits there - afraid to run, incapable of forward progress. He twitches the horse even as he pulls the reins tight.

The only question - is it the rider (Kerry), or is the old mare (DNC) ain't what she used to be?

Open Letter to Liberals

An article entitled, "A year on from 'Mission Accomplished', an army in disgrace, a policy in tatters and the real prospect of defeat" has just found my button and pushed it.

You people are pathetic. You treat the lives of Americans - I don't give a rip if the article was written by a Brit, the same words come from Liberals here - like they are disposable. All you care about is winning the November election. Defeat Bush. If Bush is for something, you are against it. How incompetent and stupid.

You talk for decades about enhancing Medicare with an RX provision. You do nothing. W does. Now you attack it. As if any version you would have come up with would even exist, let alone be perfect.

Your president gets oral sex in the oval office from a kid the age of his daughter, lies under oath about it, and you say it is a personal matter. The Israelis have Clinton on tape having phone sex with Monica. You continue to say it is personal. Wow. What if that was a pub senator? What would you have done? How do you sleep at night?

You fight a law to declare a fetus a second homicide when an expectant mother is murdered because maybe someday that status will be used to amend abortion laws. Gee, is it uncomfortable anticipating the same treatment that you use when you chip away at the 2d Amendment? Sucks when you are beaten at your own game, eh? btw, 44MM and counting murdered babies since 1973 ... tick tock ...

You convert Social Security into a chit system - you spend the money and write IOUs. For decades. You give the "fund" a pitiful 1% to 2% return, and take away any balance that a person doesn't get before they die. Now the pubs want to let Americans keep their money, get a better return, and you throw up these fear tactics about a stock market that moves over time. Have you ever looked at long-term returns? NO ONE LOSES. NO ONE. Invest in the long-term. No day trading. NO ONE LOSES. Except you. Your cash cow goes bye-bye.

You control the House for decades. You lock pubs out of meetings. You give them inaccurate meeting and hearing notices. The pubs regain the House. What was the first thing you said? Do you remember? I do - "Now is not the time for payback." The Rules, jokers. We play and win by the Rules. You cheat. You are intellectually dishonest, shallow, lost.

You want to win in November? Dump Kerry. You cannot make silk out of a sow's ear. The man is a babbling fool. The last senator to win was Kennedy 44 years ago! And everyone knows portions of that electoral college were purchased. We don't elect senators for very logical reasons - they don't run anything. They argue, articulate, and pontificate. There is nothing wrong with that in a parliamentary setting. But that isn't a state house or the White House. It is not compatible. Dump the idiot.

And, my word, drop the "you're calling me unpatriotic" routine. We've heard it from all sorts of people. No one on the pub side has ever called one of your fools unpatriotic. Ever. Are you? I think you are socialists, clearly, and some of you lean towards communism. But unpatriotic? Naw.

But the claim is heart of the matter. You play games with politics. All you care about is winning. You even cross the brightest of all lines - we are at war, yet you empower the enemy with your attacks on the president. Can't you look back at history and see how abysmally short-sighted and stupid you are going to appear during the latter days of your own lifetime?

Al Franken does a radio show and calls it the O'Franken Factor. What a child. Get an original thought, fool. You want a successful radio show? Find your own path. Tread on someone else's path and you will always be second, and downwind.

Speaking of Als, Gore pops up every once in a while. Now talk about a recurring case of toenail fungus. This guy is like a novel writer's creation that leaps off the page from story to story. The problem is that the writer is a paperback novelist and the creations are works-in-progress. He thinks of a storyline, writes, up pops Gore yelling about ozone. Naw. Paper crumbled and tossed. Another storyline; type, type, type; up pops Gore talking quietly about woodland animals. Can't this writer finish a novel and let the hero fade into obscurity, never to return?

Rendell drives over 100 mph on the turnpike from Harrisburg to Philly. Nine times - that he was caught. How dangerous for everyone else on the road - how uncaring by Rendell.

A good dem? A good liberal? Doesn't exist. You are all a bunch of misinformed, malinformed, uninformed miscreants. Try something different for a change - shut up, read, think.

Iran & Flying Saucers

... and these people think we should "fear" them? Iran sees some UFOs and everyone issues official comments. This is like dealing with cartoon people.

"Flying saucer fever has gripped Iran after dozens of sightings in the last few days. Newspapers and agencies reported people rushing out into the streets in eight towns on Tuesday night to watch a bright extraterrestrial light dipping in and out of the clouds."

Cats and dogs living together!! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!! But OK, anyone can see anything, or convince themselves that they see something. Let's read on.

"But Sa'dollah Nasiri-Qeydari, head of the Astronomical Society of Iran, told Reuters the stories were unfounded. 'In my opinion, flying saucers do not exist,' he said, insisting his telescopes would have picked up invaders from outer space. 'The people who have seen these things are not experts - farmers, villagers and pilots,' he added. He said what people reported was consistent with the planet Venus, whose intense light in its current position would be given different hues by being filtered through the atmosphere."

Note the premise of his comments - flying saucers would be "invaders from outer space." And the American Dems think that Pubs have a fixation on good and evil? Sounds like Austin Powers movies are broadcast in Iran as documentaries.

But you gotta love the arrogance in this bit - I am an Iranian, I have the best technology in all the world. See this cylinder? It has specially made glass on either end. Makes things look BIG. I mean, really BIG. No kidding, stand over there and I look at you through this. Wow, you are BIG! Here, let me show you. Don't touch it, just look through it. See me over here? Do I look big to you? It is called a tel-e-scop-e. Yes, like a tel-e-phon-e. But it scop-es things, it doesn't phon-e them. Now, this makes things so big (the technical term is "scop-e-ing") that it "would have picked up invaders from outer space."

Now I know that is confusing. But when an expert like me says "picked up" I don't mean to lift like we do our dresses in the outhouse. I mean it would "see" it. This cylinder with the special glass on either end, this tel-e-scop-e, sees everything everywhere. All I have to do is look through it. It is impossible, praise Allah, for anything from any direction to get to Blessed Iran without me seeing it.

So, what was it that those stupid peasants saw? A planet. Venus. Yes, it does look like a very bright star. No, it doesn't move in and out of clouds. Ah, you see, the atmosphere is different over Blessed Iran than over anywhere else on the planet. The atmosphere here alternates in its light diffusion properties. This is very complicated. Fisherpeople can't understand it. But I can, and now you will, too. You see, all light comes to Earth in every color of Allah. But every color disperses at the atmosphere except blue. That is why we have a blue sky. The reason is that Allah's eyes are blue, you see. So at night, the colors reaching us refract differently, but only over Iran. So you will see streams of color shooting from the planet Venus. Beams will dart out in all directions.

Trust me, my intellectual dwarf. I know these things. Wanna a piece of gum? It's American.