Playing what if

One of the arguments that I hear a lot from people who think that Bush is a bad president and should not be elected this November is that he pushed for and signed the USA PATRIOT Act.

Here are the facts, and they are not in dispute: The House and Senate both overwhelmingly passed the legislation. John Kerry voted for it.

Now I'm going to play what-if and I'll start with a couple of assumptions:

Assumption 1: My interpretation that Kerry and the Democratic leadership view terrorism as a law-enforcement issue, rather than military, is correct.
Assumption 2: Al Gore ascribes to that view.
Assumption 3: If Kerry is elected in November, it will not be accompanied by a substantial change in the makeup of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Question 1: Given the facts and assumptions above, would the USA PATRIOT Act, or substantially similar legislation, have been passed if Al Gore had been President instead of Bush? I think the answer is likely yes because the act primarily addresses the abilities of law-enforcement agencies. If the Democrats view terrorism as a law-enforcement issue, it stands to reason that Gore would have pushed for legislation to enhance and increase the ability of law-enforcement agencies to deal with that issue. He may or may not have invaded Afghanistan, and I'm pretty sure he would not have invaded Iraq, but I think the Patriot Act would still be on the books.

Question 2: Again, given the facts and assumptions above, would the Patriot Act be repealed or substantially modified if Kerry were elected President? I can't speak with as much confidence on this issue. I think there's a greater than 50 percent probability that the answer is no. I'm basing this on the facts that they passed it overwhelmingly, it's up to the Congress to make such changes, and, so far, they have not done so. However, I do accept the possibility that, if the President were to push for such changes, the Congress would comply.

The Rifleman

Well, not really, though I suppose it's technically true.

Allow me to introduce you to the latest addition to my "arsenal." The Marlin Model 1894 lever-action rifle chambered for 44 Remington Magnum and 44 S&W Special. Actually, the one I just bought is not shown on their website. In fact, I can't find a picture of it anywhere. It may be a brand-new model, or it may be discontinued. I bought it new at a store so I'm leaning toward the former.

It's a short barrel, it has a straight stock instead of the semi-pistol grip, and the stock and grip are smooth instead of checkered. It's basically the same as the Marlin 1894 Cowboy except it doesn't have the octagonal barrel. It actually looks a lot like this gun except for the whole it's-a-Marlin-not-a-Winchester thing.

It also happens to be exactly what I wanted. Now I just have to email Kim with the good news....

Regarding the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth's ads

As I said in the previous post, how the campaigns react to the attacks by the various 527 groups is becoming more important to me than whether or not those groups are telling the truth. However, I did want to address the two ads by SBVT on their own.

The first ad presents the allegations that Kerry lied and exaggerated events during his service in Viet Nam in order to gain medals.

The second ad criticizes Kerry for the testimony he gave before the Senate after returning from Viet Nam, and his other anti-war activities as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

As I wrote in my comment to this post over at TheGeekWithA.45's blog:

I think the second is more damning than the first. It's one thing to exaggerate events in order to gain a medal. It's quite another to sit before the Senate of the United States and denigrate every man you served with, and every other soldier who served in Viet Nam, for political gain.

There is some question of whether SBVT's account of Kerry's Bronze Star is accurate; it may be that there actually was enemy fire. But his words before the Senate are incontrovertible fact. We may never know for sure what happened the day that mine exploded under PCF-3. But we know beyond any doubt what Kerry said about his "band of brothers" that day in the Senate chamber. As Paul Galanti said in the second ad, Kerry gave the enemy for free what Galanti and others endured torture to avoid saying.

The hypocricy of the Kerry campaign

There are two items I'm going to address.

1) The Kerry campaign is calling on George Bush to denounce the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth and tell them to stop airing their ads which question Kerry's service in Viet Nam and criticize him for his anti-war activities after he returned.

The hypocrisy in this situation is that the Kerry campaign is not telling the 527 groups that support it to stop airing their ads that question Bush's service in the National Guard and even declare that he was AWOL. The Kerry campaign itself has raised this issue. Bush himself has never questioned Kerry's service nor questioned whether or not he deserved his medals. Yet because he doesn't come out and instruct SBVT to stop their activities, something he has no authority to do anyway, the Kerry campaign is equating it with active support, this despite the fact that the Kerry campaign is acting the same way, and has even gone further.

2) The Kerry campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission regarding what it calls illegal ties between the Bush campaign and SBVT.

In fact, attorney Benjamin Ginsburg has resigned as National Counsel to the Bush campaign because he had given advice to SBVT. This advice was on how to proceed so that they would not run afoul of campaign law. Here is an excerpt from Ginsburg's resignation letter:

I am proud to have given legal advice to American military veterans and others who wish to add their views to the political debate. It was done so in a manner that is fully appropriate and legal and, in fact, is quite similar to the relationships between my counterparts at the DNC and the Kerry campaign and Democrat 527s such as Moveon.org, the Media Fund and Americans Coming Together.

Neal Boortz outlines what Ginsburg is referring to:

The Bush campaign, though, has released a list of the top 10 connections between John Kerry and the 527s, including: Joe Sandler, who is general counsel to the DNC, while also serving as legal counsel to Moveon.org and Moving America Forward. Also, a Moveon.org staffer recently joined the Kerry campaign as director of online communications and organizing. How's that for extensive connections? There are more, but you get the idea.

These are all extensive connections between the Kerry campaign and Moveon.org, the same group that is smearing President Bush by running ads that lie about his military record in the Texas Air National Guard. These are proven lies, unlike many of the Swift Vets accusations, which Kerry hasn't even responded to.

The list of the top ten connections between Kerry and the 527's can be found here.

Whether or not the various 527 groups are telling the truth or not is coming to matter less and less to me. What is really telling is how the two campaigns are responding to them. The Kerry campaign has not presented sufficient credible evidence that SBVT are wrong in all their allegations (though, at this time, I am not convinced that the allegation that there was no enemy small arms fire during the events for which Kerry was awarded the Bronze Star are true). In fact, one of the allegations (Christmas in Cambodia) has been conceded by the campaign, though they naturally tried desperately to spin it so that it doesn't really appear that's what they're doing. Instead, the Kerry campaign threatens lawsuits and sends poor Max Cleland on an errand to deliver a letter to Bush's Crawford, TX, ranch (and here's the Bush campaign's response).

The Bush campaign, on the other hand, has called for a stop to all of the ads being aired by 527 groups, including SBVT, MoveOn.org, etc. That's still not good enough for the Kerry campaign because they know that their 527's are providing support several orders of magnitude greater than those that support Bush (see: George Soros) and they don't want to lose that support. Sorry guys, can't have it both ways. And if you think the American people can't see that you're trying, well I guess you always did think we all were just stupid sheep that need your benevolent guidance (translation: rule) because we can't take care of ourselves. Not that the Democrats have a monopoly on insulting the intelligence of the American public, but it seems to be standard operating procedure for them because they sure do it far more often.

Storytime

While reading Kim's post about his pride in helping yet another person join the Nation of Riflemen, I was reminded about something that happened a few years ago at the gun range.

A coworker of mine and I both worked for the same company prior to moving to our current jobs. He and I are both armed citizens and have gone to the range together on several occasions. One day, we offered to take three of our former coworkers to the range. What's interesting is that two of them are from other countries; one from Australia and one from Canada. None of the three had ever shot a gun before.

We met them at the range. I brought my Glock 19 (my only gun at the time) and my friend brought a couple of his guns. When it came for the Canadian's turn, I instructed him on how to hold my gun, how to aim it, and how to squeeze the trigger rather than pull it.

The man is a natural. I just stood there and watched as he put all ten rounds in the black. His spread was about the same as I can do, maybe a bit better. I watched him shoot and he was totally relaxed and steady. His accuracy went down a little after that, but not much. My understanding is that it's normal for a new shooter to become less accurate at first as he tries to refine his technique.

Of course, he's a product of his home society so he believes that private ownership of guns is not necessary. It's just very ironic that someone who is so comfortable with gun control has such good control of a gun.

Bush/Cheney sign watch: rebirth

Well, that didn't take long. I saw that the sign had been knocked down on Friday. On Saturday, even though I was not driving to work, I happened to be heading down the freeway to a friend's place and saw that it had been replaced. This one looks like a standard printed sign, presumably provided by the campaign, rather than the apparently handmade sign that was most recently destroyed. It was still there when I drove to work this morning. Let's see how long this one lasts; it is now three days and counting.

Michelle Malkin screws up

Okay, I'm going to do something that may surprise my two regular readers. I'm going to link to a post at Oliver Willis' blog. Of course, I'm not agreeing with everything he is saying but I did watch the video that he links to and Michelle Malkin, in her appearance on Hardball, did not do a good job of answering Chris Matthews' question.

They were talking about the allegations that the wound for which John Kerry received one of his Purple Hearts was self-inflicted. When Chris challenged Michelle about it, asking if she was saying Kerry shot himself on purpose, she became flustered and was unable to catch the real meaning of Chris's question. Here's how I would answer it.

Chris Matthews: Self-inflicted? Are you saying that Kerry shot himself on purpose?
Me: No, I'm saying that the account presented by Swiftboat Veterans for Truth is that he suffered an accidental wound when a grenade he fired exploded close enough to hit him with a small piece of shrapnel. If true, the wound was self-inflicted, but not done on purpose.

If the video doesn't work for you, since Oliver has it set up as an embedded object rather than a link, you can get the video directly through this link. On my system, the .mp4 extension is currently associated with Real Player, but it can't play the file. Quicktime plays the file fine, though, so you can download the file (right-click the link and choose Save As or whatever your browser offers) and then open it in Quicktime Player.

Update: I just finished reading Michelle's post about the show in her own blog. She makes the case that she was effectively ambushed by Matthews. I still maintain she made a mistake in not simply stating right away that self-inflicted didn't mean on purpose. She should have come right out and said that first thing and then continued on with what she wanted to say. However, that certainly doesn't excuse the tactics used by Chris Matthews in his interview, nor especially the fact that he hadn't even looked at the book before grilling Michelle about it.

Google search

Okay, I added the ability to search the site, or the web, using Google to the top of the page. This is as much for my convenience as anything as it will make it easier to find stuff I've written in the past. I don't know if I like the look of it, but then this site could use a proper redesign anyway so whattaya gonna do?

Bush/Cheney sign watch: endgame

Well, I'm actually surprised it lasted this long. On the way to work this morning, I saw that the Bush/Cheney sign near the freeway had been knocked over and torn apart. The other nearby signs supporting local Republican candidates were still intact. Although there is a non-zero probability that it was due to an accident of some kind, such as being hit by a car, I did not see any tire tracks in the grass where the sign was laying on the ground. I'm certain it was the work of vandals.

Way to support free speech, assholes. I hope the owner puts it back up bigger than before.

Ted Rall keeps on digging

In his latest rant, Ted Rall continues to disparage our troops, and continues to describe the current administration in terms that are clearly not true by virtue of the fact that Rall is still alive and not imprisoned.

Tourists are pleasantly surprised when New Yorkers act as friendly and polite as the people back home in Mayberry. However, delegates to this month's Republican National Convention shouldn't expect to be treated to our standard out-of-towner treatment. The Republican delegates here to coronate George W. Bush are unwelcome members of a hostile invading army. Like the hapless saps whose blood they sent to be spilled into Middle Eastern sands, they will be given intentionally incorrect directions to nonexistent places. Objects will be thrown in their direction. Children will call them obscene names. They will not be greeted as liberators.

The Republicans and Democrats were both invited by New York to hold their conventions there. The Democrats said they would accept only if the the Republicans were disinvited. The city refused and the Democrats had their convention in Boston. The Republicans accepted, with no such restrictions.

And here we have Ted once again referring to our troops in derogatory terms. This time they are "hapless saps." Real high opinion you have for those who fight and sacrifice to protect your right to spew out this drivel, Ted.

Well aware that it is barren soil for their party's anti-urban, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, overtly racist ideology, Republican leaders have wisely avoided New York City as a convention site for the past 150 years. Even as the rest of America turns red, we New Yorkers remain as liberal as the people's republic of San Francisco: fewer than 18 percent of the citizens of New York's five boroughs (which include relatively conservative places like Staten Island) cast ballots for Bush/Cheney in 2000. But White House strategist Karl Rove sees the continued exploitation of 9/11 for partisan political gain as Bush's key to victory in November. That means bringing the big bash three miles north of the hole where the Twin Towers used to stand, where most of the victims of 9/11 were burned, suffocated, impaled and pulverized.

Once again I must remind you that New York invited the conventions to the city. The Republicans did not ask first. He also makes an unintentionally insightful comment with that bit about the "people's republic of San Francisco." Since the words "People's Republic" usually translate to "Socialist/Communist regime," I'd say it's pretty accurate.

He then talks about plans that protest groups are making to demonstrate, refers to possible strikes by police and firefighters, and engages in come consipiracy theorizing about FBI harassment of leftist groups, though given these groups propensity for breaking the law a certain amount of FBI scrutiny is certainly warranted.

He closes with this:

If today's GOP retained a shred of the dignity and patriotism that it once possessed as the Party of Lincoln, it would have dumped Bush in favor of a candidate more interested in defending America than his wealthy contributors. Republicans are neofascists now, and that's why New Yorkers good and true will be yelling at them to go back home.

He's one to talk about dignity, especially when he described Pat Tillman as a dumb jock who joined the army just so he could go kill foreigners and who deserved to die in Afghanistan. And if the Republicans really are neofascists, why is it that he is still able to write his vitriolic rants and pen his political cartoons? Lest we forget, the Nazi party, who were true fascists, were properly named the National Socialist party. The Ba'ath party, which ruled Iraq under Saddam Hussein, was also known as the Arab National Socialist party. Ted Rall is a socialist. Think about it.

Update: Dunno why I wrote "Detroit" instead of "Boston" for the location of the Democratic Convention. It has been corrected.

Missing the point (maybe)

Via The GeekWithA.45 comes this story about the impending resignation of New Jersey governor James McGreevey:

In a stunning declaration, Gov. James E. McGreevey acknowledged that he had an extramarital affair with another man and announced his resignation Thursday. "My truth is that I am a gay American," he said.

"Shamefully, I engaged in (an) adult consensual affair with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony," the married father of two said. "It was wrong, it was foolish, it was inexcusable."

The Democrat said his resignation would be effective Nov. 15.

Later in the article it says:

The governor, who was married once before, said he has long struggled with the thoughts of his sexuality.

"Because of my resolve and also thinking I was doing the right thing, I also forced what I thought was an acceptable reality onto myself," he said.

And still later it says:

As a candidate and governor, McGreevey proudly discussed his Catholic faith but publicly disagreed with church leaders over his support for abortion rights and same-sex partnerships.

McGreevey pushed for the state's domestic partnership law, which went into effect this year.

Those were the setup for this one:

Gay rights activists said McGreevey's decision is troubling.

"It is a very sad to thing to watch. it is kind of stunning, sad to me that in 2004 people are still having to struggle because of homophobia in society to come to terms with who they are," said Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal. "The price that is being paid by the governor, his family."

It would appear that, to Mr. Cathcart, the most important issue here is the Governor's sexuality. However, what I think is the most important issue is that he broke his marriage vows and had an extramarital affair, regardless of whether it was with a man or a woman. Mr. Cathcart seems to be glossing over that part of it, although admittedly I have only the one quote to go by and it's entirely possible it does not completely reflect his views.

I can accept that McGreevey has been struggling with his sexuality for some time. As part of that struggle he decided, rightly or wrongly, to enter into two marriages. He then violated the promise that he made to his current wife by having the affair. I can even understand it if he considers that affair part of how he is dealing with the struggle, but it doesn't excuse his actions. He took a vow and then he broke it. That alone is enough.

I added "(maybe)" to the subject of this post because the article does say this:

McGreevey said he would step down because his secret -- both his sexuality and his affair -- leaves the governor's office vulnerable.

"I am removing these threats by telling you directly about my sexuality. Let me be clear: I accept total and full responsibility for my actions," he said. "However, I am required to do now to do what is right to correct the consequences of my actions."

I'm assuming that this is the basis of Mr. Cathcart's comments, which is understandable. However, the impression I get from this is that McGreevey is acknowledging that public knowledge of his sexuality could be damaging, but it's the fact that he had an affair of any kind that's the most important thing. And that's as it should be.

Flying is easy!

No, it's not. Bill Whittle popped his head up and penned this little missive, titled "Monkeys and Missile Men" to commemorate his good friend earning his private pilot's license. Regarding the difficulty, he writes:

He also scored a 92% on the written test, which makes him a steeley-eyed, weather-savvy, aerodynamically enlightened, radio-familiar, mechanical, electrical and hydraulic savant who is also a 3-D airspace expert. The amount of material you need to know to pass the FAA written test is staggering. I genuinely believe that even the brightest Hollywood Celebrity -- yes, even those who finished High School -- would throw their own pooh at the test screen and storm off smashing American Tourister luggage without getting a single answer correct.

(The instrument rating, which I am almost finished with, is perhaps three times harder. Add weapons systems, combat flight maneuvers, counter-counter-measures, and the ability to fly a fire-breathing mach 2 deathsled called the F-102 Delta Dagger, and you begin the grasp the dimmest outlines of the intelligence it took for that Idiot Moron Chimp George W. Bush to takeoff, fly a mission, and land. Yes, daddy was rich and powerful and well-connected. But there’s no back seat in an F-102)

I know of what he speaks. I also hold a private pilot's license, the same certificate that Bill's friend just earned. I don't remember my exact score on the written test, but it was greater than 90%. It was not easy; I had to study hard for that test. And that doesn't even count the practical test where the student flies with the Designated Pilot Examiner, who evaluates the student's ability, and also administers an oral exam. That was even harder. Many of the questions he asked I did not know, although he deliberately asked questions whose answers were obscure. He was not hesitant in his criticism either, both of my answers on the oral exam and my performance in the air. It turned out to be yet another learning experience.

Most people have the capability to learn what they need to be a private pilot. However, not all would be willing to stick with the program to completion. Even I, who had desired this since I was a young child, became bogged down toward the end. I finally said "Screw this," knuckled down, and got it done. I had come that far and I would be damned before I gave it up.

And the reward for my effort is now I can exercise the privileges of a private pilot. That's the actual official language. It's not a right, but a privilege that I earned with a good deal of mental and physical effort. I can now pilot an airplane (currently I am checked out in the Cessna 172 and 152 models) pretty much from anywhere in the contiguous 48 states to anywhere else, provided the weather is better than well-defined minumum conditions and provided I avoid certain designated areas and observe certain restrictions while flying in other areas.

Perhaps most importantly, I am the final, absolute authority for the conduct of the flight when I am pilot-in-command. No matter what happens, it's my responsibility. I can allow my passenger to take the controls and it's all perfectly legal. But if he screws up and we crash, it's my fault, not his. If we run out of gas, it's my fault for not making sure we have enough fuel onboard for the flight. If my aircraft strays into restricted airspace and some pilots who make me look like a badly trained ferret have to come and escort my sorry ass out, too bad. It's up to me alone to know where I am, where I'm going, and to make sure that I don't cross that boundary. Pilots know the meaning of responsibility. It's a core part of the training. And it is the way it should be, one of the few examples of the federal government getting it right at the institutional level.

Congratulations to Bill's friend Steve. May your skies be clear and your winds light.

A picture is worth a thousand words

But are those words necessarily the truth?

Perusing this post by Jon Henke at QandO I encountered an old college yearbook picture of George Bush playing rugby and, as stated by the photo's caption, delivering an "illegal but satisfying right hook to opposing team's ball carrier." Jon does his usual good job of analyzing the photo and comes to a different conclusion as to what was actually happening at the time the photo was taken.

As expected, the left side of the Blogosphere™ has gone full-goose bozo over this photo, crying "See? See? This proves that George Bush has never played fair! It's proof of his bad character!"

The key difference between their attacks based on this photo, and the attacks on Kerry's Viet Nam record is that Bush is not using his college rugby career as the centerpiece of his campaign. He is not pointing to it as proof of his qualifications to be president.

All this shows is that these people are desperate and they're grasping at straws. John Cole reinforces this interpretation.

Jon goes on to catch Atrios in yet another double-standard that is so characteristic of the left. All I can say is I'm glad Jon Henke and John Cole are on this side.

Success vs. Failure, War vs. Peace

Well, I tracked back to this post at Captain's Quarters and it drove more traffic to my site than any other post or trackback I've ever done. I guess I picked the right blog, and picked the right excerpt for my trackback ping. To all those who stopped by, thanks for coming and taking a look. Hopefully it wasn't too disappointing. :)

Anyway, I was perusing the other trackbacks to that post and came across one for this post at Blogumentary. The subject intrigued me as it seemed at odds with the general views of the Captain's readership so I decided to click through and read the whole thing. My initial impression was correct and I've decided to address some of what the author of that post has written.

First of all, let's start with a few definitions. The following definitions are from dictionary.com. In each case, several are offered; I've chosen the one or ones which apply to this topic.

War: A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.

Peace:
1. The absence of war or other hostilities.
2. An agreement or a treaty to end hostilities.

Success: A person with a record of successes

Failure: A person with a record of failing; someone who loses consistently

Now for the first excerpt from the post that I wish to address:

Bush is a failure by any measure. He's given us war instead of peace....

A failure by any measure: It seems to me that the author is equating "a failure" with "a person who does not do everything I think he should be doing." Bush has succeeded in accomplishing many of the things he set out to do. He signed No Child Left Behind. He signed the Medicare drug benefit. He toppled two tyrannical regimes. No further terror attacks on US soil have occurred. The list goes on. Now, I will say that he has failed to conform to a truly conservative agenda, however that would make me guilty of the same equation as Chuck, the post's author. Unless he set out to do so, he has not failed in his own goals.

He has given us war: Well, for that to be true, he would have had to be the one to order the start of this war. In reality, this war was declared upon us first. We have actually been in a state of war since the Clinton administration, some would argue even earlier. We have not declared this war formally, but our situation with respect to fundamentalist Islam has satisfied the definition presented above for some time.

What he has not given us, so far, is peace. However, we have to take a look at what would be the possible options that would result in peace.

Option one: We win this war, and make it so that our enemies can no longer wage war against us, or become unwilling to do so. This means they are either all dead, alive but unable to mount attacks, or realize that continued aggression is no longer in their best interest and they willingly stop.

Option two: We surrender to our enemies. They subjugate us and we either convert to their brand of Islam, or accept the status of dhimmi.

Option three: We all die.

Why do I not include a fourth option which deals with negotiating peace between ourselves and those we are fighting? Because, by their words and actions, they will not accept that option. Their goal is to force us to accept option two or three, neither of which is acceptable to us. Therefore, the only option that we will accept and that is actually possible is option one. And that is what we are currently attempting to accomplish.

Let us take a look at some other points that Chuck raises in his post.

(T)his "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" business is, without a doubt, dirty politics.

This is, of course, a personal and subjective opinion. One man's dirty politics are another man's reasonable scrutiny. The Democrats' attempts to denigrate Bush's National Guard service are of a kind but, would Chuck refer to them as "dirty politics?" He makes a reference to Bush's service but, to be fair, it looks like a simple reference for completeness rather than an attack so I can't use it as a basis to answer that question.

Continuing on:

The Swifties are a vicious partisan group trying to shoot holes in John Kerry's credibility.

"Vicious" is again a personal and subjective opinion. I personally don't see the group as vicious. The ad shows them stating their views in a calm manner, not frothing at the mouth and yelling. They're partisan in the sense that that all believe Kerry is lying and therefore unfit. Not all of them are Republicans. And as for the allegation that they're "trying to shoot holes in John Kerry's credibility," well I'm certainly not going to argue with that characterization except to say that the language appears to be intentionally inflammatory.

But at their core, these flip-floppers are still bitter that Kerry spoke out against America's most painfully misguided war.

This is followed by an excerpt from a USA Today article which says, in part:

Many of Kerry's critics commanded boats that went out on missions with Kerry. Others never met him. Most are still angry about Kerry's leadership of Vietnam Veterans Against the War after he returned home.

This is an example of an ad hominem attack, a logical fallacy. In other words, Chuck is attacking the credibility of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth by making an assumption about their motives and then implying that those motives are not valid. I could do the same thing and say that Chuck wrote his post because he is an ardent Kerry supporter and his motivation is to try to discredit anyone who disagrees with him regardless of the merit of their arguments; therefore his argument has no merit. Ultimately, if what the SBVT are saying is true, their motive is irrelevant.

At the end of his post, he links to several articles. The first one is this article at Factcheck.org. I will not address it here as McQ has already done a superlative job over at QandO. Read also the original post at Captain's Quarters linked above.

Another one is this article at the New York Times. (Registration required, check bugmenot.com if you don't want to register.)

Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, producer of the early military successes in Afghanistan and Iraq, said Sunday that criticism of John Kerry's war record is political hyperbole and Kerry is ``absolutely'' qualified to be commander in chief.

This is the opinion of one man. It is also an example of another logical fallacy, the appeal to authority. It qualifies under the definition given on the linked page a fallacy because, "there is general disagreement among the experts in the field on this point." On one side, the experts are General Franks and, although not mentioned in the article, Jim Rassmann, the man Kerry rescued and who supports him. On the other are all the members of SBVT. I daresay that those members of SBVT that served with John Kerry are as much experts on the events in question, if not moreso, than General Franks. Even if only one served under Kerry, many of the rest still served with him.

Ultimately, what it comes down to is who you believe. In my opinion, Swiftboat Veterans for Truth has made its case and I give their arguments the greater weight. I plan on sending a trackback ping to the article on Blogumentary and I invite the author to read what I have written here and respond if he desires to do so.

One more thing before I close. In this post I have referred to a couple of logical fallacies. In my writing, I try to avoid them but it would not surprise me if some have slipped through and it would also not surprise me if I were to let more slip through in the future. It's only fair, then, that I should be called on them when I do just as I call others on them. If anyone sees any of them in my writing, feel free to lay the virtual smack down on me.

Bush/Cheney sign watch: day three

Well, the sign managed to survive the weekend. I'll try to remember to post an update at the end of the week, provided it hasn't been defaced/damaged/destroyed by then.

More on the Viet Nam strategy

A couple posts back, I commented on what Kerry's strategy of basing his campaign on his service in Viet Nam indicates about his character and intelligence, given how vigorously that record is being challenged. After reading this post at QandO, I realize that there's another explanation that should have been obvious:

So why all the Vietnam. Well, frankly, the Democrats, using the criteria of "electablility" over substance, picked a bad candidate. That's the short of it. They were left trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. His 4 month's in Vietnam was about as much silk as they could find in that sow's ear.

My comments were based on the assumption that there was an alternative to the Viet Nam strategy that would present Kerry in a favorable light. The logical choice under most circumstances would be Kerry's 20-year record in the Senate. But as Mark Steyn, quoted by McQ in his post, says:

The one thing the Democratic Party owed America this campaign season was a candidate credible on the current war. The Democrats needed their own Tony Blair, a bloke who's a big socialist pantywaist when it comes to health and education and the other nanny-state hooey but believes in robust projection of military force in the national interest.

John Kerry fails that test. If you wanted to pick a candidate on the wrong side of every major defense and foreign policy question of the last two decades, you would be hard put to find anyone with judgment as comprehensively poor as Mr. Kerry: total up his votes and statements on everything from Grenada to the Gulf war, Saddam to the Sandinistas, the Cold War to missile defense to every major weapons system of the 1980s and '90s. He called them all wrong.

In his article, Steyn goes on to say:

But that's not how the Democratic Party muscle saw John Kerry. Since the notion of a credible war president wasn't important to them, they looked at the war on terror merely as a Bush wedge issue to be neutralized. And they figured their best shot at neutralizing it was Lt. Kerry on a Swift boat.

In certain circumstances, it might even have worked. But the Democrats let their contempt for Mr. Bush run away with them. It wasn't enough to argue Mr. Kerry's four months in the Mekong Delta gave him authority on national security issues. Instead, they saw an opening to diminish Mr. Bush, to reduce him from the 21st century commander in chief who had toppled two enemy regimes to the 1970s pampered frat boy with the spotty National Guard record. And so they made the strategic error of hammering on about what their man was doing vs. what the Republicans' guy was doing during the Vietnam War. And they were having such fun at Mr. Bush's expense and getting so high on those four months from the 1960s that they gave not a thought to the great wasteland of John Kerry's 1970s, '80s and '90s.

This, then, would put the blame for this course at least partially on the shoulders of the Democrat leadership rather than Kerry himself. Even so, I still wonder at what Kerry himself actually believes. The tenet of The Big Lie is that, if you tell a lie often enough, people start believing it. The person or people telling that lie are not always immune from its effects. One wonders if one reason Kerry can talk about Viet Nam with a straight face is not so much that he's a good actor, but that he actually believes what he's saying.

Next milestone

Well, according to Sitemeter, my blog is creeping up on 2000 visits. Of course, some of them are visits I've made but I'll take what I can get.

The wisdom of Kerry's Viet Nam strategy

Thanks to Harvey over at Bad Example, I've had a chance to take a look at the letter drafted by Swiftboat Veterans for Truth which their legal team is sending to media outlets from which they've purchased time to show their ad. I have no doubt that what they are saying is the truth and that John Kerry has lied about his service in Viet Nam and the circumstances under which at least some of his medals were "earned."

Harvey writes:

The thing is, I don't really care.

Don't get me wrong. I expect no end of amusement out of the process, in the same way that peeing on a cockroach that's fallen into a toilet bowl is amusing.

But the thing is, this stuff happened over 30 years ago, and at best it's only an indication of his character BACK THEN.

Here's the thing. Kerry has based his campaign largely on his service in Viet Nam. He is using it to showcase his bravery, patriotism, and leadership ability. Although his actions at the time were indications of his character only at that time, his perpetuation of the lie and his reliance on this fraudulent personal history for his campaign are indications of his character today. It's also an indication of his intelligence, or the lack thereof. He has set himself irrevocably on this course and it's far too late to deviate from it now. Now that he's being called on it, he really has no choice but to ride it out. Given how smart he claims to be, you would think he would have considered this outcome as a possibility. Even if he did, he decided to go ahead with it anyway. On the other hand, it could be that he's told this lie so many times that he actually believes it himself, in which case he is a victim of self-delusion. In either case, it does not inspire confidence in his ability to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces, as well as fulfill the other responsibilities of the President.

So, in my case, I do factor this into my choice of which candidate I will vote for. It is not, by itself, a necessary nor sufficient condition, but it does serve to reinforce my decision. As for the other considerations, Harvey sums them up thusly:

But what about NOW? What about his stated plans for a Kerry Presidential administration?

He's outlined what he stands for on his web site, and the short version is, "I will raise your taxes, socialize medicine, increase the size, scope, and number of government programs, and take advice from foreign governments who think that going into Iraq was wrong". If you think I'm exaggerating or mischaracterizing, please check his site yourself and cite it when correcting me.

Even though I criticize Bush for growing the government, and some other actions which I feel are contrary to a truly conservative viewpoint, what he has done is nothing compared to what Kerry would do if given the chance.

Compare and contrast

Bush has been taking heat from John Kerry, Michael Moore and others for his actions during the first seven minutes after he was notified that the first plane had hit the World Trade Center. Kerry has said:

"Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whispered in my ear, 'America is under attack,' I would have told those kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United States had something that he needed to attend to -- and I would have attended to it," Kerry told the Unity conference of minority journalists in response to a question about what he would done.

However, let's contrast this with what Kerry actually did during that time. The following is an excerpt from the transcript of Kerry and his wife's interview with Larry King:

KING: Where were you on 9/11?

HEINZ KERRY: You know, it's very interesting. I landed at National Airport less than 12 hours before, coming from Pennsylvania, where I was doing a prescription drugs thing -- meeting. And I came in from Pittsburgh, landed at National, and that's the last time I landed at National for quite a while.

KING: How'd you hear about it?

HEINZ KERRY: I was at home in Washington. I had just come in and I got a call...

KERRY: I think I called.

HEINZ KERRY: And they said, look at the TV. I looked at the TV and I couldn't believe it.

KING: Where were you?

KERRY: I was in the Capitol. We'd just had a meeting -- we'd just come into a leadership meeting in Tom Daschle's office, looking out at the Capitol. And as I came in, Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid were standing there, and we watched the second plane come in to the building. And we shortly thereafter sat down at the table and then we just realized nobody could think, and then boom, right behind us, we saw the cloud of explosion at the Pentagon. And then word came from the White House, they were evacuating, and we were to evacuate, and so we immediately began the evacuation.

I got these links from this post at Blaster's Blog, the link to which I got from this post at Cold Fury. In his post, Blaster sums up with:

Time between second plane hitting WTC and Pentagon = time spent not thinking = 40 minutes.

He then follows up with this post where he writes:

Let's put that in perspective.

In the 40 minutes between the second plane striking the WTC and the plane striking the Pentagon, John Kerry sat, unable to think.

In those same 40 minutes, President Bush spoke to the Vice President, the director of the FBI, the National Security Advisor, and the governor of New York; addressed the nation; and rushed to Air Force One.

And he read a book.

Now I'm not saying that a Senator is going to do the same things as a President under these circumstances. However, the fact that Kerry did absolutely nothing during that time, by his own admission, at least has to make you wonder.

Subtlety

Take a look at this political cartoon by Cox and Forkum.

I note that the "Moderate Muslim" is standing outside the glass case looking in. The implication is that such Muslims are almost as Mythical as the creatures in the case. Perhaps he is contemplating whether or not he belongs in the case. Actually drawing the Muslim in the case would have been very blatant and would likely have drawn an outcry from the Muslim community. C and F deftly avoid that and still make their point with this subtle bit of placement.

The truth is that there are Muslims in this country and in others who are denouncing the acts of terrorists but, in my opinion at least, those voices are far too few. As Harry Binswanger, quoted in C and F's post, says:

Whatever it says or doesn't say in the Koran, there is something terribly wrong with a religion whose adherents fail to be heard in the 3 years after an attack of this magnitude made in their name.

Free speech for some

On the drive to work, as I'm driving down the freeway, I pass an area where there are three or four large signs endorsing various political candidates, including one for Bush and Cheney. The other signs are for Republican candidates for state and local elections. One day I noticed that the Bush/Cheney sign had been defaced with spray paint. It was replaced and then it was defaced again. Earlier this week I noticed that the sign was missing altogether. Whether it had been removed by the owner or knocked down by someone sharing the sentiment of the painter is unknown.

Now I can't say for sure but it seems to me that I don't see such things happening to signs for candidates who are Democrats. In any event, it just shows that some people out there believe that free speech is a good idea only as long as it's not something they disagree with.

This morning on the way to work I noticed the sign had been replaced with a new one. The previous signs were printed, this one appears to be handmade. I wonder how long it will be before some champion of the First Amendment comes along and adds a little speech of his own. If and when it happens, I'll let you know.

Why refute when you can sue?

DNC Lawyers Work To Muzzle Swift Boat Vets' Ad

As their first piece of evidence of the ad's supposed lies, the DNC/Kerry lawyers claim that the veterans in the ad "purport to have served on Senator Kerry's SWIFT Boat in Vietnam" but, "in fact, not a single one of the men who pretend to have served with Senator Kerry was actually a crewmate of Senator Kerry's." The problem is that none of these men claimed to have served on Kerry's SWIFT Boat. They simply said they "served with John Kerry" -- and they did. The letter goes on to make several more misleading statements about the advertisement, in an attempt to protect Kerry's "war hero" record.

And that's not the only example.

DNC 'Lawyers Up' Against the Club for Growth

Watch the ad (link is on the right side of the page), read the letter, then read the comments. They *may* have a point on that one, but it sounds like a matter of interpretation, rather than an outright lie.

However, it's still characteristic that they called out the lawyers first thing.

Links via QandO.

More on Far Cry

The sniper rifle is truly the God weapon of the game. As noted below, my brother recommends that you never drop it once you get it. However, it's best to use it sparingly and take every opportunity to collect ammo for it as it appears to be somewhat rare. Guys in towers tend to have them.

I'm told that, on some multiplayer servers, the admins will kick you if you use the sniper rifle as it totally destroys game balance. The last LAN party I was at we played Far Cry and it was a lot of fun, but I quickly realized that this claim is correct. I was actually trying to see how close I could come to other players with the sniper rifle without hitting them. I wanted to startle them by having bullets impact the wall or ground right in front of them. I accidentally shot someone in the leg and he just keeled over. I shouted, "Sorry about that!" to whoever my victim was and then headed down into the fray with a machine gun.

Excuse my while I collapse into paroxysms of laughter

According to this article (link via Boortz):

Several members of Congress sent a letter Tuesday to Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, to express their opposition to what they say is the network's "unfair and unbalanced" bias towards the Republican Party.

Oh that's just rich! When are we going to see a group of Congressional Republicans sending letters to CBS, NBC, CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC regarding their liberal bias? I hope it comes soon and I hope it contains several examples. Here's just one as detailed by Neal Boortz:

Allow me to share one particularly interesting study that Bozell presented in his book (Weapons of Mass Distortion: The Coming Meltdown of the Liberal Media -RR). The Clinton years saw the emergence of a man named Larry Klayman and his group Judicial Watch. Judicial Watch filed several lawsuits against the Clinton administration dealing with such things as campaign finance irregularities. The media treatment of Klayman and Judicial Watch was brutal. Time magazine wrote "Even in the fang-bearing world of Bill Clinton's most dedicated pursuers, Larry Klayman is in a class by himself." A review of stories featuring Klayman and Judicial Watch by Bozell's Media Research Center showed that it was a rare occasion indeed when Judicial Watch was mentioned in a network news cast without the accompanying "conservative" label. Things changed, however, in 2002. And why did things change? Because Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against none other than the hated Vice President, Dick Cheney over his connections with Halliburton.

Bozell uses CNN's Judy Woodruff as an example.

• March 3, 1998. Woodruff reports that "lawyers for the conservative group Judicial Watch" had some questions about Bill Clinton and FBI files.


• July 10, 2002. Woodruff, reporting on the lawsuit against Cheney, says "The reviews of President Bush's speech on that subject [corporate responsibility] were still coming in today as a watchdog group said that it was suing Vice President Dick Cheney."

Clever, don't you think? When Judicial Watch sues Clinton, it's a "conservative group." When it sues Cheney, it's a "watchdog group."

There are countless other examples. Simply Googling for "liberal media bias" should produce a rich cornucopia for your perusal.

Now I'm not going to say that Fox News isn't biased and I'm not going to say that the Congresspeople who wrote that letter don't have a point. But let's be clear here that if Fox News is biased toward conservatives, it pales before the liberal bias shown by most of the other networks.

I also wanted to address another section of the article:

A winter 2003-04 poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes consistently found that members of the public whose primary news source is Fox News had a higher rate of misperceptions about Iraq than viewers of any other news source.

Two-thirds of Fox viewers, for example, wrongly believed that a link between Iraq and al-Qaida had been found, while only 16 percent of PBS/NPR viewers and listeners and 40 percent of print-media readers shared the same misperception.

That's because there clearly was a link between Iraq and al-Qaida. The recent report from the Senate Intelligence Committee confirm this as do statements of the 9/11 Commission. There is no evidence of collaboration on attacks against the US, let alone 9/11, but the links were definitely there.

In addition, 33 percent of Fox viewers believed that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, in contrast with 11 percent of PBS/NPR viewers and 19 percent of ABC News viewers.

That's because they have actually been found. Shells containing sarin and mustard gas for starters. Sure, no stockpiles, but such weapons have been found. It would not surprise me if the questions asked in this poll were phrased such that they would generate the desired outcome. Poll writers have been doing that for years to skew the results in favor of their position. The more I hear about this, the less likely I am to give any credence whatsoever to any poll.

Superlative posts by other bloggers

After reading Mike Hendrix's masterful rant in the disguise of a fictional press conference with Tom Ridge, I've decided to create this list of posts by other bloggers that I think deserve special attention. The first, of course, will be the aforementioned rant by Mike. I will link to this post from my sidebar and update it over time as I come across additional posts to link to.

"Someday, some way" by Mike Hendrix at Cold Fury
An amazing evisceration of the hypocrisy and double-standards of the media and the political left in this country, disguised as a fictional response by Tom Ridge to a reporter's question.

Absolutely everything Bill Whittle has ever written.
His essays are indescribable. If I had even a hundredth of his talent, I'd be writing full time.

Appeasement by George Turner writing at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler. In it, he lays out just who our enemy is and what will and what won't work in our fight against them.

Referendum 2004 by dipnut writing at isntapundit.com. It's a long and extremely thorough examination of how Communist propaganda played a part in our defeat in Vietnam, the complimentary role of the media, the anti-war movement in general, and John Kerry in particular, and how we as a nation, and again John Kerry in particular, are still feeling the influence of those events.

Pseudo Fascism? by AnalogKid writing at Random Nuclear Strikes. In this essay, he addresses the left's claim that conservatives in general, and Republicans in particular, are dragging this country into fascism and points out just which of the two major parties actually has the most in common with actual fascist governments.

Whatcha gonna do by Mike Hendrix at Cold Fury. It's a post-election rant that addresses the flailing about of the doomsayers on the left about how Bush's reelection is the end of the world, and shows just how ridiculous they and their claims really are.

Far Cry first impressions

Well, it's been a while since I posted something, so I thought I'd better put something up so my two regular readers won't get mildly irritated.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been playing the single player portion of Far Cry for the PC. Here are my initial thoughts.

First of all, it is hands down the prettiest game I've ever seen. The water is beautiful and looking at it makes me want to dive in and go swimming. The trees and grass are likewise gorgeous. One of the CryEngine's major claims is that it supports absolutely huge contiguous environments. They obviously do some aggressive optimization, most of which is probably detail reduction at distance, to get the game to perform as well as it does even on high end hardware. My system is no slouch and I'm running it pretty well cranked up. I don't know how well it does on lower-end hardware but there are a lot of visual quality options available so I would imagine it can scale down with little problem. It just won't look as purty.

As for gameplay, the AI is among the better I've seen. Your opponents have pretty keen vision and hearing and they will utilize cover pretty effectively. They will also sometimes move toward you over some pretty long distances if they catch sight of you. On the other hand, if you just hide in the bushes and wait for them to come to you, you can pick them off pretty easy as they come into view.

And hiding in the bushes is something you'll need to learn to do pretty quickly. You have an armored vest but if you charge into a group of bad guys, they'll take you down pretty quickly. With one or two guys, charging them can be an effective technique but use it sparingly, and watch out for the guy over there behind the tree or in the watch tower.

Side note: My brother recommends that you always keep the sniper rifle regardless of what other weapons you have. You only have four slots so, unlike many games of the past, you can't carry all the available weapons simultaneously.

So far I'd have to say the game is excellent. It's not easy, either. I'm playing on the standard difficulty and it was kicking my ass for a while before I figured out some techniques. The only downside I can think of right now is that the land vehicles are a bit hard to control. I haven't checked to see if it supports the use of a joystick but, if it does, that may work better.

I've promised to wait until I finish Far Cry before picking up Doom 3. It's going to take a lot of willpower given what I've read so far about id's latest offering. Once I finally pick it up and play it for a while, I'll post my thoughts.