December 31, 2007

Bhutto Assassination Weapon ID'd?

On December 27, Pakistani police recovered a pistol from the scene of Benazir Bhutto's assassination in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

I tweaked the low-res version in PhotoShop, rotated it 90 degrees, and played with the color balance to provide better contrast. Here is the modified, rotated photo, inset into the original.


Pakistan Bhutto Killed

I emailed that "green" photo this morning to Confederate Yankee commenter "karlJ," who has worked in the region as a contract medic, who thinks it could be a Steyr M 9mm pistol.


20117-1

Based upon the shape and angle of the grip and the angled rear of the slide (which makes it distinct from similar polymer-framed Glock, Springfield XD and M&P pistols), I think that "karlJ" is probably correct.

Barack Obama has yet to link the pistol to Hillary Clinton's vote on the Iraq War.

Update:

Photo editor William G.S. Smith, seems to think that the ID of the assassination weapon as a Steyr M is positive, and sends along this comparison.


Bhutto

01/02 Update: Hey, Nuts. The truthers at whatreallyhappened.com have linked to this post to float the theory that the shooter was Pakistani special forces:


Now guess who uses the Steyr M 9X19mm handgun exclusively - the Pakistani army - special forces division.

An interesting theory... and completely divorced from reality.

I can find zero evidence that the Steyr M has been purchased by any branch of the Pakistani military in an online search... not so much as a single pistol. Pakistani police units bought a limited number of the old Steyr GB pistol in years past, but there is no confusing the two handguns, and the folks at whatreallyhappened.com apparently just decided just to make up a story about the M being "exclusive" Pakistani Army SF issue to float a witless conspiracy theory... shocking, I know.

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Jay R. Grodner, A Chicago Lawyer You Should Know

Jay R. Grodner is a Chicago lawyer who apparently believes it is perfectly acceptable to vandalize a deploying Marine's car because of his own anti-war political beliefs.

Of course, the best way to handle the situation is by letting the authorities do their jobs, and commenter "Mo" at Blackfive has the excellent idea of contacting the Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission:

One Prudential Plaza
130 East Randolph Drive
Suite 1500
Chicago, IL 60601-6219
(312) 565-2600 or, within
Illinois, (800) 826-8625
Fax (312) 565-2320

One North Old Capitol Plaza
Suite 333
Springfield, IL 62701-1625
(217) 522-6838 or, within
Illinois, (800) 252-8048
Fax (217) 522-2417

It would seem that committing felony vandalism is a decent reason to have his license to practice law revoked.

The post also cites a police report that Grodner also apparently tried to state that the Marine only accosted him because he's Jewish (implying the Marine is a bigot).

Stay classy, Jay R. Grodner, Chicago attorney.

Bonus: He's already a big hit on Google.

I hope he enjoys the free advertising. He's earned it.

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Fred Thompson's Message to Iowa Voters



It's the best I've seen of him since Roger L. Simon and I interviewed him back in November for Pajamas Media.

Thompson offers something different for conservative voters both Democrat and Republican, and than any other contender running this election cycle from either party, in a commitment to the principles that made this nation great.

Are sound, calmly-stated and time-tested principles of leadership enough in a sound-bite focused, poll-driven world? For the sake of our nation's future, I certainly hope so.

Blogger endorsements aren't worth much, but for whatever it is worth, Fred Thompson has earned mine.

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Impact?

Channel 4 has new video of the Benazir Bhutto assassination that seems to indicate that the former Prime Minister was indeed hit by the assassin's bullet before she fell back into the car (click Watch this report).

The video, shot from behind Bhutto's vehicle and to the right, shows Bhutto's hair and shawl rise as the pistol discharges for the second time. She drops into the vehicle prior to the suicide bomber detonating. There is nothing in this video to indicate that the first and third shots had any effect.

While the new film shows her hair and shawl moving, however, it is not conclusive.

Unlike the Zapruder-filmed assassination (YouTube) of John F. Kennedy, however, there is not the spray of flesh and bone one might have expected from a pistol blast at near contact range of approximately six feet.

The ballistics expert interviewed by Channel 4, Roger Gray, notes the concussive blast of the bullet hitting her hair and shawl and suggests that it indicates a bullet strike on the left side of Bhutto's head. There were not, however, any direct signs of an invasive impact to Bhutto's skull as seen with Kennedy, just the movement of her hair and shawl. One might think that a bullet hitting Bhutto on the left side of the skull, penetrating, and exiting the right side of her skull would have shown signs of exiting in the form of a spray of blood and bone, which was not evident in the film footage.

So while it is probable that Bhutto was struck by a bullet, it is not conclusive, and the government account of her hitting her head cannot be conclusively ruled out.

Channel 4 was slightly deceptive in their account when they show a sunroof latch from her vehicle and state that there was no sign of blood, implying that the Pakistani government was lying. The government may very well be lying, but the latch they show does not support this; there were two on each side, and Channel 4 is clearly showing the right front latch, while it is the right rear latch that has blood on it and that Bhutto is said to have hit her head on.


full

It appears everyone is trying to spin the story of Bhutto's assassination for their own advantage, including the media.

Update: Image added.

It is worth noting that if a bullet struck Bhutto a glancing blow and ricocheted away without fully penetrating her skull, that it could possibly leave a wound that would not necessarily look like that of a typical gunshot wound, and instead look something like a blunt force trauma.

If this is the case—and without an autopsy, there are no definitive answers—then the Pakistani government, seeing blood on the rear latch and not seeing evidence of a clear bullet hole, may have incorrectly surmised the cause of death as an impact with the rear sunroof latch as she went down. This is incompetence, but not necessarily a conspiracy to deprive Bhutto of her martyrdom.

In any event, it does not excuse Channel 4 from showing the front sunroof latch and insinuating that there was no blood on any latch, when they clearly took a closeup of the front right latch for their closely-cropped still photo, still in the exact position as shown in the photo above.

Update: AllahPundit's analysis here.

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December 28, 2007

Harper's Credibility Issues Return

Over at Powerline yesterday, John Hinderaker stated that Scott Horton of Harper's libeled the U.S. Army with an anonymous smear on behalf of Iraqi terrorism suspect and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein.


It's as incredible an attempt at libel as I've ever seen. No one with any common sense could believe a word of it. That qualification, though, excludes Editor and Publisher, which yesterday republished Horton's libel admiringly, under the headline "Harper's Probes Case of Jailed AP Photog in Iraq. " Some "probe! " Editor and Publisher begins by saying that Horton is "the latest to look at the purported evidence" against Hussein, but that is false. Horton never discusses the evidence, of which he is, as far as his article discloses, entirely ignorant. Beyond that, E & P's crack "staff, " which is credited with its piece, fails to mention that Horton's column is based entirely on an anonymous and highly dubious "source, " and simply quotes Horton's hit-job with evident approval.

Of course, no one expects the left-wing E & P to do any critical thinking, let alone investigation. But it would have taken very little research for them to discover that Scott Horton was, until January, a partner in the law firm that represents Bilal Hussein--a fact that Horton did not find it necessary to disclose to his readers. There is indeed a story here, and one that relates directly to journalism--the kind of thing in which E & P might be expected to take an interest. But political loyalty trumps journalistic standards at E & P.

To sum up: Scott Horton claims to have an anonymous "source" inside the Pentagon, who relayed to him the contents of a DOD briefing on the Hussein case. I think this is plainly false. I believe that Horton has a source, but is it a source inside the Pentagon, or inside Hussein's defense team, headed by Horton's former law partner? If Horton has a "source" inside the Pentagon, who is it? Is this purported source someone with knowledge of the Hussein case, as Horton claims, or is it just another left-winger regurgitating anti-American talking points?

These questions are easily answerable. All Scott Horton has to do is identify his alleged source inside the Pentagon, and give us the details on the "briefing" that his column supposedly summarized. Unless and until this happens, it is reasonable to conclude that Horton, or his source, is lying.

If the name Scott Horton seems familiar to readers of Confederate Yankee, it should; On August 25 of this year, I called him out for a claim he made in a August 24 blog entry he wrote at Harper's called Those Thuggish Neocons, in which he claimed:


I have no idea whether Beauchamp's story was accurate. But at this point I have seen enough of the Neocon corner's war fables to immediately discount anything that emerges from it. One example: back last spring, when I was living in Baghdad, on Haifa Street, I sat in the evening reading a report by one of the core Neocon pack. He was reporting from Baghdad, and recounted a day he had spent out on a patrol with U.S. troops on Haifa Street. He described a peaceful, pleasant, upscale community. Children were out playing on the street. Men and women were out going about their daily business. Well, in fact I had been forced to spend the day "in the submarine," as they say, missing appointments I had in town. Why? This bucolic, marvelous Haifa Street that he described had erupted in gun battles the entire day. In the view of my security guards, with which I readily concurred, it was too unsafe. And yes, I could hear the gunfire and watch some of the exchanges from my position. No American patrol had passed by and there were certainly no children playing in the street. This was the point when I realized that many of these accounts were pure fabrications.

I challenged Horton to produce the "Neocon's" article he claimed to have read in a August 24 email, stating:


can't claim that Harper's is one of my normal stops, but I was very intrigued by your post today "Those Thuggish Neocons, " particularly the paragraph about the reporter who fabricated the Haifa Street report you read.

If you are familiar with my small blog at all (and I'm sure you probably aren't); I often run down false or inaccurate media claims, typically hitting the wire service reporting the hardest, though I've also captured fraud and inaccuracies in newspapers and magazines as well. And yes, I'd readily admit that I have a conservative perspective, but that does not make me so biased that I approach the world with ideological blinders, as this post burning a false pro-Iranian War argument should show.

I was hoping that you would provide me with the date of the story you related as specifically as you can recall, along with the news organization and individual reporter you said was making up this report.

This is pretty obviously unethical and possibly illegal, and I want this resolved quickly.

Horton never responded, prompting my subsequent blog entry to next day.

I repeatedly attempted to get a response from Harper's and emailed Harper's Editor Roger D. Hodge and Managing Editor Ellen Rosenbush on August 27, and again sent email to them, Horton, and Vice President of Public Relations Giulia Melucci on August 29, once more pressing for Horton to produce the report and reporter he claimed to have read during his time in Baghdad.

Again, they refused to respond.

I did not pursue Horton's claims further at that point as I was immersed in the Scott Beauchamp story at the time, but with Beauchamp's stories now retracted by The New Republic and Powerline once again poking holes in Horton's credibility, it seems time to return to the issue once more.

Harper's should come clean on Horton's sourcing for both of these stories, and quickly. If they do not, they seem doomed to wander down the same humiliating path as Franklin Foer and The New Republic.

Update: Chris Muir weighs in:


122907

12/30 Update: I sent another email to Harper's editors and PR person yesterday, and it seems Editor Roger Hodge and Managing Editor Ellen Rosenbush will be out of the office on holiday until they return until January 2. Here's the "meat" of it:


I ask you yet again to compel Mr. Horton to produce the specific article he claims to have read. I think it a quite reasonable request to have a magazine produce source material for a disputed claim, especially when that claim is neither an anonymous source nor classified information, but what Horton himself claims to be a public print media report.

I ask that you please complete this very simple request by Friday, January 4th, 2008, which seems a very reasonable amount of time to produce the article in question, even considering the holiday season.

We'll see how they respond.

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What Killed Bhutto?

In a nation where conspiracy theories run a freely as water, a new statement by the Pakistani government that PPP leader Benazir Bhutto was felled by sharpnel from a suicide bomber and not from the assassin's bullets is sure to be greeted with skepticism.


It was initially reported that Bhutto, 54, was killed on Thursday after a public rally in Rawalpindi by the bullets of an assassin who blew himself up after firing the shots.

But the surgeon who operated on her, Dr Mussadiq Khan, told the Associated Press on Friday that Bhutto was killed by shrapnel from the blast -- from which at least 28 more people died and at least 100 were wounded. Khan said "no bullet was found in her body."

An account by IBNlive.com provides a murkier accounting:


Mystery shrouds the death of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto. In an explosive revelation, Pakistan's Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz on Friday said that Bhutto did not die of bullet wounds.

Nawaz said that Bhutto died from a head injury. At least seven doctors from the Rawalpindi General Hospital – where the leader was rushed immediately after the attack – say there were no bullet marks on Bhutto's body.

The doctors have submitted a report to the Pakistan government in which they say that no post-mortem was performed on Bhutto's body and they had not received any instructions to perform one.

"The report says she had head injuries – an irregular patch – and the X-ray doesn't show any bullet in the head. So it was probably the shrapnel or any other thing has struck her in her said. That damaged her brain, causing it to ooze and her death. The report categorically ssyas [sic] there's no wound other than that," Nawaz told a Pakistani news channel.

Government sources say there will be an investigation to determine why no autopsy was conducted.

These accounts from doctors seem to directly conflict with that of John Moore, a Getty Images photographer at the scene that stated clearly (audio & slideshow) that Bhutto was shot and went down into the armored vehicle before the assassin detonated his suicide bomb.

Transcript:


...suddenly—well, I turned around and heard three shots go off, and saw her go down, um, fall down through the sunroof, down into the car, and just at that moment, I raised my camera and started photographing with the high-speed motor drive and that's how I was able to capture some of the explosion, and the aftermath...

Other witnesses at the scene concur with Moore:


Three to five shots were fired at her, witnesses said. She was hit in the neck and slumped back in the vehicle. Blood poured from her head, and she never regained consciousness. Moments after the shooting, there was a huge explosion to the left of the vehicle.

A pistol was recovered from the site of the assassination by Pakistani police and is assumed to be the assassination weapon, but the likelihood of a person firing with a pistol rapid-fire from an estimated 50 yards while in a crowd, and hitting his target seems remote.

This would seem to bring us back to the irregular patch on Bhutto's head once again:


"The report says she had head injuries – an irregular patch – and the X-ray doesn't show any bullet in the head. So it was probably the shrapnel or any other thing has struck her in her said. That damaged her brain, causing it to ooze and her death. The report categorically ssyas [sic] there's no wound other than that," Nawaz told a Pakistani news channel.

If the multiple eyewitnesses were correct and Bhutto was back down inside the armored vehicle before the suicide bomber detonated his explosives, then there is little possibility that she was killed by shrapnel. There is also little reason to suspect that the seven doctors who examined her in the IBNlive.com article would lie about there being no signs of a bullet wound.

So what killed Benizer Bhutto? What could cause blunt-force trauma severe enough to kill the former Prime Minister, and occur before the bomb detonated, at which point multiple witnesses state she was already back inside the armored vehicle?

While merely speculating, I think that when shots were fired (they missed), her security detail pulled her back inside the vehicle quickly, and she probably hit the back of her head on the sunroof edge as she was pulled in.

That would seem to account for the lack of wounds other than blunt force trauma, though it would be very hard to prove without an autopsy that was never performed.

Update: The U.K. Sun seems to have come to an identical conclusion. CNN has the story as well.

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December 27, 2007

The Best of Liberal Minds

Dave Lindorff has a nearly perfect pedigree as a liberal journalist.

He's a 1975 graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, a two-time Fulbright Scholar, and a contributor to the New York Times, The Nation, Salon.com, and the co-author of The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office.

He's also the author of a Dec. 22 op-ed in the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel entitled, "Global Warming Will Save America from the Right...Eventually."

This gem of a post was dug up by Allahpundit at Hot Air, and is a masterstroke of what someone might call liberal fascism... if such a thing ever existed.

It begins:


Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.

I'm all for good news... aren't you?


Look at a map of the US.

Here you go (will open new window).

Centered on Great Britain, you can drag it over to the U.S., and then use the drop-down in the top left to see what would be submerged under X meters of sea level rise. I'm using 14+ meters, as it is the greatest rise the program is set to calculate, and it has the added bonus of giving Mom and Dad near-riverfront property. Put the rise at 14+ meters, and then read the following, which has been helpfully annotated with links to this map not found in the original post, which will show the flooding for each area mentioned.


The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. While the northeast will also see some coastal flooding, its geography is such that that aside from a few projecting sandbars like Long Island and Cape Cod, the land rises fairly quickly to well above sea level. Sure, Boston, New York and Philadelphia will be threatened, but these are geographically confined areas that could lend themselves to protection by Dutch-style dikes. The West Coast too tends to rise rapidly to well above sea level in most places. Only down in Southern California towards the San Diego area is the ground closer to sea level.

Please, take your time and follow the links. Worthy of the kind of writing we associate with the New York Times, The Nation, and Salon.com, Lindorff gets almost everything wrong.

Contrary to his statements, the area traditionally considered the southeast takes relative few hits to population centers. Take in the order they were presented, Texas loses Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Galveston and Port Author, but the rise in sea level would leave Houston a beachfront resort, and Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and indeed, probably 95% of the state untouched. Florida would take big hits as almost every major coastal city slips under the waves, but Orlando and Mickey are safe, as it the majority of the center of the state from Arcadia, north. Louisiana loses about a third to half (not most) of its territory, and despite his bold pronouncements of "half" of Alabama and Mississippi being under water, the 14 meter sea level rise would hardly make a dent outside of coastal areas, except for a finger darting up from a recently-expanded Mobile Bay to just south of Jackson, Alabama.

As for the Carolinas and Georgia, we'd lose Savannah and Charleston and Wilmington, but other than that, weÂ’d lose mostly rural areas already predisposed towards being swamps.

In short, everything he said about the inundation of those hated "red states" he so reviles ranges from horribly inaccurate to outright wrong.

But perhaps more interesting is that his beloved bi-coastal libospheres fare just as poorly.

Lindorff is perhaps correct that Boston, New York and Philadelphia may well be saved by costly "Dutch-style dikes", but I'll keep in mind that they are far more likely to go under themselves... both literally and financially. You must remember that these are the same folks that brought us the "Big Dig" which, by the way, will also flood.

But what about the areas Lindorff didn't mention?

He forgets to mention the huge inland lake that will turn Sacramento into California's Dead Sea. He also forgets to mention what happens to those along the Chesapeake peninsula, or all the coastal cities in Delaware (buh-bye, Wilmington) and the Jersey shore, and... oh well, Newark isn't that great of a loss, is it? At least no greater of a loss than the southern third of Long Island, Bridgeport and New Haven, Connecticut, and all those other annoying little picturesque villages from there up through Maine.

In plain English, we'd all take significant hits, and despite his poorly-researched conclusions, damage to "red" states in his dark fantasy are greatly inflated, and damage to low-lying areas of "blue" states would also be severe.

In true Columbia Journalism School-educated fashion, however, Lindorff is only beginning to show his stupidity.

He continues:


So what we see is that huge swaths of conservative America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.

Then there's the matter of the Midwest, which climate experts say is likely to face a permanent condition of unprecedented drought, making the place largely unlivable, and certainly unfarmable. The agribusinesses and conservative farmers that have been growing corn and wheat may be able to stretch out this doomsday scenario by deep well drilling, but west of the Mississippi, the vast Ogallala Aquifer that has allowed for such irrigation is already being tapped out. It will not be replaced.

So again, we will see the decline and depopulation of the nation's vast midsection—noted for its consistent conservatism. Only in the northernmost area, around the Great Lakes (which will be not so great anymore), and along the Canadian border, will there still be enough rain for farming and continued large population concentrations, but those regions, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, are also more liberal in their politics.

Finally, in the Southwest, already parched and stiflingly hot, the rise in energy costs and the soaring temperatures will put an end to right-wing retirement communities like Phoenix, Tucson and Palm Springs. Already the Salton Sea is fading away and putting Palm Springs on notice that the good times are coming to an end. Another right-wing haven soon to be gone.

So the future political map of America is likely to look as different as the much shrunken geographical map, with much of the so-called "red" state region either gone or depopulated.

Oh, he can dream, can't he?

All those annoying "red" states unlivable, unfarmable, and depopulated, with America's breadbasket a vast desert. He seems absolutely giddy at the thought of liberal elitists being left alone and presumably in charge of what remains. Let's let him cherish his malformed conclusions as he savors the vengeance of the earth mother on those nasty rubes who have caused him so much electoral heartache.


There is a poetic justice to this of course. It is conservatives who are giving us the candidates who steadfastly refuse to have the nation take steps that could slow the pace of climate change, so it is appropriate that they should bear the brunt of its impact.

The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.

There will be much work to be done to help the earth and its residents—human and non-human—survive this man-made catastrophe, and we can't have these future refugee troglodytes, should their personal disasters still fail to make them recognize reality, mucking things up again.

It should be considered acceptable, in this stifling new world, to say, "Shut up. We told you this would happen."

Why, you almost need a Sawzall to cut through moral superiority this thick.

Unfortunately, reality will intrude on poor Mr. Lindorff's eliminationist fantasy yet again.

He seems to forget that farming in arid regions is indeed quite possible if the need arises, and so those nasty Midwesterners that keep ruining national elections for him will not, in fact, die of starvation.

Nor are they likely to come crawling eastward to become the neo-slave-class he envisions.

Nor does Lindorff seem to be able to grasp the even more obvious fact that if times do become hard, those farmers and ranchers in the Midwest and Southeast that he so clearly reviles are going to feed themselves and those around them first. Those in the overpopulated elite bastions of liberal metropolitan thought, hidden behind leaky dikes with little farmland of their own, will be those least likely to be fed.

Perhaps as starving natives of south Philadelphia begin stoking a caldron to a boil in hopes of rendering his frail body into a passable gruel, one of them will remember his article, and snarl at him, "Shut up. We told you this would happen."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:01 PM | Comments (33) | Add Comment
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Bhutto Assassinated


Pakistan Bhutto Blast
A supporter of Pakistan former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto mourns deaths of his colleagues after a suicide attack in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007. Bhutto died Thursday from her injuries sustained in the attack, a party aide said. At least 20 others were killed in the attack.
(AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)

Former Pakistani Prime Minster and Pakistan People's Party leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi, Pakistan today, following a campaign rally at Liaqat Bagh park preceding elections scheduled for January 8.

Members of Bhutto's political party confirmed that Bhutto died in surgery at Rawalpindi General Hospital at 6:16 PM from gunshot wounds to her chest and neck.

At least five shots were fired at Bhutto as she entered her vehicle, and a gunman equipped with a suicide vest blew himself up 50 yards from her vehicle after the shots were fired.

Early reports indicate that at least 20 supporters and police were killed in the blast.

Bhutto led the opposition against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Developing news and blog coverage of the assassination is being updated at Pajamas Media.

Update: Rioting is expected across Pakistan as a result of Bhutto's death.

Bhutto had been the target of previous assassination attempts from Islamic extremists, and it would be reasonable to assume that they were behind today's attack as well. Some have been quick to also point a finger at jihadi-friendly elements of the Pakistani intelligence community, which seems a reasonable assumption, but at this time it is simply too early to know.

What is certain is that Bhutto's death will throw Pakistani into turmoil, and President Pervez Musharraf now faces the greatest crisis of his Presidency. The January 8 elections now seem in doubt, and missteps by Musharraf could plunge the nuclear-armed country into a possible civil war.

If Musharraf is able to keep the situation from deteriorating to that point, and Islamists are found to be responsible for Bhutto's assassination, he may finally be forced to face the Taliban and al Qaeda-aligned militants in the border regions that terrorists have used as a staging area and base camp since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, forces he has largely tried to appease or ignore in the past.

Following Bhutto's assassination, it would not be very surprising to see Musharraf finally authorize U.S. forces to make cross border raids into the tribal areas in a push to wipe out known Taliban and al Qaeda strongholds, though this point, it is far too early to tell how the former general and current President will react.

Update: Via Hot Air, it seems al Qaeda is taking responsibility for the attack. This may be Musharraf's best chance to clean out the Taliban and al Qaeda with the support of the Pakistani people. Let's hope his does his nation a favor and does just that.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:21 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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December 26, 2007

Huck Goes a-Hunting

A fairly shrewd move, to be sure, as it highlights yet another difference between Huckabee and fellow Republican front-runner Mitt "I've been a lifelong hunter... both times" Romney.

James Oliphant wrote an amusing post on the subject, but part of it made me cringe:


Huckabee's party drew farther and farther away, circling their targets. POP! POP! Another pheasant down, the killer unknown. The journalists shivered and stomped their feet. Checking BlackBerrys is tougher with gloves on. Another hunter explained that pheasant is usually cooked with the buckshot still in the body. "You just spit it out," he said.

The party was still circling, coming back toward us. The reporters edged out to try and make out the scene. Another bird surfaced and it flew, and flew, and flew.

Right toward us.

POP! POP! POP!

We ducked our heads and scattered. "That was too close," a cameraman said. Nobody was wearing orange anything. The hunting expert said the buckshot wouldn't hurt us if it landed on our heads.

Huckabee's party drew closer and he seemed pleased at our discomfort. He produced three slain pheasants. Huckabee said he had shot one of them, but of course, there was no way to know.

It's not buckshot used in pheasant hunting, Mr. Oliphant. If it was, it would most assuredly hurt you should it happen to hit you in the head, and being roughly the size of pistol bullets, buckshot could quite possibly kill you.

More worrisome, however, is the characterization that someone in Huckabee's party shot in the direction of the press, and Huckabee seemed "pleased at our discomfort."

If that is just awkward phrasing that suggested Huckabee drew delight from firing a shotgun in the direction of the press, then perhaps Mr. Oliphant needs to be gently reminded that "words mean things."

If however, Huckabee did draw visible pleasure from someone in his party shooting close enough to the press to cause them to scatter, then his Reverend Gomer Pyle act seems to be just that... an act.

Update: It's official: Huck's entourage almost bagged some journalists:


The former Arkansas governor, who has surprised the rest of GOP field with his front-runner status here, was the first candidate to hold an event the day after Christmas. Flanked by about a dozen reporters, he wore a microphone from CNN as he went shooting, with Dude, his 3-year-old bird dog, and Chip Saltzman, his campaign manager, at his side.

In the first 30 minutes, Huckabee, Saltzman and a friend shot three birds. Their last shot flew over the heads of reporters, one whom cried out: "Oh my God! Oh my God! Don't shoot. This is traumatizing."

Oddly enough, these are the only two media mentions I've found of the near miss, even as they duly reported his crack about Vice President Cheney's hunting mishap in which he shot a fellow hunter while bird hunting.

I wonder if the media would have been so kind to other candidates in a similar situation, but then, I think we already know the answer to that.

Piling in on Huckabee's unsafe hunting trip now may deprive them of the "easy kill" they desire later in the general election.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:28 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Hmmm...

I think we've found the poster child for Jonah Goldberg's new book.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:33 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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If At First You Don't Succeed...

Russia is selling a new air defense system to our friends in Tehran:


The new S-300 air defense system signals growing miitary [sic] cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said Wednesday.

"The S-300 air defense system will be delivered to Iran on the basis of a contract signed with Russia in the past," state television quoted Najjar as saying.

Najjar didn't say when or how many of the S-300 anti-aircraft missile defense systems would be shipped to Iran.

Earlier this year, Russia delivered 29 Tor-M1 air defense missile systems to Iran under a $700 million contract signed in December 2005.

Russian officials wouldn't comment on the Iranian statement, but the Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified source in the Russian military-industrial complex as saying that a contract for the missiles delivery had been signed several years ago and envisaged the delivery of several dozen S-300 missile systems.

The S-300 is much more powerful and versatile weapon than the Tor-M1 missile systems supplied earlier, which were capable of hitting airborne targets flying at up to 20,000 feet.

The S-300 is capable of shooting down aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missile warheads at ranges of up to 95 miles and at altitudes of up to 90,000 feet. Russian military officials boast that it excels the U.S.-built Patriot missiles currently being deployed in Israel.

The announcement comes three months after Israeli strike fighters bombed what some claimed was a nuclear weapons assembly plant in another Soviet client state, Syria.

The Aviation Week blog Ares suggests that the Israelis were able to penetrate the Syrian's Russian-made air defense system with non-steathy F15 and F16 strike fighters by using an airborne network attack system. The US-developed system, called "Suter," may have taken over the state-of-the-art Syrian air defense network, rendering it effectively blind.

While the capabilities of both "Suter" and the Russian air defense systems are classified, there is little reason to believe that the S-300 system is any less prone to being taken over by the airborne attack system than the TOR-1 short-range system already in use by both Syria and Iran.

If this is the case, Iran my be spending millions on an anti-aircraft system that may never see the bombers that kill it.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:06 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas

No Room For Them In the Inn


1In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3And everyone went to his own town to register.

4So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Luke 2:1-7

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:06 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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December 21, 2007

Thompson Responds to Roger Simon's Hit-Piece in The Politico

With humor: "Just remember...we don't raise our hands when we're told to, and we don't wear any hats, unless they're our own."

Thompson's dig is funny; the response from The Politico thus far is not.

Despite attempts to reach them via both the media and editorial email addresses on their site, The Politico seems to be going the route of The New Republic, and seems intent on trying a strategy of stonewalling. Perhaps they are hoping that the story of Simon's doctored quote will simply go away.

I was hoping that as an ostensibly "new media" organization they would address controversy with transparency, but that does not seem to be the case.

Old habits apparently die hard.

Update: Now on Youtube.



Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 01:03 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Mr. Rogers Runs For President

I'm glad to see Mike Huckabee is focusing on the pressing issues.


"It's a tragedy when a sixteen year old who is not really prepared for all the responsibilities of adult life is gonna now be faced with responsibilities of honest to goodness adult life," said Iowa GOP frontrunner, former Arkansas Governor and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee.

He was talking about Britney Spears' younger pregnant sister Jamie Lynn.

"I respect that apparently she's going have the child," Huckabee continued, per ABC News' Kevin Chupka. "I think that's the right decision, a good decision and I respect that and appreciate that. I hope its not an encouragement to other 16 year olds to think that that's the best course of action."

I only wish he were as interested in foreign policy...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:24 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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December 20, 2007

Roger Simon's Hit-Job On Fred Thompson At The Politico

I thought I'd said all I was going to say about Roger Simon's article in The Politico yesterday afternoon in the comments at Hot Air, but as more comes out about the article, I think it is worthy of a dedicated post.

Simon (not the Roger L.Simon of Pajamas Media with whom I interviewed Fred Thompson in November) put up a post called Fred Thompson: Lazy as charged (bad link earlier, now fixed -ed).

The article was damning—brutal, even—and highlighted what appeared to be a huge gaffe in his bus tour through Waverly, Iowa:


...Thompson rode four blocks to the local fire station. Local fire stations always have captive audiences (unless there is a fire).

Inside, Thompson shook a few hands — there were only about 15 people there — and then Chief Dan McKenzie handed Thompson the chief's fire hat so Thompson could put it on.

Thompson looked at it with a sour expression on his face.

"I've got a silly hat rule," Thompson said.

In point of fact, the "silly" hat was the one Chief McKenzie wore to fires and I am guessing none of the firefighters in attendance considered it particularly silly, but Thompson was not going to put it on. He just stood there holding it and staring at it.

To save the moment, Jeri Thompson took the hat from her husbandÂ’s hands and put it on her head.

"You look cute," Thompson said to her. She did.

Within the context of the rest of the article, Simon's snide editorial reference to the firemen being a "captive audience" would almost go unnoticed.

His description of what happened next, however, used an unambiguously doctored quote. We know this because the events were captured in a video shown at CBS News (click image to watch):


fred-firehat

Simon quoted Thompson as stating that "I've got a silly hat rule."

As the CBS video clearly showed, that was only part of Thompson's statement.

What Thompson actually said was, "I've got a silly hat rule that I'm about to violate."

Thompson then takes the Chief's helmet and starts to raise it if he is going to put it on, and then says, while laughing, "I ain't gonna do it... I ain't gonna do it."

At this point Jeri Thompson steps in and Fred puts the helmet on her. Throughout the video, you can hear those assembled laughing, including Chief Dan McKenzie, who handed Thompson the helmet to begin with. McKenzie is shown smiling widely at the end of the clip.

We don't know if the entire Politico article is grossly unfair in the way it characterized Senator Thompson's swing through Waverly, Iowa, but we do know, thanks to the CBS News video, that not only was Simon's editorializing of what occurred in the Waverly Fire Department mischaracterized, but that he doctored a quote to make his article appear all the more damning.

Simon is the Chief Political Columnist for The Politico—one that they tout as one of "Washington's most visible and experienced journalists."— and should know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that doctoring quotes is highly unethical by any journalistic standard.

In their mission statement, The Politico brags about those journalist they would empower:


Today, many of the reporters having the most impact are those whose work carries a unique signature, who add a distinct voice to the public conversation. Their work, in other words, matters more than where they work.

Reporters stand out from the crowd in a number of ways. Some regularly break news before their competitors. Some have a gift for interpretation, for connecting the dots in illuminating ways. Still others stand out through their eloquence and original storytelling.

Politico will promote and celebrate journalists who have a unique signature. That's why we've been able to attract reporters and editors who have worked at such places as Time magazine and The New York Times, National Public Radio, Roll Call and The Hill, Bloomberg News Service, the Philadelphia Inquirer, USA Today and The Washington Post.

There is a difference, however, between voice and advocacy. That's one traditional journalism ideal we fully embrace. There is more need than ever for reporting that presents the news fairly, not through an ideological prism. One of the most distressing features of public life recently has been the demise of shared facts. Warring partisans -- many of whom take their news from sources that cater to and amplify their existing opinions -- live in separate zones of reality. In such a climate, every news story is viewed as either weapon or shield in a nonstop ideological war. Our answer to this will be journalism that insists on the primacy of facts over ideology.

Though a doctored quote and a misrepresentation of events captured on camera, Roger Simon seems to have violated that difference between voice and advocacy that The Politico claims to represent.

It remains to be seen if the senior editorial staff of The Politico will take this clear evidence of journalistic malpractice seriously.

Update: I just sent the following to The Politico via their contact form:


Roger Simon's "Fred Thompson: Lazy as charged" included a doctored quote.

Simon states:

"'I've got a silly hat rule,' Thompson said."

That is factually incorrect.

What Thompson said is "I've got a silly hat rule that I'm about to violate."

Simon left off the entire second half of the quote, which was captured, in full, in the CBS News video that captured the event.

You owe it it your readers to correct the record in Simon's story.

I would ask you further what remedy you feel is worthy for a reporter that doctors quotes.

Thank you.

I've also left voicemail for Chief Dan McKenzie at the Waverly, Iowa Fire Department, asking for his view of what occurred yesterday.

I'd be very interested in seeing what both The Politico and Chief McKenzie have to say, and hope they take the time to respond.

Update: Over at A Second Hand Conjecture, Michael W. notes that this is not the first time that Roger Simon of The Politico may have been caught using partial or non-existent quotes.

If this is indeed the case, it seems a resignation, and not a retraction, is in order from Mr. Simon.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:25 AM | Comments (46) | Add Comment
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At PJM...

Lethal Weapon: Could Romney's Gun Position Kill His Campaign?

When a Presidential candidate doesn't understand the Constitution and Bill of Rights, it's time to look elsewhere (and I'm looking at you, too, Rudy and McCain-Feingold).

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:11 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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December 19, 2007

Time's Submission of The Year

Time Magazine has declared Russian strongman Vladimir Putin as their 2007 Person of the Year. It should come as little surprise. Time's award has become increasingly irrelevant over the years, and I say that as a past winner who was equally deserving of the award.

Time selected a man that lorded over a Russian security service that apparently murdered a former intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko in London and refused to extradite his accused murderer, Andrei Lugovoi, which led to the expulsion of four Russian envoys by the British government in protest. That Putin obliquely compared the United States to Nazi Germany earleir this year also probably scored Putin points among Time's editors.

The fact that Putin's critics in the Russian media tend to wind up dead somehow escaped their glowing review—or perhaps inspired it.

17 Russian journalists have been killed since Putin came to power, 14 of which are described as contract murders. None of the 14 murders have ever been solved, including the murders of three journalists—Marina Pisareva, Konstantin Brovko, and Ivan Safronov—in 2007.

Perhaps Time selected their Person of the Year for 2007 not for political or editorial reasons, but for that most basic human desire... survival.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:20 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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December 18, 2007

Sad But True

The difference between the New York Times defense of Associated Press photographer/terrorist suspect Bilal Hussein and the John Edwards love child scandal in The National Enquirer is that there is little reason to suspect that predisposed biases may play a role in the Enquirer story.

The Times coverage of Hussein's incarceration—which like the eerily similar Associated Press coverage before it, skips over the fact that Hussein attempted to hide his identity after being captured, and tries to make the normal workings of the Iraqi justice system appear biased against Hussein—is hardly objective.

But then, we didn't expect it to be.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:43 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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You Gotta Be Kidding Me...

On Drudge:


enquirer_edwards

There is nothing presently on National Enquirer web site right now, but even if there was... would it matter?

Even if true—and I don't think that it is—Edwards is something of a non-factor as a candidate polling well behind Clinton's 42% and Obama's 26% in the RCP poll average of Democratic candidates with just 13% of the vote.

This is stupid news, and more than likely non-news... pretty much like the Edwards campaign thus far.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:05 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Journalism is Hard

Babak Dehghanpisheh has an article posted in Newsweek today that once again shows just how careless the media is in its Iraq reporting in an article called, "The "Body Contractors.'"

The article itself is interesting, in that it notes that both violence is down and that those killing Iraqis are taking greater care to hide the bodies of those they kill. As a result of the recent trend of hiding bodies, mutahid al juthath—body contractors—charges clients between $300-$500 to hunt down missing relatives whether they are alive, or as the title of the article implies, dead.

The problem with Dehghanpisheh's reporting, however, is that he cites as examples of on-going massacres at least one event that simply never took place.

He writes:


In the past two months, more than half a dozen mass graves have been found in Iraq, at least half of them in Baghdad. At one site discovered in late November, in a yard in Baghdad's Saydiya neighborhood, bodies and their severed heads were buried in two separate holes, according to a source at the Ministry of Interior who isn't authorized to speak on the record. An additional 16 bodies were found buried in a ditch north of Baghdad last Thursday.

The 16 bodies "found buried in a ditch north of Baghdad last Thursday" never existed, according to American forces in the area that state:


This appears to false reporting. We currently have no information to confirm this. Neither the Brigade on the ground, or out teams that work with the IA or IPs can confirm this.

It is too much to ask reporters to ask anonymous sources for proof of their claims?

When it comes to reporting the dead in Iraq, apparently so.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:30 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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