Arnold: He's getting them riled up. "Don't be economic girlie-men!"
The guy's chock-full of confidence and charisma. I don't know how on the level he is, but it's fun watching him rule the crowd.
The twins: Jenna will never be described as "demure".
She doesn't have to be as proper as her mom, but I think she might just lift her top if you throw her some Mardi Gras beads.
Laura: She did a great job. She was there to help people know her husband better and tell why they should vote for him, and she succeeded with charm and grace to spare. It helped that it didn't take her 21 minutes before finally mentioning her husband.
George didn't need heiresses to get him where he wanted to go, just a nice librarian. Give that fellow credit for marrying wisely.
Great photo-captioning on Yahoo from the AFP:
Delegates wearing elephant hats, the Republican party symbol, confer with one another at Madison Square Garden in New York City on the first day of the Republican National Convention. Religious conservatives have triumphed in their bitter ideological struggle within the party and imposed tough stands against abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research.
The part I put in bold is in every caption. Even silly elephant hat ones.
UPDATE:
Someone with better sense has done some cleaning, but missed some spots.
The Swifties have a new ad coming out today, just in time for the big American Legion meeting.
UPDATE:
You can view the new ad here.
Yikes! The Protest Warriors were out and about doing their thing in NYC.
Hats off to these guys. I could never do what they're doing, as I would not want to get pummeled.
(Via FR.)
McCain's speech was awesome. Somebody get that boy the VP slot.
UPDATE:
I'm lovin' Rudy's too. Somebody get that boy a VP slot as well.
Will France change its laws to appease terrorists? The world waits.
When I was a kid, I had such a crush on Neal Smith, the drummer in the Alice Cooper group. My very first concert was one in Dania for their Billion Dollar Babies tour. What's Neal up to these days? Still rockin'? Yep.
He's the Rockin' Realtor.
Over 25,000,000 records SOLD! Over $25,000,000 in real estate SOLD!
Glad you survived the Rock and Roll Wars, Neal, and didn't choke on your vomit like an eejit.
A group called the Mainstream Coalition is monitoring churches:
According to McKnight, the Coalition asked for volunteers willing to worship in a church other than their own. This was with the idea of reporting back to the Coalition about any activities they felt were crossing the lines-such as actual endorsement of candidates -- an activity prohibited by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Do you think they'll be dropping a dime on this one?
Speaking to worshipers at Riverside Church in upper Manhattan on the eve of the Republican National Convention, Clinton swiped at President George W. Bush for his response to ads attacking Sen. John Kerry's war record and criticized the administration on everything from the environment, drug benefits for seniors to what he said were tax cuts at the expense of education and security. "Sometimes I think our friends on the other side have become the people of the nine commandments," he said, accusing Republicans of ignoring the truth. He also assailed the religious right for turning "all those who disagree with them into two-dimensional cartoons." Speaking after an hour-long service, he said that the minister's sermon in Riverside Church "stands in stark contrast to the other party about to convene here, putting on their once-every-four-years compassionate face."
I never knew looking at a helmet could disrupt the circuits in my brain.
Finally a big write-up on spy Susan Lindauer. It's a fun read about a very nutty lady.
(Via FR.)
---------------
In the morning of March 11, 2004, Susan Lindauer woke to find five F.B.I. agents at her front door. After reading her her rights, the agents took Lindauer from her home in Takoma Park, Md., to the F.B.I. field office in Baltimore, where she was charged with having acted as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government and otherwise having elevated the interests of a foreign country above her allegiance to the United States. ''The only visible sign of stress is that I'm chain-smoking,'' she said when I met with her recently. Forty-one and free on bail, she wore a red cotton shirt, shapeless khaki pants and battered white leather sneakers. With her casual manner, she could pass for an ordinary resident of Takoma Park, where ''War Is Not the Answer'' signs are available free at the local co-op.
Seated on the shady porch of her tumbledown cottage, overlooking a purple azalea bush, Lindauer was alternately pensive and bubbly as she talked about her encounter with the F.B.I. On her knees, she balanced a photo album, which contained photographs of her wild years in Alaska, where she grew up, and her time as an undergraduate at Smith College, where she majored in economics. She showed me pictures of her mother, Jackie, who died of cancer after Susan graduated from college, and her father, John, an academic economist who once ran on the Republican ticket for governor of Alaska. The youthful beauty of Susan's features in her early photographs has been transfigured over time into a middle-aged balance of beatitude and stubbornness. When she gets angry, a storm cloud passes over her face. When the storm cloud breaks, her expression becomes even and calm, like that of a child who has freshly emerged from a bath.
Having grown up in a household in which public policy was frequently the stuff of dinner-table conversation and impassioned family arguments, Lindauer wanted to help change the world. The way she chose to do so, however, was not by signing petitions or marching in demonstrations, but by engaging in the kinds of clandestine encounters that you read about in spy novels -- meeting foreign diplomats, passing along secret messages and engaging in other activities that would eventually lead to her arrest. ''I'm what they call a useful idiot,'' she said with a laugh. According to the federal charges filed against her by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Lindauer repeatedly violated U.S. law beginning in 1999 by meeting with Iraqi diplomats at the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations in New York and with agents of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Intelligence Service (I.I.S.). She was also indicted for accepting money from the Iraqis and traveling to Baghdad, where she met with Iraqi intelligence agents, in violation of federal law. ''From on or about Feb. 23, 2002, through on or about March 7, 2002,'' the indictment charged, ''Susan Lindauer, aka 'Symbol Susan,' met with several I.I.S. officers in Iraq, including at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, and received cash payments of approximately $5,000.00.'' The press was quick to identify Lindauer as an Iraqi spy.
''I'm an antiwar activist, and I'm innocent,'' Lindauer told WBAL-TV as she was led to a car outside the F.B.I. field office in Baltimore. ''I did more to stop terrorism in this country than anybody else.'' In a moment of crisis, it seemed, having just been fingerprinted and charged with betraying her country, Lindauer was acting the way a person might act in a dream, blurting out the constituent parts of her fractured reality into a waiting microphone.
The substance of the government's case against Susan Lindauer is contained in the indictment. Both the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment on the case, and no date has been set for the trial. While Lindauer was not accused of espionage, as initial reports of her arrest suggested, the government did charge her with a serious crime, even if the charge itself may seem like a technicality. By failing to register herself formally as a lobbyist and by supposedly following instructions from Iraqi diplomats and intelligence agents at the United Nations, the government charged, Lindauer had been acting as ''an unregistered agent of a foreign government,'' a violation of federal law that is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Lindauer acknowledges that the meetings detailed in the federal indictment took place, but denies acting as an agent of Iraq or any other country.
On paper, at least, there is little to distinguish Lindauer from hundreds of other bright young people who come to Washington in the hope of making a difference. She graduated from Smith in 1985 and then went to the London School of Economics, where she earned a master's degree and developed an interest in the Arab world. In 1990, she went to Washington, where she briefly worked as a journalist and then as a press secretary for liberal Democrats in the House and Senate, including Ron Wyden and Carol Moseley Braun. None of her jobs lasted more than a year. Her most recent job on Capitol Hill, as a press secretary for Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, ended in May 2002.
Writing press releases often seemed less important to Lindauer than her own one-woman campaign to advance the cause of nonviolence in the Muslim world. Lindauer's highly individual brand of politics combined passions that were commonly identified with opposite poles of the political spectrum during the 90's. While she opposed sanctions on Libya and Iraq, she was also eager to awaken the West to the gathering threat posed by Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. In pursuit of her ideals, she says, she began traveling to New York as often as twice a week, meeting with diplomats from Muslim countries, including Yemen and Malaysia, as well as representatives of Libya and Iraq. Her aim, as she explained it, was to function as a handholder and cheerleader, an unofficial go-between who could help break the cycle of isolation, paranoia and suffering created by sanctions.
''U.S. intelligence knew what I was doing,'' she said when I asked her about the precise nature of her contacts with the Libyans and the Iraqis. ''You see, the thing is, it's very hard to have these relationships, and so, when you have them, there are people who are very interested in the fact that you have them, who also want something from them, too.''
To demonstrate her commitment to nonviolence, Lindauer also shared with me portions of the evidentiary material contained on a stack of compact disks turned over to her by the government. The evidence against her, which includes wiretapped conversations with friends, neighbors, foreign diplomats and fellow activists, is currently in the hands of her new court-appointed attorney, who was not representing Lindauer at the time I spoke to her. Among the documents Lindauer showed me was a transcript of a telephone conversation with Muthanna al-Hanooti, the president of Focus on American and Arab Interests and Relations, a nonprofit organization in Southfield, Mich., dated July 30, 2003, two days before the Arab-American activist made one of his frequent trips to Iraq. During the call, Lindauer praised al-Hanooti for being a ''man who believes in peace'' and exhorted him to ''stay with God -- just stay with God.'' As the conversation continued, al-Hanooti seemed to hover between impatience and boredom. ''Other people are doing bad things, and they may try to use you as cover for bad things,'' Lindauer said. ''So don't let them.''
''It's a very delicate balance, as you know,'' al-Hanooti replied. ''But, ah, we'll do our best, you know. We'll do our best.''
That transcript, and others she gave me, support Lindauer's contention that she is opposed to violence. There were also other conversations the F.B.I. recorded that seem to suggest that Lindauer had other motivations for pursuing the work she did. ''He does not know about my visions -- he will never know about my visions, O.K.?'' she said, speaking to an undercover F.B.I. agent about another acquaintance. ''You're probably the only person you're going to meet other than my closest friend at the Iraqi Embassy who knows these things, O.K.? So don't ever talk about it with anyone.''
Susan Lindauer said she started making visits to the Libyan Mission to the United Nations in 1995 and started meeting with Iraqis at the United Nations in 1996. The F.B.I. first began tapping Lindauer's phone and intercepting her e-mail in July 2002, she said. A year and a half earlier, Lindauer contacted Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, with letters containing what purported to be secret diplomatic communiques from the government of Iraq to the incoming Bush administration. Lindauer reached out to Card, she explained, because he is a distant cousin on her father's side of the family. She said she believed that the fate of the world depended on the sensitive communications she dropped on the doorstep of his house in suburban Virginia.
One of Lindauer's earliest notes was left at Card's home on Dec. 23, 2000, a decade after sanctions were imposed on Iraq and a month before George W. Bush took office. Along with some of the transcripts of her wiretapped conversations, Lindauer gave me this letter to support her contention that she was working as a ''back channel'' between the governments of Iraq and the United States. The letter was addressed to Vice President-elect Cheney, and in it Lindauer presented the fruits of what she described as a private Nov. 26, 2000, meeting with Saeed Hasan, then the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations.
''Ambassador Hasan has asked me to communicate to you that Iraq most vigorously wishes to restore healthy, peaceful relations with the United States, including economic and cultural ties,'' Lindauer wrote. ''At our meeting, Ambassador Hasan demonstrated a pragmatic understanding that the United States requires the reinstatement of weapons monitoring in order to lift the sanctions.'' Ambassador Hasan, she said, had ''also emphasized that Iraq is ready to guarantee critical advantages for U.S. corporations at all levels.''
It is possible that Lindauer's account is delusional. It is also possible that Lindauer's account is accurate. Iraq certainly tried to use other back channels to try to reach U.S. officials, including a Lebanese-American businessman, Imad Hage, who conveyed messages to Richard Perle in the run-up to the war. For her part, Lindauer says that she was unaware that her activities required her to register as a lobbyist -- a formality that, to her mind, seemed quite absurd. ''Everything that I did that was quote 'lobbying,''' she said, ''I was giving to the chief of staff of the White House.''
The winding path that led Lindauer to the door of the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations began in November 1993 at a diner in Virginia, where she met a friend of her father's, a woman who worked as the chief of staff for a Republican member of Congress. Worried that Lindauer was lonely, her father's friend brought another lonely guest, Paul Hoven, a gentle Army veteran who had piloted attack helicopters in combat in Vietnam. He was interested in spies and spying.
'''You guys say you're peace activists,''' Lindauer recalled Hoven telling her that night. '''You say you're liberal do-gooders. What exactly are you doing? You do nothing. You're not active. You're passive.' And that conversation was probably one of the most important dinner conversations of my life.''
It was Hoven who gave Lindauer the nickname Snowflake, which was quick to catch on among an informal circle of Capitol Hill staff members and intelligence-community enthusiasts who gathered every Thursday night at a Hunan restaurant across the street from the Heritage Foundation. ''I'm the one who named her Snowflake, because she's from Alaska and she's nuts,'' Hoven told me. In addition to feeling sorry for Lindauer, he was taken with her unusual mind. ''She seems to have the ability to take unrelated facts and string them together, to the point where you're left with, Gee, it probably happened that way.'' For her part, Lindauer says that she enjoyed leading a double life, working for liberals during the day and hanging out with conservatives interested in counterterrorism at night.
Not long after their first dinner, Hoven introduced Lindauer to his friend Dr. Richard Fuisz, a globe-trotting Virginia-based businessman whom Lindauer described to me as ''my contact in the C.I.A.''
Lindauer's first meeting with Fuisz plunged her into a thicket of conflicting theories about the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The government blamed Libya for the bombing, and Libya later agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the families of the victims. There were others in the Washington intelligence community who said they believed that the real culprit was the terrorist Ahmed Jabril, who was based in Syria. Lindauer says that Fuisz told her at that first meeting that he knew who was responsible for the bombing. ''Dr. Fuisz has said that he can confirm absolutely that no Libyan national was involved in planning or executing the bombing of Pan Am 103,'' she later wrote in an account of their initial meeting. ''If the government would let me,'' she quoted Fuisz as saying, ''I could identify the men behind this attack today. I was investigating on the ground, and I know.''
Several months after she first met with Fuisz, Lindauer met with Libyan diplomats in New York in order to share with them the story she claims she got from Fuisz. She says she hoped her story would clear Libya of responsibility for the attack.
Lindauer's decision to drive to New York and visit the Libyans, she says, was also motivated in part by her deep personal faith in God, ''the all-powerful, all-encompassing spirit'' that she had known since she was a child. After adolescent years of drug use and casual sex, she says, she found God again during the weekends she spent at the Victory Bible Camp in Alaska. The God she found there was not partial to any religious philosophy.
''God is not a man,'' Lindauer explained. ''God is this supreme, magnificent force, intelligent, gorgeous beyond any description. If you've seen Alaska, you've seen the face of God.''
Tucked away behind a mixed-use town house development, Kosmos Pharma, Richard Fuisz's place of business, is part of a Pynchonesque landscape in Northern Virginia where anonymous front offices and brass nameplates give few clues as to the actual nature of the businesses within. When I showed up at his office, Fuisz graciously invited me inside to talk.
A dark-haired, handsome man with a soigne charm, Fuisz, 64, who went to Georgetown Medical School and did postgraduate work in medicine at Harvard, was trained as a psychiatrist and has more than 200 patents listed under his name. According to its Web site, Kosmos Pharma specializes in making oral-drug-delivery systems. He has also run a modeling agency for Russian women and worked briefly in the White House under Lyndon Johnson. During the 70's and 80's, he says, he did business around the world -- in the Middle East, the Eastern bloc, the Soviet Union.
Citing unnamed sources, The Sunday Herald, a Scottish newspaper, reported in 2000 that Fuisz had been the C.I.A.'s most important agent in Damascus during the 80's. ''This is not an issue I can confirm or deny,'' Fuisz told The Herald. ''I am not allowed to speak about these issues. In fact, I can't even explain why I can't speak about these issues.''
Fuisz confirmed that he saw Lindauer about once a week on avearage between 1994 and 2001 and that she would drop by to talk to him about her personal life as well as about her contacts with the Libyans and the Iraqis. He agreed to talk to me about Lindauer after requesting that his son, Joe, a lawyer, be present for our conversation.
''Susan, to me, is one of those people who drift into your life,'' Fuisz said, after offering me a seat on his couch. ''She would drift into the office fairly often, or call. Usually those weren't just social calls. Those were calls about what she was doing, or trying to do,'' Fuisz explained. ''In the early years, her activism generally took an approach which was Arabist, but Arabist from the standpoint of trying to lift sanctions, so that children would do better, and trying to get medicines into countries -- principally I'm talking about Iraq and Libya.''
After Sept. 11, 2001, Lindauer was no longer a welcome visitor to his office. ''Susan, in her discussions, went from benign, in my opinion, to malignant,'' he said. ''These discussions changed and now involved a very strong seditious bent.''
Fuisz did not comment on the specifics of the conversations that Lindauer claimed to have had with Middle Eastern diplomats or whether he passed on the specifics of those conversations to anyone else. But he, like others who have known Lindauer over the years, had clearly thought long and hard about the perplexing geometry of her mind.
''I'd put it this way,'' Fuisz explained, cupping his palms like a collector presenting a rare species for inspection. ''She's daft enough that we could be sitting here, like we are now, and she might see a parrot fly in the window, flap its wings and land right here on the table,'' he said. ''But she's also smart enough not to necessarily say anything about it.''
When I asked whether, in his opinion, Lindauer could have been recruited by an intelligence service, he paused for a long time before he responded. ''I would say that's a hard question to answer. If you're looking at it from the standpoint of an intelligent intelligence agency, absolutely not. She'd be the worst person you could ever recruit. If you're looking at it from the standpoint of my knowledge of Mideast intelligence services, are they dumb enough to recruit her, the answer is yes.''
To understand Lindauer's unlikely walk-on role in the history of the Iraq war, it is necessary to reverse your normal angle of vision and to imagine how she might have looked through the eyes of the diplomats and intelligence operatives who staffed the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations under Saddam Hussein. While Lindauer may have struck Ambassador Hasan and other Iraqi diplomats as strange, she had solid credentials to recommend her. An aide to congressmen and senators who held a graduate degree from the London School of Economics, she was also the cousin of the White House chief of staff.
Lindauer's letters on behalf of the Iraqis, which she sent to Bush financial backers, including Ken Lay, urging them to support the lifting of sanctions, were written in clear, confident prose. But there were also other letters whose odd details suggested that the Iraqis might have been more discerning in their choice of secret emissary.
''I am deeply proud of my expertise on international conflict resolution, and my regrettably extraordinary gift for counterterrorism,'' Lindauer wrote in a letter addressed to President-elect Bush on Dec. 22, 2000. ''I have identified a dozen bombings before they happened with a high degree of accuracy and a number of assassination attempts on world leaders.''
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Lindauer became a frequent visitor to the Iraqi Mission in New York. During a Sept. 18, 2001, trip to the mission, she had what she described in a letter to Card, the White House chief of staff, as a ''short, tense'' conversation with Hasan's successor, Ambassador Mohammad Al-Douri, in the embassy foyer. ''There's starting to be talk in Washington about Iraq's possible involvement in this attack,'' Lindauer told Card she said to Al-Douri.
''It is not possible,'' Al-Douri is said to have replied. ''It is the Mossad who says this.'' The ambassador, she wrote, sounded ''abrupt and confident and stern.'' When Lindauer warned him not to do anything that would jeopardize the lifting of sanctions, the ambassador seemed surprised.
''Of course!'' she recalled him as saying. ''We are ready for talks at any time.''
In that same letter, she described coming back to New York to ''receive a communication from Baghdad addressed to me'' -- a message saying that the panic-stricken Iraqis were willing to ''meet any American official in a covert or incovert manner to discuss the common issues.''
In October 2001, according to the federal indictment, she met with officers of Iraqi intelligence in New York. On Dec. 2, Lindauer wrote to Card again, to convey further news: The Iraqis were willing to permit the return of weapons inspectors and offered other concessions. ''These are not intended to limit the universe of possibilities, Andy,'' she wrote.
The picture that emerges from Lindauer's letters is of Iraqi diplomats trying to feel their way through a fog. It is hard to judge what any of her messages from the Iraqi Foreign Ministry might mean, however, since they could be read only through the haze of Lindauer's naive and self-aggrandizing personality. In February 2002, soon after President Bush delivered his State of the Union address naming Iraq part of an ''axis of evil,'' the Iraqis invited Lindauer to Baghdad.
''It was beautiful,'' she said of Al Rashid Hotel, where she stayed between her meetings with Iraqi officials. ''I had a suite, so it was very nice.''
She wouldn't tell me who she met with or why, but she did describe what it felt like to be inside the room in which the meetings took place. ''When I first got there, I had the sense that -- I don't know how to put this, this is a very weird thing, it's like your imagination-working-kind-of-thing,'' she explained. ''I was in a room, and there were these mirrors, and I had this sense of Saddam Hussein being on the opposite side of the mirror looking in at me. Now I'm not saying that Saddam Hussein actually was there, but I had this very strong sense of presence, which was unlike anything I'd ever felt before, that was scrutinizing me up and down, ripping me apart. It was palpable.''
After Lindauer's visit to Baghdad, there were no more secret messages from Iraq for Andrew Card.
John Lindauer, Susan's younger brother, is used to his sister's unlikely stories -- about dating Arab arms dealers and late-night attempts on her life and her contacts with the C.I.A. A Harvard graduate, and now a successful commercial and music-video director in Los Angeles, he says he thinks that a strain of playacting and deception runs in his family. One of his most powerful childhood memories, he told me, is of watching his father, then 38, grow a mustache and dye his hair gray before being interviewed for the job of chancellor of the University of Alaska at Anchorage. ''Weaving a story to make contact with you, and making you want to be interested in that person, is not a cry for help,'' he said. ''It's just a way of reaching out to say: Remember me. I'm with you. Be interested in me.''
One conversation John had with his sister in the summer of 2001 stuck in his mind for a different reason. ''So she goes, 'Listen, the gulf war isn't over,''' he told me over dinner at a sushi place on the Sunset Strip. '''There are plans in effect right now. They will be raining down on us from the skies.''' His sister told him that Lower Manhattan would be destroyed. ''And I was like, Yeah, whatever,'' he continued. When he woke up six weeks later to the news that two planes had crashed into the twin towers, and watched as ash settled on the window ledge of his sublet in Brooklyn, he had a dislocating sense of having his reality replaced by Susan's strange world -- an experience he would have again when he learned that his sister had been arrested by the F.B.I.
Parke Godfrey, a close friend of Lindauer's for the last 15 years, is a professor of computer science at York University in Ontario. He says that Lindauer warned him not to take a job at N.Y.U. the summer before the Sept. 11 attacks. That Lindauer's outlandish predictions actually came true, Godfrey suggests, further encouraged the exalted sense of personal mission that brought her to Washington in the first place.
''Susan is perfectly capable, in certain ways, to live a reasonable life, to take care of herself, to get around, and at any localized time, sitting at dinner, she's completely coherent,'' he said, skirting the blunt layman's question of whether his friend is playing with all her marbles. ''It's in these longer-term views of memory, in what she remembers, in how she's pieced the world together, that she functions unlike the way anyone else does,'' Godfrey concluded. ''It's not the same mental model that you and I use.''
"There is now a jihad,'' Susan Lindauer told me, rocking peacefully back and forth in her chair overlooking her untamed garden. ''Tragically, stupidly, we started it. We launched the first attack, which was unrighteous, and vicious and sadistic, and we are going to pay for this mistake. I think the Islamic world now is going to burn.''
Sipping lemonade on her front porch in Takoma Park, I found myself sharing her paranoid landscape, observing a beige car pass by her house four times in the space of two hours, as the birds twittered in the trees and Lindauer's girlish voice detailed ''the horrific abuses, the sexual torture'' being visited on innocent Iraqis by coalition troops. That is why, she explained, in June 2003 she met with an F.B.I. agent posing as a Libyan intelligence officer who, according to the indictment, purported to be ''seeking to support resistance groups in postwar Iraq.'' Lindauer said that in those meetings she was seeking financial backing for a lawsuit against the United States and British governments for crimes she claimed they committed during the occupation of Iraq. She continued to exchange e-mail with the undercover agent until she was arrested.
On my way back home to New York from Washington, I found a cellphone message from Ken Lisaius, a White House spokesman. While Andrew Card declined to speak to me directly about his cousin's letters, Lisaius said, Card did have a statement that might answer at least some of my remaining questions about Lindauer's case.
''This was a very sad and personal incident involving a distant relative of Andy Card,'' Lisaius said in the carefully calibrated cadence that is meant to assure worried citizens that the world remains a more or less rational place, no matter how weird the circumstances. ''He in turn reported various attempts by her to contact him to appropriate officials, and he has cooperated fully with appropriate officials on this matter.''
So, you've been jonesing for a detailed side-by-side comparison of John Kerry's Silver Star citations? Somebody must have read your mind.
I'm not terribly interested in the medal situation, because from my own service I gathered, perhaps incorrectly, but I doubt it, that bigwigs get more medals in general; but this did catch my eye. I just find it odd that there would be revisions in the first place. How do you even go about getting your citation rewritten? Repeatedly? This is just plain weird.
Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader addresses a question during a news conference at the International Sunport in Albuquerque, N.M., Saturday, August 28, 2004.
"Go bug John Kerry, and leave me alone."
-Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley, after denying Kerry's claim that he is contractually bound to show his papers only to Brinkley.
Since the tale of John Kerry's doggy mascot has resurfaced, I'd like to bring to your attention the other special pets Kerry had with him Vietnam.
The Weekly Standard is telling how the mainstream media was forced to cover a story they didn't want to. Also, be sure to check out Prestopundit for all your related Christmas in Cambodia needs.
Blogs of War has all the latest info on the Israeli spy in the Secretary of Defense's office.
Spying on us in time of war? If true, this one needs to hang.
UPDATE:
Comments like this are ridiculous and I hope I don't see many more like them:
For Goodness SAke... The whole world is against Israel... and if Hillary Clinton gets back in the whitehouse or others like her they will embrace Arafat again..
Israel MUST HAVE as many spies as they can.. It should be overlooked by us, especially us who understand their perdicument.....
Sondra K has posted a comment she received from a Vietnam vet. If you haven't read it yet, you'll want to do so. It's quite a fine piece of writing.
(Via On The Third Hand.)
UPDATE:
Since the author, Peter, has posted here, I've decided to repost his comment in full:
There is a reason that some of those veterans turned their backs to Kerry and that many others sat with arms folded, refusing even polite applause. A reason that non veterans can, perhaps, know intellectually but not feel in their guts.
Like all veterans of all wars, regardless of branch of service or duty stations, we all lost friends there. Some of those we lost were closer than brothers. Unlike other wars in our history we didn't go over together and come home together, our individual wars ended individually.
--------------------------
There is a reason that some of those veterans turned their backs to Kerry and that many others sat with arms folded, refusing even polite applause. A reason that non veterans can, perhaps, know intellectually but not feel in their guts.
Like all veterans of all wars, regardless of branch of service or duty stations, we all lost friends there. Some of those we lost were closer than brothers. Unlike other wars in our history we didn't go over together and come home together, our individual wars ended individually.
Unlike other wars we came home branded by a large segment of our society as war criminals, by another segment as losers. Then, as most of us were already home, one of our own officers branded us all, including the dead that we were just beginning to mourn, as war criminals, murderers and rapists.
We later discovered that many of those that he was quoting as witnesses to our 'crimes' had not spent one day in uniform. Others had never served in Viet Nam. None of them, not a single one, would testify under oath, even if granted immunity. Yet our 'crimes' became part of the common knowlege. Our children were given that testimony as fact in their history classes. We all knew soldiers, sailors,airmen and Marines that had died, leaving children behind, we know that those children were taught those same lies as fact. Who sat with those children as we did with ours, explaining that those were lies told for political gain?
It's bad enough that we couldn't mourn our dead then. Now we see the same man that stood over the open graves of our brothers and pissed on their bodies is back. This time he's dug up those bodies and is standing on them to give himself the stature for high office.
I am no famous war hero, just one of the two and a half million guys who wore Uncle's suit for awhile in a place where the same truck would splash red mud on your trousers and throw a cloud of dust on your face at the same time. My service was entirely undistinguished but I stood shoulder to shoulder with some genuine heros. Those heros came home in shiney aluminum caskets, they cannot speak for themselves. I hope someone more famous and more eloquent will speak for them soon. Until they do I can only say that not only is John Kerry not fit to command the young men and women that inherited the uniforms but he is not fit to speak of my comrades, much less speak for them. I shall say this as long as I have a breath left in my body.
This isn't about George Bush or who has a Senate majority for me. It isn't about politics. It's about a bunch of young men who never grew old. It's about the families of some 58,000 men who cannot answer the slander that this War Hee-row has never retracted.
I tried to answer that slander in 1971, I had no one to hear my voice. No way to reach anyone but my family. I have that way now, if only commenting on other people's forums.
It isn't about me. It isn't even about politics. It's about restoring the honor to the 58,000 names carved in black granite.
As many of you who read this blog have gathered, I have a long-standing grudge against Vietnam War protesters and the media's love affair with them. A few year's ago in the magazine of my professional association (of which I am not a member), I got treated to an archive pic of them protesting the war. They were proud of it then, and they're proud of it now. Each raindrop swears it didn't cause the flood, and there are not many former protesters who accept responsibility for the damage their actions did to our troops, the Vietnamese people, and our country.
While my father was serving two tours in Vietnam, John Kerry was comparing him and other veterans to Ghengis Khan. Now that Kerry's running for president, he want to wrap himself in the cloak of military service, with no repudiation of his former actions. He's not sorry for his antiwar actions, and he doesn't understand why people would have a problem with that.
I'm sorry, though. I'm sorry that when my dad came home I asked him if he'd done the things that people like John Kerry had tarred all the troops with doing. He didn't need that, and didn't deserve it.
Jeff Jacoby did a good job of describing my own feelings on the hypocrisy of the Kerry candidacy:
He came to prominence as a radical opponent of the war in Vietnam, yet now he runs for president on the strength of his service in that war. He portrayed the men who fought there as unspeakable savages, yet now he surrounds himself with Vietnam vets at every turn. He lent respectability to those who demanded that America cut and run, that it abandon a beleaguered ally, that it drop "the mystical war against communism." Yet now he insists that he would be a tough and vigilant commander-in-chief, one who would never disrespect allies, one in whose hands the security of the United States would be safe.
Even after 33 years, Kerry's 1971 testimony, and his refusal to either repudiate or corroborate it, remains unsettling -- and relevant. For the Swift Boat vets, this fight may be personal. But all of us have a stake in its outcome.
Here's something silly to start out a Friday: tons of pics of people doing the Lynndie. This is almost as good as fingerbutts.
(Via Spoons.)
Susan Sarandon's good buddy has et his last cheeseburger.
As a card-carrying member of the VRWC, I'll post a link to the third Swiftie ad.
The first one is still my fave.
The ads are getting the message out there, though, and next week's big American Legion meeting should be a real barn-burner.
The memorial for Broward Sheriff's Detective Todd Fatta was amazing. BSO did a great job.
For those of you who don't know what happened, Detective Fatta was murdered by the boyfriend of a convicted pedophile as the detective was attempting to serve a warrant to search the house for more child pornography.
The man is now claiming AIDS dementia as a defense.
RIP Detective Fatta.
The website Stolenhonor.com is up and running early. It has clips of former POWs airing their views on the candidacy of John Kerry, with more to come. Check it out.
UPDATE:
The documentary "Stolen Honor" is now viewable online.
I tried to scoop Dead Man Eating today on the last meal of murderer Jasen Busby in Texas, but it was not to be. DME is just too fast on the draw.
This is the first time I've seen a last meal that had catfish. Woot!
Speaking of catfish:
James Allridge III is scheduled for execution on Thursday for the 1985 robbery and murder of a Fort Worth, Texas, convenience store clerk. Allridge has been pen pals for several years with actress Susan Sarandon, who visited him in July.
Country Store has a wrap up on Kerry's Kid™, Max Cleland; meanwhile James Taranto uses Kerry's own words to clue us in on his background in using crippled vets for media stunts:
"I called the media. . . . I said, 'If I take some crippled veterans down to the White House and we chain ourselves to the gates, will we get coverage?' 'Oh, yes, we will cover that.' " -- John Kerry, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 22, 1971
"Kerry is sending to Crawford former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, a frequent companion of Kerry's on the campaign trail and a fellow Vietnam War veteran who lost three limbs during the war. Cleland . . . will try to deliver a letter protesting the [Swift Boat Veterans for Truth] ads to [President] Bush at his heavily guarded ranch, Kerry aides said."--Reuters, Aug. 25, 2004
More POWs are getting a lick in:
Sen. John Kerry's anti-war activism following his service in Vietnam is coming under attack by former U.S. prisoners of war and their families, who are launching a Web site and documentary that will likely further fuel election campaign rancor, sources told UPI Tuesday.
The Web site, "Stolenhonor.com" could be online as early as Thursday night or Friday and will feature comments and statements about Kerry, the Democratic Party's nominee for president, by former inmates of North Vietnam's infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison complex, Ken Cordier said.
I wonder if Kerry will be baffled as to why these guys are against him too?
UPDATE:
The documentary "Stolen Honor" is now viewable online.
Here's Duane at something called "The Festival of Life". He was sure festive enough.
Wail on, Skydog!
Howard Dean is in town stumping for a couple of local pols. I have no idea why he'd care. Perhaps he misses the limelight. I've been waiting for him to get fat and grow a beard now that he has no job. One thing hasn't changed, though - give the guy a podium and he's ready to rant:
"The president needs to apologize to John Kerry and to every veteran in America," Dean said. "I hope he shows a little of the spine that Sen. Kerry showed 30 years ago in Vietnam."
Dean showed some spine himself. He walked into his physical with an x-ray of it to get a deferment, then spent the war skiing. Let's have a white feather for Howard, for old time's sake.
"...I wasn't talking about the swifties, I was talking about all the rest of the veterans."
-John Kerry, on being told that the Swift Boat Veterans are against him because he accused them of war crimes.
(Via Blogs of War.)
UPDATE:
Kerry's bragging about how he'd mastered the fine art of diplomacy has Ace wondering how come he can't bring the Swifties to the table.
From "Bring it on!" to "Stop! You're hurting me!" Good stuff from the WSJ:
What did Mr. Kerry expect, anyway? That claiming to be a hero himself while accusing other veterans of "war crimes"--as he did back in 1971 and has refused to take back ever since--would somehow go unanswered? That when he raised the subject of one of America's most contentious modern events, no one would meet him at the barricades?
....
The irony here is that a main reason Mr. Kerry has focused so much on Vietnam is to avoid debating Iraq and the rest of his long record in the Senate. He wants Americans to believe that a four-month wartime biography is credential enough to be commander-in-chief. But a candidate who runs on biography can't merely pick the months of his life that he likes--any more than a candidate who makes Vietnam the heart of his campaign can confine the resulting debate to his personal home video.
--------------
Vietnam Boomerang
John Kerry's "war crimes" libel returns to haunt him.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004 12:01 a.m.
The issue here, as I have heard it raised, is was he present and active on duty in Alabama at the times he was supposed to be. . . . Just because you get an honorable discharge does not in fact answer that question.
--John Kerry, questioning President Bush's
military-service record, February 8, 2004.
A good rule in politics is that anyone who picks a fight ought to be prepared to finish it. But having first questioned Mr. Bush's war service, and then made Vietnam the core of his own campaign for President, Mr. Kerry now cries No mas! because other Vietnam vets are assailing his behavior before and after that war. And, by the way, Mr. Bush is supposedly honor bound to repudiate them.
We've tried to avoid the medals-and-ribbons fight ourselves, except to warn Mr. Kerry that he was courting precisely such scrutiny ("Kerry's Medals Strategy," February 9). But now that the Senator is demanding that the Federal Election Commission stifle his opponents' free speech, this one is too rich to ignore.
What did Mr. Kerry expect, anyway? That claiming to be a hero himself while accusing other veterans of "war crimes"--as he did back in 1971 and has refused to take back ever since--would somehow go unanswered? That when he raised the subject of one of America's most contentious modern events, no one would meet him at the barricades? Mr. Kerry brought the whole thing up; why is it Mr. Bush's obligation now to shut it down?
Simply because some rich Bush-backers are funding Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is hardly an adequate answer. Some rich Kerry-backers are spending far more to attack Mr. Bush's record, and the Senator was only too happy to slipstream behind Michael Moore's smear that Mr. Bush was a Vietnam-era "deserter."
In any case, anyone who spends five minutes reading the Swift Boat Veterans' book ("Unfit for Command") will quickly realize that their attack has nothing to do with Mr. Bush. This is all about Mr. Kerry and what the veterans believe was his blood libel against their service when he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the spring of 1971 that all American soldiers had committed war crimes as a matter of official policy. "Crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command" were among his incendiary words.
Mr. Kerry has never offered proof of those charges, yet he has never retracted them either. At his recent coronation in Boston he managed the oxymoronic feat of celebrating both his own war-fighting valor and his antiwar activities when he returned home. This is why the Swifties are so incensed, and this is why no less than World War II veteran Bob Dole joined the fray on the weekend to ask that Mr. Kerry apologize for his unproven accusations.
As Bill Lannom of Grinnell, Iowa, one of the Swifties, told the Washington Post last week: "He's telling untruths about us and his character. He's talking about atrocities that didn't happen. And then he's using that same experience to promote himself. He can't have it both ways."
We don't pretend to know the truth about how Mr. Kerry won his medals. There's no doubt that he pulled Jim Rassmann from the water (as Mr. Rassmann described recently in The Wall Street Journal), and that he put himself in harm's way and deserves respect for it. There's also little doubt that he has exaggerated some of his exploits--especially that Christmas in Cambodia sojourn we now know never happened--even to the strange extent of restaging events while in Vietnam so he could film them for political posterity. Modesty is not one of his virtues, in contrast to Mr. Dole and other modern veteran candidates (George McGovern, George H.W. Bush) who did not flaunt their noble service. But whatever doubts still exist could probably be put to rest if Mr. Kerry simply released all of his service records.
The "war crimes" canard isn't so easily handled, however. It relates directly to our current effort in Iraq, where U.S. constancy is as much an issue now as it was in Vietnam. Mr. Kerry's denunciation of the U.S. at that time presaged a career in which he has always been quick to attack the moral and military purposes of American policy--in Central America, against the Soviet Union, and of course during the current Iraq War that he initially voted for. It's certainly fair to wonder if Mr. Kerry will have the fortitude to fight to victory in Iraq if he does win in November. Or will he call for retreat the way he and so many other liberals did when Vietnam became difficult?
The irony here is that a main reason Mr. Kerry has focused so much on Vietnam is to avoid debating Iraq and the rest of his long record in the Senate. He wants Americans to believe that a four-month wartime biography is credential enough to be commander-in-chief. But a candidate who runs on biography can't merely pick the months of his life that he likes--any more than a candidate who makes Vietnam the heart of his campaign can confine the resulting debate to his personal home video.
Blogs of War is reporting that there are rumors that Georgia Senator Zell Miller will officially switch parties. I hope he doesn't. He's a reminder to all that Southern Democrats like myself used to be plentiful once upon a time, before the party was taken over by extremists.
Stay a Blue Dog, Zell.
John O'Sullivan of the Chicago Sun-Times gives a very interesting tutorial on how to glean information from our newspapers just like the people of the Soviet Union used to do with theirs:
Vladimir Bukovsky, the great anti-Soviet dissident, once reproved me for quoting the old joke about the two main official Soviet newspapers: ''There's no truth in Pravda [Truth] and no news in Izvestia [News].'' He pointed out that you could learn a great deal of truthful news from both papers if you read them with proper care.
They often denounced ''anti-Soviet lies.'' These lies had never been reported by them. Nor were they lies. And their exposure was the first that readers had been told of them. By reading the denunciation carefully, however, intelligent readers could decipher what the original story must have been.
I've been seeing a lot of non-reportage of the Swift Boat charges, followed by editorials denouncing "anti-Kerry lies". That's not how it went with the Fahrenheit 9-11 story.
The Washington Post now has five editorials on the Swift Boat issue, a topic they only touched in their news pages to dismiss. For that one editorial that is not a denunciation of the Swift Boaters, they should be grateful. It's the only thing that saves them from being a Yakov Smirnoff joke.
What the Washington Post didn't find newsworthy enough to run investigative articles on, they now find themselves forced to run multiple editorials on:
Most of the debate between the former shipmates who swear by John Kerry and the group of other Swift boat veterans who are attacking his military record focuses on matters that few of us have the experience or the moral standing to judge. But one issue, having nothing to do with medals, wounds or bravery under fire, goes to the heart of Kerry's qualifications for the presidency and is therefore something that each of us must consider. That is Kerry's apparently fabricated claim that he fought in Cambodia.
...
But Kerry has repeated his Cambodia tale throughout his adult life. He has claimed that the epiphany he had that Christmas of 1968 was about truthfulness. "One of the things that most struck me about Vietnam was how people were lied to," he explained in a subsequent interview. If -- as seems almost surely the case -- Kerry himself has lied about what he did in Vietnam, and has done so not merely to spice his biography but to influence national policy, then he is surely not the kind of man we want as our president.
--------------------------
Kerry's Cambodia Whopper
By Joshua Muravchik
Tuesday, August 24, 2004; Page A17
Most of the debate between the former shipmates who swear by John Kerry and the group of other Swift boat veterans who are attacking his military record focuses on matters that few of us have the experience or the moral standing to judge. But one issue, having nothing to do with medals, wounds or bravery under fire, goes to the heart of Kerry's qualifications for the presidency and is therefore something that each of us must consider. That is Kerry's apparently fabricated claim that he fought in Cambodia.
It is an assertion he made first, insofar as the written record reveals, in 1979 in a letter to the Boston Herald. Since then he has repeated it on at least eight occasions during Senate debate or in news interviews, most recently to The Post this year (an interview posted on Kerry's Web site). The most dramatic iteration came on the floor of the Senate in 1986, when he made it the centerpiece of a carefully prepared 20-minute oration against aid to the Nicaraguan contras.
Kerry argued that contra aid could put the United States on the path to deeper involvement despite denials by the Reagan administration of any such intent. Kerry began by reading out similar denials regarding Vietnam from presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Then he offered this devastating riposte:
"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."
However seared he was, Kerry's spokesmen now say his memory was faulty. When the Swift boat veterans who oppose Kerry presented statements from his commanders and members of his unit denying that his boat entered Cambodia, none of Kerry's shipmates came forward, as they had on other issues, to corroborate his account. Two weeks ago Kerry's spokesmen began to backtrack. First, one campaign aide explained that Kerry had patrolled the Mekong Delta somewhere "between" Cambodia and Vietnam. But there is no between; there is a border. Then another spokesman told reporters that Kerry had been "near Cambodia." But the point of Kerry's 1986 speech was that he personally had taken part in a secret and illegal war in a neutral country. That was only true if he was "in Cambodia," as he had often said he was. If he was merely "near," then his deliberate misstatement falsified the entire speech.
Next, the campaign leaked a new version through the medium of historian Douglas Brinkley, author of "Tour of Duty," a laudatory book on Kerry's military service. Last week Brinkley told the London Telegraph that while Kerry had been 50 miles from the border on Christmas, he "went into Cambodian waters three or four times in January and February 1969 on clandestine missions." Oddly, though, while Brinkley devotes nearly 100 pages of his book to Kerry's activities that January and February, pinpointing the locations of various battles and often placing Kerry near Cambodia, he nowhere mentions Kerry's crossing into Cambodia, an inconceivable omission if it were true.
Now a new official statement from the campaign undercuts Brinkley. It offers a minimal (thus harder to impeach) claim: that Kerry "on one occasion crossed into Cambodia," on an unspecified date. But at least two of the shipmates who are supporting Kerry's campaign (and one who is not) deny their boat ever crossed the border, and their testimony on this score is corroborated by Kerry's own journal, kept while on duty. One passage reproduced in Brinkley's book says: "The banks of the [Rach Giang Thanh River] whistled by as we churned out mile after mile at full speed. On my left were occasional open fields that allowed us a clear view into Cambodia. At some points, the border was only fifty yards away and it then would meander out to several hundred or even as much as a thousand yards away, always making one wonder what lay on the other side." His curiosity was never satisfied, because this entry was from Kerry's final mission.
After his discharge, Kerry became the leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Once, he presented to Congress the accounts by his VVAW comrades of having "personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires . . . to human genitals . . . razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan . . . poisoned foodstocks." Later it was shown that many of the stories on which Kerry based this testimony were false, some told by impostors who had stolen the identities of real GIs, but Kerry himself was not implicated in the fraud. And his own over-the-top generalization that such "crimes [were] committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command" could be charged up to youthfulness and the fevers of the times.
But Kerry has repeated his Cambodia tale throughout his adult life. He has claimed that the epiphany he had that Christmas of 1968 was about truthfulness. "One of the things that most struck me about Vietnam was how people were lied to," he explained in a subsequent interview. If -- as seems almost surely the case -- Kerry himself has lied about what he did in Vietnam, and has done so not merely to spice his biography but to influence national policy, then he is surely not the kind of man we want as our president.
Bob Dole giddily re-enacts what he calls his "Russell County Haymaker".
Investor's Business Daily has some interesting questions for Senator Kerry that they'd like answered.
Also, Bob Dole's comments have opened the floodgates on the "Christmas in Cambodia" story and put it in every paper in the country.
Dole's Viagra must have kicked in, 'cause he's got a li'l something-something for Kerry on this Vietnam deal.
My folks got their electricity back last night. All is well for the Cracker family. We are very fortunate people.
Others didn't fare as well. There are 141,000 displaced people in SW Florida alone.
The Fort Myers News Press gives a look back at an eventful week, and tells the tales of some of those who struggle in the aftermath of Hurricane Charley.
I love Florida right down to my bones. My greatest appreciation to all of you who sent something to help either the two-legged or four-legged creatures here whose lives were disrupted by this disaster. There are still so many living in dire situations. Those who haven't donated to the Hurricane Charley Relief Effort, please do so.
''One day he's saying that we were shooting civilians, cutting off their ears, cutting off their heads, throwing away his medals or his ribbons. The next day he's standing there, `I want to be president because I'm a Vietnam veteran.' "
Bob Dole has plenty more to say about John Kerry.
Dole sounds a whole lot like my dad did this morning when I asked him his opinion of Kerry. Except Dole didn't say that in all of the pics of John Kerry in Vietnam, he looks like he'd just come from taking a crap in the woods.
Dad speaks in colorful Southern expressions, some of which I don't fully understand. Like that one, for example.
In any case, both agree that Kerry makes medals look cheap, and that he owes an apology to Vietnam veterans for his actions after he came home.
(Via Ace.)
This pretty much sums it up for me. Kerry hurt a lot of people to get where he is and now they're trying to make him answer for it. It doesn't get any simpler than that.
Is it personal? You betcha:
War veterans Jere Hill, middle, from Warham, Mass., and Robert Gibson, right, from Lexington, Ky., stand with their backs turned during Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's speech at the 105th Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Cincinnati on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2004.
So why are the Swift Vets after Kerry? Is it really because they - having served in his vicinity during combat in Vietnam - believe he's unfit for command, as a recent book penned by one of them suggests?
Hardly. They're out to get Kerry not because of his war record, but because of his post-war performance.
Kerry came home from Vietnam and testified before Congress that his American brothers in arms - not a few, but many of them - were war criminals. Painting with a broad brush, he said U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen serving in Vietnam routinely committed atrocities against civilians. And many Vietnam vets will never forgive him.
Some of that testimony recently has been called into question. For instance, Kerry recounted spending Christmas of 1968 serving illegally inside Cambodia, but records show he wasn't within 50 miles of that country, an inconsistency his opponents say supports their case against Kerry's official records and his medals.
So it's tough to feel too sorry for Kerry today as the Swift Boat Vets launch their full-frontal assault on his candidacy. Kerry's 1970s testimony before Congress - in which he accused his fellow Americans of randomly shooting civilians and beheading Vietnamese, among other horrors - endeared him to the political left in the tumultuous early 1970s. It served him well as he became a liberal Northeastern politician. It paved the way to what he is today, Democratic candidate for president.
And now, it might be the biggest obstacle he must clear on his way to winning that office.
For many Americans, especially veterans, it seems John Kerry has a lot of explaining to do.
A Lycan-American prepares for the 100-meter.
Ted Kennedy joins Laura Bush in wishing the President four more years.
Or maybe he's ordering four boilermakers. Hard to say.
The Swiftboaters' new ad focuses on what effect John Kerry's words and actions as an anti-war activist had on the POWs and other Vietnam vets. Former POWs Cordier and Galanti were very effective, but I wish that each time they were shown that they had been re-identified as POWs. Yes, I know that's not how it's done: identify once and not thereafter, but when the last man spoke, I couldn't remember if that was former POW Galanti, or the non-POW wounded vet, Joe Ponder. I think they should have focused solely on the POWs, and used another ad to talk about Kerry's denigration of Vietnam veterans in general. The POWs are the heavy artillery and make the poor wounded vet look like a pop-gun.
It's a very good ad. I just felt the impact was diffused a bit by the presence of a non-POW.
(Via Ace.)
UPDATE:
The Kerry Campaign has filed a complaint with the FEC against the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Also, yesterday it was reported Kerry manager Chad Clanton had contacted booksellers demanding they remove the Swiftboaters' book "Unfit For Command." For a group that a few months ago couldn't get a major news outlet to come to their press conference, they sure have become target number one for the Kerry Campaign.
I smell fear.
Senator Kerry's coming to visit SW Florida today to view the hurricane damage. It'd be better if he just donated the price of one his haircuts to hurricane relief.
What's he going to do here? Promise people no more hurricanes? The only help he has the power to give would be convincing Teresa to break out the checkbook. If his visiting will accomplish that, then he's welcome.
Radio's made a big comeback in these parts as of late. What would people have done without battery-operated radios? With a lot of ingenuity, Kix-Country radio in Charlotte County became info-central while operating without a working phone line. I'm hearing lots of stories of ham radio operators using their trunking system to allow police and fire department nets to work when the cell towers fell, and here too they were integral in helping the radio station. (For the Herald articles use floridacracker61ATyahoo.com/cracker.)
The National Guard has been a big hit, but we knew they would be. These guys do a little bit of everything, including being on hug-duty 24/7.
Here's an interesting fact: Southern Baptists have the third-largest disaster relief agency in the country and most of the hot meals given out by the Red Cross and the Salvation Army for Hurricane Charley were cooked by the Southern Baptist Kitchens. Nice teamwork, guys.
Finally, remember the work the Humane Society is doing for the animals in distress in SW Florida and give accordingly, please:
Veterinarian Welch Agnew, of Dunedin, Fla., and the Pinellas County Animal Services, center, gives a stray puppy some medication as Melissa Forberg, of Defuniak Springs, Fla., assists after it was dropped at the animal rescue facilty D.A.R.T. Tuesday afternoon Aug. 17, 2004 in Punta Gorda, Fla. The facility takes in animals that were found wandering the area, or by families displaced by the effects of Hurricane Charley.
I see a lot of weekly caption contests around, but someone really should start a weekly link whore contest. Every time I see a post like "Hey, Joe at X Blog wants to know if you like vanilla ice cream! Go tell him!", I yell "Bingo!", but get no prize. How disappointing.
Someone please start one because I've got some nominations.
Vanessa Vicente, 3, of Deep Creek shows cookies she just received with her lunch from a Salvation Army food truck to her brother 6-year-old Justin after going through the line with their Granddad John Rothged of Punta Gorda.
Kerry's campaign tour heads to the Hamptons this weekend, yet he's still weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river that snaked through the war like a main circuit cable plugged straight into Kurtz.
The horror. The horror.
Carbon monoxide poisoning is the illness of the week at SW Regional Medical Center. So far 60 people have been treated there for it since Charley hit, with some fatalities and many, many close calls like this one:
Stacee Young, 24, woke up dizzy and befuddled in her Cape Coral home at 4 a.m. Saturday and knew something was wrong.
She woke up her roommate, Susan Crawford, 27, and they stumbled their way toward the generator, humming loudly inside the women’s garage.
Crawford never made it. She passed out just as she got to the gas-powered machine, collapsing onto the hot metal and sustaining burns that kept her in intensive care for days.
Young, losing consciousness several times, managed to call 911 and save three dogs and two birds before fainting outside in a ditch, her sister, Dana Miller, 29, said.
There have been two additional deaths in North Fort Myers due to Charley and the lack of electricity, with a man dying in a fire caused by candles and another man dying from heat stress.
Hopefully all power will be restored in Lee, with the exception of the islands, by this weekend.
The Sun-Sentinel has a terrific and well-written article on the electricity Haves and Have-Nots. It's very capricious: one side of the road may have power and the other not. Some of the Have-Nots are getting cranky:
Hurricane Charley has even divided families into Haves and Have-Nots. Jacqueline Silvera, 48, and her mother, who lives next door, never lost their electricity in Pine Hills. Her older sister, who lives in Apopka, did.
Silvera was cool and air conditioned. Her sister was hot and cranky.
"Everything was a problem. Everything ticked her off," Silvera said.
When her mother suggested the older sister come stay with her, the sister refused.
"She chose not to, so I said maybe she was enjoying her pity party," Silvera said.
Sisters! I bet they'll be hashing that one out for the next twenty years.
Here's the latest death toll and the circumstances for each fatality. Lee County had a North Fort Myers man crushed by a banyan tree and a Pine Island man killed by carbon monoxide from his generator.
Reader Erh has sent a link to amazing aerial photos of Charley's visit. Thanks, Erh.
There's going to be a protest in Altamonte Springs about the lack of Red Cross there. I figured something like this was coming. When I see a picture of a family in Fort Ogden with a caption saying something like "Places in Florida you don't see on the Travel Channel" and articles explaining that Florida has a "heartland", etc., I thought that it looked like the relief efforts were going to be concentrated in the larger population centers and that the rural areas might get the short end of the stick, or at least feel that way. That's one reason I was glad to see a kid like Zachary Howlett being led to go to Wauchula, which is off the beaten track. That being said, I don't know if these Altamonte Springs folk have a legitimate gripe or if they're just being cranky.
By the way, where do people think we keep our huge cattle and citrus industries? Up some South Beach tourist's butt? Don't answer- it was purely rhetorical.
And emphasizing that a man's home is his castle, a kind of nervous-looking Charlotte County man:
Whenever there's a disaster, the Humane Society of the United States sends out its disaster response teams. With formal agreements with FEMA and the Red Cross, these teams come from all over, and since Saturday they have been in SW Florida working with state and local agencies for hurricane relief efforts for animals.
The Suncoast Humane Society has been designated their staging area for companion animal disaster relief for Hurricane Charley.
You can donate either to the HS-US disaster fund, or directly to the SHS disaster fund. Either way, all you animal lovers, please give something.
Drenched in sweat, Zachary Howlett, of Lakeland, Florida, hands out pet food at a food and donations site in Wauchula, Florida, along U.S. Route 17, Monday, Aug. 16, 2004. After watching the devastation wreaked along Route 17 by Hurricane Charley on television, Howlett went door-to-door in his hometown to raise $220 overnight. He then bought food and supplies, and asked his father to drive him to Wauchula so he could pass it out himself.
Duane, Eric Clapton, and Carl Radle at what could be Derek & the Dominos' 12/1/70 Tampa show.
Wail on, Skydog!
(Photo ID via Finsky.)
For today's laugh, a case of mistaken identity, and Mexico chips in for SW Florida's recovery:
Mexico’s consul general from Miami toured Pine Island, Cape Coral and Fort Myers on Tuesday to view storm damage.
At the 160-lot Pink Citrus Trailer Park in Bokeelia, where many residents are workers from Mexico, Jorge Lomonaco encouraged some people and intimidated others.
A resident identified only as Leticia boldly approached him in hope that he was from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. For her, the consular general was the next best thing.
Through an interpreter, she said she was glad Lomonaco had come to see the damage “with his own eyes.”
His surprise visit left park supervisor Ellie Carrier trembling and near tears after his 10-person group, including press from Miami, entered her office.
“They came in to confront, not to talk,” Carrier said. “They didn’t bring water or ice. They brought nothing but the press.”
Lomonaco said he was able to donate some clothing his office had gathered in Miami.
I've gained a new-found appreciation of the mainstream media. They consider a Category-4 hurricane wreaking destruction on a large chunk of the State of Florida and its inhabitants to be big news.
They're not the ones acting like Hurricane Charley is so last Friday.
Who'll win the Golden Bloggy for coverage of Jessica Cutler?
An appetizer, not a meal for a good reason.
My sister's house now has electricity and my parents are staying there nights until the power is restored at their own home. My brother's wife and youngest daughter went to stay with the wife's mother in Sarasota. Only my brother is still sitting in the dark. Compared to others, we are blessed. My father feels so bad for the people in Arcadia and Punta Gorda. None of my folk were hurt, none of their houses ruined. Once they all have electricity, they'll be on Nob Hill.
This little five-year-old Arcadia boy's being charged with bringing his family drinking water reminded me of little boys in Pakistan and India doing the same.
Thank God his situation is only temporary. A tale to tell his grandchildren.
Thank you, FEMA, Governor Bush, and all the thousands of workers and volunteers putting in 18-hour days to get things put to rights.
So far 30 people in Lee have been poisoned and another one has died from carbon monoxide from their generators.
90,000 Lee Countians are still without power, but they're hoping to have all the lights back on by the end of the week.
Nearly 800,000 Floridians total are still without power.
The morning laugh is the guy getting stun-gunned for trying to break through the police barricade onto the Fort Myers Beach bridge. He got some personal electricity.
Mars may need women, but Lee County needs ICE:
Country Store finds the best stuff:
"The same news media that demanded George W. Bush release his National Guard records — and went over them with a microscope — have shown an appalling lack of interest in John Kerry's military service."
--------------------
Where's my colleagues' interest in Kerry's war records?
Even when he's caught in a lie, media aren't scrutinizing him same way they did Bush
By LEE CEARNAL
The same news media that demanded George W. Bush release his National Guard records — and went over them with a microscope — have shown an appalling lack of interest in John Kerry's military service. And as it turns out, there are far more legitimate questions about the latter than the former.
Kerry has made his four months and 11 days in Vietnam the central theme of his presidential campaign. This is entirely understandable given his 20 years as the Senate's leading dove. He needs the cover that Vietnam can give him.
Just last week, one of his more fatuous claims came a cropper. Beginning in 1979, with an op-ed for the Boston Herald, Kerry has claimed repeatedly that he spent Christmas Eve of 1968 on a secret — and illegal — mission in Cambodia aboard his swift boat.
"On more than one occasion, I, like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, took my patrol boat into Cambodia. In fact, I remember spending Christmas Day of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real. But nowhere in Apocalypse Now did I sense that kind of absurdity."
He repeated the story again in 1986, on the Senate floor: "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared — seared — in me."
He added a fantastic detail in a 2003 Washington Post profile: "A close associate hints: There's a secret compartment in Kerry's briefcase. He carries the black attaché everywhere. Asked about it on several occasions, Kerry brushed it aside. Finally, trapped in an interview, he exhaled and clicked open his case.
" 'Who told you?' he demanded as he reached inside. 'My friends don't know about this.'
"The hat was a little mildewy. The green camouflage was fading, the seams fraying.
" 'My good luck hat,' Kerry said, happy to see it. 'Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia.'
"Kerry put on the hat, pulling the brim over his forehead. His blue button-down shirt and tie clashed with the camouflage. He pointed his finger and raised his thumb, creating an imaginary gun. He looked silly, yet suddenly his campaign message was clear: Citizen-soldier. Linking patriotism to public service. It wasn't complex after all; it was Kerry.
"He smiled and aimed his finger: 'Pow.' "
This story was repeated early this year, in the fawning biography written by a Boston Globe reporter. Problem is, it's not true. His own crewmates say they were not in Cambodia on Christmas Eve. Even Kerry's own diary entry for that day says he was at his base in Sa Dec, 55 miles from the Cambodian border. In his biography of Kerry, Douglas Brinkly quoted the relevant passage: "Visions of sugarplums really do dance through your head and you think of stockings and snow and roast chestnuts and fires with birch logs and all that is good and warm and real. It's Christmas Eve."
With their man caught in a lie, Kerry's handlers last week floated a new version — he was near Cambodia.
"During John Kerry's service in Vietnam, many times he was on or near the Cambodian border and on one occasion crossed into Cambodia at the request of members of a special operations group operating out of Ha Tien.
"On Dec. 24, 1968, Lt. John Kerry and his crew were on patrol in the watery borders between Vietnam and Cambodia deep in enemy territory. In the early afternoon, Kerry's boat, PCF-44, was at Sa Dec and then headed north to the Cambodian border. There, Kerry and his crew along with two other boats were ambushed, taking fire from both sides of the river, and after the firefight were fired upon again. Later that evening during their night patrol they came under friendly fire. . . .
"Kerry's was not the only United States riverboat to respond and inadvertently or responsibly cross the border. In fact, it was this reality that led President Nixon to later invade Cambodia itself in 1970."
This won't fly either.
"Watery borders between Vietnam and Cambodia?" The Mekong River does not form a border between Vietnam and Cambodia.
"Inadvertently?" Strange, considering that his memory of that Christmas Eve 1968 was "seared" into his memory — including the fact that Nixon was lying about U.S. forces' presence there, even though Nixon didn't even take office until mid-January.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Kerry ventured into Cambodia during his abbreviated tour in Vietnam. No orders, no after-action reports, no confirmation from others, nothing.
To have been caught in Cambodia would have been an international embarrassment and a court-martial offense. The border was clearly marked with warnings signs and patrolled by a PT boat to ensure that no allied boats crossed it. (Yes, allied special-ops forces were operating in Cambodia. But they were not inserted there by something as obvious and slow-moving as a swift boat. They were ferried in by helicopter.)
As to the truth of this tale, there is only Kerry's word, which the press seems quite willing to take, to the extent of not reporting on the controversy at all. It is not a trivial matter. Kerry has pimped the story repeatedly in an effort to paint himself as a stand-up eyewitness to events that were both illegal and, in his view, immoral.
And that's not the only issue that reporters are curiously incurious about. At least one of Kerry's Purple Hearts has been challenged by his unit's medical officer, who notes that the wound was barely visible and was treated with a Band-Aid. Some questions should also be asked about his Silver Star: Should shooting a wounded, fleeing Viet Cong in the back — as justifiable as it was as an act of war — be worthy of the nation's third-highest award for courage?
To those of you who say such questions are unseemly, consider that John Kerry's principal claim on the presidency is that he served four months and 11 days in Vietnam. OK, fine. Let's examine the records — all the records, which, unlike Bush and contrary to popular perception, Kerry has not released — and have a debate. We would be if it were George W. Bush. The media would see to it.
Of the 127 sewage lift stations in Ft. Myers, only 12 are working, and those are on generator power. They'd cleaned the system out right before the hurricane, so right now it's storing everything like a big septic tank. A giant, humongous septic tank.
They've prioritized restoring the power to the lift stations. Good idea.
They got my mom's phone semi-working today, even though the phone box is laying on the ground in the backyard with the wires underneath a neighbor's fallen tree. They ran wires right to it and will worry about getting all the wires back up on the phone poles later. Yay, Southern Bell.
She says she is acutely traumatized and that all the old people like her will soon start dropping like flies. Did I ever mention my mother is a tad on the dramatic side? She said this storm was worse than the Labor Day Hurricane in the Keys, (Mom! That one killed hundreds of those WWI veterans working on the railroad!) and that it was worse than the Lake Okeechobee Hurricane. (Mom! That one killed 2,000 people!) "Well," she said, "there are visible victims and invisible victims." I finally got her to acknowledge that these other storms racked up a whole lot more "visible victims".
As for my brother's much longed-for ice:
The most critical relief — water, ice and food — did not begin to reach the worst-hit areas until Sunday, delayed by lack of communication with local officials, problems finding accessible places to put it, and traffic jams on I-75. A police escort finally had to be arranged.
Complaints about the scarcity of those supplies were "anecdotal" and isolated, Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings said Monday morning.
And here's someone who needs to be removed from office:
The governor's office said that though for a time it was unable to reach Charlotte County Elections Supervisor Judy Anderson, she was not missing and sent word she is safe.
"She is taking care of family," said state spokeswoman Alia Faraj.
Uh-huh. She's an officer of the County and is required to report for work the same as anybody else. She's one of the big dogs, earning big bucks: don't let her shirk her duties. Now she decides to go back home and be the little woman? To paraphrase Kenny Rogers: "You picked a fine time to leave work, Lucille."
On a happier note. Here's a guy to be grateful for. This is lineman Keith Allen, from Lawrenceville, Georgia, with Pike Electric Inc. Thank you, Keith, and all those other linemen for coming down to help. Y'all are some good men:
Pine Island is next to North Fort Myers. When I was growing up, they called us rednecks and we called them mulletheads. (From the fish, not the haircut.) When my sister'd fuss at her husband, he'd tell her to stop acting like some mullethead's wife. This Pine Islander's home was undamaged, though his neighbors' homes were. He just really wants someone to make his day. How belligerent. If this sign were in a yard in North Fort Myers, however, I would say it's a symbol of grit, community, and fighting spirit.
SW Florida is a heavily Republican area. The only thing that would harm President Bush there were if he hadn't come. So, he got a very good reception:
He talked to one group almost 30 minutes, asking who stayed and who left, and what they needed. When he left, it was to chants of “four more years.”
He and Jeb both did a really good job. You can see they're both very compassionate people, natural leaders, and go-to guys when bad things happen. Jeb may very well be the President himself one day.
President Bush pats a Punta Gorda resident on the back as he walks past.
--------------
Remarks by President Bush in Punta Gorda
President Bush flew to Southwest Florida Sunday morning to inspect areas decimated by Hurricane Charley. Here is the text of his remarks during his stop in Punta Gorda, the epicenter of the damage:
You know the job of the federal government and the state government is to surge resources as quickly as possible to disaster areas. And that's exactly what's happening now. We choppered over and saw the devastation of this area. A lot of people's lives are turned upside down. We've got ice and water moving in, trailers for people to live in are moving in. The state is providing security so that people can have peace of mind that their neighborhoods will be safe. There's a lot of compassion moving in the area; the Red Cross is here.
What I'm telling you is that there's a lot of help moving into this part of the world -- it's going to take a while to rebuild it. But the government's job is to help people help rebuild their lives, and that's what's happening.
The coordination between the federal government and the state government and the local government is really important. I think it's excellent now. The governor can speak to that, if you like. But it's really important that when we say we're going to do something, that it actually happens. And that's what we're following through on now.
Afterward, he answered a few questions from local media:
Q: Can you tell us about some of the people who you spoke with and what they told you?
PRESIDENT: Well, I've got -- you know, these good folks here, this is this man's house here. His parents were uprooted from where they were living. They came here to spend the night. And that's what you're beginning to see. You're beginning to see neighbors helping neighbors. A lot of people who have been dislocated are staying with a friend or a neighbor. You know, out of these catastrophes the spirit of America really shines, and that spirit is neighbor helping neighbor. So that's the lesson here. The fellow down the street came out OK; he had taken precautions necessary. Nearly everybody here that I've talked to had evacuated, as the state asked them to do and, therefore, the loss of life was minimized -- still, too many people lost their lives, but, nevertheless, it was not as significant as it could have been. We're here, obviously, in a residential neighborhood where people's lives have been destroyed. They're beginning to worry about insurance claims and the state is organized to handle insurance claims. The key is just to make sure that they expedite the services which are available as quickly as possible.
Q: There was some consternation after Andrew that the federal aid didn't arrive soon enough. Can you promise that there will be a more expeditious response this time?
PRESIDENT: It's happening now. ... We're moving a lot of aid very quickly and, again, you can ask the governor whether or not he's satisfied with how fast the aid is moving. All I can tell you is that FEMA was on the ground yesterday morning and there's a lot of supplies surging this way.
Q: Have you gotten an updated tally of the cost of the damage?
PRESIDENT: Not yet. Jeb estimated billions. We'll see.
Q: Mr. President, some people are going to say that there's a political component to your rapid visit to Florida.
PRESIDENT: Yes, and if I didn't come they would have said, 'He should have been here more rapidly.' ''
Q: What about what happened in '92 with Hurricane Andrew? That was obviously in August of a presidential [election].
PRESIDENT: That was then, this is now. And the government is set up to respond very quickly and we are.
Q: Was there a lesson learned back then, though?
PRESIDENT: The lesson is, Respond quickly. And we are responding quickly. And we're surging equipment. And the coordination between the federal government and the state government is excellent. And the Homeland Security Department is doing its job. FEMA Director Brown is doing an excellent job. You can talk to the governor, he can give you a sense from the state perspective. But from the federal perspective, I was notified that they're going to move as quickly as possible, and they are. A lot of stuff is coming.
The big problem is ice. My brother is questioning why since Tampa is full of ice, that they can't haul it down the two-hour trip so that there could be ice at Publix. He is resigned to just waiting it all out until the power comes back on Wednesday or so. People are getting cranky.
My mother woke him up at 8:00 this morning telling him to fix her a cup of coffee. He got out his last half-bag of self-lighting charcoal to fire up the grill. I bet he shook the bag at her. She said "Just use a couple of them." He explained to her it doesn't work that way. He got the water warm enough for coffee, she drank it and left. I told him to check on Mom and Dad to make sure they're fine. He said, "Believe me, if they weren't fine they'd be over here." I do believe he's right.
My niece was driving from Fort Myers back up to school in North Carolina and stopped in Ocala. While she was gassing up, she saw a convoy of about 90 trucks heading to SW Florida. She said it brought tears to her eyes.
Some more good news is that Florida Power & Light will match any donation to the Red Cross for Florida, up to 250k. We always said you could give your life's blood to the mosquitos or FPL. It's nice to see they're giving something back.
Some people find looting the mini-market to be a great stress-reliever.
Others view shooting looters as being an excellent form of emotional catharthis.
A brisk walk in the fresh air to discourage looters improves your feeling of well-being.
Bicycling helps the brain produce stress-relieving endorphins, but this man is emphasizing that bicycles aren't free.
"President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, 'Little fat man isn't it a shame what the river has done
To this poor cracker's land.' "
A timely move:
Ali Rowand,45, and her pet toy poodle Bunny Sue, look over the devastated remains Saturday afternoon of the Harbor Inn in Port Charlotte where they had a room. Rowand, her husband Gary,and Bunny Sue, left the hotel as the storm intensified and moved inland to survive its impact. They returned Saturday morning to find the room demolished. "We're just happy to be alive," said Rowand.
A good Samaritan:
Sherry Kicklighter holds her dog Skittles after being blocked from staying at a hurricane shelter in Port Charlotte. Her home and car were destroyed in the Maple Leaf Golf and Country Club in Port Charlotte following hurricane Charley. Kicklighter and her dog were offered alternate housing by a person who noticed her situation.
A hard job:
Canine specialist Bill Kidd of Miami Dade Fire Rescue sends his dog Tenshi through a hole in a mobile home to search for victims of Hurricane Charlie in Punta Gorda Saturday.
Liberal Larry writes
There's no question that these giant storms are the work of El Niño, which is caused by El Busho refusing to ratify El Kyoto.
He's goofing, but I fully expect President Bush to be blamed for the loss of life. It'll probably be along the lines of it's his fault that people live in trailers. The whole trailer thing would be an alien concept to a five-mansion-owning gentleman like Mr. Kerry. I would enjoy watching Teresa walk through a trailer park. It would be like an anthropologist visiting some far-off native tribe.
My brother's house has a working phone, so I've spent the evening talking to them.
They think the rich people down in South Fort Myers paid off the electric company to get power first. When they announced on the radio which neighborhoods had power, it was the ones with the million-dollar homes, or that's what their ears perked up for. Then they heard there were special outdoor air-conditioned tents set up so people could come and get cool, but those were in South Fort Myers too. They're all "Hmm..." , but I was thinking that if the rich folk have electricity, then the tents would just be overkill.
They're very excited that the National Guard has come, and that electric workers from out-of-state are pouring in to help. The important thing is that they have running water and that everyone is OK. They spent the day sawing fallen trees down to the correct sizes for pick-up. The garbage trucks are going to run everyday starting tomorrow. The ice-cream truck doesn't care if you live in a crappy neighborhood: it came on through and they got very excited and ran out and got themselves some frozen treats. That was today's highpoint.
For those that have asked about the alcohol ban: it's to help cut down on the idiocy. It's also partly a Southern thing. Y'all would freak out if I told you what went on in Downtown Ft. Myers on D-Day. This knowledge would cause the ACLU to spontaneously combust.
Misc. news:
There's a $25,000 fine per day for any company caught price-gouging, and of course, there's the curfew. FEMA has arrived and is giving out free ice and water.
They're not allowing anyone into the city of Ft. Myers Beach, and Sanibel is still off-limits. They say they're not sure if the Causeway is safe, but they've been saying that for the last 30 years, and I'm not kidding.
I'm just very happy that things are getting better every day. Governor Bush did a tour of the damage today, as did the new CIA director Porter Goss, who is from Sanibel. That's a slick way to see if you still got a roof on your house. President Bush will be there tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I've found a theme:
Erica Austin removes her pet bird from her home in Punta Gorda, Fla., where her father has painted a stern warning against looters.
There were many fatalities in Punta Gorda. Punta Gorda is 17 miles north of North Fort Myers.
The electricity's out all over Lee County and probably will be for days.
I still haven't heard from my family, but I'm sure they're fine. My sister's house is way out in the sticks on the flood plain that runs from Charlotte to Lee, so I know she wouldn't have stayed in her house. My brother and his family and my folks live two blocks apart in Tropic Isles. They might have gone over to North Fort Myers High School. So far no one is answering over at our church, Tropic Isles Baptist.
Evidently ain't none of my people learned how to use a telephone.
With a shotgun sitting on a chair beside him, Terry Frye sits in front of his home, which was devastated by Hurricane Charley in Port Charlotte, Fla. early Aug. 14, 2004. Frye scrawled a note on the wall behind him to protect his home and scare off looters.
UPDATE:
Mr. Cracker just called to tell me my sister-in-law called. She said the phones had just come on five minutes before. Her and my brother's family had been in their house the whole time, but the phones hadn't been working. She called to ask if my parents were with me. Uh, no...
So my folks hadn't swung by the two blocks to my brother's house to say where they were going, and they hadn't even left a note at their own house.
She called back a few minutes later to say that Mom and Dad were at her house now. They had gone to my sister's. The one that lives on a dirt road on a flood plain out in the boonies. Nobody could believe that they had gone out there as that would be nuts. I said they're crazy and inconsiderate, but Mr. Cracker is more charitable and said they had a lot on their minds.
So, the 'rents are home, safe and sound. Hallelujah.
UPDATE II:
The mayor has instituted curfew and banned the sale of alcohol. Governor Bush is in Fort Myers today, and President Bush will be arriving tomorrow.
It's been a rough day, so I'll bring it to a close with a light and soothing pic for our jangled nerves.
(Via TacJammer.)
Now here's some hurricane blogging:
We are taking no chances with the essentials, I believe we currently have 4 cases of beer and are wondering if it will be enough.
Rob of MoatesArt blog's got it covered. Pass the cheetos.
Deborah of In My Corner is also in Manatee, where Charley's expected to make landfall. Got enough snacks, Deb?
UPDATE:
Drunken Monkey is (What a shock!) partying too.
Kathy of On the Third Hand is blogging from Cape Coral.
UPDATE II:
From Rob:
It has just started to rain, very light rain, but rain none the less. A little breeze but we are still 3 hours from the time it is going to get interesting and 6 hours or more away from a landfall. But on the good news the homemade salsa and dip was just finished and the fresh bread will be done in 20 minutes. And most importantly the supply of fresh drinkable beer is very cold and holding steady.
That's a relief.
UPDATE III:
Now they're saying it's taken a little jog, and they're back to talking about Lee County again. Boo!
UPDATE IV:
It's Cat 4 and all the phone circuits to Fort Myers are busy.
UPDATE V:
Here's the webcam from Fort Myers Beach, and here's the Fort Myers News Press. Speaking of which:
UPDATE VI:
All roads in Lee County are closed. Charlie's 40 miles off Captiva.
The wind is really bad here. Might be a tad worse in Lee.
For local TV, here's WBBH. WINK isn't responding right now.
UPDATE VII:
From the News Press:
IMMINENT DANGER: Charley to strike Sanibel with 145 mph winds before crushing mainland
and now:
IMMINENT DANGER: Charley is over Captiva with 145 mph winds; will blitz mainland within the hour
They've evacuated the TV station, but the Doppler should still be working.
IMMINENT DANGER: Charley is over Pine Island with 145 mph winds; mainland siege is next
Channel 7's doing a live broadcast. You have to choose "live broadcast". There's no direct link. (Thanks Cindy.)
It's heading on into Charlotte.
Meanwhile, Deborah forgot to buy Sangria.
UPDATE VIII:
Uncommon Friends (Edison, Ford, Firestone statue, Downtown Fort Myers)
On Christmas in Cambodia:
"What are Americans to make of a presidential candidate whose life-altering moment was a figment of his imagination?"
John Kerry, the drama queen.
"Blogging from the Tampa Bay area"?
I guess nobody knows where we are. Either we've moved 120 miles north, or Tampa Bay has shifted that much south. National Geographic should send a team down here to explore and map the mysterious and unknown Lee County.
We're not on the ocean either.
Kerry's asked Douglas Brinkley to come to his rescue.
Now it's January in Cambodia. But January is so dull and lacking in emotional resonance.
Christmas sounded so much better.
I'd love to see a video of John Edwards trying out his hog call.
I'm really enjoying Kerry Spot at NRO. The author is a bit excitable for a professional writer, but the site has lots of interesting info and tidbits. Maybe this is the online journalism version of trying to fake a garage band sound?
In any case: two exclamation points up for the info.
I think everything will be fine with the hurricane. The last one to hit Fort Myers was Donna back in 1960, which doomed me to be part of the half of the girls in class named after the hurricane. There probably won't be a huge passel of Charlies being born next year, so enjoy the day off, everyone.
If you want to read about a hurricane, check out the one my folks had to deal with, the 1928 hurricane. Only the 1900 Galveston storm was worse.
I hope you brought enough for everyone, Breast Nazis.
Kerry went on secret missions to a place called Between-Cambodia-and-Vietnam. I'm officially designating this land "Kerrybodia". It's, as they say, more than a place: it's a state of mind.
From the Telegraph:
Yesterday, however, the Kerry campaign was left in verbal knots after a new book accused the senator of inventing stories about being sent, illegally, over the border into neutral Cambodia.
The Kerry campaign responded, initially, that Mr Kerry had always said he was "near" Cambodia. Then a campaign aide said Mr Kerry had been in the Mekong Delta "between" Vietnam and next-door Cambodia - a geographical zone not found on maps, which show the Mekong river running from Cambodia to Vietnam.
Meanwhile, another aide tells a tragic tale of early-onset Alzheimer's. What was once a searing memory, is now, sadly, just a whisp of smoke:
But today, on Fox News' "Fox and Friends," Kerry Campaign Advisor Jeh Johnson had this to say to the show's co-host Brian Kilmeade:
JOHNSON: John Kerry has said on the record that he had a mistaken recollection earlier. He talked about a combat situation on Christmas Eve 1968 which at one point he said occurred in Cambodia. He has since corrected the recorded to say it was some place on a river near Cambodia and he is certain that at some point subsequent to that he was in Cambodia. My understanding is that he is not certain about that date.
KILMEADE: I think the term was he had a searing memory of spending Christmas - back in 1986 in the senate floor in Cambodia.
JOHNSON: I believe he has corrected the record to say it was some place near Cambodia he is not certain whether it was in Cambodia but he is certain there was some point subsequent to that that he was in Cambodia.
He's caught in a trap but he doesn't seem the sort to chew his own foot off to get free. Who will save the solitary hero now?
The Blogs of War is tracking the Al Qaeda assassination story and will be updating.
Zev Chafets in the New York Daily News:
Unlike the debate over Kerry's medals, this is a matter that can be checked and verified. If it turns out Kerry was there, the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth are liars and their charges are, in the words of Kerry's friend John McCain, "dishonest and dishonorable." But if he wasn't there, the Kerry campaign is saddled with a problem it can't solve by calling Republicans names, threatening TV stations or even bringing up President Bush's less than stellar war record.
Kerry has staked his candidacy on Vietnam. His running mate has publicly invited the country to judge Kerry by listening to his comrades in arms. A lot of them, to Edwards' obvious chagrin, are saying that John Kerry is unfit for command.
If it turns out he made up the story of Christmas in Cambodia, they could very well be right.
Time for some checking and verifying. Kerry can release his records and clear this all up.
As far as I can tell, the only thing that's seared--seared--in his memory is the movie "Apocalypse Now".
Here's Duane chilling out in the studio during one of the Layla sessions. That opening guitar-riff on the song Layla?
That's Duane playing, and he wrote that part. Now all of y'all know for sure you've heard him.
Wail on, Skydog!
Big John sends a shout-out to his fellow-townies Kathy K. of On the Third Hand and Bill of INDC Journal.
He says he loves y'all's blogs and that he'll start blogging himself as soon as he can find a big enough keyboard. He also says he misses y'all dancing nekkid and sacrificing a bull at his feet at Summer Solstice.
I keep checking Google news to see what headway this story is making. The Chicago Sun-Times is weighing in on it:
Even if the major media decided to bury this story, they would probably not succeed -- and they know as much. The "blogosphere" -- that voluntary society of unpaid free-lance journalists -- is following the story avidly, correcting errors, producing original documents, sifting through different accounts. Some bloggers are for Kerry, some against, but all are together advancing the story by winnowing truth from falsehood. Unless the bloggers conclusively acquit Kerry before the story migrates outwards, the mainstream media will eventually be forced to devote serious resources to it.
Better start devoting those serious resources to it, because as late as last year Kerry was still telling this whopper.
There's a WAPO article I saw over at Country Store that has to be seen to be believed. Every paragraph is a new revelation of Kerry's strangeness:
A close associate hints: There's a secret compartment in Kerry's briefcase. He carries the black attaché everywhere. Asked about it on several occasions, Kerry brushed it aside. Finally, trapped in an interview, he exhaled and clicked open his case.
"Who told you?" he demanded as he reached inside. "My friends don't know about this."
The hat was a little mildewy. The green camouflage was fading, the seams fraying.
"My good luck hat," Kerry said, happy to see it. "Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia."
Kerry put on the hat, pulling the brim over his forehead. His blue button-down shirt and tie clashed with the camouflage. He pointed his finger and raised his thumb, creating an imaginary gun. He looked silly, yet suddenly his campaign message was clear: Citizen-soldier. Linking patriotism to public service. It wasn't complex after all; it was Kerry.
He smiled and aimed his finger: "Pow."
----------
John Kerry: Hunter, Dreamer, Realist
Complexity Infuses Senator's Ambition
By Laura Blumenfeld
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 1, 2003; Page A01
John Kerry eats dove. Even better, he shoots them. From behind the stalks of a Southern cornfield, he'll watch them flutter and dart, and fire.
"You clean them. Let them hang. It takes three or four birds to have a meal," said the Massachusetts senator. "You might eat it at a picnic, cold roasted. I love dove."
Dove, quail, duck, deer. Kerry described how to hunt and gut them, talking as he sliced through a steak at midnight after campaigning all day in Iowa for the Democratic presidential nomination. Carve out the heart, he said over dinner, pull out the entrails and cut up the meat. Bad table manners, perhaps, or good politics. After Sept. 11, 2001, some Democrats argue, they can't take the White House if they sound like doves. That is not a problem for the dove hunter. Kerry, 59, is the only combat veteran in the field. He stands 6-foot-4. He rides a Harley, plays ice hockey, snowboards, windsurfs, kitesurfs, and has such thick, aggressive hair he uses a brush with metal teeth.
"That's our slogan," quipped his ad man, Jim Margolis. "John Kerry: He's no weenie."
"He doesn't need a consultant to tell him how to dress like an alpha male," said his friend Ivan Schlager. "He is a damn alpha male."
It is more complex than that, though. With Kerry it often is. Yes, his message is the hard-line "stronger, safer, more secure America." But there's another part of his message, and it borders on the sentimental. "We have to get back to dreaming again," he told Democratic activists in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Echoing Robert F. Kennedy, he often closes with the line, "I'm running for president of the United States because I really believe it is time for this country to ask again, 'Why not?' "
In a series beginning today, The Washington Post will examine all nine Democratic presidential candidates: their campaign messages, the roots of their ambition, their ability to connect with voters. On all three counts, Kerry is nuanced and often misconstrued. What makes him compelling as a person makes him vulnerable to opponents who say he lacks clarity as a candidate.
Kerry's complexity has been an issue since his national debut in 1971. He became famous for a war within himself: He had fought in Vietnam and came, reluctantly, to believe the war was wrong. As spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" The senators were awed by the young man's poise and by his Bronze Star, Silver Star and three Purple Hearts. He was a hero. Complexity worked the first time around.
It is much tougher now, as he presents himself as both a dreamer and a realist, an old liberal and a new Democrat, for the war in Iraq and yet troubled by it. While other White House hopefuls lined up for or against Iraq, Kerry voted for the war and then criticized the president for failing at diplomacy.
"It's the natural reluctance of a soldier to put young Americans in harm's way," said fellow Vietnam veteran and former senator Max Cleland (D-Ga.).
But Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), one of Kerry's competitors, accused him of being "ambivalent" when the country needed leadership. Republican strategist Richard Galen said, "People who were disappointed by the Gore campaign sniff another Gore coming because he doesn't have any clear message."
Kerry always has enjoyed breaking down issues, arguing all sides for sport, like a game of mental racquetball. While his Yale roommates played cards, he'd be refining a debate-team speech. He still debates his staff for fun, often playing devil's advocate against himself. Sitting on his office balcony at the Senate, he scribbles speeches on yellow pads. Occasionally, he'll even write poems, like the one he reluctantly read to a reporter: "I had a talk with a deer today/ we met upon the road some way . . . between his frequent snorts/He asked me if I sought his pelt/cause if I did he said he felt/quite out of sorts!"
He has been testing his writing talent on the campaign trail. Some lines have worked, such as: "Never before has so much had to be done in America and so little asked of Americans." Others have not, like his call for a "regime change" at home during the Iraq war. "It showed a political tin ear," said Merle Black, a professor of politics at Emory University. More likely, it showed a man stumbling on his love for a turn of phrase.
"The most important thing with message is staying on it -- which I didn't do," said former senator and presidential candidate Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.), when asked about Kerry. "I liked to ramble around. Have a little fun."
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Kerry's advisers have urged him not to ramble, to speak less about issues and more about his life. At a recent gathering of Democrats in Duncan, S.C., Kerry promised he'd make America safer. Then he touched on his usual themes of health care, energy independence, progressive internationalism, creating jobs while protecting the environment.
He finished with a smile that held until a man raised his hand to speak.
"I'm sorry to say -- that won't be able to beat Bush," said Elvis Muhaabwa, 52. "Bush is a one-topic man. He's going to hammer it in our ears. Even if it's not true, we will believe it."
"I understand you have to boil it down," Kerry said, his voice ratcheting up. "But I'm here, talking to smart Democrats."
Afterward, Muhaabwa said, "After he leaves, he'll be thinking about what I said."
That's where Muhaabwa was wrong. Because when Kerry left, he drove to the airport and climbed into the pilot's seat of a twin-engine Cessna. The cautious politician gave way to the other Kerry. This was Primal John, the pilot who flies barrel rolls, who relaxes by windsurfing in a squall, who ran with the bulls at Pamplona and, when trampled, got up, chased the bull, and grabbed for its horns.
Now Kerry revved the plane's engines, clamped on his headset, cracked a joke about the Red Sox and rumbled down the strip.
"This is Five Papa Juliet at 120 degrees, climbing to 7,500 feet," he told the control tower as the ground dropped away.
As the tiny plane bumped and shook, he looked more and more relaxed. Flying to his next campaign stop, he chatted about maneuvers to avoid flak in combat.
The political flak he'd just taken was far from his mind. Throttle, propeller, speed, fuel: Kerry was happily in the moment. He turned the plane to dodge a threatening cloud. There were no ambiguities. It was simple.
"I Want to Win!'
Jacket off, shades on, Kerry stretched out on a park bench in Charleston, S.C., his head and feet sticking off the bench at both ends. "We need your help, man. Rally the troops," he said into his cell phone. "I want to win!"
Kerry was on a fundraising jag, dialing supporters between campaign stops. He has excelled at raising money, at creating a national campaign network, and at hiring top consultants. First to announce his candidacy, he's been unambiguous about his ambition.
To get from that Charleston bench to the roots of Kerry's ambition, roll back 50 years to postwar Europe, to a boy riding alone on a train. Kerry, the son of a Berlin-based American diplomat, was sent to a Swiss boarding school at age 11. If he wanted to go home, he had to take a train to Zurich, switch trains to Frankfurt, then switch to a military train that passed through communist Berlin.
"Your blinds had to be down as you traveled through the forbidden east sector," Kerry said in an interview. "I'd peek, pick up the blinds. Soldiers would rap with their gun barrel -- you have to pull down the shades."
---------
Two things happened to the boy. He biked around, saw the rubble of Hitler's bunker, sneaked into bleak East Berlin (until his father found out and grounded him), and was awakened to the impact politics had on people's lives. Second, he kept on challenging himself -- bigger adventures, greater dares.
"When you travel alone at age 12," he said, "you gain confidence and self-reliance."
Often on his own, he tested his survival skills. He biked through France, took the ferry from Norway to England, camped alone in Sherwood Forest. His wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, explained: "It's like, he's landed a jet: 'I can control. I know how to do it. I'm safe.' " He took risks to feel safe? Kerry likes to quote the French writer Andre Gide: "Don't try to understand me too quickly."
By the time Kerry arrived in New Hampshire at St. Paul's boarding school -- his seventh school by eighth grade; his family moved around -- his need for challenges and his interest in public affairs expressed itself in politics. A Catholic Democrat in a predominantly Republican Protestant school, he represented John F. Kennedy in a debate during the 1960 campaign.
Lloyd MacDonald, the class president, stood in for Richard M. Nixon: "John was very ambitious. As far as John was concerned, he expected to be president of the United States. I wanted to be president, too, but I never would have admitted it. It was at odds with prevailing notions of what was cool."
Kerry volunteered for Edward M. Kennedy's 1962 Senate race. He broadcast from a loudspeaker on his Volkswagen Beetle, "Kennedy for Senate." Then he added, "And Kerry for dogcatcher!" At Yale, classmates teased him about his initials, "JFK." The F was for Forbes, his mother's old-line New England family.
"John was from a prominent family, but he wasn't wealthy" compared to his peers, said his friend George Butler. Kerry loaded trucks in a grocery warehouse and sold encyclopedias door to door. "He was a little bit of an outsider because he had to work during college summers. It gives you tremendous drive to make up for it."
After Yale, Kerry volunteered for the Navy. He returned from Vietnam with his faith in the government shaken. He felt betrayed; his friends had died in the war. In 1972, he ran for Congress as a "peace candidate," campaigning so relentlessly that once when an aide came to pick him up, he found Kerry asleep in the shower. Kerry lost, but he won as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1982 and as senator in 1984. The same avenging anger that animated him after Vietnam shaped his work on the Hill. Rather than focusing on legislative matters, he went after government corruption. In 2000, he considered running for president and was a finalist as a running mate for Al Gore. It wasn't his time, but there was no question of his ultimate goal.
Now, he's competing in the extreme sport of politics, running for president. "He thrives on stress and pressure," said former senator Timothy E. Wirth (D-Colo.). "I said, 'The Republicans have 250 million dollars, it's going to be relentless.' He smiled and said, 'Bring it on.' " He's reflexively competitive, the first into freezing water, the skier with the fastest time. Excelling was the Kerry family ethic, starting with his father, who taught young John to sail while wearing blinders so he'd learn to navigate in the fog. It wasn't enough that John's pet parakeet could say, "Hello." He taught it to squawk in Italian and French.
His adventures, he said, are not reckless. "The things I do are completely in control, up to my ability," Kerry said firmly. "They're not big adrenaline rushes. More like meditations. Doing things correct is relaxing, rewarding. Fun, fun, fun. If you're doing aerobatics, it's very simple fun."
"It must be part chemical," said his wife. "Look at him. He's a total string bean. I mean, he's wired, bzzzzzz. In Portuguese you say fulminante, it means you're revved up. Why did he have to take up kitesurfing now? Not just windsurfing. It's so dangerous. And the guitar lessons! Why does he have to learn guitar at this time of his life? He challenges himself."
On a recent afternoon in his Senate office, Kerry was challenging himself with a piece of Spanish classical guitar music. "It's very hard," he said, mid-strum. "I broke one of my nails."
His hand raced up and down the neck of his guitar, his fingers working the frets.
"We've got to go, John," his chief of staff said.
-------------
He tried another song, picking the opening notes of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina."
Another staffer cleared his throat.
"Oh, you'll like this," Kerry said, ignoring him, playing the theme song from "Love Story."
His press secretary interrupted, "Senator, the car's waiting. . . ."
Just one more song. A Beatles tune from 1965. He strummed the guitar and belted: "Yesterday. . . ."
'This Guy's Not Personable?'
Kerry's face appeared at the door to the Iowa Scott County Democrats dinner.
Mike Boland, 60, an activist, whispered, "I heard he's aloof."
Kerry stepped into the crowd, planting his big hands on workingmen's shoulders, quizzing students about their majors, telling a woman about the time his daughter's pet frog jumped on his nose. He waved, hugged, guffawed and sat knee to knee with a grandmother. Boland said: "This guy's not personable? What a phony issue."
Yet it has been an issue, especially with journalists, all the way back to yellowing newspaper clips of 1971, which describe Kerry in such terms as "slick," "too pretty," "ambitious," "opportunistic."
John Norris, Kerry's state director in Iowa, said he isn't worried: "The East Coast press uses the word 'aloof.' It's been an asset, because Iowans come with low expectations."
Kerry appreciates the irony. "I'll say thank you to every journalist who wrote [expletive] articles about me," he joked. Then he added, "I plead guilty to being a little brash when I first got into politics. I wish they had a delete button on LexisNexis."
There is something about him, "the Kerry effect," that provokes a visceral response. He is too towering, too confident and too rich (his wife's fortune exceeds half a billion dollars) for people to walk away indifferent. As one Kerry friend said, "People see him and say, 'Geez, I'm short, bald, stupid and poor.' " They feel either swept away or swept aside. When he smiles, one on one, people literally squint and blink; when he doesn't, light carves shadows in his face and his deep-set eyes sink into the dark. At a house party in Florence, S.C., the women giggled, charmed by the way he pronounced "y'all," and said he looked like GI Joe. The men anointed him the next JFK.
But even in Massachusetts, polls have put his job approval rating ahead of his personal popularity rating. His friend Dan Barbiero said it comes down to Kerry's complexity: "There's still a lot of idealism in John. It's corny and people tend to be cynical, and coming from this big, patrician-looking man you wouldn't expect it. You look at him and say, 'He's putting this on.' "
It's been a hard rap to overcome in part because Kerry is reserved. He inherited it from his mother, along with her devotion to public service. "She taught us you stiff-upper-lip it," said his sister, Diana Kerry. "John is a man of the people. Of the little people, actually. He needs to project who he really is by simplifying."
And who is he, really?
A close associate hints: There's a secret compartment in Kerry's briefcase. He carries the black attaché everywhere. Asked about it on several occasions, Kerry brushed it aside. Finally, trapped in an interview, he exhaled and clicked open his case.
"Who told you?" he demanded as he reached inside. "My friends don't know about this."
The hat was a little mildewy. The green camouflage was fading, the seams fraying.
"My good luck hat," Kerry said, happy to see it. "Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia."
Kerry put on the hat, pulling the brim over his forehead. His blue button-down shirt and tie clashed with the camouflage. He pointed his finger and raised his thumb, creating an imaginary gun. He looked silly, yet suddenly his campaign message was clear: Citizen-soldier. Linking patriotism to public service. It wasn't complex after all; it was Kerry.
He smiled and aimed his finger: "Pow."
The lies are catching up to him. John, you got some splainin' to do.
From the Washington Times:
Why is any of this important? Mr. Kerry has made his Vietnam experiences the focal point in his campaign. Indeed, the candidate wants voters to judge his Vietnam service as reflecting the qualities needed in a commander in chief. It is not Mr. Kerry's detractors who have placed Vietnam at the forefront of the campaign, it is Mr. Kerry himself. As such, his testimonials both during and after his tour should be subject to verification and debate.
Moreover, it is not beyond the realm of the media to discover whether or not Mr. Kerry was truthful on the floor of the Senate, nor should it be beyond Mr. Kerry to answer such a charge. The inconsistencies in Mr. Kerry's Cambodia story should be explained, either by an inquisitive press corps or by the Kerry campaign itself.
(Cartoon via Country Store and Iowa Presidential Watch.)
President Bush has chosen Lee Countian Porter Goss as head of the CIA. Here's to his great success against the bad guys:
In the early 1970s, an almost deadly staph infection forced him to retire to Sanibel, Fla., where retired CIA officers who had made the coastal community their home had convinced him to come for recovery. Each day, he tried to walk to the ocean as part of his rehabilitation.
Ha! Long walk. The ocean's on the other side of the State.
Never go on a road trip with AP writer Terence Hunt.
Liberal Larry's done the math and thinks Audie Murphy was a slacker who's got nothing on Kerry:
Audie Murphy was the most decorated American soldier of WW2. He was awarded every medal for valor the military had, including a Purple Heart with two clusters. This guy would kill 14 Germans with a pen knife while sitting on the latrine. Yet it took him THREE (count 'em) YEARS to get all those medals. Three years for John Kerry would factor out to 27 Purple Hearts and 7 Congressional Medals of Honor. He'd have so many Bronze and Silver Stars, they'd have to start pinning them on John Edwards.
I do believe Teresa is puttin' on the hawg. It must be from scarfing all those "nasty" pumpkin spice cookies.
Saddam spends his days tending his garden, writing poems about President Bush, and like Algernon in "The Importance of Being Earnest", consoling himself with muffins. Now you know.
Those evil Bushes,
My shoe is better than them.
Do I smell muffins?
(Via FR.)
This is a great article on the recovery process of Ohio Reservist Jessica Clements, who was horribly wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq. After having only a two percent chance of survival, she has left the hospital under her own steam.
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Back from Iraq one step at a time
Maura Lerner
August 8, 2004 JESSICA0808
In early June, Jessica Clements woke up in her hospital bed to an alarming sensation.
She could feel pain, barely dulled by morphine, throughout her left hip and backside. Her head throbbed. She could hardly move.
Chances are, she didn’t even notice the strange lump in her abdomen.
Woozy and confused, she saw her mother at her bedside. “Mom, did somebody beat me up?”
Her mother, Kim Wyatt, had a ready answer.
“You’re in the United States,” she said gently. “You’re not in Iraq. You’re safe. We’re here to take care of you.” Moments later, Jessica nodded off to sleep.
The next day, when Jessica woke up with more questions, her mom gave the same answer.
It was just about all the truth that Jessica could handle, her doctors figured. At least for now.
In truth, her mother knew only part of the story of what had happened to Jessica Clements.
A month earlier, a truck carrying Jessica, a 27-year-old Army Reservist from Akron, Ohio, had strayed into the path of a roadside bomb near Baghdad. She spent the next three weeks in a coma. By the time she was airlifted to a military hospital in Washington, D.C., on May 15, her mother was told she had only a 2 percent chance of surviving.
As Jessica lay in her hospital bed in Washington, the gauze strips couldn't hide what had become her most striking feature: a dent on the side of her head where nearly half of her skull used to be. It was her most visible scar, one that doctors could fix -- if she survived.
Wyatt knew her daughter had defied the odds. But nobody could say what Jessica's traumatic brain injury would do to her thinking, her personality and the life she once knew. And what memories might have been erased by the roadside bomb?
This summer, the search for answers would bring them both to Minneapolis and the Veterans Medical Center near Fort Snelling.
Jessica, a bubbly young woman with a thirst for adventure, had joined the Army Reserve at age 18, before she finished high school. She signed up one day when recruiters came to school. Her mother thought she was joking. Her friends teased that she'd never last. In boot camp, she got in trouble for smiling too much. But she loved it and thrived, especially on the camaraderie. By 2001, she was promoted to staff sergeant.
In civilian life, she had dallied with careers -- she did a little modeling, danced in a music video, got a degree in massage therapy, tended bar and thought about becoming a nurse. Along the way, she fell in love with a history teacher named Greg Ramos and got a job selling mortgages. Her one constant was the Army. She fully expected to serve 20 years as a part-time soldier and earn her pension at 38.
So in April 2003, when her contract was up, she reenlisted. With the war in Iraq, no one was getting out, anyway. She told her mother: If I go, I go.
In January, she went. She was sent to Baghdad to drive fuel trucks with her unit -- the 706th Transportation Company from Mansfield, Ohio. She expected to be "in country" for a year.
She was stationed in the town of Taji, about 15 miles north of Baghdad, and the first thing that struck her was the poverty. People living in trash dumps in the shadow of palaces. Ridiculous, she thought.
Little boys by the side of the road yelled: "Beautiful, give us water, give us money, give us candy." A little girl with a pink dress and haunting brown eyes shouted, "Madame, Madame," in hopes of a handout. The soldiers were warned not to toss anything to them because the kids would run into the road. But on her last convoy, Jessica told friends, she was going to buy a bunch of candy and food and throw it to them.
Desert hazards
In the Iraqi desert, Jessica learned to stretch her socks over the tops of her Army boots at night to keep the scorpions out.
It was just one of the hazards the soldiers had to live with, like the heat and the roadside bombs.
In Iraq, everyone drove down the middle of the road, hoping to avoid the hidden bombs. The soldiers watched for signs -- maybe a shirt hanging from a tree -- that might serve as warnings for the local children. Once, Jessica's convoy was held up for hours, waiting for a bomb squad to check out a suspicious pile of rocks. The blasts were so common, and so loud, that she started wearing earplugs.
She didn't mention all her close calls in letters to her mother. She once e-mailed home a picture of herself, grinning atop her fuel tanker, reading her hometown newspaper. That's the side she wanted to show. As her mom's May 6 birthday approached, Jessica decided to surprise her with a bouquet of tulips, a necklace and a bracelet ordered on the Internet. With any luck, they would arrive right on time.
On May 5, Jessica and her platoon were headed for the Baghdad airport, sitting on sandbags in a convoy of gun trucks. She had packed her rucksack for an overnight trip. They were to meet a plane, fly to Kuwait to pick up new fuel tankers and drive them back. Before the platoon left the base, her commander came over with a gray-haired civilian who needed a ride to the airport. Jessica helped the 57-year-old Texan, Russ Contractor, into the truck and sat down beside him for what was to have been an hourlong drive.
The phone call
Back in Ohio, Jessica's mother was working her shift as a cook in a nursing home. That day, the news from Iraq was all about the prisoner-abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib. But Kim Wyatt had pretty much given up on the news. When her middle daughter left for Iraq, Wyatt became consumed with worry. She started watching the TV news obsessively, until she realized it was making her crazy. She had to stop thinking about it.
On May 5, she was getting ready for a week off. The next day was her birthday. She had no big plans for the week, just painting the kitchen.
Around 10:30 in the morning, someone told her she had a phone call in the office.
Wyatt picked up the phone -- and went numb. It could have been a major or a general; she doesn't remember. All she heard was that her daughter had been in an accident. She dropped the phone and ran down the hall, crying. The moment she screamed, everyone knew.
Some of her co-workers ran after her. "You have to calm down," they said. "The man on the phone needs to talk to you."
Her legs buckled as she picked up the phone.
"Is she alive?" she managed to ask.
"Yes," came the reply. "She's alive."
On life support
Jessica was in a coma when she arrived at the 31st Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad. On something called the Glasgow coma scale, she was rated a 3 -- the lowest possible score. The same as someone dead on arrival.
She was placed on life support and rushed into surgery.
In the operating room, Lt. Col. Jeff Poffenbarger, a neurosurgeon, took stock of her injuries. Shrapnel had ripped into her head, her hip, her backside. In her head, three large veins were bleeding dangerously.
The surgeon created an opening to the brain by removing the right half of her skull. He stopped the bleeding and cleaned the tissue around her wounds. But it was too risky to remove some of the shrapnel in her brain.
He also knew it was too dangerous to replace the skull section immediately. With her brain swelling, it could prove fatal to do so. So he created a "pocket" in her abdomen and stored the skull bone under a protective layer of tissue.
It's a rare surgical technique used to preserve a skull section while the patient recovers. It leaves the patient's brain largely unprotected, covered only by layers of skin, until the bone can be reattached.
Now, all anyone could do was hope Jessica stayed alive long enough to get out of Baghdad.
Waiting game
In Akron, Wyatt packed her bags and waited with her husband, Chris, Jessica's stepfather, for the next phone call. Their home filled with friends and relatives. Strangers brought food. At any moment, they expected to hear that Jessica was on her way to Landstuhl, Germany, where the U.S. military has a hospital. Wyatt was planning to meet her there.
On the second day of her vigil, a delivery came to the door. It was the bouquet of tulips, the necklace and the bracelet that Jessica had ordered on the Internet.
Wyatt, who turned 49 that day, collapsed on the dining-room floor.
For her and her family, every hour took its toll. They called Germany each day, hoping for news.
On the eighth day, she got a call. But it wasn't what she expected.
Jessica was going to Germany for just 18 hours, long enough to stabilize her for a longer trip. She was headed for Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the preeminent hospital for injured soldiers.
There's a chance Jessica won't survive the trip, Wyatt was told.
With every second counting, Wyatt and her husband and about a dozen others, including Jessica's boyfriend, Greg, set out on a six-hour drive in a convoy of cars.
'Come right away'
Once in Washington, the family resumed waiting. Then the hospital called and said: "Come right away."
Her mother feared the worst. "We thought that was it."
Jessica had arrived at Walter Reed on May 15, still in a coma. Little, it seemed, had changed since Baghdad. There was no sign that she could see or hear or respond to anyone or anything.
The doctors asked Wyatt to bring in her daughter's living will. "The worst thing I ever did in my life," she said later. "It felt like I was giving permission to just let her die."
Standing in the doorway of the hospital room, Wyatt didn't recognize her daughter. All she saw was a maze of tubes and bandages and swelling.
She and the others took turns staying by Jessica's side 24 hours a day, holding her hand. Her mother remembered hearing somewhere to keep talking to someone in a coma.
"Jess," she would say, "if you can hear us, can you please squeeze our hands?"
Several days after she arrived, Wyatt was holding her daughter's limp right hand.
She felt something rub across her palm.
It was Jessica's thumb.
Wyatt's heart leapt. When she told the doctor, he dismissed it as a muscle reflex.
"Patient will likely be [in a] persistent vegetative state," one doctor wrote five days after Jessica's arrival.
Wyatt felt as if she was nearing a breakdown. Then another mother took her aside. Her son, a soldier, was on the same floor, recovering from a brain injury. The woman grabbed Wyatt by the shoulders. "We were told the same thing," she said. "Don't you dare give up. Don't even think for one minute that she's not going to make it."
Signs of life
That was no reflex. Her mother was sure of it.
"Hey, look!" Wyatt said as her daughter's thumb rubbed against her hand again. This time, the nurse saw it too.
"Did you really see it?" asked a doctor.
"Yes," said the nurse. "I did."
When the doctor asked Jessica to do it again, nothing happened. But when her mother or boyfriend asked, her thumb moved unmistakably.
Jessica's senses began to tingle to life. On her ninth day at Walter Reed, she blinked her eyes on command. On the 11th day, she held a pen and wrote a note, asking that the tube in her throat be removed. On the 13th day, she mouthed the words, "Thank you."
For Wyatt, it was like watching her daughter reborn. One doctor came to her in tears, she later recalled, and said: "I just don't understand it. She's improving every day." The medical experts were astonished.
The mirror
The first time Jessica saw her reflection, she cried. The sight of her indented skull haunted her. When a nurse marveled at the progress she was making, Jessica shook her head. She took the nurse's hand and placed it on her head.
Are you concerned, the nurse asked, with how you look?
Jessica nodded.
When you're ready, the nurse explained, you can have surgery to fix that.
Still, no one was ready to tell her what had really happened. The doctors thought it best to give brief, simple answers. Call it an accident. Tell her she's safe. You never know how she might react.
One day, pieces of the truth slipped out.
As Jessica lay, apparently asleep, her mother talked to a nurse. She said that the doctors hadn't expected her daughter to live.
Suddenly, Jessica hit her.
"Mom!" she said. "What do you mean I almost didn't make it?"
Her mother looked back. "Honey, you were hurt really bad."
That's as far as she was willing to go. But for Jessica, it was only the beginning. Before long, she'd want some answers.
A hurried question
Like Wyatt, 28-year-old Greg Ramos had seldom left Jessica's side since she arrived at Walter Reed.
They had met four years ago, when Jessica was tending bar. Flirtatious and outgoing, she was a magnet for customers. Ramos, an eighth-grade history teacher, was shy, but he asked for her phone number.
"I don't give out my number to customers," she told him. "But you can give me yours."
They had dated ever since, and they shared a home.
He bought the ring when she was in Iraq. He had planned to pop the question when she returned with her unit in 2005.
He brought the ring to the hospital, just in case. "I should have done it before," he told himself. Now he watched for a sign that she was herself, so he would know she could answer honestly.
One day, when he was trying to cheer her up, she used a flip phrase -- a kind of "whoop-de-do" -- that she had always used before. As soon as she said it, everyone laughed. "We knew she was herself," he said later.
One Sunday in early June, when everyone else had gone home, he felt the moment was right. He pulled out the ring and proposed at her bedside.
She said yes. And once again, they were planning for the future.
Jessica's life was out of danger. But there was still no telling how much had changed.
Brain injuries can transform people in both glaring and subtle ways. Often it's only later that victims begin to discover what they have lost forever and what can be nurtured back to health.
For Jessica Clements, that journey began in Minneapolis.
On to Minnesota
On June 21, six weeks after she almost died, Jessica was strapped to a gurney and wheeled onto a military plane for the trip to the Minneapolis Veterans Medical Center. It is one of four centers in the Veterans Health Administration that specialize in brain injury rehabilitation.
In the past year and a half, the Minneapolis center has treated 12 other service members critically wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, all with severe brain injuries. Some have also lost limbs or eyesight or both.
Compared with them, Jessica felt lucky, even though she still couldn't sit up on her own or walk or even hold a plastic foam cup of water.
Here, she faced a battery of tests and exercises designed to challenge her body and mind. In spite of constant pain, headaches, waves of nausea and dizziness, she threw herself into it. She wore a hockey helmet to protect her head.
"It's frustrating," she told therapist Michelle Peterson one day in early July, struggling to keep her balance during physical therapy. "I don't know what my hips are doing."
Peterson had Jessica walk back and forth, then spin her head from side to side while reading an eye chart. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Like I'm going to throw up," Jessica said.
Most evenings, after a full day of therapy, she collapsed in bed from exhaustion.
Borrowed memories
She could remember the scorpions, the girl in the pink dress, posing for pictures in Iraq.
She could not remember "the accident." When her Army friends called from Iraq, she grilled them with questions. Was anyone else hurt? Was she wearing her helmet? Was she awake when the medics arrived?
Each time, it was like hearing a story about someone else. She soaked up the details, hoping one of them would spark a memory.
Nothing did.
She couldn't even remember packing her rucksack for the trip. She felt guilty. How could she forget something like this? "I can understand not remembering getting hit, getting blown up," she said. "But it's hard, because I can't remember the day before."
In the movies, people who are slammed on the head get amnesia -- they forget who they are and everyone they ever knew. It's just the opposite in real life, said Donald MacLennan, a speech therapist on the Minneapolis center's brain injury team. With head injuries, the old memories are rarely affected. It's making new ones that's the problem. Typically, no one remembers the incident that caused the injury. Instead, victims end up turning other people's memories into their own.
Physically, Jessica rallied with each day. She took a walk outside -- her first -- clutching a walker and inhaling fresh air for the first time. She could smell every flower.
Rubbing the scar on her abdomen, she could feel the missing piece of her skull poking into her skin. She called it "my belly head." She had lost 25 pounds from her 5-foot-5 frame and was down to a featherweight 101 pounds. The bulge was starting to show like an off-kilter pregnancy. She was getting antsy to get it out.
She could feel herself getting stronger, the nausea and headaches fading. She lifted weights, baked cookies, played memory games -- did anything they asked her to do. By mid-July, she abandoned her walker for a cane.
A stranger's visit
That same week, a stranger from Texas called. His name was Russ Contractor. He said he had been sitting next to Jessica when her truck hit the roadside bomb. Jessica, he said, had saved his life. Now he was back in the United States for a week. Could he pay her a visit?
A visit? Of course, she said. But she added: "Don't have hurt feelings if I don't remember you, because my memory isn't real good."
Her mother, who had hardly left her side in three months, was encouraging. "Hopefully, this guy can clear some things up for you."
"I don't think it will," Jessica replied.
Privately, her mom feared that it just might. What if seeing him brings it all back? What if she starts to panic?
Wyatt might have to ask him to leave if it came to that.
Contractor arrived with flowers on a Saturday afternoon, July 17. When Jessica's mother greeted him at the nurses' station, he fought back tears. They embraced. "I'm sorry. I'm too emotional," he said softly.
Wyatt took his hand and led him to Jessica's room.
He braced himself and entered. "Hello, Beautiful," he said. "Do you remember me?"
Jessica studied his face. Her smile was polite, but a bit strained.
"Russ, I'm sorry, I don't remember anything."
He smiled back. "Well, we talk about it. See if you can remember."
And he started to tell Jessica her story.
"You were at Taji, you know that?" he began. "And you were going to Kuwait."
Contractor, a civilian with the Defense Department, said he was hitching a ride on her convoy to Baghdad International Airport. The commander, he said, told her to take care of him. And she did.
They were sitting together on the floorboard, chatting and joking about 3 miles from the airport when the bomb went off.
Everyone checked to see if they were hurt. They thought no one was.
And then Jessica fell over onto his lap.
"I fell on you? Did I hurt you?" she interrupted from her hospital bed.
"No, honey," he said tenderly. But you were bleeding badly, he said.
At first, he said, she didn't have a pulse. Then she opened her eyes. She looked at him and said, "Are you OK?"
He held her in his lap until the medics came.
"I don't know what happened, Jessica," he said, his voice breaking. "We were eight or nine of us in the truck. You were the only one who got hurt, and you were the most cheerful."
If not for her, he added, the shrapnel surely would have hit him.
"It's OK," she told him. "I would do it all over again."
"I understand, hon," he said.
"It's my job," she said.
Contractor paused. "You still don't remember me, huh?"
"I don't remember ... even getting ready for that convoy," she said. "... I thought maybe if I got to see you, it would help me remember. But nothing's coming."
He told her that after the incident, he had tried to find her in Baghdad. And that everyone at his office knew about the woman soldier who had saved his life.
Later, he told Jessica that he was heading back to Baghdad that evening.
"Be careful over there," she said.
"I'll be doubly careful after what happened," he replied.
'Not ready yet'
There was, Jessica said later, something unusual about her encounter with Russ Contractor. "He didn't seem like a complete stranger, but I didn't recognize him," she said. Yet the accident was still a blank.
"I guess my mind's not ready yet," she went on. "I pretty much know all the facts right now. But there's still a big empty space up there. They said I may not remember the actual explosion. That's fine with me. Maybe it's better I don't."
But back home in Ohio, along with thousands of cards from well-wishers, is a box of her belongings shipped from Iraq. She asked her family not to open it. Inside is the rucksack she packed the night before her last convoy.
"I can't wait to open it and see what's in there," she said. Just maybe, something inside will spark an elusive memory. "I don't know if it might help. Maybe not. But maybe so."
Nine days ago, Jessica headed back to Walter Reed to await the surgery to put her "belly head" back where it belongs. She left the Minneapolis hospital under her own power, carrying a backpack, pulling a suitcase she packed herself. There's no evidence of any lasting brain damage, her doctors say, though it may be a long time before they are absolutely certain.
There's little doubt that, come next year, she'll be walking down the aisle without help.
"Remarkable," said Dr. Larisa Kusar, her VA physician.
"A miracle," said her mother.
On her way out of the hospital, Jessica paused at the room of another young soldier injured in combat. She hugged his mother and then turned to him.
"Stay positive, OK?" she said. "You get strong. No matter how bad it hurts, you keep going. That's how you have to do it.
"We're soldiers. That's what we do best."
The memory of
Christmas in Cambodia
Is seared--seared--in me.
Hey, Planned Parenthood's "Choice Chick" looks just like Janeane Garofalo.
(Via The Corner.)
Speed of Thought is keeping us up-to-date on the upcoming CBS holiday special "John Kerry: Christmas in Cambodia", with special guest Boston Globe reporter/Kerry biographer Michael Kranish. Special musical guest: Mr. Charles Cong. Check your listings.
"So then Teresa Heinz Kerry says to the girl scout..."
(Via What's A Kyer?)
I've added the excellent Gatorland Gatorcam to the sidebar. The viewer is able to manipulate the cameras to get the desired view of thrilling realtime alligator action. Somebody really did some fabulous work on this webcam.
The entire Gatorland website is terrific. It's jam-packed with gator pics, gator info, gator quizzes of varying difficulty for young and old, and has an enthralling timeline of Gatorland history. In 1995, for instance, they started "Gator Nights":
An "awesome Florida Cracker experience." The two-hour gala begins at 8:00 with a miniature train ride to Pearl's Smokehouse. Cracker delicacies include smoked barbecue chicken and gator snacks. After dinner comes gator-wrestling entertainment. The finale is a boardwalk tour, where everyone can feast their eyes in wonder at hundreds of beady red gator eyes in surrounding waters. A fiddler and banjo picker entertain, Cracker-style, at the nighttime swamp party."
Woot! Let's go! The site also has a bulletin board, internet gatorcards, and descriptions of the shows, including one of Florida Cracker-style gator wrestlin' and the famous Gator Jumparoo. Be sure to go on the virtual tour for some swamp stompin' adventure! All this and much more!
(Thanks to Pious Agnostic for pointing this site out to me.)
The New York Times didn't even bother to print that First Lady Laura Bush and her daughters were at the targeted Citigroup building last Monday to greet and reassure the workers:
The New York Times sure lived up to its motto, "All the News That's Fit to Print," with its broad coverage last week of the terrorist threats to the Big Apple.
One news item, however, was apparently not fit for readers' eyes: The arrival of First Lady Laura Bush and her daughters at one of the targeted buildings.
How could any First Lady's being in town for whatever reason not be news, much less when she makes a public appearance on official business? And at a targeted building during a terror alert? That's just astounding behavior on the part of the New York Times.
(Via Lucianne.)
----------------
IS THE FIRST FAMILY 'UNFIT'?
August 8, 2004 -- The New York Times sure lived up to its motto, "All the News That's Fit to Print," with its broad coverage last week of the terrorist threats to the Big Apple.
One news item, however, was apparently not fit for readers' eyes: The arrival of First Lady Laura Bush and her daughters at one of the targeted buildings.
Indeed, on Tuesday alone, the Times devoted at least half a dozen articles to the terror alert, totaling more than 5,000 words — and not a one mentioned the morale-boosting appearance of President Bush's entire family at the Citigroup Center in Midtown.
How'd it happen?
"We simply had more news . . . than we could accommodate," a Times flack said. "There was no calculated decision to omit that event."
Yeah, right.
Readers heard from Andrew Greene, a computer consultant who said the area might be "overprotected," and from other workers, like Goe Giamanco, who fretted about the high-visability presence of machine-gun-toting cops.
Sen. Charles Schumer, Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki each got detailed mentions.
One story focused on the psychological impact. A shrink, Andy Morgan, said the alerts might "lower anxiety."
Another piece tallied financial costs.
Maybe the show of solidarity by the Bush women, a sort of small-scale domestic version of the president's Thanksgiving visit to the troops in Iraq, was crowded out by still other stories.
Like the Times' front-pager suggesting that the Bush team's use of "old" data made the alerts seem politically motivated.
Or the large story and photo hammering Bush from the opposite angle: "Kerry Says Bush Has Not Acted Quickly Enough on Terrorism Defenses."
Always room in the Times, it seems, to bash Bush — whether for being too cautious or not cautious enough.
But a positive piece on the Bushes?
It's just not "fit" for the "paper of record."
Typical.
Thank you to Detective McGee who found the flag amidst all the artifacts and returned it to its people with all the honor it deserved:
FOUND beneath tens-of-thousands of tonnes of rubble and twisted steel, this soiled and crumpled flag is a solemn reminder that September 11, 2001, was more than an American tragedy.
Now, almost three years since 2749 people perished in New York, the Australian flag is going home to be preserved and mounted by the Federal Government.
(Via FR.)
Sofia Sideshow thinks the Dems nominated the wrong guy:
I watched bits and pieces of the Democratic National Convention. I listened to the speeches, expected little, and was not terribly disappointed (the online commentary was far more entertaining).
It occurred to me that if you take what they say honestly, I think I can piece together the best hope for the Democratic party, and who they should have nominated:
George W. Bush.
Some interesting and amusing reading for a Saturday afternoon.
Country Store has the scoop on crusty Boston Herald editor Ken Chandler's irritation with the Boston Globe, which was exacerbated by the Democratic Convention:
“The Globe is a Times wannabe, but it can’t quite pull it off,” Chandler said last week, as he sat in his office. “We are just trying to extract some news from an event where there isn’t any. We knew that the Globe was going to give it a big blow job. If I produced a newspaper as boring as the Globe, I’d kill myself.”
He meant that in a nice way.
Cecil Clemons of Gatorama fame passed away a few years ago, but luckily there's still video of him demonstrating the proper technique for taunting alligators with a loaf of bread.
Gatorama is also gone, alas, but there are still many fun gator-themed attractions around, including the Gator Motel in Kissimmee, which has its own gator pit for guests to enjoy.
The Daily Diatribe is closing on 100,000 visits. This blog is unique, in that it's for the most part written in some sort of Australian frontier gibberish. If Gabby Hayes were a foul-mouthed Australian blogger, his blog would be a dead-ringer for this one.
I once read a post there of which I understood only the definite and indefinite articles. It had a picture of an insignificant-to-us famous Australian person that would morph into some sort of Australian Tony the Tiger-like character. In the same manner that stained-glass windows served as books for our illiterate ancestors, I looked at that picture and understood the post: insult. It made me laugh.
Diatribe writer Paul notes that "The only reason Paul and Carl’s Daily Diatribe never really took off in the US market is that the Seppos (Americans) never knew what the f*** we were talking about."
How very true. Friend that I am, I've come up with some suggestions to help the Daily Diatribe break into our market:
Pilfer from Tim Blair's wordhoard.
Ask Vanna if you could buy a vowel.
Go ahead and bill yourself as the blog of Roy Roger's dead sidekick, blogging from beyond the grave. Add "rootin'-tootin'" and "persnickety" to vocabulary.
Claim that co-blogger Carl has sick fascination with auto-erotic asphyxiation. Rename blog "Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily's Daily Diatribe".
And last but not least:
Run all posts through the Paul Hogan translation machine before publishing. We understand him fine!
I love a good Top Ten list. It seems the Amish have a fever that only George Bush (and more cowbell) can cure. Some of my favorite reasons for their supporting Bush over Kerry are:
-Feel that Kerry's brightly-colored ski-parkas are both "proud" and "English"
-Although they are a deeply pacifist people, they have collectively decided that Al Qaeda "needs the mother-loving sh*t kicked out of them"
and of course:
Laura Bush looks like she really knows her way around a butter-churn
The Albany pizzaria-owning terrorist is a real American success story:
Hossain, a father of five, came from Bangladesh in 1985. After years of washing dishes and doing other kitchen work, he bought a pizzeria in 1994.
And this is what he does with it:
A month later, during a secretly videotaped meeting at Hossain's Little Italy Pizzeria, the informant proposed giving Hossain $50,000, presumably gained from the sale of a missile, to launder, with the understanding that Hossain could keep $5,000, Coll said. Hossain agreed to make it appear that he had earned the money from renting properties, and he recruited Aref to witness the transactions, Coll said.
Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you:
The affidavit said the defendants appeared wary, and Hossain claimed that the CIA had "cameras behind walls." Aref reportedly said he would not discuss politics in his house "since there are cameras in there."
Looks like he forgot about the old hidden-camera-in-the-pizzaria trick. May all terrorists be this stupid.
UPDATE:
Be sure to check out the more in-depth Fox article suggested by reader Cyd.
What would a cultural anthropologist* make of this hat-donning behavior?
*Son of Nixon, you'll enjoy that link.
I saw one of my preferred customers at work today watching the Swiftboat ad. We started chatting about it, but ended up having a long talk about Laura. She impresses him more than anything, and he talked at length about her character and personality, saying that she would have been an asset to any man and that Bush was lucky to have her. I got the impression he'd like to find a Laura. I wish him luck- they're not so plentiful.
As for the Swiftboat ad: How lame is it for Kerry's people to break out the lawyers to threaten TV stations? That is just wienified.
The McLaughlin Group had an impromptu roundtable last night over at Ace's.
This is brilliant stuff.
Hey, "shoulder-fired missile" is just slang for "prayer rug"! Lighten up, Infidels:
Two leaders of a mosque in Albany, N.Y., were arrested on charges stemming from an alleged plot to help a man they thought was a terrorist purchase a shoulder-fired missile, federal authorities said Thursday.
The Swiftboat Vets for Truth did a great job on their ad. It's simple, direct, and powerful.
Live by Vietnam, die by Vietnam, Mr. Kerry.
Speaking of muzzles:
MSNBC anchor Laurie Jennings asked former Republican presidential candidate and regular CNN contributor Bob Dole for his "take" on Heinz Kerry. Dole said, "There's not a muzzle big enough out there, I don't think."
I don't want her ability to speak impeded in any way. Hand that lady a microphone.
Son of Nixon, shatterer of myths, eater of worlds, pisser-on of cornflakes, has got people openly questioning Kerry's intellectual abilities:
Something’s been bothering me about John Kerry. I just don’t think he’s that smart.
A posh accent does not a brainiac make. All I've heard from the people that went to school with him was that he was a very good speaker. Why is he being presented as Albert Forbes Einstein?
(Via Ace, who should send his sandwich blog mascot for a walk on my sidebar. My gator is all about bologna sandwiches.)
THE SIMPLE LIFE 2: ROAD TRIP: 'SOOEY!'
"Celebutantes" John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry pack up their Louis Vuitton bags and embark on the ultimate road trip extravaganza.
Sanibel had a townhall meeting and has done away with its Age of Aquarius gator policy. Their laws are now in line with the stricter State laws. Sometimes you get knocked on your ass by reality:
“For 21 years, I’ve been teaching people that if an alligator hasn’t been fed or isn’t protecting its babies, it’s OK,” said Kristy Anders, education director of the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, who was not speaking in behalf of SCCF. “But it’s not OK. These are prehistoric animals with instincts programmed for 200 million years.”
....
“We’ve done too good a job of educating people: We’ve taught them to coexist with wildlife,” she said. “In the desire to create a peaceful coexistence, people have failed to pick up a phone if an alligator is too close or has been fed.
“My new educational message is pick up a phone and rat on that gator. If you don’t want to tell on the people, at least tell on the alligator.”
....
“We learned as children that alligators kill people and have been since the beginning of time,” said Lee Melsek, who grew up on Fort Myers Beach. “The problem with alligators as a ‘nuisance’ is that they’re more than a nuisance. They’re a threat to human life.
“The alligator that killed Janie was only a nuisance after it killed her.”
“I don’t think there should be any alligators in the city of Sanibel,” he said. “Letting alligators live in Sanibel is like letting lions and tigers walk down Michigan Avenue in Chicago.”
.......................................
Sanibel revamps its gator policy
Some say new rules should be tougher
By KEVIN LOLLAR, klollar@news-press.com
Published by news-press.com on August 4, 2004
The Sanibel City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a new nuisance alligator policy.
Among other things, the new policy, which goes into effect immediately, allows Sanibel to bring in a contract trapper to kill an alligator between 4 and 8 feet long if the animal is making people feel unsafe.
Under the old policy, an alligator smaller than 8 feet long had to behave aggressively or show signs of having been fed before it could be destroyed.
Some attending the council meeting said the new policy doesn’t go far enough to protect residents and visitors.
Rob Loflin, Sanibel’s natural resources director, explained the new policy to the council and added a caveat.
“Even if we implement this, everybody should be aware that in the southeastern United States, you need to be careful around freshwater bodies,” he said. “Nobody should have a false sense of security that they’re safe around freshwater bodies.”
The vote came 13 days after Sanibel landscaper Janie Melsek, 54, was attacked by an 11-foot, 9-inch alligator as she worked beside a pond. Melsek died two days later.
Melsek’s was the third alligator attack and second fatal attack on Sanibel in the past three years. Robert Steele, 81, was killed near a canal by a 10-foot, 9-inch alligator Sept. 11, 2001; Jane Keefer, 74, was attacked April 21 by a 9-foot, 7-inch alligator near a lake behind her home. She recovered from her injuries.
Three days after Keefer was attacked, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission publicly questioned Sanibel’s alligator-friendly policy.
Tuesday, FWC spokesman Gary Morse said the state favored Sanibel’s new policy, which is based on the state’s nuisance alligator procedures.
“People can coexist with alligators — notice I don’t say ‘in harmony’; I say ‘coexist,’ ” Morse said. “We have literally tens of thousands of people a day swimming, water skiing, and wade fishing in freshwater lakes and rivers without incident.
“The only way we can co-exist with alligators is to remove those that indicate they are becoming a danger to people.”
According to Sanibel’s new policy, the city will:
• Continue to destroy all aggressive alligators of any length.
• Adjust the definition of nuisance alligator to include:
• Large alligators (in excess of 4 feet) in residential and commercial areas,
• Alligators that make residents feel unsafe, when they are close to children.
• Large alligators, in high pedestrian traffic and public locations.
• Relocate only non-nuisance alligators up to 4 feet in length.
• When someone makes a complaint about an alligator, the city will request a state trapper remove it if it is more than 4 feet long.
• Request a permit to remove nuisance alligators greater than 4 feet long from residential, commercial and public lakes and ponds.
The size of alligators that may be destroyed was a major issue.
Because the old policy specified that an alligator was considered a nuisance only if it behaved aggressively or showed signs of having been fed, city officials responding to complaints had to decide whether an alligator really was a nuisance.
If it was simply sunning itself in someone’s back yard and was less than 8 feet long, officials had the option of moving it somewhere on the island.
According to traditional wisdom, all alligators, regardless of size, are afraid of people unless people feed them; but the fact is that an alligator larger than 9 feet can see humans as prey.
Relocating a 7-foot alligator might allow it to grow into a dangerous 10-foot predator.
“For 21 years, I’ve been teaching people that if an alligator hasn’t been fed or isn’t protecting its babies, it’s OK,” said Kristy Anders, education director of the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, who was not speaking in behalf of SCCF. “But it’s not OK. These are prehistoric animals with instincts programmed for 200 million years.”
Of course, alligators fed by humans are dangerous, and feeding them is a second-degree misdemeanor in Florida, punishable by up to $500 in fines and 60 days in jail.
Unfortunately, Anders said, people on Sanibel are reluctant to report fed alligators or people who feed them.
“We’ve done too good a job of educating people: We’ve taught them to coexist with wildlife,” she said. “In the desire to create a peaceful coexistence, people have failed to pick up a phone if an alligator is too close or has been fed.
“My new educational message is pick up a phone and rat on that gator. If you don’t want to tell on the people, at least tell on the alligator.”
More than a dozen people addressed the council during Monday’s public comment period — all were in favor of getting tougher on alligators.
“There’s one animal here that I personally view with dread,” said Claudia Burns, who described herself as an avid animal rights activist, a bird-nerd and a tree hugger. “I do everything I can to avoid coming anywhere near that animal. It is, of course, the alligator, which I view as dangerous regardless of size.
“This latest attack may be telling us something.”
Melsek’s brother, Lee Melsek, an investigative reporter for The News-Press, questioned laws that protect dangerous predators; since 1971, alligators have killed 14 people in Florida.
He also questioned the distinction between nuisance and non-nuisance alligators.
“We learned as children that alligators kill people and have been since the beginning of time,” said Lee Melsek, who grew up on Fort Myers Beach. “The problem with alligators as a ‘nuisance’ is that they’re more than a nuisance. They’re a threat to human life.
“The alligator that killed Janie was only a nuisance after it killed her.”
After the meeting, Sanibel landscaper Rusty Farst, who learned his trade from Janie Melsek 20 years ago, said the new policy doesn’t go far enough:
“Sanibel has become a fenceless zoo of defenseless residents,” he said. “We need to harvest all alligators over 4 feet.”
Lee Melsek had a more extreme idea:
“I don’t think there should be any alligators in the city of Sanibel,” he said. “Letting alligators live in Sanibel is like letting lions and tigers walk down Michigan Avenue in Chicago.”
Duane in Central Park in 1971.
Wail on, Skydog!
Damn, this is really devastating news from Country Store. I hope it's not true:
The Kerry camp is looking to pull Mrs. Kerry back after a slew of miscues, including what even the campaign now believes was a potentially disastrous convention speech for the woman who wants to be first lady. That was followed by Mrs. Kerry's claim that a cookie recipe submitted under her name to a "first lady bake off" contest organized by a national magazine was sent in by a possible political enemy.
...
For months there has been internal debate how best to use Terry Kerry in the campaign, and it now appears that the best way may be no way. "She's more willing to appear as the supportive wife than, say, Hillary was on the campaign trail," says the advance staffer. "But it's a limited upside for us. Unless it's in a real controlled setting, I don't think we want her out there too often."
Please don't deprive the people of our most precious jewel. She is woman and we want to hear her roar.
What's the deal with blog mailing-list spam? This is the fourth time now that bloggers I'm not linked to and who're not linked to me decide I want to read their every word. I don't.
I don't like group e-mail. Especially group e-mail I didn't sign up for. Even more especially group e-mail from people who don't even visit here.
I've considered making my own special mailing list for people who put me on a mailing list. They'll all get the pearls of my Cracker wisdom in their mailbox everytime I hit 'post'.
Excuse me now while I'll go write some polite cease-and-desist e-mail.
It's very interesting these Medal of Honor Recipients coming out with an open letter to veterans defending President Bush against John Kerry's attacks about funding for veterans. These guys steer clear of things like that. Something must have made them come out of their bag:
We are disturbed that John Kerry would try to scare veterans with his false accusations, and we are disappointed in his lack of support for today's troops.
For the curious, I was studying the list of signatures against the list of living MOH Recipients and 15 of them are from the Vietnam War, five from Korea, and four from WWII.
I bet everytime Kerry's around one of these guys his medal-pitching arm twitches. Man, to be able to toss one of those babies!
John Kerry graduated college with a low C average and he's represented in the media as being some kind of brainiac?
Everybody's trying to figure out why Kerry got no bounce from the Convention. Kerry himself has officially weighed in with "Those grapes were probably sour anyways!":
Kerry dismisses the polls.
"None of that means anything right now," he said Monday in an interview on CNN. "All of these polls are so wacky because, frankly, they don't know what the political dynamic is this year. That's number one. Number two, I don't pay attention to polls. If I paid attention to polls, I would have stopped getting up in the morning last December," when his campaign seemed to be on its last legs.
Better luck next time, Butch.
I wonder how this works. Does President Bush say "Honey, this building's on Al Qaeda's list and I'd like you to go there and let the workers know everything's alright"?
What a good sport she is.
She was my go-to girl on 9/11: cool, calm, and collected.
I see on TV that all the Bush girls went. So he sent all his treasures up to New York. I hope the people there appreciate it.
U.S. first lady Laura Bush and Mayor Michael Bloomberg greet employees during a visit to Citigroup headquarters in New York on August 2, 2004. New York's major banks and other large companies tightened security on Monday, a day after a government warning of possible al Queda truck or suicide bomb attacks on financial targets in the city. Bush and Bloomberg visited the site to comfort workers and show confidence in the city's ability to secure threatened locations.
The sisterhood ain't what it used to be. Another female writer is ticked that Teresa Kerry would try to use her gender to cloak her personality flaws. She also notes that Teresa's "I Am Woman" speech at the DNC is just a little bit silly considering that she only has money and power because of the men she married:
There are many women in America today -- liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat -- who have truly earned the right to be public figures, in the same way as men. This cannot be said of Heinz Kerry.
Mr. Clinton is blogging these days. And hanging out with Kevin Spacey.
Don't go for any early morning walks in the park with him, Bill.
(Via Daily Diatribe.)
I've been trying to figure out what's the big deal about the Kerry entourage eating at Wendy's. You have to eat someplace and the food's good there. The Kerry's had their photo-op, snagged their lunch, offended some Marines, and moved on.
But no. They had lunch waiting for them on the bus. Five-star, $200 lunches. You ever had a $200 lunch? I haven't. I've eaten at Wendy's plenty of times, though.
What the heck is shrimp vandallo?
"May all who board her be forever blessed and may all who encounter her upon the seas remember: Don't mess with Texas."
She smacked the hell out of that thing, didn't she?
It seems everybody has an opinion on Teresa. This LA Times article gives us a sample.
The lady who said, "She has a lot of money and no class", summed it up for me.
--------------
It Seems Everybody Has an Opinion About Her
By Robin Abcarian
Times Staff Writer
August 1, 2004
BOSTON — Teresa Heinz Kerry is a political wife unlike any this country has seen. But can she affect an election? Some think it's possible.
An heiress to immense wealth after being widowed by a Republican senator from Pennsylvania and now married to another senator — Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry — the 65-year-old Heinz Kerry is a philanthropist who is foreign-born and unafraid to speak her mind. And as this year's fight for the White House enters its final months, she increasingly evokes curiosity and interest.
Heinz Kerry's nationally televised speech at the Democratic National Convention was among the most anticipated moments of the four-day event. "My name is Teresa Heinz Kerry," she began. "And by now, I hope it will come as no surprise that I have something to say."
Indeed, that notion has become a minor theme of the Kerry campaign. He made brief note of her outspokenness in his nomination acceptance speech Thursday. And on Saturday, in Greensburg, Pa., Kerry told a cheering crowd, "Teresa, she speaks her mind, and she speaks the truth, and we love her for that."
For President Bush and his campaign, however, such references to Heinz Kerry may be welcome news.
Republicans long have viewed First Lady Laura Bush, a former librarian with a low-key manner, as a political asset to the president. And throughout his term, Bush routinely has invoked her name in political speeches. On Saturday in Pittsburgh, he said: "Today you'll hear some reasons why I think you need to put me back into office. But perhaps the most important reason of all is so that Laura will be first lady for four more years."
The self-deprecatory line almost always draws a chuckle from Bush's crowds. But it may now resonate even more, given the differences between Laura Bush and Heinz Kerry — differences GOP strategists think could work to the president's advantage.
Bush campaign advisor Mary Matalin said of Heinz Kerry: "One thing is irrefutable — she is a distraction. She's one of those polarizing people."
But Democratic pollster Celina Lake predicts Heinz Kerry will prove an asset to her husband's White House hopes, especially among single women.
Lake, who has polled on the issue, said single women responded favorably to "strong, independent" women, such as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). "I think Teresa will be wildly popular with them," Lake said. "I think she could have an impact on increasing turnout."
Most voters, of course, decide who to support based on their attitudes toward the presidential contenders, not their families. Still, for some, such attitudes can be influenced by reactions to those near and dear to a candidate.
Both campaigns "are trying to find a way to spin this first lady thing to their advantage," University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said, but he considered such efforts a stretch in terms of their effect on the election.
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that Heinz Kerry's unfavorable rating, 26%, was more than double that for Laura Bush — 12%. Nearly half, 47%, had no opinion about Heinz Kerry.
It is too soon for polling data to accurately measure reaction to Heinz Kerry following the Democratic convention. Based on anecdotal evidence, however, women seem to have responded more enthusiastically to her than men.
"She seems very bright," said Sally Williams, 29, who lives in suburban Chicago and plans to vote for Kerry. "My brother and husband thought she was kind of a know-it-all. Ah, men."
That divide, if widespread, could prove a double-edged sword for the Democrats. As pollster Lake's comments indicate, party activists think larger turnout by unmarried women could significantly benefit Kerry. In the 2000 election, more than 21 million single women — almost half of those eligible — did not vote.
But the Democratic ticket also is hoping to run better among white males than did party nominee Al Gore four years ago. Among this group of voters, polls showed Bush bettered Gore by 24 percentage points.
Heinz Kerry's message as a campaigner — though sometimes rambling — is usually tailored to women.
On Friday, she told a crowd of about 15,000 in Pennsylvania: "It is long past due that the voices of women be heard. In full and at last. The women, the grandmothers, the great-grandmothers, the mothers and wives, they are the caregivers, the caretakers of this planet. Listen to them."
One undecided voter who has been paying close attention to the campaign is Doris Blankinship, a 47-year-old AT&T customer representative from Orlando, Fla. A registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000, she enjoyed Heinz Kerry's speech on Tuesday and said that the candidate's wife might affect her vote.
Blankinship was impressed by Heinz Kerry's references to being an immigrant. "She wants our country to be strong, she wants our country to do well."
By contrast, she said, "I'm not really impressed by Laura Bush. She's for education and she cares, but she's kind of out of the loop. She doesn't seem to be as involved with things as Ms. Kerry."
But Albert Marshall, a 41-year-old marketing manager from Dallas, was underwhelmed by Heinz Kerry's speech.
"She didn't strike me as particularly comfortable," said Marshall, who did not vote in 2000 and hasn't decided whom to support this year. "I guess I would have expected more [in the speech] about her husband and what a great guy he was, and frankly she did very little of that."
Marshall said he wouldn't base his choice in November on a candidate's spouse or family. "I guess if she did something stupid, maybe…. But I don't think she did."
At a suburban St. Louis shopping mall, lawyer Kim Coffman, 33, said she admired Heinz Kerry, but thought her candor could turn off some voters.
"I think there's a fear, particularly among men, that she's going to run the show," Coffman said as she pushed her 18-month-old son in a stroller. "So I think she's a potential liability for Kerry, if men — or even women — view her as threatening."
Coffman said she was still undecided in the Bush-Kerry race.
Some voters responded negatively after Heinz Kerry, in view of TV cameras and reporters, told the editorial page editor of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on July 24 to "shove it" as he pressed her with a question she thought misconstrued remarks she had made moments before. The Tribune-Review, owned by billionaire Republican Richard Mellon Scaife, and Heinz Kerry have long been at odds.
Linda Volkman, 55, a craft maker in St. Louis, had always voted for Democrats until 2000. She plans to vote again for Bush, and said she found Heinz Kerry's outburst crass. "She has a lot of money and no class," Volkman said.
Meredith Collins, 52, an administrative assistant in Seattle, said she would vote for Kerry, but she was concerned that the run-in with the journalist suggested that Heinz Kerry was "not media savvy enough." Telling someone to "shove it," said Collins, "is a long way from Jackie Kennedy."
During her speech Tuesday, Heinz Kerry shared some of her own history, touching on her childhood in Mozambique living under a dictatorship. But when she spoke of her husband, it was to emphasize his positions on topics such as national security and global climate change, not his personality.
Many political experts said that as a result, she failed to accomplish what they thought should be her primary mission: to humanize her husband.
"People would have identified with hearing her say, 'I have a great husband, and I have been lucky twice,' " Sabato said, referring to Heinz Kerry's first marriage to the late Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.).
Sabato added: "This is America; schmaltz sells."
Reaction also was mixed to what was the most quoted line in Heinz Kerry's convention speech.
To thunderous applause from her audience, Heinz Kerry said: "And my only hope is that one day soon, women who have all earned their right to their opinions, instead of being called opinionated, will be called smart and well informed, just like men."
Ruth Mandel, an expert on politics and gender at Rutgers University in New Jersey, thought many women reacted positively. To what she called Heinz Kerry's, "I am woman, hear me roar" passage.
Sabato thought that some men saw it as "feminist state of the world comment, and they were threatened by it."
Matalin found the line "a bit of a throwback to victimology feminism."
Matalin added: "I've been called outspoken all my life. It's a badge of honor."
Looks like mom isn't the only one who thinks Teresa Heinz Kerry is a cactus:
It isn't so much the content of her recent ''shove it'' remark to a reporter, which doubtless millions applauded in vicarious appreciation, but rather what her volatile reaction suggests about Mrs. Kerry's temperment and a clear sense of entitlement that precludes all but acquiescence from the hoi polloi.
American hoi-polloi don't like people who get too big for their britches. I also think it's creepy that not one of John Heinz's sons has maintained allegiance to their father.
(Via Lucianne.)
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Parker: Teresa Heinz Kerry is no Laura Bush
By Kathleen Parker
Orlando Sentinel
Salt Lake Tribune
2004-07-30 22:14:00.976
BOSTON - "How do you solve a problem like Tere-zah?''
All week I've been whistling the tune from ''The Sound of Music,'' mentally substituting the name Teresa for Maria.
''How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you find a word that means Teresa? A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the-wisp! A clown!''
Not that Mrs. Kerry is any of the above - far from it - but finding the right word to describe this unconventional potential first lady has spinmeisters and wordsmiths politely stumped. Democrats' protests to the contrary, she is a bit of a problem for the man who would be president.
It isn't so much the content of her recent ''shove it'' remark to a reporter, which doubtless millions applauded in vicarious appreciation, but rather what her volatile reaction suggests about Mrs. Kerry's temperment and a clear sense of entitlement that precludes all but acquiescence from the hoi polloi.
Suffice it to say that people with a billion dollars don't hear much from ''No-men,'' while the need for grace under fire rarely comes up.
Mrs. Kerry's now-familiar ''shove it'' comment followed remarks to the Pennsylvania delegation during which she lamented creeping incivility in public life, noting that ''un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits'' are infecting politics. As if to demonstrate the point, she told a reporter to ''shove it'' after he asked her to clarify what she meant by ''un-American activity.''
No matter how hard the Kerry camp spins her outburst, regular folk - those so beloved by the two-Americas, two-John ticket - see it as behavior unbecoming a first lady. As matters evolved, Mrs. Kerry's speechwriters came up with a clever way to mute the controversy by introducing a feminist conceit and opening the floor to discussion of the more politically palatable question of equality.
''My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what some have called 'opinionated,' is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish,'' she said, ''and my only hope is that one day soon, women, who have all earned the right to their opinions, instead of being called opinionated will be called smart and well-informed - just like men.''
Hear, hear, though I'm not sure that telling a reporter to ''shove it'' qualifies as smart and well-informed. Never mind that hoping women can have a public voice is about 30 years late. What's next, bra-burning?
First ladies continue to baffle us as we try to sketch an appropriate image in a world of evolving gender roles. We want someone strong yet feminine, accomplished but not too ambitious, maternal and wifely, but not smothering and subservient. Recent first ladies have run the gamut.
Nancy Reagan was viewed as too doting, gazing like a Labrador at her master, while Hillary Clinton wasn't ''wifely'' enough, famously displaying her Rodham charm by declaring that she wasn't the stay-at-home, cookie-baking sort.
The two Mrs. Bushes earn consistently high ratings among both Democrats and Republicans. The senior Mrs. Bush is everybody's no-nonsense mom - strong, kind and humorous. As for Laura, what's not to like?
Then comes Teresa, a native of Mozambique talking about un-American traits, an extraordinarily wealthy woman who, whatever charms she may possess, clearly isn't used to playing by the usual rules of civility toward lesser mortals. The rich really are different than the rest of us, but the smart and well-informed ones let the little guys believe otherwise.
At least until their husbands get elected to the White House.
The Fort Myers News Press has a terrific article today on the alligator problem. Animal experts weigh in and give a very non-PC summation of why the alligators are killing people: They're predators who like our nice backyards and like to eat us. Oh.
Among the theories about why Sanibel’s sudden rash of attacks is that the alligators don’t have enough to eat and, therefore, are targeting humans.
“There’s no credence in that whatsoever,” Hord said. “Alligators will eat each other before they go hungry. There are plenty of things for them to eat, like fish and turtles. They’re not picky about what they eat.”
Another theory is that too many alligators — between 200 and 400 larger than 4 feet — live on the 17.2-square-mile island.
Sanibel naturalist Mark “Bird” Westall, the island’s former mayor and alligator trapper, said it’s not the number of alligators — it’s the number of alligators living in residential areas.
Although two-thirds of the island is preserve land, many alligators live in neighborhoods.
“When I go on the Sanibel River, I don’t see that many alligators around because the Sanibel River is not prime alligator habitat,” Westall said. “Residential ponds are prime alligator habitat. Developers make alligator habitat, and the alligators go, ‘This is cool. I have a deep lake and soft lawns to lie on. Why should I dredge my own hole?’ You always hear, ‘We’ve moved into the alligators’ habitat.’ That’s hogwash. We make alligator habitat.
The whole article is good. I read it as I looked out the window at the deep man-made lake and soft lawn of the backyard of my home here on the edge of the Everglades.
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Big gators raise big questions
Sanibel to consider changes in policy
By KEVIN LOLLAR, klollar@news-press.com
Published by news-press.com on August 1, 2004
Three alligator attacks on a small barrier island in three years.
Two of them fatal.
Does Sanibel have an alligator problem?
Is there something about Sanibel that is prompting the attacks?
Theories abound as many Sanibel and Lee County residents have called for an alligator eradication program on the island.
The truth might lie in what the three attacks have in common.
All three attacks were unprovoked, all three victims were bitten by alligators more than 9 feet long and all three were attacked in residential areas.
• A 10-foot, 9-inch alligator attacked Robert Steele, 81, as he walked his dog near his home on Sept. 11, 2001. Steele bled to death.
• A 9-foot, 7-inch alligator attacked Jane C. Keefer, 74, April 21 as she was gardening near a lake behind her home. Keefer recovered.
• An 11-foot, 9-inch alligator attacked landscaper Janie Melsek, 54, July 21, as she trimmed trees behind a house. Melsek died July 23.
Popular wisdom insists that the only dangerous alligator is an alligator that has been fed by humans.
Alligators have a natural fear of humans, but if people feed them, they lose that fear and begin to associate humans with food and approach humans looking for handouts.
As long as they aren’t fed, even large alligators will shy away from people.
“That’s an old wives’ tale,” said biologist and alligator expert Lindsey Hord, of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. “Alligators are predators, and, under the right circumstances, can see a human as a prey item.
“A 9-footer might be stretching its imagination thinking it could take a human; it might be a case of mistaken identity where it grabs something swimming and says, ‘Oh, this isn’t a raccoon.’ But for a 10-footer, a 150-pound person is something it would be able to take like a deer or hog. The majority of fatalities by big alligators have been feeding attacks, seeing the person as a prey item.”
Of course, the dangers of feeding alligators must not be underestimated, Hord said. Feeding alligators is a second-degree misdemeanor in Florida, punishable by up to $500 in fines and 60 days in jail.
The fact remains, however, that large alligators are dangerous whether they have been fed or not.
Since 1973, alligators have killed 14 people in Florida; 11 of the alligators were larger than 9 feet.
Six of the victims were adults.
A necropsy of the alligator that attacked Melsek showed no indication that it had been fed, though that possibility cannot be ruled out.
But the attack was certainly unprovoked:
Melsek was working at a vacation rental when a 457-pound alligator lunged from a nearby pond, grabbed her right arm and dragged her into the water.
Neighbor Jim Anholt and three Sanibel police officers struggled to pull Melsek out of the water for five minutes before the alligator released her.
The animal disappeared, then resurfaced 20 feet away, opened its mouth and started swimming toward Melsek and the rescue party. Police officers shot the alligator to death.
“That’s how alligators attack big mammals: They’re ambush predators; they take things at the water’s edge,” Hord said. “They’re adapted to sneak up on stuff — hogs, deer, possums, raccoons. Potentially, they could do the same thing to a person.”
Among the theories about why Sanibel’s sudden rash of attacks is that the alligators don’t have enough to eat and, therefore, are targeting humans.
“There’s no credence in that whatsoever,” Hord said. “Alligators will eat each other before they go hungry. There are plenty of things for them to eat, like fish and turtles. They’re not picky about what they eat.”
Another theory is that too many alligators — between 200 and 400 larger than 4 feet — live on the 17.2-square-mile island.
Sanibel naturalist Mark “Bird” Westall, the island’s former mayor and alligator trapper, said it’s not the number of alligators — it’s the number of alligators living in residential areas.
Although two-thirds of the island is preserve land, many alligators live in neighborhoods.
“When I go on the Sanibel River, I don’t see that many alligators around because the Sanibel River is not prime alligator habitat,” Westall said. “Residential ponds are prime alligator habitat. Developers make alligator habitat, and the alligators go, ‘This is cool. I have a deep lake and soft lawns to lie on. Why should I dredge my own hole?’ You always hear, ‘We’ve moved into the alligators’ habitat.’ That’s hogwash. We make alligator habitat.
“If big alligators are dangerous, let’s eliminate alligators over 4 feet before they have a chance to breed.”
Sanibel City Councilman Steve Brown agreed.
“I have friends who live on the lake, and we were visiting them one time, and an alligator came up and was on the path,” he said. “It was 12 feet long and scared the bejimminy out of me. I did the courageous thing: I turned and ran.
“It’s just a matter of time before that alligator attacks somebody.”
Sanibel’s alligator policy is another possibility.
When the police department receives a complaint about an alligator, officers determine whether the animal is really a nuisance — a nuisance alligator is one that is a real or potential threat to people, pets or livestock.
If an alligator is less than 8 feet long and is simply sunning itself in someone’s yard, it’s not necessarily a nuisance, and officers might leave it alone or move it to another part of the island.
“Sanibel, as a sanctuary island, has traditionally been very environmentally friendly,” Sanibel Police Chief Bill Tomlinson said. “But we don’t relocate alligators of any size if they are a nuisance or aggressive. We carefully assess if one has become a nuisance. If it has, we don’t want it on the island.”
From June 2001 to May 2004, Sanibel police have received 404 alligator complaints, moved 40 alligators and destroyed 20.
Relocating a 7-foot alligator might allow it to grow to greater than 10 feet and become a danger to humans, even if it is never fed.
The state’s nuisance alligator policy is much less alligator friendly than Sanibel’s.
Trappers contracted by the state will destroy any alligator more than 4 feet long that someone complains about — the state stopped relocating alligators in 1978.
“It does not have to show aggression,” Hord said. “We have a liberal policy about removing alligators living around people. We don’t go hunting for them; people have to call us.”
The reason for the state’s more liberal policy is that alligators, once considered close to extinction, are no longer an endangered species — they are now listed as a species of special concern.
“There’s no biological justification to be protective of alligators anymore,” Hord said. “There are lots of alligators, lots of them. Florida is full of alligators.
“It’s not worth the risk of people’s safety to allow alligators to exist in proximity to houses, unless people choose to let them be there.”
The J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel, which is run by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, has a specific test for alligators:
An official approaches the animal and motions with his hand as if throwing food.
“If you approach an alligator, it should back off into the water,” refuge ranger Jeff Combs said. “If we gesture at them, and they come to us, it means they’ve been fed, and we destroy them.”
In April, three days after Keefer’s alligator encounter, state wildlife officials questioned Sanibel’s relocation policy.
Sanibel’s policy will be discussed at Tuesday’s city council meeting, 13 days after Melsek was attacked.
“I’m an animal lover, but when you have three attacks in three years, we have to change our policies,” Brown said. “Not acting is not an option. How far we’ll go with tightening our policies, I don’t know yet, but we have to change. We have to protect the people.”
