We haven't gotten the whole of that bin Laden tape. Thanks be to Ace.

At the Kerryspot, speculation that the UBL video will lead to a Bush landslide. I disagree. And Jim Geraghty isn't a stupid pundit, but it is stupid punditry.

His premise is that since the video sounds like a rehash of Fahrenheit 9/11, suddenly people on the Left are going to go "Eek, I agree with the enemy!" and switch.

I think they've known all along that they were on the other side. A lot of people are going to see bin Laden's recitation of the Moore stuff as validation. Because Bush is the real terrorist.

Well, if we are going to call the NYT and CBS on it, we have to correct ourselves, I think.

For some period of time, well over a year, I have been writing that UBL is dead. Now it appears that this has been incorrect for that whole period.

But then again....

Right now, the applet that returns the DHS threat level is returning nothing. The Department of Homeland Security website is down. At The Corner, they say "TOM RIDGE is giving a press conference at 3. FNC says the alert level will not be raised."

I am thinking that maybe they will.

UBL didn't explicitly threaten the US. But it could be the signal.

UPDATE: Fox was right.

The front page of my Washington Post says that bin Laden warned Americans "not to elect any president who would try to destroy al Qaeda." So he's for Badnarik?

Or Nader?

Whoever could he mean?

Assuming for the moment that this tape is just what it purports to be - UBL alive, obliquely threatening the US - this is not good news for anyone. Much less the President. Saw some talking heads saying that this was a present for Bush, reminding people of what this is all about. Even some on our side.

No. It isn't. And don't crow that it is.

Stupid.

So Senator Kerry, in his response, says that as Americans we are all united against bin Laden.

He wasn't saying that before. What changed?

Plus - he is imploring Americans to wake up? Guessing the Kerry campaign's polling isn't looking too good.

I haven't seen this video yet, but from the transcripts, its the most amazingly loony thing I've read. No, the Mossad wasn't behind it, but he's on about "My Pet Goat." If this tape is for real, then, yes, Michael Moore is providing them with fodder for their propaganda. And the attacks wouldn't have been so severe if Bush was on the ball? As noted in the comments to the post below, he hit every Democrat talking point.

But, I think its not real. First, UBL is dead. Second of all, it is just nuts. Why, if the guy wants a worldwide jihad or whatever, is he saying that a President should have been more effective against him? I have suggested before that the last UBL tape was put out by our side. I don't know who would have the most to gain from faking this one, but it is just loony. I don't know what to make of it. Rove would have been more subtle.

Surprise! Al Jazeera is going to show a terrorist video:

It said the tape, to be aired at 4 p.m. EDT, would discuss the reasons behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and their repercussions. It gave no further details.

This is supposed to star none other than UBL himself. Of course, he's dead, so it seems unlikely.

Anyway, unless he's going to say the Mossad did it, or that the Pentagon was hit by a remote controlled US missile with holographic projectors making it look like an airplane, he's going to make a lot of people look silly.

A lot of folks were saying that ABC was holding out on this video, and there was intimation that they were doing it purposely so as not to affect the election, evidently in a way that would have been positive to Bush by reminding the American people that we are at war. I don't agree - I wish they hadn't broadcast it, it seems a rather pathetic attempt by AQ - and it seems authentically from them - to scare us. Ooh, I am scared, they say that blood will run in the streets. Why give AQ American air time? Whether it would be a plus for the President or not - and I don't think it is necessarily that anyway.

Azzam may think that over the top stuff works, but it just makes me think "Bring it!" I go back to my Advice to the Terrorists from earlier:

Bring something big over here again. I think you'll find that our balance has shifted on what is acceptable to us. And a whole lot of us have guns, here. We're tired of this crap already - been tired. But give us a big ugly reason, and we'll take the lazy way out. Just kill you all, let Allah sort it out. You think WMD is cool? We invented them. You ever nuked anybody? We have. That's what happens when our patience just runs out on fanatics who want to kill us.

We can hold investigative hearings after that. All summer long, if you want, and play it all on TV so kids home from school won't get to see Mr. Knozit. We can all get a bellyful of the political circus. But you'll miss it, being highly dead and all.

As gratifying as it might be to know your cobalt rich ashes are blowing in the wind, I'd just as soon that we not go there. I mean, it is such an ugly business. And we might feel a little guilty for doing it, afterward, too.

We were tired of it in May. Just imagine what we must be like now.

This is how you do an October surprise.

UPDATE: That link appears to have been b0rked - its fixed now.

Okay, NYT and CBS pimping a fake story negative to Bush, and almost immediately, the Kerry campaign has a commercial on it. Like I said, not difficult to swallow so long as you presume that the NYT and CBS are simply partisan hacks, not "news organizations."

And, if Fox is following my advice, then this makes some sense, doesn't it? Tony Snow saying that Kerry is "conceding Florida." True or not, such a story getting major airplay should demoralize the Kerry supporters in Florida. Besides, turnabout is fair play. Right?

As I suspected, not terribly positive toward the SecDef. In fact, not even largely about the SecDef and the struggle within the Pentagon. A small part of it was - but mostly, it is a TV'ized version of Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward, who is prominently featured in the show. Coincidentally, I am reading that book right now, so the parallelism was especially evident to me.

There were no persons interviewed who were specifically pro-Rumsfeld. Bill Kristol has a couple of blurbs, but not even enough to be included in the "interviews" page for the show. Tom Ricks, the Washington Post reporter who has been mostly carrying the fight of the generals on in the pages of the Post, even manages to cast aspersions on Tommy Franks - saying, obliquely, that he is stupid.

They even manage to note that retired GEN Hoar now supports John Kerry for President, as well as pimping the draft rumor.

It was, I guess, mostly a litany of complaints, to coin a phrase, and an attempt to lay all blame for the things complained about at the feet of the neocons. I am amazed that they didn't get some voiceover in there about the "missing" explosives. The pictures they chose were, to go along with the theme - unflattering. I'll get some screen caps up a little later. Not film noir, but almost.

Not nearly as balanced as this show from 2001 that asks the question "Should Saddam Hussein be the Next Target in the War on Terrorism?" Interesting, because in late 2001, Mickey Kaus tells us (I'd link it but there is no permalink) that even John Kerry was asking that question then - even before Tora Bora:

McLaughlin asks Kerry "What do we have to worry about [in Afghanistan]?" Here's the last part of Kerry's answer:

I have no doubt, I've never had any doubt -- and I've said this publicly -- about our ability to be successful in Afghanistan. We are and we will be. The larger issue, John, is what happens afterwards. How do we now turn attention ultimately to Saddam Hussein? How do we deal with the larger Muslim world? What is our foreign policy going to be to drain the swamp of terrorism on a global basis?

So - a hit piece on Iraq, blaming the administration for failure, and the very last line being Tom Ricks saying that Rumsfeld, as a wrestler, will continue to slog on even if he knows he is beaten. A week before the election. Nice.

One thing that they did absolutely get right about the conflict between the Army (and they did not emphasize it, but it was apparent - just as I wrote last June) - and Rumsfeld is that the Army had a plan about how to fight a war, and they only wanted to fight that war. I believe that is absolutely true. AirLand Battle doctrine was what I was taught at West Point - it was the war the Army was most prepared to fight, it was the war that it got in Kuwait. It fought and won that war impressively.

Army doctrine evolved some beyond AirLand Battle after the Gulf War, but still was very ALB-centric. As has often been the case, the Army had prepared for the last war. And by refusing to go along on transformation, it kept doing that. That's why the Army wasn't the lead service in Afghanistan.

And that lack of capability - and flexibility - on the part of senior Army officers on Afghanistan torpedoed their credibility on Iraq. Why buy the Army Chief of Staff's estimate of "several hundred thousand troops" for Iraq when he was promoting the same sort of number for Afghanistan, and quite clearly it was done with less.

Kerry, and other critics, point to that as the President arrogantly ignoring the generals. Since the aftermath of the Iraq War has been messy, and certainly disappointing in some ways, then obviously a different answer would have been more successful. True enough, doing different things would have resulted in different outcomes. But I don't think that it is a given that the different outcome would have been any more positive. If we had several hundred thousand troops - and we don't - sent to Iraq, we'd be even more stretched.

Any way, blaster gives it a thumbs down.

I got an email the other day that is interesting in a couple of ways. Here it is:

Blaster,

I thought you would no doubt be interested in this upcoming film airing Tuesday on PBS. It's produced by veteran filmmaker Michael Kirk whose recent credits for FRONTLINE include "The Long Road to War" and "The War Behind Closed Doors." If you can't watch the TV broadcast, you can catch it via streaming video on the film's web site (following the broadcast) at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pentagon/.

Below is a bit more information about the film. You can also access a complete press release at the URL above. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,

Jessica Smith

--

Jessica Smith

Outreach Coordinator

FRONTLINE

Interesting, first, in that I will watch this show, as I am a huge Rumsfeld fan. Judging from the press release, I expect it won't be terribly positive toward the SecDef, but I think it will be a good show, nonetheless.

Secondly, I think it is interesting that I got this email addressed to Blaster. Frontline has outreach contact me directly (not through some blast email), and knows enough about the blog to think I - or the readers - would be interested in seeing the show.

And lastly, it is interesting because it works. I would not have known about this show without this email - and no doubt, some of the 300 or so folks who read this blog wouldn't have known, either.

Let's talk explosives. The new absolutely scandalous failure in Iraq is that some 380 tons of explosives went missing at some point.

Wow, 380 tons of explosives, that sounds like a lot, right? I mean, even Joe Lockhart can do the math on that - that's 760,000 pounds!

I can do some math, too. For example, if these explosives were as dangerous as the papers are making it out to be, why were the UN, and the papers themselves, thinking that in the hands of Saddam Hussein, they were perfectly safe? And since there were some 600,000 tons of explosive in Iraq at the time the war started, that means that about .06% of Iraqi explosives are "lost."

On a side note, a friend of mine just went to Iraq to manage the demolition of ammunition in Iraq. Depending on how things work out, I just might end up playing some part in that, too.

UPDATE: Dang it! Beat by Captain Ed!

UPDATE II: Even better. The story is bunk. El Baradei blamed the loss on the US, but they were gone when we got there. So really they disappeared when the IAEA - headed by El Baradei - was supposed to be watching. Such surprises: the UN, feckless, the NYT, adoring.

I heard on Drudge last night - he had it on the radio, it isn't linked on his site - that CSPAN (I think) caught Mrs. Edwards after a speech speaking to a supporter. The supporter said that Kerry would take Pennsylvania, to which Mrs. Edwards replied, I know. And then the supporter says I just hope there aren't riots. And Mrs. Edwards says, there won't be if we win.

I don't think Mrs. Edwards was actually advocating riots if they lose, but it isn't farfetched to think that if Bush wins, there will be riots. It isn't farfetched because of the ciolence already committed against Bush offices and supporters. The poisoning of the well has agrieved people about the unfairness of the election weeks before it is even held. I saw this post over at Powerlineblog, and Hindrocket added this:

ONE MORE THING: It occurs to me that as this low-level violence becomes more and more prevalent, the Second Amendment will take on increasing importance.

In a couple of comments here, I've joked that rude and obnoxious Democrats should be nicer, because the Republicans are the ones who support the Second Amendment. I was absolutely joking. I don't think that Powerline is. (Just scan Powerlineblog and see all the stories of political violence.)

The Democrat strategy has been to cause such hate and discontent that people tire of it. I know, they say that W is the divider, but W is still where he was on 9/12. It is the Democrats who have moved away from that position. By causing enough trouble, they can get people like Mickey Kaus and Andrew Sullivan to long for those halcyon days when we all went together like peas and carrots. With Kerry in office, British newspapers won't be calling for the assassination of the American President is the thought, and surely that is a good thing, right?

Of course, they are not required to call for that violence now, and they did.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about what I thought of the current state of affairs - just how divided we were. I decided that things now were not as bad as the the "feel good 60's":

The 1960's and the early 70's - let's just call it the Vietnam era - were much worse. Political leaders and activists were getting killed. National Guard troops were policing riots, and shooting college students. Radicals were bombing government facilities. Cities were literally in flames. And no matter what happens in NYC this week, I don't think it can compare to the Democrat convention in 1968. That was division and polarization. The level of rhetoric now may be high, but the gunplay is at a minimum. That's got to be a good thing.

I finished the post off with:

Now, all of the ugliness of that era is being imported into our current one. Let's hope we still keep the gunplay to a minimum.

I don't know that I am all that hopeful that this will continue to be the case.

UPDATE: Drudge's link.

UPDATE II: NRO notes that even Howie Kurtz has noticed.

See?

You can smell the desperation in John Kerry’s latest attack, in which he says if he were president he would have donned his lucky hat and camo gear, grabbed an M-16, and hunted down that dastardly criminal Osama himself.

I forgot about the biggest thing Loftus said on Batchelor the other night. He said that (I think he said the rumor is) Arafat is dying of AIDS. That's why the Israelis haven't killed him (or we urged the Israelis not to kill him). Because if they kill him, he's a martyr. If he dies of AIDS, well, it won't be a usign of strength in Palestinian circles.

Again, I've called Loftus a one man Debka before, and that still holds true. And since the Hussein trial hasn't appeared - along with the WMD testimony - he's back on the great big grain of salt list.

UPDATE: Related?

Arafat was treated by a team of Jordanian and Egyptian doctors earlier this month for complaints including fever, severe diarrhea and vomiting, the Jerusalam Post reported. He had been ill for some time, and aides were said to be worried about his condition.

Arafat apparently still has not recovered from that illness. Haaretz reported that he was so ill on Friday that he was unable to complete the first day of prayers for the Muslim holiday of Ramadan. Aides told FOX News Arafat was fasting during the holy month, against doctors' wishes.

UPDATE II: Hey - Loftus and WorldNet Daily are on the same track. WND had this a year ago. Credibility remains roughly the same.

Ace notes yet again that it simply can't be that the press is totally incompetent, as the "mistakes" always seem to fall the same way. This the time the "Tenet said Iraq war was wrong" thing turned out to be, well, wrong.

As I note, this all stops being a surprise if you check your premises, and toss out the idea that the press is objective and exists to provide truth. Consider the press as partisan organs, and it all looks exactly as one would expect.

I think the press should just be open about what is obvious. The New York Times publishes an editorial that says, essentially, we think Kerry should win, or else the world will end. Why maintain the fiction that all of the rest of the paper is not an extension of that?

Fox should ditch the fair and balanced thing, too. I can't stand Alan Colmes anyway, just dump him. Greta's show is lame when it isn't about some big trial, and really, who the hell cares about Scott Peterson, anyway. Put Geraldo in that slot, but only from war-torn locations. Maybe he could team up with Oliver North. And on Special Report, I think Brit Hume should just lay a John McLaughlin to Eleanor Clift style beatdown on Ceci Connolly. I mean, just forget about it, the liberals all claim you are in the tank anyway, it isn't like they are going to suddenly stop watching.

Team America. Go see it. It's worth the coin just to see what happens to Janeane Garofalo.

But the Nader boomlet has subsided.

Allah couldn't remain silent long.

I don't really care about baseball. Sorry.

A link from a blog by some squids in Afghanistan - LandlockedSailor2004. Lots of great pics of Afghanistan. Look for the evidence of this statement by Secretary Rumsfeld:

Afghanistan doesn't have a lot of high value targets.

PS - I have probably done tales from the referrers more than once before. I am now going to try to be like other cool bloggers and assign my recurring characters sequential numbers.

Noted by Jay Nordlinger at NRO:

According to National Journal's Hotline, The American Prospect, a liberal magazine ("liberal" in the sense in which we're forced to use it now, meaning, illiberal), published an article that says the following: "Ironically for a man who once famously named Jesus as his favorite philosopher during a campaign debate, it is remarkably difficult to pinpoint a single instance wherein Christian teaching has won out over partisan politics in the Bush White House." And so on.

Evidently you got the wrong sheet music. This is the week where you guys are supposed to be going on about how Bush is a Bible-thumping extremist wackjob running loose in the White House. So you are out of synch with the media campaign. Though evidently, in synch with the Kerry campaign, as Bush is now the man whose faith didn't come into the Oval Office with him, but Kerry will bring his along.

Meanwhile, Michael Moore sounds like George W. Bush:

Moore said Kerry may not be perfect, but is far superior to former Vice President Al Gore and this year's other Democratic presidential hopefuls. "There's a reason that they're saying Kerry is the No. 1 liberal in the Senate," said Moore. "It's because he is the No. 1 liberal in the Senate."

Hey, Big Mike, wrong sheet music! Labels don't mean anything, remember? No wonder George Soros is pissed at you!

Valdosta, GA. Over the weekend.

The joys of supporting datacenters.

Why did the goose have to die?

Interesting observation, really. Heard Maureen Dowd on Imus this morning say that George W. Bush was always trying to portray Kerry as a woman and that Kerry was playing along. That's an interesting - and weird - observation.

At any rate, the point Batchelor is making is that the goose in today's hunt had to die so that Kerry could prove to swing voters in Ohio that he was something - an avid hunter who would never, ever, ever, threaten the 2d Amendment, perhaps. Or maybe not a woman, to make Ms. Dowd seem silly. Or maybe it is not just a guy, but a tough guy." A guy who would strap up and crawl down the caves of Afghanistan to get bin Laden all by himself.

See?

That is why the goose had to die.

Listening to John Batchelor right now, and he has a segment called "Blogwatch." He had Kos on last week. Right now he has Dan Darling of Winds of Change, Roger L. Simon, and Gary somebody whose name I didn't catch.

They are talking about Iran. They got the segment right after John Loftus.

But oh so funny!

BTW, since we are discussing immature and childish, may I make a sweeping generalization and see if anyone else has noted it?

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that Kerry supporters are atrociously bad drivers? It's seems that every day I see a totally boneheaded move on the part of some driver. Same as any other time of the year. But now, they all seem to have Kerry/Edwards stickers, usually haphazardly placed on the paint somewhere. It seems most prevalent on people driving slowly in the fast (read left) lane. Must be psychological. I have tried to ignore it, but the event is becoming so common place, it's getting difficult to ignore.

And yes, it is entirely possible that the Kerry/Edwards stickers drive home the irritation. And yes, the level of boneheaded move frequently correlates to the number and intensity of the left wing stickers on the car. And no, I am not saying that I have never been cut off by a car with a W sticker.

I'm just saying I noticed is all. Anyone else?

A few folks are starting to wonder if bin Laden isn't already dead. I mean, we certainly have no evidence that he is alive. But all kinds of folks have been saying this for years. Me, for instance. Charles Johnson. Mark Steyn. Christopher Hitchens.

Nothing new in the arguments being made, either.

But the argument is coming up now, with nothing, apparently, driving it.

Linked over on Drudge:

FBI, Justice Department and Homeland Security Department officials aren't talking much about the threat of a terrorist attack to disrupt the election in two weeks.

It hasn't gone away; they're just wary of saying anything in public that could prompt Democrats to charge the administration is playing up a terror threat to frighten voters.

The Democrats have now poisoned the well to the extent that we can't get information that we need about public safety. Because it might be political - it might help Bush.

Thanks a lot, fellas.

Spain gave the terrorists what they wanted. They toppled their government for some Socialists who promised to remove their troops from Iraq. And they pulled the troops out ahead of schedule. They banned US troops from marching in parade in favor of some Frenchies. And what do they get?

More Islamist attacks planned against Spain. (As seen on LGF)

Note. When crossing the field, the bull doesn't care if you are a vegetarian or not.

'Primetime Live' Poll: More Republicans Satisfied With Sex Lives Than Democrats

That is all.

A month ago, I made a couple of predictions. First, this one:

1. Dan Rather will not get fired, and CBS will not retract its story on the memos. They are going to take a Bill Clinton "we just have to win" strategy. And like Clinton, it will work. But, again, as with Clinton, the damage is done. There will always be some amount of snickering whenever Rather or CBS News is mentioned.

Looking good here. The independent investigation won't come out until after the election, and then noone will care. And in the third debate, when the President kinda smirked at Schieffer asking a question relying on leading news sources, that got snickers.

Next up:

Nader will pick up in the polls. Deanites who swallowed their pride and anti-war fervor for "electability" are going to feel betrayed as "electability" gets to be more and more an unlikely trait for Kerry. Nader is more politically aligned with the Deanites - the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party," so to speak - so those who compromised their principles to win will return to their principles rather than betray their inner selves and lose.

Also looking pretty good in the prediciton department. As of today, the Washington Post poll shows Nader picking up from 1 to 2%. That could easily be statistical noise, but then again, maybe not. This bump shows over at the RealClearPolitics roundup, too. And this over at Powerline Blog seems to support it. Mickey Kaus (surely Microsoft can figure out permalinks by now, can't they?) is pitching a story about how undecided voters may break for whoever is leading in the end to make sure we avoid another Florida style recount fiasco. But, then, he thinks the terrorists want Bush to win, so who knows. I think that Deanites voting Nader on principle is at least likely with Kerry failing in the polls. You have to figure at least some of the undecideds are those who want to vote Nader but are afraid that doing so will elect Bush. With a Bush win looking more and more likely, that fear goes away.

Being lectured by John Stewart on political journalism is a little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country.

I am sure that I am not the only person who has been struck by the tone of this campaign. There is an element of discord, a feeling of discontinuity, between the rhetoric of the campaign and the observed empirical evidence when it comes to the War on Terror, and the situation in Iraq. A Bush supporter such as myself frequently finds himself shaking his head at the actions and statements by the Administration. This is naturally supplanted by the slackjawed disbelief in the statements by the opposition. The opposition frequently seems to to inhabit a different reality, where white is black, black is white. Or more accurately, gray nuance is black and white, and black and white is gray nuance.

The problem is not that the opposing sides disagree, it is that the Republicans and Democrats disagreements are so profound. While other political entities may be able to survive such divisions, the United States may not. For instance, it is acceptable for French, German or Japanese politics to be severely fragmented because those nations have other mechanisms to maintain political continuity. Americans are Americans because of a basic political belief. There is really