EDWARDS COMPLETELY OUT OF HIS LEAGUE
The context of the debate was critical. This was not about who was going to be Vice-President. In that respect, John Edwards was in a sense superfluous. The context was last week's first Presidential debate, which most people say was won by John Kerry.
But if you go deeper into the poll data, you find that most people say that Kerry won the debate on style, but Bush won it on substance. For example, in the Gallup poll that appeared the next day, respondents who had watched the debate said they agreed with Bush's stance on Iraq over Kerry's by a whopping eleven points.
So Cheney's assignment tonight was to puncture the media-driven Kerry boomlet by bringing the conversation back to the issues, the facts and the arguments, especially on foreign policy.
Cheney did that, and more. I scored the first Presidential debate like a boxing match with a ten-point must system. There were no knockdowns in that match. Tonight there were two. The first was when Edwards kept insisting on the fraudulence of the Iraq coalition by claiming that the U.S. is bearing 90% of the expense and suffering 90% of the casualties. Cheney responded, in part, by pointing out the absurdity of Kerry's claim that he will build a broader alliance while at the same time assailing the war as the wrong war at the wrong time, etc.--but please send troops. He also criticized Kerry and Edwards for skipping Prime Minister Allawi's appearance before Congress and then attacking Allawi afterward.
But the most devastating blow was struck when Edwards still wouldn't give up, and came back with the 90% casualty figure. That was when Cheney, addressing Edwards as an adult admonishing a foolish child, pointed out that our most important ally in Iraq is the Iraqis, and that by refusing to include the Iraqis' many casualties in his numbers--so as to be able to claim that almost all the casualties are American--Edwards denigrates the sacrifice of our Iraqi friends.
Edwards knew that Cheney was right, and it took him a while to regain his composure.
The second knockdown was when Cheney criticized Edwards' lackluster record as a Senator, noting that he had missed 70% of the meetings of the Intelligence Committee, of which he was a member, and that his home-town paper had labeled him "Senator Gone." That was good. But the devastating conclusion was Cheney's observation that despite the fact that as Vice-President he regularly presides over the Senate, he had never met Edwards until he walked onto the stage tonight. This fact blew me away; I wouldn't have thought it possible. It blew Edwards away, too.
Those were the highlights. Beyond that, I was surprised at how easily and repeatedly Edwards became flustered. It happened over and over--when Cheney's attacks hit home, when there were minor issues over timing or who was supposed to go next, and on the question where he wasn't supposed to mention John Kerry, but couldn't help it, and finally giggled like a schoolgirl.
I don't dislike John Edwards at all. He has a puppy-like eagerness to please, and it is kind of touching how easy it is to see when he doesn't believe what he is saying (an odd quality in an alleged trial lawyer, by the way). But in running for Vice-President, he is completely out of his league.
CBS DEFERS INVESTIGATION UNTIL AFTER ELECTION
CBS has announced that its investigation into the 60 Minutes fake document scandal won't be completed until after the election:
Les Moonves, the co-president of CBS parent company Viacom, told an analyst meeting that the review of the CBS "60 Minutes II" report being done by former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and retired Associated Press chief Louis Boccardi had no timetable for completion. But he said he did not want it to interfere with the Nov. 2 election.
"Obviously, it should be done probably after the election is over so that it doesn't affect what's going on," he told a Goldman Sachs media conference in New York.
A CBS spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the statement. But she pointed out that when CBS News President Andrew Heyward named Boccardi and Thornburgh to conduct the investigation of the Sept. 8 report, he said he hoped it would be completed in weeks rather than months.
Well, CBS certainly wouldn't want to influence the election by revealing how its news department conspired with the Democratic National Committee to slander the President and his commanding officers in the Texas Air National Guard in hopes of influencing the election.
The latest New York Times/CBS News poll came out this morning, and, like several others, it shows President Bush and John Kerry locked in a 47% to 47% tie, compared to an eight point lead for President Bush after the Republican convention in September.
The poll's internals are easily accessible--which is praiseworthy--so it takes only a moment to determine that the October poll sampled 34% Democrats and 29% Republicans, while the September poll sampled 33% Republicans and 31% Democrats. So it's hardly a surprise that Kerry did better in the October survey. If the pollsters sampled only Democrats, they could show that Kerry was sweeping toward an unprecedented victory.
We aren't going to be able to untangle the pros and cons of "correcting" samples between now and November; suffice it to say, however, that 4% of the population didn't abandon the Republican party for the Democrats over the last 30 days.
I also note that the proportion of liberals sampled in today's Times/CBS poll is the highest they have recorded in any Presidential poll since 1995. Maybe Kerry should be worried that the best he could manage was a tie.
It's noteworthy that all of the polls that over-sampled Republicans in September are now over-sampling Democrats in October. Is this a coincidence, or a deliberate effort to manufacture a Kerry "comeback" to generate momentum for the Democrats? One possible explanation, as least as to the Times/CBS poll, is that their September poll was taken on a Monday through Wednesday, while the poll released today was entirely done on the weekend, when pollsters know they will tend to find more Democrats at home. So was the choice of polling dates deliberate, or coincidental?
For what it's worth, those polls that weight samples to produce a consistent blend of Republicans, Democrats and independents have found little or no change since the first Presidential debate. Tuesday, October 5, 2004
WE'LL TAKE "HONEST, STRONG, AND SINCERE"
Real Clear Politics has Pew's "internals" on last week's debate. They consist of the one word reaction of those surveyed to the performance of each candidate. Here's the bottom line, according to Tom Bevan:
"If you boil it down to the top three impressions generated for each candidate you're left with the following nut: Bush = honest, strong, and sincere, Kerry = confident, prepared, and intelligent. If this is truly indicative of how the country feels about what they saw last Thursday night, then President Bush may have indeed come out much better than expected and remains in a pretty strong position."
My view is that the president lost a little ground on Thursday but that, for the most part, this was the result of people viewing Kerry in a more favorable light than before, rather than viewing Bush more negatively. If the race is mostly a referendum on the incumbent (and isn't it always that?), then I agree with Bevan that Bush remains in a pretty strong position.
IRAQI DOCUMENTS SAID TO DETAIL WMD AND TERRORIST CONNECTIONS
Cybercast News Service says that it has obtained copies of 42 pages of Iraqi intelligence documents from a "A senior government official who is not a political appointee." CNS has had the documents translated; here is how it describes them:
Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by U.S. forces and obtained by CNSNews.com, show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda, to target Americans. They demonstrate that Saddam's government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both considered weapons of mass destruction, in the summer of 2000, during the period in which United Nations weapons inspectors were not present in Iraq. And the papers show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders.
One of the Iraqi memos contains an order from Saddam for his intelligence service to support terrorist attacks against Americans in Somalia. The memo was written nine months before U.S. Army Rangers were ambushed in Mogadishu by forces loyal to a warlord with alleged ties to al Qaeda.
Other memos provide a list of terrorist groups with whom Iraq had relationships and considered available for terror operations against the United States.
Among the organizations mentioned are those affiliated with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri, two of the world's most wanted terrorists.
CNS says further that it submitted the documents to Laurie Mylroie, retired CIA counter-terror specialist Bruce Tefft, and a former UNSCOM inspector to check their authenticity.
The CNS account provides a great deal of detail about the documents and has links to partial translations of the documents and other material.
The government official who gave the documents to CNS says he thinks it unlikely that the Bush administration is even aware of their existence, given the large volume of intelligence-related documents waiting to be translated.
Thanks to several readers who alerted us to this story. Monday, October 4, 2004
www.powerlineblog.com
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BIG WIN FOR CHENEY
Like Andrew Sullivan tonight, I was in the very small minority last week that called the Thursday debate against the tide of popular and pundit opinion. I have been proven right by the emergence of the "global test" blunder and other Kerry pratfalls, so I will be reading Sullivan's take very carefully, as a hedge against conventional "Cheney won" wisdom. Everyone thought Saddam would use WMD against our troops, remember? Snap judgments --such as the opinions cataloged (thank you Glenn) at Instapundit-- can be decisively wrong. I strongly believe that Cheney won --"big time" in fact-- but I think it is crucial to study the contrarians more than the chorus.
This is a hugely incisive comment by Andrew, though wrong in its conclusions:
"One of the least understood and reported aspects of the current administration is simply the enormous strain of the past four years. They have endured some of the most testing times any modern president and vice-president have had to encounter. And you can see the strain and exhaustion in both the two principals. I'm not criticizing; in fact, I'm empathizing. But the result is obvious: when confronted with the major issues they have been dealing with day in day out, issues they know intimately and have worked on endlessly, their response is simply what Cheney himself kept saying: "Where do I start?" They have become so enmeshed in running a war that they have become almost unable to articulate its goals and process - and at times seem resentful that they even have to."
What Andrew doesn't get is that the American people understand this effort, and admire the resolve of the president and vice president, and resent--perhaps at an unconscious level, but nevertheless in a real way-- attacks on their stewardship of the war effort. There have been no more attacks on our soil. As former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has warned (warning: the link is to a neocon hater), that is no guarantee about the next four weeks. In fact, Aznar predicted a major blow against the U.S. before the election. But the Kerry-Edwards attack on the motives of the Bush-Cheney team, and their record of protecting all Americans against another 9/11, has been a strategic political error of the first order. It seems churlish because it is churlish. Bush has aged before our eyes, as has Cheney, but disparaging their effort and sacrifice would be the equivalent of mocking FDR for showing some wear and tear in 1944. The Dem strategists don't understand this because they are not committed to the war in the same way that Bush and Cheney are. Kerry isn't convinced or convincing on the GWOT, but the electorate is. That's why Edwards foundered tonight.
And why a decisive victory is on the horizon for the president and his running mate. KerrySpot and Powerline provide specifics. But keep an eye on Andrew. The mob can be wrong, though tonight it doesn't appear to be. Tuesday, October 5, 2004
www.hughhewitt.com
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ANNOYING AP BIAS
By Michelle Malkin
Here is the opening paragraph of the AP post-debate propaganda masquerading as analysis:
With cold efficiency, Vice President Dick Cheney sought to eviscerate the credibility of the Democratic presidential ticket Tuesday night..
Can you imagine an AP report focusing on Edwards' performance that began "With gooey unctuousness, Sen. John Edwards etc..."
The wire service's anti-Bush/Cheney bent has been effectively documented here and here.
In any case, all four candidates claim they have what it takes to kill the terrorists wherever they are. I prefer it be done with "cold efficiency," don't you?
P.S. A reader notes that "the AP posted its annoying, bias-filled report of the debate at 9:54 PM--35 minutes before the debate ended!" Wednesday, October 6, 2004
www.michellemalkin.com
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KERRY'S SENATORIAL BEHAVIOUR
http://news.bostonherald.com/holbert/
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ARAB NEWS: US SHOULD STOP WARS (AND VOTE KERRY)
The official English-language mouthpiece of the Saudi oil ticks, Arab News, would like us all to go back to sleep, to the soothing tones of Buchanan, Fisk, Chomsky, and Pilger: US Should Stop Wars and Give Peace a Chance. (Hat tip: Steven Den Beste.)
Patrick Seale is one of many writers with a conscience. Pat Buchanan, Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Jonathan Power, Linda Heard, and other Western writers have been advocates of peace and are brave enough to speak out in defense of the Muslim world. However a lot more needs to be done to stop the increasing prejudice against Muslims in the West that is threatening world peace.
America please listen. No more wars. Give peace a chance.
US FAILS GLOBAL TEST AGAIN
Today the United States vetoed another sickeningly biased United Nations Security Council resolution backed by Arab dictatorships, that would have demanded an immediate end to Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip: U.S. Vetoes Plan to End Israeli Operation. (Hat tip: Luigi.)
UNITED NATIONS - The United States on Tuesday vetoed an Arab-backed resolution that demanded an immediate end to military operations in the northern Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, saying the measure was “lopsided and unbalanced” and “absolves terrorists in the Middle East.” ...
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 11 in favor, one against, and three abstentions — Britain, Germany and Romania.
U.S. Ambassador John Danforth cast the U.S. veto after British and German efforts to find compromise language failed. “Once again, the resolution is lopsided and unbalanced,” Danforth told the council just before voting “no.”
“It is dangerously disingenuous because of its many material omissions. Because of this lack of balance, because of these omissions, the resolution lacks credibility and deserves a `no’ vote,” he said.
After the vote, Algeria’s U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Baali, the only Arab member of the council, thanked the resolution’s supporters and noted that the measure got more than the minimum nine “yes” votes needed for adoption.
Citing the high casualty toll and extensive destruction during the Israeli offensive, he said, “It is a sad day for the Palestinians and it is a sad day for justice.”
If John Kerry becomes president, of course, this kind of unilateral veto would never pass the Global Test. Who knows how many moderate Arabs have been radicalized forever by today’s veto?
A GOOD START
Israel has arrested 13 United Nations employees for links to terrorism.
Israel has arrested 13 United Nations employees over “suspected links to terrorism,” an Israeli army officer has said.
The names and job titles of the UN staff members were not revealed and it was not clear when they were arrested.
The announcement followed the killing of two members of the Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad, including a senior official, in an Israeli missile attack in Gaza City.
GOT ANOTHER KILLER IN ISRAEL
Good news from Israel, where the bloody career of the leader of Islamic Jihad has come to a fiery end: Israel Kills Islamic Jihad Leader in Gaza Strike.
Bashir ad-Dabbash, 38, was the leader in Palestinian territories of the group sworn to destroying the Jewish state and at the forefront of a suicide bombing campaign during a 4-year-old Palestinian uprising.
He died alongside another militant one year and one day after the last big suicide bombing by the faction, when a Palestinian woman killed 23 Israelis at a restaurant.
The Israeli army said in a statement that it had targeted the vehicle, adding that Dabbash was responsible for dozens of attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers.
The killing of the Islamic Jihad leader came as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tries to break armed factions before a planned withdrawal of troops and settlers from occupied Gaza next year. Militants seek to claim any pullout as a victory.
Dabbash’s body was borne to the morgue from the wreckage of his car, torn apart in the missile strike, by militants firing in the air and chanting for revenge. Tuesday, October 5, 2004
http://littlegreenfootballs.com
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THE MISSING MEN ATTENDED THE GLOBAL TEST
Andrew Sullivan feels justified in saying, "I told you so". In the Daily Dish, he says:
Now, Bremer: The main criticisms this blog has directed at the conduct of the war have been the insufficient troop numbers and allowing the looting and disorder to spread after the liberation. Now comes Jerry Bremer to say exactly the same thing:
"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness. We never had enough troops on the ground."
That's a big admission. Why doesn't Edwards bring that up directly tonight with Cheney? And since it was so obvious so soon, why didn't the administration do anything to change that policy once its failings had become so glaring? Pig-headedness? Ignorance? Hubris? Or merely Rumsfeld - shorthand for all three?
Sullivan's source for Bremer's remarks is the Washington Post which begins its story this way:
The former U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion said yesterday that the United States made two major mistakes: not deploying enough troops in Iraq and then not containing the violence and looting immediately after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, administrator for the U.S.-led occupation government until the handover of political power on June 28, said he still supports the decision to intervene in Iraq but said a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.
What Bremer actually said was:
"We paid a big price for not stopping it (looting) because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," he said yesterday in a speech at an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. "We never had enough troops on the ground."
From that quote the "Washington Post" concluded that:
Bremer's comments were striking because they echoed contentions of many administration critics, including Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, who argue that the U.S. government failed to plan adequately to maintain security in Iraq after the invasion.
Bremer's own interpretation of his own comments was rather different. He claimed the coalition was shorthanded when it arrived in Baghdad.
"I believe that we currently have sufficient troop levels in Iraq," he said in an e-mailed statement. He said all references in recent speeches to troop levels related to the situation when he arrived in Baghdad in May 2003 -- "and when I believed we needed either more coalition troops or Iraqi security forces to address the looting."
Before we dismiss Bremer's statement as a belated attempt to split hairs and return to the Party Line it is important to remember one simple fact. The US arrived in Baghdad in May, 2003 minus nearly half the mechanized force intended for the operation. The Fourth Infantry Division which was scheduled to attack downward from Turkey and sweep through the Sunni heartland never arrived in large part due to the opposition of countries like France in the Security Council. Instead, it was forced to re-embark and ship around to the Gulf where it marched north up the Tigris in the path of the 3rd Infantry Division. The 3rd ID, for its part had to continue its attack north to partially subdue the towns in the Sunni triangle. It was a double-whammy. Not only was the 4th ID missing from the order of battle, the 3rd ID had to send units out of Baghdad. to continue the fight further on. Here's what the Christian Science Monitor had to report on February 21, 2003, just weeks before OIF actually began:
A US-led war in Iraq without Turkey as a pivotal ally was once a remote possibility. But months of prickly negotiations between Washington and Ankara are coming to a head and the US is dangerously close to its first setback - one that would force drastic changes in the war plan, military officials say. Already 30 to 40 US cargo ships are either waiting off the Turkish coast or scheduled to arrive there soon, officials say. The Bush administration says Turkey must decide Friday whether tens of thousands of US troops can be stationed here.
"They would have to change their entire strategy as a result," says one US military official.
Some 20 to 30 US cargo ships bound from Texas ports and another 10 headed from Northern Europe are carrying 4.5 million sq. ft. of cargo including tanks, trucks, and other heavy equipment for the 16,000-strong division. It would take 18 to 21 days to divert these ships from the eastern Mediterranean to Kuwait via the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, with additional delays possible from winter high seas and traffic in the Suez Canal. The roll-on, roll-off cargo ships of the ready reserve fleet travel at about 14 to 16 knots. Once in Kuwait, finding pier space to offload the cargo, and additional staging grounds, could also take time, officials say.
Turkish President Ahmet Sezer says that the US must first win international legitimacy before launching any military operation in Iraq, arguing that a second UN Security Council resolution beyond Resolution 1441 be passed. Bush administration officials will seek a vote at the Council next week, requiring 9 out of 15 votes for the measure to pass. But even if it does not, Bush has said, the US may go ahead and launch a war led by a "coalition of the willing."
The Fourth Infantry Division, at that time the most modern armored force in the Army, was not absent due to the "Pig-headedness? Ignorance? Hubris?" of Donald Rumsfeld. It was missing directly as a result of the machinations of those supposed to administer Kerry's Global Test to America in the United Nations, who were large part responsible for closing Turkey to the United States. To continue Sullivan's quote: "Why doesn't Edwards bring that up directly tonight with Cheney?" Cheney should. And to Sullivan's question: "since it was so obvious so soon, why didn't the administration do anything to change that policy once its failings had become so glaring?" one might answer that it did, re-embarking the 4ID and sailing it a total of 1/5th of the way around the world into congested ports which had never planned to receive them, before marching it 600 kilometers up to Baghdad. Tuesday, October 5, 2004
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com
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THE MORAL EQUIVALENCE OF THE DAY
Today's award goes to Clare Short, the former international development secretary in the British Labour Cabinet. In a recent interview, Ms Short has condemned killing civilians but declared the Iraqi insurgent's case to be just: "I understand the anger and the demand for action and it's not good enough for the world to say state violence is OK and non-state violence is not OK," said Short, who last year resigned from the Cabinet in protest over Tony Blair's position on Iraq.
Short might indeed understand the anger in Iraq, but she has problems understanding history:
"The American public fought against British colonialism with violence, the free French fought against German occupation with violence, the Palestinian people are entitled to resist occupation. I mean, it's in international law [and] the Iraqi people are entitled [to resist occupation]."
The far left never tires of making these comparisons and I never tire of pointing out how odious and ignorant they are. The American revolutionaries fought to set up a parliament of their own and to give the people of the colonies constitutionally guaranteed freedoms - of conscience, of speech, of association - as well as rights, not the least, to pursue happiness. The French fought against the vile Nazi totalitarianism and to restore their liberal parliamentary democracy. "The Iraqi people" - many of whom are not actually Iraqi - who are "resisting" the "occupation", at best want a return to a socialist Sunni dictatorship where the Kurds were gassed, prisons kept full, and people like Short, who resigned from the Cabinet over a difference of opinion with the leader, buried in unmarked graves. At worst, they want to create a new Talibanesque Iraq, where Short would be a second-class burqa-clad citizen whose daughters wouldn't be able to get education, whose homosexual friends would be stoned to death, and whose own parliamentary career would be sadly cut short by the lack of parliament.
It takes a mental age of three to notice that some things ("the French shooting guns at foreign troops" and "the Iraqis shooting guns at foreign troops", for example) are alike; it takes a moral age of three to maintain that they are therefore the equally valid and commendable. Wednesday, October 6, 2004
ISRAEL AND IRAQ
In Israel, Dave at Israellycool is really on the roll regarding the controversy surrounding the possible use and abuse by terrorists of UN facilities (for background see here). Is it a stretcher or is it a rocket? We might never know. Is Hamas a welfare group or a terrorist organization? Both, since it helps Palestinians and blows up Jews. Can the UN cooperate with one section while not being tarred by the association than the other? Ironically, if the tables were turned, Hamas and their ilk in Iraq wouldn't distinguish between the Americans doing security duties and those doing charity and reconstruction work.
(by the way, speaking of "Hamas and their ilk in Iraq", there are reports that Iran and Al Zarqawi have started to outsource some of suicide attacks in Iraq to Hamas, who are currently rather strapped for cash.)
In Iraq, a certain somebody with a famous moustache wants to make a political comeback: