Free Frank Warner

Hubbards in Iraq were a band of brothers

Jeff Hubbard of Clovis, California, lost his son Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Hubbard in the Iraq war on Nov. 4, 2004. Last week, on Aug. 22, another son, Army Cpl. Nathan Hubbard, died in the Iraq war.

Yesterday, Jeff Hubbard said:

“We just want people to support the nation in what it’s doing to make the world a better place.”

Jason Hubbard, a third son, joined the Army with brother Nathan after Jared’s death.

“When Jared died, it was something we felt we needed to do and do it together,” Jason said. “We thought it was an important part of the healing experience and it was the honorable thing to do.”

Jason, who also was serving in Iraq when Nathan died, has returned to the United States. Under Army rules, he is ineligible to return to combat. For Iraq’s liberation, the Hubbard family has given far more than its share.

Frank Warner

Gen. John Bednarek should clarify his views on democracy in Iraq

Commenter Oliver wrote yestersday that anyone who believes Brig. Gen. John Bednarek isn’t committed to democracy in Iraq just hasn’t been paying attention.

Nevertheless, CNN quoted Bednarek on Aug. 22 as saying:

“Democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future” for Iraq.

Or he said:

“The democratic institution is not necessarily the way ahead in a long-term future” in Iraq.

Or he said:

“The democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future” in Iraq.

Defeatist translation. CNN and many other news outlets interpreted the general’s statement as asserting Iraq might be better off without freedom.

Oliver, who seems to have been following Bednarek closely, said the general is not giving up on democracy.

Gen. Bednarek’s words have been taken completely out of context…. [T]ry listening to any other interview with the general on any given day and perhaps you will get a clearer picture of what his opinion is.

Security required, too. I believe Oliver. It appears to me the general was saying that, over the next few decades, democratic institutions alone won’t secure Iraq’s freedoms or win the Iraq war. It will take the soldiers and police within Iraq’s new democracy.

That isn’t how Bednarek’s words were translated on television and in newspapers around the world.

“U.S. officials rethink hopes for Iraq democracy,” said a CNN headline.

From CNN’s Aug. 22 “Situation Room”:

Michael Ware, CNN correspondent (voice-over): Two years after the euphoria of historic elections, America’s plan to bring democracy to Iraq is in crisis. For the first time exasperated frontline U.S. generals talk openly of non-democratic alternatives.

Brig Gen. John Bednarek, U.S. Army: “The democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future.”

Ware: “Iraq’s institutions are simply not working. It's hard to dispute that Iraq is a failing state. Seventeen of the 37 Iraqi cabinet ministers either boycott the government or don’t attend cabinet meetings. The government is unable to supply regular electricity and at times not even providing running water in the capital.

“And thousands of innocents are dying every month. The government failures are forcing the Bush administration to curb its vision for a democratic model for the region, the cornerstone of its rationale for the war.”

Time for context? CNN allowed Bednarek those 13 cryptic words, and then reporter Michael Ware piled on and on with Ware’s personal hopes that democracy fails in Iraq. The CNN report had nothing more from the general. No context. Nothing.

So why doesn’t Bednarek hold a news conference and spell out his true position on this? Has he no idea how viciously his words have been twisted? Why let the falsehoods go unchallenged?

Frank Warner

Should U.S. drop U.N. for a pro-democracy ‘Anglosphere’?

Blogiburton’s Kevin asks whether the United States should pull out of the United Nations and instead join the British Commonwealth in a peacekeeping “Anglosphere.”

It’s not a terrible idea, but its first drawback would be the conspiracy theories such an organization would spawn. It would be the same silly talk, however intensified, of diabolical plans to impose an English-speaking world “hegemony.” The mindless partisans -- childishly naive adults who insist on calling themselves “intellectuals” -- would portray “us” Anglos not as liberators or protectors, but as conquerors coming to steal resources from “them,” the now-enslaved non-Anglos.

The paranoia and fiction-writing might be avoided by including all democracies in a world organization for freedom, a United Democracies. Yes, even put the French in there.

Greater commitment? But don’t expect France or India or even Canada to devote more resources to fight tyranny or spread liberty under a United Democracies banner. They know the United States, with its history and strong democratic traditions, feels a duty to defend freedom, and they’re willing to take advantage of that. Most other democracies are eager to let the U.S. do all the hard and heroic work (and then they’re also willing to belittle American sacrifices to mask their own shame).

Perhaps within 20 years the world won’t have such a great need to defend the defenseless against despots. If Iraq succeeds and China falls open to freedom, a fully free world could be within reach, and liberty’s lip-servers could stop looking for ways to dodge risky responsibilities. Fewer dictators would mean fewer wars.

But Kevin is on the right track with his call for a United Democracies. We’ll need such an organization to remind the shrinking circle of dictators that their power is illegitimate, and to introduce freedom’s creative light where totalitarianism casts its last cruel shadows.

Frank Warner

Getting Vietnam almost right

Mark Moyar, a historian, tries to counter the defeatists’ claim that the U.S. military role in Vietnam was unnecessary by saying we were fighting for capitalism in Vietnam. Sorry, but Moyar’s wrong.

Capitalism is not the goal of any war of liberation. Freedom is the goal. Political liberty probably will produce free markets, with regulation. But a liberal economy is only a side effect. A democracy’s mix of free market forces and socialism forever will be tweaked and revised by democracy itself.

What Moyar doesn’t seem to realize is that, if you argue we were fighting for capitalism in Vietnam, you side with those who were happy to see democratic South Vietnam fall to totalitarian North Vietnam in 1975. After all, North Vietnam eventually brought capitalism to a Vietnam united under one police state. Happy with that? Moyar says he isn’t. He should think more deeply about why Vietnam makes him unhappy.

The great struggle. Communist China is largely capitalist today. So is Cuba, particularly if you look at that country as a company town operated by one unregulated monopoly. What’s missing in these nations? People who are free to speak their minds and choose their leaders.

Obviously, the capitalism-socialism is not the vital divide. The real struggle is between freedom and repression. Moyar should know better.

Frank Warner

Has U.S. Gen. John Bednarek given up on a democratic Iraq?

One disturbing news story I caught in the London papers while I was away was this Aug. 22 remark by U.S. Brig. Gen. John “Mick” Bednarek that:

“Democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future” in Iraq.

Democracy is “not necessarily the way”? What does Bednarek think he’s fighting for? One tyranny to replace another? That was Communism’s goal after World War II. That is not our liberators’ goal for Iraq. Democracy is the only way Iraq eventually can maintain a lasting peace.

I’ll have to assume Bednarek, who leads part of a task force in Iraq’s Diyala province, spoke imprecisely during a CNN interview, or that his words have been reported out of context. I have the feeling the general was saying that, right now and perhaps for decades, Iraq’s new democracy will need armies and police to guarantee its security. In other words, contrary to Sen. Harry Reid’s claims, politics alone will not win the Iraq war.

Elections not enough. If that’s Bednarek’s point, he’s right on target. Elections, a free press and democratically enacted laws are not enough to defeat the fascists and fanatics. Against these enemies, force also is required.

I’d be shocked if Gen. Bednarek was saying a secure democracy is not the goal for Iraq. When he said “democratic institutions are not necessarily the way,” CNN should have asked “Not necessarily the way to what? To security? To a happy future for Iraqis? What do you mean by ‘democratic institutions’? Do you mean Iraq should consider abandoning democracy altogether?”

It appears CNN had no interest in clarifying Bednarek’s point. As a result, all we got were headlines that a U.S. general believes Iraq might be better off without democracy, and bloggers declaring “Iraqi democracy is expendable for ‘success.’”

The force factor. If Bednarek really has given up on Iraqi freedom, he should be fired. That President Bush hasn’t dismissed him tells us Bednarek really was saying that Iraq’s democracy won’t be saved by “democratic institutions” alone.

CNN should have followed up immediately on that story. Instead, it let it sit unexplained and probably distorted.

Frank Warner

See also: Gen. John Bednarek should clarify his views on democracy in Iraq.

I’m back, Al’s gone

Well, I’ve returned from an electronics-free week of music and merriment in England. What a magical week it was. I’ll post pictures later.

I didn’t follow news events as closely as usual, but I heard Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned. Something to do with legally replacing eight or nine U.S. attorneys.

Anything else happen while I was out?

Frank Warner

Democrats’ weekly Pep Talk for Tyrants

Since the Democrats took control of Congress in January, they’ve given one week after another of Pep Talks for Tyrants.

Jan. 23, 2007: Sen. Jim Webb, responding to President Bush’s State of the Union message:

“The president took us into this war recklessly. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable -- and predicted -- disarray that has followed.”

Jan. 31, 2007: Sen. Joe Biden, announcing his run for the presidency:

“The next President of the United States must be prepared to immediately step in and act – without hesitation -- to end our involvement in the Iraq conflict without further destabilizing the Middle East and the world.”

Feb. 5, 2007: Sen. Dick Durbin, seeking to cut off debate on a nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush’s new Iraq troop “surge” strategy.

“We are witnessing the spectacle of a White House and Republican senators unwilling even to engage in a debate on a war that claims at least one American life every day and at least $2.5 billion dollars a week.”

Feb. 15, 2007: Sen. Patrick Leahy, supporting a nonbinding resolution against the “surge” and backing the beginning of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq:

“The reality is that supporting our troops does not mean keeping them there to carry out a failed strategy. It means pursuing a course that protects the country’s interests and prevents more Americans from dying in pursuit of an ill-defined, open-ended strategy that cannot succeed.”

Feb. 21, 2007: Sen. Christopher Dodd, in a presidential candidates debate in Nevada:

“It was a mistake, in my view, to vote the way we did five years ago on that [Iraq invasion] resolution.”

Feb. 27, 2007:  Sen. Russell Feingold:

“It’s crazy to create a new military mission in Iraq when we should be getting out of there. I didn’t vote for it in the first place. I’ll be darned if I’m going to vote for it now.”

March 5, 2007: Sen. John Edwards, answering the question, “What parts of American life do you think would most outrage Jesus?”

“Our selfishness. Our resort to war when it’s not necessary. I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually.”

March 14, 2007: Sen. Carl Levin, on the nonbinding resolution against the troop “surge”:

“The enemy is emboldened by a surge of American troops into a civil war that postpones the day when Iraqi leaders will take responsibility for their own future.  Our responsibility -- and what this resolution does -- is work to make that day come sooner.”

March 23, 2007: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on passage of a House deadline of Aug. 31, 2008, for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

“The American people have lost faith in the president’s conduct of this war. The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not.”

March 23, 2007: Rep. John Murtha:

“[H]e [President Bush] said mission accomplished. The mission hasn’t been accomplished, and he needs the money, so he’s going to have to deal with us on this issue. He’s going to have to find a way to have benchmarks. We want the Iraqis to take over this war.”

March 27, 2007: Sen. Chuck Hagel, Republican who voted with the Democrats to keep, in a spending bill, a March 31, 2008, date for abandoning free Iraq:

“We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam.”

March 27, 2007: Sen. Harry Reid, on the March 31, 2008, Iraq surrender date:

“This is a civil war. It’s turned into an intractable civil war. The president must change course, and this legislation will allow him to do that…. [T]he time has come to find a new way forward in this intractable war.”

April 1, 2007: Rep. Charlie Rangel, explaining why the House Iraq withdrawal deadline bill included $20 billion in “pork” projects unreleated to the Iraq war:

“Because they needed the votes. That bill, we lost so many Democrats, one, because people thought we went too far and other’s because we didn’t go far enough. So a lot of things had to go into a bill that certainly those of us who respect great legislation did not want in there…And I didn’t care what was in that bill if there was anything to slow down, to say what the American people said in the last election, ‘get out of Iraq.’”

April 12, 2007: Sen. John Kerry, reacting to explosion in Iraqi parliament building:

“This is the progress we’ve been hearing about? And tell me, how are more American troops going to stop a single fanatic with explosives strapped to his chest?”

April 19, 2007: Sen. Harry Reid:

“I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week…. I believe the war at this stage can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically.”

April 23, 2007: Sen. Harry Reid:

“General Petraeus has said the war cannot be won militarily. Doesn’t every soldier going there know that he’s said that?”

May 1, 2007: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, signing the Iraq surrender date bill:

“For the strong commitment to support our troops and to fill our promises to our veterans, this legislation honors the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform with benchmarks that hold the Iraqi government accountable.  This legislation respects the wishes of the American people to end the Iraq war.”

May 11, 2007: Sen. Harry Reid:

“In just the last few days, we have seen our Republican colleagues tell the president that his war strategy is failing. This is a welcome shift. It is encouraging.”

May 16, 2007: Sen. Russ Feingold:

“Our own national security will be weakened until this war is brought to a close. We cannot – we must not – allow this war to continue.”

May 20, 2007: Sen. Chris Dodd:

“Equating the American Revolution with the Civil War in Iraq today, please.”

May 27, 2007: Sen. Carl Levin, on a planned September Iraq war progress report:

“Why wait until September? We’ve got men and women dying in Iraq right now. Why not make that change in course right now?”

June 3, 2007: John Murtha, on Iraq President Jalal Talabani’s comment on the foiled plot to blow up JFK Airport:

“You heard earlier where he [Talabani] said this incident in the United States is being driven by al Qaeda, is being inspired by al Qaeda. This is the kind of thing that is happening because of our troops in Iraq.”

June 10, 2007: Gov. Bill Richardson:

“I would leave no troops in Iraq whatsoever. I would take them out in the next six months.”

June 17, 2007: Carl Levin, on the Iraq government’s slow progress toward national reconciliation:

“The only hope is if they understand that we’re going to begin to leave.”

June 30, 2007: Harry Reid, reacting to Republican Sen. Dick Lugar’s call to begin withdrawing from Iraq and forget about democracy there.

“While a growing number of Republicans are saying the right things on Iraq, we’ll soon find out if they have the courage to vote the right way too.”

July 6, 2007: Harry Reid:

“I think that each time these people vote to continue what’s going on in Iraq it is a bad, bad move for them and a worse move for our country.”

July 12, 2007: Harry Reid:

“It is clear that the Iraqi people don’t want us there. It is clear that there is now a state of chaos in Iraq. And it is up to the Iraqi people to make themselves safe…. We can’t do it.”

July 19, 2007: Sen. Barack Obama, saying an Iraq genocide breakout should not stop U.S. withdrawal:

“Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now -- where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife -- which we haven’t done.

“We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done. Those of us who care about Darfur don’t think it would be a good idea.”

July 22, 2007: Harry Reid:

“[A]cademics and military people say Iraq is in chaos right now. Al-Qaida has an enemy, it’s the United States. Even Iraqis, by a 70 percent margin, think that Americans in Iraq are doing more harm than good. So getting the Americans out of Iraq, except for the troops that I’ve just talked about, I think, would lessen the chaos rather than increase it.”

July 30, 2007: Rep. James Clyburn, fearing the 47 Blue Dog congressmen would drop support for a withdrawal deadline if Gen. David Petraeus in September reports progress in Iraq:

“I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us. We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report.”

Aug. 8, 2007: Gov. Bill Richardson, speaking to the New Hampshire teachers union:

“We need to get out of Iraq, where precious lives and needed dollars have been wasted. We could use these resources to improve our schools and make the economy, once again, work for the middle class.”

Aug. 14, 2007: Harry Reid:

“While our brave men and women continue to fight Iraq’s civil war, Iraqis remain far from a political solution and have not demonstrated any readiness to stand up and take responsibility for their own country. And as President Bush continues to cling stubbornly to his flawed strategy, al Qaida only grows stronger.”

Aug. 21, 2007: Barack Obama:

“Iraq’s leaders are not reconciling. They are not achieving political benchmarks. The only thing they seem to have agreed on is to take a vacation.

“That is why I have pushed for a careful and responsible redeployment of troops engaged in combat operations out of Iraq, joined with direct and sustained diplomacy in the region.”

Sept. 1, 2007: Rep. Jan Schakowsky:

“The president’s surge has failed and there is no end in sight for the war in Iraq…. Most Democrats and a growing number of Republicans have come to the same conclusion -- the best way to protect our troops is to end this war.”

Sept. 5, 2007: Charles Schumer:

“The violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda, said to these tribes: ‘We have to fight al Qaeda ourselves.’”

Sept. 11, 2007: Sen. Barbara Boxer to Gen. David Petraeus:

“I ask you to take off your rosy glasses. We are sending our troops where they are not wanted, with no end in sight, in the middle of a civil war, in the middle of the mother of all mistakes.”

[Demoralized by improvements in Iraq, the Democrats take a break of a few weeks.]

Oct. 8, 2007: U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd, comparing Iraq to Vietnam:

“The great similarity is the fact that you’ve gotten yourself entangled, half way across the world, in a military engagement that you can’t win.”

Oct. 18, 2007: Rep. Pete Stark:

“You don’t have money to fund the war or children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.”

Oct. 22, 2007: Harry Reid:

“Democrats continue to fight for America’s priorities while the President continues investing only in his failed war strategy – even as most of his own Pentagon leadership is now on record saying that our ground forces are stretched dangerously thin because of the current Iraq strategy.”

Nov. 3. 2007: Sen. Patty Murray:

“Not a single American needs George Bush to remind us that we are still at war. In fact, if it were up to us, we [Democrats] would already be bringing an end to the war that the President started.”

Nov. 5, 2007: Rep. David Obey:

“I would say one of the reasons that you had incidents of violence -- of sectarian violence -- go down is because you’re running out of people to kill. I mean, they’ve killed so many in so many areas that there are fewer opportunity targets, if you want to put it that way, for each side.”

Nov. 15, 2007: Harry Reid:

“Every place you go you hear about no progress being made in Iraq. ... It is not getting better, it is getting worse. … He [President Bush] damn sure is not entitled to having this money given to him just with a blank check. Americans need someone fighting for them taking on this bully we have in the White House.”

Comfort for fascists. It’s easy to imagine the joy these weekly words of encouragement have given the enemies of Iraq’s new democracy.

For the totalitarians murdering and maiming the democrats of Iraq, the American Democrats just keep the comfort coming.

The Democrats frame their kindness for killers as criticism of “how” Bush has led the battle, but that’s a ruse. They have never suggested seriously another way to win the Iraq war in freedom’s favor. In fact, few of them dare speak the words “victory” and “democracy” in the same sentence.

A mission to lose. For them, the mission isn’t to secure Iraq's democracy. When is the last time Democratic leaders talked about that? Their mission is to lose. And they’re happy to keep up the chatter for that goal.

What will it be this week?

Frank Warner

On vacation

Frank is on vacation until Aug. 30.

Drunks and bears don’t mix

Maybe they shouldn’t hold beer festivals near zoos.

A 23-year old Serb was found dead and half-eaten in the bear cage of Belgrade Zoo at the weekend during the annual beer festival.

The man was found naked, with his clothes lying intact inside the cage. Two adult bears, Masha and Misha, had dragged the body to their feeding corner and reacted angrily when keepers tried to recover it.

“There’s a good chance he was drunk or drugged. Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage,” zoo director Vuk Bojovic told Reuters.

Michael Vick was not involved.

Frank Warner

Why is Carl Levin in Iraq calling for the ouster of Iraq’s Maliki?

Is this a tad irresponsible? Sen. Carl Levin is calling for Iraqis to remove Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister.

Iraqi leaders had “failed to meet their own political benchmarks on sharing power and resources, changing de-Baathification laws, scheduling provincial elections, or amending the constitution,” Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said yesterday.

“So I hope that the Iraqi assembly, when it reconvenes in a few weeks, will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and a more unifying prime minister and government.”

How about good ideas? Couldn’t Levin just spell out what he thinks the Iraq government is doing wrong, and suggest what he believes is a realistically better course? And can’t Levin imagine for even a moment that one reason Iraq’s political progress has been slow is that the Shiites and Sunnis have to feel secure before they can feel conciliatory?

It’s hard to feel secure when your closest ally’s Congress is trying relentlessly to sabotage your military and political progress.

President Bush took a better approach.

“The fundamental question is, will the government respond to the demands of the people,” Bush said. “And if the government doesn’t ... respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government. That’s up to the Iraqis to make that decision, not American politicians.

“The Iraqis will decide. They have decided they want a constitution. They have elected members to their parliament and they will make the decisions just like democracies do.”

If Levin weren’t wasting so much time trying to surrender in Iraq, maybe he could take a refresher course in how democracies work. The Iraqi people, not Levin, should decide who their leaders are.

Frank Warner

In the mood for Glenn Miller, I’m off to England

On Dec. 15, 1944, Glenn Miller left RAF Twinwood Airfield near Bedford, England, on a flight for Paris, where he hoped to finish preparing for a Christmas concert for the Allied troops.

Miller never made it to Paris. His plane disappeared over the English Channel.

Tomorrow, I’ll be leaving Philadelphia for Twinwood Airfield. I’m taking a one-week British holiday, which will include a visit to the Glenn Miller Festival at Twinwood.

I don’t intend to look hard for an Internet hookup while I’m in England, so there’s a good chance you won’t hear from me for a week or so. But I’ll be thinking about the blog gang back home.

Non-interference policy. As a U.S. visitor to the United Kingdom, and therefore an unofficial ambassador, I intend to avoid initiating any discussion of politics with our British friends. Music, culture and listening will be first priorities.

But you can be sure that, if anyone brings up the subject, I will engage. I’ll let you know what I find.

Frank Warner

The peace racket

Bruce Bawer has an insightful essay on “The Peace Racket.” It’s about those who claim to be anti-war and end up causing more wars. Read the whole thing.

As I’ve noted before, the battle for a democratic Iraq has not be opposed by many who call themselves part of a “peace movement.” They know they’re proposing surrender to genocide and fascism, so they call themselves “anti-war,” which isn’t “anti-war” either. Their “anti-war” means “Let the war go on, and let more wars come, but let the democracies look the other way as the tyrants impose their will.”

Frank Warner

Michael Scott Beauchamp has destroyed The New Republic’s credibility, but so what?

The New Republic will go on. Fortunately for TNR, there are thousands of writers willing to make up something to fit the defeatist agenda, and thousands of readers willing to read TNR’s fake news and quote it as proof that democracy is worse than repression.

The new news? Scott Thomas Beauchamp’s ex-girlfriend says he always was a liar and a cheater. And a former TNR employee reveals how TNR was more interested in covering up than correcting Beauchamp’s lies.

Frank Warner

Michael Vick to plead guilty

This may reflect a trend. Sports stars no longer get to commit two free crimes before they pay. In Michael Vick’s case, it wasn’t a question of proving or disproving just one thing. He had done so many thing related to dog-fighting, and his former friends had revealed so much, he had no chance to feign innocence.

Frank Warner

Journalism professor mentions Josh Marshall in a Los Angeles Times column, then says he didn’t mention Marshall

Michael Skube, a journalism professor, yesterday published a Los Angeles Times op-ed column criticizing Web logs as big on opinions, small on fact-finding.

In “Blogs: All the noise that fits,” Skube cites Josh Marshall, of Talking Points Memo, as one of the blogosphere’s “insistent partisans” who presumably is too opinionated to discover news the way newspapers do.

When Marshall saw the column, he e-mailed Skube, who teaches at Elon University in North Carolina, to ask specifically what he didn’t like about his blog. According to Marshall, Skube wrote back that he had not mentioned Marshall at all.

“I didn’t put your name into the piece and haven’t spent any time on your site. So to that extent I’m happy to give you benefit of the doubt ...,” Skube wrote Marshall.

Name inserted. Marshall e-mailed Skube again, reminding him that the column did indeed include Marshall’s name. Skube responded:

“I said I did not refer to you in the original. Your name was inserted late by an editor who perhaps thought I needed to cite more examples ...”

Marshall was stunned. He says:

“Perhaps I’m naive. But it surprises me a great deal that a professor of journalism freely admits that he allows to appear under his own name claims about a publication he concedes he’s never read.

“Actually, if you look at what he says, it seems Skube’s editor at the Times oped page didn’t think he had enough specific examples in his article decrying our culture of free-wheeling assertion bereft of factual backing. Or perhaps any examples. So the editor came up with a few blogs to mention and Skube signed off. And Skube was happy to sign off on the addition even though he didn’t know anything about them.

“I grant you that the blogosphere needs better bloggers. But, as usual, the need for better critics seems even more acute.”

At last, I agree with Josh Marshall on something.

Frank Warner

The chain saw

How do they do this magic trick?

French foreign minister: ‘Democracy and stopping the killings’ are goals for Iraq

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, in Baghdad today:

“We want to talk about the future. Democracy, integrity, sovereignty, reconciliation and stopping the killings. That’s my deep aim.”

How about that? One of France’s goals for Iraq is democracy. Why do we almost never hear an American Democratic leader proclaim that as a goal? Sen. John Kerry couldn’t say it in 2004, and top Democrats avoid saying it now, except as a mumbled hope for Iraq a hundred years from now.

Have the Democrats been just a little too busy aiming for surrender?

Frank Warner

NASA’s Dr. James Hansen says he listed 1934 as U.S. ‘hottest year’ all along, and 1998 remains world’s hottest year of 20th century

We had wondered how a computer “Y2K bug” could have affected NASA’s temperature readings even for years before 2000.

Well, Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says no “Y2K bug” was involved in the glitch that threw the numbers off. It was new and faulty computer reprogramming, not some quirky vestige of 20th century software, that caused the flaw.

NASA’s 2001 program was crunching temperature numbers on the assumption that certain adjustments already were made for 2000-2006 data. It turned out those adjustments hadn’t been made.

Minor changes. Hansen says the resulting errors were small, as demonstrated by newly recharted global warming curves.

“The flaw did have a noticeable effect on the mean U.S. temperature anomalies, as much as 0.15 degrees Celsius…. The effect on global temperature was of order one-thousandth of a degree, so the corrected and uncorrected curves are indistinguishable,” he said in an Aug. 10 statement.

“Does this have any affect whatsoever on the global warming issue? Certainly not,” he said Aug. 16.

1934 hottest ‘by a hair.’ But how did the newly corrected data suddenly make 1934 America’s hottest year, moving 1998 down one notch? How do 21st centuries errors change 20th century numbers? It doesn’t make sense.

Hansen said the new numbers did not move 1934 to the top of the hot heap.

“Did correcting the flaw in the program change the time of calculating maximum temperature to 1934? No. If you look at our 2001 paper, and get out your micrometer, you will see that we found 1934 to be the warmest year in the United States, by a hair, of the order of 0.01 degrees Celsius warming than 1998, the same as the result that we find now. Of course the difference in the 1934 and 1998 temperatures is not significant, and we made clear in our paper that such years have to be declared as being practically a dead-heat.”

Unresolved dispute. I’m still not sure this 1998-1934 thing is explained. Some experts have looked at the same NASA data, and agree with Hansen that 1998 never changed places with 1934 in the U.S. list. Others have said the NASA data did switch 1934 for 1998. Are they looking at different NASA reports?

According to the new calculations, this is the Top 10 list of hot years in the United States:

1. 1934
2. 1998
3. 1921
4. 2006
5. 1931
6. 1999
7. 1953
8. 1990
9. 1938
10. 1939

Hansen points out that, when measurements outside the U.S. are factored in, the World’s Top 5 hottest years remain:

1. 2005
2. 1998
3. 2002
4. 2003
5. 2006

If those global numbers are right, Earth seems to be heating up.

Provocative allegations. Maybe the Top 10 or Top 5 lists don’t matter so much. But the global warming debate does matter, and we all need better information. What is disturbing about Hansen’s latest statements is that he includes some provocative, and probably foolish, comments about those who have challenged his facts and conclusions.

In his Aug. 16 memo, Hansen said the recent uproar over NASA’s 2000-2006 error was the deceitful response of those who “are not stupid [but] seek to create a brouhaha and muddy the waters in the climate change story.”

And very weirdly, he blames Exxon-Mobil, other fossil fuel companies, the automakers and electric utilities for instigating a furor and hastening the destruction of “Creation.” Hansen said:

The deceit behind the attempts to discredit evidence of climate change reveals matters of importance. This deceit has a clear purpose: to confuse the public about the status of knowledge of global climate change, thus delaying effective action to mitigate climate change. The danger is that delay will cause tipping points to be passed, such that large climate impacts become inevitable, including the loss of all Arctic sea ice, destabilization of the West Antarctic ice sheet with disastrous sea level rise later this century, and extermination of a large fraction of animal and plant species….

Make no doubt, however, if tipping points are passed, if we, in effect, destroy Creation, passing on to our children, grandchildren, and the unborn a situation out of their control, the contrarians who work to deny and confuse will not be the principal culprits. The contrarians will be remembered as court jesters. There is no point to joust with court jesters. They will always be present. They will continue to entertain even if the Titanic begins to take on water. Their role and consequence is only as a diversion from what is important.

The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as Exxon/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children. The court jesters are their jesters, occasionally paid for services, and more substantively supported by the captains’ disinformation campaigns.

Unscientific talk. Why is a NASA employee talking like this? Hansen does not have to assign diabolical motives of everyone who questions his data. His points are far too political and almost irrational. Such intemperate allegations are unwise, especially coming from a government scientist. He should stick to the data, invite more questions and give clear answers.

Now I’m wondering: What is Hansen’s position on expanding U.S. nuclear power? If he is eager to see more atomic plants, I’ll know he’s serious about global warming. Otherwise, I have more questions.

Frank Warner

See also: What are the ‘nine errors’ in Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’?

Democratic congressman says U.S. has to stay in Iraq longer

U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat who voted against the liberation of Iraq in 2002, now says the U.S. has an obligation to say longer to stabilize that new democracy.

This appears to be a man of principle. He had his thoughtful reasons for opposing Bush, even when the plan to remove Saddam Hussein was relatively popular. Now he has thoughtful reasons for supporting Bush, even if Bush isn’t so popular.

To the partisan Democrats who insist that the U.S. surrender in Iraq, Baird, of Washington state, says he still believes his vote against the 2003 invasion was right.

“But we’re on the ground now. We have a responsibility to the Iraqi people and a strategic interest in making this work.”

For progress, not chaos. Baird says the “surge” should continue until early next year, after which some American troops  can start coming home.

Why keep U.S. troop strength relatively high and continue Bush’s new strategy until early next year? Baird says:

“One, I think we’re making real progress.”

“Secondly, I think the consequences of pulling back precipitously would be potentially catastrophic for the Iraqi people themselves, to whom we have a tremendous responsibility … and in the long run chaotic for the region as a whole and for our own security.”

Rising above politics. Baird is a leader who can see the obvious. He is able to rise above politics to stand for what he believes is right. Many of his fellow Democrats are too hateful ever to support anything a Republican president attempts, even if success would save lives or liberty.

The House of Representatives could use about 220 more Democrats like Baird. Maybe then we’d make some progress on a wide variety of liberal causes.

Frank Warner

Grim day at Crandall Canyon Mine

It was bad enough that no one had heard from the six missing coal miners since the Aug. 6 cave-in at the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah. But yesterday’s second cave-in, killing three of the rescuers deep in the mountain, was a terrible blow. I can’t imagine the horror and grief of the families there.

Let’s hope some good comes of this. We know the odds are low that any of the original six are still alive, but it’s still worth at least one more try to locate them soon.

Frank Warner

Elvis Presley set us free

Glenn Harlan Reynolds says:

“Not surprisingly, totalitarians have always hated rock and roll. The Soviets tried to stamp it out, then tried to replace the real article with lame, government- sponsored bands that won few fans. Meanwhile anti-communist bands like the Plastic People of the Universe were undermining their rule despite the state’s efforts to suppress them. It was no fun emulating Stakhanov when you could emulate Frank Zappa or Lou Reed instead. When the Berlin Wall fell, Elvis and the musicians who came afterward deserved as much credit as General Dynamics or the Strategic Air Command.

“The same holds wherever people try to tyrannize the minds of men and women. It’s no wonder that the Taliban opposed dancing and Western music, and no wonder that the increasingly desperate mullahs of Iran are flogging people for dancing at birthday parties. They can’t compete with the King and his descendants. And they know it.”

What Iraq needs. We’ve been saying Iraq needs a George Washington, a Thomas Jefferson and a Ben Franklin. But maybe it needs an Elvis (or an Ann-Margret) to secure that democracy.

Frank Warner

Tim McGraw’s ‘If You’re Reading This’: Tribute to a fallen soldier

The first time I heard Tim McGraw’s new song, “If You’re Reading This,” it sounded fairly noncommittal on the virtue of the average American soldier.

But on second listen, I heard the second verse:

If you’re reading this halfway around the world,
I won’t be there to see the birth of our little girl.
I hope she looks like you.
I hope she fights like me
And stands up for the innocent and the weak.
I’m laying down my gun and hanging up my boots.
Tell Dad I don’t regret that I followed in his shoes.

A familiar theme. This is what our troops are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan: following in the footsteps of earlier U.S. liberators, standing up for the innocent and the weak. Ninety-nine percent of our GIs are noble people fighting for a noble cause.

Tim McGraw has come up with a song (so far never performed in a studio) about an American soldier who has died in battle. It is touching and sad, and it is an honor.

Frank Warner

Could you live without China?

Ask yourself.

A real liberal talks of hope for freedom and peace in Iraq

This is what a real liberal sounds like. It’s César Chelala, a writer on human rights, writing about the Iraq soccer team and its Brazilian coach Jorvan Viera:

When asked how he managed to create a climate of civility among the Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish and Christian players, one sufficient for the team to pull together, Vieira replied: “What I did was talk with them every day and tell them that unless they decided to work together they wouldn’t get anywhere and that they would leave the Iraqi people without any happiness. Every time two players had a problem, I took them into a room and didn't leave that room until the problem was overcome.”

After winning the semifinal match against South Korea, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets to celebrate. The demonstrations were interrupted by two suicide car bombings resulting in the death of 50 people and the wounding of 135. A cause for celebration had become a cause for mourning.

“The day afterward was very difficult for us,” remarked Vieira. “We all cried on watching the TV images of the tragedy and we thought if it really was worthwhile to win, because if we won, people died and if we lost, people also died.”

According to Vieira, it was despair that gave the team the strength needed to play and win the final game. The players had learned that a mother who had lost her son during the celebrations had spoken of the happiness of her boy’s final moments thanks to their team's victory. It made them think “we have to win this final at any price and offer this triumph to that mother.”

For a few moments, the Iraqi people were able to forget that they were living in a country ravaged by war and senseless killing. Their team's victory gave them a sense of hope, an example of the possibilities ahead, if only they worked together, just as the team had done in order to triumph.

It can be argued that this was only a temporary situation. May the Iraqi leaders, however, make of this a long-lasting one, one that will restore a sense of humanity to their ravaged country.

What is liberal about Chelala’s point of view? He talks of problems as things to overcome.

Today, we have too many pseudo-liberals who talk only of wars to lose, democracies to surrender, problems to ignore. That’s not liberalism. That’s hiding.

Frank Warner

What are the Top 20 musical events of all time?

We all know the Beatles’ first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on Feb. 9, 1964, in New York, was one of the most influential musical events in history. Name 19 others.

Let me pick two:

First, the May 14, 1897, first performance by John Philip Sousa in Philadelphia of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

After that concert, a Philadelphia reviewer wrote:

“Sousa’s latest march was given for the first time, and the audience was not satisfied until they heard it three times. The Sousa swing and vigor that have made all his compositions distinctive are very evident, and it will likely become as popular as its predecessors.”

‘Lone Ranger’ debut. My second choice for a major musical event would be the first performance Aug. 3, 1829, in Paris of Gioachino Rossini’s “William Tell Overture.” You know, it’s the “Lone Ranger” theme. It must have overwhelmed that first audience. (Unfortunately, they had to sit through a six-hour opera to hear it.)

One other event I’m sure I would have loved was the 1940 concert -- I don’t know where or exactly when -- in which Glenn Miller introduced his wonderful arrangement of “In the Mood.” (An earlier version of the Wingy Manone tune was known by a few as “Tar Paper Stomp.”)

I’m sure I’ve missed many bigger musical events of historic note. Go head. Name them.

Frank Warner

Acceptable risk? ‘Only’ 13 lost in Minneapolis I-35W bridge collapse

A major bridge over the Mississippi River is covered with cars, trucks and buses. It collapses at evening rush hour.

Yet two weeks later, we count “only” nine dead and four missing from the I-35W catastrophe. Meanwhile, many of us suddenly favor spending more than $1 trillion to fix every other rusty bridge in the United States.

Step back for a second. Yes, inspect every bridge regularly. Fix the ones that need fixing. But are we in a hurry to rebuild even bridges that don’t seriously warrant our attention?

Zero tolerance? In other words, if out of 73,000 “structurally deficient” bridges in America, one collapses every 40 years and 13 people are lost, are we talking about an unacceptable risk?

If you’re in the family of any of those 13, yes. But what about the 43,000 Americans who die each year in traffic accidents? Maybe that $1 trillion could be better spent improving car safety.

How do we weigh this wisely?

Frank Warner

Think Progress: Gen. George Casey is evil to urge a decade of direct U.S. support for a democratic Iraq

Think Progress, the blog that represents everything but progress, is jumping all over Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey for saying yesterday that Iraq’s democracy will be doing well in a decade “if we stick with it.”

Writing for Think Progress, Faiz Shakir then pulls out the defeatist lies to counter Casey. One Big Lie in particular: That “70 percent of Iraqis say coalition forces make ‘the security situation worse.’”

What did Gen. Casey say yesterday? He said:

Right now, there’s so much residual mistrust left over from the time under Saddam Hussein that they’re not quite ready to go forward. But they have an educated population, they have oil wells, they have water, they have some of the most fertile land I’ve ever seen. In a decade or so, this will be a remarkable country, if we stick with it.

Occupational hazards. Dishonest Faiz immediately put up a headline “Gen. Casey: ‘Iraq will be a remarkable country in a decade’ if we stick with occupation.” Faiz is so clever to call it an “occupation,” as if U.S. troops are there “occupying” Iraq against the will of the first-ever elected Iraq government, as if Iraq would be better off with the “occupiers” gone.

Which brings us back to the lie that 70-percent-of-Iraqis-say- we-make-things-worse. That 70 percent -- 69 percent really -- didn’t say Iraq would be safer if the Americans left. The Iraqis were responding to a poorly worded poll question that gave Iraqis a choice between saying coalition troops improved security or worsened security in 2006.

Well, Iraq’s violence worsened in 2006, thanks to al-Qaida’s prodding, so the only way the Iraqis could answer the question was to say the coalition let things get worse. Defeatists like Sen. Harry Reid have distorted the poll to argue most Iraqis would feel more secure if the Americans were gone. But Reid, Faiz and everyone at Think Progress know better. No serious poll has ever shown most Iraqis want U.S. troops to leave immediately, and no poll would say that today. Just don’t expect Think Progress to tell the truth about it.

Oh, no, a draft! Faiz also implied that it would be impossible for the U.S. to keep troops in Iraq for 10 years, at least not without a military draft. Faiz:

The military does not have the current resources to maintain a decade-long occupation at or near the current troop levels. Recently, White House “war czar” Gen. Doug Lute suggested that there may be a need to put the military draft on the table.

That’s it, scare everyone pointlessly, Faiz. No one is suggesting the U.S. would keep 160,000 troops in Iraq for the next 10 years. Believe it or not, Iraq’s new democracy is building an army of its own. Once that army is up to 250,000 or so men, possibly in late 2008, America can help secure that nation with significantly fewer troops.

Freedom phobia. Be honest, Think Progress. Which are you more afraid of: U.S. troops staying in Iraq the next 10 years, or Iraq becoming a remarkable democracy, secure and free? It’s progress that scares you, right?

Frank Warner

Barack Obama, better luck next time

No, Sen. Barack Obama isn’t ready to be president. Maybe in four or eight years he’ll have had enough time to reconsider what it means to assume such a serious responsibility. But not now.

Two days ago at a New Hampshire campaign stop, he talked about Afghanistan as if he were a dopey high school sophomore:

“We’ve got to get the job done there,” Obama said, “and that requires us to have enough troops that we are not just air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.”

Simple slander. So American troops are “just air raiding villages and killing civilians”? They’re doing nothing else in Afghanistan?

How, Senator Obama, were the Taliban run out of Afghanistan? How did the Afghan people get their first freedoms, including a freely elected government? How do they still have that democratic government?

American troops gave Afghanistan its liberty and continue to defend it. They’re not maliciously attacking “villages” from the air or intentionally “killing civilians.” They raid terrorists hiding in various villages, and sometimes innocent people accidentally get hurt. That’s because there’s a war on.

Lazy lies. Obama has been hanging around the defeatists so long that their lazy Big Lies drip too easily from his tongue. The defeatists may despise our troops. A president may not.

Frank Warner

The Battle of Donkey Island

Der Spiegel:

Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq -- it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq -- not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers -- are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn't hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious "Sunni Triangle," is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.

One of the many U.S. victories that produced this new atmosphere in Ramadi was the June 30 Battle of Donkey Island. Check out what happened. Our American troops have a lot to be proud of.

Frank Warner

Stephen McIntyre calls his NASA temperature correction a ‘micro-change’

The Toronto Star interviews Stephen McIntyre, but plays down the impact of his correction to NASA’s U.S. temperature records for the years 2000-2006.

The temperature reduction of 0.15 degrees Celsius for each of those years altered the list of America’s 10 hottest years. For reasons still unexplained, the adjusted data unseated 1998 as the hottest year ever in the U.S., and replaced it with 1934.

Despite the shake-up, McIntyre calls his correction a “micro-change.”

In other words, it might alter some Top 10 lists, but it doesn’t significantly change the global warming debate.

Frank Warner

See also: 1934 is hottest again: How did we inaccurately calculate 1998 was ‘hottest year ever’?

Who's editing Wikipedia and why?

Check out Little Green Footballs.

Any advantage to James Bond’s martinis, ‘shaken not stirred’?

Science proves shaken martinis are healthier, even if stirred martinis taste better. It appears James Bond went for the more protective mix.

The trivia question: In Ian Fleming’s book series, what was 007’s favorite drink?

Answer: Whiskey. He had 101 shots of the stuff. He had only 19 of his famous vodka martinis.

Frank Warner

Iraq’s Sunni Arabs raise specter of Shiite-led genocide

Will the Democrats look the other way on Sunni Arab fears of “genocide”? Or is the pretending on Iraq over?

Frank Warner

Teddy Roosevelt only spoke softly? Check your history

Many of our presidential candidates are quoting Teddy Roosevelt. In reporting this trend, The Associated Press manages to find a historian who claims Roosevelt is a worthy example because he avoided applying the “big stick” of American military power.

The AP reports:

One of the most quoted lines — “Speak softly and carry a big stick” — was a West African proverb Roosevelt first tried out as vice president and later adopted as a personal mantra, according to Edmund Morris’ 2001 biography “Theodore Rex.” It also defined a foreign policy based on the threat of American power.

Such references reflect a shallow study of Roosevelt’s foreign policy, said Eric Rauchway, a history professor at the University of California, Davis. Roosevelt was a deft compromiser who avoided war, said Rauchway, author of “Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt’s America.”

Remember the Philippines. TR did win the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War. But Professor Rauchway conveniently forgets that, throughout his presidency, Roosevelt had U.S. troops fighting a nasty insurrection in the Philippines.

We lost about as many soldiers there as in Iraq. Preparing the Philippines for democracy wasn’t pretty, and writers like Mark Twain made sure it wasn’t easy either.

Frank Warner

How bad is that space shuttle gouge?

How would you like a thin layer of felt protecting you from a 2,000-degree fire?

My guess is, they’re going to have to try a space walk to super-glue something a little more substantial to that gouge on the space shuttle.

Frank Warner

Karl Rove is leaving

Karl Rove will resign at the end of the month. Sorry, Joe Wilson, no frog-march, no handcuffs.

Frank Warner

What gave the BBC its bias?

Antony Jay once worked as an editor for the BBC. He says he was part of the anti-institutionalism of its news staff, and he asks himself what gave the BBC its “liberal” bias.

Here’s another case of misusing the word “liberal,” but we understand what Jay is talking about. The word “cynical” might be a better starting point.

How did the BBC turn out that way? Jay says:

The growing general agreement that the culture of the BBC (and not just the BBC) is the culture of the chattering classes provokes a question that has puzzled me for 40 years. The question itself is simple – much simpler than the answer: what is behind the opinions and attitudes of this social group?...

It is of particular interest to me because for nine years, between 1955 and 1964, I was part of this media liberal consensus. For six of those nine years I was working on Tonight, a nightly BBC current affairs television programme. My stint coincided almost exactly with Harold Macmillan’s premiership and I do not think that my former colleagues would quibble if I said we were not exactly diehard supporters.

But we were not just anti-Macmillan; we were antiindustry, anti-capital-ism, antiadvertising, antiselling, antiprofit, antipatriotism, antimonarchy, antiempire, antipolice, antiarmed forces, antibomb, antiauthority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place – you name it, we were anti it….

So how did we get from there to here? Unless we understand that, we shall never get inside the media liberal mind. And the starting point is the realisation that there have always been two principal ways of misunderstanding a society: by looking down on it from above and by looking up at it from below. In other words, by identifying with institutions or by identifying with individuals….

The most you can ever say is that sometimes society is in danger from too much authority and uniformity and sometimes from too much freedom and variety.

In retrospect it seems pretty clear that the 1940s and 1950s were years of excessive authority and uniformity. It was certainly clear to me and my media liberal colleagues in the BBC. It was not that we in the BBC openly and publicly criticised the government on air; the BBC’s commitment to impartiality was more strictly enforced in those days.

But the topics we chose and the questions we asked were slanted against institutions and towards oppressed individuals, just as we achieved political balance by pitting the most plausible critics of government against its most bigoted supporters.

Ever since 1963 the institutions have been the villains of the media liberals. The police, the armed services, the courts, political parties, multi-national corporations – when things go wrong they are the usual suspects….

We saw ourselves as part of the intellectual elite, full of ideas about how the country should be run. Being naive in the way institutions actually work, we were convinced that Britain’s problems were the result of the stupidity of the people in charge of the country.

This ignorance of the realities of government and management enabled us to occupy the moral high ground. We saw ourselves as clever people in a stupid world, upright people in a corrupt world, compassionate people in a brutal world, libertarian people in an authoritarian world.

Narrowed minds. The trouble with such an influential, insulated and unaccountable news medium is that, with each passing decade, its habits harden, its minds narrow and its hearts grow cold. Its members remember old battles fought with local institutions, and they assume those local institutions are the permanent enemy.

Eventually, these journalists develop a parochial animosity that so intensely focuses their powers of critical thinking on their own democracy that they lose all perspective for injustices in the rest of the world.

At the BBC, that attitude automatically gives the elected British government less credibility than any unelected, totalitarian tyrant who has tortured and murdered human beings in the hundreds of thousands.

No comparisons. The BBC’s pseudo-liberalism can’t bring itself to compare British institutions directly with the police, the armed forces, the courts, the political party (always singular), and the political and economic policies of, say, North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Saddam’s Iraq. The first assumption is that British institutions are worst, and every non-democratic society will be judged on a separate plane of reality.

The BBC experience does not reflect a liberal bias. It reveals a liberal abandonment. Liberalism, the philosophy of “the Left,” is built on the principle that authority must be challenged. Unfortunately, the news media elites now apply that rule only to local authority.

They don’t care if foreign authoritarianism steamrollers the rest of the human race. The most abusive authority is presumed legitimate. The BBC will report on atrocities abroad, but then it will report so ferociously on every dent in Britain’s democratic armor that a listener might wonder if freedom is worse than fascism.

Clearer thinking. It’s good a former broadcaster took time to ask what bent the BBC. It’s good the current BBC is asking similar questions of itself. Until now, the BBC has been the only British institution the BBC would not question.

Frank Warner

NASA’s secret shame

I’m still wondering how NASA could alter decades of U.S. temperature numbers last week, and never hold a press conference on the massive revision. The agency explained nothing, thanked no one for the correction, and admitted no error.

The secrecy should tell us something, but it can’t.

Frank Warner

Army says liar Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp is free to talk to TNR, but so far he chooses not to

Col. Steve Boylan has responded to Bill Roggio’s request that the Army answer The New Republic’s double claim (1) that the Army has “stonewalled” TNR on the case of lying Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, and (2) that the Army has refused to let TNR talk with Beauchamp.

Boylan says:

We are not stonewalling anyone. There are official statements that are out there ... on the record from several of us and nothing has changed.

We are not preventing him from speaking to TNR or anyone. He has full access to the Morale Welfare and Recreation phones that all the other members of the unit are free to use. It is my understanding that he has been informed of the requests to speak to various members of the media, both traditional and non-traditional and has declined. That is his right.

Credibility crumble. The New Republic has lost all credibility with its handling of Beauchamp’s stories, which claimed to show how service in Iraq turns gentle American GIs into unfeeling monsters.

Right now, the magazine’s editors believe they might preserve an ounce credibility if they can prove even one little thing in his July 23 “Shock Troops” article was true. Their mission is impossible, given the fact that Beauchamp started the article with one whopper of a lie.

Beauchamp’s lie was that the awful first episode he described took place after he had spent some time in Iraq. In fact, the chow hall where he and a buddy allegedly ridiculed a bomb-disfigured woman was not in Iraq, but in Kuwait, where he stopped on his way to Iraq -- that is, before he set foot in Iraq.

Dogged desperation. The rest of the story is hollow after you know about that lie. Beauchamp did describe two other episodes -- one about a soldier intentionally running a Bradley Fighting Vehicle over dogs, and the other about a soldier wearing part of a skull under his helmet -- but these episodes seem trivial (and now, dubious) if that vile humiliation is dropped from the story’s opening.

TNR is in a bad way. It is so desperate that it hopes to redeem itself by finding someone -- anyone on Earth -- who might testify that an American soldier once ran over a dog.

It’s come to this.

Frank Warner

Marine in Ramadi, Iraq, has a message ‘for that douche Harry Reid: These families need us here’

Marine Cpl. Tyler Rock in Ramadi, Iraq, answers an e-mail from Pat Dollard:

“I got a qoute for that douche Harry Reid: These families need us here.

“Obviously he has never been in Iraq or at least t