From the gaggle before the President's "last" speech on Iraq, May 1, 2003:

Q Will there be any other speech following this, or do you all view this as his -- as much as he's not declaring victory, but the final statement on Iraq?

MR. FLEISCHER: This will be, unless there is something else of a significant event that crops up. The President began this with a speech to the nation in the Oval Office. And the President will end it with a speech tonight from the deck of an aircraft carrier.

There will continue to be resistance. You can continue to see Saddam Hussein Baath Party loyalists who attack our forces, such as the grenade attack at Fallujah. But this is the bookend of the Oval Office address, and an interesting bookend at that.

He'll be making speeches on Iraq until the end of his term.

Americablog:
ABC's Terry Moran just reported that the only time Bush got applause was in the middle of his speech when a White House advance team member started clapping all on their own in order to cajole the soldiers into clapping, which they dutifully did.

Kos:
Apparently, Fox reported the 'fake applause' bit as well. Double ouch.

Powerline:
The only thing I thought was odd was the unnatural quiet in the hall. It was like the audience at a Presidential debate, which has been cautioned not to express approval or disapproval. Only at the end, apparently, were the soldiers permitted to applaud.  

We report, you decide. 

Update 12:15 AM Thursday:

Mystery solved.  Not.

Q Scott, can you clear up something about the atmospherics of last night? A Bragg PAO told me that the White House had left somewhat ambiguous how the troops should comport themselves during the speech last night, that he didn't want a big pep rally with the rousing hooahs that you always get at most of these base speeches. But then, at the same time, you weren't really expecting that there wouldn't be any applause, and that the person who went up to instruct the troops on protocol sort of overinterpreted what the White House was looking for. Is that a fair assessment?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I was with the President ahead of the speech when he was visiting with many of the families of the fallen, so I wasn't there when whoever the military officer was that spoke to the troops. But this was a serious address to the nation. My understanding was that we did talk to the military and talk to them about that, and that's why you saw at the beginning of the speech that instead of applauding, the troops simply stood up and stood at attention. And I think that they recognized that this was an address to the nation, this was not a rally-type event.

Q Right, but is it safe to say that you weren't expecting there to be no applause until a White House advance person, either caught up in the moment or whatever, started it?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President appreciates the warm reception he had at Fort Bragg both from the families of many of our fallen that were there he was visiting with beforehand, as well as the troops at Fort Bragg -- the troops who have been serving on the front line in the war on terrorism. He appreciated the warm reception he received and was pleased to give that address at Fort Bragg. I don't know of many Presidents that have gone to Fort Bragg on two occasions. This was his second occasion to go to Fort Bragg. But many of the men and women serving from Fort Bragg are doing an outstanding job, helping us to defend our freedoms and helping to advance freedom and democracy in the broader Middle East.

From Oliver Willis:  Lord Vader's Press Offensive:

Lord Vader: Good evening. I’m having this press conference today in order to counter some of the headlines you’re reading in the media. You know, it’s interesting how the mainstream media is always looking on the downside of things. Yes, it’s true that the rebel alliance isn’t completely crushed as of yet, but they ignore the progress the Empire has made thus far. What of the labor camps on Rebulon? The death purges on Phlanges 3? And I have yet to read a headline about The Great Ewok Cleansing. A more cynical sith lord would say that the liberal media isn’t reporting the whole story. Ok, Helen?

 

Cherenkoff would be pleased.

There was a word for it in Weimar Germany.  The Dolchstosslegende.  The stab-in-the-back-legend.  The German right in the 1920's wanted to blame anyone but those in power for the loss of the First World War.  Grand Moff Texan hits it on the head:

Bush has lost Iraq and now the GOP is panicking. They need to unload Bush's failure on you. Bush slaughtered thousands in the middle of nowhere for nothing, and that's your fault because you didn't support it.

As they said then, Bush says now:  "Pronounce us guilty a thousand times over: the goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and tear to pieces the Brief of the State Prosecution and the verdict of this court, for she acquits us."  I don't think America is going to let that happen this time.

Frankly not sending U.S. or NATO troops to the Darfur region of Sudan because they might be sitting ducks for terrorists is absurd.  After all its what we've been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last few years.  Robert Zoellick's remarks beg the question: does the Pentagon or State Department really fear all of Sudan's "bloodthirsty, cold-hearted killers"?  Is Sudan such a special case that Robert Zoellick has been turned into a shriveling mass of emotions at the thought of the U.S. intervening in Darfur? 

Why not just say that the Bush Administration, despite all its "freedom" rhetoric, doesn't look at the situation in Darfur as crucial to our national interests and would rather sit by and hope the African Union steps up to the plate?  Or maybe, because of our current force structure and commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan, it would be difficult to put together a force to intervene in Darfur? 

Really, I don't care what rationale you come up with, but fear of bloodthirsty African terrorists is clearly a lie and makes us look ridiculous.  Let's start telling the truth for once!

Its time for Karl to go.  The question is simple--will we be a free nation, where one can say what one wants, or will government officials at the highest levels be allowed to declare their political opponents traitors for merely opposing policy? 

I expected this article to include a description of a recent outbreak of American flag burnings (the political protest kind, not the official approved method of retiring a worn-out Old Glory) but sadly I was disappointed.  That's right, there haven't been any.  Predictably, Republicans on Capital Hill pulled the flag burning amendment out one more time because when you haven't accomplished much lately, don't intend to provide oversight of the executive branch, your poll numbers suck and your only economic program is another tax cut then what else is there to do but push votes on politically charged issues so you have something to run on during the next election cycle. 

I was particularly struck by "Duke" Cunningham's plea that the people who died at the World Trade Center would want this amendment passed--that's a "three-fer" if I've ever seen one: meaningless political positioning coupled with shameless exploitation of a tragedy from a guy tangled up in a mess of bribery and ethics charges.  Classic.

According to the American Enterprise Institute, we already won the Iraq war:

Contrary to the impression given by most newspaper headlines, the United States has won the day in Iraq. In 2004, our military fought fierce battles in Najaf, Fallujah, and Sadr City. Many thousands of terrorists were killed, with comparatively little collateral damage. As examples of the very hardest sorts of urban combat, these will go down in history as smashing U.S. victories.  

And our successes at urban combat (which, scandalously, are mostly untold stories in the U.S.) made it crystal clear to both the terrorists and the millions of moderate Iraqis that the insurgents simply cannot win against today’s U.S. Army and Marines.

 

That seems to remind me of something:

During one of his liaison trips to Hanoi, Harry had his now-famous exchange with his North Vietnamese counterpart. When Harry told him, "You know, you never beat us on the battlefield," Colonel Tu responded, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."

As a die-hard Chicago White Sox fan, I've been following baseball a bit closer this year, as you might expect.  I've even started reading some baseball blogs.  There is a strange obssession with something called Sabermetrics--basically a statistical analysis method for baseball.  It sucks.

Sabermetrics uses all sorts of crazy stats to try and predict all sorts of things about the national pastime.  Unfortunately it is filled with all sorts of ridiculous assumptions that make it nearly worthless as a tool.

Take, for example, the stat of Expected Wins.  Some hokum expert holds that a team that scores as many runs as it gives up ought to have a .500 record.  Why?  Although the proposition may seem to make sense on the surface, there is no iron mathematical law which says this is so.  When one takes into account the fact that certain divisions might not be as strong as others and unbalanced schedules, a team could beat up on clubs in its own weak division, but be unable to beat tougher competition which outscored it consistently in other divisions.  

Even, worse, this stupid statistic is used to determine if a team is lucky or not.  Here the logic is that if the team wins more games than the formula says the team should, the team is lucky.  This is really statistical analysis on its head.  Take this blogger's view on the Washington Nationals:

The Nationals are just lucky. This first-place teams is also doing well in one-run games, putting up a 17-7 record in that situation. Unlike the Sox, this bit of luck is making all the difference in the world for this team. Consider: although Washington's record is currently 41-29, their expected wins record is a shocking 34-35. Somehow, the Nationals have a great record despite being outscored 288-290 thus far. To get an idea of how lucky they've been, look at the bottom of their division at the Mets, who are currently 33-36. Their expected wins record is the exact same as the Nats at 34-35.

Statistics is used to understand the real world, not some simulation.  When simulations and the real world differ, scientists of every stripe look to the simulation and ask "what's wrong with my simulation?"  Here, the sabermetricians ask "what's wrong with the real world?"

The answer is that nothing is wrong with the real world, because the only statistic that matters is wins.  The number of runs is literally, unimportant in determining who will be the winner of a division.  The team that wins more games!  It doesn't matter if they score fewer runs than some model says they should.  The model's wrong, not the team.

Finally, I really can't understand what all this statistical analysis is doing for anyone.  I can see how such an analysis might be good for a manager or GM.  But what is a fan going to do with it unless they are playing some sort of fantasy baseball.  Yet these bloggers are obsessed with these stats.  Since they can't make any real calls, I fail to see the utility.

Baseball is about swinging a bat and a ball, nothing more nothing less.

There are a few states that are regularly held up for ridicule by the mainstream media, California and Massachusetts come to mind, but I'd like to nominate another:  Florida.  Yep, time to lower the bar and finally admit that Florida is truly one of the more screwed up states in the Union.  Why do I say this?  Well, for the past five to ten years we've been regularly afflicted with any number of controversial national news stories all tied to the Sunshine State.  Elian Gonzalez,  Election 2000 recount shenanigans and of course the most recent outrage, the Terry Schiavo ordeal.  What else?  How about the Florida 9/11 connection via writer Carl Hiassen on 60 Minutes:

I was watching in the living room, and they started showing the pictures of Mohammed Atta and then the others in those photographs," says Hiaasen. "I said, 'I swear to God, those are Florida driver's licenses photographs.' At least nine of them, I believe, and possibly more had lived and worked and trained for their suicide mission here in Florida.

And I always tell people, 'You think that was an accident? Where's the one place in the United States where the bar of bad behavior is so high that nobody's gonna notice these guys?'" adds Hiaasen. "Nobody's gonna think twice when they walk into a flight school and say, 'I'd like to get on a 757 simulator, but I don't need the part about where you land it. Just teach me how to fly it around.' And pay it in cash, and they say, 'Oh, right this way, Mr. Atta. Sit over here.';

I can't say why it is in my 34 years of life that its only been in the last 10 years or so that Florida has worked itself into the national consciousness in such a twisted way.  Maybe its because CNN is stationed in nearby Georgia, but oddly enough I think that much of the attention comes from the actions of one man, Governor John Edward Bush, aka JEB, although for the purpose of this post we'll call him John.  Seems Governor John has a knack for inserting himself into private family situations in a disgusting and incredibly self-serving way.  After all not many politicians would think to intervene to prevent a severely disabled women who was raped from getting an abortion.  Or how about that thirteen year old girl, who your Children Services department frequently lost track of, ending up pregnant and then becoming the focus of another state attempt to force someone in its care to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.  Well can't say it didn't work with the severely mentally retarded woman.  At the same time you were catering to the anti-abortion fringe, you shored up the NRA vote by signing a bill that encourages gun violence by loosening up the legal interpretation of self-defense.  Basically, Florida took a page out of the Texas handbook of bad government and said if you feel threatened, go ahead and shoot and law enforcement will have a tough time doing anything about it.

 

Although it looked like he shot himself in the foot during the Schiavo mess, the media in general were too afraid to say anything bad about the guy so Governor John decided when the subsequent autopsy really made him look like an ass, there was only one thing to do:  yep, go after the ex-husband one more time. 

 

When you're next in line in the Bush Dynasty I guess it just pays to keep your name in the papers, but in the meantime, we, the people of the United States, don't have to be bombarded with all the crap coming out of Florida.  Its high time that we at the Ironmouth do our best to heap abuse on the Sunshine State and do everything to make it the butt of everyday jokes that it really is.  Feel free to share with us any examples you have of dysfunction in the Sunshine state and we'll be sure to post it.  Thank you, and God Bless America....except Florida.

 

 

 

WORST SENATE MAJORITY LEADER EVER!

Bush to visit Vietnam.  Maybe he might learn something about war while he's there.

No doubt this indoor insecticide incident probably happened after one of those hard-hitting "We Report, You Decide" Fox exposes on the fascist bureaucratic overreach of the EPA and the wacko environmental groups who go out of their way to destroy common sense and hurt American businesses.  "Fox has learned that DDT isn't really as bad for you as the government wants you to believe..." or something like that?  Who the hell has "untrained building personnel" spraying insecticides in the first place?

A better title for this article would be, " US Spending on Iraq Equals Total for Korean War, Accomplishes Very Little."

I bet most people were aware of our "generational commitment to Iraq" before the war and will continue to support funding such an open-ended venture.  At least we've come out ahead on the casualty figures, so far.

According to right-wing bloggers, Bush isn't in trouble because many of the key documents in the Downing Street Memos scandal and Gitmogate are fakes.

You see, the Downing Street memos are fake because of the way the reporter handled them.  The reporter returned the originals to the owner they were addressed to after typing them up on a typewriter.  Surely this means they are FAKE!!!!!

Similarly, liberals have been relying on a document, supposedly called the Constitution, which says that people have rights endowed by their creator, to argue that Bush doesn't have the right to torture and kill the people he has locked up at Guantanamo Bay naval base. 

Well, it turns out that the Constitution wasn't even typed!  Apparently, the original was a hand-written document, with each version copied by hand from another!  Suspicously, no one who was around when it was written is alive today to verify its existence!  Sounds like another fake to me! 

Democrats should learn from their enemies.  I was briefly looking over the archives for arch-conservative William F. Buckley's Firing Line at the Hoover Institution, when I came across this gem of a show from 1966: Do Liberals Make Good Republicans?  In it Buckley and John Chafee, father of Lincoln Chafee discuss intra party relationships:

A sparkling exchange with a very successful liberal Republican, who, unlike some other liberal Republicans, backed his party‘s presidential candidate in 1964. Messrs. Buckley and Chafee address policy issues (taxation, federal subsidies) and also intra- party relations. WFB: "Suppose you were to run for President, and somebody started calling you a fascist. Presumably, you are no more a fascist than Senator Goldwater is, but are we up against here something which suggests the special difficulty of the Republican Party ... because of the excesses which the opposition feels free to use? ..." JC: "I agree with you that the Republicans just cannot spend their time chopping up Republicans, and I think this so-called eleventh commandment that they adopted out there in California, which was that a Republican shall not say an evil word about another Republican, is something we‘ve just got to have...."

Words we ought to live by.

Yesterday, after a long tortured exchange about Cheney's "last throes" quote with Scotty twisting this way and that, Terry finally got to the money quote:

  Q Yes. Is there any idea how long a 'last throe' lasts for?

My question exactly.  Priceless.....

Somethings in the air.  When MSNBC runs this poll, you have to wonder.

Someone needs to tell Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Defense Industry) that this ringing endorsement doesn't help his case.

 "Bush Is Expected to Address Specifics on Iraq"  Jim VandeHei, WaPo 6/16/05

How does a man whose entire political career has been purposely built around not offering "specifics" on anything suddenly reverse course and do just that?  He can't.  The Bush people look at their Iraq problem as a PR problem not a policy problem and seek to treat it as such, however their lack of credibility on Iraq is due not to a lack of specifics, but to a lack of realistic assessment of the situation coupled with optimistic pronouncements about "turning a corner" in Iraq that are easily refuted by actual events and a continued worsening of the security situation in many parts of the country. 

Let's look at the Administration's greatest hits list:  Liberate Iraq, nope didn't quite go as planned.  Capturing Chemical Ali and the rest of Saddam's ministers, nope, in fact Chemical Ali was "confirmed killed" three times during the invasion only to be captured eight months later.  Kill Saddam Hussein's sons, nope.  Capture Saddam Hussein, nope, still hasn't crippled the insurgents.  Put down revolt in Najaf, nope.  Recapture Fallujah, nope.  Elections, nope, moving experience but a weak government in a failed state doesn't inspire confidence or provide security.  Training hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops, nope, more likely to find the recruits singing folksongs to Saddam and threatening to quit.  Ring Baghdad with 40,000 troops and police, nope.

Let's face it, we don't have any realistic plans for accomplishing our utterly non-specific goals in Iraq.  I'm reminded of Clark Clifford's memoir when as the newly appointed Secretary of Defense in March 1968 he convened a series of meetings with the Joint Chiefs, State Department and other foreign policy professionals on Capitol Hill and asked them point blank what our strategy was to "win" the war in Vietnam.  To his shock the Joint Chiefs told him that they didn't have one; attrition, escalation and hope for a political settlement with Hanoi was it.   Of course, this was after hundreds of billions of dollars spent, over 20,000 men killed, and, true to form, General Westmoreland's report on the aftermath of the Tet Offensive which unknowingly suggested that 120% of the NVA and Viet Cong troops estimated to have taken part in the offensive were either killed or wounded...

VandeHei should know better, but I guess I'll be looking for the "specifics."