You have to love the confused thinking of San Francisco Chronicle columnist John Carroll. To his way of thinking, condemnations of the New York Times by President Bush are really appeals to anti-Semitism!

Also, the name of the New York Times contains the word "New York." Many members of the president's base consider "New York" to be a nifty code word for "Jewish." It is very nice for the president to be able to campaign against the Jews without (a) actually saying the word "Jew" and (b) without irritating the Israelis. A number of prominent Zionist groups think the New York Times is insufficiently anti-Palestinian, so they think the New York Times isn't Jewish enough.

So let me get this straight -- refering to the New York Times as the New York Times is really an act of bigotry even though the name of the paper is the New York Times. And at the same time, this appeal to hatred also scores points with members of the disfavored group because they don't believe the New York Times hews sufficiently to their beliefs. Incredible! Anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism all in a simple mention of the name of a newspaper.

Maybe he could have appealed to liberal black Democrats like Jesse Jackson by calling it the Hymietown Times once or twice.

And by the way -- my mention of Carroll's newspaper is in no way an accusation of homosexuality -- merely an accurate statement of his place of employment.

(H/T Colossus of Rhodey and The New Editor)

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Noting that today, not Tuesday, is the 230th anniversary of Continental Congress' vote for independence, the New York Times' Adam Goodheart comes up with this list of 10 days that changed American history.

Take this one.

FEB. 15, 1933: The Wobbly Chair

It should have been an easy shot: five rounds at 25 feet. But the gunman, Giuseppe Zangara, an anarchist, lost his balance atop a wobbly chair, and instead of hitting President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, he fatally wounded the mayor of Chicago, who was shaking hands with F.D.R.

Had Roosevelt been assassinated, his conservative Texas running mate, John Nance Garner, would most likely have come to power. "The New Deal, the move toward internationalism — these would never have happened," says Alan Brinkley of Columbia University. "It would have changed the history of the world in the 20th century. I don't think the Kennedy assassination changed things as much as Roosevelt's would have."

I've often wondered about that one myself -- seems like an interesting point of departure for an alternate history novel.

As a whole, the dates selected are an interesting bunch. -- and not all based upon politics, which I think is often a failing of such lists.

Posted by: Greg at 06:10 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Well, they are not wasting any time on this one.

A federal panel gave both sides in Texas' redistricting fight two weeks to propose fixes to a congressional district whose borders were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S. District Judge T. John Ward said proposed changes to the map are due by July 14. Oral arguments were scheduled for Aug. 3 in Austin.

This should be interesting -- because the likely result is the loss of one Hispanic-influence district, because by removing 100,000 Hispanic Democrats from CD23 and placing them in CD25, the GOP-controlled legislature created an additional Hispanic-majority district and the Supreme Court has effectively ordered them back into CD23.

The real question is how many districts will have to be redrawn, how major the changes are, and whether or not there will be new primaries required in some or all of them.

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Rusty has posted what Keller and Baquet really wanted to say in the joint Treason Times East/Treason Times West piece that they published justifying the exposure of vital national security information to our nation's enemies.

Here's a taste.

How do we, as editors, reconcile the obligation to inform with the instinct to protect?

Sometimes the judgments are easy. Our reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, take great care not to divulge operational intelligence in their news reports. Especially the ones that are working with insurgents, like Bilal Hussein. No way we'd ever reveal his contacts or al Qaeda's secrets!

Often the judgments are painfully hard. Just kidding. It's pretty easy. If we believe the secrets we reveal will hurt Bushitler and co., then we reveal them. If they will help, we don't. In case of a tie--one thinking it will help Bush, the other thinking it will hurt--we do rock paper scissors.

Believe me -- this essential reading, well-worth your time.

And I don't doubt that the next DDOS directed at that essential-read blog will come from the jihadis-sympathizers at the New York Times or LA Times, instead of Turkish Islamofascists. After all, they are all on the same team.

Posted by: Greg at 01:40 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The novel legal theories of corrupt Democrat prosecutor Ronnie Earle were the basis for dismissal of charges against some political associates of Tom DeLay this week -- and that could ultimately be the basis for the dismissal of the rest of the charges against the former congressman.

A state district judge threw out a felony indictment against the Texas Association of Business on Thursday, ruling that the group's ads in the 2002 legislative elections did not expressly advocate the defeat or election of candidates.

The ruling is probably a significant blow to Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle's prosecution of the state's largest and most powerful business lobby.

The group's ads "severely test, but do not cross" the line into "express advocacy," Judge Mike Lynch ruled.

In 2002, the business group spent about $1.7 million on what it deemed "issue ads" in legislative races, supporting Republican candidates.

* * *

Because the business group's ads didn't use the words such as "support" or "oppose," the group's lawyers said the ads did not have to disclose who paid for them. The indictment accused the Texas Association of Business of breaking state election law that prohibits spending corporate money in campaigns.

Now, given that the exchange of funds in question is based upon a similar interpretation of the use of corporate funds, and given that the conspiracy requires that one bizarrely construe a statute which did not extend to offenses under the election code so that it extended to the election code, as well as the fact that Earle has completely redefined the notion of money-laundering, it seems to me that Mr. Earle might find his case collapsing -- because Texas judges are tired of his bullshit.

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I don't like it, but accept that there is probably a need for some sort of amnesty for at least a portion of the Sunni insurgents in Iraq -- even if they killed American troops.

Charles Krauthammer sums up my position nicely.

Our objective in any war is not revenge but success. Confederate soldiers who swore allegiance to the United States were pardoned after the Civil War, even those who had killed Union soldiers. We gave amnesty to legions of Japanese and Germans who'd killed thousands of Americans in World War II.

And those amnesties were granted after total victory. In conflicts in which there is no unconditional surrender -- civil strife that ends far more ambiguously, as in El Salvador and Chile, for example -- amnesty and reconciliation are the essential elements for the establishment of a stable, democratic peace.

In Iraq, amnesty will necessarily be part of any co-optation strategy in which insurgents lay down their arms. And it would not apply to the foreign jihadists, who, unlike the Sunni insurgents who would join the new Iraq, dream of an Islamic state built on the ruins of the current order. There is nothing to discuss with such people. The only way to defeat them is to kill them, as we did Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

But killing them requires depriving them of their sanctuary. Reconciliation-cum-amnesty gets disaffected Iraqi Sunni tribes to come over to the government's side, drying up the sea in which the jihadists swim. After all, we found Zarqawi in heavily Sunni territory by means of intelligence given to us by local Iraqis.

Protests in America over the amnesty suggestion have caused both the administration and the Maliki government to backtrack. But don't believe it. Amnesty will be an essential element in any reconciliation policy. Which, in turn, is the only route to victory -- defined today just as it was on the first day of the war: leaving behind a self-sustaining post-Hussein government, both democratic and friendly to our interests. It is attainable. The posturing over amnesty can only make it more difficult.

There is a part of me that rebels against such clear and irrefutable logic. It is an angry, vengeful part of my psyche that wants every dead or wounded soldier avenged with the blood of those who did them harm. But I set that aside when I remember a statement my father, a career officer in the Navy, once made to me when I went through an adolescent peacenik phase that I know frustrated him -- "The ultimate goal of a war is a peace that everyone can live with."

If amnesty for those who killed Americans is an essential element of such a peace, then so be it.

Posted by: Greg at 12:21 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Good News/Bad News.

First the Good news.

An Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile at the Gaza City office of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh early on Sunday, setting it alight, witnesses said.

Now the bad.

They said Haniyeh, a top official of the ruling Islamist militant party Hamas, was not believed to be in the office at the time.

The terrorstinians have time and again proven themselves incapable of living in peace. Kill their leaders, crush their armed units, and make every last Arab aware that Israel is done playing their game.

Sic Semper Terrorists.

UPDATE: Excellent analysis of the situation at Captain's Quarters.

MS-NBC's report shows that the Israelis have correctly deduced the nature of the abduction. The Palestinian Authority knows how to find Shalit and knows who committed an act of war on their behalf. Instead of arresting them and returning Shalit to the Israelis, the Palestinian Authority has decided to allow these terrorists to conduct negotiations with a sovereign state to resolve the crisis. Even if the terrorists did not have the imprimatur of the PA when they raided Israel from unoccupied Gaza, which is highly unlikely, the PA's actions in the aftermath means that they have taken responsibility for those acts.

Posted by: Greg at 11:48 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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It started as a little tickle in my throat two weeks ago. Then it became an annoying little cough, combined with dryness in my throat. By Thursday, it became a full-scale hack that made me sound like a walrus gasping for breath.

Bronchitis.

I'm drugged up now, so if I don't post much over the next couple of days, know that is the reason.

But I shall return.

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