ABC News: Hasan sought contact with al Qaeda, according to two US officials

Bombshell revelation today I learned while listening to Laura Ingraham, as reported by ABC News. But not only was the suspect in Fort Hood massacre trying to make contact with the terrorist network --

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

A story that makes me more dumbfounded by the day.

Needless to say, Che would be a huge fan

By way of National Review's NRO blog --

Is this even possible?

From "What's News" briefs on front page of today's Wall Street Journal --

A Russian court ruled against Stalin's grandson in a suit alleging a newspaper damaged the dictator's honor.

By what, running an accurate story about him?

Took 'em only 40 years to acknowledge this

Not something I can ever recall hearing a liberal admit -- that Nixon began withdrawing troops from Vietnam in his first year in office. The liberal in question? John Nichols, Washington editor and blogger at The Nation magazine, appearing on Ed Schultz's radio show on Oct. 9, as I describe in a blog post tonight at NewsBusters ...

Ed Schultz. Clueless. Again.

This time about Dear Leader's unease with "notion" of "victory" in Afghanistan, as I describe in a post at NewsBusters.

Doctors given white labcoats to wear for White House photo-op with Obama

An example of where real life and the world as seen by The Onion are indistinguishable. As reported in today's New York Post --

A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama's pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.

The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.

But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.

So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.

All this to provide a visual counter to complaints from other doctors that pending legislation is bad news for the medical profession. ...

Heck, why stop there? How about asking the assembled doctors to wear stethoscopes, lest anyone confuse them with pharmacists? Better yet, have the dutiful doctors put on those shiny reflectors they use to wear.

Double whammy makes for Obama's worst day

Sure looks like it, between unemployment hitting an official 9.8 percent and Chicago coming in fourth out of four entries for the 2016 Summer Olympics. A friend of mine, blogger Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer, had it just right when he said we may look back on this day as the turning point of Obama's presidency.

Obama as Ubiquitous Leader

Appears on "60 Minutes" just over a week ago, then hits five -- count 'em, five -- Sunday morning talk shows yesterday, to be followed by a schmooze with Letterman on tonight's show. Anyone else think this guy is eminently overexposed? What next, a cameo on upcoming Brady Bunch reunion in Hawaii flick?

Gee, what a surprise

Radio host Ed Schultz, who also has a TV show on MSNBC, talking today about Obama's speech before Congress on health reform --

We're waiting to see what the president says tonight, the pregame show well underway, we're 7 hours and 53 minutes and 16 seconds before the speech. You know, we're the only network, MSNBC, that's giving us a countdown on exactly when the big show's gonna start.

Yes, the man is easily amused.

Kennedy abandoned pursuit of presidency after '80 campaign? Not so

Among the revisionist myths aired after Ted Kennedy's death, one that comes around frequently -- that after Kennedy's disastrous run for president in 1980, he gave up his dream of restoring Camelot at the White House and focused on becoming a great legislator in the Senate. Two examples of why this isn't true --

First, from the "People" column of Time magazine, Feb. 2, 1981, of Ted and Joan Kennedy announcing plans to divorce. Note the timing of the announcement --

With the exception of Rose Kennedy, 90, who was informed early Wednesday, and a few intimates, no one expected the announcement they were to issue 24 hours after Ronald Reagan took office. ...

... Clearly with an eye toward the '84 campaign, with Kennedy wasting no time shedding what he perceived as baggage.

Even after Kennedy decided against challenging Reagan in 1984, speculation continued that he would seek the presidency a second time, in 1988, until Kennedy announced otherwise in December 1985. As reported by the Associated Press on Dec. 20 that year --

BOSTON -- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's much heralded bid for the presidency ended before it began with the leading Democrat's surprise announcement that he will not be a candidate for the White House in 1988.

"I know that this decision means that I may never be president, but the pursuit of the presidency is not my life. Public service is," Kennedy said in an unusual, paid political announcement televised Thursday evening in his home state of Massachusetts. ...

"September 1, 1939" resonates still

"I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade ... "

The rest of Auden's poem here

Rest in peace, Senator Kennedy

Didn't agree with his politics but interviewed the man several times over the years, mainly during my time as political reporter at the Cape Cod Times, and he was invariably gracious. He will probably always loom large to me if for no other reason than being the brother of JFK, my boyhood hero.

At left, a photo I took of Kennedy in April 2003, meeting with the troops at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod a few weeks after the outbreak of war in Iraq.

It's the most won-der-ful time of the year ...

One kid back in school today, the other following tomorrow. Ah, autumn!

Gentlemen, you can't fight here, this is the war room!

Caller on Ed Schultz's radio show today who identified himself as "Raymond," chairman of town Democratic committee in Dartmouth, Mass., describing his approach to moderating town hall forum on health reform Aug. 18 attended by Bay State congressman Barney Frank --

As chairman of the party, in chairing that meeting, I made a statement at the beginning that I won't tolerate political stances.

Guess this means Barney Frank remained uncharacteristically silence through the meeting.

Remember the Indianapolis

An op-ed I wrote that ran in the Providence Journal-Bulletin on Aug. 15, 2006 to coincide with V-J Day, a state holiday in Rhode Island --


Visiting the Truman Library several years ago, I bought a reprinted copy of the Aug. 15, 1945 Philadelphia Inquirer. ‘PEACE’ read the banner headline over stories of Japan surrendering to end World War II.

It was a story tucked beneath the fold that caught my eye, with this headline -- "U.S. Cruiser Sunk With Every Man Lost or Wounded."

Many veterans of World War II know the name of the ship, as will students of history. It was the USS Indianapolis.

Others are familiar with the Indianapolis from the movie "Jaws." The shark hunter Quint, played by Robert Shaw, describes the sinking of the Indianapolis during a night of drunken reverie with Amity Police Chief Martin Brody and oceanographer Matt Hooper.

"So, 1,100 men went into the water, 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945," Quint said, lost in the horror of his memories. "Anyway, we delivered the bomb" -- a reference to the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

It turns the movie got the date wrong -- the Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine on the night of July 29 and sank in 12 minutes. Its loss came so close to the end of the war that it was not reported to the public, as by the Inquirer, until Aug. 15 -- the day after Japan surrendered.

The sinking of the Indianapolis is significant in another respect: it remains the worst loss of life for a US Navy vessel at sea -- ever.

Only one other American warship suffered heavier losses -- the battleship Arizona in Pearl Harbor, just after the start of the surprise attack by Japan in December 1941 which brought the U.S. into World War II. Most of the 1,102 men killed on the Arizona died in an instant when a bomb exploded in the ship's forward magazine.

In other words, the two worst losses in the history of the Navy came only minutes after America abruptly become a combatant in World War II -- and just weeks before the war ended. And the sinking of the Indianapolis is a prime example of just how dangerous Japan remained to the end of the war.

Revisionists claim that President Harry Truman's decision to use the atom bomb makes him no better than Islamist suicide bombers of today. Only an ethos long seeped in moral relativism could believe such an absurd proposition.

Far from inflaming conflict in the manner of jihadists, Truman's decision led to an abrupt end to conflict -- and the bloodiest war in history at that. Emperor Hirohito announced on Aug. 14 that Japan would surrender -- less than a week after Nagasaki was attacked. The second bombing, often criticized as gratuitous, showed that the destruction of Hiroshima three days earlier was not a fluke.

Truman's critics cite the horrifying death tolls in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where casualties ran in the hundreds of thousands, and point out -- accurately -- that most of those killed were civilians.

But what these critics rarely acknowledge is how many civilians were killed as the result of the brutal, ongoing Japanese occupation of China, Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan, southeast Asia, Malaysia, Burma (now Myanmar) and the Dutch East Indies, known to us today as Indonesia.
Historian Robert Newman and others have calculated that 250,000 to 400,000 people, overwhelmingly noncombatants, were dying every month as a result of Japanese barbarity.

Revisionists also claim that Japan was ready to surrender before the atom bomb. An examination of the pattern of conflict in the Pacific leads to the opposite conclusion.

Japan was a formidable opponent from the start of the war, but never fought with more ferocity than at Saipan in the summer of 1944. Until, that is, February 1945 on Iwo Jima, when the carnage was even worse. Until that spring at Okinawa, when more than 200,000 people, combatants and civilians, were killed, wounded or never heard from again.

The pattern was clear -- the closer the Allies came to Japan, the greater the losses on both sides.
As with Islamists we fight today, the Japanese resorted to suicide bombers -- kamikaze pilots. In both cases, the fanaticism of our foes in no way validates their perverse beliefs.

While we can only wonder what might have been had Truman not used the bomb, what occurred after he did is indisputable -- the unconditional surrender of Japan in a matter of days.

Truman rarely gets credit for another aspect of his decision worth noting: atomic weapons have not been used in war since 1945. Why no other leader has pulled the nuclear trigger is fair game for speculation, but I count myself among those who believe that Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated the fearsome power of these weapons, which have only grown in number and intensity. A nuclear conflict today would make the loss of two cities pale by comparison.

The decisive manner that Truman ended the war had another positive effect -- it purged Japan of the militarism which held sway in the country for more than a decade, and provided the foundation for the modern, industrious Japan we now consider an important and respected ally.

A Japan that few fear will attack them out of the blue on a quiet Sunday morning.

Possible deal in House on health reform

As reported by CNN -- follow this link for details

Update, 3:30 -- some "deal" -- the only news here is Blue Dog Dems getting House leaders to agree on holding off a vote on health reform until after the month-long August recess.

Cambridge police release Gates arrest recording

The Boston Herald posted the audio at its website today. Didn't add much to story, in this man's opinion, though Sgt. James Crowley sounded professional throughout and little of Professor Gates's alleged unhinged rant could be heard.

A theory making the rounds -- was the question about Gates at Obama's July 22 press conference planted with a sympathetic reporter (Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times) to divert attention from Senate Majority leader Harry Reid announcing the next day -- as Obama surely knew was coming -- that the Senate would not vote on health reform before the August recess?

What better way to rile up liberals than with a timely opportunity for self-righteous indignation about racial profiling?

Report: Obama calls Cambridge cop who arrested Gates

A sign that Obama knows he shouldn't have waded full bore into the controversy after first acknowledging he wasn't sure on specifics. Reporting today from The Hill --

... Obama said the five-minute conversation confirmed that (Sgt. James) Crowley is a good man and that the sergeant and the professor are "two decent people," though he still believes that Crowley and Gates both overreacted. The president further said that he contributed to the "ratcheting up" of the story.

Obama said it was "unfortunate" that his word choice "maligned" the police department and Crowley.

"And I could have calibrated my words differently." ...

Read the full story here.

Cop who arrested Gates teaches racial profiling class

More great coverage from the Boston Herald --

Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley, the cop at the center of a firestorm over the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., has taught a racial profiling class at the Lowell Police Academy for five years. ...

Granted, the police academy isn't Harvard and, hence, one is more likely to encounter a robust exchange of ideas there. On how every arrest of a person of color isn't the result of racial profiling, for example.

This story just keeps getting better.

Alleged racist cop who arrested Henry Louis Gates

A story in today's Boston Herald that surely has Professor Gates cringing in embarrassment --

The Cambridge cop prominent Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims is a racist gave a dying Reggie Lewis mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a desperate bid to save the Celtic superstar’s life 16 years ago Monday.

“I wasn’t working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn’t working on a black man. I was working on another human being,” Sgt. James Crowley, in an exclusive interview with the Herald, said of the forward’s fatal heart attack July 27, 1993, at age 27 during an off-season practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a campus police officer. ...

You know, as racist cops are wont to do.

Schultz sidekick Norman Goldman getting radio show

Radio host Ed Schultz announced on his show today -- or more accurately, announced at a town hall meeting he moderated in Madison, Wisc., on Sunday which was rebroadcast on Schultz's show today -- that his longtime "senior legal analyst" Norman Goldman (in photo at right) is getting his own radio show.

Details are still sparse but according to Goldman, who guest hosted the final hour of Schultz's radio show today (Schultz also hosts a TV show weeknights on MSNBC), told listeners that he'll be broadcasting from his adopted home of Los Angeles as of September.

Nuttiest theory yet for Palin stepping down: She may have "done something" to Michael Jackson, claims caller to Sharpton radio show

... And Rev. Al says of the theory, "that's interesting." Almost as much as extent that Sharpton is willing to consider delusional conspiracy theories. This one comes by way of Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer.

Weeks of rain and drizzle, followed by a glorious July 4th weekend. Fair enough.

This photo wasn't taken over the holiday weekend -- I took it at a 9/11 anniversary observance in Buzzards Bay a few years ago -- but it's one of my favorite photos of the flag and the weather at the time was much the way it was this morning, after the endless rain, drizzle and fog of spring and early summer.

Bill Clinton, ever the sensitive one

From an essay by Bill Clinton titled "Getting it Right" in Time magazine's "Annual Making of America Issue," with its theme of "What Barack Obama Can Learn From FDR" --

Roosevelt understood that in a complex and perilous situation, you have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, and he was masterful in doing a variety of difficult things simultaneously.

Scandal, celebrity deaths crowd Iran out of news

Hard to believe idiocy of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford winging off to South America to hang with his mistress for a few days, leaving the constituents of his state in the dark as to his whereabouts -- was this the politica equivalent of self-immolation? -- and wall to wall coverage this afternoon of sudden death of singer Michael Jackson at 50 (same day as Farah Fawcett). Meanwhile, in Iran, word that has filtered out in recent days was of brutal crackdown getting worse. Looks like the revolt could be going way of China in '89 instead of eastern Europe. Even if true, however, Iran is no longer the country is was only weeks ago.

Internal friction at MSNBC?

Joe Scarborough cancels appearance on "The Ed Show" after locking horns with Ed Schultz earlier that day on "Morning Joe," as I describe in NewsBusters post earlier tonight ...

Obama gets this one right

It's not often I agree with Obama, but when it comes to Iran, I do. Fastest way for mullahs in Iran to brutally suppress this revolt is if US is seen as taking sides and fomenting upheaval.

Catalyst for change in Iran? It's not Obama

... any more than George H.W. Bush was catalyst for the collapse of communism in Europe. No, much of the credit for both goes to their predecessors -- Reagan and George W. Bush -- though media meme of Obama taking office as basis for upheaval in Iran will surely take hold instead.

Just as Reagan was the pivotal figure in bringing down Iron Curtain, even though it did not occur until after Reagan left office, the younger Bush was pivotal in bringing down Iran Curtain, if that is what we are witnessing. And to carry analogy further, Obama is reacting with much the same caution as George H.W. Bush after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Faces of hope in Iran

"Iran on Fire"

So reports foreign correspondent Michael J. Totten, whose incisive blog I discovered tonight ...

Arianna Huffington on demise of newspapers: Don't blame me

... so said HuffPo founder to journalists in NYC after receiving a lifetime achievement award from Syracuse University's Newhouse journalism school ...

A stolen election in Iran?

Came across this amazing footage at Andrew Sullivan's blog tonight, where I found the most comprehensive coverage so far of the disputed presidential election in Iran. Chillingly reminiscent of China 20 years ago.

Obama at Normandy: Self-referential as usual

Can Obama get through a speech without gratuitous references to Dear Leader himself? Here he goes again, this time at Normandy in ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. After the obligatory nods to other dignitaries, Obama started his speech with this --

I'm not the first American president to come and mark this anniversary and I likely will not be the last.

How about that, gratuitous self-reference and banal. Then again, they often go together.

Here's how Reagan began his remarks 25 years earlier in the same place --

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty.

Listening to Obama's speeches and their inevitable turns of compass toward Self, I'm reminded of a book review of Hemingway's posthumous novel "The Garden of Eden" in 1986 by one of Hemingway's granddaughters, who made a wager with herself that Papa couldn't go a full page without mentioning an aperitif (she lost the bet, as I recall).

George Tiller, rest in peace

Do I take any pleasure or satisfaction in the shooting death of abortion doctor George Tiller? Not in the least. A horrific crime, in a sacred setting, that can't be justified or excused. I pray for Mr. Tiller and his survivors, and for the soul of the man who killed him. This is not the way to resolve our differences on abortion.

Back to blogging, here

Update, June 8: As for obligating myself to blog here every day -- easier said than done!

I've been blogging at NewsBusters since last October but not spent nearly as much time here as I'd like in recent months. That will change as of today, with daily quota of at least one post a day. Now that I've pledged to do it, I have no choice but to follow suit.

Report: Kennedy's cancer not in remission

Looks like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was prematurely optimistic about the prospects of his ailing colleague, according to a story in Tuesday's Cape Cod Times --

U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy's office says a report that the Massachusetts Democrat's brain tumor has gone into remission and he is returning to the Senate full time next month is unfounded.

A Boston staffer who did not wish to be named for this story said the senator continues to balance a treatment regimen with work, adding that his schedule is determined on a day-to-day basis.

A Washington, D.C., publication, The Hill, reported yesterday that Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Kennedy's brain cancer is in remission and he would return to the Senate full time in early June.

The Great Recession

Can't recall where I read this, but I think it'll stick in describing what we're living through now.

Report: GOP Sen. Arlen Specter Switching to Democrats

As being reported by CNN, according to an email blast I received a few minutes ago. If true, hardly a surprise but begs the question -- will Specter continue crossdressing?

Update, 2:20 pm -- Guess this means Michael Moore won't be doing any documentaries about Specter's long-suspected role in JFK assassination ...

In new book, Wendy Kaminer describes ACLU censoring itself

Why does this not come as a total shock?

As described by John Leo in his "Bookshelf" column in today's Wall Street Journal, reviewing Wendy Kaminer's new book, "Worst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity, and the ACLU" --

In 2006, the ACLU descended into self-satire by drawing up a gag order to cover its own board members -- no public criticism of policies or personnel, because speaking out might hurt fund raising. When word got out, a storm of ridicule forced the withdrawal of the plan. But Ms. Kaminer notes that only six of the 53 ACLU affiliates protested the no-dissent policy; the ACLU apparently couldn't be bothered to defend its own right to free speech.

I especially like that last sentence.

There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright ...

Paraguay's president Fernando Lugo admits to fathering child while a Catholic bishop, as reported here by the Christian Science Monitor.

The inevitable response

Matt Foley returns!

You remember, the best character ever on "Saturday Night Live"? Going by a different name this time around -- radio and MSNBC host Ed Schultz, as I describe in a blog post at NewsBusters.

No thanks to you, Mr. President

"From getting rid of Saddam, to reducing violence, to stabilizing the country, to facilitating elections -- you have given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own as a democratic country. That is an extraordinary achievement" -- Obama in Baghdad during photo-op visit with American troops.

An "extraordinary achievement" that would have been squandered had the United States done what Obama wanted and turned tail before the surge.

It's official: Ed Schultz gets show on MSNBC

... And as I asked aloud back on March 22, Schultz is bumping David Shuster from the 6-7 pm slot, with the nomadic Shuster co-hosting a two-hour show at mid-afternoon.

Inexplicably -- though perhaps not, considering this is MSNBC -- the network will continue showing repeats at 10 and 11 p.m., of earlier shows by Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

Rachel Maddow, more bizarre than usual

On her show last night, the ever-smarmy MSNBC pundit talked about Obama in London for the G-20 summit and "dancing on the grave of the Cold War with the Russian president."

You know, kinda like socialists are inclined to do.

A headline you never thought you'd see

For lead story in today's New York Times --

OBAMA WILL FACE A DEFIANT WORLD ON FOREIGN VISIT

True lefty indeed

Caller on Ed Schultz's radio show today --

I'm what you'd call a true lefty and when I debate with centrist Democrat friends, I feel myself beginning to lose it at a certain point, I'm so sure I'm right.

Ed Schultz to bump David Shuster on MSNBC?

It's no secret that liberal radio host Ed Schultz is negotiating with MSNBC for a weeknight show, with Schultz having guest hosted for David Shuster on "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" twice in the last couple of weeks (and again tomorrow night).

But is something more in the works at MSNBC? Possibly so, based on what Schultz told his listeners on Friday --

Somebody must have the flu over there or something. I don't know, they just wanted me to do the show and I think Shuster's going to be doing another show and so the musical chairs there for just a few days I think continue.

Report: Fannie Mae Doling Out $1 Million Bonuses

... With Freddie Mac planning to follow suit, according to a Moneynews story this morning --

Fannie Mae plans to pay retention bonuses of at least $1 million to four key executives as part of a plan to keep hundreds of employees from leaving the government-controlled company.

Rival mortgage finance company Freddie Mac is planning similar awards, but has not yet reported on which executives will benefit.

The two companies, which together own or back more than half of the home mortgages in the country, have been hobbled by skyrocketing loan defaults. Fannie recently requested $15 billion in federal aid, while Freddie has sought a total of almost $45 billion ...

Timing is everything

"Freddie Mac Puts Restrictions on Refinances" -- headline of story in today's Wall Street Journal, page A3