Sadly, No!

The Wall Street Journal Editorial engages in the always impressive feat of refuting arguments made by no one, with a helping of made up shit on top. They quote:

Senator Levin: “While the intelligence community was consistently dubious about links between Iraq and al Qaeda, Mr. Feith produced an alternative analysis, asserting that there was a strong connection. Were you comfortable with Mr. Feith’s office’s approach to intelligence analysis?”

And answer:

Mr. Feith’s office did not freelance an “alternative analysis.”

Seeing as how Levin is quoted as saying Feith produced an “alternative analysis,” we’re not sure what this ‘counterclaim’ is meant to achieve.

Nor did the Defense Department “assert” a “strong connection.” Judging by leaked excerpts of the still highly classified work printed in the Weekly Standard […]

Ah, the document is highly classified but the WSJ knows what it said (and did not say.)

(continuing directly) DOD merely [sic] provided the committee with a list of raw intelligence items on the topic.

Uh, Sadly, No!:
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Althouse looks at the “homicide suiciders” and sees a sinister conspiracy:

If accurate, doesn’t this support the government’s theory that these were warriors maneuvering and not individuals despairing?

The NYT story she links to states:

Three detainees at the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, tried to conceal themselves in their cells — behind laundry and through other means — to prevent guards from seeing them commit suicide, a senior military official said Sunday.

Right, “warriors maneuvering.” Fortunately, Ann expands in comments to her post:

The mere fact that the three suicides were simultaneous tends to show they did it for the effect and not (merely) to escape their predicament. […]

I don’t find the despair theory too plausible. The conditions in the prison aren’t bad (so I’ve read). If the men see themselves as prisoners of war, why would they despair to the point of wanting to die? Is that how other prisoners of war have reacted when held in indefinite captivity?

Suicide makes more sense for those who know that if tried they will be found guilty and face the death penalty. Read the information in the article about who the suicides [sic] were before responding about the despair of the innocent prisoner. We have released many prisoners, so anyone who is innocent has hope of gaining release. [Emphasis added.]

Hey, you, Mr. Man Possibly Guilty of Something or Other: don’t despair — there’s a chance you’ll be released one day. You’ve only been here for nearly five years for fuck’s sake! [More thoughts, posted earlier of course, from Roy.]

Kos:

Aside from that, I hope this serves a lesson to all of you who link to crap internet sources like Jason Leopold merely because they write what you want to hear. In fact, the Armando fiasco stemmed from one asshole angry that Armando trashed his diary using Wayne Madsen as a source.

This is the reality based community, not the “make up your own reality” community. Conservatives already own the trademark to that name.

Be properly skeptical of everything you read.

Word.

Blogs are not good sources of news. I read blogs to get unique ideas and perspectives from interesting people. But when I want news, I’ll go to the New York Times, the BBC, WaPo, or the Wall Street Journal (their NEWS section, not their EDITORIAL section).

[Gavin adds: Dude, you’re undermining our credibility as a serious news source. Actually, Raw Story hits some good ones now and then, but there’s an odd and pervasive reluctance on the part of bloggers to make calls and get original quotes — which is such an easy thing to do that even Newsmax has almost mastered it. The worst that can happen is that the source doesn’t reply to a voicemail. Not exactly a fearful tragedy.]

I would hate to see our side become like a certain wingnut who mindlessly links to any NewsMax story that conforms to his worldview.

McCullough (above): A living warning of the physical effects
of spite, pepperoni Hot Pockets, and Mario Kart.

Wouldn’t you just know it? There Ann Coulter was, minding her own business and exercising her First Amendment rights as innocently as a septuagenarian practicing tai chi in the park, when – WHAMMO! – the liberals sensed an opening to spew a bunch of stuff (invective? bile? Jarritos Tamarindo?), just like they always do. Kevin McCullough, for one, has had enough of the liberals and their unfair tactics:

Liberals in America have been staging a new strategy on winning public policy debates. Simply provide spokespeople that no one is allowed to respond to. Ann Coulter had the gall to challenge that and let loose with some direct observations in her newest best-seller “GODLESS” and true to form liberals have been fomenting in response.

The reason they do is not because it breaks some sacred respect that one should have for a grieving mother, wife, or relative. Rather the reason they are so outraged by this is because it simply stabs through the heart the strategy of hiding behind spokespeople who ‘can’t be criticized’.

Well, I’ll be damned. I don’t think anyone believes that Cindy Sheehan or the Jersey Girls shouldn’t be criticized for their views, but people who possess enough decency to fill a rolling paper know it’s kind of crass to criticize the victims of tragedies for being the victims of tragedies. Big diff.

[W]hen the GOP invited widows of 9/11 to participate in their national convention, the memes went up from the left of “pure political posturing.” Yet any observer of those who participated would be hard pressed to know of a single critical thing they said about the President’s opponents. The presentation they made dealt with the need for America to remain strong in its stand against terrorism. Kerry’s name was never even invoked. And their involvement in the public debate ended that night.

Or, in other words, “No, you’re not doing it right. Your grieving is politically incorrect, and I am offended.” (And he’s only half-right about the high-minded discourse endorsed by the GOP’s political widows; they introduced Rudy Giuliani, who gave a speech mocking John Kerry. Oh, and they also remained politically active, publicly supporting Bush and his policies as recently as a couple of months ago. Not that I care all that much, but still. And there’s also that whole Ashley’s Story thing.)

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Thanks to Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog, it’s time for another edition of Amazing Wingnut Facts. He quotes Neal Boortz who writes:

The obvious goal [of the left] here is to create a spokesman that cannot be attacked … one who’s essentially bulletproof….

When you think about it, Hillary Clinton has even approached this bulletproof status in some ways. She’s a woman, and she’s a woman who has endured public humiliation at the hands of her philandering husband. As such, some would say that she is beyond criticism.

Actually, Neal, there is not one fucking person who would say that. (NMMNB provides a few links to make his point, whereas unleashing the profanities is all we’re willing to do.)

Rove off the hook. Oh well.

In other news, no one should believe anything Jason Leopold writes again ever.

UPDATE: Oh jeebus, come on:

I reached Truthout editor Marc Ash on his cel phone this morning. “I wasn’t aware that he had said that,” he said of Luskin’s announcement, but insisted that Truthout was “absolutely” standing by its earlier reporting.

“We’ve done a lot of work on this story, we’ve talked to a lot of people,” he said, “and some of the people who provided information for the story are absolutely in a position to know.”

OK, guys, it’s time to lay your cards out on the table. Your sources clearly burned you big time. Tell us what you know and how you came to know it.

If the current wave of video blogging and podcasts has convinced us of anything, it is that producing good video or podcasts really is hard work. Not only do many of the usual suspects produce astoundingly crappy output, the mediocrity is enhanced by the same standard of accuracy they display in their blogging efforts. Which is why we were pretty excited when we discovered the Ole’ Perfesser and Dr. Mrs. Ole’ Perfesser show. What could be better than those two going at it? Those two going at it in the company of James Lileks and Cathy Seipp. From that edition:

Dr. Mrs. Ole’ Perfesser: I remember when I was a kid we had a smoking pit (?) in our high school. I didn’t smoke, but it was considered very uncool to be out there smoking. And now everybody’s like [sic] smoking and it’s supposed to be really cool. I mean, I wonder if we’ve gone too far, you know, with all this anti-this anti-that.

Now, we don’t know where Dr. Mrs. Ole’ Perfesser went to high school. We don’t know when Dr. Mrs. Ole’ Perfesser went to high school. But we do know one thing: Sadly, No!
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It has come to our attention that the Editors recently posted a series of sickeningly cute pictures of kittens snuggling inside baskets.

Yes, Kitty Minion, we think he stinks too. That’s why we’ve decided to post some not-so-adorable kitten pictures of our own:

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Kos did a very nice job on Meet the Press this morning. I’m glad they had him on TV representing the left blogosphere and not, oh, I don’t know, us:

MR. RUSSERT: Welcome, all. Markos Moulitsas, let me start with you out in Las Vegas. You’ve been hosting a convention of liberal bloggers and political activists. What do you think your convention has achieved?

MR. MARKOS MOULITSAS: Well, you know, there’s this perception of bloggers as being these anti-social people, typing away at keyboards in their parents’ basement.

Not to mention creepy degenerates who are obsessed with other peoples’ groins.

See what I mean?

And I think what we’ve seen is that actually the people who read these blogs are a real cross section of the Democratic Party, a real cross section of America. We have all age groups represented; we have people that are blue collar, white collar. And at the end of the day, no matter how much they may love to be online and use the blogs to find each other, they crave that flesh-and-blood interaction, and that’s what they’re doing here today.

Not me. I’m in it for the kitty pics.

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Gary “Trollerto” Ruppert draws our attention to the fact that Newsmax has debunked the whole Haditha thing. We needed no further encouragement to check it out — which is how we learned that the mastermind behind the entire “incident” is a 12-year old girl:

But the “innocent” Haditha 12-year-old failed to give any further details about which other family members knew about the bomb plot. Or whether one of her relatives had detonated the blast.

So what did this girl do?

“I was planning to go to school. I was about to go out of bed. I knew the bomb would explode so I covered my ears,” the youngster said, according to a CNN translator. [Emphasis added]

So what did she know and when did she know it? And what does that make her?

The Haditha co-conspirator continued[.]

Co-conspirator! Now that’s some sweet, honey roasted wingnuttery.

Bradrocket adds: I hate to be a party pooper, but the fact is that none of these comments was written by the “real” Gary Ruppert. It was a very nice parody of a parody though, and whoever wrote them deserves credit. However, the fact is you gave yourself away by joking about bongs- the fact is that the “real” Ruppert is as humorless as they come.

Sebster adds: Bradrocket is only saying what the gay immigrant terrorists want you to believe. Vote for fear!

Bradrocket adds: The fact is Seb has me nailed. The fact is I’m on the take from the Mexhomonazis of Amerikkka.

In other news, David Ortiz rules. Also, here’s a close-up of Gavin’s crotch: