Sadly, No!

The management’s presence is required back in our home and native land for a funeral. Blogging may happen while we are away, and it may not. Pete M. from The Dark Window may post to keep you entertained, and he may not.

For the next few days then, you may do any, all or none of the following:

Over at the always reliable MedienKritik, the good people are getting all excited about alleged lies in the German press:

In a harangue of the Bush administration which has grown typical in the German media, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung’s Stefan Ulrich writes:

“…On April 28 a representative of the Bush government before the Supreme Court claimed: US soldiers don’t torture.”

Ulrich’s commentary, intended as a devastating moral indictment of the Bush Administration, is based largely upon the claim that a “representative of the Bush government” actually asserted that “US soldiers don?t torture” before the Supreme Court. But after looking into the matter, we discovered that Mr. Paul D. Clement, the Deputy Solicitor General from the Department of Justice who argued the government’s case in both proceedings before the high court that day, never made that statement.

Clement never made any such claim? Sadly, Yes! Given that MedienKritik links to the Supreme Court transcripts, one imagines the problem here is one of deficient reading skills, since those transcripts contain the following exchange:

QUESTION: Suppose the executive says mild torture we think will help get this information. It’s not a soldier who does something against the Code of Military Justice, but it’s an executive command. Some systems do that to get information.

MR. CLEMENT: Well, our executive doesn’t[.] [Rumsfeld v. Padilla, p. 22.]

Could it be any clearer? If not, how about this one?

Well, just to give one example, I think [!] that the United States is signatory to conventions that prohibit torture and that sort of thing. And the United States is going to honor its treaty obligations. [Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, p. 49.]

MedienKritik also tells us that:

Something clearly does not add up here if we are to believe Mr. Ulrich: A government so convinced that “US soldiers don’t torture” that it would be willing to argue as much before the Supreme Court would never have taken reports of abuse seriously nor would it have launched an investigation into such reports. But the Bush government did take allegations of abuse and torture “very seriously” [according to unnamed Pentagon officials –S,N!]

Hey, if anonymous Pentagon officials say so, you know it can be trusted! We agree something doesn’t add up — but it has more to do with a certain person’s battle with cognitive dissonance than problems with the German media. Not only did Clement tell tall tales to the Supremes, today we learn that:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A high-level panel investigating U.S. military detention operations has concluded that top Pentagon officials and the military command in Iraq contributed to an environment in which detainees were abused at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, a defense official said on Tuesday.

The independent Pentagon panel headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger found that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to exercise proper oversight over confusing detention policies at U.S. prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba, the official said.

And now for the big MedienKritik conclusion:

In this case, one point made by Mr. Ulrich is true: “Propaganda is seldom exposed so quickly and brutally.” Just another day at the office for Medienkritik…

Looks to us like someone put up their “Mission Accomplished” sign a bit too early.

We love Amber Pawlik too!

On enemy sites

The website www.sadlyno.com has made it a mission to (attempt to) make fun of me regularly

And to think tomorrow is national kiss & make up day.

Michelle’s lines that generated the most laughter, from her appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher on August 13:

Regular readers (Frederick and Pete) of Sadly, No! know how much we admire the work of the Batman & Robin of the hottest conservative writers on the web: Kerry L. Marsala and Justin Darr. So when both our heroes publish columns on consecutive days, we take it as a sure sign that we must bring their work to your attention. Let’s start with Kerry’s The Full Exposure of the WMD’s:

Intelligence gathers have been slowly building their case against these “Women of Mass Destruction” it has taken awhile, but they wanted to make sure all angles of possible escape from what they represent were fully established. The ultimate missile that finalized the case for these “WMD’s” was Theresa Heinz Kerry. Her quick temper and the inability to keep her mouth shut– has her spiteful lips exposing her mass destructive behaviors rapidly. Statements such as, “Shove it,” launched at a reporter and “Four more years of hell,” blasted like poison gas at Bush supporters who showed up at a Kerry rally, reveals she’s running for a socialistic partnership with her husband.

Is it a right-wing requirement to work the word “socialistic” into any column, regardless of whether or not it makes any sense? Wait, don’t answer that.

Candidates if your spouse isn’t the one running for office– strap their mouths shut and quit letting your “loose cannons” fire at will.

Someone better tell the Bush campaign:

Mrs. Bush is hitting the road these days, already putting in long hours on the campaign trail.

The Bush campaign sees the first lady as a major asset, and officials say they plan to use her to woo independent voters in key swing states ? like Arkansas, the first stop on her latest trip.

Moving along. Kerry tells us:

The “Women of Mass Destruction” are here espousing, lobbying, and dropping their ideals of destroying America and her freedoms, these women are dangerous and desire a socialistic America. The “WMD’s” we know are amongst us, they’ve been found– time is quickly ticking by– how will we dismantle the war heads and cut their red wires, before the detention and annihilation of our Republic occurs? [Emphasis added]

WCAATT!*

* We Can’t Add Anything To That, ? The Dark Window.

As for Justin, his latest column is rather lame but we must give him extra points for working in the Nazi angle:

The Nazi tactics used by the Kerry Campaign to trample the rights of the Swift Boat Vets; from pandering to left leaning book store managers to either not order the Swift Boat Vets? book, “Unfit for Command”, or display it in a low traffic area, to trying to harass Regnery Publishing to discontinue printing the book, to threatening lawsuits to any media outlet that runs their ads, goes below the nadir of even the worse political mudslinging. This is America for God’s sake, not 1938 Berlin!

Besides that though, we have to say we’re very disappointed. At this rate, our very own Yosef may soon become the hottest young conservative writer on the web.

Ann Althouse is unhappy about this claim by NYT TV critic Alessandra Stanley:

It is particularly confusing on Fox News, where so many of its blond female anchors look like Amber Frey.

Writing in reply:

Yes, all those blondes look alike, don’t they? I think most Fox News viewers can tell the difference between the beautiful Laurie Dhue and anyone else.

Which isn’t especially noteworthy until you realize that Althouse herself looks like Amber Frey:

PS: Laurie Dhue, beautiful? File this one in the few would dispute that Ann Coulter is a babe file.

Shadowy! Scooby McClellan speaks:

the President has called on Senator Kerry to join him in calling for all of these ads and activity by these shadowy groups … Let’s call for an end to all of these ads by these shadowy groups … The President has been on the receiving end of more than $63 million in negative attacks from these shadowy groups … Well, he believes we should get rid of all of this activity and ads by these shadowy groups. … That is the answer: Senator Kerry should join us in calling for an end to all of this unregulated soft-money activity by these shadowy groups … These ads are another example of the problem with these shadowy groups.

Did President Bush call for an end to these shadowy groups in 2000?

One of the most often cited examples was Republicans for Clean Air, a group that ran $ 2.5 million in TV ads supporting Texas Gov. George W. Bush during his GOP presidential primary fight against Sen. John McCain. [Tampa Tribune, August 14, 2000.]

When two brothers from Texas can form a 527 overnight, fund $2.5 million in last-minute ads and anonymously turn a probable McCain win into a Bush victory, voters have a compelling right to know: Who’s footing that bill? What contractual relationship might they have with a Bush administration? [Plain Dealer, Cleveland. July 5, 2000.]

And finally:

The measure, which cleared the Senate 92-6, will no longer allow groups organized under Section 527 of the tax code to raise unlimited amounts of money for political purposes without identifying the donors and how the money is spent. …

Other tax-exempt interest groups and companies – which some Republicans tried unsuccessfully to include in the bill – will remain free to run ads without disclosing their donors as long as the groups stick to advocacy issues and do not directly advocate a candidate’s election or defeat.

“Passage of this bill proves that public interest can triumph over special interests,” Clinton said in a statement urging lawmakers to approve other election-law changes. The legislation also was praised by Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush. [Emphasis added] [The Houston Chronicle, June 30, 2000.]

Added: Related comments from the very funny Outside the Tent.

The Dark Window takes a look at Jack Kinsella, who has apparently figured out that the bible predicted John Kerry’s treasonous behavior:

Allow me to paraphrase Paul to illustrate my point (with apologies to the Author). “For men shall supporters of secular humanism, wanting power at all costs, boasters (Was Kerry in Cambodia in 1968?) supporters of the ACLU, supporters of restricting parental rights, unthankful and unholy.

Read the whole thing — and find out why same-sex marriage is “classical Marxism.”

Perhaps you’ve seen some variant of this attack on Kerry making its way around the internet:

In 1997, Kerry questioned the necessity of our intelligence establishment after the Cold War. “Now that that struggle is over, why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to grow?” the Senator chimed.

Maybe you’ll be interested to see more of that speech quoted by so many. Here we go:

Now, the Senator [Daniel P. Moynihan] from New York has been called many things […]

Most recently, he has brought this very considerable skunk-like presence to the matter of America’s intelligence bureaucracy in the post-cold-war era. He has asked why it is that our vast intelligence apparatus, built to sustain America in the long twilight struggle of the cold war continues to grow at an exponential rate? Now that that struggle is over, why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to grow even as Government resources for new and essential priorities fall far short of what is necessary? Why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to roll on even as every other Government bureaucracy is subject to increasing scrutiny and, indeed, to reinvention?

Our colleague’s answer is an important one for all of us to reflect on. The answer is secrecy and bureaucracy. It is secrecy that conceals structure.

In that passage used to attack Kerry, he was essentially quoting Senator Daniel P. Moynihan. (HTML file of the full text here.)

William Campenni in the Observer Online, May 16, 2003:

Just strapping on one of those obsolescing F-102s was risking one’s life.

William Campenni in The Washington Times, February 10, 2004:

Just strapping on one of those obsolescing F-102s was risking one’s life.

Paul Crespo, TownHall.com, August 21, 2004:

Just strapping yourself into the cockpit of one of those single-engine rockets was dangerous business.