Tailgunner John
Speaking at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Cincinnati early last week, President Bush announced a gradual, multiyear redeployment of approximately 70,000 U.S. troops now stationed in Europe and on the Korean peninsula. Had it been raining outside, the Kerry campaign would no doubt immediately have criticized Bush for that, as well.
In no time flat, tireless Kerry surrogate Wesley Clark was hustled onto a "teleconference call" so he could tell reporters that the president's new policy was "dangerous" and would "significantly undermine U.S. national security." Press releases to that effect issued forth from Democratic offices everywhere. Richard Holbrooke slithered over to NPR and elegantly recapitulated its audience's foreign policy prejudices: Bush's willingness to "turn our backs on our traditional allies in Europe and Asia" is "quite extraordinary," he sighed.
And then came Sen. Kerry himself, who, at his own subsequent VFW appearance, told the assembled vets that the president's "vaguely stated" and "hastily announced" troop deployment plan cannot help the war on terror, cannot help U.S. military personnel and their families, and cannot help but alarm our allies. "For example," Kerry asked, "why are we unilaterally withdrawing 12,000 troops from the Korean Peninsula at the very time we are negotiating with North Korea--a country that really has nuclear weapons?"
THE SCRAPBOOK notes the extraordinary cynicism embodied by this latest Team Kerry attack theme. Barely two weeks before the Democratic party decided that any reduced U.S. deployment anywhere in the world was a terrible idea, John Kerry himself, on August 1, was telling George Stephanopoulos on ABC that as president he intended to effect a "significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops" in Iraq, and hoped he might be able to achieve a similar result "elsewhere in the world"--perhaps "in the Korean peninsula" and also "in Europe." Moreover--and even more explicitly--Kerry had told a press gaggle in New York back in April that "the overall effort of a president right now ought to be really to try to find ways to reduce the overexposure, in a sense, of America's commitments. A proper approach to the Korean peninsula, for instance, should include the deployment of troops, the unresolved issues of the 1950s and ultimately, hopefully, could result in the reduction of American presence, ultimately."
Whatever. It now develops that Bush agrees with all this. So it now develops that all this is terribly, terribly wrong.
THE SCRAPBOOK further notes Kerry's increasing tendency toward...well, toward what supporters of Sen. Kerry usually call "McCarthyism." At the beginning of his VFW remarks last week, Kerry told his audience, "As a fellow veteran, I can proudly say that there is one title that is more important than all, and that is 'patriot.' You have all earned that title and I am proud to stand with you today."
Which would seem to suggest that a certain incumbent Republican president hasn't earned the right to call himself a patriot. Wouldn't it?
The Meaning of the Word 'Incompletely'
The August 12 New York Times had a front-page story by Jennifer Steinhauer about former mayor Rudolph Giuliani's dogged efforts on behalf of the Bush campaign. The phenomenon is "in many ways quite remarkable," Steinhauer observed, given Giuliani's "often ambivalent relationship" with Bush personally and with the Republican party generally. By way of example, she pointed out that "in 2000, Mr. Giuliani supported John McCain in the [New York] Republican primary, infuriating the Bush team and breaking from most Republicans in the state."
Oddly enough, though Ms. Steinhauer's error here could hardly have been simpler or more obvious, the Times didn't get around to publishing a "correction" until five full days later. And even then, it did so grudgingly--and with its fingers crossed:
A front-page article on Thursday about Rudoph W. Giuliani's campaigning on behalf of President Bush described his role in the 2000 election incompletely. While Mr. Giuliani, who was then mayor of New York, expressed support for Senator John McCain's candidacy in the Republican primaries, he ultimately endorsed Mr. Bush.
Paired with Steinhauer's original story, this, of course, makes it sound as though Giuliani did back McCain early on, at least through the New York primary, and only later endorsed Bush once the nominating contest was essentially all wrapped up.
The Times has described Ms. Steinhauer's mistake incompletely, however.
Fact: New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, though he had nice things to say about John McCain at various times throughout the 2000 campaign, vigorously endorsed George W. Bush for president on October 1, 1999, more than five months in advance of the New York State Republican primary.
No Eng Lang Exp Nec
"Like journalism?" That's the oddly phrased question they've lately got posted on the Yahoo! News website. Turns out it's a help-wanted posting by the Yahoo! News folks themselves, which may help explain why the damn thing's practically invisible to the human eye, pushed down well below the scroll-bar horizon, and printed in agate type to boot. Our guess? It's just for show; they probably only hire from within the tribe.
Besides which, you don't have the language skills.
Yahoo! News's "like journalism" link leads would-be applicants to a notice indicating that "we have openings in the following areas," the first of which involves "content producers." And what exactly is a "content producer," you ask? Yahoo! News has the answer:
< I>Yahoo! Content Producers . . . utilize project management, marketing and strategic creative skills--as well as industry and domain knowledge--to identify and drive the usage and programming of, you guessed it, content. Not only do they manage the development and day-to-day appearance of Yahoo! properties, but they also participate in product development and engage partners to drive content to all of our consumer and business-facing product and services. Content Producers are visionaries and understand how to leverage technologies that will best meet the needs of our users. Which is sort of "like journalism," apparently.
Less Like Journalism
Reporting on the time-lapse resignation recently announced by New Jersey governor James E. McGreevey, an anonymous content producer for Aljazeera.com notes that a "few days ago we were all stuck with" McGreevey's puzzling suggestion that his "ability to govern" had been undermined by a homosexual blackmail threat. Now, though, freelance "Foreign Policy/Intelligence Columnist Andy Martin" has managed to uncover "some secrets to this regards," and Aljazeera.com, leveraging technology to best meet the needs of its users, is eager to broadcast Mr. Martin's discoveries to the wider world.
Guess what? "McGreevey's dilemma is not a gay sex scandal. It is an Israeli intelligence operation gone sour." Oh.
McGreevey's purported blackmailer, Golan Cipel, you see, "was a junior Mossad case officer" who lured McGreevey into a sexual relationship in order to, um, "penetrate New Jersey's homeland defenses." Given the "barely suppressed anger" of U.S. officials since 9/11 over "the fact Israeli intelligence knew about the hijackers and said nothing," normal information-sharing practices have been suspended between the two countries and Jerusalem has been forced to find, um, a "back door way of spying on anti-terror preparations in the New York-New Jersey area, and possibly nationally."
Incidentally: Aljazeera.com's otherwise entirely straight-faced account of this dastardly Jewish plot is posted on a regular section of its site headlined "Conspiracy Theories." Pan-Arab Postmodernism, you might call it.