BeldarBlog

Seriously confused about the concepts of demagoguery and jihad

The Associated Press reports on Peter Jennings' and Tom Brokaw's defense of their embattled "competitor," Dan Rather (boldface added; ellipsis in original; hat-tip InstaPundit):

While acknowledging that a mistake was made in a "60 Minutes" report questioning President Bush's National Guard service, fellow network news anchors Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings offered their support Saturday for beleaguered colleague Dan Rather.

"I don't think you ever judge a man by only one event in his career," Jennings said at a panel on which all three men were speaking.

Brokaw criticized what he called an attempt to "demonize" CBS and Rather on the Internet, the place where the first complaints about the report were raised and heavily debated.

"What I think is highly inappropriate is what going on across the Internet, a kind of political jihad ... that is quite outrageous," the NBC anchor said.

"It is certainly an attempt to demonize CBS News and it goes well beyond any factual information a lot of them has [sic], the kind of demagoguery that is unleashed out there."

Rather declined to comment on the situation, saying he had been asked not to talk about it further by news division officials while an investigation was underway.

Excuse me for a moment.  I have to take a short break to calm down my poor dog, who doesn't understand why I'm screaming at my computer monitor and thinks I'm mad at her.

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Okay.  The dog's calm, even if I'm not.

dem·a·gogu·er·y n. The practices or rhetoric of a demagogue.

dem·a·gogue also dem·a·gog n.

1. A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace.
2. A leader of the common people in ancient times.

So who's the demagogue, Mr. Brokaw?  Would you care to show me where in the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics it says that Mr. Rather and CBS News were entitled to knowingly collaborate in the propagation of forged documents in an attempt to enflame the emotions and prejudices of the populace and thereby defeat a sitting United States President?

In fact, Mr. Brokaw, I think you've just joined Mr. Rather in the Demagogue's Club.  You both fit both parts of the definition — "ancient times" in this context meaning before Al Gore invented the internet.

As for the "political jihad" argument — does the NBC stylebook approve the use of the term "jihad" to describe efforts by the public to hold a network news division accountable when it conspires to perpetrate a fraud?  Are are you genuinely too dense to understand the sarcasm in bloggers' self-description as the "pajamahadeen"?

Why the USS Zeilin prompts me to oppose Sen. Kerry's position on nuclear bunker busters

Bill Hobbs has a thoughtful and fact-filled post discussing John Kerry's emphatic opposition in Thursday's debate to ongoing American development of nuclear bunker busters, a/k/a "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrators."  Bill's post has quotes from the debate, details about the research program, and an eloquent explanation for why it's an appropriate tool to add to America's arsenal even if it's never used in combat.  Among the points made there is that if such a weapon is part of our arsenal, its very existence will help ensure that it need never be used — even general knowledge of its capabilities being likely to deter terrorists or their state sponsors from making the massive investments in underground bunkers that might not be destroyable by advanced conventional (non-nuclear) munitions.

America has spent billions of dollars on nuclear weapons since the end of World War II, and yet has never used one since then in combat.  Gen. Tommy Franks' excellent memoir American Soldier recounts (at pp. 119-20), for example, his responsibility in 1973 for a battery of six M-109 155-mm self-propelled howitzers stationed in Bavaria, for which low-yield nuclear projectiles were stored in a special bunker as part of a "nuclear tripwire" designed to deter the "mass of Soviet tank armies, mechanized infantry, and artillery divisions" facing him across the border with East Germany.  He writes convincingly:

[I]f the Cold War ever went hot and Soviet tanks rolled over the barbed-wire fences and minefields marking our sector of the border, the dark pines of the Böhmer Wald would have erupted with nuclear explosions.  That was a prospect that could keep a twenty-seven-year-old captain awake nights — and it did.

The prospect of America using nuclear weapons today is a subject on which just about everyone is hypersensitive, for entirely understandable reasons.  Some substantial portion of the public — which includes, but is not limited to Sen. Kerry's political base — simply could not read Bill Hobbs' post without immediately dismissing him and the sources he cites and quotes as being crazed Dr. Strangelove-types.

Of course, such people would find that their scruples and moral outrage wouldn't shield them for even a milisecond longer than anyone else if the terrorists who want to destroy civilization ever succeed in acquiring a nuke, no more than the sensitive liberals atop the World Trade Center towers suddenly grew parachutes while the floors beneath them dissolved in flame and rubble.  But I acknowledge that there are people who are simply unable to have a serious discussion about nuclear weapons, whether they're in the hands of a terrorist or of an American soldier like Tommy Franks acting under layers of control running directly to the President of the United States (whether that continues to be George W. Bush or becomes John F. Kerry).

If you're one of those folks, though, you might as well find another link to click, because at this point, my post is about to take a strange detour — one that explains, eventually, my own particular perspective on nuclear weapons.

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Upon graduation from the University of Texas in 1944 via an accelerated Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps program, James D. Dyer, Jr., a 1941 graduate of Lamesa High School in tiny Lamesa, Texas, was commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Naval Reserve and immediately placed upon active-duty status.  Shortly thereafter, he was assigned as a junior officer aboard the Amphibious Attack Transport USS Zeilin, pictured below. 

The Zeilin was named after Brigadier General Jacob Zelin, a hero of both the Mexican-American and Civil Wars and, as the Seventh Commandant of the Marine Corps, responsible for the adoption of the Marine Corps' eagle-globe-anchor emblem in 1867 and The Marines' Hymn.

With Ensign Dyer among its officers and crew, the "Mighty Z" steamed out of San Francisco for the western Pacific on 21Oct44, and in December participated in practice landings at Guadalcanal in preparation for the invasion of Luzon.  On 11Jan45, she landed troops as part of the first reinforcement echelon for the San Fabian phase of the invasion. 

Two days later, en route to Leyte, the Zeilin was struck by a Japanese kamikaze.  As told from a nearby ship, the USS Block Island:

Today we met our first Kamikaze.

Over an abyss of nearly forty-five years I still recall the terror of that moment. I see the destroyer escort on our port bow firing its 5-inch guns into the low overcast, an immediately I start cranking our own No. 1 5-inch gun to port. The plane is there, streaking down from the cloud cover, in a long shallow dive that is going to carry across our fantail where already our 40s and 20s are thumping and chattering. There are winks of flame in the front end of the plane and I know some of our 20mm projectiles are striking home. And I can see the pilot, almost hunched over the controls as he rides the plane through the hail of steel....

"On Target" I yell and Frank yells back "On Target".  But there are over fifty ships scattered on the sea behind us, men on some of those ships already killed by friendly fire — maybe from our after guns.

No. 1 gun stays silent and for just a few seconds time slows in horror as the plane streaks across the few hundred yards of water and slams into a gun tub on the sky deck of the USS Zeilin (APA-3) just off our starboard quarter. In a blink of an eye, lives are snuffed out, winking into blackness like candle flames in the wind.

For a few minutes, flames seem to envelop the entire ship, subsiding almost immediately to nothing more than charred, smoking wreckage in the twisted scorched gun tub. And through it all the Zeilin never slowed, never changed course, never lessened its intent of destruction upon the enemy. I looked across the breech of the gun at Ambrutis and he just shook his head.

The Zeilin suffered seven killed, three declared missing, and thirty wounded.  But she continued onward with her convoy, and after temporary repairs, she participated in landing reinforcements at Iwo Jima between 9-16Mar45.  After permanent repairs back in San Francisco and a brief stop in San Diego, she headed back to the western Pacific, and was at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands when hostilities ended in the Pacific on 15Aug45. 

As the only Texan among the Zeilin's officers, young Dyer was of course nicknamed "Tex."  In due course, he'd been promoted to Lieutenant (Junior Grade).  Among his duties was commanding boats like the Landing Craft, Mechanized from the Zeilin pictured below, or even smaller boats like Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel.

Just as troopships like the Zeilin were favorite targets for kamikaze pilots and submarines, junior officers commanding LCMs and LCVPs were favorite targets of Japanese snipers.  (Recall, if you've seen it, the opening scenes from Saving Private Ryan — same boats, albeit in a different theater of operations.)  If Harry Truman hadn't decided to use America's new atom bomb to bring World War II to a close in August 1945, young LTJG Dyer's odds of surviving the planned invasions of the Japanese mainland were, realistically, poor.  "Tex" Dyer very possibly, perhaps even very probably, wouldn't have returned to Lamesa, Texas, in 1946; wouldn't have married; and wouldn't have had his third child in 1957. 

And you wouldn't be reading this particular blog.

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Although the Cold War is over, and the risks of global thermonuclear war and mutually assured destruction have lessened, any American president — of either political party — is going to be extremely reluctant to use nuclear weapons, of any type, in any but the most compelling circumstances.  But since 9/11, compelling circumstances that previously seemed unimaginable, aren't anymore.  No one but a deranged barking moonbat would argue that America should pursue complete and unilateral nuclear disarmament. 

So who else — besides the terrorists and their state supporters — would we be doing a favor by cancelling the nuclear bunker buster program?

*******

The USS Zeilin was decommissioned in 1946, and scrapped in 1948.  But LTJG (ret.) James D. Dyer, Jr., now age 83, still lives in Lamesa, Texas; his Naval Reserve Identity Card from 1946, wrapped in plastic, is still in his wallet.  His grandchildren, including my four kids and my four nieces and nephews, have seen that same photo of the Zeilin that appears above in this post hanging inconspicuously on the wall of his garage when they've gone to see their G-Pa on many a Christmas. 

I hope that he'll be able to himself, but even if not, I'd like someday to be able to show my own grandchildren that photo of the "Mighty Z" someday, and tell them about their great grandfather.  An American ability to take out an otherwise impregnible underground terrorist bunker seems to raise that probability in my admittedly biased but sincerely felt judgment. 

So yes, I'm for this program; and the fact that Sen. Kerry's against it is yet another reason I'm against him.  Although I never saw her — and although I've learned more about the action she participated in from research done on the internet than I've ever been able to pry out of my dad — I still remember the Zeilin.

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Update (Sat Oct 2 @ 8:20pm): Re-reading this post, and in particular the bit about the ID card, I suddenly remembered the first time I ever learned that my father had even been in the Navy.  (At that point the framed photo of the Zeilin was hidden away in a trunk somewhere, not even on the garage back wall.)

In the summer of 1964, when I was six, my family took a cross-country driving vacation — ostensibly so my dad could attend the Lions Clubs International convention in Los Angeles, but of course we toured up and down the California coast.  We were in a 1962 Buick Riviera, one of whose "features" was a spined chrome grillwork that ran from the center-bottom to -top of the back seat, and behind which were hidden a pair of AM radio speakers; as the youngest of three kids, I of course had to sit in the center, and that chrome spine tortured me for days and days on end.  (At least we had no seat belts in those days, so I could squirm as much as my brother and sister would permit.)

It seemed to me that we were doing a lot of aimless driving, and I was frankly pretty bored.  But I remember being surprised when we pulled up to the main gate of the San Diego Naval Station.  A crisply uniformed and armed sailor (or maybe a Marine; I didn't know the difference) stepped to my dad's driver window to inquire about our business.  My dad winked and dug out his wallet, then produced a faded card from deep within it (although I had no idea what it was).  I remember seeing the guard's eyes widen when he looked at it, and then he politely asked us to wait while he went back into the guard station to make a phone call.  He stepped back to our car in a moment, handed my dad back his ID, motioned to his fellow guard to raise the road baricade, and invited us to take a driving tour of the base (with a polite warning not to leave our car and to stay on marked roads).

My sister and brother and I looked at each other in stunned amazement.  But then something happened that completely dropped our jaws:  the guard stepped aside and snapped off a precise, very respectful  salute.  "Enjoy your tour, Lieutenant Dyer," he said, and then he executed a smart about-face and returned to his post.

I shut up about the chrome grill for the rest of the day.

Update (Sat Oct 2 @ 9:45pm):  Hugh Hewitt's hosting a virtual symposium on the subject of Kerry and bunker busting nukes, with links galore.

Screaming for a snarky caption

Kerry:  "Blue!  101!  Blue!  101!  Hut-hut-hut!"

Aide with hand cupped to ear:  "Did I just hear someone predicting our electoral vote count?"

I'm sure you can do better than my feeble captioning effort, with a picture like this to work from.  (Just keep it reasonably non-profane, please.)

John Kerry as negotiator

I've never owned a pair of striped pants; I've never been to, much less worked at, Foggy Bottom.  But for the last 24 years, people have paid me to be their champion and their advocate in lawsuits.  And although I've tried dozens and dozens of cases to a verdict — including "bet the company" cases in which my corporate clients' continued existence, and the personal careers of their decisionmakers, were on the line — nonetheless, the vast majority of the cases I've handled have ended not with a trial, but with a diplomatic solution, a negotiated compromise.  Negotiating with a wily adversary is a huge part of my daily professional life; and that perspective cannot help but affect the way I view politics and, in particular, foreign policy and diplomatic relations on the national and international scene.

So it was that watching last night's presidential debate between Sen. John F. Kerry and President George W. Bush, this line, from Sen. Kerry, jumped out at me (boldface added):

If the president had shown the patience to go through another round of [United Nations] resolution [sic], to sit down with those leaders, say, "What do you need, what do you need now, how much more will it take to get you to join us?" we'd be in a stronger place today.

Oh, how I love to hear those exact words coming from my adversary across the bargaining table!

When I hear "How much more will it take?" and "What do you need?" coming from the mouth of my opponent, I know the case will settle on terms favorable to my client.  My opponent might as well have placed a large, blinking neon sign behind him that reads:  "I'm afraid to go to trial, and I'll do whatever it takes to avoid that risk."  He's just handed me his client's purse, invited me and my client to take what we want from it, and return it to him containing however little my client and I see fit.

Once my adversary has said those words — once he's revealed that he dares not fight, that he will, ultimately, compromise no matter how high the price — then they can't be unsaid.  No amount of previous or subsequent bluster will persuade me that my opponent and/or his client have the heart and the guts to risk seeing the case through to a verdict.

It matters little whether the person across the table is an implacable adversary (as, say, the North Koreans or the Iranians) or a sometimes-ally who nonetheless has potentially adverse interests and in any event will follow what it perceives to be its own self-interest (say, the French).  The answer to the question "How much more will it take?" is always — "Everything you've got to give, and more.  And more."

Beldar's take on the first debate

Neither candidate screwed up.  Kerry needed a Bush screwup, a huge gaffe, to change the dynamics of the race, and it didn't happen.  Thus in the big picture, Bush won.  That's true regardless of whether you grade Bush with a "B" and Kerry a "B+" or vice versa.  Both candidates crossed the finish line standing; and I think that means Bush will win the election, regardless of how you may "score" this debate on "points" and in isolation.

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Small pictures and impressions:

I think Sen. Kerry was at his very best tonight — much better than he was in any of the Democratic primary debates, and in the perfect, very formal and isolated-from-humanity environment to show off his strengths to their best advantage.  The format was one where the smartest kid in the class gets to show off, with nobody humming "Hail to the Chief" on a kazoo, and with none of the human interactions that make him look so robotic and inhuman.

Probably because of that, his mannerisms that annoy me the most were fairly muted.  But they could not be wholly extinguished.  Ask yourself this question:  Wouldn't it have been a huge home run for John Kerry if he could have gone through this entire debate with the self-discipline never to mention his Vietnam service?  To the extent that his combat service is going to favorably influence some subset of the voting public, hasn't he already gotten the full benefit of that history?  And yet, there he is — incapable of holding back the impulse to say, again and again, in effect, "Do you know who I am?  You realize, don't you, that I served in Vietnam?"  I don't know whether it's two percent or ten percent or thirty percent of the "undecided" or "swing" voters, but some percentage of those voters who are currently leaning Bush and might otherwise might have ended their viewing of this debate by saying, "Kerry's not so bad," were shaking their heads at every Vietnam allusion and muttering the word that I think will doom Kerry's chances for election:  "Phony."

Dubya was simply himself.  What is important — not shocking or surprising, but important — is how different today's Dubya is from the 2000 election version of himself; and of course, the transformation was 9/11.  In contrast to the candidate from 2000, this is a guy who has a very clear and consistent picture of what being the President is all about. 

He does not have, and never has had —  and has looked in the past (e.g., in 2000) at his worst when trying to pretend to have —  the Clintonian policy-wonk's command of subpoints and figures and verbal arguments with Roman numeral signposts going from III to III-A to III-A(4)(b)(vii).  When he makes successive supporting points, you can always count them on one hand and usually have a digit or two left over.  In fact, stylistically, I wish he would have transcended the format — not felt the need to keep talking until the yellow light flashed on — and repeated himself less.  (Man, what a contrast that would have been, because when Kerry speaks, you can see behind his eyes how he's doing a mental multitasking to plot how many more points he'll have time to score before the buzzer sounds.)

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Final aside:  What a difference this debate was from any of the Gore-Bush debates of 2000, and from some of the run-up to this one!  Nobody's going to be writing tonight or tomorrow about anybody's audible sighs or invasions of personal space, or about Kerry's tan.  The Bush-is-a-chimp crowd are posting gleefully now about "moo-lahs" and "nukular," but that's an exercise of political masturbation for them at this point, a self-pleasing ritual they're bound to engage in that has no connection to the substance of anything that happened beyond the fact that Dubya showed up and spoke aloud for a while. 

For everyone else, this was a serious exercise appropriate to a nation at war, a nation from which 9/11 has banished, at moments like these, most of the frivolities that we had the luxury and innocence in which to engage ourselves back in 2000.  But I don't think this debate changed any votes that were already strongly intentioned, nor — despite what I think was an optimal performance, as good as Kerry's capable of giving, in the best possible format for him — do I think it is likely to have swayed many genuinely undecided folks in a different direction than they were already leaning.

Mr. Burkett, if it's really you ...

Not to step on any toes or anything — I mean, I'm really not trying to pick on a sore subject — but to the proprietor of the blog receiving the Trackback ping I'm sending with this post: 

If you are who you say you are, and want people to take anything you say seriously — and I'll bet you surely do have lots more to say, sir, if'n you're who you say you are — then you might oughta consider posting some bona fides.  Maybe ask one of your longtime friends over for a cold Lone Star, let him watch you post something on your blog, and then let him go call a press conference in front of the county courthouse or something. 

I'm just an ole Lamesa boy, really trying to help.  (Or "hep," as we tended to say in West Texas when I was growing up there.)  I'm sure you know where Lamesa is, sir — I-20 west to Big Spring (pronounced "Big Sprang," never "Big Sprangs," 'cause there's only one, and it's gone dry), then north on US 87, only 150 miles from Abilene.  You watch, this post will send a buncha internet traffic your way. 

But ... they're likely to be kinda ... skeptical.  Now, my readers are a pretty well-behaved bunch, and include some yellow dog Democrats amongst 'em, so I'm hopin' they'll behave themselves over on your website too.  (Whoever got you set up was right smart to require comment registration, but I suspect you're still gonna have to be poundin' on that mouse button over the "delete" icon a fair bit.)

One last recommendation:  If you're gonna get into this bloggin' business in a serious way, you might wanna check out a pretty good code of bloggin' ethics.  Heck, they was written up by a libral blogger, but she's a purty girl and smart, too, and I'm proud to introduce ya to her.  Good luck, sir, and welcome to the blogosphere!  (Hat-tip to AllahPundit — but you don' even wanna ask about him, now, Mr. B, just trust me on this one.)

Beldar answers Orin Kerr's three questions on Iraq

Off the top of my head, here are my answers to Orin Kerr's three questions for pro-Iraq War bloggers:

First, assuming that you were in favor of the invasion of Iraq at the time of the invasion, do you believe today that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea? Why/why not?

Absolutely.  After ousting the Taliban, Saddam's Iraq was the next obvious target.  Sanctions were hurting the wrong people; Oil for Food was making the worst people rich; diplomacy never would have worked.  Saddam's forces were shooting at our planes on a daily basis.  Google on "sarin + 'artillery shell'" and tell me again that he wasn't dangerous; we didn't find WMD stockpiles, but we found capabilities, and we know from past experience that he had the willingness desire and intent, plus cash out the wazoo.  America and the world are better off knowing that America's threats aren't idle and that the American military is fully two generations beyond any military power it's likely to have to face in open combat.  And because we used force in Iraq, there's a far better chance that force won't be necessary against other state sponsors of terrorism (start with Libya, head east to Syria and Iran, keep going to North Korea).  The myth of Mogadishu has been exploded; messing with the US has consequences — potentially including military consequences — in a way that no one has really believed since at least Desert One.  That's just on the Homeland side; stopping a regime that practiced day-to-day mass murder on its own people and giving millions of Iraqis a decent chance at liberty and democracy would have been ample cause on its own, especially given the moral debt we owed those people after encouraging, then wimping out on them, after the Gulf War.

Second, what reaction do you have to the not-very-upbeat news coming of Iraq these days, such as the stories I link to above?

I am entirely unsurprised by either the fact that there's been continuing violence or the massive over-reporting thereof (and under-reporting of encouraging news).  Anyone who's ready to give up now has absolutely no sense of history, nor of the risks we'd face if we did so.  We're no longer on the horns of the dilemma we faced in Vietnam or even Korea; taking the fight to the enemy will cost lives, but not at anything remotely like the rate at which American lives were lost in Korea or Vietnam, and now we're not faced with instant global thermonuclear incineration if we push too hard.  Every killed or wounded American/Coalition/Iraqi soldier or sailor or airman or policeman or civilian is a tragedy, but the only catastrophe would be to render meaningless their sacrifices by cutting and running.  Our military understands that freedom's never free; maybe that's trite, but it's basically the same thing Jefferson said about watering the roots of the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants.  I just hope our public will remember that, without having to have another 9/11-or-worse reminder.

Third, what specific criteria do you recommend that we should use over the coming months and years to measure whether the Iraq invasion has been a success?

In the short term, obviously, the elections are very important, even if they're marred by violence.  (We've already passed one huge short-term milestone, the return of sovereignty.) In the middle term, a gradual increase in Iraqi domestic security and economic well-being and opportunity must be maintained.  In the long term, everything else depends on establishing and maintaining democracy, even if (as is likely) a genuinely independent and democratic Iraq ends up being less grateful and friendly than Americans would like.  We've done this drill of encouraging and nurturing and protecting democracies before — Italy, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan — each different, some much harder than others, probably none as hard as what we're trying to do now.  To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, we'll give them a republic, and then we'll see if they can keep it — albeit hopefully with help from civilized allies in America and elsewhere.  I don't expect Iraq to ever  resemble Iowa; but something Venezuela-like would mean real progress; and even if they end up in twenty years no better off than Egypt is now, that still will have been a huge improvement for America and for the world.  Twenty years is too short a time-frame in which to measure, for that matter.

I'm sure I've missed something important or stated things less eloquently here than I'd like to have, and everything I've just said can be quibbled with and picked at.  But I gather Mr. Kerr wants something that would approximate what I might tell him if he bought me a beer at a friendly bar.  Cheers!

Pre-fisking the "60 Minutes" yellowcake story

How cool is this?  Jim Lindgren at The Volokh Conspiracy is pre-fisking CBS News' temporarily delayed/shelved story on Saddam's efforts to buy yellowcake uranium.  Actually, Jim fisks MoveOn.org's demands that CBS News run with the story even though it's bogus.  Gosh, I wonder who could be behind MoveOn.org's pressuring ... and whether his middle name could be "Micah"?  Just a hunch.

I'm coo-coo for Cocco puffs! (And so's CBS News!)

While drafting (pun recognized but not intended) and following up on my post below about CBS News' scandalous broadcasts intended to create fear among voters over the return of conscription, I stumbled upon an interesting chronologic sequence, prompted by Rathergate.com's reprint of a September 9th letter to the editor from CBS News' star draft-fearful soccer-mom, Ms. Beverly Cocco of Walton Park, PA, to the Northeast Times, which appears to be a Philadelphia News-owned local-events supplement (proudly serving "Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties and the Main Line").  Of that September 9th letter to the editor, more later. 

But as it turns out, there's an earlier letter from Ms. Cocco there too, from way back on June 17th (boldface added):

Put the chill on the draft bill

Just this week I received an e-mail so upsetting that I forwarded it to all my friends, who then forwarded it to all their friends. We are now a good size group.

The e-mail concerned Bill S89 and HR 163. The bill is about reinstating the draft, beginning in the spring of 2005. The draftees will be all males and females between the ages of 18 and 26. There will be no deferments; seniors will be allowed to finish the year, and underclassmen will only be allowed to finish the semester. There is already a document signed between the U.S. and Canada, the "Smart Border Declaration," which will prevent crossing the border.

Since this is a federal bill, I was advised to contact Sen. Specter, Sen. Santorum and Congressman Joe Hoeffel. Sen. Specter’s office said that these bills are a "secret."  [Yeah, that's why they're given code-numbers and hidden away in the Congressional Record, in print and online — to keep them "secret." — Beldar]

When I told him that the cat was out of the bag, he offered to connect me with the Washington office. That office assured me that the senator was against this bill. I am still waiting for Sen. Santorum to respond, but Congressman Hoeffel is undecided. His office is sending me a letter detailing his thoughts.

We are now in the process of collecting as much information as possible about this bill and the candidates.

We keep getting told that there are no sponsors for this bill and not to worry about it. But why did South Carolina Sen. Ernest Hollings draft this bill, and why is it sitting in the Senate? We think that it is important to find out before the election.

Meanwhile, we are starting an organization called Parents Against the Draft (PAD).  For more information, call me at [deleted — Beldar].

Beverly Cocco
Walton Park

The proposed new law in question, by the way, the "Universal National Service Act of 2003," was introduced in identical form in both chambers — in the House as HR163, and in the Senate as SR89 — way back on January 7, 2003, by Congressmen Rangel, McDermott, Conyers, Lewis (of Georgia), Stark, and Abercrombie, and by Senator Hollings, all hard-left Democrats.  [Update: Both bills were promptly referred to the appropriate committes, whence, as best I can tell, they've neither stirred nor come up for any discussion or vote ever since.  Yet there are unconfirmed reports that from the darkness surrounding them has occasionally been heard a hiss — "My preciousssss!" — with an odd Massachusetts accent.]

The above-referenced Pennsylvania Democratic congressman (and senate candidate), Joseph M. Hoeffel, in fact published a follow-up letter to the editor of his own on July 1st, stating that he opposes HR163, and concluding that by "enhancing incentives and increasing possibilities for engaging in volunteer service, we can improve our armed forces without reinstating the military draft." 

And by the time of Ms. Cocco's September 9 letter, it sounded like she'd been cured of her barking moonbatism after speaking with Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter at a town meeting (boldface added):

Thank you, Sen. Specter

I had the opportunity to speak to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter at his recent town meeting in Northeast Philadelphia. During the question-and-answer section, I identified myself along with my friend, Cookie Catinella, as officers of Parents Against the Draft.

I asked the senator about the prospect of a draft in the future. He was adamant that there will be no draft and eloquently explained to everyone why it was important that we finish up in Iraq, what our future plans are, and why there will be no draft or any need for one.

We found Sen. Specter very knowledgeable and want to thank him for addressing and explaining this very complicated and troubling issue.

But someone, we wonder who, somehow managed to get Ms. Cocco properly fearful again just in time for CBS News' broadcast.  Now I wonder who that could have been?

Meanwhile, here, by the way, are Lexis-Nexis transcripts of the CBS News broadcasts as they aired on Tuesday night's evening program and this morning's CBS News broadcast.  No mention there about corresponding with congressmen or cross-examining senators, nosireebob.

Finally, I wonder if Newsday columnist Marie Cocco — author of this August 2nd piece headlined "Kerry eyes disillusioned GOPers: The Democratic nominee hopes to find support among Republicans upset with Bush" (reprinted in WaPo on August 4th), a bunch of other anti-Dubya op-eds (including one from April 27th that accused Bush, pre-SwiftVets, of "smearing Kerry's war record"), and who's also flacked for John Kerry's claims about the so-called "back-door draft" on Chris Matthews' Hardball — might be related to Ms. Beverly Cocco?  [Update: Apparently there's no relation; see update below. — Beldar.]

Update (Wed Sep 29 @11:50pm): In an earlier version of this post that was only up for a few minutes while I was fixing broken links, proof-reading, and such, I quoted from some Congressional Record pages that I thought were Rep. Hoeffel's statements on the House floor, raising the likelihood of the return of conscription, because I'd seen them posted on his congressional website.  After studying those quotes more carefully from the full .pdf files from the Congressional Record, however, I've concluded that although Rep. Hoeffel spoke during the same sessions in July and September, and has elsewhere, like Sen. Kerry, spoken out against the so-called "back-door draft," the particular lines I originally quoted were instead from Rep. Ted Strickland (D-OH), so I've removed those quotations from the post.  Mea culpa; I hope Rep. Hoeffel will stick with his position as of his July 1 letter to the editor, and I encourage him to discourage his colleagues like Mr. Strickland from threatening/promising the return of the draft if Dubya's re-elected.

Update (Thu Sep 30 @ 3:55am): Turns out that Rep. Hoeffel's anti-draft position hasn't made much of a splash since July 1st.  Libertarian Party nominee Elisabeth "Betsy" Summers announced her bid for Sen. Specter's seat on August 17th, and claims that she's the "only anti-war anti-draft candidate running." 

Gosh, perhaps Rep. Hoeffel should respond immediately and forcefully to this!  Maybe he oughta reprint his July 1 letter to the editor on his campaign website, since it turns up zero Google search hits for "draft," "conscription," or "163," and all the references to "draft" on his congressional website were made by other Democratic congressmen!  Unless — oh double-gosh, you don't suppose he'd rather (yes, pun intended) just let the fear-mongering run amok?  Geepers-golly, that would be sorta cynical, wouldn't it? When grilled by Ms. Summers at one of his own rallies, Rep. Hoeffel was quoted as saying "You're smart, because you're using my event to get some publicity." But Rep. Hoeffel said he would support Ms. Summers' "participation in any debates leading up to the Nov. 2 election."  So in this merry dance involving Ms. Cocco, Rep. Hoeffel, and Ms. Summers, who exactly is using whom?

Update (Thu Sep 30 @ 4:50am and I'm gonna pay for this tomorrow): Blogger Bill from INDC Journal has a fabulous bit of investigative reporting on the not-so-investigative reporting done by CBS News — an interview with CBS correspondent Richard Schlesinger.  Regarding the whole subject of the draft, Schlesinger admits:

Whether or not there’s any reality to there being a draft, is almost besides the point. Do I think there’s going to be a draft? No. But it's an issue that people are talking about.

Regarding how they found Ms. Cucco:

Long story short, she’s a Republican. When we put the story together, I went looking for a Republican. We worked backwards from the e-mail, that’s how we found her. She told me that she was going to vote for Bush, though she said she may flip-flop.

Sucker (at best)!  But wait, there's more:  Bill also interviews CBS News spokesperson Sandra Genelius, who's typically clueless, and CBS News segment producer Linda Karas, who has this bit of damning idiocy (ellipsis in original from INDC Journal; boldface mine):

I know that she’s affiliated with the group, and what her views are on the draft, and that’s what I was interested in. I was looking for a character that has a personal story that might be affected by the issue. And to be honest, I was looking for a Republican. I e-mailed several groups that deal with this issue, and she was the woman who responded that fit the profile and was the most interesting voice, because this is a woman with two sons ... and she is concerned about the issue. If I had some rampant leftist on there, what would you say?

I'd say she's at best a kook and more likely a political activist, of whatever political stripe, whose activism CBS News knowingly concealed.  Suh-weet!  From their own mouths, the admission that they were on notice — and hence not acting in good faith — yet again.  Read the whole beautifully ugly thing!

Update (Thu Sep 30 @ 5:15am):  A quick note of caution:  In reading some of the stuff that's ricocheting through the blogosphere right now, I'm seeing all sorts of takes on Ms. Cocco, ranging from (my paraphrases) "she's a stalwart Republican and CBS News made it look like she has doubts about Bush that she really doesn't have" to "her name's listed on a website that is linked to the Communist Party of the USA."  To be absolutely clear:  I don't know what to believe about Ms. Cocco, but assuming that the letters to the editor quoted above are actually from her, that's enough to show that she's no naive soccer-mom; and with what Karas admits in the quotes above, CBS News knew that and concealed it.  As to the CPUSA stuff — whoa, Nellie, be careful there; and make sure you haven't blurred "People Against the Draft" with "Parents Against the Draft" — the former being, apparently, a much larger group that listed Ms. Cocco's contact info on their webpage as "Philadelphia Lancaster/Bucks County affiliate: Parents Against the Draft." 

Update (Thu Sep 30 @ 8:22am): The Ratherbiased.com folks, temporarily blogging courtesy of Rathergate.com, have screenshots proving the "nacht und nebel"/stealth addition to the CBS News website of a disclosure regarding Ms. Cocco's affiliation with "People Against the Draft."  As noted above, I'm not sure whether that's a fair way to describe Ms. Cocco's connection; she does seem to be affiliated with "Parents Against the Draft," and indeed its co-founder.  But whether she and her fellow members of "Parents" knew of possibly unsavory connections that the "People" group may have, or even authorized her name to be listed on the "People" website, hasn't yet been established.  Regardless, the fact that she is an active participant in some sort of grass-roots activist organization clearly was known to CBS News before they ran their broadcast portraying her as an average (Republican) soccer mom, and the stealth edit to their webpage is both a tacit admission that they should have disclosed that critical contextual information to begin with, and further evidence in itself of CBS News' utter lack of candor, good faith, and respect for journalistic ethics.

Update (Thu Sep 30 @ 10:20am): Via a very polite and prompt email reply to my inquiry, columnist Marie Cocco advises that she's not, to her knowledge, related to Beverly Cocco.  Some odd coincidences really are just odd coincidences.

NYT corrects; Beldar takes a bow

I probably wasn't the only one to send NYT public editor Daniel Okrent a few link-filled emails.  But I sent my share, and had blogged about it, and hence was pleased to see this correction (warning: link probably won't last long, it seems to be a changing-content page) today:

• An article on Thursday about political advertising in the presidential campaign, including a commercial that accused John Kerry of having "secretly met with the enemy'' in Paris in the 1970's, misidentified the parties with whom Mr. Kerry said he had met at the Vietnam peace talks. (The error was repeated in articles on Friday and Saturday.) The parties were the two Communist delegations — North Vietnam and the Vietcong's Provisional Revolutionary Government — with whom he discussed the status of war prisoners. He did not say he had met with "both sides." (Go to Sept. 23 Article), (Go to Sept. 24 Article), (Go to Sept. 25 Article)

Okay, three NYT stories repeating this mistake, versus one paragraph in the corrections.  By NYT standards, that's progress, I guess — but still awfully sad.  Shouldn't the NYT maybe run a text version of the sixth SwiftVets ad for free, to balance things out?  And where's the hard-hitting NYT investigative journalists' piece on Kerry's later trip(s) to meet with the enemy in Paris, eh?  (Yeah, I sent them the links to get them started on that, too, but I suspect my email has been lost in the pajama filter.)

Update (Wed Sep 29 @ 8:45pm): After further review, I've noted that the NYT has corrected the online version of the three articles to add the text of the correction paragraph at the bottom of each, and a conspicuous reference to the correction at the top of each; hopefully they'll go that way into the Times' own archives and Lexis-Nexis versions.