April 28, 2004 by s.z.

It Makes You Ashamed to Be Human Just watched the "60 Minutes II" story about the American soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi captives at Abu Ghraib prison.  The photos just make one heartsick -- especially since we supposedly invaded the country (when no WMDs could be found) to stop Saddam from doing things like this.  In case you missed the program, here's a link to the NY Times story.  While the individual soldiers are responsible for their actions, the culpability doesn't end with them.  They were reservists, unfamiliar with Geneva Convention procedures, and encouraged by civilian interrogators (probably DIA and CIA) to "soften up" the prisoners for interrogation.  It's apparently not only a case of people having power over others (the inhuman "enemy) and then misusing that power to be sadistic and cruel, but also of people believing that being sadistic and cruel was helping to further a mission.  There was apparently little in the way of leadership or oversight at the prison.  I recall a "60 Minutes" story from last year about Iraqis seeking answers about the fate of family members held in this same prison; the senior American Army Officer in charge  (Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski) assured "60 Minutes" that no one was being held in the prison without charges, and that everyone was being very well treated.  So, either she didn't know what was going on or she was lying to the American people.  (Gen Karpinski has reportedly been reassigned and other officials are being investigated, but charges have only been filed against the six lower-level enlisted personnel pictured in the photos.) And not only were those low-level reservists poorly trained for their assignment and poorly supervised, but there were apparently too few of them to do the job right.  The defendant who did the phone interview with "60 Minutes" said that there were only 6 guards to handle 1000 (if I recall the number correctly) prisoners.  When Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, chief spokesman for the American military command in Baghdad, was asked if an overextended military was partially to blame for this situation, he said that it wouldn't excuse any misconduct on the part of the soldiers.  And of course it doesn't, but it certainly shows how the ineptitude of the post-invasion planning is now bearing poisonous fruit --  it's incidents like this that will not only totally eliminate any possibility of that rosy vision of a peaceful, free, America-loving Iraq that Bush keeps talking about in his speeches, but also cause more of our troops be killed.  ("60 Minutes" said that two weeks ago the Pentagon asked them to delay airing the story because of the tense situation in Iraq, but when copies of the photos starting appearing on the Internet and it was apparent that other news sources were on the verge of going public with their reports, the Pentagon told CBS to go ahead, and that they wanted to offer comments on the allegations.) Another scary thing is that the story only came out when one of the soldiers involved in the incident showed photos to a friend, who then came forward.  So, there are possibly other instances of mistreatment of prisoners at other facilities that haven't been uncovered yet. Anyway, I'm sorry if this post is rather incoherent -- it just makes me so mad and sad -- especially because it could have been avoided if the guy who said that God wants him to spread freedom to the Middle East had spent more time listening to the military professionals who knew what the problems would be, and he had made sure that he had adequate troops and plans to do the job right before starting the Iraqi invasion. 9:05:33 PM

Townhall Sample Pack A one-day supply FREE*!!! Rebecca Hagelin A Heritage Foundation survey PROVES that the only sex ed that parents want the schools to give their children is, "Girls, keep your knees locked together until marriage or you're a slut who will get AIDS and die."  Besides, health books are just too darned erotic for the eyes of children, and should only be read by Heritage Foundation officials. For crying out loud, the last thing parents want is for our children to become sexually aroused by teachers and textbooks between English and European History classes. Health curricula should teach our kids how to avoid peer pressure and how to practice abstinence – not titillate them with graphic details  Thomas Sowell It's the oldest prank in the world: invite Thomas to appear on your program to discuss his latest book, then when he gets there, force him to talk about kidneys. I had no objection to discussing minimum wage laws, a subject on which I had written many times. But that was not why I was there.  So I hung up the phone.  Apparently the people who run the program became angry that I would not play along with their game. They phoned me. They phoned the Hoover Institution, where I work, demanding to speak to the director. But the Hoover Institution includes people who know what the media are like, so this ploy didn't get very far. Michelle Malkin Ashley Judd wore a feminist T-shirt and appeared at the March for Women's Lives. Which is totally bogus, because all the women there were, like, fugly -- know what I'm sayin?  So Michelle is going to tell Ashley's mother, and she is going to be SO GROUNDED. Beautiful young actress Ashley Judd went to Washington last weekend wearing a crucifix and a trendy little T-shirt that boasted: "THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE." The Associated Press snapped a photo of Ashley, honored guest of the "March for Women's Lives," which has been widely disseminated on the Internet. Pro-abortion leaders must be ecstatic. In a sea of angry (Hillary Rodham Clinton), haggard (Cybill Shepherd) and ghoulish (Whoopi Goldberg) women shaking their fists and waving coat hangers, Ashley's pretty smile helped put a softer, gentler and more glamorous spin on the morbid march for "reproductive rights." Ashley's message to millions of young American women and girls: Opposing the partial-birth abortion ban is fun! Morning-after pills are cool! Sex without consequences rules!   Jonah Goldberg  Kerry said he threw his medals, but then he said he didn't, so it's like he never served in Vietnam at all, which makes him no more brave and heroic than Bush or Cheney.  So there, Democrats! But if signing up for Vietnam proves Kerry's got the right judgment to be commander-in-chief, how come Kerry believes Vietnam was a huge mistake for America? Think about it. Kerry and DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe have mocked Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration for not serving in Vietnam. But Kerry made his political career by saying that Vietnam was a moral and national security disaster. He claims that going to fight for "a mistake" (Kerry's words) was his defining moment. Well, if Vietnam was a mistake, how does it demonstrate Kerry's good judgment? I think Jonah's point is: George Bush has taught us that learning from experience is an affront to God.  So, you should never, ever change your mind about anything.   Brent Bozell It's another exciting adventure of America's least impressive superhero: Anti-Profanity Man!  This week he goes after Hollywood for protesting the recent FCC overreactions. Don't they know people start giggling when they try to say the F-word is not profane because it was "unplanned"? Or that it's not indecent if it was an "adverbial intensifier" that did not describe "sexual or excretory activities"? This is where the public starts rolling its eyes about lawyers trying to manipulate language into meaning nothing, or anything at all.  Um, yeah.  That's what the public is giggling and rolling their eyes about -- people who claim that one word uttered by Bono at an awards show over a year ago isn't that big of a deal.  They certainly aren't laughing at YOU, Anti-Profanity Man! So, Townhall.  Remember, it's FREE!*  *A $9.99 shipping and handling fee for each pundit will be billed to your credit card.  You will continue to receive Townhall pundits, at increasingly exorbitant prices, for the rest of your life.  If you don't want us to give your credit card number to the annoying-voiced people who commit identity theft on those Capitol One customers, it will cost you an additional handling fee of $99.95 per month.  Offer void wherever people have a lick of common sense. 6:16:55 AM

When Women Get Snippy      In our search for new conservative viewpoints, we came across The InkWell -- the blog of the anti-feminist, pro-free market "Independent Women's Forum."  The blog is run by the Charlotte twins: Charlotte Hays and Charlotte Allen.  Despite an illustration at the top of the page which suggests a teenaged Wonkette with attitude,  the Charlottes have apparently been around for a while.  While trying (not all that diligently, I confess) to find their bios, I did locate an enjoyable 1997 Eric Alterman article which discussed John Podhoretz's history of never actually having to make it in the free market; the Charlottes are quoted: The new editorial page editor has spent virtually his entire life supping at the table of strange right-winger foreigners seeking to buy their way into respectability by courting the American right. Podhoretz's first patron was that distinguished theologian and jailbird Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who hired John and his college roommate, Todd Linberg, to provide a Nice-Jewish-Boy front for his nefarious activities. At both Insight and the Washington Times, young Podhoretz distinguished himself with prose that makes one yearn for the sparkling models of clarity and fine writing that appear under Abe Rosenthal's name on the Times op-ed page. According to Charlotte Hays, who was also employed by the Moonies during Podhoretz's tenure, John was known around the office as "John P. Normanson" because that was they way his editor introduced him to visitors. Writing in The New Republic, Hays reported that Podhoretz's self-infatuated prose was often read aloud "to the accompaniment of gales of laughter." Charlotte Alleneven coined the term "podenfreude" to describe the enjoyable sensation one experiences while reading terrible writing. The above also proves that Jonah Goldberg's "Frankenfreude" bit was not only stupid, but plagiarized. Anyway, I did find out that both the Charlottes are conservative Catholics, and have both opined recently about Kerry and communion.  Charlotte H. has written a book about Jesus, and Charlotte A., who was the editor of the Conservative Women's Quarterly (which frequently published the work of Meghan Cox Gurdon until it went out of business, probably due to that fact), is reportedly writing a book about gold-digging women. Today we will look at a couple of Charlotte H.'s posts about the March for Womens Lives.  Charlotte prefaces her remarks by saying that the Independent Women's Forum welcomes women with varying opinions about abortion -- however, her writing elsewhere suggests that she believes that anybody who supports abortion is going to hell, where they will join John Kerry in roasting in eternal flames.  But in order to appease the Board of Directors, she says that the March was really about attacking Bush -- thus making it acceptable to say that the women who participated in it were all too old and ugly to ever get pregnant.  Really, she said it.  See! In a word, I saw the face of pro-choice America. And I hate to sound catty, gals, but, from the 70-year-old Gloria Steinem and the ancient Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice down to the grim gaggles of tongue-pierced, shaved-headed, Birkenstock-footed coeds, it’s one old, ugly, or old-and-ugly-both face. As The Other Charlotte, who was also on the street this weekend, e-mailed to me: "The most attractive marcher I’ve seen in the ’hood was a pug dog wearing a sign that read, ’Another pug for choice.’" The pro-choice movement is not a youth movement. The few teenage girls in evidence on the streets were in the firm tow of their activist mothers. Scarcely a single one of those hundreds of thousands of marchers was in the slightest danger of getting pregnant.    Yeah, I'm sure she really hates to be catty.  But she does it anyway, for God and Bush. And then the NRO's Kathryn Lopez gave Charlotte the link to our new friend Bunny's blog, as we read in this post (what a convergence of Wo'C favorites!) -- per Charlotte, Bunny's site proves what she [Charlotte] was saying on Monday about the marchers looks*: I’ve finally found some photos of the march on fellow blogger Bunny Diehl’s WorldMag webpage (thanks, Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online, for the link). Check these pix out after scrolling down to April 26, and you can see for yourself what TOC and I saw with our own eyes on Sunday. It was Rad-Fems for Kerry all the way (and you’ll also see that I wasn’t kidding when I wrote yesterday that these were some ugly wimmin). So, the InkWell.  A site which bears watching -- but only by trained professionals from blogs like this one.  You could lose an eye if you read this kind of stuff without proper gear. *Edited to make it clearer that this second post is also by Charlotte.  Here is a link to a NRO Corner post by Kathryn where she provided the link to Bunny's site (which we discussed on Monday in the post "How Christian of Her").  Sorry for any confusion. 4:52:13 AM

Ronald Reagan U. From the Wash Post: Backers of the ambitious plan to build a private university outside Denver that would focus on the former president's economic and diplomatic principles asked the Colorado legislature this week to endorse the idea. Cool! A university which focuses on Reagan's economic and diplomatic principles!  You could take such classes as: Economics 101: Greed is Good Economics 102: Screw the Poor Economics 333: Avoiding Taxes Through Wealth Diplomacy 205: Other Nations are Evil Diplomacy 301: Speaking Softly And Carrying a George Lucas Movie But here's some more info about the proposed school: With a 200-acre campus site donated by a prominent Colorado Republican, the plans call for construction to begin next year and a student body of 10,000 to be in classes before the end of the decade. "We have worked with an architect, and we think we're looking at an $850 million construction budget," said Terry Walker, a former professor and administrator at the University of Louisiana who is serving as founding president of the proposed school. "We are planning for a full-scale university, with a law school, business school and a graduate school of foreign affairs and public policy. We also want a performing arts school, to reflect the president's long movie career." Because with a degree from Ronald Reagan School of Peforming Arts, you should go far in the movie biz. Walker is Reagan U.'s only full-time employee at the moment. But he says he has won enthusiastic backing, and promises of financial support, from senior aides to the former president. He has not yet received a go-ahead, though, from the Reagan family. "We want to hold off on major fundraising until Nancy Reagan gives us formal approval," he said. A spokeswoman for Reagan in Los Angeles, Joanne Drake, said: "We have recently received a proposal about the university, and we are reviewing it. We have taken no position on it as yet." Now here is where I start to think that either some reporters are not doing a very good job, or Mr. Walker is a big fibber who is unable to keep his story straight.  Because this is what the NY Times said about the college: Organizers say they have begun raising money to establish a Ronald Reagan University in Colorado. [...]  Mr. Walker said the project has the support of the Reagan family. And here's part of the Rocky Mountain News' report: The project has the support of the Reagan family and longtime Reagan advisers such as Edwin Meese, who served as Reagan's attorney general, Walker said. "Ed Meese can pick up the phone and call every wealthy person in the country," Walker said. Another interesting tidbit from this paper is about that 200-acre campus site -- it was donated by businessman Steve Schuck, and it's valued at $50 million,  However, Walker doesn't like the location, as it's near to the airport, which is not what Ron would have wanted.  "Because he had a vision of a shining city on the hill, I want us to be on a rolling plain, looking at the Front Range," Walker said. What does ol' Steve have to say about this?  He probably doesn't know that Walker presumably plans to sell his gift and then look for a more Reganesque site elsewhere.  In fact, Schuck sounds like a schmuck (and a perfect mark): Schuck said he's offered his "enthusiastic" support to the project, even though he's not certain of all details of the project. So, is this all a scam, with Walker planning on fleeing the country with the $50 million he gets for selling Schuck's land (and any donations Ed Meese manages to line up)?  Only time (and Interpol) will tell. But back to the Post for some other interesting details: Plans for Ronald Reagan U. were made public for the first time this week when Colorado state Rep. Jim Welker, a Republican and a supporter of the idea, introduced a nonbinding resolution asking the state legislature to offer its moral support. [Per the Rocky Mt. News, the resolution passed on a 6-5 vote, with the panel's five Democrats voting no.  But Welker understood that it was all political: "'If someone would have proposed a Bill Clinton University, how would Republicans vote on that?' he asked."] "This resolution is a we-wish-you-well kind of thing, that's all," Welker said. "We're not going to ask for a single penny of taxpayer money for this project. It wouldn't really be the Reagan way to come up with the idea and then try to get the government to pay for it." Yes, Reagan is famous for funding his own projects -- you know, like that time he raised money for the Contras by having an arms/bake sale. Rather, Welker said, the school's financial stance will probably be modeled on Hillsdale College, a private school in Michigan. Hillsdale refuses any government aid for faculty or students so that it will not be bound by the regulatory requirements that accompany public funding. So, they're going to follow the Hillsdale College model.  This should prove interesting, as the costs to attend Hillsdale run $23,500 a year.  Of course, former Hillsdale President George Roche (with the help of his daughter-in-law Lissa) was able to raise a $180 million endowment, and thus offer some private financial aid for needy conservative spawn (the school only has an enrollment of 1100).  But then, look how badly things turned out for Lissa.  Is Welker SURE that they want to follow the Hillsdale model? In any case, it's going to a real challenge for Reagan U to come up with $850 million to build the school, let alone enough extra to offer any financial aid.  And per the Rocky Mountain News, Reagan U is only going to admit the best and the brightest: They hope to attract the top 3 percent of U.S. students and will only allow students who have an SAT score of 1,400 or above, he said. A perfect SAT score is 1,600. "We're going for the creme de la creme," Walker said. Ronald Reagan University will hopefully have 10,000 students and 2,000 faculty and staff by 2010, Walker said. Okay, Walker can't seriously expect to be able to find 10,000 students with 1400 SATS and $23,500 a year to spend for tuition and expenses who want to be educated the Ronald Reagan way.  This really has to be a scam (or maybe a practical joke played on Colorado state Rep. Jim Welker). And here's one more discrepancy in the stories told by Founding President Terry Walker.  The NY Times said that Walker said: It is to be a general university with a medical school, a law school and a graduate school of public and international policy, among other disciplines. Now, the Rocky Mt. News: The school will be a general university with traditional disciplines, except a medical school, Walker said.  The A.P. also says there will be a medical school.  You know, I think there should be, in honor of Reagan's greatest military triumph: Grenada. So, Ronald Reagan University: ruse to bilk the right, or deluded pipe dream of the right?  I'm taking bets.  But I kinda hope it does get off the ground, because I'm always looking for college options for Kyle Williams.  2:47:39 AM