Hewitt Blog

Kos goes Life of Brian on The New Republic.

Now, does Kos' line about the magazine's "Lieberman-worshipping neocon owners" get close to whispering "the Jooos did it"?

DailyKos is home to anti-Semitic cartoons after all.

Yesterday I posted on Kos' refusal to repudiate his disgusting "screw them" comment and the absurd defense he offered of it. Today's outburst is another marker on his road to irrelevance. Whether Democratic Party leaders want to follow him there is up to them, but they should be on record about his post today.

UPDATE: Baseball Crank comments:

Now, there's nothing sinister about having a non-public discussion group - I belong to two such groups, one just for the RedState contributors and a more random, open one run by Jon Henke of Qand) and including a bunch of mostly conservative and libertarian blogs. But it really is revealing of the minset at work here that anyone would even try to get not only bloggers but journalists to not write on a story. Trust me, the idea that you could get, say, Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, Jeff Goldstein, Hugh Hewitt, Mike Krempasky, Ed Morrisey and John Hinderaker to agree on a single approach to a story or, more particularly, to not touch a story - the idea that you would even broach that topic across a list of the top conservative and libertarian blogs - is inconceivable. Despite the Online Left's insistence that conservative bloggers march in unison on an agenda handed down by Karl Rove, it's apparently the lefties who are the ones seeking to enforce message discipline behind the scenes.

Clearly Rove told BC to write that.

Here's the WaPo report on the statements made by Senator Santorum yesterday:

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told reporters yesterday that weapons of mass destruction had in fact been found in Iraq, despite acknowledgments by the White House and the insistence of the intelligence community that no such weapons had been discovered.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Santorum said.

The lawmakers pointed to an unclassified summary from a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.

The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

This story appears on page 10. There is no story in the New York Times, and the Boston Globe allots two paragraphs:

To counter criticism that no weapons of mass destruction turned up in Iraq even though that was a key argument for going to war, Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., released a newly declassified military intelligence report. It said that coalition forces had found 500 munitions in Iraq that contained degraded sarin or mustard nerve agents, produced before the 1991 Gulf War.

Democrats downplayed the intelligence report, saying that a lengthy 2005 report from the top U.S. weapons inspector contemplated that such munitions would be found. A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the weapons were not considered likely to be dangerous because of their age.

Note that the "intelligence officials" in the Post story and the "defense official" in the Globe account are saying different things, and that the account in the Post --one cache that had been forgotten-- differs from the description given by Senator Santorum, and does not explain why the report itself cannot be declassified.

If it was one cache of old and useless weapons, buried and forgotten, then the intelligence agency that insists on the classification of the report is not competent.

If the report has different information than that provided the Post, then the paper and its brothers are blinkered by an anti-war ideology from asking the sort of questions such allegations as those made by Senator Santorum would oridnarily prompt.

When I reread the transcript of my interview with Senator Santorum, this exchange stood out:

HH: No, what I'm looking for is more [if Saddam] knew he had [the WMD], and he was trying to hide them, as opposed [that] to he'd forgotten where he put them....

RS: Well, there is additional information that I think the public should be made aware of that could answer that question.

HH: Very interestingly put, but you can't answer that based on what was declassified, and what was not?

RS: That's right.

Earlier in the interview was this exchange:

HH: Now Senator, is it your impression that the classified nature of this material is in place in order to protect the information that might assist insurgents from finding additional stockpiles? Is that...

RS: There's certainly...that is clearly an element, and there are certainly parts of this report that were not released that should not be released. And that would certainly be one element of it. But there are other elements that I think can be released that could shed more light as to the volume of the problem that we're confronting, or that we confronted in the sense that how many chemical weapons did Saddam Hussein have prior to the Gulf War, the second Gulf War.

If there is convincing evidence that Saddam and his senior circle knew of stockpiles of WMD and had hidden them prior to the invasion, the refusal to release that information has greatly damaged the debate about the war, even though the invasion of Iraq rested on other compelling grounds than Saddam's possession of WMD.

The failure to find WMD has had a corrosive effect on the public debate and on some support for the war.

There are only two reasons to have withheld such information.

First, that a political decision was made not to reveal the information until such time as the case could not be rebutted or disparaged except by the nutter fringe. That seems too cautious a move for the Administration.

The second reason is the fear that details of the discoveries would lead terrorists to similarly situated caches, endangering vast numbers of our troops and civilians.

This would be a compelling excuse for the refusal to release the details if in fact the war was carried to a successful conclusion, but ultimately not persuasive if in fact the war effort cannot be sustained because of a loss of support at home.

What we have right now if a very confused picture, and the Adminsitration simply cannot expect the public to be satisfied with the announcement today and the declassified summary provided by Director Negroponte. At a minimum, if more cannot be disclosed, an explanation must be given as to why that is the case.

The New Republic is asking hard questions about pay-for-play in the lefty blogs, and the cooperation of the second and third-tier lefty blogs in the smothering of the story:

Are Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas (of the famous Daily Kos) engaged in a pay-for-play scheme in which politicians who hire Armstrong as a consultant get the support of Kos? That's the question that's been bouncing around the blogosphere ever since The New York Times's Chris Suellentrop broke the news last Friday about a 2000 run-in Armstrong had with the Securities and Exchange Commission over alleged stock touting. But Armstrong, Kos, and other big-time liberal bloggers have almost entirely ignored the issue, which is a bit surprising considering their tendency to rapidly respond to even the smallest criticism.

Why the strange silence in the face of such damning allegations? Well, I think we now know the answer. It's a deliberate strategy orchestrated by Kos.

Read the whole thing. (HT: Instapundit.)

Senator Rick Santorum appeared on the program to elaborate on his announcement today. The transcript will be up at Radioblogger.com shortly. In the interview, Senator Santorum elaborates on the classified report, though he is careful not to disclose material that ought not to be disclosed. The impression he left is of many more crucial facts left classified.

UPDATE: K-Lo has posted the unclassified summary here.

CaptainsQuarters has many updates. As does Michelle Malkin and Austin Bay.

Chuck Poochigian has perhaps the most interesting down ticket race in the United States: He's running against Oakland Mayor (and former California governor and talk radio host) Jerry Brown for the job of California's Attorney General.

Jerry B. is nothing if not entertaining, but there's a huge question about whether Rose Bird's biggest fan can persuade Califronia voters that he's tough enough and serious enough to handle a job with real impact on ordinary Californians.

Pooch, as he is known in the Golden State, is a very qualified state senator and former assemblyman, as well as a senior figure in the adminsitrations of Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian. He also is from Fresno, which adds glamour too his resume.

The first online ad for Poochigian has been released. It gives a sense of the campaign ahead. It is going to be a fun one.

Chris Muir's wildly successful online cartoon, Day by Day, becomes available to newspapers on June 29.

Muir built the audience for his strip the old fashioned way: He gave it away and earned a devoted following.

Now newspapers don't have to guess whether a new strip will work. Day by Day already does.

Plus the newspapers that sign up will be sending a signal that they have a clue about the new world of web/print interface.

I hope Muir posts a list of those papers taking the strip. It will be a short guide to those with the best chances of surviving.

Editors that want more info, e-mail daybyday@daybydaycartoon.com.

From Nature:

Southern California could be in line for a serious quake along the infamous San Andreas fault, seismologists have found. New measurements suggest that the region close to Los Angeles, the traditional earthquake location in Hollywood disaster movies, could feel the effects of a real-life tremor within the next few years.

The southern part of the San Andreas seems to be building up a considerable amount of strain, the work suggests. And because no significant earthquake has ruptured this portion of the fault for at least the past 250 years, it could be primed to cause a devastating event.

"It could be tomorrow; it could be ten years from now," says Yuri Fialko, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, who led the study. "But it appears unlikely to accumulate another few hundred years of strain."

Geraghty and Kaus are on the case. (HT: Instapundit.)

Kos may remain the best lefty blogger money can buy, but he continues to receive a pass from MSM. Appearing on Sunday's "Reliable Sources," Kos was at least asked by Howard Kurtz about his deplorable "screw 'em" dismissal of the death of four American contractors at the hands of terrorists in Fallujah in 2004:

KURTZ: Now as you know, "National Review's" Byron York resurrected a quote from you, this was after four American contractors were killed in Iraq in 2004. The quote was, ["]I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries. They are there to wage war for profits, screw them.["] You dealt with this at the time and you expressed regret. My question is, are you prepared for the extra scrutiny that comes with this higher profile you have, whether you particularly want to be out there as the symbol of the blogging movement or not?

MOULITSAS: Absolutely. To me in a way it's funny that they have not updated their talking points in two years. And so they want to keep resurrecting an old quote, there's nothing I can do about it. What I can do is I can say the fact is the reason, the context for that quote was solidarity with my brothers and sisters in arms, Marines and soldiers. I wore combat boots. I served during the first Gulf war and people are making a choice between private armies and mercenaries. I make my choice. I stand behind our men and women in uniform and I'm not going to apologize for that. But they're going to keep resurrecting that and that's fine. That's what they do. They smear, they attack, they don't like the fact that people are getting engaged in politics, that people are getting involved. There are too many turf to protect so they'll keep doing that and that's fine. I can fight back.

KURTZ: Now speaking of getting involved in politics, you appear in a recent ad for Ned Lamont. He's a Democrat who's challenging Senator Joe Lieberman in Connecticut in a primary. Let's take a little look at a little bit of that.

Kos dodged the question and to my knowledge has never apologized for this disgusting remark which revealed more about him than a thousand posts. What Kurtz did not point out is that four "contractors" that Kos slandered were accomplished American combat veterans: Stephen "Scott" Helvenston, Mike Teague, Jerko Zovko and Wesley Batalona. The Nation, in an article covering the wrongful death action brought by their survivors against their employer Blackwater, provided a thumbnail bio of one of the men Kos deemed a "mercenary":

Scott Helvenston was a walking ad for the military. He came from a proud family of Republicans; his great-great-uncle, Elihu Root, was once US Secretary of War and the 1912 Nobel Peace Prize-winner. Scott was tall, tan and chiseled and, by all accounts, a model soldier and athlete. At 17 he made history by becoming the youngest person ever to complete the rigorous Navy SEAL program. He spent twelve years in the SEALs, four of them as an instructor, and then tried his luck with Hollywood. He trained Demi Moore for her film G.I. Jane and did a few stints on reality television. In one, Man vs. Beast, he was the only contestant to defeat the beast, outmaneuvering a chimpanzee in an obstacle course. Once the cover boy on a Navy calendar, he also had several workout videos.

It isn't difficult to discover the stories of the other veterans.

Michael Teague, 38, was a former soldier with the Army's elite ''Night Stalkers'' at Fort Campbell. He is remembered at this site. Teague was awarded a bronze star for his service in Afghanistan.

Jerko Zovko had been a Ranger. In one story on him, his motive for being in Iraq was made clear:

In August 2003, Zovko returned to Cleveland to visit his family. He was taking a job with Vinnell in Iraq to help train the new army.

They were skeptical. Why do you want to go to Iraq?

Zovko was adamant. This was a historic opportunity. The Iraqis need a professional army, not the one Saddam Hussein created. And the sooner the army was ready, the sooner U.S. soldiers could come home.

Westley Batalova spent 20 years in the Army, most of them as a Ranger. He is profiled here.

All four of the murdered men were great Americans, and deserve the respect their service earned.

So when Kos next attempts to explain away his despicable and callous remark from 2004 by asserting he was demonstrating "solidarity" with his "brothers and sisters in arms," the follow-up question should not focus on Kos' own military service, but on the service of those four American veterans murdered in Fallujah.

It is unfortunate that this church is saddled with leaders who refuse even to honestly admit that an action overturning one of its constitutional provisions is just that. The newly adopted policy on the ordination of gays is itself a schism inducing event, but the deep dishonesty with which it is being presented is a second wrong perpetrated by the General Assembly on the millions of Presbyterians in the denomination.

What should follow now is an orderly separation of the church and its property into two denominations. Theological debate is one thing, but a farce serves nobody.

UPDATE: MarkDRoberts has more.