Target Centermass

Category: General

  • Why I’ll Never Be Allowed to Ask Kerry Questions

    Now that Kerry has once again recast himself as the doubting, wrong-war-wrong-place candidate, blaming Bush for his statements on the progress of the war, here are the questions to which would I demand answers:

    • Are we at war?

      • If the answer was “no,” I would cut off the interview and call him an idiot. If yes, I would proceed.

    • Of our past wartime presidents, whom do you view as successful?
    • Of these successful wartime presidents, how many accurately and immediately reported to the American people every difficulty and setback, as you currently seem to expect of the Bush administration?
    • Of these same administrations, how many accurately foretold and dealt with every danger and complexity of their wartime and postwar situations, as you currently seem to expect of the Bush administration?
    • Other than bailing out of the current war, how can you assure the American public that every wartime decision you make will be above reproach, as you currently seem to expect of the Bush administration?
    • If you do bail out of the current war, how can you assure the American public that the dangers of expansionistic Islamic terrorism will not have a greater impact on their children and grandchildren than would’ve been the case had we fought the good fight now? Other than the fact you were in Viet Nam?
    • Do you plan to utilize the fact that you were on the wrong side of history in the Cold War, advocating a unilateral freeze instead of Reagan’s military build-up, during the last portion of your campaign?
    • What will you do if, after all of your diplomacy, negotiation and nuance to get your planned international assistance, our alleged “allies” still say no? What if, no matter what you do, they freakin’ still say no?

      • And finally,

    • How long until you, the defeatist, repeat the last-man-to-die-for-a-mistake line? You do realize early voting opens soon in some states, right?

    Please, some journalist of importance or access, pretty please follow this line of questioning. If you need help for potential follow-up questions, let me know at gunner-at-targetcentermass-dot-com. I’ll help you, if only to salvage the concepts of journalistic integrity that Rather,et al., have thoroughly shamed.

  • Anti-Prostitution Rule Drafted for U.S. Forces

    Had a newly-announced crackdown on our military been in effect in Viet Nam, I could not say our world would be a better place. I could, however, say a fun portion of American ’80s culture would’ve been impaired. A great movie and a popular song would’ve forever missed the phrase “Ooh, me so horny, me love you long time.”

    U.S. service members stationed overseas could face a court-martial for patronizing prostitutes under a new regulation drafted by the Pentagon.

    The move is part of a Defense Department effort to reduce the possibility that service members will contribute to human trafficking in areas near their overseas bases by seeking the services of women forced into prostitution.

    In recent years, “women and girls are being forced into prostitution for a clientele consisting largely of military services members, government contractors and international peacekeepers” in such places as South Korea and the Balkans, Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) said yesterday at a Capitol Hill forum on Pentagon anti-trafficking efforts.

    I fundamentally agree with all of this, but returning to the icons of the ’80s, what about the portrayal of Subic Bay in An Officer and a Gentleman?

  • Rather’s Producer Assured CBS Execs on Guard Papers

    The first victim of RatherGate has been clearly identified.

    Mary Mapes, the Dallas-based producer of Dan Rather’s controversial Sept. 8 60 Minutes segment questioning President Bush’s military record, is the focus of attention following published reports that she arranged for her Texas source on the story to talk to a top aide to Democratic hopeful John Kerry.

    CBS News executives want to know why Mapes, one of Rather’s most trusted producers, repeatedly assured them that both Bill Burkett and the documents he gave her could be trusted — only to have both widely called into question by Internet bloggers and rival news organizations soon after 60 Minutes aired the story. On Monday, CBS said the story should have never run, and Rather apologized to viewers.

    On Tuesday, it was revealed that Mapes arranged for Burkett to talk to a top aide to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

    Standard journalistic ethical practices forbid reporters from doing anything that could be perceived as helping a political campaign.

    Congrats, Mary, you’re deservedly the first sacrificial lamb. G’bye.

  • Flight Diverted After Cat Stevens Tied to Watch List

    Living testament to my belief that a huge chunk of the music of the ’60s and ’70s was garbage, the former Cat Stevens hit a U.S. government tripwire and caused the diversion of an inbound international flight.

    A London-to-Washington flight was diverted to Maine today when it was discovered passenger Yusuf Islam — formerly known as singer Cat Stevens — was on a government watch list and barred from entering the country, two federal officials said.

    United Airlines Flight 919 was en route to Dulles International Airport when the match was made between a passenger and a name on the watch list, said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration. The plane was met by federal agents at Maine’s Bangor International Airport around 3 p.m., Melendez said.

    The two federal officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, identified the passenger as Islam. They said Islam was denied entry on national security grounds, but had no details about why the peace activist might be considered a risk to the United States.

    ….

    He was expected to be returned early Wednesday to London, the official said.

    Look, Cat Islam may or may not be much of a danger. That said, I want him kept permanently out of the country just because of “Morning Has Broken.” My hippie music teacher made us sing that crap in fifth grade and I still bear the scars.

  • WaPo Media Critic Inadvertently Slams Kerry Campaign

    Speaking via telephone with CNN Headline News, Howard Kurtz, a media critic with the Washington Post, responded to a question about possible DNC/Kerry camp involvement in the current CBS scandal with the following:

    I’ve seen no evidence of any involvement by any organized Democrat group or the Kerry campaign.

    Kurtz may not be accurate about involvement, but he is correct in distinguishing the Kerry campaign from an organized group.

    I chuckled. I blogged.

  • Dien Bien Phu Falls

    The defenses around CBS’s Dien Bien Phu have collapsed.

    From Drudge, Rather has finally admitted what most of us already knew:

    EXCLUSIVE // Mon Sep 20 2004 11:58:02 ET
    STATEMENT FROM DAN RATHER:

    Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a 60 MINUTES WEDNESDAY story about President Bush’s time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question—and their source—vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome.

    Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where—if I knew then what I know now—I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.

    But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism.

    Please know that nothing is more important to us than people’s trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully.

    Now, CBS is saying they “regret” running the story:

    “Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report,” said the statement by CBS News President Andrew Heyward. “We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret.

    “Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable, and independent reporting,” Heyward continued. “We will continue to work tirelessly to be worthy of that trust.”

    For now, I’ll wait a bit to see the scope of the fallout on this journalistic debacle.

  • Bush Wants Truth Out on CBS Docs

    Finally addressing the documents presented as part of Dan Rather’s partisan attack, President Bush has said that the core issue of the controversy should be the veracity of the documents.

    President George W. Bush has for the first time raised questions about documents used to bolster a report that he received preferential treatment during his Vietnam era military service.

    And amid mounting Republican attacks, the CBS network, which broadcast the allegations against Bush, has stepped up its inquiry into the authenticity of the documents.

    “There are a lot of questions about the documents and they need to be answered,” Bush told the Union Leader newspaper based in Manchester, New Hampshire in an interview on Saturday. “Let the truth come out.”

    “I think what needs to happen is people need to take a look at the documents, how they were created, and let the truth come out,” he told the newspaper.

    As Rather continues his Dien Bien Phu defense of his story, ridiculously demanding the content of forged documents is the actual issue, CBS seems to hope the story will just blow over and leave the public consciousness. Will the storm pass? Today’s Sunday Reader section of the print version of the Dallas Morning News printed 24 letters from the public, a plurality of nine (mostly negative to CBS and Rather) dealt with the issue. This issue is not going away fast enough, andCBS’s stance behind a story based on four faked (I know it, you know it) documents and the testimony of a man, previously shown to be a liar on this same topic, cannot withstand the seige.

    The sooner the capitulation, the more integrity CBS can salvage.

  • Riders Reign as Texas League Champs

    Since my previous post was about baseball in Iraq, I thought I’d follow it up with a little minor league news, Texas-style. I posted previously that the Frisco Rough Riders had made the playoffs. This weekend, they wrapped up the championship.

    The Frisco RoughRiders shut down Express and capture their first Texas League title in just their second year of existence as Frisco closed the book on the best-of-seven Texas League Championship Series.

    ….

    Frisco needed just five games to dispose of Round Rock in the best-of-seven series. The Riders took games one and two while dropping game three in Frisco. Then, the Riders won games four and five in Round Rock on Thursday and Friday night.

    Alas! No more ballpark dogs, barbecue sandwiches, steak sandwiches and brews until next season. Oh well, I still have the Texas state fair coming up for my fix of deliciously-unhealthy food.

  • U.S. Soldiers Introduce Baseball to Iraqis

    Okay, here’s my feel-good story of the day.

    Gray-shirted Brusiks filled the bases in the final inning when the potential winning run strode to the plate — Kamaran Sabir, the team’s 14-year-old slugger.

    Kamaran clenched his teeth. The Nawruz pitcher, Diller Fakhraddin, stared back. Parents in the stands wrung their hands and shouted. Diller’s fastball whizzed in, and Kamaran hacked.

    Strike one. Strike two. Then, “Strike three!” yelled the umpire, U.S. Army Capt. Deron Haught. “You’re out!”

    And what may have been Iraq’s first organized baseball game was over, with the red-shirted Nawruz — the Kurdish word for New Year’s Day — beating Brusik, or Team Lightning, 10-7.

    The teams of 13- to 17-year-old boys are the only two in Altun Kupri’s new league, and Wednesday was opening day in this northern Iraqi village, a clutch of blocky buildings named for a 16th century Ottoman bridge that once spanned the Little Zab River here.

    It was a perfect evening for baseball. Parents crunched pistachios to the ding of aluminum bats. Soldiers from the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade stood guard at the soccer field-turned-ball diamond, with a Humvee parked at each outfield foul pole and another sitting just beyond the center field fence.

    This is real hearts-and-minds stuff. While I normally view such activity with a jaded eye, I think this is the kind that can work. Involve the children and families. Let them know that there’s life without war, without terror, without the boredom of soccer. Okay, it’s not time for this in the Sunni triangle, but perhaps it is time for more, much more of this in the majority of Iraq.

    Haught, commander of a platoon that occupies a small base in this town 205 miles north of Baghdad, said the soldiers hope America’s favorite pastime catches on in Iraq.

    “I’d like to see one of them get a scholarship at West Virginia University and then go and play for the Pirates,” said Haught, 37, a Pittsburgh fan who hails from Harrisville, W.Va.

    It’s not an impossible dream. Baseball has thrived in some countries where U.S. troops have deployed, including Cuba, Panama and the Dominican Republic.

    ….

    The idea for the league arose after Haught’s soldiers began playing baseball among themselves. They made a ball from wadded paper wrapped in duct tape. An aluminum cot leg was the bat.

    Haught said he mentioned the games to his sister back in West Virginia. “She felt bad. We were over here serving our country and we were playing baseball with a tape ball and a cot leg,” he said. “So she started Operation Home Run.”

    Packages began arriving filled with baseballs, bats and gloves.

    At the same time, the platoon was trying — and failing — to unify Altun Kupri’s sports clubs, which are grouped, like the town, into Turkomen and Kurdish camps. So the soldiers started their own sports club and made it a baseball league. In July, Haught persuaded the city council to send over a few dozen kids.

    He wasn’t sure it would work. Iraqis play soccer and volleyball, sports that don’t involve catching or throwing. But the kids picked up the basics.

    I think this is great stuff. I look forward to hearing about a future Iraqi counterpart talking of his childhood hero, Keith al-Hernandez.

    With the final out on opening day, Diller, the winning 16-year-old pitcher, and his teammates poured off the field, their arms in the air, shouting “Nawruz, Nawruz!”

    “I like this game. It’s better than soccer,” the lanky boy said.

    Perhaps we’re really not so different after all.

    EDIT: More on Operation Home Run here, here and here.

  • Quote of the Week, 19 SEP 04

    An item on my old blogspot page that I had some fun with was a quote of the week section. I’ve decided to resurrect that feature as a weekly post and a separate category. Here’s this week’s Quote of the Week:

    A belligerent who limits himself to defense alone can only expect to win by attrition.

    —Martin Van Creveld

    Previous Quotes of the Week from the old site:

    In war as in love, we must achieve contact ere we triumph.

    —Napoleon Bonaparte

    The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.

    —Theodore Roosevelt

    Pessimism never won any battle.

    —Dwight D. Eisenhower