The Crows Nest
Crow's Nest Mostly Unmanned
Yes, I know the Crow's Nest has mostly been moribund since the site's relaunch. I do plan on using it more often in the future, I promise. I'll be spending a little more time on these posts as a way to link out to the blogosphere. Keep an eye on this space.
Also, please note that I've put the Amazon search bar on the main page, in the right sidebar. If you want to do some shopping at Amazon -- and who doesn't? -- be sure to shop through Captain's Quarters. Amazon does pay a small percentage of the sale to me, and it helps pay for a few sundries related to the blog. Much appreciated!
OpenCongress Web Widget
Ever wanted to announce your support or opposition to Congressional legislation? OpenCongress now has a web widget that allows bloggers to do exactly that. Take a look at this, and check out how easily you can build your own.
Maybe They're Flotation Devices?
The Australian Navy foots the bill for breast augmentations. The Labour Party would like to know why, and probably so would most of the voters in Australia.
The Thinking Blogger
Congrats to Fausta, who won a Thinking Blogger award. She thanks me for my friendship, but the truth is that Fausta makes it easy to be her friend. She's always positive and energetic, and she epitomizes the notion of a thinking blogger. Make sure to put her on your must-read list!
Ensign Calls For Return Of MoveOn Money
NRSC chair Senator John Ensign calls for Democrats to return all campaign funds donated by MoveOn, after their despicable New York Times ad today accusing David Petraeus of treason. "If Senate Democrats are serious about moving our country forward, they will denounce this outrageous ad and return the campaign funds MoveOn.org has lavished on them as well as the donations made through MoveOn.org -- the choice is theirs." Ensign's right, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the refund ...
Support The Al-Dura Petition
Roger Simon at Pajamas Media is circulating a petition to demand accountability for the discredited al-Dura report from France's Channel 2. This is, as Roger calls it, the "Father of all Fauxtography," and C-2 has never acknowledged its fault in airing the supposed murder of a Palestinian child. He wants C-2 to show all of the unedited footage of the incident in order to show that C-2 faked the murder. If they're resisting the demand, I'd say they have something to hide ....
There Goes The Undefeated Season
Notre Dame managed to get its first loss out of the way as soon as possible -- and as badly as possible. Georgia Tech came to South Bend and stomped the Irish, 33-3, in the worst home opener loss in school history. The offense fumbled twice and allowed seven sacks on Evan Sharpley, who must have longed to have Brady Quinn back on the field instead. If Charlie Weis doesn't turn this debacle around fast, he may want to start asking Ty Willingham for some career counseling ....
Would Early Primaries Allow More Donations?
Jim Geraghty at The Campaign Spot believes that candidates will benefit if primaries and caucuses get pushed into 2007. A loophole in campaign finance regulation appears to allow an extra $2,300 per donor for candidates if those elections are held this year. Be sure to check out Jim's analysis, and the surprising candidate that may benefit the most.
When Tom Met Jeralyn
One of the interesting aspects of politics is finding out that opponents are people, too. Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft met Rep. Tom Tancredo backstage at NBC's studios, and found him more likable than she had anticipated. Perhaps it was their mutual interest in Dog, The Bounty Hunter ...
Joe Lieberman A Right-Wing Nut?
That's what CAIR says, according to Joe Kaufman. He has a link to a CAIR official's blog post that calls Lieberman, along with John Bolton, former CIA director James Woolsey, and the Heritage Foundation's Peter Brookes as "extremists". Affad Shaikh also calls Dick Cheney a "fat bastard of a liar," apparently not meant as a pop-culture reference to the Austin Powers movies. (via Let Freedom Ring)
Broadband Homelessness
The Japanese have made homelessness more efficient, and more Net-friendly, too. Their Internet cafés have become homeless shelters for the struggling manual-labor sector. The problem has grown into such a problem that government intervention will shortly become a political priority.
Found My Law Firm
Power Line links twice to this story regarding an attorney at Faegre & Benson who refused to become a victim and helped capture a very dangerous man. Keith Radtke is a partner in the firm as is Power Line's John Hinderaker. Radtke is listed in satisfactory condition after getting shot in the back, but that didn't keep him from locking up his attacker in a wrestling grip until police could arrive. I don't know about you, but that's the kind of man I'd want as my counsel ....
Don't Click That YouTube E-mail
The latest in spam seems to be redirections from YouTube links in e-mail to IP addresses without domain names. They attempt to entice people by making it seem that they have been inadvertently YouTubed. I'm sure most people can see through this scam, but just in case, you've been warned ....
Rick Moran Escapes The Floods
Rick Moran has kept us up to date on his travails along the Algonquin River. Yesterday, the police showed up to get him evacuated before the river flooded his home -- but today, Rick finds that a minor miracle has taken place, and that his house survives ... at least for now. Keep Rick in your prayers, and keep checking in at Right Wing Nut House for updates.
Rule 1: Drag The Corpse On Over First
If I've learned anything in four years of blogging, don't try to be out in front of the death rumors, especially with the villains of the world. Saddam died a hundred deaths before we caught him alive in his spider hole, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi almost as many before his demise last year. Osama may or may not be alive, but everyone's avoided speculating on his fate for a while now. Maybe Val at Babalu Blog will get luckier with his "Castro Is Dead" story. We all hope so. I'll wait for the announcement ....
Comments (19)
Posted by Richard of Oregon | October 25, 2007 8:23 AM
Foer seems to be from the Dan Rather school of Journalism. After awhile, it seems a little sad to watch someone persist in denial when the time to pack it in and go home is long since past.
Posted by sissoed | October 25, 2007 8:25 AM
Don't jump to the conclusion that in the second conversation, Beauchamp defended the accuracy of his story -- look again at the statement: "Foer said, Beauchamp defended his story." A defense of the story is different than a defense of the accuracy of the facts alleged in the story. Perhaps Beauchamp's "defense" of the story was "fake but accurate." The "defense" might not have been an "affirmation" but an excuse. Who knows?
Posted by docjim505 | October 25, 2007 8:37 AM
Cap'n Ed: Franklin Foer has perfected his impersonation of a gyroscope in a vacuum -- he can't stop spinning.
No, no, no. He's not "spinning". "Spinning" is when you try to put the best face on a bad fact, for example: "I want the people to know that they still have 2 out of 3 branches of the government working for them, and that ain't bad."*
"Lying" is when you fabricate a complete untruth, as in, "I did not have sex with that woman."
It would appear that Foer is outright lying:
While the discussion "was extremely frustrating and engendered doubts," Foer said, Beauchamp defended his story in a subsequent conversation that was conducted with no superiors present.
Or maybe Beauchamp was lying and Foer, in desperation, continues to believe this fabulist.
Either way, what's happening isn't spin: it's lying.
---------
(*) "Mars Attacks!" (1996). Dir. by Tim Burton. Spoken by Jack Nicholson (President James Dale)
Posted by TomB | October 25, 2007 8:45 AM
Liberals and the Left live in a skewed, virtual world, where only the Right has a duty to strictly adhere to the proofable truth. (Do I sound as Ann Coulter yet? Wait, there is more.).
Anything stated by a Liberal has to be assumed to be true (even if he or she stated the opposite a few minutes earlier) and he or she is entitled to all the due process, including the Supreme Court opinions, if anybody dares to differ.
This is contrary to any statement made by a person on the Right, which has to be assumed to be a lie, unless proven true, supported by tons of documents and a consensus of a Liberal council.
They were giving themselves this advantage for a long time and many has problem accepting reality of the Internet, Google and Blogs.
Posted by capitano | October 25, 2007 8:54 AM
When Dick Morris told Bill Clinton that his polling indicated that the American voters would support Clinton's impeachment if he admitted that he had lied under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, Clinton responded that "...we'll just have to win then."
The only thing missing here is the DNA evidence.
Posted by glenn | October 25, 2007 9:26 AM
It's clear that Franklin has TNR ownership solidly behind him and that the Beauchamp stories are policy.. If they weren't he would have been fired for malfeasance when it became obvious that he and the TNR staff were "adjusting" the facts of the case and that Mr Beauchamps stories were BS. TNR has had problems with "facts" for quite a while. Ran phoney stories under three (that we know about) editors. I'll bet that if the last ten years content of the magazine were fact checked as well as the Beauchamp stories were you could redefine TNR as "Modern Fiction"
Posted by adk46er | October 25, 2007 9:27 AM
Got to agree with docjim505 this is not spinning - they're not at the spinning stage yet. Before they can start spinning they have to admit to facts, which to date they seem unable or unwilling to do. Oh and isn't it priceless when Foer (ever the truth seeker) brings Scott Beauchamp's wife into the mix; basically telling Scott his personal life is going to suffer if he recants.
Oh what a terrible web TNR weaves...
Posted by rbj | October 25, 2007 9:27 AM
To paraphrase Maxwell Scott in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
When the Narrative doesn't fit the fact, print the Narrative.
Foer is just too invested in this to back up and admit he's wrong/been hoodwinked.
Posted by Clyde | October 25, 2007 9:33 AM
While it's all very nice that the truth is coming out now, I knew that Beauchamp was a liar months ago. Sadly, this is a game of whack-a-mole, because the left-wing MSM and the Hollywood media complex will continue to lie about the state of the GWOT in general, and Iraq in particular.
Don't believe me? What are the latest movies about those subjects? Rendition and Lions For Lambs, the latter being Robert Redford's vehicle to opine "The problem isn't those who attacked us, the problem is US." And you know he means it. Why is it that the only believable character in the trailer was Tom Cruise as a Republican Senator, asking "Do you want to win the War on Terror?" The answer, for Redford, is obviously "No!"
And there will be more Beauchamps popping up again as soon as their media enablers can arrange it. Believe it!
Posted by Sarge6 | October 25, 2007 9:37 AM
The bit "He obviously was under considerable duress during that conversation, with his commanding officer in the room with him." jumped out at me. One, it wasn't anyone close to being Beauchamp's CO (i.e., company or battalion commander), it was his his squad leader, a staff sergeant. Two, to say his NCOIC put him under duress on the call was precisely the opposite of what happened. The few times the squad leader interjected, he was actually facilitating things for TNR's benefit. He advised that yes, Beauchamp could share documents with them. More importantly, he volunteered his opinion that it was "perfectly fair" that Beauchamp not talk to the WP or NW before TNR, because TNR was the one with the "reputation on the line" and so they had "the real say so." So that guy's role in this was to steer Beauchamp into doing right by TNR, yet Foer threw him under the bus to keep pushing the army interference theme.
Posted by unclesmrgol | October 25, 2007 9:37 AM
docjim,
Ack, ack, ack!*
First rule of movie quotation: don't give away the movie.
----
(*) "Mars Attacks!" (1996). Dir. by Tim Burton. Spoken by Martian Ambassador (Martian Ambassador)
Posted by Gerry | October 25, 2007 9:37 AM
No, the cover-up doesn't get you - it's stopping the cover-up that does. Bill Clinton just kept on stonewalling and will soon become First Jerkleman.
Posted by Richard of Oregon | October 25, 2007 10:46 AM
TNR - Isn't that Progressive talk for The New Reality?
Posted by E. Marsalis | October 25, 2007 11:04 AM
I could never understand the regard that H. Kurtz is held to in the Righty Blogesphere. He gets the interviews, but asks no hard questions. His esteem is a mystery to me.
Posted by Jack Okie | October 25, 2007 12:53 PM
Let me acknowledge I have from time to time been accused of being a Pollyanna.
I'm wondering if this episode has helped Beauchamp grow up, i.e., something he said in the phone conversation: "what's important to me right now is taking care of the people to the left and right of me". Maybe he was playing to his squad leader, but maybe his fellow soldiers have given him the opportunity to leave the "jerk Beauchamp" behind and become a real soldier himself. That Beauchamp would be worth a thousand Hemingways.
Posted by John | October 25, 2007 5:12 PM
I'm gonna float this out there, please don't kill me.
I know quite a few guys that served in the military. Nice fellows but not so ramrod straight-laced that I can't see any of them doing some of the things Beauchamp alleges. You're out in the field, hanging with your buddies, a little looser than you might be at home cause the job is making ya nuts...
Suddenly that kook Kowalsky swerves the Bradley at a dog in the street and that becomes the afternoon's game as you make the rounds, hooting and hollering.
I know that in a time of war everyone wants to believe that our soldiers are incapable of even the slightest moral infraction, but Abu Ghraib did not happen in a vacuum. People are fallible. We've been there a long time and shit happens, shit *way* worse than Beauchamp alleges.
So Beauchamp takes his anecdotes, maybe spruces 'em up a little so they seem more serious than they really were and sends 'em off to TNR.
Then the shit hits the fan and the army has to investigate these stories, so they call in the troops who now swear that none of it happened or they'll be in trouble.
His squad mates give Beauchamp crap about putting them in hot water; Beauchamp realizes he screwed the pooch and now just wants it all to go away, so he clams up in the interview with a superior present.
He later calls Foer to say that it really did happen but can't admit it on the record or he'll be disciplined.
Doesn't really sound so far-fetched, does it? I'm enjoying watching TNR twist in the wind as much as anyone -- but to suggest that the moral character of our armed forces precludes the possibility of any of this actually occurring is disingenuous.
Ya seen the Abu Ghraib photos? A guy on a leash? I don't relish the notion but it is perfectly possible that some of this happened they way he reported it.
Now, back to our schadenfreude. : )
Posted by S. Gallimore | October 25, 2007 6:29 PM
I'm curious if Foer or TNR is looking for another reporter. I'm sure Bobby Caina Calvan would fit right in...
Does anybody believe the oh-so-right media anymore?
heh
Posted by sherlock | October 25, 2007 7:13 PM
...to suggest that the moral character of our armed forces precludes the possibility of any of this actually occurring is disingenuous.
No, I am afraid that to suggest that the anger against Beauchamp's stories is based on arguments that such behavior is impossible is itself disingenuous!
Even if you can find a few such arguments among the tens of thousands of comments that have been made on this issue, the impossibility of such behavior has clearly never been the core argument against the story... it has always been that the contrived nature of the stories and sophamoric moralizing... "("Tell me, would you have done that in Indiana?"), does not pass the smell test, leading to the conclusion that they represent an attempt to smear the military, and by extension, discredit the war it fights for us.
We need not be perfect, and neither do those whom we admire, to demand that those who speak about any of us be truthful and fair. Is that so hard to understand?
Posted by John | October 25, 2007 8:14 PM
>>> "leading to the conclusion that they represent an attempt to smear the military, and by extension, discredit the war it fights for us."
I'm with you 100% on that one. TNR printed the story because they wanted it to be true, whether it was or it wasn't.
And there's no doubt that he flat out lied about the IED woman story. All I'm saying is that some of it could be based on fact.
But none of that exonerates TNR for wanting and printing a story designed to make the military and the war look shameful. They could print a thousand positive stories about our forces in Iraq or Afganistan -- but they're not interested in that.
Blinded by Bush Derangement Syndrome they leaped to print a story without ever considering the implications of the author refusing to go on record with it.
As fate would have it, misbehavior in uniform is subject to disciplinary action and when push came to shove, the author had no choice but to hang them out to dry. Karma.