I WAS BORN IN A LAND FAR FAR AWAY IN A MUCH DIFFERENT DAY AND AGE. I WAS TRANSPLANTED HERE ON EARTH JULY 9 1944. I BELIEVE IN GOD AND COUNTRY AND FAMILY. DUTY AND RESPONSIBILITY. DUTY TO THE LAWS OF GOD AND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS FAMILY, FRIENDS AND THOSE LESS FORTUNATE THAN I. CONSERVATIVE IN SOME RESPECTS AND LIBERAL (IN AN OLD FASHIONED WAY) IN OTHERS.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
LIBERALS AND THE OIL-GAS CRUNCH
TO: President George W. Bush
The Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives: The Hon. Mitch McConnell, The Hon. Jon L. Kyl, The Hon. John Cornyn, The Hon. John Ensign, The Hon. Kay Bailey Hutchison, The Hon. John R. Thune, The Hon. Richard Burr, The Hon. Norm Coleman, The Hon. Larry E. Craig, The Hon. James M. Inhofe, The Hon. Olympia J. Snowe, The Hon. John E. Sununu, The Hon. David Vitter, The Hon. Jim DeMint, The Hon. John A. Boehner, The Hon. Roy Blunt, The Hon. Eric I. Cantor, The Hon. Adam Putnam, The Hon. Kay Granger, The Hon. John R. Carter, The Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter, The Hon. Tom Cole, The Hon. Robert C. Byrd, The Hon. Harry Reid, The Hon. Richard J. Durbin, The Hon. Charles E. Schumer, The Hon. Patty Murray, The Hon. Charles E. Schumer, The Hon. Byron L. Dorgan, The Hon. Debbie A. Stabenow, The Hon. Jeff Bingaman, The Hon. Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Hon. Blanche L. Lincoln, The Hon. Barbara Boxer, The Hon. Thomas R. Carper, The Hon. Bill Nelson, The Hon. Russ Feingold, The Hon. Nancy Pelosi, The Hon. Steny H. Hoyer, The Hon. James Clyburn, The Hon. John Lewis, The Hon. Rahm Emanuel, The Hon. John B. Larson, The Hon. Xavier Becerra, The Hon. Rosa DeLauro, The Hon. George Miller, The Hon. Chris Van Hollen, The Hon. Joseph Crowley, The Hon. Diana L. DeGette, The Hon. Ed Pastor, The Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, The Hon. John S. Tanner, The Hon. Maxine Waters, The Hon. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, The Hon. G.K. Butterfield
President Bush announced on Monday that he would lift a long-standing executive order banning offshore oil drilling and he essentially dared Congress to do the same!
A Little Recent History Is In Order...
Here's what our liberal legislators have done over the past several weeks.
First, liberals attempted unsuccessfully to pass the so-called Boxer Climate Bill.
But it wasn't a "Climate Bill" at all. In actuality, it was really just a huge liberal plot to increase taxes. Here's how Sen. Mitch McConnell described it:
"It is, at its heart, a stealth and giant tax on virtually every aspect of industrial and consumer life. It would result in massive job losses. And it seeks to radically alter consumer behavior, without any measurable benefit to the environment in return."
"And that's why it's so hard to comprehend the Majority's decision to move to a bill, at the start of the summer driving season, that would raise the price of gas by as much as $1.40 a gallon, home electricity bills by about 44 percent, and natural gas prices by about 20 percent."
"Overall, it's expected to result in GDP losses totaling as much as $2.9 trillion by 2050."
Yup, leave it to Barbara Boxer and other liberals in Congress to increase taxes when the price of gasoline at the pump is almost beyond the ability of most Americans to afford it!
But fortunately, because patriotic Americans like you made your voices heard, that bill died an unceremonious death!
But then -- without missing a beat -- several days later, Senate liberals tried to slip through ANOTHER TAX BILL-- masquerading as energy policy.
What were they thinking: Did they wink and chuckle at each other and say:
"Now that the Boxer Bill has failed, they won't be expecting another attempt so soon?"
Fortunately, that measure failed as well!
Meanwhile... In the House of Representatives...
On the House side, Congressman John Peterson introduced an amendment that would have extended the limits of offshore drilling.
Surely, Peterson thought, liberals had gotten the message. The crisis facing our nation was too grave, too painful for "politics as usual." This time he was certain his amendment would pass. It didn't. After the defeat of his amendment, Peterson said: "I was stunned today. I didn't expect this to happen. A lot of Democrats who supported us voted against the amendment. All six Republicans voted 'aye' and all nine Democrats voted 'nay.' I think 'Pelosi Power' was lurking. They were strong-armed from above." These days, Pelosi Power rules Capitol Hill. San Francisco values are the values of today. It's DOWN with people and UP with the snail darter, the Wyoming toad, and the Colorado squawfish.
Left-wing fanatics and environmental whackos are thumbing their noses at their fellow citizens -- a growing number of whom can barely afford to drive to work.
And, as analyst Stephen Schork recently predicted,
"If you think your gasoline bills are expensive now, wait till you get your home heating bill this winter."
As a consequence of Pelosi-Reid-inspired policies, the time has come to put middle-and lower-income Americans on the Endangered Species list.
But Here's The Icing On The Cake...
Senator Obama and a gaggle of liberal legislators started stumping for a windfall tax on oil... a strategy guaranteed to do only one thing... raise the price of gasoline.
A generation ago, the Carter Administration imposed just such a tax and the results were disastrous: a reduced incentive to drill for oil, a drop in domestic production, severe shortages, and long lines at the pump.
Obama was a teenager at the time, but you'd think he'd remember.
These actions raise a chilling question: "Are liberals actually TRYING to drive up gas prices?" For years the Greenies have been down on their knees, begging for higher gasoline prices. In the Energy Bulletin, Hamish McRae published an article with a title that says it all:
"Oil at $100 a barrel will do more to save the planet than all the wind farms in the world."
With the price of oil hovering around $140 per barrel, is the earth safe yet?
Conservative columnist Ann Coulter wrote:
"Democrats couldn't care less about high gas prices. The consistent policy of the Democratic Party, going back at least to Jimmy Carter, has been to jack up gas prices so we can all start pedaling around on tricycles."
"Environmentalists are constantly clamoring for higher gas taxes as the cure-all to their insane global warming theory. Clinton proposed a 26-cent tax on gas. John Kerry said it should be 50 cents. Gore endorsed the Malthusian proposal of Paul and Anne Ehrlich in 'The Population Explosion' that gas taxes be raised gradually to match prices in Europe and Japan."
"Democrats have worked hard to ensure that Americans pay as much for gas as Europeans do. After a quarter-century of gas tax hikes, a ban on drilling for oil and a complete destruction of the nuclear power industry in America, I guess liberals can declare: Mission accomplished! "
"In response to skyrocketing gas prices, liberals say, practically in unison, 'We can't drill our way out of this crisis.'
"What does that mean? This is like telling a starving man, 'You can't eat your way out of being hungry!' 'You can't water your way out of drought!' 'You can't sleep your way out of tiredness!' 'You can't drink yourself out of dehydration!'
"Seriously, what does it mean? Finding more oil isn't going to increase the supply of oil?
"It is the typical Democratic strategy to babble meaningless slogans, as if they have a plan."
In other words, the higher the price at the pump. the fewer the drivers on the road.
Of course, those who can no longer afford gasoline will inevitably be the poor.
But, as Al Gore would say, "Let them ride buses."
Yours in Freedom,
Jeff Mazzella
President
www.cfif.orgCenter for Individual Freedom
113 S. Columbus Street, Suite 310
Alexandria VA 22314
703-535-5836
Fax:703-535-5838
CFIF is a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit constitutional advocacy organization with
the mission to protect and defend individual freedoms and individual rights
in the legal, legislative and educational arenas. Contributions to CFIF are
not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.
Contributions may be deductible as a business expense.
HOW THE LEFT WAS WON
How The Left Was Won
An In-Depth Analysis of the Tools and Methodologies Used by Liberals to Undermine Society and Disrupt the Social Order
Combining a series of unique insights with an entirely new set of analytical techniques, How the Left Was Won systematically dismantles each and every element of modern-day liberalism ranging from the justifications behind all of its flawed social and political policies to the most basic assumptions regarding the ideology itself.
In order to achieve this goal, the author first introduces a new framework which segments and isolates all liberal behaviors and beliefs into the most objective and discrete elements possible. He then goes on to provide numerous examples of how liberals relentlessly employ this simple set of tools and methodologies over and over again and then discusses the resulting effects they have on our society. Some of these strategies include:
● Promote and Exploit Divisiveness: Learn why liberals should thank God every day for differences between people and how without them, liberalism would be dead in the water.
● Bad Competition: Learn why practically all liberal policies create success only through the impairment of others and exactly where this dynamic must necessarily lead.
● Relevancy and Proportion: See why the vast majority of what liberals say has absolutely no meaning whatsoever and learn a simple way to prove it every time.
● Implicit Assumptions: Explore the assumptions liberals use to shape public policy and see why the arguments supporting them are ultimately nothing more than a house of cards.
● Groupdividual: Find out how liberalism has distorted the differences between groups and individuals and why this continued distortion is the basis for all flawed social policies within the United States.
● The Perpetual Motion Machine: Learn how the vast majority of liberal programs are based on the scientific impossibility of getting something for nothing.
● A Swarm of Ants: Find out the real reason liberalism continues to permeate more and more elements of our society and why there just may be no way of stopping it.
“Mgrdechian does an excellent job of dissecting the strategies liberals use...”
— Jonathan Garthwaite,
Editor-In-Chief, Townhall.com
"...a must-read for conservatives and independents alike."
— The Iowa Voice
"I highly recommend this book."
— Kelvin Moxley, The Conservative Spectator
"...exactly what Conservatives have been trying to say for years..."
— The Guardian Watchblog
"Extremely valuable."
— Danny Carlton, Jacklewis.net
"For anyone who wants to gain insight to the mind of liberal politics…"
— Bookviews.com
Saturday, July 19, 2008
THIS IS BOTH SAD AND OUTRAGEOUS
Blue Summer
Hollywood is peddling sex like crazy this season even though the sexualization of our culture is exacting a fearsome toll, especially on young girls.
By Brian Fitzpatrick
Culture and Media Institute
July 19, 2008
Hollywood seems to have sex on the mind this summer. From pop music to reality shows to dramas, the sexually charged material currently being offered up by the entertainment media is making Woodstock look like a Boy Scout jamboree.
That Hollywood peddles sex is not exactly news. What is news, though, is the increasing evidence that our society’s libertinism comes at a steep price. In addition to soaring cases of sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies and abortions, the sex culture is inflicting a wealth of emotional injury on teenaged girls.
A new study by the Mental Health Foundation in England reports that young girls are being victimized by premature sexualization, commercialization and alcohol abuse, resulting in high levels of stress and unhappiness. According to the study, “Sexual advances from boys, pressure to wear clothes that make them look too old and magazines and Web sites directly targeting younger girls to lose weight or consider plastic surgery were identified as taking a particular toll.”
The statistics are shocking: 40 percent of the 10- to 14-year-old girls surveyed said they know someone who has “self-harmed,” and nearly that many know somebody who has experienced panic attacks. A third have a friend suffering from an eating disorder.
The head of the Mental Health Foundation told Life Site News, “Girls and young women are being forced to grow up at an unnatural pace in a society that we, as adults, have created and it’s damaging their emotional well-being.”
Hollywood’s studio execs, producers and writers should sit up and take notice. may attract adult audiences, but children are watching too, and it’s too much for many of them to handle. In addition to robbing kids of their innocence, the constant sexual images and allusions are creating a cultural environment that makes demands on children that they are not ready to meet and should not have to think about. Children’s innocence is a valuable commodity that society ought to guard jealously. Hollywood moguls have children too, and their children are not immune from Tinseltown’s destructive cultural influences.
Hollywood is peddling sex like crazy this season even though the sexualization of our culture is exacting a fearsome toll, especially on young girls.
By Brian Fitzpatrick
Culture and Media Institute
July 19, 2008
Hollywood seems to have sex on the mind this summer. From pop music to reality shows to dramas, the sexually charged material currently being offered up by the entertainment media is making Woodstock look like a Boy Scout jamboree.
That Hollywood peddles sex is not exactly news. What is news, though, is the increasing evidence that our society’s libertinism comes at a steep price. In addition to soaring cases of sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies and abortions, the sex culture is inflicting a wealth of emotional injury on teenaged girls.
A new study by the Mental Health Foundation in England reports that young girls are being victimized by premature sexualization, commercialization and alcohol abuse, resulting in high levels of stress and unhappiness. According to the study, “Sexual advances from boys, pressure to wear clothes that make them look too old and magazines and Web sites directly targeting younger girls to lose weight or consider plastic surgery were identified as taking a particular toll.”
The statistics are shocking: 40 percent of the 10- to 14-year-old girls surveyed said they know someone who has “self-harmed,” and nearly that many know somebody who has experienced panic attacks. A third have a friend suffering from an eating disorder.
The head of the Mental Health Foundation told Life Site News, “Girls and young women are being forced to grow up at an unnatural pace in a society that we, as adults, have created and it’s damaging their emotional well-being.”
Hollywood’s studio execs, producers and writers should sit up and take notice. may attract adult audiences, but children are watching too, and it’s too much for many of them to handle. In addition to robbing kids of their innocence, the constant sexual images and allusions are creating a cultural environment that makes demands on children that they are not ready to meet and should not have to think about. Children’s innocence is a valuable commodity that society ought to guard jealously. Hollywood moguls have children too, and their children are not immune from Tinseltown’s destructive cultural influences.
HOW DO YOU-WE-STOP THIS MADNESS
Barry Goldwater once talked about the various levels of government and identify THE MOST DANGEROUS level
The first level is the visible level, our elected officials. They were sent to Washington by WE THE PEOPLE. The next are those appointed to positions by the President with the advise and consent of Congress (an increasingly near impossible task). The lowest. and most dangerous is composed of paid, tenured, civil servants who hold their jobs until they die or retire. These are the people charged with writing the rules and regulations and those who have to enforce those rules, regulations and laws. Do you see a danger here? WE THE PEOPLE are expected to believe that these civil servants are loyal, honest, trusted people. Right? WRONG!!!
they are flesh and blood human beings just us, and we all know about US. "US" are not perfect and neither are all those civil servants. They can screw up in more different ways than Jimmy Carter has peanuts.
During the FDR and Harry Truman liberals and communists invaded various levels of government (like the State Department) and started writing policies and laws that undermine the Constitution and the Rights of WE THE PEOPLE. FDR was a bully. A smooth, slick bully who ramrodded these policies, etc, down Congressional Throats and WE THE PEOPLE are still paying the price for the acts of FDR, Truman, Johnson and Clinton.
WE THE PEOPLE bear the responsibility for allowing this to continue on and the only way to stop it is to vote these clowns out of office (and not vote anymore into office).
192.168.1.100
600 U.S. Taliban?
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, July 18, 2008 4:20 PM PT
War On Terror: After 9/11, Pakistan promised to close its radical madrassas as part of anti-terror reforms. Now we learn they're not only still open, but also recruiting and brainwashing American boys.
Read More: Global War On Terror
All told, 600 American children are being indoctrinated into jihad in 22 madrassas across Pakistan. A U.S. filmmaker stumbled on them while tracing the path of the London suicide bombers. He discovered they attended the same radical Islamic schools. A congressional delegation has confirmed his findings.
One particularly radical school in Karachi freely displays a banner at its main gate urging Muslims to join the Taliban. At least 80 Americans are enrolled at Jamia Binoria, an international school. Many of its graduates joined the Taliban and became commanders.
Another jihadist seminary in Pakistan connected to Jamia Binoria brainwashed John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban now serving time for attacking U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
The mullahs who run these terrorist hatcheries come to America to recruit boys, many of them from Lindh's home state of California. Jamia Binoria's headmaster, Mufti Mohammad Naeem, travels to the U.S. each year during Ramadan to meet with Muslim parents — like a college football coach recruiting prospects.
They hope Naeem will teach their kids to memorize the Quran, a high honor in Islam, so the whole family can get into Paradise. They also want them protected against "corrupting" Western influences.
The pupils, some as young as 8, spend years locked inside these cults reciting the Muslim holy book for hours on end. They learn "Islam, only Islam," the mufti says.
An English translation of his school's mission statement reveals its goal is to send Western students back to their home countries to spread extremism. "The outgoing scholars of the Jamia are fighting a crusade against infidels and pagans," Naeem states.
Astonishingly, the U.S. has the most enrollees at the nine madrassas run by Jamia Binoria of any country outside Pakistan.
The outrage raises a number of questions, including:
Why has Naeem's U.S. visa been renewed each year? For that matter, why isn't he on the no-fly list? Why aren't we demanding Islamabad stop renewing the visas of American students to his madrassas? What share, if any, of the billions in U.S. aid to Islamabad is used to support these madrassas? Who is monitoring these radicalized graduates as they return to America to preach or partake in jihad?
Pakistan's prime minister is visiting Washington on Monday. President Bush should raise these issues near the top of their meeting.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
MORE FROM BILLY GRAHAM
Billy Graham
For You
Monday July 14, 2008
* What Should We Look for in a New Pastor?
* Free Comics for the Whole Family
What Should We Look for in a New Pastor?
By Billy Graham, Tribune Media Services
Q: Our church is looking for a new pastor, and I've been put on the search committee (something I've never had to do before). Our first task is to come up with a description of the kind of person we should look for. What advice would you give to a committee like ours? -- M.J.
A: You've been given a very important responsibility -- and the best advice I can give you is to seek God's will as you seek to fill this position. Pray for God's guidance in your committee, and encourage your whole church to be praying as well.
After all, someone might meet every standard on your list -- but if they aren't the person God wants in that position, their ministry will not make its maximum impact. Remember: God is even more concerned about your church and its ministry than you are, and He has already chosen the person best equipped to lead your church in the future.
What kind of person should you seek? You know your church's needs, of course, and your description will take those into account. But first of all seek a person of godly character -- someone who reflects Christ in their daily life. Paul urged his young pastor friend Timothy to "pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness" (1 Timothy 6:11).
Second, seek someone who will make the Bible the foundation of their teaching and preaching. Paul's example is a challenge to every pastor: "You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you. ... For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God" (Acts 20:20, 27).
========
Send your queries to "My Answer," c/o Billy Graham, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, 1 Billy Graham Parkway, Charlotte, N.C., 28201; call 1-(877) 2-GRAHAM, or visit the Web site for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association: www.billygraham.org.
For You
Monday July 14, 2008
* What Should We Look for in a New Pastor?
* Free Comics for the Whole Family
What Should We Look for in a New Pastor?
By Billy Graham, Tribune Media Services
Q: Our church is looking for a new pastor, and I've been put on the search committee (something I've never had to do before). Our first task is to come up with a description of the kind of person we should look for. What advice would you give to a committee like ours? -- M.J.
A: You've been given a very important responsibility -- and the best advice I can give you is to seek God's will as you seek to fill this position. Pray for God's guidance in your committee, and encourage your whole church to be praying as well.
After all, someone might meet every standard on your list -- but if they aren't the person God wants in that position, their ministry will not make its maximum impact. Remember: God is even more concerned about your church and its ministry than you are, and He has already chosen the person best equipped to lead your church in the future.
What kind of person should you seek? You know your church's needs, of course, and your description will take those into account. But first of all seek a person of godly character -- someone who reflects Christ in their daily life. Paul urged his young pastor friend Timothy to "pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness" (1 Timothy 6:11).
Second, seek someone who will make the Bible the foundation of their teaching and preaching. Paul's example is a challenge to every pastor: "You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you. ... For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God" (Acts 20:20, 27).
========
Send your queries to "My Answer," c/o Billy Graham, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, 1 Billy Graham Parkway, Charlotte, N.C., 28201; call 1-(877) 2-GRAHAM, or visit the Web site for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association: www.billygraham.org.
ANOTHER HERO HAS DIED
July 13, 2008, 12:27AM
Dr. Michael DeBakey: 1908-2008
Houstonian called the 'greatest surgeon of the 20th century' dies at 99
By TODD ACKERMAN and ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Dr. Sherwin Nuland, medicine's best-known historian, was visiting with Dr. Michael DeBakey three years ago when the then-96-year-old surgeon left the room to attend to some business.
Taking advantage of the moment to tour the room's extensive collection of memorabilia — the honors, photographs and mementos from an illustrative career that spanned eight decades — Nuland stopped to reflect on two antiquarian charts of the history of medicine.
"As I studied the charts, it occurred to me that no face on them was any more important in the history of medicine than DeBakey himself,'' said Nuland, a retired surgeon at the Yale University School of Medicine and author of Doctors: The Biography of Medicine. "I can't think of anyone who's made more of a contribution to the field of medicine.''
Michael Ellis DeBakey — internationally acclaimed as the father of modern cardiovascular surgery and considered by many to be the greatest surgeon ever — died Friday night at The Methodist Hospital in Houston. He was 99.
Methodist officials said DeBakey died of natural causes. He was taken to the hospital after his wife, Katrin, called 911, and he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving, said Dr. Marc Boom, executive vice president of Methodist.
DeBakey is to lie in repose within the rotunda of Houston City Hall from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, officials at Baylor College of Medicine said. Funeral services are planned for Wednesday.
Chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine and a surgeon at Methodist since 1949, DeBakey trained thousands of surgeons. During his career, he estimated he performed more than 60,000 operations. His patients included the famous — Russian President Boris Yeltsin and movie actress Marlene Dietrich among them — and the uncelebrated.
"He was a great contributor to medicine and surgery," said Dr. Denton Cooley, president and surgeon-in-chief at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston and a former rival of DeBakey.
"But he left a real legacy in the Texas Medical Center and at Baylor College of Medicine, where he's brought so much attention," Cooley said. "Together, we were able to establish Houston as a world leader in cardiovascular medicine."
Dr. George Noon, a cardiovascular surgeon and longtime partner of DeBakey's, said he "single-handedly raised the standard of medical care, teaching and research around the world. He was the greatest surgeon of the 20th century, and physicians everywhere are indebted to him for his contributions to medicine."
DeBakey almost died in 2006, when he suffered an aortic aneurysm, a condition for which he pioneered the treatment. He is considered the oldest patient to have both undergone and survived surgery for it.
He recovered enough to go to Washington earlier this year to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the nation's two highest civilian honors.
He remained vigorous and was a player in medicine well into his 90s, performing surgeries, traveling and publishing articles in scientific journals. His large hands were steady, his hearing sharp. His personal health regimen included taking the stairs at work and a single cup of coffee in the morning.
DeBakey's death was mourned by the leaders of Methodist and Baylor.
Methodist President Ron Girotto said: "He has improved the human condition and touched the lives of generations to come. We will greatly miss him."
Baylor President Dr. Peter Traber added: "He set a standard for pre-eminence in all areas of his life that those who knew him and worked with him are compelled to emulate. And he served as a very visible reminder of the importance of leadership and giving back to one's community."
Built a reputation
DeBakey was born in Lake Charles, La., in 1908, a month before Ford began making Model Ts and a quarter-century before the discovery of bacteria-fighting drugs. While still in medical school, he developed the roller pump for the heart-lung machine. DeBakey invented many of the procedures and devices — more than 50 surgical instruments — used to repair hearts and arteries.
He is widely credited with laying the foundation for the Texas Medical Center in Houston by recruiting doctors and researchers and giving the city an international reputation for leading-edge health care. He was a maverick, running afoul of the Harris County Medical Society for insisting that surgeons be certified by the American Board of Surgery. At the time, it was common for general physicians to operate.
"DeBakey built a department of surgery at Baylor and at The Methodist Hospital, which was to become one of the most celebrated in the world, a galaxy of young stars," the late author Thomas Thompson wrote in 1970 in Hearts: Of Surgeons and Transplants, Miracles and Disasters Along the Cardiac Frontier. "In a city where 25 years ago there was practiced medicine of the most mediocre sort, there sprung up in a swampy area 6 miles south of downtown ... one of the handful of distinguished medical centers in the world."
DeBakey invented and refined ways to repair weakened or clot-obstructed blood vessels using replacements made from preserved human blood vessels and, later, with artificial ones. He is credited with the first successful surgical treatment of potentially deadly aneurysms of various parts of the aorta. In 1939, he co-authored one of the earliest papers linking smoking and lung cancer.
During World War II, while he served in the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, DeBakey's work led to the development of mobile surgical hospitals, called MASH units. He helped President John F. Kennedy lobby for Medicare; he recommended creation of the National Library of Medicine, subsequently authorized by Congress. In 1963, DeBakey won the Lasker Award for Clinical Research, considered the U.S. equivalent of a Nobel.
"At times he could act like the meanest man in the world. He didn't let you breathe," said Dr. John L. Ochsner of New Orleans, who trained under DeBakey and whose father, Dr. Alton Ochsner, was DeBakey's mentor at Tulane University School of Medicine.
"The thing that made him so mad all the time was he was trying to conquer the world, and every minute was so important to him. He didn't have time for frivolity at all," he said.
Two sides
Patients and their families saw him otherwise.
To them, DeBakey was a healer with quiet authority who seemed to work miracles. Enfolding a patient's hands in his, the patient's face would relax, some recalled.
He was pained by the breakup in 2004 of the 50-year marriage between Baylor and Methodist, which dissolved over disagreements about the future of the institutions. DeBakey said the breakup made no sense and hurt both parties. Friends described him as "heartbroken" about the split. In an interview earlier this year, DeBakey said the description was not inaccurate.
In 2003, his MicroMed DeBakey LVAD was implanted in a 10-year-old girl, the youngest patient in the world to receive the device, which boosts the heart's main pumping chamber. In 2004, a child-sized version became available for children as young as 5. DeBakey had developed the device in collaboration with heart surgeon Noon and NASA.
In his prime — and it was an unusually lengthy prime — DeBakey, with his sharp-nosed profile and dark-brown eyes, had the power to intimidate and awe his acolytes. In surgery, DeBakey was famous for his withering remarks, delivered in a velvety Louisiana drawl, directed at the anxious and ambitious residents operating alongside him.
John Ochsner recalled how, if an operation was going slowly, DeBakey might ask, ''Am I the only one here doing anything?"
Or a clumsy resident might prompt DeBakey to say, ''Do you have two left hands?"
DeBakey's trainees cringed at his criticism, but among themselves they recounted the barbs in a sometimes dead-on imitation of the revered surgeon. Ochsner, now chairman emeritus of the Department of Surgery at Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans, said DeBakey's stern manner came from a desire to prepare his students for the demanding career ahead.
Family life
DeBakey was the eldest of five children born to Lebanese immigrants Raheehja and Shaker Morris DeBakey.
Shaker Morris DeBakey was a businessman and pharmacist in Lake Charles who invested in real estate and rice farming. Michael DeBakey grew up with his brother and three sisters in a large house with maids, butlers and gardeners.
The DeBakeys ate healthy foods — fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, seafood, rice and beans. They didn't smoke or drink. At dinnertime, the family chatted about things that happened at the drug store or the doings of politicians who sought out Shaker's advice.
"You could not get a word in edgewise until one of our parents announced who had the floor," DeBakey recounted to a reporter in 1997. "It was very stimulating."
On Sundays after services at their Episcopal church, the DeBakeys would take clothing to a nearby orphanage. One time, the giveaway bundle included DeBakey's favorite cap. When the youngster protested, his mother sat him down and said: "You have a lot of caps. These children have none." "It made a great impression on me," he said.
DeBakey's mother also taught him one of his future career's essential skills — sewing. He would help her repair items headed for the orphanage. He also learned to tat, using a little bobbin to make lace. Years later, in the 1950s, DeBakey would introduce artificial arteries made from Dacron; he sewed the prototype on his wife's sewing machine, using fabric purchased at Houston's downtown Foley's.
He went to medical school at Tulane after graduating as valedictorian from his high school class. During his senior year in medical school, he developed the roller pump, a device that two decades later became a crucial component of the heart-lung machine used on patients during open-heart surgery.
'A work of art'
As a surgery resident at New Orleans' Charity Hospital, DeBakey caught his first glimpse of a living human heart — pink and pulsating in the chest of a knifing victim.
''I saw it beating, and it was beautiful, a work of art," DeBakey said in 1987. ''I still have an almost religious sense when I work on the heart. It is something God makes and we have yet to duplicate."
Later, at Charity Hospital, DeBakey experienced a potentially catastrophic near-miss — he accidentally punctured a patient's aorta — which gave him an appreciation for the steadying influence of his mentor, Alton Ochsner.
He and Ochsner were operating in an amphitheater with a full audience of visiting surgeons. DeBakey was on one side of the patient, Ochsner on the other. DeBakey was attempting to lift up the aorta, which had been weakened by infection "when I suddenly realized, with a gripping terror, that I had entered the aorta."
DeBakey whispered this to Ochsner, who calmly instructed DeBakey to leave his finger over the hole. Ochsner stitched it up, and no one realized a near-fatal accident had occurred.
During the late 1930s, DeBakey married his first wife, Diana, a nurse he met in New Orleans. They had four sons: Michael, Ernest, Barry and Denis. When DeBakey came to Houston in 1948 to head Baylor's surgery department, he moved his family into a home near Rice University, only five minutes from the Texas Medical Center, so he wouldn't waste time commuting. He never moved from that home.
Diana DeBakey died of a heart attack in 1972. They had been in Mexico for a medical meeting, staying with a close relative of the president of Mexico. They ate well and stayed up late, and when the DeBakeys returned home, Diana was complaining of an upset stomach.
At that time, gastrointestinal problems were not widely recognized as a heart attack symptom in women. When her discomfort worsened, DeBakey had her admitted to the hospital to find out what was wrong. While DeBakey was in surgery on someone else, he got a call that there was an emergency. When he reached his wife's bedside, she had died.
Three years after her death, DeBakey married German film actress Katrin Fehlhaber, whom he met through Frank Sinatra. They had a daughter, Olga.
Health-conscious
The workaholic DeBakey rarely slept more than five hours a night, awaking at 5 most mornings to write research papers or read medical journals. He rarely drank, never smoked, ate sparingly — mostly salads, late in life — and didn't watch television. He spent much of his adult years in light-blue scrubs and wore a pair of gleaming-white cowboy boots for the operating room.
In 1948, when DeBakey came to Houston, he had turned the Baylor job down twice. The fledgling school had moved to Houston from Dallas just five years earlier, and Baylor students were scattered all over the city doing their clinical rotations, a situation that didn't appeal to DeBakey. He finally was persuaded to come when Hermann Hospital promised the school a 20-bed surgical service, according to Ruth SoRelle's history of Baylor,
The Quest for Excellence.
The Hermann deal fell through, and DeBakey nearly left. But the Truman administration asked DeBakey to transfer Houston's Navy hospital into a Veterans Administration hospital, an idea championed by DeBakey that evolved into the national VA system. There, DeBakey's students started the city's first surgical residency program.
One of the most talked-about events of DeBakey's life was his legendary feud — more Arctic freeze than hot-tempered spat — with Cooley, his one-time close collaborator.
DeBakey hired Cooley in 1951 after the Houston native finished his training at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
In 1965, DeBakey participated in a federally funded program to design an artificial heart.
Within a few years, he had a device that some physicians felt was ready for human trials, but DeBakey believed it needed more work.
Then, to international acclaim in 1969, Cooley performed the first implantation of an artificial heart into the chest of 47-year-old Haskell Karp, a dying heart surgery patient. Karp lived with the heart in his chest 65 hours before dying shortly after a heart transplant.
A bitter feud
Cooley's fame was quickly tarnished after DeBakey said the heart was identical to one under development in the Baylor labs and that Cooley had used it without permission.
Cooley said he and Dr. Domingo Liotta, who also designed artificial hearts in DeBakey's lab, had built the heart privately and that he had no choice but to use the heart because the patient's life was in jeopardy.
After the incident, the American College of Surgeons voted to censure Cooley, and, amid a dispute with the trustees of Baylor, Cooley resigned from the institution.
The two men stopped collaborating and rarely spoke. DeBakey changed his focus and decided funds would be better spent developing pumps to assist failing hearts. Such devices became the mainstream treatment for patients with failing hearts.
The episode ''stole DeBakey's shot at a Nobel Prize," Methodist heart surgeon Mike Reardon said in 2004. ''What Mike needed was one crowning event to make him a candidate. And that was going to be the artificial heart."
The two buried the hatchet last year. Cooley inducted DeBakey into his surgical society, and DeBakey accepted, telling his former colleague he was touched by the gesture.
Earlier this year, DeBakey returned the favor, granting Cooley membership in his surgical society.
In April, when DeBakey was given the Congressional Gold Medal, Cooley made the trip to Washington, too.
"I feel a sadness over his passing," Cooley said. "It represents the end of an era. We were at one time colleagues, and then we were competitors, and then finally we restored our friendship."
A fight against death
For a man who outlived most of his peers, DeBakey seemed unphilosophical about death, appearing to view it as a personal enemy.
Losing a patient put him in a black mood and set his mind spinning with thoughts of what he might have done differently.
''You fight (death) all the time, and you never really can accept it," he once said. ''You know in reality that everybody is going to die, but you try to fight it, to push it away, hold it away with your hands."
DeBakey was preceded in death by his sons Houston lawyer Ernest O. DeBakey, who died in 2004, and Barry E. DeBakey, who died in 2007; and a brother, Dr. Ernest G. DeBakey, who died in 2006.
In addition to his wife, Katrin, and their daughter, Olga, DeBakey is survived by sons Michael DeBakey of Lima, Peru, and Denis DeBakey of Houston; and sisters Lois and Selma DeBakey, both medical editors and linguists at Baylor.
todd.ackerman@chron.com
eric.berger@chron.com
Dr. Michael DeBakey: 1908-2008
Houstonian called the 'greatest surgeon of the 20th century' dies at 99
By TODD ACKERMAN and ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Dr. Sherwin Nuland, medicine's best-known historian, was visiting with Dr. Michael DeBakey three years ago when the then-96-year-old surgeon left the room to attend to some business.
Taking advantage of the moment to tour the room's extensive collection of memorabilia — the honors, photographs and mementos from an illustrative career that spanned eight decades — Nuland stopped to reflect on two antiquarian charts of the history of medicine.
"As I studied the charts, it occurred to me that no face on them was any more important in the history of medicine than DeBakey himself,'' said Nuland, a retired surgeon at the Yale University School of Medicine and author of Doctors: The Biography of Medicine. "I can't think of anyone who's made more of a contribution to the field of medicine.''
Michael Ellis DeBakey — internationally acclaimed as the father of modern cardiovascular surgery and considered by many to be the greatest surgeon ever — died Friday night at The Methodist Hospital in Houston. He was 99.
Methodist officials said DeBakey died of natural causes. He was taken to the hospital after his wife, Katrin, called 911, and he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving, said Dr. Marc Boom, executive vice president of Methodist.
DeBakey is to lie in repose within the rotunda of Houston City Hall from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, officials at Baylor College of Medicine said. Funeral services are planned for Wednesday.
Chancellor emeritus of Baylor College of Medicine and a surgeon at Methodist since 1949, DeBakey trained thousands of surgeons. During his career, he estimated he performed more than 60,000 operations. His patients included the famous — Russian President Boris Yeltsin and movie actress Marlene Dietrich among them — and the uncelebrated.
"He was a great contributor to medicine and surgery," said Dr. Denton Cooley, president and surgeon-in-chief at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston and a former rival of DeBakey.
"But he left a real legacy in the Texas Medical Center and at Baylor College of Medicine, where he's brought so much attention," Cooley said. "Together, we were able to establish Houston as a world leader in cardiovascular medicine."
Dr. George Noon, a cardiovascular surgeon and longtime partner of DeBakey's, said he "single-handedly raised the standard of medical care, teaching and research around the world. He was the greatest surgeon of the 20th century, and physicians everywhere are indebted to him for his contributions to medicine."
DeBakey almost died in 2006, when he suffered an aortic aneurysm, a condition for which he pioneered the treatment. He is considered the oldest patient to have both undergone and survived surgery for it.
He recovered enough to go to Washington earlier this year to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the nation's two highest civilian honors.
He remained vigorous and was a player in medicine well into his 90s, performing surgeries, traveling and publishing articles in scientific journals. His large hands were steady, his hearing sharp. His personal health regimen included taking the stairs at work and a single cup of coffee in the morning.
DeBakey's death was mourned by the leaders of Methodist and Baylor.
Methodist President Ron Girotto said: "He has improved the human condition and touched the lives of generations to come. We will greatly miss him."
Baylor President Dr. Peter Traber added: "He set a standard for pre-eminence in all areas of his life that those who knew him and worked with him are compelled to emulate. And he served as a very visible reminder of the importance of leadership and giving back to one's community."
Built a reputation
DeBakey was born in Lake Charles, La., in 1908, a month before Ford began making Model Ts and a quarter-century before the discovery of bacteria-fighting drugs. While still in medical school, he developed the roller pump for the heart-lung machine. DeBakey invented many of the procedures and devices — more than 50 surgical instruments — used to repair hearts and arteries.
He is widely credited with laying the foundation for the Texas Medical Center in Houston by recruiting doctors and researchers and giving the city an international reputation for leading-edge health care. He was a maverick, running afoul of the Harris County Medical Society for insisting that surgeons be certified by the American Board of Surgery. At the time, it was common for general physicians to operate.
"DeBakey built a department of surgery at Baylor and at The Methodist Hospital, which was to become one of the most celebrated in the world, a galaxy of young stars," the late author Thomas Thompson wrote in 1970 in Hearts: Of Surgeons and Transplants, Miracles and Disasters Along the Cardiac Frontier. "In a city where 25 years ago there was practiced medicine of the most mediocre sort, there sprung up in a swampy area 6 miles south of downtown ... one of the handful of distinguished medical centers in the world."
DeBakey invented and refined ways to repair weakened or clot-obstructed blood vessels using replacements made from preserved human blood vessels and, later, with artificial ones. He is credited with the first successful surgical treatment of potentially deadly aneurysms of various parts of the aorta. In 1939, he co-authored one of the earliest papers linking smoking and lung cancer.
During World War II, while he served in the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, DeBakey's work led to the development of mobile surgical hospitals, called MASH units. He helped President John F. Kennedy lobby for Medicare; he recommended creation of the National Library of Medicine, subsequently authorized by Congress. In 1963, DeBakey won the Lasker Award for Clinical Research, considered the U.S. equivalent of a Nobel.
"At times he could act like the meanest man in the world. He didn't let you breathe," said Dr. John L. Ochsner of New Orleans, who trained under DeBakey and whose father, Dr. Alton Ochsner, was DeBakey's mentor at Tulane University School of Medicine.
"The thing that made him so mad all the time was he was trying to conquer the world, and every minute was so important to him. He didn't have time for frivolity at all," he said.
Two sides
Patients and their families saw him otherwise.
To them, DeBakey was a healer with quiet authority who seemed to work miracles. Enfolding a patient's hands in his, the patient's face would relax, some recalled.
He was pained by the breakup in 2004 of the 50-year marriage between Baylor and Methodist, which dissolved over disagreements about the future of the institutions. DeBakey said the breakup made no sense and hurt both parties. Friends described him as "heartbroken" about the split. In an interview earlier this year, DeBakey said the description was not inaccurate.
In 2003, his MicroMed DeBakey LVAD was implanted in a 10-year-old girl, the youngest patient in the world to receive the device, which boosts the heart's main pumping chamber. In 2004, a child-sized version became available for children as young as 5. DeBakey had developed the device in collaboration with heart surgeon Noon and NASA.
In his prime — and it was an unusually lengthy prime — DeBakey, with his sharp-nosed profile and dark-brown eyes, had the power to intimidate and awe his acolytes. In surgery, DeBakey was famous for his withering remarks, delivered in a velvety Louisiana drawl, directed at the anxious and ambitious residents operating alongside him.
John Ochsner recalled how, if an operation was going slowly, DeBakey might ask, ''Am I the only one here doing anything?"
Or a clumsy resident might prompt DeBakey to say, ''Do you have two left hands?"
DeBakey's trainees cringed at his criticism, but among themselves they recounted the barbs in a sometimes dead-on imitation of the revered surgeon. Ochsner, now chairman emeritus of the Department of Surgery at Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans, said DeBakey's stern manner came from a desire to prepare his students for the demanding career ahead.
Family life
DeBakey was the eldest of five children born to Lebanese immigrants Raheehja and Shaker Morris DeBakey.
Shaker Morris DeBakey was a businessman and pharmacist in Lake Charles who invested in real estate and rice farming. Michael DeBakey grew up with his brother and three sisters in a large house with maids, butlers and gardeners.
The DeBakeys ate healthy foods — fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, seafood, rice and beans. They didn't smoke or drink. At dinnertime, the family chatted about things that happened at the drug store or the doings of politicians who sought out Shaker's advice.
"You could not get a word in edgewise until one of our parents announced who had the floor," DeBakey recounted to a reporter in 1997. "It was very stimulating."
On Sundays after services at their Episcopal church, the DeBakeys would take clothing to a nearby orphanage. One time, the giveaway bundle included DeBakey's favorite cap. When the youngster protested, his mother sat him down and said: "You have a lot of caps. These children have none." "It made a great impression on me," he said.
DeBakey's mother also taught him one of his future career's essential skills — sewing. He would help her repair items headed for the orphanage. He also learned to tat, using a little bobbin to make lace. Years later, in the 1950s, DeBakey would introduce artificial arteries made from Dacron; he sewed the prototype on his wife's sewing machine, using fabric purchased at Houston's downtown Foley's.
He went to medical school at Tulane after graduating as valedictorian from his high school class. During his senior year in medical school, he developed the roller pump, a device that two decades later became a crucial component of the heart-lung machine used on patients during open-heart surgery.
'A work of art'
As a surgery resident at New Orleans' Charity Hospital, DeBakey caught his first glimpse of a living human heart — pink and pulsating in the chest of a knifing victim.
''I saw it beating, and it was beautiful, a work of art," DeBakey said in 1987. ''I still have an almost religious sense when I work on the heart. It is something God makes and we have yet to duplicate."
Later, at Charity Hospital, DeBakey experienced a potentially catastrophic near-miss — he accidentally punctured a patient's aorta — which gave him an appreciation for the steadying influence of his mentor, Alton Ochsner.
He and Ochsner were operating in an amphitheater with a full audience of visiting surgeons. DeBakey was on one side of the patient, Ochsner on the other. DeBakey was attempting to lift up the aorta, which had been weakened by infection "when I suddenly realized, with a gripping terror, that I had entered the aorta."
DeBakey whispered this to Ochsner, who calmly instructed DeBakey to leave his finger over the hole. Ochsner stitched it up, and no one realized a near-fatal accident had occurred.
During the late 1930s, DeBakey married his first wife, Diana, a nurse he met in New Orleans. They had four sons: Michael, Ernest, Barry and Denis. When DeBakey came to Houston in 1948 to head Baylor's surgery department, he moved his family into a home near Rice University, only five minutes from the Texas Medical Center, so he wouldn't waste time commuting. He never moved from that home.
Diana DeBakey died of a heart attack in 1972. They had been in Mexico for a medical meeting, staying with a close relative of the president of Mexico. They ate well and stayed up late, and when the DeBakeys returned home, Diana was complaining of an upset stomach.
At that time, gastrointestinal problems were not widely recognized as a heart attack symptom in women. When her discomfort worsened, DeBakey had her admitted to the hospital to find out what was wrong. While DeBakey was in surgery on someone else, he got a call that there was an emergency. When he reached his wife's bedside, she had died.
Three years after her death, DeBakey married German film actress Katrin Fehlhaber, whom he met through Frank Sinatra. They had a daughter, Olga.
Health-conscious
The workaholic DeBakey rarely slept more than five hours a night, awaking at 5 most mornings to write research papers or read medical journals. He rarely drank, never smoked, ate sparingly — mostly salads, late in life — and didn't watch television. He spent much of his adult years in light-blue scrubs and wore a pair of gleaming-white cowboy boots for the operating room.
In 1948, when DeBakey came to Houston, he had turned the Baylor job down twice. The fledgling school had moved to Houston from Dallas just five years earlier, and Baylor students were scattered all over the city doing their clinical rotations, a situation that didn't appeal to DeBakey. He finally was persuaded to come when Hermann Hospital promised the school a 20-bed surgical service, according to Ruth SoRelle's history of Baylor,
The Quest for Excellence.
The Hermann deal fell through, and DeBakey nearly left. But the Truman administration asked DeBakey to transfer Houston's Navy hospital into a Veterans Administration hospital, an idea championed by DeBakey that evolved into the national VA system. There, DeBakey's students started the city's first surgical residency program.
One of the most talked-about events of DeBakey's life was his legendary feud — more Arctic freeze than hot-tempered spat — with Cooley, his one-time close collaborator.
DeBakey hired Cooley in 1951 after the Houston native finished his training at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
In 1965, DeBakey participated in a federally funded program to design an artificial heart.
Within a few years, he had a device that some physicians felt was ready for human trials, but DeBakey believed it needed more work.
Then, to international acclaim in 1969, Cooley performed the first implantation of an artificial heart into the chest of 47-year-old Haskell Karp, a dying heart surgery patient. Karp lived with the heart in his chest 65 hours before dying shortly after a heart transplant.
A bitter feud
Cooley's fame was quickly tarnished after DeBakey said the heart was identical to one under development in the Baylor labs and that Cooley had used it without permission.
Cooley said he and Dr. Domingo Liotta, who also designed artificial hearts in DeBakey's lab, had built the heart privately and that he had no choice but to use the heart because the patient's life was in jeopardy.
After the incident, the American College of Surgeons voted to censure Cooley, and, amid a dispute with the trustees of Baylor, Cooley resigned from the institution.
The two men stopped collaborating and rarely spoke. DeBakey changed his focus and decided funds would be better spent developing pumps to assist failing hearts. Such devices became the mainstream treatment for patients with failing hearts.
The episode ''stole DeBakey's shot at a Nobel Prize," Methodist heart surgeon Mike Reardon said in 2004. ''What Mike needed was one crowning event to make him a candidate. And that was going to be the artificial heart."
The two buried the hatchet last year. Cooley inducted DeBakey into his surgical society, and DeBakey accepted, telling his former colleague he was touched by the gesture.
Earlier this year, DeBakey returned the favor, granting Cooley membership in his surgical society.
In April, when DeBakey was given the Congressional Gold Medal, Cooley made the trip to Washington, too.
"I feel a sadness over his passing," Cooley said. "It represents the end of an era. We were at one time colleagues, and then we were competitors, and then finally we restored our friendship."
A fight against death
For a man who outlived most of his peers, DeBakey seemed unphilosophical about death, appearing to view it as a personal enemy.
Losing a patient put him in a black mood and set his mind spinning with thoughts of what he might have done differently.
''You fight (death) all the time, and you never really can accept it," he once said. ''You know in reality that everybody is going to die, but you try to fight it, to push it away, hold it away with your hands."
DeBakey was preceded in death by his sons Houston lawyer Ernest O. DeBakey, who died in 2004, and Barry E. DeBakey, who died in 2007; and a brother, Dr. Ernest G. DeBakey, who died in 2006.
In addition to his wife, Katrin, and their daughter, Olga, DeBakey is survived by sons Michael DeBakey of Lima, Peru, and Denis DeBakey of Houston; and sisters Lois and Selma DeBakey, both medical editors and linguists at Baylor.
todd.ackerman@chron.com
eric.berger@chron.com
Saturday, July 12, 2008
At long last, has the Associated Press lost all sense of decency?
Classless AP Takes Cheap Shots at Just-Passed Snow
Photo of Tom Blumer.
By Tom Blumer (Bio | Archive)
July 12, 2008 - 09:03 ET
The AP's story (saved here for future reference in case the wire service is embarrassed into revising it; you might consider saving it too as Exhibit A on how far over the cliff the dinosaur media has driven itself) by Douglass K. Daniel, with Jennifer Loven contributing (I might have known), gets in at least three cheap, fundamentally untrue, and totally uncalled-for shots at Tony Snow, who died earlier this morning.
I won't sully NB's front page with any of them. They follow the jump:
With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster's good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook — if not always a command of the facts — he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses.
..... During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.
Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation. He was the first press secretary, by his own accounting, to travel the country raising money for Republican candidates.
Godspeed Tony. I'm sure God will take an objective view of your life, and you'll waltz right in to be with Him for eternity.
Otherwise, words fail. How dare they
Photo of Tom Blumer.
By Tom Blumer (Bio | Archive)
July 12, 2008 - 09:03 ET
The AP's story (saved here for future reference in case the wire service is embarrassed into revising it; you might consider saving it too as Exhibit A on how far over the cliff the dinosaur media has driven itself) by Douglass K. Daniel, with Jennifer Loven contributing (I might have known), gets in at least three cheap, fundamentally untrue, and totally uncalled-for shots at Tony Snow, who died earlier this morning.
I won't sully NB's front page with any of them. They follow the jump:
With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster's good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook — if not always a command of the facts — he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses.
..... During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.
Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation. He was the first press secretary, by his own accounting, to travel the country raising money for Republican candidates.
Godspeed Tony. I'm sure God will take an objective view of your life, and you'll waltz right in to be with Him for eternity.
Otherwise, words fail. How dare they
BILLY GRAHAM
Billy Graham
For You
Saturday July 12, 2008
* Is the Devil Trying to Turn Me Away From God?
* Tips for What to Do After an Accident
Is the Devil Trying to Turn Me Away From God?
By Billy Graham, Tribune Media Services
Q: A year ago I accepted Jesus into my life, and for a time I really felt He was with me. But now I find myself wondering sometimes if God even exists. This scares me, because I don't want to miss going to heaven. Why has this happened? Is the devil trying to turn me away from God? -- Q.S.
A: The devil will always try to turn us away from God; after all, this is the main thing he wants to accomplish in our lives. And one way he does this is by probing for our weak spots and trying to take advantage of them.
But don't blame everything on the devil; he doesn't deserve all the credit! The real problem, I suspect, is that after you gave your life to Jesus you thought this was the end, and it was all you needed to do. You knew your sins were forgiven, and you knew as well the reality of the Bible's promise that "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life" (1 John 5:11-12).
But afterward you never did anything to strengthen yourself spiritually -- and over time you became spiritually weak. Just as a newborn baby needs food and warmth in order to survive and grow, so you needed spiritual food and warmth -- the "food" of the Bible and prayer, and the "warmth" of fellowship with other believers. If these were missing, your spiritual life inevitably suffered.
God has not abandoned you; He loves you and yearns for you to grow stronger in your faith. Confess your weakness to Him, and then take time each day to be alone with God in His Word and in prayer. In addition, ask Him to lead you to a church where Christ is central, and where you can grow in your faith.
========
Labels:
BILLY GRAHAM,
DUANE TEWINKEL,
GOD,
RELIGION,
TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES
Thursday, July 10, 2008
1ST CORINTHIANS 6:9
Bible Publishers Sued for Anti-Gay References
Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:51 AM
By: Rick Pedraza
A Michigan man is seeking $70 million from two Christian publishers for emotional distress and mental instability he received during the past 20 years from versions of the Bible that refer to homosexuality as a sin.
Bradley LaShawn Fowler, a gay man, claims his constitutional rights were infringed upon by Zondervan Publishing Co. and Thomas Nelson Publishing, both of which, he claims, deliberately caused homosexuals to suffer by misinterpretation of the Bible.
Fowler, 39, is seeking $60 million from Zondervan and another $10 million from Thomas Nelson.
According to a USA Today report, Fowler's two separate suits against the publishers claim the intent of the Bible revisions that refer to homosexuals as sinners reflect an individual opinion or a group's conclusion.
Fowler says the deliberate changes made to first Corinthians, chapter six, verse nine *caused him "or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence ... including murder."
Fowler, who is representing himself in both lawsuits, claims the publishers are misinterpreting the Bible by specifically using the word homosexuals, which made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.
'These are opinions based on the publishers and they are being embedded in the religious structure as a way of life," he tells a local NBC TV station affiliate in Grand Rapids.
Fowler admits that every Bible printed is a translation that can be interpreted in many ways, but he says specifically using the word 'homosexual' is not a translation but a change.
Fowler says Zondervan Bibles published in the '80s used the word homosexuals among a list of those who are ‘wicked' or unrighteous and won't inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Zondervan, for its part, issued a statement to the Grand Rapids press stating it does not translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations it publishes
‘We rely on the scholarly judgment of the highly respected and credible translation committees behind each translation and never alter the text of the translations we are licensed to publish,’ the statement reads.
‘We only publish credible translations produced by credible Biblical scholars.’
U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr., who will hear Fowler’s case against Thomas Nelson, says the court ‘has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of [Fowler’s] claims."
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
• 1ST Corinthians 6:9: do you not know that the wicked shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not misled: neither the immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor the corrupt nor men who sleep with men.
• HOLY BIBLE FROM THE ANCIENT EASTERN TEXT
• GEORGE M. LAMSA’S TRANSLATION FROM THE
• ARAMAIC OF THE PESHITTA.
1ST Corinthians 6:9-10 Surely you know that the people who do wrong will not inherit the God’s kingdom. Do not be fooled. Those who sin sexually, worship idols, take part in adultery, those who are male prostitutes, or men who have sexual relations with other men, those who steal, are greedy, get drunk, lie about others or rob—these people will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
THE HOLY BIBLE
CONTAINING THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS
NEW CENTURY VERSION PUBLISHED BY
NELSON BIBLES. COPYRIGHT 2005. PRINTED IN
BELGIUM.
1ST Corinthians 6:9-11 .Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
The Greek terms translated male prostitutes and sodomites do not refer to “homosexuals,” as inappropriate older translations; “masturbators” and male prostitutes might be a better translation. While continuing the emphasis on economic offenders, the list expands the sexual offenders (see 5.10-11n.), anticipating 6.12-20.
THE NEW OXFORD ANNOTATED BIBLE,
New Revised standard Version (THIRD EDITION)
AN ECUMENICAL STUDY BIBLE.
The word/term homosexual was not even coined until the mid-late 19th century by an early day liberal/socialist. The Z Bible does actually use the word homosexual and in my mind that shows poor scholarship on their part (my personal opinion, not necessarily anybody else’s.)
So, does the guy have a valid complaint? Maybe. Is this a frivolous lawsuit? Definitely. If he had a problem why did he wait 20 years? He is serving as his own attorney? Who was it that said, ‘a man serving as his own attorney has a fool for a client’?
Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:51 AM
By: Rick Pedraza
A Michigan man is seeking $70 million from two Christian publishers for emotional distress and mental instability he received during the past 20 years from versions of the Bible that refer to homosexuality as a sin.
Bradley LaShawn Fowler, a gay man, claims his constitutional rights were infringed upon by Zondervan Publishing Co. and Thomas Nelson Publishing, both of which, he claims, deliberately caused homosexuals to suffer by misinterpretation of the Bible.
Fowler, 39, is seeking $60 million from Zondervan and another $10 million from Thomas Nelson.
According to a USA Today report, Fowler's two separate suits against the publishers claim the intent of the Bible revisions that refer to homosexuals as sinners reflect an individual opinion or a group's conclusion.
Fowler says the deliberate changes made to first Corinthians, chapter six, verse nine *caused him "or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence ... including murder."
Fowler, who is representing himself in both lawsuits, claims the publishers are misinterpreting the Bible by specifically using the word homosexuals, which made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of demoralization, chaos and bewilderment.
'These are opinions based on the publishers and they are being embedded in the religious structure as a way of life," he tells a local NBC TV station affiliate in Grand Rapids.
Fowler admits that every Bible printed is a translation that can be interpreted in many ways, but he says specifically using the word 'homosexual' is not a translation but a change.
Fowler says Zondervan Bibles published in the '80s used the word homosexuals among a list of those who are ‘wicked' or unrighteous and won't inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Zondervan, for its part, issued a statement to the Grand Rapids press stating it does not translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations it publishes
‘We rely on the scholarly judgment of the highly respected and credible translation committees behind each translation and never alter the text of the translations we are licensed to publish,’ the statement reads.
‘We only publish credible translations produced by credible Biblical scholars.’
U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr., who will hear Fowler’s case against Thomas Nelson, says the court ‘has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of [Fowler’s] claims."
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
• 1ST Corinthians 6:9: do you not know that the wicked shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not misled: neither the immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor the corrupt nor men who sleep with men.
• HOLY BIBLE FROM THE ANCIENT EASTERN TEXT
• GEORGE M. LAMSA’S TRANSLATION FROM THE
• ARAMAIC OF THE PESHITTA.
1ST Corinthians 6:9-10 Surely you know that the people who do wrong will not inherit the God’s kingdom. Do not be fooled. Those who sin sexually, worship idols, take part in adultery, those who are male prostitutes, or men who have sexual relations with other men, those who steal, are greedy, get drunk, lie about others or rob—these people will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
THE HOLY BIBLE
CONTAINING THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS
NEW CENTURY VERSION PUBLISHED BY
NELSON BIBLES. COPYRIGHT 2005. PRINTED IN
BELGIUM.
1ST Corinthians 6:9-11 .Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
The Greek terms translated male prostitutes and sodomites do not refer to “homosexuals,” as inappropriate older translations; “masturbators” and male prostitutes might be a better translation. While continuing the emphasis on economic offenders, the list expands the sexual offenders (see 5.10-11n.), anticipating 6.12-20.
THE NEW OXFORD ANNOTATED BIBLE,
New Revised standard Version (THIRD EDITION)
AN ECUMENICAL STUDY BIBLE.
The word/term homosexual was not even coined until the mid-late 19th century by an early day liberal/socialist. The Z Bible does actually use the word homosexual and in my mind that shows poor scholarship on their part (my personal opinion, not necessarily anybody else’s.)
So, does the guy have a valid complaint? Maybe. Is this a frivolous lawsuit? Definitely. If he had a problem why did he wait 20 years? He is serving as his own attorney? Who was it that said, ‘a man serving as his own attorney has a fool for a client’?
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
What if they called an election and no one showed up
date Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 10:16 PM
subject What if they scheduled an election....
and no one showed up. I never could vote for a Democrat for president and this year I might just have to vote for Micky Mouse or None of the Above instead of John McCain. I have nothing against LEGAL IMMIGRATION, nothing at all. However, I do have a serious problem with my tax dollars spent on 'La Raza' programs, policies and idiocies. The late, great, singer and Congressman Sonny Bono was once asked how he felt about illegal immigration. His response, "It's illegal". As in, it is against the law.
For 'La Raza,' Trouble Begins With Its Name
By MICHELLE MALKIN | Posted Wednesday, July 09, 2008 4:30 PM PT
Only in America could critics of a group called "The Race" be labeled racists. Such is the triumph of left-wing identity chauvinists, whose aggressive activists and supine abettors have succeeded in redefining all opposition as "hate."
Both Barack Obama and John McCain will speak this week in San Diego at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the Latino organization whose name is Spanish for, yes, "The Race." Can you imagine Obama and McCain paying homage to a group of white people who called themselves that? No matter. The presidential candidates and the media have legitimized "The Race" as a mainstream ethnic lobbying group and marginalized its critics as intolerant bigots. The unvarnished truth is the group is a radical ethnic nationalist outfit that abuses your tax dollars and milks PC politics to undermine our sovereignty.
Here are 15 things you should know about "The Race":
15. "The Race" supports driver's licenses for illegal aliens.
14. "The Race" demands in-state tuition discounts for illegal alien students that are not available to law-abiding U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.
13. "The Race" opposes cooperative immigration enforcement by local, state and federal authorities.
12. "The Race" opposes a secure fence on the southern border.
11. "The Race" joined the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in a failed lawsuit attempt to prevent the feds from entering immigration information into a key national crime database.
10. "The Race" opposed the state of Oklahoma's tough immigration-enforcement-first laws, which cut off welfare to illegal aliens, put teeth in employer sanctions and strengthened local-federal cooperation.
9. "The Race" joined other open-borders, anti-assimilationists and sued to prevent Prop. 227, California's bilingual education reform ballot initiative, from becoming law.
8. "The Race" bitterly protested common-sense voter ID provisions.
7. "The Race" has opposed post-9/11 national security measures at every turn.
6. Former "Race" president Raul Yzaguirre, Hillary Clinton's Hispanic outreach adviser, said this: "U.S. English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks." He was referring to U.S. English, the nation's oldest, largest citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the U.S. "The Race" also pioneered Orwellian open-borders Newspeak and advised the Mexican government on how to lobby for illegal alien amnesty while avoiding the terms "illegal" and "amnesty."
5. "The Race" gives mainstream cover to a poisonous subset of ideological satellites, led by Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or MEChA. The late GOP Rep. Charlie Norwood rightly characterized MEChA as "a radical racist group . . . one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West."
4. "The Race" is leading a smear campaign against immigration enforcement leaders and has called for TV and cable news networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves — in addition to pushing for Fairness Doctrine policies to shut up their foes. The New York Times reported current "Race" president Janet Murguia believes "hate speech" should "not be tolerated, even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights."
3. "The Race" sponsors militant ethnic nationalist charter schools subsidized by your public tax dollars (at least $8 million in federal grants). The schools include Aztlan Academy in Tucson, Ariz., the Mexicayotl Academy in Nogales, Ariz., Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School in St. Paul, Minn., and La Academia Semillas del Pueblo in Los Angeles, whose principal inveighed: "Ultimately the White way, the American way, the neo-liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction."
2. "The Race" has perfected the art of the PC shakedown at taxpayer expense, pushing relentlessly to lower home loan standards for Hispanic borrowers, reaping millions in federal "mortgage counseling" grants, seeking special multimillion-dollar earmarks and partnering with banks that do business with illegal aliens.
1. "The Race" thrives on ethnic supremacy — and the elite's unwillingness to call it what it is. As historian Victor Davis Hanson observes: "(The) organization's very nomenclature 'The National Council of La Raza' is hate speech to the core. Despite all the contortions of the group, Raza (as its Latin cognate suggests) reflects the meaning of 'race' in Spanish, not 'the people' — and that's precisely why we don't hear of something like 'The National Council of the People,' which would not confer the buzz notion of ethnic, racial and tribal chauvinism."
The fringe is the center. The center is the fringe. Viva La Raza.
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, In
--
"The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism.... It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn." --George Washington
--
"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask
another man to live for mine."
— John Galt, Atlas Shrugged
It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government. — Thomas Paine
subject What if they scheduled an election....
and no one showed up. I never could vote for a Democrat for president and this year I might just have to vote for Micky Mouse or None of the Above instead of John McCain. I have nothing against LEGAL IMMIGRATION, nothing at all. However, I do have a serious problem with my tax dollars spent on 'La Raza' programs, policies and idiocies. The late, great, singer and Congressman Sonny Bono was once asked how he felt about illegal immigration. His response, "It's illegal". As in, it is against the law.
For 'La Raza,' Trouble Begins With Its Name
By MICHELLE MALKIN | Posted Wednesday, July 09, 2008 4:30 PM PT
Only in America could critics of a group called "The Race" be labeled racists. Such is the triumph of left-wing identity chauvinists, whose aggressive activists and supine abettors have succeeded in redefining all opposition as "hate."
Both Barack Obama and John McCain will speak this week in San Diego at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the Latino organization whose name is Spanish for, yes, "The Race." Can you imagine Obama and McCain paying homage to a group of white people who called themselves that? No matter. The presidential candidates and the media have legitimized "The Race" as a mainstream ethnic lobbying group and marginalized its critics as intolerant bigots. The unvarnished truth is the group is a radical ethnic nationalist outfit that abuses your tax dollars and milks PC politics to undermine our sovereignty.
Here are 15 things you should know about "The Race":
15. "The Race" supports driver's licenses for illegal aliens.
14. "The Race" demands in-state tuition discounts for illegal alien students that are not available to law-abiding U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.
13. "The Race" opposes cooperative immigration enforcement by local, state and federal authorities.
12. "The Race" opposes a secure fence on the southern border.
11. "The Race" joined the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in a failed lawsuit attempt to prevent the feds from entering immigration information into a key national crime database.
10. "The Race" opposed the state of Oklahoma's tough immigration-enforcement-first laws, which cut off welfare to illegal aliens, put teeth in employer sanctions and strengthened local-federal cooperation.
9. "The Race" joined other open-borders, anti-assimilationists and sued to prevent Prop. 227, California's bilingual education reform ballot initiative, from becoming law.
8. "The Race" bitterly protested common-sense voter ID provisions.
7. "The Race" has opposed post-9/11 national security measures at every turn.
6. Former "Race" president Raul Yzaguirre, Hillary Clinton's Hispanic outreach adviser, said this: "U.S. English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks." He was referring to U.S. English, the nation's oldest, largest citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the U.S. "The Race" also pioneered Orwellian open-borders Newspeak and advised the Mexican government on how to lobby for illegal alien amnesty while avoiding the terms "illegal" and "amnesty."
5. "The Race" gives mainstream cover to a poisonous subset of ideological satellites, led by Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or MEChA. The late GOP Rep. Charlie Norwood rightly characterized MEChA as "a radical racist group . . . one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West."
4. "The Race" is leading a smear campaign against immigration enforcement leaders and has called for TV and cable news networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves — in addition to pushing for Fairness Doctrine policies to shut up their foes. The New York Times reported current "Race" president Janet Murguia believes "hate speech" should "not be tolerated, even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights."
3. "The Race" sponsors militant ethnic nationalist charter schools subsidized by your public tax dollars (at least $8 million in federal grants). The schools include Aztlan Academy in Tucson, Ariz., the Mexicayotl Academy in Nogales, Ariz., Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School in St. Paul, Minn., and La Academia Semillas del Pueblo in Los Angeles, whose principal inveighed: "Ultimately the White way, the American way, the neo-liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction."
2. "The Race" has perfected the art of the PC shakedown at taxpayer expense, pushing relentlessly to lower home loan standards for Hispanic borrowers, reaping millions in federal "mortgage counseling" grants, seeking special multimillion-dollar earmarks and partnering with banks that do business with illegal aliens.
1. "The Race" thrives on ethnic supremacy — and the elite's unwillingness to call it what it is. As historian Victor Davis Hanson observes: "(The) organization's very nomenclature 'The National Council of La Raza' is hate speech to the core. Despite all the contortions of the group, Raza (as its Latin cognate suggests) reflects the meaning of 'race' in Spanish, not 'the people' — and that's precisely why we don't hear of something like 'The National Council of the People,' which would not confer the buzz notion of ethnic, racial and tribal chauvinism."
The fringe is the center. The center is the fringe. Viva La Raza.
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, In
--
"The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism.... It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn." --George Washington
--
"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask
another man to live for mine."
— John Galt, Atlas Shrugged
It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government. — Thomas Paine
Monday, July 7, 2008
NYT STRIKES AGAIN
McCain Speeches Are "YouTube Fodder" -- But Obama Never Makes Gaffes?
Another story on McCain's verbal gaffes -- but the Times has yet to mention Obama's claim to have visited 57 states, or any of his other odd statements.
Posted by: Clay Waters
7/7/2008 2:32:26 PM
John McCain's struggles in formal speaking environments prompted a front-page Sunday story by Mark Leibovich, "McCain Battles a Nemesis, the Teleprompter." Leibovich opened with the candidate's latest futile struggle against what is apparently his greatest enemy:
Senator John McCain was performing relatively smoothly as he unveiled his energy plan.
He managed to limit the mechanical hand chops and weirdly timed smiles that can often punctuate his speeches. He delivered his lines with an ease that suggested a momentary peace with his longtime nemesis, the teleprompter. (He relied on a belt-and-suspenders approach, with text scrolling down screens to his left and right, and on a big TV set in front of him.)
But when Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came to the intended sound bite of his speech -- the part about reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil -- he hit a slick.
“I have set before the American people an energy plan, the Lex-eegton Project,” Mr. McCain said, drawing a quick breath and correcting himself. “The Lex-ing-ton Proj-ect,” he said slowly. “The Lexington Project,” he repeated. “Remember that name.”
In a town meeting in Cincinnati the next day, Mr. McCain would again slip up on the name of the Massachusetts town, where, he noted, “Americans asserted their independence once before.” He called it “the Lexiggdon Project” and twice tried to fix his error before flipping the name (“Project Lexington”) in subsequent references.
Mr. McCain’s battle of Lexington is part of a struggle he is engaged in every day. A politician who has thrived in the give-and-take settings of campaign buses, late-night TV couches and town meetings, he now is trying to meet the more formal speaking demands of a general election campaign.
To prove his point that McCain is not a natural at the podium, Leibovich forwarded insults of McCain from the liberal comedy show "The Colbert Report." Then he replayed some of McCain's greatest gaffes.
[Campaign adviser Mark] Salter bemoans the current environment, in which, he said, “the press creates the expectation that you better not stumble on a word, or tell a joke that Mr. Rogers wouldn’t tell, or you’re going to be in trouble.”
There are any number of Web videos of Mr. McCain to prove the point. They include the moment he playfully called a young man a “jerk” at a town-hall-style meeting in New Hampshire last year after he asked Mr. McCain if his age made him a candidate for Alzheimer’s disease in the White House (Mr. McCain typically uses jerk as a term of affection), or when he suggested to Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” that he brought him a special gift from Iraq -- an improvised explosive device.
Small misstatements become instant YouTube fodder -- as when Mr. McCain vowed to “veto every single beer” that included lawmakers’ pet spending projects (he meant “bill”) or when he said the government should have been able to deliver “bottled hot water” to dehydrated babies in New Orleans. (It is fortunate for Mr. McCain that there was no YouTube in the 1980s when he jokingly referred to the retirement community Leisure World as “Seizure World.”)
The Times has shown consistent interest in John McCain, Republican gaffe machine -- but has yet to mention in its news coverage Barack Obama saying he had visited "57 states" during the campaign (a clip also on YouTube, since that seems to matter to the Times). Nor has the paper mentioned Obama seeing "fallen heroes" in a Memorial Day crowd or thinking that Hitchcock actually filmed the climactic chase scene in "North by Northwest" at Mt. Rushmore, as opposed to a studio set.
Another story on McCain's verbal gaffes -- but the Times has yet to mention Obama's claim to have visited 57 states, or any of his other odd statements.
Posted by: Clay Waters
7/7/2008 2:32:26 PM
John McCain's struggles in formal speaking environments prompted a front-page Sunday story by Mark Leibovich, "McCain Battles a Nemesis, the Teleprompter." Leibovich opened with the candidate's latest futile struggle against what is apparently his greatest enemy:
Senator John McCain was performing relatively smoothly as he unveiled his energy plan.
He managed to limit the mechanical hand chops and weirdly timed smiles that can often punctuate his speeches. He delivered his lines with an ease that suggested a momentary peace with his longtime nemesis, the teleprompter. (He relied on a belt-and-suspenders approach, with text scrolling down screens to his left and right, and on a big TV set in front of him.)
But when Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, came to the intended sound bite of his speech -- the part about reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil -- he hit a slick.
“I have set before the American people an energy plan, the Lex-eegton Project,” Mr. McCain said, drawing a quick breath and correcting himself. “The Lex-ing-ton Proj-ect,” he said slowly. “The Lexington Project,” he repeated. “Remember that name.”
In a town meeting in Cincinnati the next day, Mr. McCain would again slip up on the name of the Massachusetts town, where, he noted, “Americans asserted their independence once before.” He called it “the Lexiggdon Project” and twice tried to fix his error before flipping the name (“Project Lexington”) in subsequent references.
Mr. McCain’s battle of Lexington is part of a struggle he is engaged in every day. A politician who has thrived in the give-and-take settings of campaign buses, late-night TV couches and town meetings, he now is trying to meet the more formal speaking demands of a general election campaign.
To prove his point that McCain is not a natural at the podium, Leibovich forwarded insults of McCain from the liberal comedy show "The Colbert Report." Then he replayed some of McCain's greatest gaffes.
[Campaign adviser Mark] Salter bemoans the current environment, in which, he said, “the press creates the expectation that you better not stumble on a word, or tell a joke that Mr. Rogers wouldn’t tell, or you’re going to be in trouble.”
There are any number of Web videos of Mr. McCain to prove the point. They include the moment he playfully called a young man a “jerk” at a town-hall-style meeting in New Hampshire last year after he asked Mr. McCain if his age made him a candidate for Alzheimer’s disease in the White House (Mr. McCain typically uses jerk as a term of affection), or when he suggested to Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” that he brought him a special gift from Iraq -- an improvised explosive device.
Small misstatements become instant YouTube fodder -- as when Mr. McCain vowed to “veto every single beer” that included lawmakers’ pet spending projects (he meant “bill”) or when he said the government should have been able to deliver “bottled hot water” to dehydrated babies in New Orleans. (It is fortunate for Mr. McCain that there was no YouTube in the 1980s when he jokingly referred to the retirement community Leisure World as “Seizure World.”)
The Times has shown consistent interest in John McCain, Republican gaffe machine -- but has yet to mention in its news coverage Barack Obama saying he had visited "57 states" during the campaign (a clip also on YouTube, since that seems to matter to the Times). Nor has the paper mentioned Obama seeing "fallen heroes" in a Memorial Day crowd or thinking that Hitchcock actually filmed the climactic chase scene in "North by Northwest" at Mt. Rushmore, as opposed to a studio set.
JESSE HELMS, R.I.P.
Jesse Helms' "Hard-Edged Conservatism" Opposed to Everything Good
No love for the "right-wing" senator from North Carolina: "Jesse Helms...whose courtly manner and mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday. He was 86."
Posted by: Clay Waters
7/7/2008 10:59:21 AM
On Independence Day, Americans were greeted with the news that Jesse Helms, one of the nation's most influential lawmakers, had died. The Times joined the rest of the media in portraying the former Republican senator from North Carolina through a liberal prism, in a strongly unfavorable light.
Steven Holmes is author of the Helms obituary that appeared on Saturday's front page (The bulk of Helm's obit was penned some time ago, as is customary; Holmes is now an editor for the Washington Post.) The initial online headline, "Battled Against Civil Rights and Foreign Aid," was transformed in Saturday's print edition to the less-hostile "Jesse Helms, Unyielding Beacon of Conservatism, Is Dead at 86."
Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator whose courtly manner and mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday. He was 86.
Mr. Helms’s former chief of staff, Jimmy Broughton, told The Associated Press that the former senator died of natural causes in Raleigh.
In a 52-year political career that ended with his retirement from the Senate in 2002, Mr. Helms became a beacon for the right wing of American politics, a lightning rod for the left, and, often, a mighty pain for Presidents whatever their political leaning.
Ronald Reagan, a friend who could thank Mr. Helms for critical campaign help, once described him as a “thorn in my side.” Mr. Helms was known for taking on anyone, even leaders of his own party, who strayed from his idea of ideological purity.
“I didn’t come to Washington to be a yes man for any President, Democrat or Republican,” he said in an interview in 1989. “I didn’t come to Washington to get along and win any popularity contests.”
Perhaps his most visible accomplishments in the Senate came two decades apart. One was a 1996 measure that tightened trade sanctions against the Marxist government of Fidel Castro in Cuba. The other, a 1973 amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act, prevented American money from going to international family planning organizations that, in his words, “provide or promote” abortion. He also introduced amendments to reduce or eliminate funds for foreign aid, welfare programs and the arts.
David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said recently that Mr. Helms’s contribution to the conservative movement was “incredibly important.”
Even when Helms did what liberals consider the right thing (supporting anti-AIDS measures in Africa), the Times spun it as a Helms' slam against gays:
In campaigns and in the Senate, Mr. Helms stood out in both his words and his tactics.
He fought bitterly against Federal aid for AIDS research and treatment, saying the disease resulted from “unnatural” and “disgusting” homosexual behavior.
“Nothing positive happened to Sodom and Gomorrah,” he said, “and nothing positive is likely to happen to America if our people succumb to the drumbeats of support for the homosexual lifestyle.”
In his last year in the Senate, he decided to support AIDS measures in Africa, where heterosexual transmission of the disease is most common.
Strangely, the Times almost skips Helms' pro-life views, reducing his advocacy for the unborn (one of his chief domestic concerns) to a single mention.
No Helms obit would be complete without a discussion of the bluntly anti-affirmative action ad the campaign ran against a black Senate opponent in 1990:
Trailing in a tough re-election fight in 1990 against a black opponent, Harvey Gantt, the former mayor of Charlotte, Mr. Helms unveiled a nakedly racial campaign ad in which a pair of hands belonging to a white job-seeker crumpled a rejection slip as an announcer explained that the job had been given to an unqualified member of a minority. Mr. Helms went on to victory.
Holmes does eventually reveal another side to Helms:
But as tough as he could be in the political theater, Mr. Helms could exhibit a softer, warmer, even impish side in his personal dealings, even with political adversaries.
In 1963, after 21 years of marriage, Mr. Helms and his wife, Dorothy, adopted a disabled child, Charles, after they read a newspaper article in which the child, who was nine at the time, plaintively said that he wanted a mother and father for Christmas.
The story attracted a predictable but still-disheartening bevy of charming comments from the paper's hard-left liberal readership, the majority of which are gleeful over Helms' death and gloating about what Jesus will have to say to him (the senator's death having worked the miracle of transforming secular leftists into believers in a judgmental God).
No love for the "right-wing" senator from North Carolina: "Jesse Helms...whose courtly manner and mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday. He was 86."
Posted by: Clay Waters
7/7/2008 10:59:21 AM
On Independence Day, Americans were greeted with the news that Jesse Helms, one of the nation's most influential lawmakers, had died. The Times joined the rest of the media in portraying the former Republican senator from North Carolina through a liberal prism, in a strongly unfavorable light.
Steven Holmes is author of the Helms obituary that appeared on Saturday's front page (The bulk of Helm's obit was penned some time ago, as is customary; Holmes is now an editor for the Washington Post.) The initial online headline, "Battled Against Civil Rights and Foreign Aid," was transformed in Saturday's print edition to the less-hostile "Jesse Helms, Unyielding Beacon of Conservatism, Is Dead at 86."
Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator whose courtly manner and mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday. He was 86.
Mr. Helms’s former chief of staff, Jimmy Broughton, told The Associated Press that the former senator died of natural causes in Raleigh.
In a 52-year political career that ended with his retirement from the Senate in 2002, Mr. Helms became a beacon for the right wing of American politics, a lightning rod for the left, and, often, a mighty pain for Presidents whatever their political leaning.
Ronald Reagan, a friend who could thank Mr. Helms for critical campaign help, once described him as a “thorn in my side.” Mr. Helms was known for taking on anyone, even leaders of his own party, who strayed from his idea of ideological purity.
“I didn’t come to Washington to be a yes man for any President, Democrat or Republican,” he said in an interview in 1989. “I didn’t come to Washington to get along and win any popularity contests.”
Perhaps his most visible accomplishments in the Senate came two decades apart. One was a 1996 measure that tightened trade sanctions against the Marxist government of Fidel Castro in Cuba. The other, a 1973 amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act, prevented American money from going to international family planning organizations that, in his words, “provide or promote” abortion. He also introduced amendments to reduce or eliminate funds for foreign aid, welfare programs and the arts.
David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said recently that Mr. Helms’s contribution to the conservative movement was “incredibly important.”
Even when Helms did what liberals consider the right thing (supporting anti-AIDS measures in Africa), the Times spun it as a Helms' slam against gays:
In campaigns and in the Senate, Mr. Helms stood out in both his words and his tactics.
He fought bitterly against Federal aid for AIDS research and treatment, saying the disease resulted from “unnatural” and “disgusting” homosexual behavior.
“Nothing positive happened to Sodom and Gomorrah,” he said, “and nothing positive is likely to happen to America if our people succumb to the drumbeats of support for the homosexual lifestyle.”
In his last year in the Senate, he decided to support AIDS measures in Africa, where heterosexual transmission of the disease is most common.
Strangely, the Times almost skips Helms' pro-life views, reducing his advocacy for the unborn (one of his chief domestic concerns) to a single mention.
No Helms obit would be complete without a discussion of the bluntly anti-affirmative action ad the campaign ran against a black Senate opponent in 1990:
Trailing in a tough re-election fight in 1990 against a black opponent, Harvey Gantt, the former mayor of Charlotte, Mr. Helms unveiled a nakedly racial campaign ad in which a pair of hands belonging to a white job-seeker crumpled a rejection slip as an announcer explained that the job had been given to an unqualified member of a minority. Mr. Helms went on to victory.
Holmes does eventually reveal another side to Helms:
But as tough as he could be in the political theater, Mr. Helms could exhibit a softer, warmer, even impish side in his personal dealings, even with political adversaries.
In 1963, after 21 years of marriage, Mr. Helms and his wife, Dorothy, adopted a disabled child, Charles, after they read a newspaper article in which the child, who was nine at the time, plaintively said that he wanted a mother and father for Christmas.
The story attracted a predictable but still-disheartening bevy of charming comments from the paper's hard-left liberal readership, the majority of which are gleeful over Helms' death and gloating about what Jesus will have to say to him (the senator's death having worked the miracle of transforming secular leftists into believers in a judgmental God).
Sunday, July 6, 2008
LIBERALS AND ONE WORLDERS STRIKE AGAIN
Washington Post Tells the Truth about ‘Safe Sex’ -- Then Ignores It
A guest columnist exposes PC ideologues jeopardizing an effective morality-based AIDS prevention program in Uganda, while a house editorial calls for more of the failed condom approach here in the U.S.
By Robert Knight
Culture and Media Institute
July 2, 2008
“We understand that casual sex is dear to you, but staying alive is dear to us.”
The Washington Post provided a rare service on Monday, shining light on an unfolding scandal of deadly political correctness in Uganda.
The quote above is from “Let My People Go, AIDS Profiteers,” an op-ed column in the Post by the Rev. Sam L. Ruteikara, co-chair of Uganda’s National AIDS-Prevention Committee.
Ruteikara details how Uganda’s successful ABC campaign (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condoms as a last resort) recorded huge advances in reducing infections from 1991 through 2002, but was subverted by an AIDS establishment that dislikes Uganda’s emphasis on marriage and faithfulness.
HIV rates plunged from 21 percent in 1991 to 6 percent in 2002 in Uganda during the stricken nation’s campaign to restore traditional morality. Meanwhile, as Western nations dropped more than 2 billion condoms on Africa, other nations suffered an unabated epidemic. Uganda stuck out as the grand exception.
While the media largely ignored this singular success story, AIDS bureaucrats, furious at this living rebuke to their condom-based campaigns, worked to bring Uganda into the “safe-sex” fold.
In March 2007, Washington Post writer Craig Timberg in “Uganda’s Early Gains Against HIV Eroding” described how the initial, “fear”-based approach, which yielded impressive results in the early ’90s, gave way to the more typical condom-based approach in Uganda. He quotes Sam Okware, “a top Ugandan health official who designed early, frightening anti-AIDS campaigns. ‘It has adapted too much to international guidelines instead of sticking to our own methods, which were very controversial at first but which worked.’”
In his June 30 column, Ruteikara relates, “I have seen the process sabotaged. Repeatedly, our 25-member prevention committee put faithfulness and abstinence into the National Strategic Plan that guides how PEPFAR [President’s Emergency Plan for HIV-AIDS Relief] money for our country will be spent. Repeatedly, foreign advisers erased our recommendations. When the document draft was published, fidelity and abstinence were missing.”
It gets worse: “And somehow, a suspicious statistic attacking marriage appeared. The plan states that the HIV infection rate among married couples is 42 percent, twice as high as the rate among prostitutes. …in fact, the 2004-05 Ugandan HIV/AIDS Sero-Behaviorial Survey found that HIV prevalence among married couples is only 6.3 percent…. As fidelity and abstinence have been subverted, Uganda’s HIV rates have begun to tick back up.”
Now, shouldn’t this be a major news story? Billions of dollars, not to mention millions of lives, are at stake, and someone is committing outright fraud?
But you’ll search in vain for a media story about this. In fact, directly opposite the column, over on the editorial page, a Post editorial peddles the same old “safe-sex” medicine to young, homosexual men in America.
In “A Persistent Scourge: HIV-AIDS continues to ensnare young gay men,” the Post sounds the alarm with recent CDC stats showing a 12 percent rise in HIV infections among 13-to-24-year-old males, and between 2001 and 2006, a 22 percent increase among black men who have sex with men. The Post says these grim stats are “a reminder that the work of keeping people HIV-negative and getting those who are HIV-positive into treatment is never done.”
The editorial then lists “a variety of efforts” to stem the tide: “condom giveaways, in-clinic counseling and needle exchange programs,” to making “voluntary testing in emergency rooms and storefront clinics.”
The editorial concludes by advocating “continuous education. An informed populace is the best defense against this ferocious epidemic.”
Okay. Then why continue to promote failed approaches from the “safe-sex” lobby, whose hostility to teaching traditional sexual morality and whose dependence on condoms has doomed countless souls to a future full of handfuls of daily, anti-HIV drugs and premature death? The “safe-sex” approach has also doomed millions of women to a lifetime with incurable STDs such as human papillomavirus, against which condoms provide virtually no protection.
And what about that spike in HIV among young men who have homosexual sex? Could it have something to do with the fact that the media, pop culture and educational establishments are openly promoting homosexuality and that more kids are experimenting—with deadly consequences? The stat for “young gay men” begins with 13-year-olds. Think about that for a moment. But we are not supposed to be concerned about the aggressive gay movement that has persuaded the larger media culture to embrace homosexuality and to condemn anyone alarmed by the trend as “hateful” or “bigoted.”
If an informed populace is the best defense, then why aren’t the media, including the Washington Post, telling kids the truth about the huge number of consequences from homosexual behavior and promiscuous sex? Why is gay sex, in the absence of conclusive genetic science, being presented as a biological imperative, and a benign one at that?
Rev. Ruteikara has it right: the people promoting the “safe-sex” agenda in the face of massive evidence that it doesn’t work must be more interested in preserving casual sex than in saving lives.
How else to explain it?
Robert Knight is director of the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the Media Research Center.
A guest columnist exposes PC ideologues jeopardizing an effective morality-based AIDS prevention program in Uganda, while a house editorial calls for more of the failed condom approach here in the U.S.
By Robert Knight
Culture and Media Institute
July 2, 2008
“We understand that casual sex is dear to you, but staying alive is dear to us.”
The Washington Post provided a rare service on Monday, shining light on an unfolding scandal of deadly political correctness in Uganda.
The quote above is from “Let My People Go, AIDS Profiteers,” an op-ed column in the Post by the Rev. Sam L. Ruteikara, co-chair of Uganda’s National AIDS-Prevention Committee.
Ruteikara details how Uganda’s successful ABC campaign (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condoms as a last resort) recorded huge advances in reducing infections from 1991 through 2002, but was subverted by an AIDS establishment that dislikes Uganda’s emphasis on marriage and faithfulness.
HIV rates plunged from 21 percent in 1991 to 6 percent in 2002 in Uganda during the stricken nation’s campaign to restore traditional morality. Meanwhile, as Western nations dropped more than 2 billion condoms on Africa, other nations suffered an unabated epidemic. Uganda stuck out as the grand exception.
While the media largely ignored this singular success story, AIDS bureaucrats, furious at this living rebuke to their condom-based campaigns, worked to bring Uganda into the “safe-sex” fold.
In March 2007, Washington Post writer Craig Timberg in “Uganda’s Early Gains Against HIV Eroding” described how the initial, “fear”-based approach, which yielded impressive results in the early ’90s, gave way to the more typical condom-based approach in Uganda. He quotes Sam Okware, “a top Ugandan health official who designed early, frightening anti-AIDS campaigns. ‘It has adapted too much to international guidelines instead of sticking to our own methods, which were very controversial at first but which worked.’”
In his June 30 column, Ruteikara relates, “I have seen the process sabotaged. Repeatedly, our 25-member prevention committee put faithfulness and abstinence into the National Strategic Plan that guides how PEPFAR [President’s Emergency Plan for HIV-AIDS Relief] money for our country will be spent. Repeatedly, foreign advisers erased our recommendations. When the document draft was published, fidelity and abstinence were missing.”
It gets worse: “And somehow, a suspicious statistic attacking marriage appeared. The plan states that the HIV infection rate among married couples is 42 percent, twice as high as the rate among prostitutes. …in fact, the 2004-05 Ugandan HIV/AIDS Sero-Behaviorial Survey found that HIV prevalence among married couples is only 6.3 percent…. As fidelity and abstinence have been subverted, Uganda’s HIV rates have begun to tick back up.”
Now, shouldn’t this be a major news story? Billions of dollars, not to mention millions of lives, are at stake, and someone is committing outright fraud?
But you’ll search in vain for a media story about this. In fact, directly opposite the column, over on the editorial page, a Post editorial peddles the same old “safe-sex” medicine to young, homosexual men in America.
In “A Persistent Scourge: HIV-AIDS continues to ensnare young gay men,” the Post sounds the alarm with recent CDC stats showing a 12 percent rise in HIV infections among 13-to-24-year-old males, and between 2001 and 2006, a 22 percent increase among black men who have sex with men. The Post says these grim stats are “a reminder that the work of keeping people HIV-negative and getting those who are HIV-positive into treatment is never done.”
The editorial then lists “a variety of efforts” to stem the tide: “condom giveaways, in-clinic counseling and needle exchange programs,” to making “voluntary testing in emergency rooms and storefront clinics.”
The editorial concludes by advocating “continuous education. An informed populace is the best defense against this ferocious epidemic.”
Okay. Then why continue to promote failed approaches from the “safe-sex” lobby, whose hostility to teaching traditional sexual morality and whose dependence on condoms has doomed countless souls to a future full of handfuls of daily, anti-HIV drugs and premature death? The “safe-sex” approach has also doomed millions of women to a lifetime with incurable STDs such as human papillomavirus, against which condoms provide virtually no protection.
And what about that spike in HIV among young men who have homosexual sex? Could it have something to do with the fact that the media, pop culture and educational establishments are openly promoting homosexuality and that more kids are experimenting—with deadly consequences? The stat for “young gay men” begins with 13-year-olds. Think about that for a moment. But we are not supposed to be concerned about the aggressive gay movement that has persuaded the larger media culture to embrace homosexuality and to condemn anyone alarmed by the trend as “hateful” or “bigoted.”
If an informed populace is the best defense, then why aren’t the media, including the Washington Post, telling kids the truth about the huge number of consequences from homosexual behavior and promiscuous sex? Why is gay sex, in the absence of conclusive genetic science, being presented as a biological imperative, and a benign one at that?
Rev. Ruteikara has it right: the people promoting the “safe-sex” agenda in the face of massive evidence that it doesn’t work must be more interested in preserving casual sex than in saving lives.
How else to explain it?
Robert Knight is director of the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the Media Research Center.
Labels:
AIDS,
GAY SEX,
MORALITY vs NON-MORALITY,
REV. RUTEIKARA,
SAFE SEX,
UGANDA,
WASHINGTON POST
Friday, July 4, 2008
MIXED BAG
Cindy on Newsweek cover -- Obama’s presidential seal, plus his 15-point lead over McCain … Play book weddings
By: MIKE ALLEN on June 21, 2008 @ 7:42 AM
Good Saturday morning. Cindy McCain, in a lovely pink suit, is on the cover of the Newsweek issue that closes today. “Behind That Smile: Understanding Cindy McCain,” by Holly Bailey tells about the time the McCain's adopted daughter, Bridget, Googles herself, learns about the South Carolina smears from 2000, and comes to Cindy to ask: "Why does President Bush hate me?"
Editor Jon Meacham quotes Holly Bailey, who covers McCain for the magazine, as saying: “People always talk about how rich she is or how plastic she seems. But watching her interact with people, especially her kids, it was always clear there was more to her than this caricature that has really come to define her over the years.”
Meacham writes: “Holly finished up her reporting in Vietnam last week. In a hospital, a little girl and her family ran up to Mrs. McCain and hugged her. Mrs. McCain told Holly later that she had taken the girl and her mother in a few years ago, letting them live with her in Arizona for several months while the girl’s cleft palate was fixed. (She had learned of the girl’s plight from a waiter at her favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Phoenix.)”’
FINALLY -- “Obama backs FISA compromise,” Politico’s Ben Smith: “Breaking with the Democratic left and many civil libertarians, while forestalling security-focused attacks from the right, Obama says he supports the compromise in the House on wiretapping legislation.” Passed 293-129.
Politico’s John Bresnahan: “The transformation of Scott McClellan is now officially complete. The former White House press secretary — once the bane of the left for his steadfast defense of President Bush's administration — was embraced by Democrats and vilified by Republicans on Friday as he testified, voluntarily, before the House Judiciary Committee. ‘I am very proud of you as an American,’ gushed Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), a Bush basher from way back.”
DRIVING THE CONVERSATION – The N.Y. Times courageously gives a 4-col. lead headline (“Big Gains for Iraq Security, but Questions Linger”) to its deeply reported version of the turnaround story done earlier by ABC’s Jonathan Karl and The AP:
“Violence in all of Iraq is the lowest since March 2004. The two largest cities, Baghdad and Basra, are calmer than they have been for years. … There is a sense that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government has more political traction than any of its predecessors. … The most obvious but often overlooked reason for the recent military success has been an increase in the number of trained Iraqi troops.”
I’VE GOT YOUR BOUNCE RIGHT HERE – Newsweek.com: “Barack finally has his bounce. … A new NEWSWEEK Poll shows that he has a substantial double-digit lead, 51 percent to 36 percent, over McCain among registered voters nationwide. … The NEWSWEEK survey of 1,010 adults nationwide on June 18 and 19, 2008, has a margin of error of 4 points.”
IT’S THE FIRST HEAD-TO-HEAD POLL TO REFLECT THE COUNTRY’S TACTILE DISCONTENT.
Spoilsport Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review points out that a Gallup poll released in May of 1988 had presumptive Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis enjoying a 54 to 38 percent lead over George H.W. Bush.
Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown, “Obama campaign adds women to top ranks”: “After taking primary season criticism over the number of women in its upper ranks, the campaign of Barack Obama has significantly ramped up its hiring of women in senior staff positions. … Anita Dunn, a consultant who joined the Obama campaign in February as a senior strategist, acknowledged a problem but said it was one of perception, not reality. … In addition to Dunn, former television journalist Linda Douglass recently became a senior adviser and traveling press secretary …
“In the last week alone, three more women came on board: former Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, who will serve as chief of staff to the vice presidential nominee; Stephanie Cutter, the communications director for Democrat John F. Kerry's 2004 campaign, who will serve as a senior campaign adviser and top aide to Michelle Obama; and Edwards' Iowa state director, Jen O'Malley Dillon, who will be battleground states director. The campaign has also hired, but not yet announced, a woman to serve as director of rapid response, Dunn said. Politico reported earlier this month that it would be Christina Reynolds, Edwards' former research director.”
OBAMA’S NEW LOGO, per AP’s Nedra Pickler: “A new seal debuted on Obama's podium Friday as he held a round-table discussion with Democratic governors. [It sports] iconography used in the U.S. presidential seal -- the blue background, the eagle clutching arrows on left and olive branch on right -- but with symbolic differences. Instead of the Latin ‘E pluribus unum’ (Out of many, one), Obama's says ‘Vero possumus,’ rough Latin for ‘Yes, we can.’ Instead of ‘Seal of the President of the United States,’ Obama's Web site address is listed. And instead of a shield, Obama's eagle wears his ‘O’ campaign logo with a rising sun representing hope ahead.”
Politico’s Ben Smith says it’s for “events meant to feel presidential.”
ABC’s Jake Tapper is waiting for “a remix of ‘Hail to the Chief.’ ”
National Review’s Greg Pollowitz: “Audacity defined: Changing the seal of the United States of America and inserting the ‘O’ logo for the American flag.”
Rich Lowry, channeling Jonathan Martin: “Obama's own presidential seal. With its own Latin slogan. You can't make this stuff up.”
BETSY FISCHER, executive producer of “Meet the Press,” writes in an e-mail to viewers: “Friday morning of last week, Tim Russert was hard at work preparing for Sunday's upcoming interview with Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Biden. … This Sunday, both Senators Graham and Biden have graciously agreed to appear here to have that Decision 2008 debate. It will be the debate that Tim was so looking forward to and it is the debate that I think he would want us to proceed with. We are fortunate that NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams will be here to moderate. We will also have a political roundtable with Andrea Mitchell of NBC News and John Harwood of CNBC and the New York Times. And to close the show, in memory of Tim, we will have a special look back at this week's services and tributes to our leader and friend.” (Hat tip: Politico’s Michael Calderone)
THE MAP – The Cincinnati Enquirer front-pages “The Ground Warriors” about the skeletal get-out-the-vote forces already staging in Ohio: “Ohio's March 4 presidential primary turned out to be a significant event in the contest between Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, which meant that the Obama campaign already has an army of tens of thousands of volunteers ready and waiting for their fall campaign assignments. … The McCain campaign, though, is catching up. It opened its regional headquarters Thursday in Columbus and, in the Cincinnati area, will soon begin working out of space in Rep. Steve Chabot's re-election campaign office in Cheviot and in storefront space the Hamilton County Republican Party has on Seventh Street downtown.”
NOTHING SUBTLE ABOUT DEBORAH SOLOMON’S WINKING AND NUDGING in her interview with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who won’t be McCain’s V.P. pick but gets written about anyway: “You were married nearly 30 years ago, but the marriage lasted less than a year. … You can’t find one woman in all of Florida?”
CRIST: “Maybe I have. Stay tuned.”
BARRON’S SAYS OIL MAY BE PEAKING – Senior Editor Andrew Bary: “It's perilous to call the top in a booming market, but the price of oil may be peaking in the current range of $130 to $140 a barrel. Oil's sharp move up -- prices have doubled in the past year -- caught the world by surprise … In the next decade, oil indeed may hit $200 a barrel. But prices could fall to $100 a barrel by the end of this year if Saudi Arabia makes good on its pledge to increase production; global demand eases; the Federal Reserve begins lifting short-term interest rates; the dollar rallies, and investors stop pouring money into the oil market.”
N.Y. Post goes big with Mayor Bloomberg as “GAS BAG”: “Let the little people pay higher gas taxes. That was the harsh message for beleaguered motorists delivered yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg. With drivers around the country fuming about rising gas prices, Bloomberg dropped a bombshell into their tanks yesterday by calling for increased fuel taxes to cut consumption.”
NATION OF SISSIES? WORKING MAN’S TRUCK PUT ON ICE – Dallas Morning News, top of A1, “Ford's F-150 cutback hits heart of Texas”: “Friday, Ford Motor Co. put the brakes on the new F-150, delaying its much-anticipated launch until late fall. … The trucks symbolize the ‘the working man,’ said Brad Hawkins, general sales manager at Randall Reed's Prestige Ford in Garland. ‘These work horses are what a guy uses for his crops. He throws sheet rock in the back. You gotta have them.’ Michigan-based Ford blamed dwindling sales and higher gas prices for its cutback announcement, a move that not only hurts the automaker financially but also pains a state known as the truck capital of the world.”
NEXT ADMINISTRATION TO DECIDE BETWEEN NORTHROP and BOEING – Wall Street Journal A3 – “The Air Force is virtually certain to reopen its bidding on a mammoth tanker contract in the wake of a scathing government audit, which means that the service will be unlikely to meet a 2013 deadline for fielding the new planes, according to the Air Force's recently ousted civilian chief. Departing Air Force Secretary … said the Air Force would issue a new request for proposals from the two companies … [T]hese sweeping changes could take well over a year to implement, which means that the official who takes the reins at the Pentagon after the November elections will be charged with making the final decisions in a process that has dragged on for more than seven years.”
LOOKAHEAD, from AP's Matthew Lee: “Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to Asia next week amid signs of an imminent breakthrough in efforts to get North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons and bring a formal end to the Korean War.”
MAY MONEY FIGURES OUT LAST NIGHT – L.A. Times’ Dan Morain: “For the first time in the presidential campaign, John McCain matched Barack Obama's monthly fundraising haul, as each presumptive nominee pulled in more than $21 million in May, campaign reports filed Friday show. … Political scientist Anthony Corrado, an expert in presidential campaign financing at Colby College in Maine, said he believed that May would be Obama's worst month of the campaign. Donations have probably flooded to the Illinois senator since he locked up the nomination when the Democratic primaries ended June 3, Corrado said.” He predicts “A MAJOR SURGE” in June and “expects that Obama will outspend his Republican foe and the GOP by as much as 2 to 1.”
Politico’s Jeanne CUMMINGS: “The surprising cash parity between McCain and Obama means the candidates begin the general more evenly matched than many experts expected, although things could change quickly given Obama’s ability to raise money quickly through small online contributions. According to Obama’s campaign, the drop in donations was caused in part by a shift in focus from bringing in big money to honing in on the delegates needed to clinch his party’s nomination. At the same time, he was forced to burn through his cash reserve in the final round of primaries, which were hotly contested by a significantly under-funded Hillary Clinton.”
AP’s $$$ CHARTS ARE PASTED AT THE BOTTOM.
THE BIG IDEA – OBAMA-CLINTON CAMPS STILL FROSTY – ABC’s Jake Tapper: “[W]hile the public face of the Obama-Clinton rapprochement is all smiles -- they will campaign together [next Friday] and Clinton will attend an Obama fundraiser [Thursday] at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC -- behind the scenes there remains much tension, sources involved from both camps tell ABC News. It didn’t go unnoticed in Hillaryland, for instance, that the first fundraising solicitation Obama sent out was not for Clinton but instead one to benefit the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
“To many Clinton supporters, Obama could easily send an email to his 1.4 million grassroots supporters asking them to help unify the part to retire Clinton's debt. … To Obama supporters, reaching out to Obama's email list would cheapen the brand of his grassroots appeal, and would likely offend some contributors who view Clinton -- and the campaign she waged against Obama -- rather unfavorably. … In short, though you will see smiles for the cameras next week, do not think smiles equal happiness.”
AP’s Jim Kuhnhenn: “Asked on Friday whether Obama's finance team had discussed ways to ease Clinton's debt when it met Thursday night in Chicago, Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said ‘those meetings have focused more on what these two can do together to bring the party together and move it forward than it has on these logistical details.’ ”
***TIME’s Mark “The Page” Halperin on why Obama opted out of public financing: “Obama will now be able to, say, spend $10 million on Texas television ads, giving McCain some tough choices to make. … No candidate has ever had as big a spending advantage as Obama will have for the final two months of the campaign.”
The NYT’s Michael Luo uses a FLOYD BROWN front-pager to reprise Jonathan Martin’s finding that Republican 527s are staying on the sidelines: “[I]f Mr. Brown’s struggles are any indication — he has so far failed to raise much money — it is not clear that Republicans will be able to repeat their successes in 2004, when independent groups like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had a significant role in undermining Senator John Kerry’s campaign.”
WashPost A1, top of page, “Big Promises Bump Into Budget Realities: New President Won't Have an Easy Time Paying for New Initiatives, Fiscal Experts Say.”
.
“YOU” TRIUMPH: Jon Friedman, media columnist for MarketWatch.com, writes that he has “a confession to make”: “Time magazine was spot-on, dead-bang correct when it named ‘You’ as its Person of the Year for 2006. I knocked the inspired choice, and I was way off base. … Time magazine was clearly ahead of its time. … [T]hese 21st-century user-driven innovations - Facebook, Friendster, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn, Yelp (oh, yes) and others - are taking over the way people communicate with one another.”
Politico’s JAMES “SLASH” KOTECKI OPENS A BLOG: James, for once not dressed as Mr. Rogers, exults: “My title of ‘video blogger’ now finally makes sense!” To our befuddlement, it’s not called “Emergency Cheese,” but “James Kotecki,” which no doubt added a fortune to our NameLab tab. James opens what he likes to call “a new blogging frontier” right here, where you can see James with pipe and robe) in a “special blog intro video I made just for you (plural).”
MORE OBAMA CAMPAIGN:
--David S. BRODER’s Sunday column says Obama could be hurt by turning down McCain’s proposal for JOINT TOWN HALLS, which The Dean says “would be a real service to the public and that suspending the dollar-chase for the duration of the campaign, as McCain but not Obama will do, would be a major step toward establishing the credibility of the election process. By refusing to join McCain in these initiatives in order to protect his own interests, Obama raises an important question: Has he built sufficient trust so that his motives will be accepted by the voters who are only now starting to figure out what makes him tick?”
--Chicago Sun-Times Political Reporter Abdon Pallasch: “Noticeably absent from [Friday] morning’s panel discussion was the Democratic governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, who attended the private dinner of Democratic governors Thursday night but then left to tour flood damage in Downstate Alton during this morning’s public meeting. Did the campaign not want Obama photographed with the governor, referred to as ‘Public Official A’ in court papers that are part of an ongoing federal investigation of Blagojevich’s administration? A campaign spokeswoman said all 28 Democratic governors were invited. Blagojevich had already scheduled the Downstate visit, said his spokesman Lucio Guerrero.”
PRODUCERS/NATIONAL EDITORS – WashPost B2, “Class Action Filed Over Checkpoints”: “A civil rights group filed a federal lawsuit yesterday to halt the D.C. police department's new checkpoint initiative, arguing that it is unconstitutional to screen motorists and prevent some from entering certain neighborhoods. The Partnership for Civil Justice filed the suit on behalf of four District residents who alleged that the checkpoints, set up after a stretch of deadly violence in Northeast Washington, led to ‘widespread civil rights violations.’ The suit seeks to bar police from using the program anywhere in the city.”
MEDIAWATCH – AP, “Top European TV official says pre-game coverage problems could spill over to Beijing Olympics”: “Seven weeks before the Olympics open, television broadcasters are involved in a fight with Chinese organizers over coverage away from the sports venues. This involves moving satellite trucks around the city, deploying equipment and clear rules about where TV cameras will be able to film. … Shaken by protests on international legs of the Olympic torch relay following the outbreak of deadly rioting in Tibet in March, China's government seems to be backtracking on promises to let reporters work as they have at previous Olympics. … In recent months, the government has tightened visa rules, particularly targeting foreign students. The government fears many would side with activist groups if protests break out.”
SPORTS BLINK -- John Clayton of ESPN.com gives a rave to Brett Favre’s successor at QB, Aaron Rodgers, who “has a cannon”: “According to some teammates, Aaron Rodgers' throws have more velocity than Brett Favre's. … The football explodes off his hand on each throw in practice. … right arm sets up naturally, and the ball comes out unnaturally fast.”
Wall Street Journal A1: “Seeking to end an embarrassing dispute that kept live pro football games out of many homes, the National Football League's NFL Network is in talks to form a partnership with Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN cable sports network, according to people familiar with the situation. An agreement would represent a big shift in strategy for the NFL: abandoning its effort to force cable operators into carrying its own network and thus paying it lucrative monthly fees. It would also send a message to other professional sports, which have enjoyed rising television fees for years, that even the biggest and most powerful league in the U.S. cannot launch a new channel without the consent of giant cable operators such as Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc.
“For fans, a deal could close a bitter standoff between the league and four of the nation's largest cable operators that has left live games on Thursday and Saturday nights unavailable to many cable subscribers. One scenario that has been discussed would involve combining the NFL Network with the ESPN Classic network, which has relatively low ratings but wider distribution. ESPN would broadcast eight more games per season on ESPN Classic, and then attempt to wring higher subscription fees than the 16 or 17 cents it currently receives for the channel, according to Derek Baine, a senior analyst for SNL Kagan. Under such a scenario, ESPN and the NFL could form a joint venture and share revenue, or ESPN could take an equity stake in the channel.”
THE SHOWS, from AP:
ABC's "This Week" — Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.; American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Red Cavaney; Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
CBS' "Face the Nation" — Carly Fiorina, adviser to John McCain's campaign; Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.
NBC's "Meet the Press" — Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Biden, D-Del.
CNN's "Late Edition" — Govs. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., and Richardson; Reps. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., and Eric Cantor, R-Va.; former Labor Secretary Robert Reich; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain adviser; Ahmed Rashid, author of a new book on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.
"Fox News Sunday" — Former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; former Gov. Tom Ridge, R-Pa.; Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers.
AP’s “CAMPAIGN MONEY” CHARTS:
BARACK OBAMA
Total receipts to date: $295.52 million, including $10.72 million for general election.
Total contributions to date: $287.5 million.
Total spending: $252.4 million.
May contributions: $21.9 million, including $687,000 for general election.
May spending: $26.8 million.
May transfers or loans: none.
Cash on hand: $43 million, including $10 million for general election.
Debt: $304,000.
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
Total receipts to date: $238 million, including $23.3 million for the general election and $12.2 million loan.
Total contributions to date: $209.4 million.
Total spending: $207.6 million,
May contributions: $12.6 million, including $395,000 for the general election.
May spending: $19 million.
May transfers or loans: $2.175 million personal loan from candidate.
Cash on hand: $26.7 million, including $23.3 million for the general election that can't be used.
Debt: $22.5 million, including $12.2 million personal loan.
JOHN MCCAIN
Total receipts to date: $121.9 million.
Total contributions to date: $110 million.
Total spending: $90.3 million.
May contributions: $16.6 million.
May spending: $11.7 million.
May transfers or loans: $4.3 million — money raised through joint victory fund with Republican National Committee.
Cash on hand: $31.6 million.
Debt: $1.3 million.
By: MIKE ALLEN on June 21, 2008 @ 7:42 AM
Good Saturday morning. Cindy McCain, in a lovely pink suit, is on the cover of the Newsweek issue that closes today. “Behind That Smile: Understanding Cindy McCain,” by Holly Bailey tells about the time the McCain's adopted daughter, Bridget, Googles herself, learns about the South Carolina smears from 2000, and comes to Cindy to ask: "Why does President Bush hate me?"
Editor Jon Meacham quotes Holly Bailey, who covers McCain for the magazine, as saying: “People always talk about how rich she is or how plastic she seems. But watching her interact with people, especially her kids, it was always clear there was more to her than this caricature that has really come to define her over the years.”
Meacham writes: “Holly finished up her reporting in Vietnam last week. In a hospital, a little girl and her family ran up to Mrs. McCain and hugged her. Mrs. McCain told Holly later that she had taken the girl and her mother in a few years ago, letting them live with her in Arizona for several months while the girl’s cleft palate was fixed. (She had learned of the girl’s plight from a waiter at her favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Phoenix.)”’
FINALLY -- “Obama backs FISA compromise,” Politico’s Ben Smith: “Breaking with the Democratic left and many civil libertarians, while forestalling security-focused attacks from the right, Obama says he supports the compromise in the House on wiretapping legislation.” Passed 293-129.
Politico’s John Bresnahan: “The transformation of Scott McClellan is now officially complete. The former White House press secretary — once the bane of the left for his steadfast defense of President Bush's administration — was embraced by Democrats and vilified by Republicans on Friday as he testified, voluntarily, before the House Judiciary Committee. ‘I am very proud of you as an American,’ gushed Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), a Bush basher from way back.”
DRIVING THE CONVERSATION – The N.Y. Times courageously gives a 4-col. lead headline (“Big Gains for Iraq Security, but Questions Linger”) to its deeply reported version of the turnaround story done earlier by ABC’s Jonathan Karl and The AP:
“Violence in all of Iraq is the lowest since March 2004. The two largest cities, Baghdad and Basra, are calmer than they have been for years. … There is a sense that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government has more political traction than any of its predecessors. … The most obvious but often overlooked reason for the recent military success has been an increase in the number of trained Iraqi troops.”
I’VE GOT YOUR BOUNCE RIGHT HERE – Newsweek.com: “Barack finally has his bounce. … A new NEWSWEEK Poll shows that he has a substantial double-digit lead, 51 percent to 36 percent, over McCain among registered voters nationwide. … The NEWSWEEK survey of 1,010 adults nationwide on June 18 and 19, 2008, has a margin of error of 4 points.”
IT’S THE FIRST HEAD-TO-HEAD POLL TO REFLECT THE COUNTRY’S TACTILE DISCONTENT.
Spoilsport Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review points out that a Gallup poll released in May of 1988 had presumptive Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis enjoying a 54 to 38 percent lead over George H.W. Bush.
Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown, “Obama campaign adds women to top ranks”: “After taking primary season criticism over the number of women in its upper ranks, the campaign of Barack Obama has significantly ramped up its hiring of women in senior staff positions. … Anita Dunn, a consultant who joined the Obama campaign in February as a senior strategist, acknowledged a problem but said it was one of perception, not reality. … In addition to Dunn, former television journalist Linda Douglass recently became a senior adviser and traveling press secretary …
“In the last week alone, three more women came on board: former Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, who will serve as chief of staff to the vice presidential nominee; Stephanie Cutter, the communications director for Democrat John F. Kerry's 2004 campaign, who will serve as a senior campaign adviser and top aide to Michelle Obama; and Edwards' Iowa state director, Jen O'Malley Dillon, who will be battleground states director. The campaign has also hired, but not yet announced, a woman to serve as director of rapid response, Dunn said. Politico reported earlier this month that it would be Christina Reynolds, Edwards' former research director.”
OBAMA’S NEW LOGO, per AP’s Nedra Pickler: “A new seal debuted on Obama's podium Friday as he held a round-table discussion with Democratic governors. [It sports] iconography used in the U.S. presidential seal -- the blue background, the eagle clutching arrows on left and olive branch on right -- but with symbolic differences. Instead of the Latin ‘E pluribus unum’ (Out of many, one), Obama's says ‘Vero possumus,’ rough Latin for ‘Yes, we can.’ Instead of ‘Seal of the President of the United States,’ Obama's Web site address is listed. And instead of a shield, Obama's eagle wears his ‘O’ campaign logo with a rising sun representing hope ahead.”
Politico’s Ben Smith says it’s for “events meant to feel presidential.”
ABC’s Jake Tapper is waiting for “a remix of ‘Hail to the Chief.’ ”
National Review’s Greg Pollowitz: “Audacity defined: Changing the seal of the United States of America and inserting the ‘O’ logo for the American flag.”
Rich Lowry, channeling Jonathan Martin: “Obama's own presidential seal. With its own Latin slogan. You can't make this stuff up.”
BETSY FISCHER, executive producer of “Meet the Press,” writes in an e-mail to viewers: “Friday morning of last week, Tim Russert was hard at work preparing for Sunday's upcoming interview with Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Biden. … This Sunday, both Senators Graham and Biden have graciously agreed to appear here to have that Decision 2008 debate. It will be the debate that Tim was so looking forward to and it is the debate that I think he would want us to proceed with. We are fortunate that NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams will be here to moderate. We will also have a political roundtable with Andrea Mitchell of NBC News and John Harwood of CNBC and the New York Times. And to close the show, in memory of Tim, we will have a special look back at this week's services and tributes to our leader and friend.” (Hat tip: Politico’s Michael Calderone)
THE MAP – The Cincinnati Enquirer front-pages “The Ground Warriors” about the skeletal get-out-the-vote forces already staging in Ohio: “Ohio's March 4 presidential primary turned out to be a significant event in the contest between Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, which meant that the Obama campaign already has an army of tens of thousands of volunteers ready and waiting for their fall campaign assignments. … The McCain campaign, though, is catching up. It opened its regional headquarters Thursday in Columbus and, in the Cincinnati area, will soon begin working out of space in Rep. Steve Chabot's re-election campaign office in Cheviot and in storefront space the Hamilton County Republican Party has on Seventh Street downtown.”
NOTHING SUBTLE ABOUT DEBORAH SOLOMON’S WINKING AND NUDGING in her interview with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who won’t be McCain’s V.P. pick but gets written about anyway: “You were married nearly 30 years ago, but the marriage lasted less than a year. … You can’t find one woman in all of Florida?”
CRIST: “Maybe I have. Stay tuned.”
BARRON’S SAYS OIL MAY BE PEAKING – Senior Editor Andrew Bary: “It's perilous to call the top in a booming market, but the price of oil may be peaking in the current range of $130 to $140 a barrel. Oil's sharp move up -- prices have doubled in the past year -- caught the world by surprise … In the next decade, oil indeed may hit $200 a barrel. But prices could fall to $100 a barrel by the end of this year if Saudi Arabia makes good on its pledge to increase production; global demand eases; the Federal Reserve begins lifting short-term interest rates; the dollar rallies, and investors stop pouring money into the oil market.”
N.Y. Post goes big with Mayor Bloomberg as “GAS BAG”: “Let the little people pay higher gas taxes. That was the harsh message for beleaguered motorists delivered yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg. With drivers around the country fuming about rising gas prices, Bloomberg dropped a bombshell into their tanks yesterday by calling for increased fuel taxes to cut consumption.”
NATION OF SISSIES? WORKING MAN’S TRUCK PUT ON ICE – Dallas Morning News, top of A1, “Ford's F-150 cutback hits heart of Texas”: “Friday, Ford Motor Co. put the brakes on the new F-150, delaying its much-anticipated launch until late fall. … The trucks symbolize the ‘the working man,’ said Brad Hawkins, general sales manager at Randall Reed's Prestige Ford in Garland. ‘These work horses are what a guy uses for his crops. He throws sheet rock in the back. You gotta have them.’ Michigan-based Ford blamed dwindling sales and higher gas prices for its cutback announcement, a move that not only hurts the automaker financially but also pains a state known as the truck capital of the world.”
NEXT ADMINISTRATION TO DECIDE BETWEEN NORTHROP and BOEING – Wall Street Journal A3 – “The Air Force is virtually certain to reopen its bidding on a mammoth tanker contract in the wake of a scathing government audit, which means that the service will be unlikely to meet a 2013 deadline for fielding the new planes, according to the Air Force's recently ousted civilian chief. Departing Air Force Secretary … said the Air Force would issue a new request for proposals from the two companies … [T]hese sweeping changes could take well over a year to implement, which means that the official who takes the reins at the Pentagon after the November elections will be charged with making the final decisions in a process that has dragged on for more than seven years.”
LOOKAHEAD, from AP's Matthew Lee: “Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to Asia next week amid signs of an imminent breakthrough in efforts to get North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons and bring a formal end to the Korean War.”
MAY MONEY FIGURES OUT LAST NIGHT – L.A. Times’ Dan Morain: “For the first time in the presidential campaign, John McCain matched Barack Obama's monthly fundraising haul, as each presumptive nominee pulled in more than $21 million in May, campaign reports filed Friday show. … Political scientist Anthony Corrado, an expert in presidential campaign financing at Colby College in Maine, said he believed that May would be Obama's worst month of the campaign. Donations have probably flooded to the Illinois senator since he locked up the nomination when the Democratic primaries ended June 3, Corrado said.” He predicts “A MAJOR SURGE” in June and “expects that Obama will outspend his Republican foe and the GOP by as much as 2 to 1.”
Politico’s Jeanne CUMMINGS: “The surprising cash parity between McCain and Obama means the candidates begin the general more evenly matched than many experts expected, although things could change quickly given Obama’s ability to raise money quickly through small online contributions. According to Obama’s campaign, the drop in donations was caused in part by a shift in focus from bringing in big money to honing in on the delegates needed to clinch his party’s nomination. At the same time, he was forced to burn through his cash reserve in the final round of primaries, which were hotly contested by a significantly under-funded Hillary Clinton.”
AP’s $$$ CHARTS ARE PASTED AT THE BOTTOM.
THE BIG IDEA – OBAMA-CLINTON CAMPS STILL FROSTY – ABC’s Jake Tapper: “[W]hile the public face of the Obama-Clinton rapprochement is all smiles -- they will campaign together [next Friday] and Clinton will attend an Obama fundraiser [Thursday] at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC -- behind the scenes there remains much tension, sources involved from both camps tell ABC News. It didn’t go unnoticed in Hillaryland, for instance, that the first fundraising solicitation Obama sent out was not for Clinton but instead one to benefit the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
“To many Clinton supporters, Obama could easily send an email to his 1.4 million grassroots supporters asking them to help unify the part to retire Clinton's debt. … To Obama supporters, reaching out to Obama's email list would cheapen the brand of his grassroots appeal, and would likely offend some contributors who view Clinton -- and the campaign she waged against Obama -- rather unfavorably. … In short, though you will see smiles for the cameras next week, do not think smiles equal happiness.”
AP’s Jim Kuhnhenn: “Asked on Friday whether Obama's finance team had discussed ways to ease Clinton's debt when it met Thursday night in Chicago, Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said ‘those meetings have focused more on what these two can do together to bring the party together and move it forward than it has on these logistical details.’ ”
***TIME’s Mark “The Page” Halperin on why Obama opted out of public financing: “Obama will now be able to, say, spend $10 million on Texas television ads, giving McCain some tough choices to make. … No candidate has ever had as big a spending advantage as Obama will have for the final two months of the campaign.”
The NYT’s Michael Luo uses a FLOYD BROWN front-pager to reprise Jonathan Martin’s finding that Republican 527s are staying on the sidelines: “[I]f Mr. Brown’s struggles are any indication — he has so far failed to raise much money — it is not clear that Republicans will be able to repeat their successes in 2004, when independent groups like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had a significant role in undermining Senator John Kerry’s campaign.”
WashPost A1, top of page, “Big Promises Bump Into Budget Realities: New President Won't Have an Easy Time Paying for New Initiatives, Fiscal Experts Say.”
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“YOU” TRIUMPH: Jon Friedman, media columnist for MarketWatch.com, writes that he has “a confession to make”: “Time magazine was spot-on, dead-bang correct when it named ‘You’ as its Person of the Year for 2006. I knocked the inspired choice, and I was way off base. … Time magazine was clearly ahead of its time. … [T]hese 21st-century user-driven innovations - Facebook, Friendster, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn, Yelp (oh, yes) and others - are taking over the way people communicate with one another.”
Politico’s JAMES “SLASH” KOTECKI OPENS A BLOG: James, for once not dressed as Mr. Rogers, exults: “My title of ‘video blogger’ now finally makes sense!” To our befuddlement, it’s not called “Emergency Cheese,” but “James Kotecki,” which no doubt added a fortune to our NameLab tab. James opens what he likes to call “a new blogging frontier” right here, where you can see James with pipe and robe) in a “special blog intro video I made just for you (plural).”
MORE OBAMA CAMPAIGN:
--David S. BRODER’s Sunday column says Obama could be hurt by turning down McCain’s proposal for JOINT TOWN HALLS, which The Dean says “would be a real service to the public and that suspending the dollar-chase for the duration of the campaign, as McCain but not Obama will do, would be a major step toward establishing the credibility of the election process. By refusing to join McCain in these initiatives in order to protect his own interests, Obama raises an important question: Has he built sufficient trust so that his motives will be accepted by the voters who are only now starting to figure out what makes him tick?”
--Chicago Sun-Times Political Reporter Abdon Pallasch: “Noticeably absent from [Friday] morning’s panel discussion was the Democratic governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, who attended the private dinner of Democratic governors Thursday night but then left to tour flood damage in Downstate Alton during this morning’s public meeting. Did the campaign not want Obama photographed with the governor, referred to as ‘Public Official A’ in court papers that are part of an ongoing federal investigation of Blagojevich’s administration? A campaign spokeswoman said all 28 Democratic governors were invited. Blagojevich had already scheduled the Downstate visit, said his spokesman Lucio Guerrero.”
PRODUCERS/NATIONAL EDITORS – WashPost B2, “Class Action Filed Over Checkpoints”: “A civil rights group filed a federal lawsuit yesterday to halt the D.C. police department's new checkpoint initiative, arguing that it is unconstitutional to screen motorists and prevent some from entering certain neighborhoods. The Partnership for Civil Justice filed the suit on behalf of four District residents who alleged that the checkpoints, set up after a stretch of deadly violence in Northeast Washington, led to ‘widespread civil rights violations.’ The suit seeks to bar police from using the program anywhere in the city.”
MEDIAWATCH – AP, “Top European TV official says pre-game coverage problems could spill over to Beijing Olympics”: “Seven weeks before the Olympics open, television broadcasters are involved in a fight with Chinese organizers over coverage away from the sports venues. This involves moving satellite trucks around the city, deploying equipment and clear rules about where TV cameras will be able to film. … Shaken by protests on international legs of the Olympic torch relay following the outbreak of deadly rioting in Tibet in March, China's government seems to be backtracking on promises to let reporters work as they have at previous Olympics. … In recent months, the government has tightened visa rules, particularly targeting foreign students. The government fears many would side with activist groups if protests break out.”
SPORTS BLINK -- John Clayton of ESPN.com gives a rave to Brett Favre’s successor at QB, Aaron Rodgers, who “has a cannon”: “According to some teammates, Aaron Rodgers' throws have more velocity than Brett Favre's. … The football explodes off his hand on each throw in practice. … right arm sets up naturally, and the ball comes out unnaturally fast.”
Wall Street Journal A1: “Seeking to end an embarrassing dispute that kept live pro football games out of many homes, the National Football League's NFL Network is in talks to form a partnership with Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN cable sports network, according to people familiar with the situation. An agreement would represent a big shift in strategy for the NFL: abandoning its effort to force cable operators into carrying its own network and thus paying it lucrative monthly fees. It would also send a message to other professional sports, which have enjoyed rising television fees for years, that even the biggest and most powerful league in the U.S. cannot launch a new channel without the consent of giant cable operators such as Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc.
“For fans, a deal could close a bitter standoff between the league and four of the nation's largest cable operators that has left live games on Thursday and Saturday nights unavailable to many cable subscribers. One scenario that has been discussed would involve combining the NFL Network with the ESPN Classic network, which has relatively low ratings but wider distribution. ESPN would broadcast eight more games per season on ESPN Classic, and then attempt to wring higher subscription fees than the 16 or 17 cents it currently receives for the channel, according to Derek Baine, a senior analyst for SNL Kagan. Under such a scenario, ESPN and the NFL could form a joint venture and share revenue, or ESPN could take an equity stake in the channel.”
THE SHOWS, from AP:
ABC's "This Week" — Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.; American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Red Cavaney; Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
CBS' "Face the Nation" — Carly Fiorina, adviser to John McCain's campaign; Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.
NBC's "Meet the Press" — Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Biden, D-Del.
CNN's "Late Edition" — Govs. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., and Richardson; Reps. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., and Eric Cantor, R-Va.; former Labor Secretary Robert Reich; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain adviser; Ahmed Rashid, author of a new book on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.
"Fox News Sunday" — Former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; former Gov. Tom Ridge, R-Pa.; Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers.
AP’s “CAMPAIGN MONEY” CHARTS:
BARACK OBAMA
Total receipts to date: $295.52 million, including $10.72 million for general election.
Total contributions to date: $287.5 million.
Total spending: $252.4 million.
May contributions: $21.9 million, including $687,000 for general election.
May spending: $26.8 million.
May transfers or loans: none.
Cash on hand: $43 million, including $10 million for general election.
Debt: $304,000.
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
Total receipts to date: $238 million, including $23.3 million for the general election and $12.2 million loan.
Total contributions to date: $209.4 million.
Total spending: $207.6 million,
May contributions: $12.6 million, including $395,000 for the general election.
May spending: $19 million.
May transfers or loans: $2.175 million personal loan from candidate.
Cash on hand: $26.7 million, including $23.3 million for the general election that can't be used.
Debt: $22.5 million, including $12.2 million personal loan.
JOHN MCCAIN
Total receipts to date: $121.9 million.
Total contributions to date: $110 million.
Total spending: $90.3 million.
May contributions: $16.6 million.
May spending: $11.7 million.
May transfers or loans: $4.3 million — money raised through joint victory fund with Republican National Committee.
Cash on hand: $31.6 million.
Debt: $1.3 million.
SUPREME COURT ON THE BRINK? -- NOT!
Unconstitutional Ignorance on the Editorial Page
The same court which last week held up a vital civil liberty -- individual gun ownership -- is accused of "stripping away civil liberties" in today's lead editorial.
Posted by: Clay Waters
7/3/2008 1:19:16 PM
Thursday's lead editorial review of the just-ended Supreme Court term, which laid down a puzzling mixed bag of decisions, some highly pleasing to conservatives (the gun-rights ruling), and some offensive ones (declaring the death penalty for child rape unconstitutional). At least this case the Times doesn't foolishly call this court "far right," as it did in last week's apoplectic fit disguised as an editorial on the Court's 5-4 decision upholding the Second Amendment's right to bear arms, although it did warn of the "far-right bloc" that would take command if McCain appointed judges.
In its latest editorial, "A Supreme Court on the Brink," the Times warned:
The Supreme Court abandoned its special role in protecting voting rights when it rejected a challenge to Indiana’s harshly anti-democratic voter ID law. Critics warned that the law, which bars anyone without a government-issued photo ID from voting, would disenfranchise poor people, minorities and the elderly, all of whom disproportionately lack drivers’ licenses. The critics were right. In the Indiana presidential primary, shortly after the ruling, about 12 nuns in their 80s and 90s were turned away at the polls for not having acceptable ID.
This seems to be the one verifiable case of vote deprivation that's coursed through the liberal press, even though the real story is a bit more nuanced than the "waterhoses and tear gas tone" adopted by the Times (for one thing, the elderly nuns had been advised earlier that they'd need updated ID in order to vote).
In a second capital punishment case, the court ruled that the death penalty cannot be imposed for the rape of a child. Horrific as that crime is, the court wisely drew a clear line and said that capital punishment can only be imposed for crimes in which the victim’s life was taken.
Note that the Times, with its selectively expansive view of the Constitution, would care, but the Constitution forbids the taking of a life only "without due process of law." The Fifth Amendment in full:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
The editorial went through more cases from the concluded term, including liberal rulings that pleased them, but warned darkly that if McCain were elected, the "far-right bloc" would reign supreme.
In placing these rulings in the larger context of the court after two appointments by President Bush -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both dedicated members of the conservative movement -- it is important to note that the Guantánamo decision was 5 to 4. Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing justice, cast the deciding vote. In other cases, like the gun-control decision, the rulings might have been more sweeping and more damaging if the conservative bloc had not needed the moderate-conservative Justice Kennedy’s vote to form a majority. One more conservative appointment would shift the balance to the far-right bloc.
If that happens, the court can be expected to push even further in a dangerous direction. It would most likely begin stripping away civil liberties, like the habeas rights vindicated in the Guantánamo case. The constitutional protection of women’s reproductive rights could be eliminated. The court might well strike down laws that protect the environment, workers’ rights and the rights of racial and religious minorities.
A little Constitutional Studies 101 for the Times: The Constitution says not a word on the matter of abortion. And didn't this Court just uphold the important civil liberty guaranteed by the Second Amendment?
The editorial ended by exhorting Times' readers (not in so many words) to vote for Obama:
The court was teetering on the brink in this term. Voters should keep that firmly in mind when they go to the polls in November.
The same court which last week held up a vital civil liberty -- individual gun ownership -- is accused of "stripping away civil liberties" in today's lead editorial.
Posted by: Clay Waters
7/3/2008 1:19:16 PM
Thursday's lead editorial review of the just-ended Supreme Court term, which laid down a puzzling mixed bag of decisions, some highly pleasing to conservatives (the gun-rights ruling), and some offensive ones (declaring the death penalty for child rape unconstitutional). At least this case the Times doesn't foolishly call this court "far right," as it did in last week's apoplectic fit disguised as an editorial on the Court's 5-4 decision upholding the Second Amendment's right to bear arms, although it did warn of the "far-right bloc" that would take command if McCain appointed judges.
In its latest editorial, "A Supreme Court on the Brink," the Times warned:
The Supreme Court abandoned its special role in protecting voting rights when it rejected a challenge to Indiana’s harshly anti-democratic voter ID law. Critics warned that the law, which bars anyone without a government-issued photo ID from voting, would disenfranchise poor people, minorities and the elderly, all of whom disproportionately lack drivers’ licenses. The critics were right. In the Indiana presidential primary, shortly after the ruling, about 12 nuns in their 80s and 90s were turned away at the polls for not having acceptable ID.
This seems to be the one verifiable case of vote deprivation that's coursed through the liberal press, even though the real story is a bit more nuanced than the "waterhoses and tear gas tone" adopted by the Times (for one thing, the elderly nuns had been advised earlier that they'd need updated ID in order to vote).
In a second capital punishment case, the court ruled that the death penalty cannot be imposed for the rape of a child. Horrific as that crime is, the court wisely drew a clear line and said that capital punishment can only be imposed for crimes in which the victim’s life was taken.
Note that the Times, with its selectively expansive view of the Constitution, would care, but the Constitution forbids the taking of a life only "without due process of law." The Fifth Amendment in full:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
The editorial went through more cases from the concluded term, including liberal rulings that pleased them, but warned darkly that if McCain were elected, the "far-right bloc" would reign supreme.
In placing these rulings in the larger context of the court after two appointments by President Bush -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both dedicated members of the conservative movement -- it is important to note that the Guantánamo decision was 5 to 4. Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing justice, cast the deciding vote. In other cases, like the gun-control decision, the rulings might have been more sweeping and more damaging if the conservative bloc had not needed the moderate-conservative Justice Kennedy’s vote to form a majority. One more conservative appointment would shift the balance to the far-right bloc.
If that happens, the court can be expected to push even further in a dangerous direction. It would most likely begin stripping away civil liberties, like the habeas rights vindicated in the Guantánamo case. The constitutional protection of women’s reproductive rights could be eliminated. The court might well strike down laws that protect the environment, workers’ rights and the rights of racial and religious minorities.
A little Constitutional Studies 101 for the Times: The Constitution says not a word on the matter of abortion. And didn't this Court just uphold the important civil liberty guaranteed by the Second Amendment?
The editorial ended by exhorting Times' readers (not in so many words) to vote for Obama:
The court was teetering on the brink in this term. Voters should keep that firmly in mind when they go to the polls in November.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
THEY NEED OUR HELP
Chairmen of the bored: Idle days take toll on disabled vets
By CHRIS VAUGHN
McClatchy Newspapers
Article Launched: 05/24/2008 01:45:12 AM PDT
FORT WORTH, Texas — John Chrzanowski heads to the horse barn first thing in the morning most days.
He brushes, cleans out horseshoes, saddles and then grimaces to get up on top of his favorite, a sand-colored palomino named Sally, to ride around his property east of Dallas. Horses are new to Chrzanowski, who grew up in a Detroit suburb and spent most of his adult life as an Army infantryman.
But a roadside bomb in Iraq ended his combat tour early and left him a very different man, scarred and unfit for continuing duty.
What he was left with is a wife, a baby girl and five horses, all that he has to spend his time on. Every day is a day off.
He would prefer something else to occupy his mind, somewhere to go other than doctor's appointments and the feed store. He's 24 years old and can't fathom the rest of his life spent in leisure.
But no one, not even defense contractors who profit from the war, has expressed interest in hiring him.
"There really isn't much out there for a 24-year-old grunt fresh out of the Army with no college education," he said.
This kind of fallout from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has largely been overshadowed by the more outrageous tales of lapses in military medical care, inadequate death benefits and bureaucratic bungling in the Veterans Affairs Department.
When severely disabled veterans get forced out of the military, as thousands have since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they face the very sobering
realization that they may have nothing more to look forward to than a government check for the rest of their lives.
Government statistics from the Labor Department issued last month state that the unemployment rate in 2007 for disabled veterans from all wars was 3.4 percent and that almost 9 out of 10 disabled Iraq war veterans were working, both of which indicate there is not a problem at all.
Experts in the field, however, say that is not their experience. One recent report prepared by a disability advocacy group for the Army said there are no reliable statistics for the most severely injured, but that their unemployment rate was "staggering."
The government statistics "seem counterintuitive to me," agreed Dave Autry, a spokesman for the Disabled American Veterans group in Washington, D.C. "I don't think those numbers are really reflective of what's happening. Historically, severely disabled veterans have fared less well in the work force, and the higher the disability rating, the higher the unemployment."
Frederick Williams, a former noncommissioned officer in the 1st Cavalry Division with burns, shrapnel wounds and partial deafness and blindness, found out what it was like when he started calling and applying for jobs in Killeen.
He never received a single phone call from the private sector and never received a job offer from any government agency. Eventually, Williams, 46, a Louisiana native, landed a job with a nonprofit company that hires only severely disabled people, a job he loves.
But he hasn't forgotten how the private sector snubbed him.
The American people "don't owe us anything," he said. "This was our decision. But we did stuff they did not want to do, so morally, they should think about that and give us a chance. If we're OK to fight for you, it might be OK for us to work for you."
A week before Christmas last year, the Chrzanowskis closed on a two-story house and 16 acres in Hunt County, a bit north of Greenville.
Neither of them knew much about North Texas. Chrzanowski knew even less about life in the country.
He grew up in a place called St. Clair Shores, a small city outside Detroit and just across Lake St. Clair from Canada.
His wife, Tanis, called Corpus Christi home, 1,300 miles away and a lot closer to the United States' other border.
But after the Air Force had brought Chrzanowski to Texas on June 21, 2005, in the belly of a C-17 transport, so bandaged up he looked like the Michelin man, he couldn't very well leave.
"I wanted to go to Georgia," he said. "But I married a Texan, and they don't take kindly to leaving Texas."
The two met outside a barracks on Fort Sam Houston, where hundreds of sick and injured soldiers and Marines were going through rehabilitation and recovery.
Tanis, a medic in Iraq, had ended up at Brooke Army Medical Center because of a medical problem. Seven months later, they wed in a small and short ceremony at the Bexar County Courthouse, celebrating afterward at a Mexican restaurant on the River Walk with a handful of family members. (Seven months after that, they would ask a Catholic priest to bless their marriage to make it more official with God.)
Chrzanowski went under for 13 surgeries and endured thousands of sessions with rehab specialists. His medical charts coldly described his injuries — 62.5 percent of his body with third-degree burns, 15 percent with second-degree burns.
Only the top of his head, his face and the top of his feet escaped.
Two, sometimes three times a day he would go to rehab, trying to release and stretch the yards of scar tissue that formed all over his body. He still cannot find the words for the pain, only that it was "beyond any human comprehension."
"Bless them, the rehab people never give up on you," he said. "You could cuss them, and they'd always come back."
Twenty-three months after his flight landed in San Antonio, the Army cut Chrzanowski loose and retired him for medical reasons. They also made him a corporal.
"Pity promotion," he said.
Chrzanowski sometimes breaks things around the house so he can fix them.
He bought a boat so he could go fishing. He rides around in his tractor looking for a fence to mend.
When it's too hot outside, or too cold, or too windy, he has to come inside. He will forever be limited in how much exposure he has to extreme weather.
Maybe he will turn on the History Channel or play with his 10-month-old daughter, Audrey.
"I was raised in an old-fashioned family," he said.
"A man goes to work in the morning and comes home in the evening. He provides for his family. But when every day is Saturday ..." His voice trails off.
He won't say it but the truth is that Chrzanowski is bored, physically and mentally. It has been eight months since he has done anything but hang out with his wife and daughter every single day.
But trying to land a job has so far proved fruitless. He worked with job-placement centers, and he sent his resume to businesses in Greenville, McKinney, Bonham and Sherman. He applied for several jobs with area defense contractors L-3 Communications and Raytheon.
If the applications asked about his disability status, he told the truth. If the application didn't ask, he didn't advertise it.
But nothing has come of his job hunting, not an interview, not a phone call.
In the last couple of weeks, Chrzanowski has started to think about college, perhaps at Texas A&M at Commerce. He can see himself getting a degree in social work and helping returning veterans with problems they might have.
"I still would like to serve my country," he said.
He doesn't think he's college material, though. He is worried about whether he can learn in a classroom and do well, and he is concerned that he won't be able to take notes in class because of his hands.
Chrzanowski won't bow, he won't beg and he balks at anyone's pity. He didn't work so hard to live, to father a daughter, to get up on a horse to have it any other way.
"I refuse to let my enemies win," he said. "I can still do everything I could the day before I got hurt. It just takes me a little longer."
Reluctantly, Williams made a phone call one day to a business his wife had heard about.
He was sick of rejection, mad at just about everyone, but he called anyway and left a voice mail.
Later that day, the man called back.
Williams has not been the same since.
When he retired from the military, Williams began to fill out a lot of applications. He called a lot of businesses and talked to managers or human resources directors. He interviewed with a couple of places on Fort Hood.
He dutifully rattled off, either orally or in writing, his limitations — "I can't stand too long. I can't lift much. I can't hear well. I sometimes have memory problems. I can't travel a lot. I have VA appointments." On and on it went.
It was full disclosure to Williams. He wanted to be honest.
For nine months, though, nothing happened.
At first, Williams got mad.
"As much as I gave this country and they won't even give me a chance," he would mumble.
Then, he just flat gave up. He sunk into a depression and found himself needing therapy more and more. "I felt like I was a burden to my family," he said. "I always told my kids, 'Work hard, and you'll get things out of life.' But what kind of example was I."
When the project manager called him back that day in late 2006, Williams once again went through all his special needs.
"He said he'd work with me," Williams said.
Silence.
"What do you mean you'll work with me?" Williams finally said.
Williams is now a valued member of the team at TRDI Inc., a nonprofit company that has a government contract to monitor security at Fort Hood's airfield.
Surrounded by fellow disabled veterans, Williams watches TV screens much of the day, looking for unauthorized vehicles or people in a secure area.
He enjoys a newfound type of camaraderie, almost as good as the Army, he said, because they "ain't got to run."
"I've been in a place where you can't go any lower," he said. "To find a job after what I've been through ... I've overcome it all."
By CHRIS VAUGHN
McClatchy Newspapers
Article Launched: 05/24/2008 01:45:12 AM PDT
FORT WORTH, Texas — John Chrzanowski heads to the horse barn first thing in the morning most days.
He brushes, cleans out horseshoes, saddles and then grimaces to get up on top of his favorite, a sand-colored palomino named Sally, to ride around his property east of Dallas. Horses are new to Chrzanowski, who grew up in a Detroit suburb and spent most of his adult life as an Army infantryman.
But a roadside bomb in Iraq ended his combat tour early and left him a very different man, scarred and unfit for continuing duty.
What he was left with is a wife, a baby girl and five horses, all that he has to spend his time on. Every day is a day off.
He would prefer something else to occupy his mind, somewhere to go other than doctor's appointments and the feed store. He's 24 years old and can't fathom the rest of his life spent in leisure.
But no one, not even defense contractors who profit from the war, has expressed interest in hiring him.
"There really isn't much out there for a 24-year-old grunt fresh out of the Army with no college education," he said.
This kind of fallout from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has largely been overshadowed by the more outrageous tales of lapses in military medical care, inadequate death benefits and bureaucratic bungling in the Veterans Affairs Department.
When severely disabled veterans get forced out of the military, as thousands have since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they face the very sobering
realization that they may have nothing more to look forward to than a government check for the rest of their lives.
Government statistics from the Labor Department issued last month state that the unemployment rate in 2007 for disabled veterans from all wars was 3.4 percent and that almost 9 out of 10 disabled Iraq war veterans were working, both of which indicate there is not a problem at all.
Experts in the field, however, say that is not their experience. One recent report prepared by a disability advocacy group for the Army said there are no reliable statistics for the most severely injured, but that their unemployment rate was "staggering."
The government statistics "seem counterintuitive to me," agreed Dave Autry, a spokesman for the Disabled American Veterans group in Washington, D.C. "I don't think those numbers are really reflective of what's happening. Historically, severely disabled veterans have fared less well in the work force, and the higher the disability rating, the higher the unemployment."
Frederick Williams, a former noncommissioned officer in the 1st Cavalry Division with burns, shrapnel wounds and partial deafness and blindness, found out what it was like when he started calling and applying for jobs in Killeen.
He never received a single phone call from the private sector and never received a job offer from any government agency. Eventually, Williams, 46, a Louisiana native, landed a job with a nonprofit company that hires only severely disabled people, a job he loves.
But he hasn't forgotten how the private sector snubbed him.
The American people "don't owe us anything," he said. "This was our decision. But we did stuff they did not want to do, so morally, they should think about that and give us a chance. If we're OK to fight for you, it might be OK for us to work for you."
A week before Christmas last year, the Chrzanowskis closed on a two-story house and 16 acres in Hunt County, a bit north of Greenville.
Neither of them knew much about North Texas. Chrzanowski knew even less about life in the country.
He grew up in a place called St. Clair Shores, a small city outside Detroit and just across Lake St. Clair from Canada.
His wife, Tanis, called Corpus Christi home, 1,300 miles away and a lot closer to the United States' other border.
But after the Air Force had brought Chrzanowski to Texas on June 21, 2005, in the belly of a C-17 transport, so bandaged up he looked like the Michelin man, he couldn't very well leave.
"I wanted to go to Georgia," he said. "But I married a Texan, and they don't take kindly to leaving Texas."
The two met outside a barracks on Fort Sam Houston, where hundreds of sick and injured soldiers and Marines were going through rehabilitation and recovery.
Tanis, a medic in Iraq, had ended up at Brooke Army Medical Center because of a medical problem. Seven months later, they wed in a small and short ceremony at the Bexar County Courthouse, celebrating afterward at a Mexican restaurant on the River Walk with a handful of family members. (Seven months after that, they would ask a Catholic priest to bless their marriage to make it more official with God.)
Chrzanowski went under for 13 surgeries and endured thousands of sessions with rehab specialists. His medical charts coldly described his injuries — 62.5 percent of his body with third-degree burns, 15 percent with second-degree burns.
Only the top of his head, his face and the top of his feet escaped.
Two, sometimes three times a day he would go to rehab, trying to release and stretch the yards of scar tissue that formed all over his body. He still cannot find the words for the pain, only that it was "beyond any human comprehension."
"Bless them, the rehab people never give up on you," he said. "You could cuss them, and they'd always come back."
Twenty-three months after his flight landed in San Antonio, the Army cut Chrzanowski loose and retired him for medical reasons. They also made him a corporal.
"Pity promotion," he said.
Chrzanowski sometimes breaks things around the house so he can fix them.
He bought a boat so he could go fishing. He rides around in his tractor looking for a fence to mend.
When it's too hot outside, or too cold, or too windy, he has to come inside. He will forever be limited in how much exposure he has to extreme weather.
Maybe he will turn on the History Channel or play with his 10-month-old daughter, Audrey.
"I was raised in an old-fashioned family," he said.
"A man goes to work in the morning and comes home in the evening. He provides for his family. But when every day is Saturday ..." His voice trails off.
He won't say it but the truth is that Chrzanowski is bored, physically and mentally. It has been eight months since he has done anything but hang out with his wife and daughter every single day.
But trying to land a job has so far proved fruitless. He worked with job-placement centers, and he sent his resume to businesses in Greenville, McKinney, Bonham and Sherman. He applied for several jobs with area defense contractors L-3 Communications and Raytheon.
If the applications asked about his disability status, he told the truth. If the application didn't ask, he didn't advertise it.
But nothing has come of his job hunting, not an interview, not a phone call.
In the last couple of weeks, Chrzanowski has started to think about college, perhaps at Texas A&M at Commerce. He can see himself getting a degree in social work and helping returning veterans with problems they might have.
"I still would like to serve my country," he said.
He doesn't think he's college material, though. He is worried about whether he can learn in a classroom and do well, and he is concerned that he won't be able to take notes in class because of his hands.
Chrzanowski won't bow, he won't beg and he balks at anyone's pity. He didn't work so hard to live, to father a daughter, to get up on a horse to have it any other way.
"I refuse to let my enemies win," he said. "I can still do everything I could the day before I got hurt. It just takes me a little longer."
Reluctantly, Williams made a phone call one day to a business his wife had heard about.
He was sick of rejection, mad at just about everyone, but he called anyway and left a voice mail.
Later that day, the man called back.
Williams has not been the same since.
When he retired from the military, Williams began to fill out a lot of applications. He called a lot of businesses and talked to managers or human resources directors. He interviewed with a couple of places on Fort Hood.
He dutifully rattled off, either orally or in writing, his limitations — "I can't stand too long. I can't lift much. I can't hear well. I sometimes have memory problems. I can't travel a lot. I have VA appointments." On and on it went.
It was full disclosure to Williams. He wanted to be honest.
For nine months, though, nothing happened.
At first, Williams got mad.
"As much as I gave this country and they won't even give me a chance," he would mumble.
Then, he just flat gave up. He sunk into a depression and found himself needing therapy more and more. "I felt like I was a burden to my family," he said. "I always told my kids, 'Work hard, and you'll get things out of life.' But what kind of example was I."
When the project manager called him back that day in late 2006, Williams once again went through all his special needs.
"He said he'd work with me," Williams said.
Silence.
"What do you mean you'll work with me?" Williams finally said.
Williams is now a valued member of the team at TRDI Inc., a nonprofit company that has a government contract to monitor security at Fort Hood's airfield.
Surrounded by fellow disabled veterans, Williams watches TV screens much of the day, looking for unauthorized vehicles or people in a secure area.
He enjoys a newfound type of camaraderie, almost as good as the Army, he said, because they "ain't got to run."
"I've been in a place where you can't go any lower," he said. "To find a job after what I've been through ... I've overcome it all."
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