Broder backs NH
Washington Post columnist David Broder laments the Democrats’ 2008 primary calendar and speaks well of New Hampshire’s traditional role in the Presidential nomination process.
Plame revelation unfit to print
Newsweek reports that CIA employee Valerie Plame was not outed in a White House smear campaign, but evidently inadvertently by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, an opponent of the Iraq war, and days later The New York Times still has not printed word one about the revelation, which essentially puts to rest the silly Plame scandal.
Can you imagine the Times sitting on this story if Newsweek revealed that Karl Rove was Bob Novak’s initial source for his Plame column?
UPDATE: Doh. The Times did cover it, three days after the story broke, but I didn’t catch it in my search for “Plame” because the paper referred to her as “Valerie Wilson,” though it has repeatedly used “Plame” in the past and has a special “Times Topics” category for “Valerie Plame.”
So, one story on the subject three days after the story broke. Again, would this be conceivable had Rove been confirmed as the source?
Events are in the saddle
National Review editor Rich Lowry has an excellent column on the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
Self-validating conspiracies
Lots of hubub about Prof. William Woodward’s belief that the U.S. government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks. We’re getting flooded with letters — in support of Woodward.
Note that Woodward is a far-left activist. What I’d like to see is a conspiracy theorist whose conspiracy theory doesn’t happen to support his own preconceived political beliefs. Maybe there are some and I haven’t come across them.
By the way, I was going through the membership list for Scholars for 9/11 Truth, and I found it interesting that of the 76 full members, only four are listed as having backgrounds in physics and three in engineering. There are lots of people with degrees in philosophy and other humanities, as well as social sciences. There’s even a professor of theater.
I’m curious how many are really scholars at all. Many are simply listed with the name of a college or discipline, but it is not clear that they are actually professors. Scholars for 9/11 Truth founder James Fetzer told the Union Leader that of the group’s roughly 300 members (the group has what it calls “full members” and “associate members”), about 75 have “academic affiliations,” which is a euphemism if I’ve ever heard one. I’ve guest-taught college courses, which gives me an academic affiliation of sorts, though I’m not a scholar.
I’d also like to know how many members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth believe the following:
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JFK was murdered by the mob, the Commies, or the U.S. government
The CIA brought crack into U.S. ghettos
There were aliens in Roswell, N.M.
The Man is keeping everyone down
Tommy Hilfiger financed The Simpsons to stop The Cosby Show, which was killing his business
Aerosmith was better than Van Halen
The big leap
Preparing for an editorial about UNH psychology professor William Woodward, who believes the government orchestrated 9/11, I’ve read a bunch of articles by conspiracy theorists making the same allegation. One recurring theme, and apparently the basis of most of the conspiracy claims, is that the Twin Towers could not have been brought down by the aircraft alone.
The theories I’ve read, posted on sites Prof. Woodward told me he read to formulate his own opinion, and on the site of the group he belongs to, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, all center around the tower collapse. They claim that the towers were brought down by controlled explosions, not the aircraft.
Mostly they point out alleged anomalies or unexplained events in the official report and attempt to prove that the towers and an adjacent WTC building could not possibly have collapsed in any way other than from a controlled demolition. Actually, they don’t attempt to prove this. They simply assert it. There is a lot of theory, precious little in the way of proof.
What I find so interesting is that nowhere do the essays I’ve read establish any link to the Bush administration. They simply leap to the conclusion that it must’ve been an administration plot since there are holes in the official story.
But if one grants that the towers were not brought down by the aircraft , but instead by the detonation of numerous bombs planted in the buildings, that does not then lead one to the U.S. government. It could just as easily lead to al-Qaida. After all, we know that al-Qaida had been trying to blow up the World Trade Center for nearly a decade before 9/11. Why could the explosions not have come from al-Qaida-placed bombs? Bin Laden’s family was in the construction business; he certainly would have had access to demolition experts. And we know how thorough al-Qaida is. Why is it not even considered that al-Qaida might have backed up its aircraft attack with planted explosives, but taken as an article of faith that bombs were planted by the Bush administration?
Because, of course, these are people who have reached a conclusion before looking at the evidence, then built a case around their conclusion. Which leads to the big leap.
Derry’s Coyle tells constituent to ’shove it’
Derry resident and Girl Scout leader Cheryl Harvey sent town council member Kevin Coyle the following e-mail on Wednesday:
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Would you please stop putting the cart before the horse. “YOUR” charter commission was created to research the viability of instituting official ballot voting by “our” town voters and then present your findings to the voters. May I remind you, you were “ELECTED” to your present position to “MAKE DECISIONS” for “our” town. So please get off your soapbox or high horse which ever it is and start doing the job you were “ELECTED” to do, I believe that would be “MAKING DECISIONS” for the voters who “ELECTED YOU” into your present position. If the time comes that “our” town decision making process changes, then you can get back on your high horse and let the voters do your job.
Coyle sent back this response:
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I have no problem making decisions. I’m sorry if you don’t like them. You can take the “high horse” comment and shove it.
“He’s never met me. I’ve never met him, never talked to him,” Harvey told me this afternoon when I called her after someone forwarded her e-mail to me.
Coyle has expressed regret for the e-mail, but he has not apologized to Harvey.
Coyle is a freshman council member. He won election in March after three previous attempts. Upon his election, he said, “I want to work with all of the councilors to make a better Derry. The current councilors need to understand that people are upset about the things they are doing.”
Whoops. Telling people to shove it is not the way to make a better Derry and bring people together.
Sapareto’s spin
Frank Sapareto has made a baseless claim against Republican primary opponent Sen. Bob Letourneau, and he cited the Union Leader in doing so.
Sapareto is running in the GOP primary in an attempt to take the District 19 Senate seat back from Sen. Bob Letourneau, who beat Sapareto in the 2004 primary. He has sent out a campaign mailing stating, “the Union Leader has called him (Letourneau) ‘Broadbase Bob’ for his support of an income tax and his vote against a contsitutional amendment.”
That is not true.
Sen. Letourneau does not support an income tax. In a March 23 editorial titled “Broadbase Bob?” we questioned whether Letourneau should be called Broadbase Bob because his vote against a constitutional amendment might lead to an income tax. But that is very different than saying, as Sapareto did, that Letourneau supports an income tax, which is entirely untrue.
Not so straight talk
National Review’s Jim Gerraghty gets the runaround from John McCain’s PAC, for the second time. Looks like McCain’s Straight Talk America has a problem talking straight to reporters.
Jim Splaine’s not that old
In a story about the New Hampshire reaction to the DNC’s new primary calendar, Reuters states that Rep. Jim Splaine’s law requiring the primary to come before any similar contest dates to 1913.
It’s really 1975. If I’m not mistaken, 1913 is when New Hampshire began holding a primary election for selecting delegates to the party conventions.
The Reuters story contains the typical Reuters bias. “Traditionally, the power of New Hampshire and Iowa in the campaign has led to a disproportionate amount of time and money spent by candidates in those states,” reporter Jason Szep writes. “Disproportionate” is a loaded word. A more neutral rendering of that sentence would be something like: “Traditionally, candidates spent a great deal of time and money campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire because the contests were held so early in the nominating process.”
Tree hugger
At a June 2 meeting, Water Resources Commission member John Bridges used the term “tree huggers” to describe environmentalists who opposed using a chemical to combat milfoil. DES COmmissioner Michael Nolin, also chairman of the WRC, did not reprimand Bridges when he uttered the term, which made member Brad Wyman so mad he wrote a letter of complaint to Nolin, charging that the term was so offensive it should never have been uttered and Nolin should have scolded Bridges on the spot.
Evidently Wyman is unfamiliar with these bumper stickers, marketed by a company that uses the slogan: “products for progressives since 1979.”
He also might be unfamiliar with these T-shirts, this environmentalist Web site, and this one, and this New Hampshire farm.
Seems that a lot of environmentalists don’t think the term is so pejorative.
Playing with pictures
Apparent NH blogger Yankee Doodler and a poster at DailyKos attempt to portray Rep. Charlie Bass as a corporate lackey by showing two photos of him mingling with corporate lobbyists at events in Washington sponsored by the American Council for Capital Formation.
ACCF is a business lobbying group that promotes, in its words, “strong capital formation, a balanced regulatory regime, and cost effective environmental policies.” It holds Economic Policy Evenings in which lawmakers and members of the media mix with business executives and discuss ideas. Yes, it’s downright unAmerican of them, I know. Business executives sharing their thoughts with the people who have the power to regulate them and destroy their businesses. What has the country come to?
Yankee Doodler, a Paul Hodes partisan, posted two pics of Charlie Bass taken at ACCF events. In one, Bass is seen seated near David Lynch, director of federal advocacy for TXU Energy, the large electric utility company in Texas. In another, Bass is seen standing beside Red Cavaney, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute. The Kos poster republished Yankee Doodler’s post.
Here, the bloggers imply, is the proof that Bass is in the pocket of big business. He’s pictured with corporate lobbyists!
How will Bass ever recover?
Of course, anyone who knows anything about Washington knows that lawmakers of all stripes meet with business executives and lobbyists. Journalists do too. Some are even friends. If being pictured with a lobbyist, executive or pro-business conservative is evidence enough that you are in the fiend’s evil clutches, then what to make of these. . .
Here’s a pic of Associated Press reporter Josef Hebert chatting with Red Cavaney at an ACCF event!
Here’s a pic of Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., speaking with ACCF president and CEO Mark Bloomfield!
Rep. Smith has even blogged at DailyKos!
Here’s a pic of Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., also speaking with Mark Bloomfield!
The disingenuousness of YankeeDoodler is evident when examining the larger image collage from which the Bass/Cavaney pic was taken. The photo immediately above it is a shot of ACCF president Mark Bloomfield and Steve Bartlett, president and CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable (a group formed to promote the interests of the financial services industry), meeting with Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-NY.
Guilt by association for Republican Bass, but not for the many Democrats who have attended ACCF events and mingled with the forces of Big Business.
UPDATE: Whoever blogs under the name The Yankee Doodler sent me a rebuttal to this post, but the anonymous blogger did not respond to my request to identify himself or herself. The rebuttal, such as it is, is posted at the Yankee Doodler blog.
