Hi friends:
This is a worthwile read to that will have you rolling out of your chairs.
I hope that you enjoy it.
Brad
_________________________
Bananas & Milk Duds
Americas most famous athletes: Someday you may be invited to fly in the back-seat of one of your country's most powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have . John Elway, John Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few. If you get this opportunity, let me urge you, with the greatest sincerity... Move to Guam . Change your name. Fake your own death! Whatever you do. Do Not Go!!! I know.
The U.S. Navy invited me to try it. I was thrilled. I was pumped. I was toast! I should've known when they told me my pilot would be Chip (Biff) King of Fighter Squadron 213 at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach.
Whatever you're thinking a Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks like, triple it. He's about six-foot, tan, ice-blue eyes, wavy surfer hair, finger-crippling handshake -- the kind of man who wrestles dyspeptic alligators in his leisure time. If you see this man, run the other way Fast. Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years the voice of NASA missions. ('T-minus 15 seconds and counting .' Remember?) Chip would charge neighborhood kids a quarter each to hear his dad. Jack would wake up from naps surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting for him to say, 'We have liftoff'.
Biff was to fly me in an F- 14D Tomcat, a ridiculously powerful $60 million weapon with nearly as much thrust as weight, not unlike Colin Montgomerie. I was worried about getting airsick, so the night before the flight I asked Biff if there was something I should eat the next morning.
'Bananas,' he said. 'For the potassium?' I asked. 'No,' Biff said, 'because they taste about the same coming up as they do going down.'
The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with my name sewn over the left breast. (No call sign -- like Crash or Sticky or Leadfoot. But, still, very cool.) I carried my helmet in the crook of my arm, as Biff had instructed. If ever in my life I had a chance to nail Nicole Kidman, this was it.
A fighter pilot named Psycho gave me a safety briefing and then fastened me into my ejection seat, which, when employed, would 'egress' me out of the plane at such a velocity that I would be immediately knocked unconscious.
Just as I was thinking about aborting the flight, the canopy closed over me, and Biff gave the ground crew a thumbs-up. In minutes we were firing nose up at 600 mph. We leveled out and then canopy-rolled over another F-14. Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life. Unfortunately, the ride lasted 80.. It was like being on the roller coaster at Six Flags Over Hell. Only without rails. We did barrel rolls, snap rolls, loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose and
dived again, sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute. We chased another F-14, and it chased us. We broke the speed of sound. Sea was sky and sky was sea. Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree turns at 550 mph, creating a G force of 6.5, which is to say I felt as if 6.5 times my body weight was smashing against me, thereby approximating life as Mrs. Colin Montgomerie.
And I egressed the bananas. And I egressed the pizza from the night before. And the lunch before that. I egressed a box of Milk Duds from the sixth grade. I made Linda Blair look polite. Because of the G's, I was egressing stuff that never thought would be egressed. I went through not one airsick bag, but two.
Biff said I passed out. Twice. I was coated in sweat. At one point, as we were coming in upside down in a banked curve on a mock bombing target and the G's were flattening me like a tortilla and I was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was the first person in history to throw down.
I used to know 'cool'. Cool was Elway throwing a touchdown pass, or Norman making a five-iron bite. But now I really know 'cool'. Cool is guys like Biff, men with cast-iron stomachs and freon nerves. I wouldn't go up there again for Derek Jeter's black book, but I'm glad Biff does every day, and for less a year than a rookie reliever makes in a home stand.
A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He said he and the fighters had the perfect call sign for me. Said he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit. What is it?? I asked. 'Two Bags.'
Monday, April 28, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
President Award CMH to Fallen SEAL Hero
This is the video of the presentation of the highest award that can be given to a person in the military. Somehow this kind of news never gets to us via the traditional media.
Here is the video:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080408-3.wm.v.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080408/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_medal_of_honor
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080408-3.html
Politics aside, these people are making the ultimate sacrifice of laying their lives down for their fellow soldiers (Iraqi and American). For some very strange reason, we are missing heroes for us and our children to look up to like this. Please share this with your friends and families so that they understand the kind of people that volunteer to go into harm’s way and do heroic selfless deeds like this.
God bless our people in uniform. Go out of your way to thank these people when you see them in your daily lives. We are safe and free because of these courageous people.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:12-13
Here is the video:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080408-3.wm.v.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080408/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_medal_of_honor
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080408-3.html
Politics aside, these people are making the ultimate sacrifice of laying their lives down for their fellow soldiers (Iraqi and American). For some very strange reason, we are missing heroes for us and our children to look up to like this. Please share this with your friends and families so that they understand the kind of people that volunteer to go into harm’s way and do heroic selfless deeds like this.
God bless our people in uniform. Go out of your way to thank these people when you see them in your daily lives. We are safe and free because of these courageous people.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:12-13
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
As Rivals Battle, McCain Builds November Machine
As Rivals Battle, McCain Builds November Machine
By Michael D. Shear and Dan BalzWashington Post Staff WritersTuesday, April 1, 2008; A01
As his Democratic presidential rivals squabble, Sen. John McCain has moved to transform his ragtag primary campaign into a general-election operation by boosting fundraising, establishing control over the Republican National Committee, and beginning a conversation with voters who live in states where he has not campaigned.
One of McCain's first decisions has been to assemble a novel and risky campaign structure that will rely on 10 "regional managers" who will make daily decisions in the states under their direction, his advisers said. The managers will gather today in New Mexico to plot strategy with GOP state officials.
Some Republican strategists have said that McCain has not made the best use of the extra time that the prolonged Democratic nomination battle has given him. They have criticized the pace and direction of his decisions and have questioned why the senator from Arizona has not held more fundraisers to close the huge financial gap between him and his rivals.
Despite scheduling numerous events designed to grab attention, including a trip to meet with leaders in Iraq, Israel and Europe, McCain has struggled to be heard during the battle between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. The few times he has broken through have largely been because of questionable decisions or mistakes, such as when he confused Sunni and Shiite extremists and when he was criticized for accepting the endorsement of a controversial television evangelist.
McCain embarked yesterday on his latest effort to capture the spotlight: his "Service to America" tour. The week-long journey will put him in locations that have been influential in shaping his life -- including his family's ancestral home in Meridian, Miss.; the Naval Academy in Annapolis; and the naval air station in Jacksonville, Fla., where he arrived after more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
The growing McCain team is also under no illusions about the financial and political energy of the opposition, noting the huge turnouts in Democratic primaries and the enormous sums of money Obama and Clinton have raised.
In February, the month he effectively clinched the GOP nomination, McCain raised $11 million -- an eighth of the combined total of his Democratic rivals.
A number of Mitt Romney's supporters said McCain's effort to win over his ex-rival's biggest donors has had mixed results.
"Some of the top leadership, who were very emotionally involved, still can't get over it," said Brad Freeman, a California financier who backed the former Massachusetts governor. "They said, 'Hey, I'm not being rational. But right now I can't.' Fact is, Romney inspired a lot of loyalty and enthusiasm in people."
Aides to McCain said that fundraising has improved, and that they raised $5 million in a five-day West Coast swing last week. Senior adviser Charles R. Black Jr. said the March fundraising take will be "an impressive number," though he declined to provide one.
One element that will work in McCain's favor in coming weeks is the formation of the Republican Party's Victory Committee, which can put together events that are held jointly by the senator and the Republican National Committee. Those events can bring in nearly $30,000 per person because the limits for giving to the RNC are much higher than those for candidates.
The naming last month of Lew Eisenberg, a former partner at Goldman Sachs and one of the heaviest hitters in Republican money circles, as the finance chairman of the Victory Committee silenced many of McCain's critics on the fundraising front.
"Will it come together? Yes," said a top fundraiser who supported one of McCain's GOP rivals and is now backing the senator from Arizona. "Is it coming together? Yes. Are there folks who would have liked it to come together quicker? Yes."
Polls suggest that McCain's position on the sidelines of Democrats' infighting has elevated his stature, at least for now. In some surveys, McCain has a slight edge over Obama and Clinton. And conservative Republicans appear to be growing more comfortable with the sometimes maverick senator as their nominee.
But McCain's advisers acknowledge that the Republican Party still has an image problem. Generic ballot tests, whether for presidential or congressional elections, show Republicans running well behind Democrats, and part of the campaign's goal is to start rebranding the GOP.
McCain recruited two key officials at the RNC: Frank J. Donatelli, a Reagan administration official, will serve as deputy chairman and will be the campaign's liaison to the committee. Mike DuHaime, who managed former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential campaign and used to be an RNC political director, will help staff the RNC's political team. He will also work directly for McCain.
The regional managers, most of whom have been chosen, will spend four days at the New Mexico resort this week. McCain aides said there will be intensive meetings with Republican chairmen from across the country, who are holding their annual meeting in the swing state.
"We prefer daily operational, tactical decisions be made by those guys," campaign manager Rick Davis said.
After essentially running out of money during the primaries, McCain was forced to rely heavily on his handful of workers -- many of whom were unpaid -- to run the essential operations on their own, with little direction from the national level.
The results, his advisers said, justified the unorthodox approach. His victories in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida were not the result of broad media campaigns driven by national operatives but rather of the ground games built by operatives in those states.
"We are going to try that kind of autonomy," senior strategist Mark Salter said.
That is a departure for a party that has prized itself on running hierarchical, highly disciplined campaigns, and it has sparked grumbling among some Republicans, who say McCain's advisers are moving too slowly to build a large national apparatus.
One senior GOP strategist called the decision "a recipe for internal communication problems and uneven execution." Another senior Republican said the lack of a political director or full-time pollster at McCain's Arlington headquarters has "a lot of us scratching our heads wondering what's taking so long to fill out the team."
Both Republican strategists spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could be candid about the party's presidential nominee.
Others are quick to defend McCain's team. "The grumbling is probably in direct proportion to how much they think they should be inside the campaign," said Dan Hazelwood, a GOP consultant who is not working for the campaign.
McCain aides reject the criticism, too. "Anybody who is grumbling doesn't know what's going on," Black said.
Davis said the decision to run a decentralized campaign reflects a pride in having run a lean and nimble primary operation after an initially bloated campaign structure imploded and fell far short of its budget and fundraising expectations.
Davis said the goal is to "keep the head count down" at headquarters. "I believe in speed. That's an important asset in a campaign."
Beyond transitioning from a hand-to-mouth primary operation to a full-blown general-election campaign, McCain will spend the next month attempting to put a more appealing face on his party.
The senator has chosen former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina to be a high-profile pitchwoman for the campaign and the Republican Party. She will travel the country as a key surrogate for McCain and other Republicans.
McCain will be in Washington this month for the testimony of Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Petraeus's testimony last fall was a signature event in McCain's primary campaign, as it coincided with a "No Surrender" tour that aides think helped boost his candidacy when he had been given up for the political graveyard.
Later this spring, McCain will embark on a two-week tour of places where, his advisers say, few Republicans ever campaign, including Alabama's Black Belt, where African Americans in the state are concentrated; Appalachia; and New Orleans. Davis said the goal is to send a message that McCain is appealing for votes from all types of Americans in all regions.
"Nothing is left off the table in this campaign," he said.
Staff writer Matthew Mosk and washingtonpost.com staff writer Chris Cillizza contributed to this report.
By Michael D. Shear and Dan BalzWashington Post Staff WritersTuesday, April 1, 2008; A01
As his Democratic presidential rivals squabble, Sen. John McCain has moved to transform his ragtag primary campaign into a general-election operation by boosting fundraising, establishing control over the Republican National Committee, and beginning a conversation with voters who live in states where he has not campaigned.
One of McCain's first decisions has been to assemble a novel and risky campaign structure that will rely on 10 "regional managers" who will make daily decisions in the states under their direction, his advisers said. The managers will gather today in New Mexico to plot strategy with GOP state officials.
Some Republican strategists have said that McCain has not made the best use of the extra time that the prolonged Democratic nomination battle has given him. They have criticized the pace and direction of his decisions and have questioned why the senator from Arizona has not held more fundraisers to close the huge financial gap between him and his rivals.
Despite scheduling numerous events designed to grab attention, including a trip to meet with leaders in Iraq, Israel and Europe, McCain has struggled to be heard during the battle between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. The few times he has broken through have largely been because of questionable decisions or mistakes, such as when he confused Sunni and Shiite extremists and when he was criticized for accepting the endorsement of a controversial television evangelist.
McCain embarked yesterday on his latest effort to capture the spotlight: his "Service to America" tour. The week-long journey will put him in locations that have been influential in shaping his life -- including his family's ancestral home in Meridian, Miss.; the Naval Academy in Annapolis; and the naval air station in Jacksonville, Fla., where he arrived after more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
The growing McCain team is also under no illusions about the financial and political energy of the opposition, noting the huge turnouts in Democratic primaries and the enormous sums of money Obama and Clinton have raised.
In February, the month he effectively clinched the GOP nomination, McCain raised $11 million -- an eighth of the combined total of his Democratic rivals.
A number of Mitt Romney's supporters said McCain's effort to win over his ex-rival's biggest donors has had mixed results.
"Some of the top leadership, who were very emotionally involved, still can't get over it," said Brad Freeman, a California financier who backed the former Massachusetts governor. "They said, 'Hey, I'm not being rational. But right now I can't.' Fact is, Romney inspired a lot of loyalty and enthusiasm in people."
Aides to McCain said that fundraising has improved, and that they raised $5 million in a five-day West Coast swing last week. Senior adviser Charles R. Black Jr. said the March fundraising take will be "an impressive number," though he declined to provide one.
One element that will work in McCain's favor in coming weeks is the formation of the Republican Party's Victory Committee, which can put together events that are held jointly by the senator and the Republican National Committee. Those events can bring in nearly $30,000 per person because the limits for giving to the RNC are much higher than those for candidates.
The naming last month of Lew Eisenberg, a former partner at Goldman Sachs and one of the heaviest hitters in Republican money circles, as the finance chairman of the Victory Committee silenced many of McCain's critics on the fundraising front.
"Will it come together? Yes," said a top fundraiser who supported one of McCain's GOP rivals and is now backing the senator from Arizona. "Is it coming together? Yes. Are there folks who would have liked it to come together quicker? Yes."
Polls suggest that McCain's position on the sidelines of Democrats' infighting has elevated his stature, at least for now. In some surveys, McCain has a slight edge over Obama and Clinton. And conservative Republicans appear to be growing more comfortable with the sometimes maverick senator as their nominee.
But McCain's advisers acknowledge that the Republican Party still has an image problem. Generic ballot tests, whether for presidential or congressional elections, show Republicans running well behind Democrats, and part of the campaign's goal is to start rebranding the GOP.
McCain recruited two key officials at the RNC: Frank J. Donatelli, a Reagan administration official, will serve as deputy chairman and will be the campaign's liaison to the committee. Mike DuHaime, who managed former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential campaign and used to be an RNC political director, will help staff the RNC's political team. He will also work directly for McCain.
The regional managers, most of whom have been chosen, will spend four days at the New Mexico resort this week. McCain aides said there will be intensive meetings with Republican chairmen from across the country, who are holding their annual meeting in the swing state.
"We prefer daily operational, tactical decisions be made by those guys," campaign manager Rick Davis said.
After essentially running out of money during the primaries, McCain was forced to rely heavily on his handful of workers -- many of whom were unpaid -- to run the essential operations on their own, with little direction from the national level.
The results, his advisers said, justified the unorthodox approach. His victories in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida were not the result of broad media campaigns driven by national operatives but rather of the ground games built by operatives in those states.
"We are going to try that kind of autonomy," senior strategist Mark Salter said.
That is a departure for a party that has prized itself on running hierarchical, highly disciplined campaigns, and it has sparked grumbling among some Republicans, who say McCain's advisers are moving too slowly to build a large national apparatus.
One senior GOP strategist called the decision "a recipe for internal communication problems and uneven execution." Another senior Republican said the lack of a political director or full-time pollster at McCain's Arlington headquarters has "a lot of us scratching our heads wondering what's taking so long to fill out the team."
Both Republican strategists spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could be candid about the party's presidential nominee.
Others are quick to defend McCain's team. "The grumbling is probably in direct proportion to how much they think they should be inside the campaign," said Dan Hazelwood, a GOP consultant who is not working for the campaign.
McCain aides reject the criticism, too. "Anybody who is grumbling doesn't know what's going on," Black said.
Davis said the decision to run a decentralized campaign reflects a pride in having run a lean and nimble primary operation after an initially bloated campaign structure imploded and fell far short of its budget and fundraising expectations.
Davis said the goal is to "keep the head count down" at headquarters. "I believe in speed. That's an important asset in a campaign."
Beyond transitioning from a hand-to-mouth primary operation to a full-blown general-election campaign, McCain will spend the next month attempting to put a more appealing face on his party.
The senator has chosen former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina to be a high-profile pitchwoman for the campaign and the Republican Party. She will travel the country as a key surrogate for McCain and other Republicans.
McCain will be in Washington this month for the testimony of Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Petraeus's testimony last fall was a signature event in McCain's primary campaign, as it coincided with a "No Surrender" tour that aides think helped boost his candidacy when he had been given up for the political graveyard.
Later this spring, McCain will embark on a two-week tour of places where, his advisers say, few Republicans ever campaign, including Alabama's Black Belt, where African Americans in the state are concentrated; Appalachia; and New Orleans. Davis said the goal is to send a message that McCain is appealing for votes from all types of Americans in all regions.
"Nothing is left off the table in this campaign," he said.
Staff writer Matthew Mosk and washingtonpost.com staff writer Chris Cillizza contributed to this report.
Democrats Set On Self-Destruct
Democrats Set on Self-Destruct
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 11:25 AMBy: David Limbaugh
Article Font Size
Democrats seemed determined to convert their sunny 2008 forecast into a perfect storm, which only can be diverted if either the approaching Obama front or Clinton front dissipates soon or changes directions to join forces with the other via the proverbial "dream ticket."
Until Pastor Wright managed to become Obama's potentially career-shattering albatross, Obama looked unstoppable, indeed superhuman. But as has happened repeatedly in this campaign, Hillary's persistence was rewarded — briefly, anyway. Obama's long and close association with the incendiary pastor undercut his perceived ability to rise above both race and party.
With the passage of a little time, though, Obama appears to have recovered. Or are his rising poll numbers merely a result of Hillary's umpteenth gratuitous tall tale?
It's hard to imagine that Obama's 52 to 42 percent national lead among Democrats, his narrowing of the superdelegate gap, and his lopsided acquisition of endorsements since Super Tuesday (64 to nine) are the result solely of Hillary's fraudulent assertion of sniper-tested heroism.
It's more likely that concerns about Obama's association with Wright have diminished with the cessation of a 24/7 news cycle devoted to it. The mainstream media's reversion to Obama adoration following his dreamy post-Wright lecture on race in America hasn't hurt him, either.
That said, if Hillary wasn't deterred before — when her prospects looked even worse — why would she be now? She has to believe, along with many, many others, that the Wright story has legs.
But the dirty little secret is that the Democratic left, which wields enormous power in the party, probably isn't much troubled by Wright's anti-American and racist diatribes or Obama's arguably tacit endorsement of them.
Don't forget that it wasn't the Democratic left that threw Howard Dean overboard. Nor did the party reject Dean's message; they just deemed him unelectable, and the media reinforced that perception.
Interestingly, the same thing hasn't happened yet to Obama. Since the initial Wright shock wore off, there has been no sustained mass exodus from Obama. Yet his association with Wright, along with other disturbing stories beginning to surface out there, could render him as unelectable in the general election as Howard Dean in his worst screaming moment.
Why is Obama weathering this storm? Is it political correctness; are Democrats cutting him extra slack because of his race? Is it that they are in denial about his increasing baggage because they so crave a party deliverer who speaks their language? Is it because they aren't viscerally repulsed by Wright's hate speech or Michelle Obama's apparent grievances against this nation? Or is it that they have no one even as electable as John Kerry waiting in the wings — considering Hillary's permanent and ever-increasing negatives?
I suspect it's a combination of all those factors, which doesn't bode well for the party. Hillary is not in as good a position to capitalize on an Obama implosion as Kerry was to exploit the Dean political suicide. Everyone, including formerly ardent Clinton supporters, now realizes that for the Clintons, it's all about the Clintons, who'll do anything to win. "Anything" includes playing a despicable brand of racial politics and betraying the Democrats' unwavering, albeit disingenuous battle cry since Bush-Gore 2000: "Every vote must count."
The leftist blogs are getting ever-more vicious against Hillary and increasingly indignant over any criticisms of their would-be champion, Obama. After all, what good did it do for them to settle for Kerry last time? They've been waiting a long time now for a full-blown anti-war standard-bearer.
So Democrats are faced with the dilemma of sticking with Obama, who truly might be approaching unelectability, or turning to the obnoxious and narcissistic power couple for whom the magic has long since disappeared.
If Obama does well from this point forward, the superdelegates will have no choice but to endorse him because even concerns of electability would not justify the divisions, including along racial lines, that would ensue should the party brokers cashier him. If Hillary marginally, but not significantly, outperforms Obama, the same principles will apply.
Only if Hillary wins consistently and decisively from now on, to the point of overtaking Obama in the popular vote, will she have the slightest chance of credibly arguing that superdelegates should go her way. Even then, unless Obama fully gets on board a Hillary ticket, especially by way of the second slot, there will be hell to pay in the party for years.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author, and attorney. His book "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party" was released recently in paperback. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.davidlimbaugh.com.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 11:25 AMBy: David Limbaugh
Article Font Size
Democrats seemed determined to convert their sunny 2008 forecast into a perfect storm, which only can be diverted if either the approaching Obama front or Clinton front dissipates soon or changes directions to join forces with the other via the proverbial "dream ticket."
Until Pastor Wright managed to become Obama's potentially career-shattering albatross, Obama looked unstoppable, indeed superhuman. But as has happened repeatedly in this campaign, Hillary's persistence was rewarded — briefly, anyway. Obama's long and close association with the incendiary pastor undercut his perceived ability to rise above both race and party.
With the passage of a little time, though, Obama appears to have recovered. Or are his rising poll numbers merely a result of Hillary's umpteenth gratuitous tall tale?
It's hard to imagine that Obama's 52 to 42 percent national lead among Democrats, his narrowing of the superdelegate gap, and his lopsided acquisition of endorsements since Super Tuesday (64 to nine) are the result solely of Hillary's fraudulent assertion of sniper-tested heroism.
It's more likely that concerns about Obama's association with Wright have diminished with the cessation of a 24/7 news cycle devoted to it. The mainstream media's reversion to Obama adoration following his dreamy post-Wright lecture on race in America hasn't hurt him, either.
That said, if Hillary wasn't deterred before — when her prospects looked even worse — why would she be now? She has to believe, along with many, many others, that the Wright story has legs.
But the dirty little secret is that the Democratic left, which wields enormous power in the party, probably isn't much troubled by Wright's anti-American and racist diatribes or Obama's arguably tacit endorsement of them.
Don't forget that it wasn't the Democratic left that threw Howard Dean overboard. Nor did the party reject Dean's message; they just deemed him unelectable, and the media reinforced that perception.
Interestingly, the same thing hasn't happened yet to Obama. Since the initial Wright shock wore off, there has been no sustained mass exodus from Obama. Yet his association with Wright, along with other disturbing stories beginning to surface out there, could render him as unelectable in the general election as Howard Dean in his worst screaming moment.
Why is Obama weathering this storm? Is it political correctness; are Democrats cutting him extra slack because of his race? Is it that they are in denial about his increasing baggage because they so crave a party deliverer who speaks their language? Is it because they aren't viscerally repulsed by Wright's hate speech or Michelle Obama's apparent grievances against this nation? Or is it that they have no one even as electable as John Kerry waiting in the wings — considering Hillary's permanent and ever-increasing negatives?
I suspect it's a combination of all those factors, which doesn't bode well for the party. Hillary is not in as good a position to capitalize on an Obama implosion as Kerry was to exploit the Dean political suicide. Everyone, including formerly ardent Clinton supporters, now realizes that for the Clintons, it's all about the Clintons, who'll do anything to win. "Anything" includes playing a despicable brand of racial politics and betraying the Democrats' unwavering, albeit disingenuous battle cry since Bush-Gore 2000: "Every vote must count."
The leftist blogs are getting ever-more vicious against Hillary and increasingly indignant over any criticisms of their would-be champion, Obama. After all, what good did it do for them to settle for Kerry last time? They've been waiting a long time now for a full-blown anti-war standard-bearer.
So Democrats are faced with the dilemma of sticking with Obama, who truly might be approaching unelectability, or turning to the obnoxious and narcissistic power couple for whom the magic has long since disappeared.
If Obama does well from this point forward, the superdelegates will have no choice but to endorse him because even concerns of electability would not justify the divisions, including along racial lines, that would ensue should the party brokers cashier him. If Hillary marginally, but not significantly, outperforms Obama, the same principles will apply.
Only if Hillary wins consistently and decisively from now on, to the point of overtaking Obama in the popular vote, will she have the slightest chance of credibly arguing that superdelegates should go her way. Even then, unless Obama fully gets on board a Hillary ticket, especially by way of the second slot, there will be hell to pay in the party for years.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author, and attorney. His book "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party" was released recently in paperback. To find out more about David Limbaugh, please visit his Web site at www.davidlimbaugh.com.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Iranian Defectors Provide Crucial Intel
Iranian Defectors Provide Crucial Intel
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 8:24 AMBy: Kenneth R. Timmerman
Article Font Size
Iranian intelligence and security operatives know they have an address in the West should they be seeking to defect from the Islamic Republic, says human rights activist Dr. Amir Farshad Ebrahimi.
In an exclusive interview just days after the Iranian regime attempted to kidnap him in Istanbul and take him back to Iran, the former Revolutionary Guards officer told Newsmax that he and other former Iranian officials and like-minded friends in the West have established a “Salvation Committee” to help high-level defectors seeking to leave Iran.
But such actions do not come without a price.
Ebrahimi’s role in helping a top Iranian government official defect to the United States last spring made him a target of Iranian intelligence last week.
The official he helped, former Deputy Defense Minister Gen. Ali Reza Asgari, is credited with having provided the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies with critical new intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons programs, as well an insider’s account of Iran’s overseas terrorist apparatus.
Without Ebrahimi’s help, however, Asgari would most likely have returned to Iran after his special “pilgrimage” passport to Damascus, Syria expired last February.
“We were at the [Iranian] embassy together in Beirut in the mid-1990s,” Ebrahimi told Newsmax. “That’s where we knew each other. That’s why General Asgari called me when he was in Damascus last year. He reminded me that we had been together in Beirut.”
During that fateful call and in other communications, Asgari told Ebrahimi that he didn’t want to return to Iran, but that he only had two days left on his special passport.
Ebrahimi was then living in Germany, and instructed the would-be defector to rent a car and drive to Turkey, leaving his second wife behind in the Damascus hotel room.
From that moment on, the two men remained in constant contact.
After paying a Turkish border guard $1,500 to let him enter Turkey without a visa, Asgari was supposed to rendezvous with Ebrahimi’s contacts at the Gilan hotel in Istanbul, in rooms Ebrahimi had rented for him. But the sudden appearance of Turkish police in front of the hotel scuttled that plan.
As a fall-back plan, Ebrahimi arranged for Asgari to meet with a U.S. embassy official in the Turkish capitol, Ankara. Another U.S. official came from the United States to interview Asgari.
The Americans suggested that the potential defector approach United Nations-affiliated organizations in Ankara and apply for political refugee status, which was approved in a record one week’s time.
Newsmax obtained copies of Asgari’s refugee documents last year and showed them to outside experts who said they were authentic.
From Ankara, Asgari flew to Hamburg, Germany, where he and Ebrahimi saw each other one last time.
“Four hours after his flight arrived in Germany from Ankara, General Asgari changed planes and flew with a U.S. official to Washington, DC,” Ebrahimi told Newsmax.
As a backup plan, Ebrahimi arranged with other members of his Salvation Committee to shelter Asgari in a safe house in Cyprus, but never put that plan into motion because the U.S. government kicked in.
“After he arrived in the United States, Asgari called me and asked me to tell his second wife in Iran that he was OK,” Ebrahimi told Newsmax.
Two weeks later, Asgari had been taken to a safe house in Texas. The last time he contacted Ebrahimi, in early summer of last year, was to encourage him to help other Iranian government officials to defect.
“Did Asgari realize that the CIA was misusing his information to claim that the Iranian nuclear weapons program had been shut down?” speculated Pooya Dayanim, a Los Angeles developer who aided Ebrahimi and was familiar with the Asgari case.
“I believe that his call to encourage other defectors was motivated by a conviction that the nuclear weapons program was still up and running,” Dayanim told Newsmax.
A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear programs, released in December 2007, claimed on the basis of defector information — presumably from Asgari 1 that a key segment of the nuclear weapons had been shut down.
But the director of National Intelligence, Vice Adm. Mike McConnell, appeared to walk back that conclusion of the NIE in congressional testimony in early February
He pleaded that a lack of time led to careless wording in the unclassified version of the NIE that was ultimately released to the public. “So if I’d had until now to think about it, I probably would have changed a thing or two,” the DNI acknowledged.
(See the Newsmax report on McConnell back-peddling on the NIE.)
Another report, “U.S. Intel Possibly Duped by Iran," focuses on how U.S. intel misinterpreted this information.
Sources with knowledge of what Asgari told the CIA about the Iranian nuclear weapons program tell Newsmax they are convinced that CIA analysts cherry-picked Asgari’s information.
These sources believe that CIA analysts included information from Asgari that fit their concept of a politically-ordered “halt” to nuclear weaponization by the Iranian leadership, while neglecting other information he divulged that suggested ongoing nuclear weapons work.
The NIE “was an incredibly shoddy piece of work that made selective use of sources,” a senior U.S. government official who had reviewed the classified source material told Newsmax.
A closed-door briefing to diplomats in Vienna by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s chief weapons inspector on Feb. 25 also directly contradicted the NIE report, as Newsmax reported last month.
Among the documents presented by IAEA Safeguards Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen was an internal Iranian government PowerPoint report detailing progress on a nuclear missile re-entry vehicle through early 2004, well after the NIE claimed the program had been shut down.
Newsmax covered the critical report in a related article.
Ebrahimi said that his Salvation Committee was committed to helping other defectors escape Iran with knowledge of Iran’s nuclear weapons programs and its support for international terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008 8:24 AMBy: Kenneth R. Timmerman
Article Font Size
Iranian intelligence and security operatives know they have an address in the West should they be seeking to defect from the Islamic Republic, says human rights activist Dr. Amir Farshad Ebrahimi.
In an exclusive interview just days after the Iranian regime attempted to kidnap him in Istanbul and take him back to Iran, the former Revolutionary Guards officer told Newsmax that he and other former Iranian officials and like-minded friends in the West have established a “Salvation Committee” to help high-level defectors seeking to leave Iran.
But such actions do not come without a price.
Ebrahimi’s role in helping a top Iranian government official defect to the United States last spring made him a target of Iranian intelligence last week.
The official he helped, former Deputy Defense Minister Gen. Ali Reza Asgari, is credited with having provided the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies with critical new intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons programs, as well an insider’s account of Iran’s overseas terrorist apparatus.
Without Ebrahimi’s help, however, Asgari would most likely have returned to Iran after his special “pilgrimage” passport to Damascus, Syria expired last February.
“We were at the [Iranian] embassy together in Beirut in the mid-1990s,” Ebrahimi told Newsmax. “That’s where we knew each other. That’s why General Asgari called me when he was in Damascus last year. He reminded me that we had been together in Beirut.”
During that fateful call and in other communications, Asgari told Ebrahimi that he didn’t want to return to Iran, but that he only had two days left on his special passport.
Ebrahimi was then living in Germany, and instructed the would-be defector to rent a car and drive to Turkey, leaving his second wife behind in the Damascus hotel room.
From that moment on, the two men remained in constant contact.
After paying a Turkish border guard $1,500 to let him enter Turkey without a visa, Asgari was supposed to rendezvous with Ebrahimi’s contacts at the Gilan hotel in Istanbul, in rooms Ebrahimi had rented for him. But the sudden appearance of Turkish police in front of the hotel scuttled that plan.
As a fall-back plan, Ebrahimi arranged for Asgari to meet with a U.S. embassy official in the Turkish capitol, Ankara. Another U.S. official came from the United States to interview Asgari.
The Americans suggested that the potential defector approach United Nations-affiliated organizations in Ankara and apply for political refugee status, which was approved in a record one week’s time.
Newsmax obtained copies of Asgari’s refugee documents last year and showed them to outside experts who said they were authentic.
From Ankara, Asgari flew to Hamburg, Germany, where he and Ebrahimi saw each other one last time.
“Four hours after his flight arrived in Germany from Ankara, General Asgari changed planes and flew with a U.S. official to Washington, DC,” Ebrahimi told Newsmax.
As a backup plan, Ebrahimi arranged with other members of his Salvation Committee to shelter Asgari in a safe house in Cyprus, but never put that plan into motion because the U.S. government kicked in.
“After he arrived in the United States, Asgari called me and asked me to tell his second wife in Iran that he was OK,” Ebrahimi told Newsmax.
Two weeks later, Asgari had been taken to a safe house in Texas. The last time he contacted Ebrahimi, in early summer of last year, was to encourage him to help other Iranian government officials to defect.
“Did Asgari realize that the CIA was misusing his information to claim that the Iranian nuclear weapons program had been shut down?” speculated Pooya Dayanim, a Los Angeles developer who aided Ebrahimi and was familiar with the Asgari case.
“I believe that his call to encourage other defectors was motivated by a conviction that the nuclear weapons program was still up and running,” Dayanim told Newsmax.
A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear programs, released in December 2007, claimed on the basis of defector information — presumably from Asgari 1 that a key segment of the nuclear weapons had been shut down.
But the director of National Intelligence, Vice Adm. Mike McConnell, appeared to walk back that conclusion of the NIE in congressional testimony in early February
He pleaded that a lack of time led to careless wording in the unclassified version of the NIE that was ultimately released to the public. “So if I’d had until now to think about it, I probably would have changed a thing or two,” the DNI acknowledged.
(See the Newsmax report on McConnell back-peddling on the NIE.)
Another report, “U.S. Intel Possibly Duped by Iran," focuses on how U.S. intel misinterpreted this information.
Sources with knowledge of what Asgari told the CIA about the Iranian nuclear weapons program tell Newsmax they are convinced that CIA analysts cherry-picked Asgari’s information.
These sources believe that CIA analysts included information from Asgari that fit their concept of a politically-ordered “halt” to nuclear weaponization by the Iranian leadership, while neglecting other information he divulged that suggested ongoing nuclear weapons work.
The NIE “was an incredibly shoddy piece of work that made selective use of sources,” a senior U.S. government official who had reviewed the classified source material told Newsmax.
A closed-door briefing to diplomats in Vienna by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s chief weapons inspector on Feb. 25 also directly contradicted the NIE report, as Newsmax reported last month.
Among the documents presented by IAEA Safeguards Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen was an internal Iranian government PowerPoint report detailing progress on a nuclear missile re-entry vehicle through early 2004, well after the NIE claimed the program had been shut down.
Newsmax covered the critical report in a related article.
Ebrahimi said that his Salvation Committee was committed to helping other defectors escape Iran with knowledge of Iran’s nuclear weapons programs and its support for international terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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