Some leaks are evidently more important than other leaks.
When the leak is about something that is classified, that’s ok. But when the leak is about something that Hollywood has, that’s definitely not ok.
There’s an old saying: it all depends upon whose ox is being gored.
Kuwait’s Liberation Day
Feb 26, 1991
A fresh wind seems to be blowing out of North Korea.
They have invited in the UN nuclear watchdogs to develop plans aimed at dismantling their nation’s nuclear weapons program.
No warning on this one.
Nobody seems to have predicted this startling turn of events.
No leaks either.
But there is one troubling theory circulating.
It is Nobel Peace Prize time again.
There is a substantial cash prize, and the DPRK petty cash fund is depleted these days.
We don’t for a minute believe this theory.
It is clearly just another urban legend.
“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.”
George Washington, born Feb 22, 1732
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), has decided to stretch the election season still further.
She has announced her candidacy for another term in the 2010 election.
As of today, that Election Day, 2 November, in 2010, is a mere 1350 days away.
She wants to raise $20 million to do it.
From her web site:
“Elected to a third term in 2004, she received more than 6.9 million votes, the highest total for any Senate candidate in American history.”
So why start so early?
Has someone found a secret door in the campaign laws?
There’s a race going on out there. Well, it’s not actually a race; just people sitting there typing into their computers. But it seems like a race, or competition, to see who can come up with the most outrageous estimate of what it is going to cost all those candidates in that presidential election race that we will hear about for some time to come.
Whatever the number, it will be big enough to knock your hat off.
As of today, that election itself is still 624 days away.
And the cost will be larger than we have ever seen in previous elections.
So what about all that money? Can you think of any other ways such a princely sum ought to be spent?
Global warming?
Katrina?
Body armor for the UN peacekeepers needed in Iraq after Congress pulls our troops out?
Or whatever floats your boat.
Congressman Murtha Crafts Bill to Prevent Iraq Troop Deployments
Friday, February 16, 2007
By Greg Simmons
FOXNews.com
A powerful Democrat and Iraq war foe said he intends to introduce legislation in the coming weeks that would effectively end President Bush’s plans to send 21,500 more troops into Iraq by setting limits on which troops can be sent.
Using an unusual medium — a recorded interview posted on the Internet — Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said his bill would prevent troops from being sent back to Iraq too soon or too poorly equipped. Troops being sent back to Iraq for another tour would have to stay in the United States at least one year before being redeployed. The bill would also end “stop-loss” policies by preventing the president from retaining troops in Iraq after their enlistments expire.
Murtha, who is chairman of the defense subcommittee to the House Appropriations Committee, said he is formulating legislation with teeth because he doesn’t think Bush’s plan to send more troops to Baghdad and al Anbar province would accomplish the goals of bringing peace to the country or returning troops home sooner.
The Bush administration “won’t be able to continue. They won’t be able to do the deployment. They won’t have the equipment. They don’t have the training and they won’t be able to do the work,” Murtha said in the post on the Democrat-friendly Web site MoveCongress.org. “This vote will limit the options of the president and should stop this surge.”
Murtha’s proposed legislation drew a heated response from the House’s top Republican, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, who said the bill would “cut off funding for troops in harm’s way by making sure the reinforcements they need to complete their mission in Iraq never arrive.”
“While American troops are fighting radical Islamic terrorists thousands of miles away, it is unthinkable that the United States Congress would move to discredit their mission, cut off their reinforcements, and deny them the resources they need to succeed and return home safely,” Boehner said in a statement.
“The American people will not support a strategy that involves pulling the rug out from under American troops in the combat zone by cutting off their reinforcements and forcing them to face the enemy without our full support,” Boehner added.
Murtha said the legislation would not necessarily deprive the administration of money but would redirect it, and it would be crafted to protect the troops, not harm them.
“We need to make sure that everybody understands we’re going to support the troops. We’re going to give the troops everything they need. We’re not going to .. make any of them vulnerable,” Murtha said. “But we’re going to make darn sure that they have what they need before they go over.”
[ . . . ]
By crafting legislation with those goals in mind, Murtha said, “that stops the surge for all intents and purposes.”
Read the rest.
“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” Mark Twain
Have you ever gone to a high school football or basketball game and cheered for the other team?
The question isn’t really all that complicated, is it?
When you look at pairs of “incoming” and “outgoing” pictures of Presidents, taken at the beginning and the end of their term of office, the toll of the job upon them is evident.
A similar toll awaits each of the presidential candidates campaigning over the next twenty one months.
Is there a candidate that can run the gauntlet and survive?
Cameras and cell phones are everywhere, with each misstep duly recorded for later reference.
Can any candidates get to the finish line without stepping on a grenade from their own rhetoric?
Is there enough campaign staff to keep going for the whole season?
Is there enough money to finance such an effort? How many calls have you had for contributions?
Will media “overload” reduce the turnout at the polls?
Will we, as a people, decide that a multi year election season is just too long?
Let’s see a show of hands.
How many are really looking forward to another twenty months of this so-called 2008 election campaign?
Thought so. You’re not alone.
Someone has noted that Jack Bauer will have completed his current “24″ hour day, and then a second “day” before all this comes down to the vote that elects our next President on November 4, 2008.
Then, of course, the whole contest might not end on Election Day.
Lets see another show of hands.
How many would like separate TV channels for election news?
Thought so.
You have to watch where you walk on Capitol Hill these days.
There seems to be another scrum up there about who is going to say what and when, and in which hearings.
But after all the confetti and ticker tape has been swept away from the halls and committee rooms, what will the result be?
Imagine that, on the other side of the world, an aide to a Jihadi leader sits watching CSPAN and various news channels, and poring over the writings of reporters and commentators across the web.
In a few hours, he has to go in to his boss and try to explain what is happening here and what its effect might be on them. And he will probably have to translate it all into another language.
What is he going to say?
Our guess: “It will all die down when Pelosi gets her airplane.”
There are several verities about intelligence that seem to dominate the current discussions about intelligence.
First, there isn’t enough of it.
Second, it is often faulty.
Third, it is regularly leaked.
The first two verities are discussed on a daily basis across the web, and in newspapers and news broadcasts on radio and TV.
The third verity is just as ever-present but is rarely mentioned by the news media. They know about the leaks, of course, but since they live off such gifts of information, they are not likely to complain about them.
But all those leaks have a corrosive effect on the entire intelligence process. If documents from your safe keep showing up in the newspapers or some web site, you might be willing to consider changing the combination of the safe. Or, you might be willing to plant some faked document in your safe to see if you could fool your enemies into believing it.
Such things happen in the real world. If you can keep the source in the dark about what intelligence you are getting, you stand the best chance of keeping the source open and flowing. If not, the source dries up, or worse yet, feeds you bogus information. Either way, as the saying goes, the well has been poisoned.
It isn’t easy to construct a “what if” bridge to extrapolate what we might know today if sources hadn’t dried up, or if the well hadn’t been poisoned.
According to Howell Raines, former New York Times executive editor, “Almost all leakers are lawyers. That’s the bottom line.”
Perhaps it’s time to take a look at the legislation and trial processes that leakers believe protect them when they poison the well.
