Recently, a reporter named Chris Nelson, since retired and gone into the consulting business, made the mistake of preparing a confidential report for the South Korean Embassy in Washington, and then erroneously sending that report to his entire list of hundreds of e-mail newsletter subscribers. Two different anonymous sources sent me copies of the report, and the Washington Post has since covered the story of its accidental disclosure.

I have decided that at least one section of the Nelson Report merits printing: the section Nelson wrote about other journalists and his advice to the Korean Embassy on how to deal with them. As you read this, bear in mind that Nelson is an ex-UPI reporter and a die-hard advocate of “engagement” with the North Korean government, very much in the Jack Pritchard mold. Whether you agree with that view or not, this section is a fascinating look at who is writing your news and what biases they bring to their stories. Even if you agree with him, you should be disturbed about so many journalists’ abandonment of objectivity and not-so-concealed desire to influence events and gain “player” status.

What’s truly striking here is that Chris Nelson wrote this for a foreign embassy whose policy goal—the preservation of the North Korean regime—is directly contrary to U.S. interests and reflected in the accelerating dissolution of the U.S.-ROK alliance. Even if Nelson is being truthful when he claims that he wrote this for free and on his own volition, his politics skim effortlessly past the water’s edge, and he has willingly made himself an undisclosed agent of a foreign nation whose interests diverge from our own. Those interests also differ from media consumers who don’t like their news flavored by foreign governments. Draw your own conclusions about what that means, even if you agree that this report doesn’t exactly contain state secrets. What it means to me is that Nelson shares the South Korean government’s culpability for trying to bury the story of the political cleansing of millions of North Koreans.

Finally, a disclaimer: While I have at least two different sources for this document, I don’t know if any of what Nelson is saying about anyone is actually true. Here, then, Section 7 of Nelson’s document with no redactions or deletions. All emphasis my own.

7. THE PRESS:

A very short list, again. No one in the influential national news media is a “Korea expert” per se, except Dan Sneider (mentioned below) and Don Oberdorfer, who no longer practices daily journalism. However, because of the non-proliferation, and China policy/Asia policy associations, certain reporters well known to you write all the time on aspects of Korea policy.

The best and most reliable “insider” is a genuine Korea expert, Dan Sneider, who is syndicated nationally through the San Jose (Ca.) Mercury News. Sneider is the son of the Carter-era Ambassador to South Korea, speaks Korean, and has a deep understanding and sympathy for the issues and the people involved. He is highly critical of Bush policy, but is a deliberate “player” who has managed to maintain good relations with the NSC’s Green and Cha, and virtually anyone mentioned in this Report.

Because he enjoys no Washington, D.C. or New York City outlet, however, Sneider’s written influence is indirect, via having his pieces sent around by email, or by influencing the writing of his friend David Sanger of The New York Times.

Sanger is a difficult case to analyze, since he is a tireless and often brilliant reporter, but who is deeply cynical about what is required to secure a coveted place on the front page of the world’s most important newspaper. Ever since his days in the Tokyo Bureau in the late 1980’s, Sanger has been notorious for catering to established power centers for the “official news”, and for not seeking alternate or critical sources who might contradict the officials, and this “kill” the story. On Korea policy, Sanger’s proclivity has produced an endless series of damaging and frequently false stories which, themselves, are “true”…it IS true that “senior Administration officials today said”…or that “US intelligence officials feel…” that the DPRK is ready to test a bomb, or to defy the US, or to…take your pick. Until or unless forced to by his editors (or peer pressure) what Sanger does not do is seek out Jonathan Pollack or Bob Carlin or Joel Wit, or Jack Pritchard…or any of the known “dissident experts” likely to shoot-down the story, or at least diminish its importance. This is a huge problem with major policy implications and the Embassy should forcefully address it.

Far more intellectually honest is The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, and a rising star is the Post’s defense reporter, (Ms.) Dafna Linzer. Neither are “Korea” experts, but they write constantly about Korea policy. Previously very interested, and still occasionally active on Korea is former Times reporter Barbara Slavin, of USA TODAY. Slavin is very tough minded, and makes no secret of her loathing of the Bush Administration. She no longer receives “special attention” from The White House, despite political chief Karl Rove’s view that USA TODAY is the most important national newspaper, due to its circulation in every small town in America.

More in the “bomb thrower” category is journalist Jasper Becker, who turns out fighly emotional, not partcularly balanced “OpEds” which are violently critical of N. Korea on human rights grounds. He is not wrong, obviously…but his influence on policy is to reinforce the hard-liners at the expense of the pro-engagement forces, to the exent they have survived in the Bush Administration.

Clearly a major “bomb thrower” is The Washington Times and its defense reporter, Bill Gertz. Gertz is the willing agent of The Blue Team…the coalition of dissident anti-communist hard-liners who work to oppose what they see as “soft” US policy on China and N. Korea. If David Sanger is dishonest by omission, Gertz is dishonest by deliberate commission…he is willing to print anything which is critical of communists and those in the US whom he and/or The Blue Team feel are “soft”. He is exceptionally dangerous for this reason and should be treated with extreme care by the Embassy.

Magazine reporters should not be ignored. A major player for now is The New Republic’s Joshua Kurlantzick, who has been both interested in, and concerned about problems with Bush Korea policy. He makes frequent trips to the region, and often seeks advice and introductions. A rising player of interest is The Washington Monthly’s Soyoung Ho, the daughter of a retired ROK diplomat. Ms. Ho is very active and very ambitious, and should be helped as appropriate.

Last and perhaps least, for better or for worse, The Nelson Report, prepared daily by yours truly (who began with UPI in New York in 1967), has established a position of influence by sheer persistence and focus, and the reach of its information sources throughout the Asia policy and trade community…in and out of the Administration, and across the world. God bless e-mail. Nelson was on the HIRC Asia Subcommittee from 1977 to 1981, and a frequent visitor to Korea, and the region, and later served on the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. Since 1983 he has produced what is now called The Nelson Report. “Everyone” talks to him, even, sometimes, still, Mike Green.

A few comments.

Several people thought I had Tourette’s Syndrome when I read Nelson call the WaPo’s Glenn Kessler “intellectually honest.” Neither he nor Dafna Lizner can seems able to write an entire paragraph without an extraneous editorial comment, but those comments invariably fit Nelson’s own biases nicely, thus earning his praise. This is in spite of Nelson’s concession that neither speaks Korean nor knows much about Korea (no news there; I seldom get through a report on the Iraq war without seeing some verbal evidence that the reporter never served).

Contrast Nelson’s adulation of Kessler—exceeded only by Nelson’s adulation of Nelson—with his resentment of David Sanger for actually getting quotes from the people who occupy the White House (the comment on Sanger’s failure to quote critical sources is demonstrably false). Sanger is well known in Washington for his good contacts within the administration, and since journalists are human, there’s probably a mixture of professional envy and resentment of Sanger’s strike-breaking refusal to simply print what comes across the Selig Harrison Intercom Network. Agree with Sanger’s politics or not; his sources are well-placed, and his reporting is detailed and rigorous.

On the “bomb-thrower” Jasper Becker, I can only say that I’m sixty pages into his new book, Rogue Regime, and it’s already looking like the best book about North Korea I’ve read—and I’ve read most of the non-Bruce Cummings stuff by now.

This is also posted on Joe Gandelman’s blog.

Editor’s Note: President George Bush delivered a long-awaited speech in Iraq last night at Fort Bragg. Accounts of the speech were carried by news organizations and shown on television. The speech received mixed editorial reviews and was criticized by some as being dull — but The Moderate Voice has learned the REAL SPEECH was not.

A reliable source has provided TMV an exclusive video of the REAL speech delivered last night without after-the-fact editing changes. Here are excerpts which clearly show the White House had tried to make the speech livelier. These excerpts suggest the mainstream media did not tell the whole story on what President Bush said in his speech:

Text of President Bush’s speech Tuesday night at Fort Bragg, N.C., as NOT provided by the White House:

Thank you and good evening. I am pleased to visit Fort Bragg, home of the Airborne and Special Operations Forces. It is an honor to speak before you tonight and have you serve as props for me to improve my image.

Take Howard Dean. Please.

My greatest responsibility as president is to protect the American people, get my poll numbers up — and make sure that from now on I have lunch with Bill Frist at least once a week.

The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. This war reached our shores on September 11, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us and the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent.

Speaking of rejecting tolerance and despising all dissent, just attend one of my speeches. You’ll have to sign a loyalty pledge first and if you shout out anything, you’re outta there. And, by the way: no pies allowed….

To achieve these aims, the terrorists have continued to kill in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali and elsewhere. They won’t try anything in Bridgeport, Connecticut, because its dead enough there already.

The terrorists believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent. Speaking of corrupt and decadent: What’s the latest on Tom DeLay and Randy Cunningham?

With a few hard blows the terrorists can force us to retreat. A “few hard blows”? Who put in that reference to Monica Lewinsky?

These are the jokes, guys. You’re supposed to laugh

Is this a military audience or the NAACP?

Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home.

Some have made accusations against us of torture — but we have never forced anyone to listen to a lecture on psychiatry by Tom Cruise.

The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq, who is also senior commander at this base, General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said, “Do you know where I can get Viagra at a discount?”

Our mission in Iraq is clear. We are hunting down the terrorists. We are helping Iraqis build a free nation that is an ally in the war on terror. We are advancing freedom in the broader Middle East. We are removing a source of violence and instability and laying the foundation of peace for our children and our grandchildren. We are trying to improve our image by talking in front of a military audience. We are unleashing Karl Rove tomorrow to give a speech that will reveal that Harry Reid doesn’t wear underwear.

The work in Iraq is difficult and dangerous but not as dangerous as teaching high school.

Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed…but enough about parental behavior at Little League games.

Every picture is horrifying and the suffering is real. But let’s not talk about those nude photos of Dick Cheney.

Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country. And tonight I will explain the reasons why or my name isn’t Joe Lieberman.

Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom. Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and other nations in search of a place that serves REAL pizza.

They are making common cause with criminal elements, Iraqi insurgents and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime who want to restore the old order and make sure Sadaam from now on only wears boxer shorts.

They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake. They know that as freedom takes root in Iraq, it will inspire millions across the Middle East to claim their liberty as well. And when the Middle East grows in democracy, prosperity and hope, the terrorists will lose their sponsors, lose their recruits and lose their hopes for turning that region into a base for attacks on America and our allies around the world — and they won’t get many presents at their bar mitzvahs.

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Some wonder whether this recycled speech is at all necessary.

Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: “The fleas in my beard are killing me” and “The whole world is watching Desperate Housewives.” He says it will end in “a ratings triumph for ABC and they’ll eventually turn it into a movie, which will have big B.O. — just like me.”

The lesson of this experience is clear: The terrorists can kill the innocent but they cannot stop the advance of freedom. The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden. For the sake of our nation’s security, this will not happen on my watch — because my watch is small and Mickey Mouse takes up a lot of space on it.

A little over a year ago, I spoke to the nation and described our coalition’s goal in Iraq and that speech wasn’t so terrific, either.

Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard and rebuilding while at war is even harder. It requires work. Hard work. Our progress has been uneven but progress is being made. That’s hard work. We are improving roads and schools and health clinics and working to improve basic services like sanitation, electricity and water. And together with our allies, we will help the new Iraqi government deliver a better life for its citizens. That’s hard work.

Why isn’t that getting any laughs? Repeating a funny phrase works for Letterman….

Hey, Rove — who wrote this comedy material? Ralph Nader?

You guys in the front row: sit down NOW or you’ll be guilty of desertion. I still have more:

Whatever our differences in the past, the world understands that success in Iraq is critical to the security of all our nations.

As German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said at the White House yesterday, “Heil Hitler!”

Hey, Rove: who wrote that crappy Schroeder joke? Oh. Well, next time I’LL handle Laura’s contributions….

Finally, we have continued our efforts to equip and train Iraqi security forces. We have made gains in both the number and quality of those forces. Today Iraq has more than 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a working as telemarketers. That’s about 1/4 the number in the average American city.

Iraqi forces have fought bravely helping to capture terrorists and insurgents in Najaf, Samarra, Fallujah and Mosul — and in Sherman Oaks.

And in the past month, Iraqi forces have led a major anti-terrorist campaign in Baghdad called Operation Lightning, which has led to the capture of hundreds of suspected insurgents.

This is not to be confused with the Operation Lightning that took place in the Oval Office with women who worked on Bill Clinton’s staff. And I do mean who worked on his staff.

Hey, Rove, who wrote THAT loser? Oh. Well, tell Limbaugh his brother Dave is FUNNIER….

The progress in the past year has been significant and we have a clear path forward. To complete the mission, we will continue to hunt down the terrorists and insurgents. To complete the mission, we will prevent al-Qaida and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban - a safe haven from which they could launch attacks on America and our friends..a country named after a long haired dog…What do you mean it isn’t?

So our strategy going forward has both a military track and a political track. And believe me you’re watching the political track in frantic action right now.

The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists and that is why we are on the offense. And no adminstration has ever been as offensive as mine.

And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. As the Iraqis get fed down, the American public gets fed up.

We have made progress but we have a lot more work to do. Hard work. Today Iraqi security forces are at different levels of readiness. Hard — hey, I TOLD you this stuff isn’t working! Next time when I want a FUNNY speech I’ll have Scalia write it!!

Where was I? Oh…

I recognize that Americans want our troops to come home as quickly as possible and for me to shut up. So does my wife.

Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don’t you send more troops? And I say to them: I have a better question for you. Knock Knock. Who’s there? Sadaam. Sadaam who? Sadaam shame we can’t really set a timetable on this war…

If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. I will send the COMMANDERS — not more troops. Just think of the backlash and poll numbers if I sent more troops now. No way, Jose.

Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are in fact working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters: the sober judgment of our military leaders.

Speaking of sober: did you watch that video of Tom Delay slurring his speech the other day? It was posted on Crooks and Liars. I’d make a joke about who that site is named after but Rush and Sean wouldn’t like it.

These are JOKES, you guys.

Is this an audience or a scuplture exhibit?

The other critical element of our strategy is to help ensure that the hopes Iraqis expressed at the polls in January are translated into a secure democracy. Translation is vital — especially when I speak….

As Iraqis make progress toward a free society, the effects are being felt beyond Iraq’s borders. Before our coalition liberated Iraq, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons. Today the leader of Libya has given up his chemical and nuclear weapons programs but he won’t leggo my Eggo.

We have more work to do. Hard work — Jez, how many times did you idiots insert that phrase in this and think it’d get a laugh??

And there will be tough moments that test America’s resolve. We are fighting against men with blind hatred and armed with lethal weapons who are capable of any atrocity. Even playing Kathy Lee Gifford CDs at full blast.

They wear no uniform; they wear no socks; they wear no underwear. Hey, Karl: if that’s true then do a speech linking Reid with the terrorists. Oh. And remind me not to let Reid sit on our couch ever again….

They respect no laws of warfare or morality. Hey, they sound like my former frat brothers on party weekend!

That’s a JOKE, guys! Who booked me into THIS gig? Diane Feinstein?

They are trying to shake our will in Iraq just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001. They will fail. The terrorists do not understand America. The American people do not falter under threat and we will not allow our future to be determined by car bombers and assassins. This needs to be repeated thousands and thousands of times — and I have done just that in one speech alone.

America has done difficult work before. Hard work.,,,Oh, not again!

From our desperate fight for independence, to the darkest days of a Civil War, to the hard-fought battles against tyranny in the 20th century, there were many chances to lose our heart, our nerve or our way. But Americans have always held firm, because we have always believed in certain truths. We know that if evil is not confronted, it gains in strength and audacity and returns to strike us again. We know that when the work is hard — hard w…I WON‘T SAY IT! — the proper response is not retreat, it is courage….

In this time of testing, our troops can know: The American people are behind you. Next week, our nation has an opportunity to make sure that support is felt by every soldier, sailor, airman, Coast Guardsman and Marine at every outpost across the world. This Fourth of July, I ask you to find a way to thank the men and women defending our freedom by flying the flag, sending letters to our troops in the field or helping the military family down the street. I ask you to do this for the troops. I ask you to do this because it shows I care and it can help drive my poll numbers up. And if it doesn’t Rove will be back wearing that bright uniform and hat selling corn dogs on a stick in the food court down at the mall..

I thank those of you who have re-enlisted in an hour when your country needs you. And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces. We live in freedom because every generation has produced patriots willing to serve a cause greater than themselves. Those who serve today are taking their rightful place among the greatest generations that have worn our nation’s uniform. When the history of this period is written, the liberation of Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq will be remembered as great turning points in the story of freedom. And they will remember that we did hard work. CRIPES!!

After September 11, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult. And we are prevailing.

Wait! We are succeeding NOW. So doesn’t that mean we’re vailing? Someone needs to work on their grammar..

Our enemies are brutal, but they are no match for the United States of America and they are no match for the men and women of the United States military. So if you hear from a pollster, tell them you support me, OK?

Thank you. And may God bless America. And Karl Rove.

Armed Liberal made an excellent point recently in The Cowboy War:

“I didn’t watch much TV as a kid… so I’m not sure if the stereotype of the TV cowboy hero who always aims for his opponents gun, and manages to subdue the six or seven bad guys with his fists and a handy lasso was really a television character or just a caricature of one. But it appears that the stereotype lives, in more ways than one, as we try and judge the progress of the war.”

That’s part of it - but look deeper. In the realm of ideas, of course those who believe in central planning as the path to their ideal society will also believe you should run a perfect war. They’re two sides of the same rotten coin. Throw in their basic hostility to the military and the USA as a whole, and you get a self-reinforcing feedback loop between their delusions of central control and their hates. The one is used to justify the other, and vice-versa, and around and around it goes in a vicious, self-perpetuating circle.

Fortunately, there’s a solution.

• The Low, Dishonest Road Through Gitmo
• The War Against the West
• The Road to Victory

Originally posted at Confessions of a Pilgrim

Today on the floor of the House of Representatives Indiana Representative John Hostettler erupted in a fit of inspired rhetoric that resulted in the transcription halting for roughly 45 minutes while order was restored. What Mr. Hostettler said will be all over the MSM by dawn. Why he said it may be missed in the feeding frenzy.

There is some background here that is important to understand before we get to the meat of this thing.

I’ve been following the reports coming out of Colorado Springs for about 6 months. From what I have read and heard there does indeed seem to be something going on out there and the Academy, if not the big boys at the Pentagon, should be looking into it.

Unfortunately, the US House of Representatives decided to jump the gun today when Section 9012 of the Defense Appropriations bill which read in part:

Congressional Record for June 20, 2005
[Page: H4759]

(1) PLAN.—The Secretary of the Air Force shall develop a plan to ensure that the Air Force Academy maintains a climate free from coercive religious intimidation and inappropriate proselytizing by Air Force officials and others in the chain-of-command at the Air Force Academy. The Secretary shall work with experts and other recognized notable persons in the area of pastoral care and religious tolerance to develop the plan.

(2) REPORT.—Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report providing the plan developed pursuant to paragraph (1). The Secretary shall include in the report information on the circumstances surrounding the removal of Air Force Captain Melinda Morton from her position at the Air Force Academy on May 4, 2005.

was read and quickly amended by Representative Duncan Hunter(R-CA) to read:

Amendment offered by Mr. Hunter:

Strike section 9012 (page 115, line 14, through page 117, line 5) and insert the following:

SEC. 9012. SENSE OF CONGRESS AND REPORT CONCERNING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND TOLERANCE AT UNITED STATES AIR FORCE ACADEMY.—

(a) Sense of Congress.—It is the sense of Congress that—

(1) the expression of personal religious faith is welcome in the United States military;

(2) the military must be a place where there is freedom for religious expression for all faiths; and

(3) the Secretary of the Air Force and the Department of Defense Inspector General have undertaken several reviews of the issues of religious tolerance at the Air Force Academy.

(b) Report.—

(1) RECOMMENDATIONS.—The Secretary of the Air Force, based upon the reviews referred in subsection (a)(3), shall develop recommendations to maintain a positive climate of religious freedom and tolerance at the United States Air Force Academy.

(2) SECRETARY OF AIR FORCE REPORT.—Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report providing the recommendations developed pursuant to paragraph (1).

which essentially allows the Academy to continue their reviews and supply their recommendations to the Congress before any thing more was to be done. The original language of the bill would force the Academy to halt their ongoing investigation and comply with the “sense of the Congress”. Mr. Hunter was correct in suggesting allowing the Academy and the Air Force to continue their investigation.

During the ensuing debate Mr. Hunter clarified why he added the amendment:

[Page: H4760][emphasis added]

My point is this, there are a number of reviews that are ongoing right now at the Academy, and in this letter that Acting Secretary of the Air Force, Secretary Michael Dominguez, sent to me, I think the crux of our amendment is laid out and I think justifies. He talks about the work that is ongoing to make sure that the Academy has religious freedom and religious tolerance. He says, As this work progresses, and I am quoting the Secretary, our work and critics of that work will generate news stories. It was a news story that generated this base provision that is in the bill. I ask that you reserve your opinions on this matter until I can get to ground truth through the objective processes now ongoing.

That is what he asks for. He has got lots of reviews, and what we say is, we reestablish, revalidate that there should be both freedom of religion and religious tolerance, and we set a date for a report to come back after the reviews are done, for the Secretary of the Air Force to report back to us with the reviews and with recommendations.

Amen and Amen Rep. Hunter! We cannot continue to allow the media to determine policy for our military whether that is on the battlefield or the classroom. Unfortunately for the House this debate took a decidedly bad turn. Mr. Hunter took exception to the “coercive religious intimidation and inappropriate proselytizing” portion of Section 1 of the portion of the bill in question.

[Page: H4760]

The word “proselytizing” could possibly be applied to what they were doing in that battleground in Iraq[Pilgrim: A Church service Mr. Hunter was forced to enter during a mortar attack] . I have always thought that when I argue religion I am making reasoned judgments and the other guy is proselytizing, and the problem is with that word. With establishing that as a standard, that people in uniform have to adhere to, the average person in uniform is going to say, what does proselytizing mean? Am I proselytizing, and if they are not sure whether or not their statement is proselytizing, you know what they are going to do? They are not going to say anything, and we are going to put a chill on what we have heretofore for our entire history welcomed, and that is, expression of religious views by our uniformed personnel.

Representative David Obey (D-WI) entered into the discussion:

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, the language of the committee amendment does nothing whatsoever to discourage proselytizing. What it does is make clear that the Congress of the United States is opposed to coercive and abusive proselytizing. I think it would be good to go back and look at the history of this problem.

This is a classic tactic of the left, inserting some fairly harsh words(coercive, abusive) but still vague enough that ANY definition could be applied to them. Is inviting a fellow cadet to a Bible Study coercive? Is denying to laugh at a crude joke or correcting religiously offensive behavior abusive? We are so worried about offending Mohammed at Gitmo yet a Christian can’t say, “Don’t say that around me” when someone says “goddamnit!” because it’s coercive or abusive.

This is probably what set Representative John Hostettler (R-IN) off a bit later when he said:

[Page H4763]

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, the long war on Christianity in America continues today on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. It continues unabated

[Page: H4764]

with aid and comfort to those who would eradicate any vestige of our Christian heritage being supplied by the usual suspects, the Democrats. Do not get me wrong. Democrats know they should not be doing this. The spirit of, if not the exact, language in the underlying bill added by the Democrat ranking member, the gentleman from Wisconsin was offered by a Democrat in the Armed Services Committee during consideration of the fiscal year 2006 DOD authorization bill.

The author of that language in the authorizing committee, the gentleman from New York, has suggested since that time that “extremist groups” are behind the removal of language similar to his. I and others who spoke in opposition to that amendment had never even heard of the notion of such an amendment until the gentleman from New York actually offered it during the committee markup. And so I am curious as to who these extremists are that the gentleman from New York spoke of.

Mr. Chairman, we may never know because that is the nature of this debate, name-calling of unspecified people and groups who hold a world view different than many of these Democrats. And, as I said, Mr. Chairman, Democrats know they should not be doing this. Following the overwhelming opposition voiced at the DOD markup, the Democrat ranking member of the committee requested the gentleman from New York to withdraw the amendment, which he did. *.*.*

The last sentence of Mr. Hostettler’s remarks were stricken from the record at HIS OWN REQUEST roughly an hour later.(Mr. Durbin, take note of this please) Mr. Obey saw fit to make sure they made there way into the record however:

[Page: H4764]

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move that the gentleman’s words be taken down.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will suspend.

The Clerk will transcribe the words.

[Time: 16:26]

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the last sentence I spoke.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Indiana?

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I think the House needs to understand why I objected to the language of the gentleman.

As I understand it, the language that the gentleman is saying he will withdraw is the following: “Like moth to a flame, Democrats can’t help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians.”

The reader will notice the time marker in the above quote. This denotes a suspension of the transcription while a minor brawl erupted on the House floor. No punches or the like of a Sumner-Brooks fight on the Senate Floor but rather a rhetorical brawl where Mr. Hostettler was threatened with censure if he didn’t have his own words stricken. To his credit, he didn’t take two days and issue a weak statement…he did the right thing and had his overly heated rhetoric stricken from the record. Not because he thought what he said was wrong, but because the work of the House had to continue and he wanted to be part of it. You can go to the Congressional Record and read Brer Obey’s attempt to extricate himself, and his party, from the tarpit Representative Hostettler had tossed them into. The fact remains that Hostettler was right in what he said but perhaps he could have used different words so he didn’t have to remove them from the record later.

There is a war against Christianity and the opposition uses veiled words with intentionally vague definitions. Any attempt to offer a Christian prayer at a public function is met with severe and immediate reactions by the opposition claiming the mythical “seperation of Church and state”. Let someone wish to offer a Muslim prayer at a public function and it’s called Diversity.

If you’re a talk show junkie like TMV who listens to various shows on both sides of the raging political war divide this item in Raw Story is BIG news:

Two radio executives who made Clear Channel and Rush Limbaugh household are to announce today they have purchased The Ed Schultz show, America’s fastest-growing talk show in the country, RAW STORY has learned.

Veteran radio execs Randy Michaels and Stu Krane purchased the show from Democracy Radio, a non-profit which helps seed progressive talk radio hosts. Michaels’ and Krane’s new company, P1 will now carry the show. The protracted sale has been in the works since March.

If you haven’t sampled Schultz, he’s worth sampling, no matter what your political views. If you’re quickly switching the dial and get him you’d almost swear at first that you have Rush Limbaugh because there are some similarities in voice tone and speech pattern, but the accents — and the ideas — are quite different.

One Schultz’s main strengths is that he’s willing to talk to virtually any caller, even (you might say especially) those with whom he disagrees. And disagree he certainly will, usually respectfully, thoughtfully and strongly. Schultz recently took a blast of heat from listeners by opening up both barrels on Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean for Dean’s controversial remarks about Republicans — he argued that they were counterproductive (as this site has repeatedly argued) — and for not doing better to match GOP funds.

Schultz also made clear when he talked to Dean about his ire over Dean not returning his calls and not going on his show earlier. Schultz was accused by some callers (and on some weblogs) of not being a true liberal. Actually, Schultz is a liberal but he’s a pragmatic one who runs his radio show the way you can see he would like to see the Democratic party be run: by getting the ear of and making his case to centrists and some Republicans versus simply preaching to the same, already-convinced group of people over and over again.

Due to his professionalism, his show’s large number of topics, his penchant for live-on-the-road broadcasts, the ideological diversity of callers, and the way his program is adding stations, Schultz more than Air America’s hosts seems poised to be the liberal talk show host to watch in the early 21st century. And, now, with his show’s purchase by two industry pros who already helped make Rush an institution, the man who calls himself “Big Ed” seems poised to make the national quantum leap — just as Dr. Laura Schlesinger did some years ago when her show went from KFI 640 in L.A. to a national audience to her signing a monster contract.

On his website, a listener writes of the announcement of the show’s sale:

I was in audience in Seattle Monday when Ed announced the sale of the program. You should of seen him when he came out on stage before the show. The crowd roared. We were psyched. Ed gets a couple minute standing ovation. He says he has terrific news to share with us and almost tells us but decides to wait until he’s on the air so everyone can hear at the same time.

He’s really excited about it. He looks like a kid just before he can open his Christmas presents. Another thunderous ovation as the show starts. And then he tells us that the show’s been sold to two guys. Suddenly there was absolute…stunned… dead…silence. There may have been 8 people out of the 800 there who had a clue what that meant. We had no idea how to react. Was this good? Had Ed sold out? Were we about to lose what we had just found? Just 792 stunned people. After listening to the interview Tuesday with one of the buyers I’m convinced this is a very good thing…

What all of this means is that a show that was already growing and had started to get some some recognition, but was dwarfed by all the publicity surrounding Air America, is likely to get an even faster and more extensive rollout…nudged along by people who know how to do it on a national scale.

Unlike Air America which is still seemingly tinkering with some of its shows, Shultz already has a solid product with a solidified identity. In some markets (as here in San Diego on KLSD radio) he is on a station that carries Air America but displaces an Air America show. And the fact that he’s not formally part of Air America, may even score him some points with some reluctant would-be listeners.

So far with all the publicity about Air America, Schultz’s show has grown almost under the radar. But we predict he’s the one most likely to offer conservative talk show radio its stiffest long term ratings competition.

The family of vegetarian Indian pacifist icon Mahatma Gandhi is fighting mad over an Australian company using their beloved ancestor to sell their products and has asked the Indian government to intervene.

The firm is Handi Ghandi — “Great Curries…No Worries” and its curries reportedly include meat curries…including beef…which is a no-no for Hindus. Reuters reports:

“It’s offensive,” Tushar Gandhi, the activist’s Bombay-based great-grandson and head of the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, told Reuters. “It goes absolutely against all his beliefs. Using his image to sell beef curries and such doesn’t gel.

“He was not a foodie.”

Indeed: Gandhi was best known for his hunger strikes.

But it probably wouldn’t be lucrative for the Australian firm to sell customers empty cartons, so they they could hold one of their own.

Although that could make a great weight reduction product.

Even so, Mahatma Gandhi — who is to India what George Washington was to the United States (one of “reborn” India’s founding fathers) — did admit to trying beef, just to see what it tasted like (he was not a beefeater after that). It’s hard for westerners to realize just how cherished the memory of Gandhi is, even though modern Indian governments have not followed his ideals of nonviolence and vegetarianism. Gandhi was assassinated in 1948.

Contacted by telephone in Australia, Handi Ghandi’s Troy Lister told Reuters “it’s not a good time to chat at the moment” and to call back Monday.

It is not clear if the company’s spelling of the name is intentional or not, but “Ghandi” is a common Western misspelling. A handi is also a popular earthen cooking pot.

Handi Ghandi’s Web site also features a line-drawing of Gandhi holding what appears to be an American-style Chinese takeout box.

What’s so commercial about that?

And what’s so offensive?

After all, the drawing of Gandhi is only holding a takeout box of food that could presumably contain the company’s meat and beef products.

Would Americans be upset if car dealerships used John F Kennedy’s image to sell convertibles?

How about Abraham Lincoln’s image over the popcorn stand at Ford’s Theater?

The copyrighted site was only partly working Friday, but Tushar Gandhi said it also included a jingle with a male voice singing, “I am Handi Ghandi, eat my curries.”

“They have tried to get somebody to sound like Ben Kingsley,” he said, referring to the actor who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Gandhi in the eponymous 1982 box office hit.

Although Gandhi’s name and image are protected under India’s constitution and national emblems laws — the same as the national flag — Tushar said he had no legal recourse in Australia, where the company is legally registered.

Reuters notes that this is not the first bro-ha-ha involving Indian icons:

Last month, a U.S.-based Indian lawyer said he would sue a California brewery for $1 billion over a beer label showing the popular Hindu elephant god Ganesh holding a beer in his trunk.

Again, what’s wrong with that?

Would some Americans be upset if a company in India sold nails with a picture of Jesus on the label holding a hammer?

Just wondering…

© David Blue, 2005

“If you faint in the day of adversity,
your strength is small.
Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
hold back those who are stumbling to slaughter.
If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?”
   — Proverbs 24: 10-12

I composed this piece in response to Joe’s Zimbabwe Changed My Mind: Guns Are A Human Right. (And I must thank Joe for some editing I asked for, but the final result is Nobody’s Fault But Mine.) Joe talked about a number of things in his post, but I want to draw on my personal experience here and focus on one thing: what makes people act when the chips are down?

Where, in other words, do heroes come from?

It isn’t just a rhetorical question - understanding the answer could save somebody’s life.

• Perceptions: In Through The Out Door
• Recognition: Dazed And Confused
• Action: In The Light
• Heroism: In My Time of Dying
• Reality: When the Levee Breaks
• Afterthoughts: Ramble On

Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International has characterized the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay as “the gulag of our times”, demonstrating her utter lack of perspective or knowledge of history. Anne Applebaum, the author of GULAG: a History, neatly places the Soviet Gulag into the proper historical context (excerpted from a PBS interview and cleaned it up for readability):

It belongs in the context most obviously of the Holocaust, which… killed six million Jews plus many millions of other people plus the enormous destruction of the Second World War. It belongs in the context of the Chinese and Cambodian revolutions and the… famine in China and the culture revolution in China which…which killed-the…Chinese, the experience of Chinese communism is probably in the… many, many tens of millions. The gulag itself… I think my estimate is that some eighteen million people passed through the camps… of which two to three million probably died.

Nationmaster attempts to enumerate the physical toll of the Soviet Gulag system:

Read the Rest…

Over at Iraq the Model, Omar responds to Tarek Heggy’s article on Winds last week:

bq.. “The author expresses his concerns over the risks associated with what he called a hasty transformation from the current situation towards democracy and he particularly emphasized on the disastrous results that would inevitably happen when the Islamic Brotherhood reaches power in Egypt. Here’s Heggy’s full article for you to read.

Now, although I completely agree with what he said about the Islamic brotherhood’s ambitions, ideology and plans, I have some reservations about the idea in general and I’d like to summarize my observations in the following few lines….”

Good observations, with a nice Arabic aphorism to close - and 354 reader comments to read via the pop-up window! I’m glad to see bloggers like The Big Pharaoh and ITM chiming in on this issue, and fostering good debates on this subject. That’s what it’s all about, after all.

For the past 18 months, I’ve kept a blog to chronicle the suffering of the people of North Korea, where somewhere between one and three million people (out of a total population of 22 million) starved to death while their government did its best to hamstring international aid efforts and blew the national treasury on artillery, centrifuges and cognac. This is just one reason why North Korea has been described as the worst place on earth. Another is the fact that it keeps a chain of gulags in which it imprisons 200,000 people, mostly for political reasons. In some of these camps, as many as 25% of the inmates die every year. Thousands of them are children who are kept there solely because their parents are suspected “class enemies.”

I have moments when I feel that my blog is a stimulating conversation among friends that will never really amount to much (by which I mean the conversation). I’m having one of them right now, in fact. When the intelligentsia that claims to speak for world opinion can’t distinguish between a gas chamber and fart in a crowded elevator, I tend to stare through the screen of my monitor, like Sisyphus looking past the stone, up an insurmountably steep grade of illogic. My latest such moment began when I read this:

Hypocrisy, an overarching war mentality and a disregard for basic human rights principles and international legal obligations continue to mark the USA’s “war on terror”. Serious human rights violations are the inevitable result.

[W]e draw the line at the use of the word “gulag” or at the implication that the United States has somehow become the modern equivalent of Stalin’s Soviet Union. Guantanamo Bay is an ad hoc creation, designed to contain captured enemy combatants in wartime. Abuses there — including new evidence of desecrating the Koran — have been investigated and discussed by the FBI, the press and, to a still limited extent, the military. The Soviet gulag, by contrast, was a massive forced labor complex consisting of thousands of concentration camps and hundreds of exile villages through which more than 20 million people passed during Stalin’s lifetime and whose existence was not acknowledged until after his death. Its modern equivalent is not Guantanamo Bay, but the prisons of Cuba, where Amnesty itself says a new generation of prisoners of conscience reside; or the labor camps of North Korea, which were set up on Stalinist lines; or China’s laogai , the true size of which isn’t even known; or, until recently, the prisons of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Well said. My government is neither perfect nor above criticism. We are publicly debating a careful balance between the protection of our population and the protection of our civil liberties, matters on which we are free to disagree and usually do. I don’t expect everyone to share my belief that the exigency of protecting one’s citizens from international terrorists merits granting fewer legal protections for the latter than the former. That issue is debatable, but words have meanings. The definition of “gulag” and the moral implications of the existence of an actual gulag should not be debatable, and a human rights organization is the last entity that should be blurring them. One need not torture the definition of “gulag” to find them. It is a sad fact that the real ones are all too plentiful. Other than the fact that today’s gulag operates on a smaller scale, recent video suggests that the real gulag of our time isn’t all that different from the gulag of other times.

A global human rights organization that expends its energy and credibility on a blend of questionable and valid concerns won’t have any left to expend on the outrages. It is fair, then, to question just what Amnesty’s published reports—at least those available on its Web page—tell us about gulags in the worst place on earth. The results disappoint:

• Amnesty has never published a detailed report on North Korea’s gulags.
• Amnesty’s last report on North Korea’s “detention places” was published in 1999. It is two and a half pages long and discusses temporary detention facilities, rather than North Korea’s gargantuan gulag zones.
• Amnesty publishes approximately four reports on South Korea for every report it publishes on North Korea.
• In the last year, Amnesty has published one annual report on North Korea and dozens of reports on the United States.
• And finally . . . and this is really at the heart of the matter . . . Amnesty has never called North Korea’s gulags, “gulags.”

In these times when we are told that global tests and world opinion matter so much, it is depressing to realize that those who score the tests can’t even read an eye chart.