SMASH has a good round-up of trends, pictures, quotes and links relating to the Iraqi election and relatively recent historical progress of worldwide freedom.

Val Prieto is featured in a front-page profile in the Miami Herald. That's no small feat.

For money? Or votes? Jim Geraghty makes a reasonable point about the fringe demands of the 2008 Democratic primaries. Related: it's pretty obvious that Senator Kerry plans to run again.

WaPo:

Lines that began small at polling stations grew during the 10 hours of voting, sometimes dramatically. After casting ballots, many Iraqis triumphantly pointed their index fingers, stained with the purple ink that indicated they had voted, and hardly flinched at gunfire and explosions that interrupted the day. At one station, a woman showered election workers with handfuls of candy. At another, a veiled, elderly woman kept repeating, "God's blessings on you" to election workers. Across town, three Iraqi soldiers carried an elderly man in a wheelchair two blocks to a voting booth.

"It's like a wedding. I swear to God, it's a wedding for all of Iraq," said Mohammed Nuhair Rubaie, the director of a polling station in Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Tunis where, after a slow start, hundreds of voters gathered as the cloudless day progressed. "No one has ever witnessed this before. For a half-century, no one has seen anything like it.

"And we did it ourselves."

Read the whole thing. The oddly positive reporting in such a comprehensive round-up makes me think that things really went better than we possibly could have imagined. No, one vote doesn't make a Democracy; but the explicit rejection of terrorism and optimism of the Iraqi people marks a vital precondition for success. These factors alone bear celebration.

New York Magazine reveals the internal strife and juicy tidbits of a post-Rathergate CBS News. RatherBiased highlights some of the most interesting aspects of the story:

* Dan Rather has been observed wandering the hallways of CBS News muttering "elections have consequences," referring to Bush-Kerry presidential race.

* Rather was more than just a figurehead for the story:
"Much has been made of Rather's failure to see the piece before it aired, but that fact isn't very meaningful; he'd read multiple drafts of the script for the story (written by producer Mapes), done most of the interviews, and had a thorough knowledge of the story's content and point of view. He was hardly the uninformed mouthpiece portrayed in the media."

* The producers and correspondents behind the original "60 Minutes" show may not want Rather moving in with them after he vacates the "Evening News" anchor chair. "The correspondents at the Sunday show don’t want Rather on their show, and Moonves doesn’t seem to want him there either," an anonymous CBS News exec is quoted as saying.

Read the summary or the article. Poor Dan;* sounds like he's "two hands worth of white knuckle still hanging ten."

* That sympathy wasn't entirely sincere. FYI.

I just got a piece of junk mail that led with the following exhortation:

60 Minutes Shows Wonder Weight loss Pill

I can't think of an easier way to spot a fraud.

John Podhoretz in the Corner:

The Iraq elections are Teddy Kennedy's Vietnam.

On the downside, this assessment still implies that we have up to 14 more years of Teddy Kennedy left. Unless his recent statements marked his Tet Offensive, which blessedly cuts that figure down to about 6-7, speaking literally.

UPDATE: I'm referring to the man's political career, not his life. Comment appropriately or do not comment.

An Iraqi woman cries tears of joy after casting her vote, outside a polling station in the holy city of Najaf, Jan. 30, 2005. (Faleh Kheiber/Reuters)

WaPo:

Iraq's first democratic election in nearly half a century neared its conclusion Sunday with many observers saying the day appeared to have yielded higher turnout than expected and less violence than feared.

Insurgents killed about two dozen people, including a U.S. Marine. But the level of mayhem by forces striving to disrupt the process was less than predicted, especially in Baghdad where turnout surged during the day amid signs of enthusiasm for voting even in some Sunni areas.

...

The country's electoral commission, in a claim that could not be verified, said at a news conference that between 65 and 72 percent of the country's eligible voters had turned out as of 2 p.m. (6 a.m. EST.) The commission claimed that turnout in Shiite areas was 90 percent.

Adil Allami, chief electoral officer of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, was exultant. "Freedom has won," he said. "We have conquered terrorism."

(Emphasis mine)

If these projections hold up, we're looking at a smashing success. Without a doubt, the level of violence was much lower than anyone expected. A notable quote:

In Najaf, the Shiite holy city that embodies Shiite Muslim hopes for the elections, a light early turnout meant several dozen people at one station in the first hour. Among the first out was Najaha Hassan Rahadi, 58, who broke into tears when asked why she was voting.

"Six of my brothers were executed, and I spent two years in jail" under Saddam Hussein, she said from her wheelchair. "I want to elect a government that represents me."

Read the whole thing.

Scanning a minority of the headlines of a google news search gives us a tedious glimpse of the political unconsciousness of Fifth Columnists:

Bloody dawn to Iraq democracy
Australian, Australia - 25 minutes ago

Iraq vote bloodied by attacks
Swissinfo, Switzerland - 2 hours ago

Iraq poll marred by violence
ABC Online, Australia - 4 hours ago

What's the real story here? That two dozen people died in a country that's a regular victim of terrorism? Or that perhaps 9,100,000 people stood up and demanded Democracy, shedding a half-century of brutal oppression and defying the threats of terrorists? What it would take to wring a positive headline out of those editors is beyond me. Robert Fisk characteristically places clinging to the tatters of his ideological self-worth above the ideals of humanism and freedom:

'What a bloody charade'

No Fisk, your declared belief in "progressive values" is the bloody charade.

Overall though, at this point, I'm scoring the MSM a C+; the turnout's message is undeniable, and the ideological snipers grumble on the fringes. This Reuters headline hits it:

Iraqis Brave Bombs to Vote in Their Millions
Reuters - 39 minutes ago

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin covers the remarkable angle of women voting in a Muslim country:

Will American feminists be celebrating these amazing images and this historic day? The silence is deafening.

Here's one of the first shameful answers.

Outside the Beltway nails it:

But there is an interesting subtext: over and over what Iraqis are saying is that they were “voting against terrorism” or that they “voted for peace.” Which means that this election went from a referendum on the American “occupation” to a rejection of the terrorism of Abu al-Zarqawi.

An Iraqi man shows his dye-stained finger -- signifying he has voted - at a polling station in Basra, southern Iraq. (Toby Melville/Reuters)

That might as well be a middle finger to Zarqawi.

Instapundit has a few typically comprehensive round-ups.

Dean gets brutal and frank:

72% turnout, you reactionary, anti-progressive, anti-humanist pissants.

Iraq the Model remarks on voting:

The people have won. We would love to share what we did this morning with the whole world, we can't describe the feelings we've been through but we'll try to share as much as we can with you.
...
We had all kinds of feelings in our minds while we were on our way to the ballot box except one feeling that never came to us, that was fear. We could smell pride in the atmosphere this morning; everyone we saw was holding up his blue tipped finger with broad smiles on the faces while walking out of the center.

I couldn't think of a scene more beautiful than that.

Iraqis queuing to vote at a polling station in the centre of Az Zubayr, Southern Iraq (AP Photo / Andrew Parsons / Pool).

Curioser and Curioser rounds up more Iraqi blogger reactions.

Day by Day already ran with the "finger" meme:

UPDATE: The number of people estimated to have voted was edited for accuracy (8 to 9.1 million).

... that this qualifies as a reasonable blog post that takes a stab at refuting the conventional narrative around global warming.

UPDATE: Another Hold the Mayo post.

... reserved for people who haughtily correct a post's spelling error or typo in the public comments section of a blog. Congratulations Cliff Claven, you found a golden nugget.

Remember: errors on a blog come and go, but being a jerk is forever.

I love it. I think that Rather and Mapes need their faces on a billboard outside of 524 West 57th Street as well.

A very moving article from the WaPo:

The inherent danger of the mission was driven home at 3:30 p.m. A single shot rang out, and 1st Lt. Nainoa K. Hoe, 27, the popular leader of the 2nd Platoon, C Company, 3rd Battalion of the 21st Infantry Regiment, fell dead in the street.

UPDATE: As commenter johnd1 writes:

The article was so well written that I had to check the masthead to make sure it wasn't a blog. The article is long, but a must read.

Steve Fainaru is a rare example of what the MSM is capable of. I wrote the WaPo to congratulate them on it.

Agreed, it's excellent. The WaPo offers many great pieces that tend to offset my ire at the bad ones. Overall, they smoke the NYT.

... from you-know-who:

"NO! I will not permit the rape of this fragile ecosystem!" bellowed Ellen courageously, staring down the inhuman glare of the bulldozer's jagged jaws as she determinedly set the heels of her Kate Spade tan suede boots into the spongy Alviso silty clay loam of Gaia's exposed and trembling bosom.

Other excerpts here and here.

Warning, naughty language and unsettling mental instability.

Actually, that guy actually sort of sounds like me trying to figure out how to record internet telephony or chat.

(Via Florida Cracker)

PS - Back up your critical files before you send a computer away for maintenance or repair.

... from Barbara Boxer's forthcoming novel:

"You are a liar. You've lost respect for the truth in the service of your, your ... your thing," Ellen yelled at Senator Dott, her finger stabbing the air with angry condemnation.

Dott was unsettled by the confrontation with this courageous, strong-willed woman. A finely-groomed product of the medieval southern aristocracy, he wasn't used to dealing with a female that showed such courageous independence - or courage. Grasping for a defense, Dott attempted a classical diversionary debate tactic.

"Now Ellen, I will not have you impugn mah credibility. That is simply over the line, Senator," simpered the sexy southern senatorial smoothie with mock indignation.

"I'm not calling you a liar! Don't misrepresent me Senator," countered Ellen. "And please address the issue at hand. On December 14, 2004, you held the door open for me at a closed session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, walked me to my chair, and pulled it out for me until I sat down, winking as you finally took your own seat. On December 18, 2004, you told me, and I quote, 'you have beautiful eyes.' Not 'nice,' not 'pretty,' but 'beautiful.' These are your words, Senator Dott. On December 21, 2004, over appletinis and crusted-lime seabass at Citronelle, you indicated to me that your wife didn't 'understand' you, or your enduring love for the five-star French-Californian cuisine pioneered by Michele Richard. I could go on and on. And finally, on January 15, 2005, you had your way with me, plundering my womanly treasures like a rapacious multinational oil conglomerate."

"Now, I voted 'no' on this proposal, but my body - and the good Senator from New England - voted 'yes,' and the authorization for this action was solely based on the assumption that you would leave your wife, and that we would embark on a long-term relationship of mutual love and respect. Yet after the act, if it served your purpose to downplay the possibility of a relationship, you said, "I never said I was going to leave my wife anytime soon." And then later, when you seemed to want my intimate company, you'd reverse course, complimenting my outfit, my eyes, or my 'luscious milk wagons,' in your deceptively charming regional vernacular.

And you don't seem to be willing to, A, admit a mistake, or B, give any indication of what you're going to do to make it so we can be together forever. As a matter of fact, you've said more misstatements and lies. So I am deeply troubled."

Dott was clearly frightened by the devastating litany of facts.

"May I respond? Ellen, I have to say that I have never, ever, lost respect for the truth in the service of anything, least of all, my pickle. It is not my nature. It is not my character. And I would hope that we can have this conversation and discuss what happened before and what I said without impugning my credibility or my integrity.

And frankly, you are freaking me the Hell out," responded Dott.

"I never called you a liar or indicated that you lied, Senator!" Ellen shot back, tears misting her gorgeous blue eyes.

I don't know about any of you, but I'm preordering this thing from Amazon. Gripping.

Read the first excerpt here.

Does anyone know how to record both ends of a Yahoo (or other) voice chat conversation? Or some sort of internet telephony with very clear quality? Please drop a comment or e-mail with settings/software recommendations. And please, if you're speculating, please be confident and specific with your help; I'm like a dog chasing its tail, and "maybe this and that" will just cause me to spin faster. And puke on the rug. Thanks.

A third sell-out puts himself on the take.

UPDATE: In fairness to Magge Gallagher.

"Wi-kedd Pi-SSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"

... for a disturbing peek inside the bleak emptiness of Barbara Boxer's weepy noggin:

Chronicle Books to Publish Senator Barbara Boxer Novel

Chronicle Books has acquired the rights to a novel by United States Senator Barbara Boxer of California. The yet untitled book, to be written with Mary-Rose Hayes, who has written several novels, will be published in November 2005. The authors are represented by Frederick Hill of Frederick Hill/Bonnie Nadell Literary Agency. This is Senator Boxer's first novel.

The novel will tell a tale of personal friendships and betrayal, political in-fighting and pragmatism. The novel follows Ellen from her days as an idealistic college student, through romantic entanglements, to a difficult marriage to a rising political star. When her husband is killed, she steps into his campaign for the Senate and is elected. On the eve of a crucial senate vote, her personal and political worlds collide when her right-wing adversaries recruit her former lover to sabotage her credibility and career.

It's appropriate for someone that derives most of their political ideology from neatly crafted fictional narratives to write a novel, I suppose. I leaned on a few sources and scored an exclusive excerpt:

Night had fallen over Room 487 of the Russell Senate Office Building, and there she was. She couldn't believe it. She was the courageous, hardscrabble product of a broken home; the triumphant honors graduate of a prestigious (and patriarchal) university; the courageous, devoted single mother of two children; perhaps the most courageous progressive political activist, infighter and rising star in the country - yet there she was. On the verge of defeat. Not by evil intellect or cunning or unforeseen political maneuvering - but by passion.

Her heart fluttered spastically, like a panicked Gilded Northern Flicker on the brink of habitat displacement via the unnatural predation of a steel-toothed, carbon-emitting behemoth. Her body felt aflame, her razor-sharp nipples tracing tiny elliptical contours along the inside of her cream-colored Claiborne silk blouse, her torso straining and heaving with ragged breaths under her chocolate Nicole Miller herringbone pantsuit. She was burning, trapped and conflicted in the wanton and unwavering gaze of Senator Kent Dott, her conservative arch-nemesis from the slack-jawed hamlet of Mississippi.

"As ... as I was saying, this legislation ... is ... unacceptable. The destruction ... of Social Security cannot be passed off as reform. You are lying to ..." She struggled to mouth the words.

Senator Dott stood and walked with a big cat's grace to the front of his desk, stopping and leaning a mere two feet from her pounding breast and gently parted lips, his legs slightly askew, his gaze unflinching.

"Now Ellen, you and I both know that something needs to be done here," Dott breathily rumbled in his smooth southern drawl.

"No. The system will be fine until 2052, and all it requires is an increase in the payroll tax ..."

"No Ellen. I'm not talking about Social Security. I'm talking about you and me."

He reached down and grabbed her wrist, roughly pulling her up into a dark and manly embrace that smelled of wool and cedar cologne. She could feel herself melting, yielding to his unilateral hegemony over the ebb and flow of her loins. For the very first time in her life, her unrelenting, courageous battle to protect the rights of the underprivileged was put on hold by the inviolable needs of her body. She looked into Dott's lustful eyes until the very last moment before his glasses fogged over in the hot vapors of their mingling breath. Without another word he kissed her, gently at first, but with a mounting ardor that quickly grew into the frenzied assault of a starving lion feasting on freshly killed meat.

A noise startled them both, and they bounded slightly apart, turning to spy the massive, ruddy intruder standing in the doorway to Dott's office.

"Eddie! This isn't ... I don't ..." Ellen stammered in shock.

The bovine Senator from New England blinked once, twice, then briefly stared at the embrace of his two colleagues, smiled a subtle smile and walked into the room, placing his scotch on the mantle and closing and locking the door behind him. The dawning surprise in his bloodshot eyes had been replaced by something else.

It was hunger.

Malkin:

My latest column, which is also a special news feature in today's New York Post, is dedicated to the memory of the man pictured above. The story exposes how our behemoth, $34 billion Department of Homeland Security sent a green card approval notice on Jan. 15, 2005 to Mr. Eugueni Kniazev (pronounced Yev-GEN-nee Kuh-NEH-zev), who was murdered at the World Trade Center on that unforgettable day the towers collapsed.

That's right. The feds sent a green card approval notice less than two weeks ago to a known, deceased Sept. 11 victim ...

I'd say that this highlights certain, uh, dangerous inefficiencies in our Homeland Security bureaucracy. More from Powerline.

... to Rosemary and Dean on the birth of their new son.

UPDATE: Dean also adds another post about the skepticism surrounding the HIV-AIDS link. It seems that pure politics isn't the only subject matter that brings out the animated nasties:

Some disputed the numbers. Some did so politely, some sneeringly. Despite the sneers, I went ahead and contacted Duesberg and Rasnick for sources, and within short order Rasnick (who compiled the figures originally for the paper) came up with a long list. I've been sitting on that list for over a week.

Why? I'll tell you why: Because every time I think about wading back into that discussion, I get a searing headache and think, "I'd rather drive an icepick into my eyeball."

I'm tired--very, very, very tired--of people being nasty. So: I'm posting these references. But the very first person who acts snotty, condescending, or sneering (whether in support of the HIV skeptics or in refuting them) will get tossed permanently off of Dean's World. I don't care who started it, at this point we reset to zero. No matter whose side you're on, there's one rule:

You get nasty, you get gone.

Pull that trigger, buddy.

Check out the WaPo's excellent compilation of personal photographs from military personnel serving in Iraq.

Wuzzadem, guest-blogging over at Ace's place, busts out his latest farce:

I wanted to crawl into a hole and die! I'd just made a complete fool of myself in front of Glenn Reynolds. How many times had I played this scene out in my head? I'd always played it so cool in those fantasies, always so nonchalant. "Oh, hi," I always imagined myself saying, "you're, uh, don't tell me - is it Glenn?" Now I was acting like a starstruck Starbucks Instagroupie. I was sure Glenn must have thought I was a total doofus. I was certain our brief conversation was at an end, but he looked me right in the eye and said, "Aren't you John from WuzzaDem?"

I couldn't believe my ears. Glenn Reynolds knows my name? Glenn Reynolds knows about my blog? Before I could ask him how he knew who I was, he continued, "You know, I have a confession to make - I've always wanted to link to your blog, but to tell you the truth I was afraid to ask you."

Then again, who am I to judge? I had a restraining order first, buddy!

Paul from Wizbang writes that post on global warming. The preface:

Yikes, Bill goes wildly off course in his update here. Not a big deal. He gets a whole heap of facts wrong but, I'm just not in the mood to even read the whole thing much less reply. So be it. One of the things he gets wrong is that he says I was going to make a global warming post... I offered to if he wanted, I never said I was going to... but what the heck...

(Emphasis mine)

Well who can argue with that?

I may have said that I was going to read any post on global warming that Paul put up, "but, I'm just not in the mood to even read the whole thing much less reply."

After all, let's be frank: reading is a bear. And numbers give me Petit Mal seizures.

Vote mypuppywashitbyaford.org today! Early and often!

Righties often complain about or snidely mock the dire proclamations of environmentalists as "junk science" trotted out for political purposes. And sometimes, they're right. But I have a problem with right-wing commentators that immediately lurch to attack stories like this in absolutist terms:

Climate change: report warns point of no return may be reached in 10 years, leading to droughts, agricultural failure and water shortages

The global warming danger threshold for the world is clearly marked for the first time in an international report to be published tomorrow - and the bad news is, the world has nearly reached it already.

My problem? The story may smell of hyperbole, but attacking something as complex as a scientific theory with emotional language, based on a news report, with a primarily political angle, makes you similar to the people that you're mocking.

Are the greens acting like chicken little? Maybe, maybe not. Is the deadline hyperbolic? Perhaps likely, though not assuredly.

But constructing a scientific judgment from political ideology, left or right, simply isn't compelling to anyone beyond the automatonic faithful. For example, Paul at Wizbang uses a typical emotional tactic:

Read More »

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*** If you're looking for some streaming internet right-wing radio to get you all hopped up and ready for action, RightTalk Radio seems to have a variety of programs. Check 'em out.

Please support this site by clicking through to peruse my advertisers. Thanks.

end commercial

Chrenkoff does yeoman's work again: "Who's who of Iraqi political parties and lists."

Abu Musab Zarqawi is marginalizing himself into irrelevance:

Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born militant whose al Qaeda-linked group has claimed responsibility for some of the most deadly insurgent attacks in postwar Iraq, called candidates running in the Jan. 30 elections "demi-idols" and the people who plan to vote for them "infidels," according to a Web site that broadcast a speech reportedly made by Zarqawi.
...
"We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," said the speaker, who identified himself as Zarqawi. "Anyone who tries to help set up this system is part of it."

We can win this. With 80% of the population aligned against the terrorists, Iraq can win this.

UPDATE: On the same page.

I was going to offer extended commentary on a ridiculous WaPo story that was custom-built to fulfill the narrative that we are creating more terrorists via occupation in Iraq ... but I can't top Tim Blair. My favorite part? The "victim" repeatedly slaps the crap out of his mother, yet the reporter couches and minimizes the behavior in dry, uncritical language. Which would actually be professional, but the rest of the man's portrayal is sympathetic, and in contrast, the actions of the Americans are painted in a rather dramatic tone for allegedly exposing the guy's porn stash and piling it up with his Koran. Almost all of the events are based on the testimony of an aggrieved Iraqi who uses twitchy hyperbole and repeatedly slaps the crap out of his mother. Which is fine I suppose, because that's their culture, and all. And who are we to judge an apparently slap-happy, mom-beating culture?* I suppose it also shows us how the stress of American occupation drives a frustrated youth to violence.

Jackie "Spinner" is an appropriate name for the reporter. I'm not saying that the phenomenon of alienation that she attempts to describe isn't happening to an extent, it's just hilarious how she uncritically accepts and presents the testimony of a witness that probably has a marked tendency to exagerrate. And I read that feeling loud-and-clear off of a page, whereas Spinner doesn't know or care when she's being played en vivo. In between the culturally relative mom-slaps.

Related: Dramatic tension.

* I'm not opining that Iraqi culture condones beating moms, I'm mocking what I perceive as cultural/moral relativism that would cause a reporter to uncritically dismiss the negativity of the action, in a piece that otherwise uses implied criticism. See second comment. As Tim Blair remarks in his post:

The only violence in this saga is committed by Imaad against his mother -- and the Americans are devils?
...
It's another My Lai! Congratulations for exposing this, Washington Post.

UPDATE: More links.

UPDATE: Say Anything:

"And what's with the moral duality in the article? Clearly the reporter spins the incident into a criticism of American troops while sparing the Iraqi man even the smallest hint of criticism for repeatedly beating his mother. Shouldn’t the reporter allow for the idea that this man just might be a little unbalanced given the fact that he’s upset about the porn and repeatedly beats his mother? Shouldn’t the reporter allow for the possibility that this man is exaggerating? She fails to even track down the unit of soldiers who were responsible for this home inspection. Isn’t she interested in getting the soldiers’ side of the story?

There are a lot of gaping holes in this story that the reporter clearly ignored. Either she’s not very good at her job or is clearly trying to create some anti-war propaganda.

Chauvinist? From available evidence, "no." I'm sure that most everyone's aware of the controversy:

During nearly four years as president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers has earned a reputation for blunt, sometimes brutal comments. After upsetting African Americans early in his tenure, he has provoked a new storm of controversy by suggesting that the shortage of elite female scientists may stem in part from "innate" differences between men and women.

Of course, Summers wasn't making a statement that men were "superior" to women, rather pointing out that different tendencies in the way men and women think may partially account for the gender gap in the advanced, hard sciences. Of course, the outrage was palpable:

"I felt I was going to be sick," said Nancy Hopkins, a biology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who listened to part of Summers's speech Friday at a session on the progress of women in academia organized by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass. She walked out in what she described as a physical sense of disgust.

But I have to wonder if Dr. Hopkins has come across this research (as described by Wizbang):

Researchers at Harvard, the University of Virginia, and the University of Washington have created a system they claim can uncover hidden biases that we all carry. They have developed the Implicit Association Test, which is actually a series of tests that assess your conscious and unconscious preferences for over 60 different topics ranging from pets to political issues, ethnic groups to sports teams, and entertainers to styles of music.

While flipping through the demonstration tests, I came across this one:

Gender - Science. This IAT often reveals a relative link between liberal arts and females and between science and males.

Granting that I have no idea whether the results that inspired the blurb are statistically significant, the test measures unconscious reactions and tendencies, so the theory that social conditioning tells women that they are not good at science would probably have a diminished influence on the result. Otherwise, in general, women tend to have higher verbal ability (as measured by standardized tests) than men, and are often drawn to certain careers that showcase these skills. In general, men tend to have higher math and science ability than women, and are drawn towards certain careers that showcase these skills. This does not mean that all men or women are better than the opposite gender in a specific area, it just points out general trends that might lead to a statistically significant difference in career choices in the general population.

There are brilliant women scientists, and fantastic male writers. Then again, when I was in a Journalism and Communications program at the University of Florida, 70% of my classmates were female (cha-ching). And the poor guys in the engineering building would almost pass out from surprise and excitement every time a woman merely walked through their building on the way to Advertising 101; an engineering curriculum consigned the poor schlubs to 2-3 years of classroom lockdown in the Jimmy Dean factory. And why did most of the respective majors that I knew choose those programs? Because they wanted to; they were drawn to the subject matter.

So merely asking if innate differences may partially account for the much lower incidence of females that choose careers in the hard sciences is not a sexist question - it's a theoretical query that makes a whole lot of common sense. And at the very least, someone asking the question doesn't deserve this metaphorical beating in an environment that's intended to nurture academic honesty.

UPDATE: More:

Hopkins researchers have found that differences in two specific areas of the brains of men and women may explain why women tend to have better verbal ability than men.

Read More »

Would someone kindly put Pat Buchanan out to pasture? Thanks in advance.

UPDATE: Some further detail.

"On January 30th, we meet our destiny and our duty.

We are not alone and not afraid."

"The heroes of Iraq," indeed.

Some of these people are going to die on January 30th; a high turnout in spite of this inevitably grim lottery will make a very powerful statement to the world. I only wonder whether or not the MSM and the Western Left will ever drop their personal agenda and bother to listen.

(Via the Fourth Rail and the Adventures of Chester)

... but where the Hell is Fred?

UPDATE: For reference.

... that a devastating flood recently hit Costa Rica's Carribean Coast? Please consider taking "the $5 Challenge."

Frankly, I'm sick of the word, and Scylla & Charybdis tries to nudge the alternate term "Foil-Hat" into wider circulation by offering a concrete definition. This portion is perfect:

2. A political activist of any philosophy who accepts without factual support the assumption that any person who disagrees with any of the activist's political positions is necessarily part of a pervasive, nefarious yet hidden conspiracy to harm society.

But I'm not sure about this:

3. A political consumer typically (but not always) of a lower socio-economic class, who forms a strong brand loyalty to a constantly-changing smorgasbord of political images and movements, seemingly assembled around a core belief that the current societal paradigm is designed primarily as a form of spectator sport called "3rd world infanticide."

There are quite a few foil hatters in the middle and upper classes, and some that are just filthy rich. Otherwise, a dead-on definition.

Ace highlights a passage about media bias by Ron Rosenbaum that I agree with wholeheartedly:

I witnessed the birth of the "Theory of Moments," which changed the very nature of broadcast news[,] which was devised by then–CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter. Mr. Sauter believed that broadcast news, the evening news, should reconceive itself from an anchor, like Mr. Cronkite, reading descriptions of events accompanied by illustrative film to a broadcast that offered us visually dominated emotional "moments." Moments in a filmed report that wordlessly reflect the emotional depth left out of news-reading reportage. Feelings. That TV news had a mission not just to give us Mr. Cronkite’s "That’s the way it is" but something more, something that only the camera can communicate: "That’s the way it feels." ...

I think, in fact, it might be worth dwelling on the origin of the Theory of Moments, since it plays an often-unacknowledged role in the way broadcast-news stories are structured: reaching for Moments— moments of feeling, moments of visceral emotion—no matter how manipulative.

Exactly. Bias bred by a need for drama co-exists with bias rooted in political ideology in the hearts of newsies, especially those in the TV end of the business. I wrote about this when I interviewed CBS Evening News employees about their story that used both bogus draft scare e-mails and an undisclosed activist as an interview subject:

Truth be told, none of my conversations with the CBS News employees led me to believe that any of them had any overt, conscious partisan malice, and I don't regard this incident with quite the same severity that's reserved for the National Guard story. But I also think that political bias and motivations can be internalized, and that there exists another form of prevalent bias in the media, especially in TV production: the need for tension in the story. Even if we were to remove the larger partisan implications of timing involved with raising the draft issue, CBS was certainly motivated by the need to create dynamic tension between the worries and beliefs of an "everyday" mother of two potentially draft-eligible sons and the contrary public positions of John Kerry and George W. Bush. Without the tension, without the worry and without the conflict, there's no story.

The phenomenon of deceptive news presented to ceate artificial tension is at least as prevalent as political bias. And the two factors often converge to stunningly deceptive effect.

The charge from Bush:

For a half century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical – and then there came a day of fire.

We have seen our vulnerability – and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny – prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder – violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

Exhibit A:

A John F. Kennedy School of Government researcher has cast doubt on the widely held belief that terrorism stems from poverty, finding instead that terrorist violence is related to a nation's level of political freedom.

Of course, there's a common-sense catch to the idea:

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... respected international news wire service or amateur progressive flyer? You be the judge:

WASHINGTON - Not a word on Iraq. President Bush's inaugural address contained 2,000 words of passion and promise for his second term, but no direct mention of the war that could sink it. ... He focused on the global war on terrorism, which Bush has deftly linked to Iraq.

A dependent sentence fragment busted out for dramatic effect and the use of "Deftly linked" to outline politically motivated deceit make the judgment a tough call. Though to be fair, amateur progressive flyers usually use the words "BushCo" or "neocon hegemons" in their leads. This makes me wonder what writer Ron Fournier judges to be the likely outcome in Iraq.

I'm beyond fed up with the Associated Press, primarily because of its history of making up events out of whole cloth, cutting vital information that constitutes a lie and projecting the deepest leftist consciousness in both straight news items and its daily "analysis" pieces. And as a wire service, the AP's writing has a reach that dwarfs items specific to publications like the New York Times.

If one could figure out a way to hold the AP accountable with objective evidence, one might make a tangible impact on the way news is reported worldwide. If one were so inclined ...

UPDATE: How bad is media bias on stories about Iraq? Chrenkoff runs the digits.

I participated in John Hawkin's most recent poll, "Right-Of-Center Bloggers Select The Most & Least Desired 2008 Republican Nominee," and I was heartened to see my pick for "most desired" (Rudy) near the top of the list. I was also pleased to see that Newt Gingrich made the top of the list for "least desired."

Now the disturbing part: Newt Gingrich came in fifth under the "most desired" list, indicating that some of the polled bloggers must have no clue about what constitutes broad political appeal. Right-wing desire for a Newt Gingrich candidacy is very similar to left-wingers yearning for Howard Dean. Worse, actually. While Gingrich got somewhat of an unfair shake during his tenure as Speaker, he's still effectively branded as the Prince of Darkness, he has an incredibly tone-deaf ability to put both feet in his mouth, and he's got a ginormous head that scares the bejesus out of animals and small children. A Republican nomination of Newt Gingrich for President would be a complete disaster. Even a strong showing in the primaries could probably leave a vaguely negative taint on the Party.

Now my question is, who voted for him in the poll? Were they serious? Were they high? Stand up and admit your folly.

UPDATE: LaShawn Barber: "You’re tainted goods, Mr. Gingrich." Even though most people may be unaware of some of the specific character issues that she mentions, the press loudly branded Gingrich as the Evil Grinch, and the label stuck. And don't forget the size of the man's gord; it's like a huge pink and grey pumpkin.

I'm fascinated by Beautiful Atrocities' continuing reports on the signage at Oakland's Grand Lake movie theater.

Yep:

Peralta's sacrifice should be a legend in the making. But somehow heroism doesn't get the same traction in our media environment as being a victim or villain, categories that encompass the truly famous Jessica Lynch and Lynndie England respectively. Peralta's story has been covered in military publications, a smattering of papers including the Seattle Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune, ABC News, and some military blogs. But the Washington Post and the New York Times only mentioned Peralta's name in their lists of the dead. Scandalously, the "heroism" of Spc. Thomas Wilson — the national guardsman who asked a tough question of Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld that had been planted with him by a reporter — has been more celebrated in the press than that of Peralta.

Read the rest. Some of my previous thoughts on the media's tendency to ignore war heroes can be found here.

(Thanks to JimM)

UPDATE: Ace states the obvious (well):

Peralta's death can't be used to advance their agenda. And hence the media silence.

Stick-in-the-mud!* Hey, she sort of asked for it.

As for explaining to my (thus far non-existent) kindergartener "what a 'motherf***er' is," I'd probably start by pointing them here. The world is full of 'em, and it's best they learn early.

None of that whole "Santa Claus" bait-and-switch, either.

* Actually yeah, it's definitely inappropriate to drop the f-bomb with the Hillary Duff crowd in the house. No disagreement. But really, the whole mish-mash of a line-up was ridiculous. Fuel and Hillary Duff? That's just poor event planning. The Hillary Duff part.

UPDATE: Jeff G has more. And I'm fond of this comment.

No posting today.

Just prior to elections, this is a must-read:

"Something struck me as odd this fall as I watched a U.S. satellite news broadcast here in my Baghdad office. Something just didn't seem right. There was the usual tug-of-war between presidential candidates, a story about the Boston Red Sox and a blurb about another explosion in Iraq. The latter story showed the expected images of smoke and debris and people frantically running for cover - images that have become the accepted norm in the minds of many Americans thanks, or should I say no thanks, to the media.

"There were no smiling soldiers, no mention of rebuilding efforts, no heartwarming stories about honor and sacrifice. I could swear I've seen that 'stuff' here.

"I've become somewhat callused to this kind of seesaw reporting because every day I work with the news agencies that manufacture it. However, many service members shake their heads in frustration each time they see their daily rebuilding efforts ignored by the media in favor of the more 'sensational' car bomb and rocket attack stories. Not to say that tragedies don't happen - Iraq is a war zone - but there is so much more happening that gets overlooked if not ignored."

Read the rest.

... but you'll have to pry my garden gnome from my cold, dead fingers.

And to be fair, I did sort of disclose my relationship back in September.

UPDATE: Blech.

Three strikes and you're out. In case you still had any doubts, Jonathan "Pajamas/Flood the Zone" Klein is a cocky dunce. Why else would he continue to say such stupid, stupid things?

Hmmmmm. Maybe it's time to start looking into some of CNN's reporting ... a man who is that arrogant must greenlight some pretty porous product.

Frank J clears up some MSM misconceptions:

MYTH: Bloggers are a bunch of ankle-biters to the mainstream media.

FACT: Our effect to the MSM is more akin to a strong kick to the groin. Thus, we are "groin-kickers."

I'd say that's about right. And this one validates my opinion on pay-for-punditry:

MYTH: Most bloggers are paid off by politicians to assert certain viewpoints.

FACT: Only 8% of bloggers are bribed for their viewpoints. The remaining 92% have too few readers to bother bribing them. OT, I would just like to once again gratuitously mention that Bush's plan for Social Security is the way to go.

(Via IP)

Commenting on Kos's previous status as a paid operative for the Howard Dean campaign, Pennywit mentions that my efforts are more naturally independent:

Let me offer a permutation to that distinction. There is a distinction between an activist like Kos, who devotes himself to a cause or party and forcefully advocates for it, and a commentator like Bill of INDC Journal, who is less doctrinaire and more concerned with expressing his personal opinion.

I'd say a few things:

1. My commentary is often partisan and I certainly devoted myself to getting Bush elected last year, but Pennywit is correct about the different motivation for punditry. Mine just springs from my analysis and background.

2. No political organization has ever paid me for anything, and I would certainly disclose such a relationship if one came across my plate. No one has offered (Taps fingers, looks at watch, softly whistles with a come hither stare).

3. I wouldn't be opposed to accepting money from an organization, with full disclosure (and I mean "full"), if their goals intersected with my opinions and I thought that I could make the partisan case with sound, objective facts. This would, of course, fundamentally change the nature of my site (Less Llama-on-llama action, for one thing).

Why are the rules different for bloggers as opposed to journalists and media commentators? Because we're not paid professionals, we're amateur pundits - the compact is with your own integrity and your audience. And the minute that a blogger takes a paycheck and discloses, and the audience sticks around, he immediately morphs into a paid political activist, thus no conflict of interest.

I'm not particularly incensed about Kos taking money for his opinions, because as Pennywit mentions, we've always known that he's a paid operative that works outside of the rules of traditional journalism, and his relationship was largely disclosed. Perhaps my lack of animation is also spurred by the fact that I don't pay attention to that quarter of the leftie 'sphere; the people that would/should probably be more disturbed by it are the Kos-readers that supported other candidates in the primaries and felt betrayed by his unspoken allegiance to the Vermont screamer, a candidate that would have been shellacked by George Bush.

But frankly, if you're relying on Kos to feed your head with honest, even marginally unspun analysis, then I'd say you're barking up the wrong tree anyway. A leftie would do better with Matthew Yglesias or Pennywit, for my money.

Tsunami conspiracy theory!

... I want to attract a righteous boycott from the The American Family Association, and this insanely negative review by the Llamas chafes me, I give you:

(This pic is NOT SFW)

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Dirty Harry issues Michael Moore a warning:

'Dirty Harry' star Clint Eastwood told an awards ceremony in New York that he would "kill" 'Fahrenheit 9/11' filmmaker Michael Moore if he ever showed up at his front door with a camera, according to a report on Ananova.com.

With Moore sitting in the audience, the Eastwood said, "Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common - we both appreciate living in a country where there's free expression.

"But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera — I'll kill you. I mean it."

I'd probably just kick him in the bobules, but to each their own, I guess. Moore took it in stride:

A report in the New York Daily News, said Moore, who received a special "Freedom of Expression" award for his anti-Bush documentary, appeared to laugh off Eastwood's comments.

Realistically, he probably gets that all the time.

He links the brawl, but offers no verdict and vague mockery.

Mark my words Professor, history will view the "Great Kid Rock Wars" as a seminal event marking the schism of today's Republican Party into three camps:

The "Conservative Republican Party" (CRP - derisively called the "Human Diamond Mines" or simply,"Diamondbacks" by the opposition), the "Stone-Cold Pimps" (SCP, aka the "Neo-pimpertarians") and the "Conservative Republicans That Sympathize With The Stone Cold Pimps But Don't Quite Share All Of Their Values or Admittedly Questionable Musical or Aesthetic Taste" (CRTSWTSCPBDQSAOTVOAQMOAT), a group that was bloodily purged from the "Conservative Republicans" in the offshoot "Cultural Internment Camp Wars of 2008."

And where was the great Instapundit during all of this?

M.I.A.

The Neo-pimpertarians and their soon-to-be-purged sympathizers need you Professor. AMERICA needs you. Don't let America down.

UPDATE: And so it begins.

John Redhed writes in to INDC this morning:

Re: You lost another reader

Not that you care or should care. Just an FYI.

Well, thanks for the heads up, John; it's probably for the best.

I mean, you should see my unpublished thoughts. A house of horrors, really.

*** Powerline:

Dorothy Rabinowitz to the contrary notwithstanding, a standard of proof requiring metaphysical certainty and the withholding judgment so long as contrary conclusions are theoretically possible is ludicrous. Indeed, it is a standard that the report applies nowhere else other than to the sensitive issues of document fraud and political motivation.

Yep.

*** Beautiful Atrocities profiles the new Afghan Minister of Women's Affairs:

On her appeal as a candidate: "People want to get rid of warlords. They want a civil government, not a government full of former military people. They want democracy, they want their rights. I am a doctor & a mother. I want to nurse Afghanistan back to health. Only a healthy country can ensure a healthy people."

*** Take the Wizbang Rathergate quiz!

*** Wuzza Dem parodies the Corner. You know, the blog that spanked me in the Washington Post Blog Awards.

*** The Jawa Report solves the Kid Rock kerfuffle by making the case for an alternate band to rock the inaugural youth concert: Eric Cartman's "Faith Plus 1!" A sample.

Are you ready to rock?

... an American draping themself in the flag is offensive?

I recall attending an AC/DC concert during the first Gulf War, and lead guitarist Angus Young did one of his characteristic strip teases during one of his characteristic 20 minute guitar solos. At the end of the strip tease, when the final reveal was his boxer shorts, this sweaty, skeezy Australian ripped off his schoolboy pants and revealed a pair of American flag boxers. Instead of finding this offensive, an arena of 20,000 people lost their minds in an appreciative patriotic fervor. Young's choice of underwear was a sign of support and respect.

C'mon, Michelle, lighten up. I'm sorry, but ragging on Kid Rock's American flag shirt is so uptight, it's like an uptight person attempting a parody of someone who is uptight, which doesn't quite come out right because they are so damn uptight. And then everyone nervously laughs. Except the aforementioned uptight person, who has moved on to finding something else to get outraged about during a particularly racy episode of "Touched by an Angel."

UPDATE: Because really, why should angels be "touching" anyone, anyway? And where are these people being "touched?"

Goldstein details more OUTRAGE.

UPDATE: Some folks interpret only vaguely earnest conflicts way too seriously. To be fair, I guess mildly amused criticism doesn't read very clearly on a blog. Of course there are more important things to talk about - like the weather. But that's really the whole point, isn't it?

And I love my commenter below:

Malkin is right. You are wrong. Goldstein doesn't count because he's a sarcastic semi-conservative wanker; we expect wise-guy stuff from him. You we take seriously.

Was it the moonbat posts?

I gave up on bothering to lampoon or fisk Oliver Willis's jabberings a long time ago. After awhile, you realize it's analagous to criticizing a Special Olympian because he can't run very fast. Or particularly straight. Or formulate complex political analysis beyond the most rudimentary partisan stereotypes.

And then you just feel kind of bad.

I just received this e-mail:

I am contacting you about cross linking. I am interested in indcjournal.com because it looks like it's relevant to a site for which I am seeking links.

The site is about specialized business products including caution tape and barricade tape. The site is the web's premier source for locating and ordering your specialized business products.

I see ...

My legal suspicions are buttressed by the WaTimes:

So the lawyers hired to independently investigate CBS have a lawyer/client relationship with CBS. Presumably, as a senior member of that firm, Independent Review Panel Member Richard Thornburgh also has CBS as a fiduciary client. Thus, unlike similarly named government independent investigations — this one is paid for by, and carried out on behalf of, the target of the investigation.

The foregoing is not meant to impugn the integrity of Mr. Thornburgh. He is a man of proven integrity. But it is meant to try to determine what his ethical obligations required of him. If CBS is his legal client, then he has an ethical obligation to represent CBS's best interests — and certainly to minimize any exposure CBS might have to legal liability for their conduct.
...
Thus, there was no headline this week stating that CBS admits documents were a fraud or caused by partisan bias. Instead, the headlines in papers as diverse as The New York Times, The Washington Times and The Washington Post were all the same: CBS fires 4. That headline was followed by the finding that CBS's journalistic standards had been deficient. As they say — that's old news.

The "greywash" is motivated by a law firm protecting its client from legal and political liability, plain and simple. This relationship is a conflict of interest that colors their conclusions, and indicates why the supporting evidence and summary don't match up.

Dean Esmay:

Just as I know that when Monty asks if you want to switch doors you should switch, I know that HIV cannot be the proximate cause of the AIDS epidemic.

Mark my words: this story is going to blow wide open sooner or later. My gut says that by the end of this year, no one will be talking about AIDS the same way again. It's not going to be pretty. There's going to be screaming and yelling and finger pointing and denial. Congress may even get involved.

But HIV cannot be the cause of the AIDS epidemic.

Tomorrow, Dr. Bialy will show you why.

Stay tuned to Dean's World.

UPDATE: The above post does not indicate judgment about Dean's post other than the fact that his conclusion is "startling." It amazes me how bad many people are with reading comprehension.

UPDATE: Dean's post is here. The rates of HIV infection remained constant, whereas the rates of AIDS infection have had peaks and valleys. All things remaining constant, this doesn't make sense. Two things:

1. I'd like to see the HIV data verified somewhere else.

2. I'd like to see the data matched in format - cases per thousand or overall incidence, not a mix and match, and a slide showing the results in tandem would make a much more effective point.

3. I obviously want to see the responses from people that aren't buying it.

Interesting stuff, assuming the data is accurate.

I wholeheartedly agree with Charles Johnson's analysis of the Thornburgh/Boccardi report of Rathergate. The investigative panel stole much of the thunder of critics by laying out the damning particulars of CBS's misdeeds in good detail, followed by the issuance of bizarre non-conclusions that creak precariously under a mountain of conclusive evidence. The practical effect of the panel's report and CBS's resultant firings is to suck much of the outrage out of the scenario by denying it the requisite spark and fuel: outright obfuscation and egregious lack of accountability. The long delay of its release and the election win have also thrown quite a bit of cold water on the blogosphere's reaction.

During and after my appearance on the Hugh Hewitt show, Hugh seemed downright cagey in his frustration with the measured response of the blogosphere. It was pretty clear that he was trying to cajole me (us; bloggers) to suit up with a fresh set of angry chainmail and deadly weapons in preparation for another 18-hour-a-day cage match with CBS and its abettors over the report's results. Some of my favorite snippets from Hugh, many of them questions to Reynolds in the following segment (paraphrased):

"What are your next steps?"

"Why are the bloggers being bought off by CBS?"

"Do you think that a new generation of smaller bloggers will rise up to to shoulder the responsibility and make a name for themselves?"

"Who will be the INDC Journal of this part of the story?"

"Is the Heisenberg Principle in effect?"

His analogy about the Heisenberg Principle basically relies on the description that "that which is being observed changes just by being observed." The implication seems to be that now that well-known bloggers have made a name for themselves and often carry practical influence and audiences, they've measured their responses to the report in some sort of market-driven bid to take care around the demands of whoever is "observ[ing]" them - observers that hold some sway, I suppose. I greatly respect Hugh's work on many fronts, but this inference and metaphor is silly, because playing nice while "being observed" never entered my mind and has an payoff that escapes me. The seemingly measured response to the report was simply ... a thoughtful, measured response.

In addition, Hugh failed to answer my question about a practical goal. What exactly is the desired outcome of the "INDC Journal of this part of the story['s]" mounted charge? And what are the practical methods, beyond analyzing and highlighting the inconsistencies in the report and voicing anger? Yes, open source punditry and analysis of secondary sources are growing in power and influence, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Blogs have been incessantly analyzing and screaming into the void about bias and inaccuracy for years, and most of the noise has been impotent. Why? And why was Rathergate so different?

Many factors contributed to the story's power (i.e. a politically charged pre-election media environment), but two intertwined factors made the crucial difference:

The requisite opportunity. Massive political energy was created by the presence of tangible evidence that could actually prove the blogospheric charges.

Since Hugh likes scientific allusions, we'll call it the "Killian Principle." And what kept the gas on the fire?

The efforts by bloggers to use investigative methods beyond cliched, secondary analysis in order to gather primary, compelling information about the story, thus baiting the interest of the MSM to attack the diseased member in its midst.

In short, bloggers introducing new, compelling information that attracts the interest of major publications and tv media by generating a steady IV drip of novel tension is what helps keep a story alive. Primary research. Picking up the telephone. For lack of a better name, I'll dub it the "Ardolino Principle."

So let's conduct a practical situation report.

1. The Killian Principle's power (tangible evidence) was sucked out of our present scenario because Thornburgh/Boccardi did a rather exhaustive job gathering facts that actually prove the case we'd like to make: political motivation, the fact that the documents are fake and collusion with the Kerry Campaign. From Mapes' released e-mails about "Get[ting] Bush," to the definitive forgery analysis of Peter Tytell, enough information already exists to make the case, but the panel's ostensibly "independent" but wussified and dissonant non-conclusions succeeded in sapping the will of an already half-disinterested mainstream media to press the issue. The blogosphere does not yet, and will likely never, have an exclusive audience large enough to effect real change without a bandwagon jump and cooperative effort with elements of the mainstream media. For every Powerline, you need a Howard Kurtz. Howard Kurtz isn't on board with blogs to carry waves of outrage to practical effect.

2. Fulfilling the unseriously named "Ardolino Principle" (continued introduction of novel, primary information) is even more daunting. In the initial phase of Rathergate, documents were easily proved fraudulent. In my case, all I did was make a few phone calls and conduct an interview to a non-hostile source. Outlets that rose to lie and distort information (the Boston Globe comes to mind), were easily slapped down by reinterviewing their sources and getting contradictory sound bites, again with politically non-hostile individuals. But at this point, to really move the story, what new, raw, compelling information and evidence can be gathered that will capture imaginations and marshal outraged, real results? Not much, besides real investigative work that cultivates sources to determine the real origin of the documents, as well as plumbs the depths of CBS's collusion with the Kerry Campaign. Such an effort requires time, effort and the willingness and ability to exercise no small amount of charm and guile with sources that are inherently hostile to a rightie blogger. The typical rote, if compelling, analysis and opining by bloggers will not suffice to move mountains. And the "time" requirement for investigation is difficult, as most of us do have jobs and all.

In short? Barring some superstar's introduction of new evidence via outstanding gumshoe work (and many of my more ambitious non-published efforts met with total failure during the height of the scandal), it's not practically efficacious to mount an outraged charge of Blackrock, if the goal is further accountability via pressure on CBS. So my advice to Hugh and the blogosphere is this: you say you want (another) revolution? Or at least want to squeeze that last 15% out of the one that took place in September? I suggest you define practical political goals for your efforts, and then incite hungry bloggers to carry out the practical means to accomplish them, which will require time, resources and initiative. Opining into the void is a crucial part of the equation, but it's insufficient to achieve further objectives.

And while attempting these goals carries the possibility of success, there are no guaranteed outcomes in investigative journalism. Unless your last name is Rather or Mapes, that is.

Good luck. I'll be sipping rum runners from the heights of complacency and riches bred by my wildly rewarding blogging stardom. Or perhaps I'll just take a nap.

Howard Fineman has an excellent column up today:

A political party is dying before our eyes — and I don't mean the Democrats. I'm talking about the "mainstream media," which is being destroyed by the opposition (or worse, the casual disdain) of George Bush's Republican Party; by competition from other news outlets (led by the internet and Fox's canny Roger Ailes); and by its own fraying journalistic standards. At the height of its power, the AMMP (the American Mainstream Media Party) helped validate the civil rights movement, end a war and oust a power-mad president. But all that is ancient history.

I think he really touches all of the bases here, and many might be surprised that a blogger has enough non-partisan romanticism left to agree with this statement:

Still, the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press was, to me at least, worth holding onto.

Is it too late? And is the coming alternative inherently or sustainably superior? I guess we'll all find out.

Iowahawk's novel interpretation of the Thornburgh/Boccardi investigation is just brilliant:

"No speaky Esperanto, Commissioner! What's your angle?"

"You ran the story seven days before contacting document experts, and when you did, they were recruited from a methadone clinic. You spend $47,000 of network money on a schizophrenic man who said he could build a steam-powered word processor and a time machine."

(Via IP)

Reynolds is off the rails talking about "wing-wang(s)" ...

UPDATE: I've come across some rather weighty evidence about Lincoln's sexual proclivities, passed to me by a random woman outside of the National Archives:

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Cranky Neocon points out the positive, surprising ripples from the Rathergate report:

Man, when even the New York Times prints that bias might have had something to do with your downfall, you don't have many friends left.

I'm impressed by the conclusions in this column by David Ignatius.

There will be incessant subjective analysis of the newly released Thornburgh/Boccardi report, but perhaps my largest quibble is their egregious misrepresentation of an objective fact: the documents were fake.

Their own forensic examiner concludes unequivocally that the documents were created on a computer (Appendix 4), yet the panel refuses to definitively declare the documents fraudulent. Wizbang details the bizarre conclusions.

Why does the panel essentially misrepresent or marginalize their own expert in their summary conclusions, when his testimony would hold up in a court of law? Because they hold his conclusions up to the same ridiculously unattainable burden of omniscient proof that they selectively applied to any finding of political bias. And I suspect that this burden of proof is at least somewhat applied to protect CBS against any panel finding that proves or defines malicious intent on the part of network employees. It's partially an inoculation against legal action.

Easily declaring the documents to be outright frauds brings CBS one step closer to the brink of malice in their construction of the story, as does any finding of ideological bias or intent to swing an election. My instinct, previous legal research and the litany of legal posts by Scylla & Charybdis tell me that this consideration was surely an explicit part of any arrangement when CBS hired Thornburgh to conduct the investigation.

UPDATE: And why does it matter? Why do I care whether or not the panel explicitly defines the documents as frauds when any reasonable human being would reach that conclusion via the supporting evidence presented in their report? Two reasons:

1. Dissonance runs deep.

Many human beings aren't "reasonable," and more than a few of them still maintain respected positions in government and media. Throughout this scandal, from Hardball to the Columbia Journalism Review, some ideologue or another has tried to muddy the water about the veracity of the documents with the possibility that they're real. Mapes thinks they're real, as does Rather. Insane conclusions will continue to emanate from certain quarters, perhaps years down the road, and the panel had the opportunity to end all (or most) of that.

2. The fraud is an objective fact.

It's one of the few elements of this entire scandal and subsequent report that doesn't require ESP, a lie detector test or a car battery to the jubblies in order to discern the truth. It's the objective element that can essentially be proved beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt. At a minimum, responsible conclusions should have been outlined about the documents, in no uncertain terms. Instead, the commission attempts to punt for CBS's legal and political protection. The more I think about it, the more it gets on my nerves.

UPDATE: Say Anything is on the same wavelength.

UPDATE: Powerline agrees:

The blatant fraudulence of the Burkett documents should have been the conclusion that was the predicate for a serious investigation of the key issues raised by the 60 Minutes story. The report's failure to draw a conclustion regarding the authenticity of the documents disqualifies it from consideration as a serious document. It is in my view a failure that discredits the report as an exercise in damage control for CBS.

A blogger interviews Linda Mason, who was "named the Senior Vice President For Standards & Special Projects by Les Moonves today." Nice score.

I'll be on Hugh Hewitt's show at 7PM Eastern to discuss the Rathergate report. You can catch the show on a local station or listen online via one of the streams found here.

I feel like a little Jewish kid on Christmas Eve.

UPDATE: Updated emotional status - cautiously optimistic:

Four CBS News employees, including three executives, have been ousted for their role in preparing and reporting a disputed story about President Bush’s National Guard service. ... The panel said a "myopic zeal" to be the first news organization to broadcast a groundbreaking story about Mr. Bush’s National Guard service was a key factor in explaining why CBS News had produced a story that was neither fair nor accurate and did not meet the organization’s internal standards.

The report said at least four factors that some observers described as a journalistic “Perfect Storm” had contributed to the decision to broadcast a piece that was seriously flawed.

"The combination of a new 60 Minutes Wednesday management team, great deference given to a highly respected producer and the network’s news anchor, competitive pressures, and a zealous belief in the truth of the segment seem to have led many to disregard some fundamental journalistic principles," the report said.

But then there's this:

While the panel found that some actions taken by CBS News encouraged such suspicions, “the Panel cannot conclude that a political agenda at 60 Minutes Wednesday drove either the timing of the airing of the segment or its content.”

The idea that Mary Mapes and Dan Rather had no political agenda is simply ludicrous, but the media and its established analysts need to play the old "vee know nussing" game to maintain the grand illusion of ideological impartiality in journalism. Any admission of bias would be perceived to cross the big invisible line that devalues a news organization's currency of long-term credibility and neutrality. Such denials are similar to a prison inmate's requisite protestations of innocence while waiting on the results of eternal appeals: admit guilt and the game is up. Nevermind the fact that we have motive, multiple witnesses and a murder weapon. I suppose this dissonant finding is expected, if disappointing.

And then there is this crucial lowlight:

While the panel said it was not prepared to brand the Killian documents as an outright forgery, it raised serious questions about their authenticity and the way CBS News handled them.

The evidence for fraud is overwhelming, from the anachronistic non-employment of an individual referenced in the documents, to the invalidation of the possibility that a typewriter of the era created the font, to the convenient exact match in MS Word default settings. This non-conclusion surprises me: why didn't Dick Thornburgh and Louis D. Boccardi convene a panel of forensics experts in order to reach a more definitive verdict on the documents? One exists.

On the bright side, the report seems to detail some of the relevant flaws and misconduct by CBS employees, though it would seem to repackage ideological malice as incompetence and carelessness spurred by competitive pressures. In addition, some heads have rolled. My initial verdict? The results are perhaps better than I thought they would be, though flawed.

I'll offer further commentary after a digestion period.

UPDATE: Rathergate is all over this, just keep scrolling.

Scylla & Charybdis:

My quick reaction after 30 minutes with the Report: It has substance, and some veteran CBS people are being fired. There is a mea culpa for the utter breakdown of journalism rules.

But the Report directly denies that "political bias" of the CBS department was behind the story, and deftly skirts other 30,000-feet issues: Legal wrongdoing; the smoking gun of the "personal files" claim; and the critical facts as to the pre-broadcast scheming to coordinate a 60-Minutes segment as the cornerpiece of an anti-Swift Boat political attack.

It's like a murderer confessing to drunk driving, speeding, carrying a concealed weapon and assault and battery. OK, per se ....but there's a dead body to account for.....

I'd submit that "involuntary manslaughter" substituted for "first-degree murder" is a better analogy.

UPDATE: QandO points to Leslie Moonves's response to the report (pdf), saying it's the real deal. Jon Henke's take:

In short, he lays out each person with a role in the story, the CBS conclusion about their complicity and errors, and the CBS resolution in each case. They are, in almost every case, appropriate. In fact, with respect to Mary Mapes, Moonves is positively brutal. If her career continues, it will have to do so at an outlet like Indymedia, or somewhere with similar journalistic standards.

UPDATE: Jim Geraghty is required reading, of course.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin highlights the section of the report detailing Mary Mapes collaboration with the Kerry Campaign:

While it is certainly proper to receive information from a variety of sources, this contact crossed the line as, at a minimum, it gave the appearance of a political bias and could have been perceived as a news organization’s assisting a campaign as opposed to reporting on a story.

UPDATE: The Raving Atheist leaves a comment:

Notably, its analysis of the authenicity is limited to how well the contents and format of the forgeries "mesh" with the known Bush 70's era documents. No real discussion of the forensic typographical disproof; the only mention of Newcomer's report is in connection with it being quoted in the Washington Post. Interestingly, the CBS notes that Emily Will basically did the LGF experiment and found that the Killian memos matched up to Microsoft Word, but just drops the matter after noting there was a dispute over whether she communicated her results to CBS. The only discussion of Bouffard's finding is in connection with his reported "recantation" regarding whether the documents could have been done on an IBM Selectric (the panel notes faults CBS for reporting this absent evidence that such a model was available at the TxANG).

One detail regarding any "recantation" by Bouffard - it was merely professional equivocation before conclusive analysis. His last word on the matter, sent to me during my dispute with the Boston Globe: "For your information, it appears that the Selectric Composer could not have created the memos."

In short, the document was an anachronistic impossibility based soley on font analysis. (UPDATE: Malkin points to an Appendix that seems more definitive about the inauthenticity, though the panel's equivocation in the main statement seems silly to me.)

UPDATE: Politburo Diktat: "Beigewash on Rathergate"

Reverse all the Leftie-Rightie labels on this story, and by now we'd have three Hollywood movies, updated versions of "All the President's Men."

More specifically, it's taupe.

Captain Ed:

It appears that the full report will give the blogosphere material for much rumination and discussion over the next few days. Whatever else, it isn't the whitewash that most of us expected.

UPDATE: Former teen idol Leif Garrett comments.

Stacy Tabb of Sekimori Designs and Hosting Matters drives her train off the rails again. Suzy Rice makes some rather perceptive comparisons:

As in, move on, for Heaven's sake. Dragging jaws do not an excuse make. Something about spittle and a caustic use of the word, "honey," um...here I go, rushing to the mail to pay my webhost, Web Intellects, who corresponds with me via professional courtesy and actual sense, by comparison with some. Kind e-mails when I make inquiries. Resolution level Technical Support Ticket responses and in minutes when I have questions. No tirades. Nothing emotional or cruel. No spittle on the receipts, either: they appreciate my patronage. Best of all, they provide reliable hosting with the few ten-minute down times this site has experienced attributed to server upgrades; I remarked about them, they upgraded my service. No charge, no remarks, just appreciable and appreciated and good business.

By comparison with others. All due respect. Accusations such as I have recently read, about me, are so purile as to be the indication of true psychological pathology by those who spit them out. As in, they are crazy people spitting about crazy statements without regard or responsibility for their words and word actions. Otherwise, if not crazy, the alterntive for such is truly horrific: intentional deceit to inflict harm.

Blogs are not immune from standards of decency and ethical responsibilities, however 'well connected' they and their 'friends' may be, and however connected they may be if only in thier own minds. It's the confusion of commerce with sadism (perhaps, the coversion of those), when this happens, and as has happened recently with these hideous snaps I've encountered about me, about BIRD, and about why based upon what.

(Emphasis mine)

I feel her pain, though Ms. Rice takes insult from a rather mild smattering of Sekimori's characteristic bile, known as "quirky, 'you-go-girl' sass" to the people that she hasn't directly attacked ... yet.

No matter what number of A-list sites use Hosting Matters and/or Sekimori Design, I cannot advise everyone strongly enough to avoid doing business with Ms. Tabb. I've had a very good experience with Verve Hosting.

"Whatever we have achieved in Afghanistan--the peace, the election, the reconstruction, the life that the Afghans are living today in peace, the children going to school, the businesses, the fact that Afghanistan is again a respected member of the international community--is from the help that the United States of America gave us. Without that help Afghanistan would be in the hands of terrorists--destroyed, poverty-stricken, and without its children going to school or getting an education. We are very, very grateful, to put it in the simple words that we know, to the people of the United States of America for bringing us this day."

And thank you.

I guess they don't allow contemporary musicians in the big tent - four years of Pat Boone and the Oak Ridge Boys it is. And that singing cop. But how many times can you listen to the National Anthem in a row, really?

Well, "bawitdaba da bang a dang diggy diggy diggy said the boogy said up jump the boogy" to all that, my friends.

UPDATE: Yeah.

UPDATE: And the Religious Right marches onward in it's campaign to suck all of the sweet, sweet joy out of our lives:

A year after Janet Jackson's breast brought a crackdown on indecency, Fox has rejected an ad for the Super Bowl offering a rare view of another celeb: Mickey Rooney's backside.

Ok people, it's gut-check time: do we really want to live in a country that denies us the opportunity to see Mickey Rooney's bare ass? Mickey certainly doesn't think so:

Rooney, who was planning a Super Bowl party, says in a statement he's angry. He wanted to be the butt of this joke: "What we're selling here is something I really believe in, which is an awareness of the germs we're all exposed to. There's nothing sensual about the brief exposure of my backside, and it's not gratuitous. ... It's a fun spot, and the public deserves to see it."

Yes. Yes we do.

I urge all of you to immediately write the FOX network indicating that we'll boycott their sponsors until they release Rooney's sweet vertical smile from the shackles of Puritanical oppression.

UPDATE: Malkin updates with some pretty damning lyrics from Kid Rock's catalogue. But as her commenter Oddybobo points out, the guy's "softened up" quite a bit and wouldn't sing "those songs" at the event. I'd just say that there are better things to get mobilized about.

PS - To be clear, I'm not really a "conservative," the "Religious Right" reference was mildly tongue-in-cheek and I don't really want to see Mickey Rooney's ass. Sort of having fun with that one.

... is the time on Sprockets where we "play mind games."

(Via Flea, who endlessly skirts the fine, dangerous line between enlightened musical taste and disturbing Eurotrash sensibility. I think he veered right over the f'ing edge with this one.)

UPDATE: I think that may be an interpretive dance report by internal UN investigators of the Oil-For-Food scandal.

It's Friday. It's currently overcast here in DC. The temperature is 43F, though it really feels more like 30F.

UPDATE: Powerline has the foreshadowing of the impending Rathergate report covered. I'm tabling comment until I actually read it, but Hindrocket's predictions are uncomfortably logical.

"2004's Top Ten Ass-Kickings Given by Christopher Hitchens."

I mostly love them. My favorite (of course):

"To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery."

(Via Ace, who unverified rumor has it once had a long-term live-in "partnership" with Paul Begala. I'm not sure if I should report it, but Andrew Sullivan seems to think it might be relevant.)

I missed these over my break:

Patterico's Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review 2004 -- Part One

Patterico's Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review 2004 -- Part Two

Marvel as Patterico takes some serious bites out of the LA Times in 2004. It's a good read.

Question - has Nick Coleman publicly retracted and apologized for his characterization of the Powerline guys as paid operatives? Or for the libelous implication that they're deficiently endowed? If he has, I haven't seen or heard about it.

I think this may be contextually relevant to Coleman's righteously angry demand (fulfilled) for accountability over a factual error and subjective swipe by Jim Geraghty:

I hereby demand a full retraction and apology from the National Review.

UPDATE: John Hinderacker answers my question:

Bill,

No.

John H.

Where is your correction and apology, Mr. Coleman?

This is far:

On Nov. 11, 2004, while coalition forces fought to wrest control of Fallujah from a terrorist insurgency, Marine scout snipers with Company B, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, applied their basic infantry skills and took them to a higher level.

"From the information we have, our chief scout sniper has the longest confirmed kill in Iraq so far," said Capt. Shayne McGinty, weapons platoon commander for "Bravo" Co. "In Fallujah there were some bad guys firing mortars at us and he took them out from more than 1,000 yards."

1,000 yards. This makes me wonder how security details effectively guard their charges against snipers with high-powered rifles, even if most potential assassins aren't as skilled as Marines. It's all about sightlines, I suppose.

(Via Blackfive)

Powerline takes apart the Columbia Journalism Review's Rathergate piece with vigor and precision:

I could go on, but there is little point in doing so. CBS ostensibly "worked" on the National Guard story for years. They took fake documents from a notoriously unstable source who had no first-hand knowledge of President Bush's National Guard career, and who could not account for where he got them. On their face, the documents looked nothing like authentic National Guard memos of the 1970s that were in CBS's possession, but CBS asked no questions. CBS carried out no investigation to determine whether the memos were genuine, and made a point of not talking to people who were ostensibly quoted in the memos to determine whether the documents were accurate. They put the documents before the American public in the heat of an election campaign, and closely coordinated their story with a Democratic National Committee advertising campaign which dovetailed perfectly with the fake documents, and which began the morning after their broadcast. When questioned about the documents' apparent fraudulence, they stonewalled, and Dan Rather guaranteed the American people that the documents were authentic, because they came from an unimpeachable source.

The bloggers, on the other hand, began questioning the documents within hours after they appeared; raised many logical questions about their authenticity, the vast majority of which turned out to be valid; pointed out anachronisms within the documents that proved that their contents were false; and were ultimately proved correct in their suspicion that the documents were fakes. Nearly all of which occurred, not over a period of years, which CBS had to pursue its "story," but over the space of twelve hours.

And the Columbia Journalism Review thinks it is the bloggers who are blameworthy in this story. Sad. Very sad. But I guess we know whose side the "journalists" are on.

Read the whole thing, it's devastating. When one stops and thinks about it, it's kind of disturbing that notable quarters of the MSM and punditocracy still rise to even halfheartedly defend CBS or the possibility that the documents were not fake, in the face of such overwhelming evidence. Even viewed through the powerful prism of wishful ideology and contrariness that stamps the work of so many journalists, it's bizarre. Really, really bizarre.

If anyone knows how to make a clickable slideshow that can be displayed on a Moveable Type blog, please e-mail me. Thanks.

One aspect of this cartoon - the storyline possibilities are literally endless.

USA Freedom Corps has a comprehensive list of reputable charitable organizations.

Drudge is hyping a poor choice of words by CNN head Jonathan Klein:

Industry insiders are aghast at new CNN chief Jonathan Klein's appalling lack of sensitivity to the tsunami disaster in his ongoing media tour today.

Klein told USATODAY that CNN was "able to flood the zone immediately."

"It's jarring," said one news executive. "This guy's obsessed with associating himself with the coverage of this tragedy and he royally sticks his foot in his mouth his first time out of the gate -- could there be a worse choice of words to use after 150,000 people just died in an epic flood of waves?"

You may recognize Klein from his infamous comment about bloggers wearing pajamas. Seems like interestingly aggressive soundbites could be a pattern.

I sort of feel sorry for the guy - about a month after 9-11, I received some completed creative that I'd previously approved for a marketing campaign for some DC hotels. Part of the text read something like "... located in the heart of Georgetown, ground zero for world-class shopping, fine dining and entertainment." Yikes. Then again, I'd initially ok'ed it before the tragedy and failed to catch the text afterwards.

Klein made a dumb comment, but the Drudge treatment is typically hyperbolic.

Via the Russian news service Itar-Tass:

Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, whom the US occupation authorities declared to be the "target number one" in Iraq, has been arrested in the city of Baakuba, the Emirate newspaper al-Bayane reported on Tuesday referring to Kurdish sources.
...
The newspaper's correspondent in Baghdad points out that a report on the seizure of the terrorist, on whom the US put a bounty of US$10 million, was also reported by Iraqi Kurdistan radio, which at one time had been the first to announce the arrest of Saddam Hussein.

Itar-Tass is the only service currently running the story, so cautiously color me skeptical. We'll see.

UPDATE: UPI:

Baghdad, Iraq, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- A semi-official daily reported Tuesday Iraqi police captured an "important terrorist," believed to be Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a raid east of Baghdad.

There was no official confirmation of the report.

UPDATE: Military denies.

The Columbia Journalism Review, which bills itself as "America's Premiere Media Monitor," has published a piece by Assistant Editor Cory Pein that attacks the critics of the CBS National Guard story and attempts to muddy the water regarding the veracity of the clearly fraudulent documents. A few brief thoughts:

1. Merely the information in my interviews with Dr. Philip Bouffard essentially eliminates the possibility that a typewriter of that era created the font used on the CBS documents. As for Bouffard's credentials, he's considered probably the foremost expert on typewritten fonts and forgery in the United States, maintains an exhaustive private collection of vintage typewriter fonts and designed the standard computer database program used by forensic document examiners to analyze old fonts in order to detect fraud.

2. That's only one overlooked angle; from the failure to mention the host of other experts that declared the documents false (beyond Dr. Joseph Newcomer), to Pein's stunningly dishonest or inaccurate representation of the process involved in Charles Johnson's document overlay, the CJR piece is a case study in selectively researched journalism.

The omission and misrepresentation of facts can only lead one to conclude that Mr. Pein either suffers dissonance fueled by a deeply desired conclusion, was incompetent in his research for the piece, or is dishonest. I suspect a combination of the first two options.

The Columbia Journalism Review, no matter what its perceived ideological bent, represents Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, arguably the most prominent journalism school in the country. Without a published retraction and clarification, this article tarnishes the publication, and possibly the institution, with its inaccuracy and unfairness. Consider: Columbia is dedicated to teaching standards of professionalism and due diligence to young reporters, yet its publication staffed by professional journalists was largely mute during the biggest media scandal in memory and now attacks the process that questioned Rather with a professionally incompetent piece. Bothersome.

Others respond:

LGF
Ratherbiased
Wizbang
Roger Simon
Rathergate

UPDATE: Kevin Aylward links to an article by Mariah Blake that redeems the CJR a bit. It's a good piece, but the publication's muted response and eventual misrepresentation of the major "media watchdog" story of this generation is pretty damning for "America's premier media monitor—a watchdog of the press in all its forms."

Via Drudge:

Let the fence-mending begin. According to a Broadcasting & Cable source in Washington, D.C., CBS News president Andrew Heyward, along with Washington bureau chief Janet Leissner, recently met with White House communications director Dan Bartlett, in part to repair chilly relations with the Bush administration.
...
Heyward was “working overtime to convince Bartlett that neither CBS News nor Rather had a vendetta against the White House,” our source says, “and from here on out would do everything it could to be fair and balanced.” CBS declined to comment.

The fact that CBS sent Andrew Heyward to make nice wouldn't seem to foreshadow him being held accountable after the release of their internal investigation on Rathergate. As for whether or not CBS has/had an agenda against the President ... Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C. I'd hope that Bartlett mentioned these transgressions during Heyward's protestations of innocence.

UPDATE: Scylla & Charybdis has a transcript of the meeting.

RWN: The 40 Most Obnoxious Quotes Of 2004.

Ok, maybe "favorites" isn't the right word.