Conservative Musings

Wall Street Journal's Answer to Questions

I happen to be a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal.  I noted that on the day the "Times Two" (New York and Los Angeles) published the SWIFT story, so did the Journal.  I wondered about this and wrote it off initially as a "me too" printing of the story.  Now their side of the story is being explained.

Please read it in detail.  If you follow their timeline, what they knew, and when they knew it. and I think you'll see that their decision to print is wildly different from the Times Two.  To quote the editorial page:

Would the Journal have published the story had we discovered it as the Times did, and had the Administration asked us not to? Speaking for the editorial columns, our answer is probably not. Mr. Keller's argument that the terrorists surely knew about the Swift monitoring is his own leap of faith. The terror financiers might have known the U.S. could track money from the U.S., but they might not have known the U.S. could follow the money from, say, Saudi Arabia. The first thing an al Qaeda financier would have done when the story broke is check if his bank was part of Swift.

I believe Bill Keller's decision is sinking his organization fast.  A decision he thought would win him accolades has brought him and his organization nothing but trouble.

-Colonel Steve

Secret Gathering for Terrorists

What's scary, this is probably way too true now, thanks to Mr. Keller.

-Colonel Steve

Vacation Time!

I've been rather scarce lately.  I've been spending the past couple of days getting ready to skip town.  This time, for Colorado!

This trip will be the last one for us to take our Service Dog in Training, Dakota.  So, we're getting everything ready to take him along.  Our last trip with him, to DisneyWorld, was a blast!  We're sure hoping this trip is as fun for both species.

-Colonel Steve

Colorado University to Fire Ward Churchill

As noted by Hot Air and Outside the Beltway, CU is firing Ward Churchill.

Personally, he won't be missed.

-Colonel Steve

Future NY Times suit?

Wizbang and others report that New York Republican Congressman Peter King wishes to prosecute the NY Times on it's disclosure of secrets.  Unsurprisingly, Senator Arlen Spector isn't so sure about that.

Austin Bay takes another perspective: "The Bush Administration should prosecute the leakers, but I don’t think the Administration has the spine for this. The Bush Administration could barely prosecute Sandy Berger for abuse of classified material that would have put a solder in jail."

My personal opinion is why not both?  Prosecute the leakers for leaking state secrets, and the NY Times for publishing state secrets.  Folks in both places should think twice (or more) before they endanger even one soldier, sailor, airman, or marine.

-Colonel Steve

24

Way back last January 18th, I had commented on getting hooked on the television show 24.  Later, I had discovered our local Blockbuster had the previous 4 seasons on DVD.

Through many trials and tribulations of attempting to find each DVD in stock, we have finally as of today finished the first 3 seasons.  We've discovered Blockbusters "No Late Fee" standard has really made it hard to find some episodes in stock.  The closest store to us even had zero-zip-nada inventory of the last disc of season 3.  They'd all been checked out, never returned, deleted from their inventory, and NEVER re-ordered.  Ended up getting it from another store.  I'd say they've got problems with a hot commodity like 24.

Anyway, still one season to go!

-Colonel Steve

Liberal Press Blabbermouths

So many folks have commented on the New York leak this morning on the way the U.S. government has been tracking terrorists money movement.  Some of those have been Michelle Malkin (here and here),  Outside the Beltway, Powerline, Hugh Hewitt (see multiple posts), Captain's Quarters, and instapundit.  Also see a collection of posts on the subject here.

Bill Bennett and gang were conversing on the subject this morning and were wondering what all does the New York Times own?  A good listing of NYT properties are listed at the Columbia Journalism Review.  Since the LA Times has joined in on the leak, a listing of their properties can be found at the Tribune Company website.  For those, like me, who vote with their dollars.

-Colonel Steve

Quote of the Day

”Normally, I would think if you're announcing the finding of weapons of mass destruction, you'd get more than four or five reporters, but that's all we could seem to drum up.” Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, on the press conference held yesterday to announce the news of the National Guard Intelligence Center admission of finding 500 weapons of mass desctruction since 2003.

(HT: World Mag Blog)

-Colonel Steve

No, there's no bias!

So, the anti-war crowd has this mantra about "Bush lied, people died," saying that since no WMDs were found in Iraq, the basis for the war was false and that President Bush knew it was false.  This is a major pillar of their opposition to the war.

So, when a document is unclassified and reveals that we have found at least 500 chemical weapons in Iraq, you would expect this to be big news.  So, let's see what the MSM has:

Fox News:  Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq
CNN:  hmmm, not here
NY Times:  not here either
The Courier-Journal:  nope
ABC News:  uh-uh
CBS News:  um, can't find it
MSNBC:  nada

No, there's no bias in the MSM.  Not at all.

--Red

Ground Breaking Move

This past Monday was the ground breaking on the first part of what will finally be the east end bridge.  In this case, they were turning shovels where the Gene Snyder will be moved 800 feet to place it more in line with where the east end bridge will cross the Ohio.

Plans are to have the bridge by 2020.

-Colonel Steve