Hacksaw's Blog

 Biden Secret Service Code Name: 'Assassination Insurance'

by  Ann Coulter
10/01/2008

While Gov. Sarah Palin is being grilled on her position on mark-to-market accounting rules, the press can't bother to ask Joe Biden if he could give us a ballpark estimate on when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president -- or maybe take a stab at guessing the decade when televisions were first available to the public.
   
Being interviewed by Katie Couric on the "CBS Evening News," Biden said: "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"
   
For those of you who aren't hard-core history buffs, Biden not only named the wrong president during the 1929 stock market crash, he also claimed a president who wasn't president during the stock market crash went on TV before Americans had TVs. Other than that, the statement holds up pretty well. At least Biden managed to avoid mentioning any "clean" Negroes he had met.
   
Couric was nearly moved to tears by the brilliance of Biden's brain-damaged remark. She was especially intrigued by Biden's claim that FDR had said the new iPhone was the bomb!
   
Here is Couric's full response to Biden's bizarre outburst about FDR (a) being president and (b) going on TV in 1929: "Relating to the fears of the average American is one of Biden's strong suits."
   
But when our beauteous Sarah said that John McCain was a better leader on the economy than Barack Obama, Couric relentlessly badgered her for evidence. "Why do you say that?" Couric demanded. "Why are they waiting for John McCain and not Barack Obama? ... Can you give us any more examples of his leading the charge for more oversight?"
   
The beauteous Sarah had cited McCain's prescient warnings about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But Couric, the crackerjack journalist who didn't know FDR wasn't president in 1929, demanded more examples from Palin.
   
We are currently in the middle of a massive financial crisis brought on by Fannie Mae. McCain was right on Fannie Mae; Obama was wrong. That's not enough?
   
Not for the affable Eva Braun of evening TV! "I'm just going to ask you one more time," Couric snipped, "not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?"
   
This would be like responding to someone who predicted the 9/11 attacks by saying: OK, you got one thing right. Not to belabor the point, but what else?
   
Obama was not merely wrong on Fannie Mae: He is owned by Fannie Mae. Somehow Obama managed to become the second biggest all-time recipient of Fannie Mae political money after only three years in the Senate. The biggest beneficiary, Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, had a 30-year head start on receiving loot from Fannie Mae -- the government-backed institution behind our current crisis.
   
How does the Democratic ticket stack up on other major issues facing the nation, say, gas prices?
   
Shockingly, Sen. Joe Biden was one of only five senators to vote against the first Alaskan pipeline bill in 1973. This is like having been a Nazi sympathizer during World War II. If Sarah Palin does nothing else, she has got to tie that idiotic pipeline vote around Biden's neck.
   
The Senate passed the 1973 Alaskan pipeline bill by an overwhelming 80-5 vote. Only five senators voted against the pipeline on final passage. Sen. Biden is the only one who is still in the Senate -- the other four having been confined to mental institutions long ago.
   
The stakes were clear: This was in the midst of the first Arab oil embargo. Liberal Democrats, such as senators Robert Byrd, Mike Mansfield, Frank Church and Hubert Humphrey, all voted for the pipeline.
   
But Biden cast one of only five votes against the pipeline that has produced more than 15 billion barrels of oil, supplied nearly 20 percent of this nation's oil, created tens of thousands of jobs, added hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy and reduced money transfers to the nation's enemies by about the same amount.
   
The only argument against the pipeline was that it would harm the caribou, an argument that was both trivial and wrong. The caribou population near the pipeline increased from 5,000 in the 1970s to 32,000 by 2002.
   
It would have been bad enough to vote against the pipeline bill even if it had hurt the caribou. A sane person would still say: Our enemies have us in a vice grip. Sorry, caribou, you've got to take one for the team. But when the pipeline goes through and the caribou population sextuples in the next 20 years, you really look like a moron.
   
We couldn't possibly expect Couric to ask Biden about a vote that is the equivalent of voting against the invention of the wheel. But couldn't she have come up with just one follow-up question for Biden on FDR's magnificent handling of the 1929 stock market crash?
   
Or here's a question the public is dying to know: "If Obama wanted a historically delusional vice president, why not Lyndon LaRouche?" At least LaRouche didn't vote against the Alaskan pipeline.

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Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS and author of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Slander," ""How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)," "Godless," and most recently, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans."

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It’s about time Rep. Murtha (D-PA) is finally held accountable for his slanderous attacks. Every one of these brothers in arms who have been tried for the incident has been exonerated, yet there is no apology from Murtha who couldn’t wait for the actual facts of the incident to come out before he went on his partisan attack of young men who deployed in combat wearing the same uniform that he wore many years before.

Just like Clayton Lonetree & Jeremiah Wright, John Murtha is just one more former Marine that makes me ashamed that they ever wore the uniform, because all three of them have definitely disgraced it!

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/17554034/
detail.html?subid=10101261

Marine Sues Rep. Murtha Over Iraqi Murder Comments

Lawsuit Alleges Slander By Johnstown Congressman

  Video: Marine Sues John Murtha Over Iraqi Murder Comments

PITTSBURGH -- A Marine from Canonsburg, Washington County, sued U.S. Rep. John Murtha Thursday in federal court over remarks that he said he believes were slanderous.

Justin Sharratt, 24, filed the federal lawsuit in Pittsburgh stating the congressman damaged his reputation by saying Marines killed women and children "in cold blood" in Haditha, Iraq, in November 2005.

Sharrat said he's suffered name-calling in his hometown because of allegations against his unit, spotlighted by Murtha.

"Babykillers. You guys don't need to be out there slaughtering people. That never happened," Sharratt said of the remarks he's heard.

Sharratt claimed the comments Murtha, a high-ranking Democrat, made on various news shows in May 2006 also violated his constitutional rights to due process and presumption of innocence.

Murtha made public comments during the investigation into the incident and claimed Sharratt's unit slaughtered innocent Iraqi civilians, according to Sharratt's lawyer, Noah Geary.

"Murtha's statements were false. They were made recklessly, without regard to their truth. And what he did was outrageous," Geary said.

In 2006, Murtha said Marine officials told him the only gunfire came from marines, and that they killed 24 civilians.

"I will not excuse murder. And this is what happened. There's no question in my mind about it. This investigation should have been over two or three weeks afterwards, and it should have been made public, and people should have been held responsible for it," Murtha said in May 2006.

"Sharratt, in being labeled repeatedly by Murtha as a 'cold-blooded murderer,' and by Murtha outrageously claiming that the Haditha incident was comparable to the infamous (My Lai) massacre of Vietnam, has suffered permanent, irreversible damage to his reputation," the lawsuit states.

Two dozen Iraqis, including women and children, were killed in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, after one Marine died and two others were wounded by a roadside bomb. Murtha, a former Marine and decorated Vietnam War veteran, learned of the killings and began speaking out about them, saying that troops in Iraq were being put under too much pressure.

The military initially charged the 24-year-old Sharratt with three counts of premeditated murder, but he was exonerated after a full investigation and a hearing. Six other Marines were also cleared on all charges. Charges against one other Marine are still pending.

In the lawsuit, Sharratt accuses Murtha of repeatedly saying on CNN, NBC and other outlets that Sharratt and his fellow Marines "overreacted because of the pressure on them and killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

Since that time, Sharratt was granted a request for his discharge from the Marine Corps.

Sharratt said he hopes his lawsuit sends a message.

"Giving of more hope and taking away the demoralization that he gave to the military when he made those comments," Sharratt said.

Sharratt's Web site links to the site of Murtha's election opponent, whose TV ads attack Murtha's comments. But Sharratt says his lawsuit is not political and that it's his relatives, not him, who run his site.

WTAE's Bob Mayo contacted Murtha's office on Thursday, but a spokesperson for the congressman said he isn't going to comment.

To read the lawsuit, click on one of the following .pdf files:

 

Murtha Lawsuit Page 1

Murtha Lawsuit Pages 2-13

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28508

 Obama's Plumbers

by  John Batchelor  

09/12/2008

There is a secret group in the Obama-Biden campaign tasked with shutting off any leaks from the record that links Barack Obama to his longtime adviser and mentor Bill Ayers, professor of education at the University of Illinois and unrepentant Weatherman terrorist and fugitive from the 1970s.

This surprising fact has been developed by Chicago-born and Ralph Nader-supporting Professor Steve Diamond of Santa Clara University Law School, who maintains the Global Labor and Politics blog and has pieced together over many months the unusual surreptitious activity around the public records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) grant now housed at the University of Illinois and Brown University.

Since the spring, Diamond has led the investigation into the intimate working relationship between Obama and Ayers that dates back at least to the beginning of 1995 and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Grants.

Diamond believes this group is not harmless. "It's a 'Plumbers' unit. You know, we are old enough to recall the Plumbers in Richard Nixon's White House. This is like that. The job is to stop anyone trying to use the (Chicago) Annenberg (Challenge) papers to figure out how Ayers and Obama worked together on education."

The "Plumbers" were a Nixon administration fiasco, the so-called secret White House Special Investigative Unit 24 tasked to stop the leaks of classified material. Once revealed, the Plumbers unit led to more bizarre discoveries that culminated in the Watergate impeachment and resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974.

Diamond believes this Obama-Biden "Plumbers" unit was responsible for the harassment of Stanley Kurtz of National Review, who sought access to public records of the now defunct CAC at the University of Illinois Library in Chicago in mid-August. He also believes it may have played a part in frustrating his own investigation of similar CAC records in the papers of the nationwide Annenberg Challenge program that are housed at Brown University. The question now is who among the major figures in the Chicago progressive circle, as well as former Annenberg Challenge officials, are unofficial members of Obama's Plumbers? And who among other responsible officials of the University of Illinois are their unwitting allies?

There is a substantial independent report from a major Democratic source that confirms Diamond's suspicions. The source confirms the unit is led by Bill Ayers himself and likely includes Tom Hayden and other members of "Progressives for Obama." Most critically, the Democratic source says this unit has direct access to media adviser David Axelrod of the Obama-Biden campaign.

Obama has struggled since the primary contest with Mrs. Clinton last spring to avoid answering candidly about his relationship with Ayers. His motivation is entirely obvious, seeking to avoid the political damage that would result from exposure of his friendship with a strident radical who posed standing on an American flag to promote his 2001 autobiography "Fugitive Days" and who was quoted in the New York Times on September 11, 2001 as saying, "There's a certain eloquence to bombs."

In April 2008, Obama, speaking to George Stephanopoulos, described Ayers -- as if from a great distance -- as "a guy who lived in my neighborhood." Obama also mislead Stephanopoulos with the peculiar characterization of Ayers as "a professor of English." In September, Obama dropped the brittle pose of not knowing intimate details about Ayers and told Bill O'Reilly, "I haven't seen the guy in a year and a half," and, "I come to Chicago. He's working with Mayor Richard Daley, not known to be a radical. So, he and I know each other as a consequence of work he's doing on education. That is not an endorsement of his views."

Obama went on to answer a question that O'Reilly actually did not ask in the course of the conversation. Obama declared, "This guy is not part of my campaign. He's not some adviser of mine."

The leaking that the "Plumbers" unit has blocked so far began last spring when Diamond posted several literate articles on his Global Labor and Politics blog on how Obama, an outsider to Chicago, had risen so swiftly in the Cook County machine.

On June 18, Diamond posted "That Guy Who Lives in My Neighborhood," in which he discussed the CAC for the first time, using research he'd done from the CAC papers on file at Brown University. Diamond was puzzled when an additional request to Brown for more information was met with silence; and he now wonders if this was an oversight or the work of the "Plumbers."

Kurtz ran into the Plumber unit August 11 when he requested CAC documents at the University of Illinois library in Chicago. Kurtz was denied access, and there have been several inconsistent explanations as to why. What is now believed more accurate is that the former executive director of the CAC, Ken Rolling, who was a long-standing associate of both Ayers and Obama, contacted the library officials to stop Kurtz's inquiry.

There are inconsistent statements made by Rolling about the reason for and timing of his intervention, and he told the Chicago Tribune that he got involved because of surfing on the net from his home in Mississippi, despite the fact that there was no mention of the CAC on the net before August 11 -- except in Steve Diamond's blog.

What is clear is that by mid-August Rolling was in communication with major University of Illinois officials, including B. Joseph White, the university's president, Thomas Bearrows, the university's counsel, and Tom Hardy, the university's executive director for university relations. An August 23 Ken Rolling e-mail to Bearrows (obtained by the Freedom of Information Act) points to telephone communications the day before between all of the principals involved in the decision to withhold the documents from Kurtz and others.

What is not answered at this time is when and why Rolling was in regular contact with university officials, though the few facts indicate Rolling began his interference -- and Diamond calls him "the lead Plumber" -- at exactly the same time Kurtz made his request: August 11. Did a university official give Rolling a heads-up?

Most significantly, the August 23 e-mail indicates a range of materials that Rolling wants to review personally and to restrict in the documents. "I can be at the UIC library between 9:00 am and 10:00 am on Monday August 25 to review the files." Much of the material Rolling aimed to review relates to the first year of the CAC, 1995, when Ayers and Obama were most active together in making decisions on the large cash awards. Thanks to the FOIA, we know the response by Bearrows to Rolling's request was suggestive -- "as promised, we will carefully consider the concerns that you identify..."

Importantly, we do know that at least one of the awards in 1995, the largest that year, went to a group led by Ayers and his partner and fellow radical Mike Klonsky.

Who is Ken Rolling? He was a member of the Woods Foundation board that was responsible for awarding the grant that first brought Barack Obama to Chicago as a community organizer. Later, Ayers is said to have been involved in choosing Rolling to be executive director of the CAC.

It seems more than coincidence that Obama, as a 33 year-old junior lawyer at a modest Chicago law firm, was then brought onto the CAC board as chairman, despite the prominence of other members that included two university presidents. In a September 10 New York Times article on Obama and education that mentions Ayers and depends upon Rolling as an informant, one of the presidents, Stanley O. Ikenberry of the University of Illinois, remembered about the choice of Obama as chair, "It was unusual: here you had a person trained in the law chairing a board on school reform."

The CAC documents were again opened to the public on August 26, several days after the exchange of information between Rolling and library officials. We await Stanley Kurtz's forthcoming articles to explicate the details of the Ayers-Obama-Rolling CAC working relationship. What is not clear is whether or not all the CAC materials are yet available for the full discovery of the relationship between the unrepentant radical Ayers and the guarded presidential candidate Obama.

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John Batchelor is a novelist and the host of the John Batchelor Show on WABC in New York and KFI in Los Angeles.

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http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28497

Bush 7, Terrorists 0

 

By Ann Coulter

09/10/2008

Morose that there hasn't been another terrorist attack on American soil for seven long years, liberals were ecstatic when Hurricane Gustav was headed toward New Orleans during the Republican National Convention last week. The networks gave the hurricane plenty of breaking-news coverage -- but unfortunately it was Hurricane Katrina from 2005 they were covering.

On Keith Olbermann's Aug. 29 show on MSNBC, Michael Moore said the possibility of a Category 3 hurricane hitting the United States "is proof that there is a God in heaven." Olbermann responded: "A supremely good point."

Actually, Olbermann said that a few minutes later to some other idiotic point Moore had made, but that's how Moore would have edited the interview for one of his "documentaries," so I will, too. I would only add that Michael Moore's morbid obesity is proof that there is a Buddha. Hurricane Gustav came and went without a hitch. What a difference a Republican governor makes!

As many have pointed out, the reason elected officials tend to neglect infrastructure project issues, like reinforcing levees in New Orleans and bridges in Minneapolis, is that there's no glory when a bridge doesn't collapse. There are no round-the-clock news specials when the levees hold. You can't even name an overpass retrofitting project after yourself -- it just looks too silly. But everyone's taxes go up to pay for the reinforcements.

Preventing another terrorist attack is like that. There is no media coverage when another 9/11 doesn't happen. We can thank God that President George Bush didn't care about doing the safe thing for himself; he cared about keeping Americans safe. And he has, for seven years.

If Bush's only concern were about his approval ratings, like a certain impeached president I could name, he would not have fought for the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq. He would not have resisted the howling ninnies demanding that we withdraw from Iraq, year after year. By liberals' own standard, Bush's war on terrorism has been a smashing, unimaginable success.

A year after the 9/11 attack, The New York Times' Frank Rich was carping about Bush's national security plans, saying we could judge Bush's war on terror by whether there was a major al-Qaida attack in 2003, which -- according to Rich -- would have been on al-Qaida's normal schedule.

Rich wrote: "Since major al-Qaida attacks are planned well in advance and have historically been separated by intervals of 12 to 24 months, we will find out how much we've been distracted soon enough." ("Never Forget What?" New York Times, Sept. 14, 2002.)

There wasn't a major al-Qaida attack in 2003. Nor in 2004, 2005, 2006 or 2007. Manifestly, liberals thought there would be: They announced a standard of success that they expected Bush to fail.

As Bush has said, we have to be right 100 percent of the time, the terrorists only have to be right one time. Bush has been right 100 percent of the time for seven years -- so much so that Americans have completely forgotten about the threat of Islamic terrorism.

For his thanks, President Bush has been the target of almost unimaginable calumnies -- the sort of invective liberals usually reserve for seniors who don't separate their recyclables properly. Compared to liberals' anger at Bush, there has always been something vaguely impersonal about their "anger" toward the terrorists.

By my count, roughly one in four books in print in the world at this very moment have the words "Bush" and "Lie" in their title. Barnes & Noble has been forced to add an "I Hate Bush" section. I don't believe there are as many anti-Hitler books.

Despite the fact that Hitler brought "change," promoted clean, energy-efficient mass transit by making the trains run on time, supported abortion for the non-master races, vastly expanded the power of the national government and was uniformly adored by college students and their professors, I gather that liberals don't like Hitler because they're constantly comparing him to Bush.

The ferocity of the left's attacks on Bush even scared many of his conservative allies into turning on him over the war in Iraq.

George Bush is Gary Cooper in the classic western "High Noon." The sheriff is about to leave office when a marauding gang is coming to town. He could leave, but he waits to face the killers as all his friends and all the townspeople, who supported him during his years of keeping them safe, slowly abandon him. In the end, he walks alone to meet the killers, because someone has to.

That's Bush. Name one other person in Washington who would be willing to stand alone if he had to, because someone had to.

OK, there is one, but she's not in Washington yet. Appropriately, at the end of "High Noon," Cooper is surrounded by the last two highwaymen when, suddenly, his wife (Grace Kelly) appears out of nowhere and blows away one of the killers! The aging sheriff is saved by a beautiful, gun-toting woman.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09082008/postopinion/ a>

editorials/post_endorses_john_mccain_128044.htm?&page
=0

 POST ENDORSES JOHN MCCAIN 
 

THAT'S THE TICKET: John McCain and Sarah Palin, here onstage at the Republican convention, offer the promise of sound economic, security and energy policies.

THE Post today enthusiastically urges the election of Sen. John S. McCain as the 44th president of the United States.

McCain's lifelong record of service to America, his battle-tested courage, unshakeable devotion to principle and clear grasp of the dangers and opportunities now facing the nation stand in dramatic contrast to the tissue-paper-thin résumé of his Democratic opponent, freshman Sen. Barack Obama.

McCain has been in Washington for many years now, but he is not of Washington. He knows where the levers of power are located - and how to manipulate them - but he is not controlled by them.

McCain's selection of the charming, but rock-solid, outsider Sarah Palin as his running mate underscores the point.

Neither plays well with others.

And this is an unalloyed asset at a time when special interests - lobbyists, lawyers and organized labor chief among them - wield enormous influence in the nation's capital.

McCain's Democratic opponents, Obama and Sen. Joseph Biden, lead a party constructed of special interests - public-employee unionists in particular.

There are many reasons to support the McCain-Palin ticket. Here are but a few:

* National security: The differences between McCain and Obama are especially stark.

McCain says 9/11 represented a two-decade "failure . . . to respond to . . . a [growing] global terror network." He understood that Iraq is a critical front in the war on terror - and he urged perseverance even in the dark days that preceded the success of "the surge."

Obama backed policies that would have abandoned Iraq to its fate, he bitterly opposed the surge, and once insisted that US forces invade Pakistan in search of Osama bin Laden - seemingly without regard for the potential consequences of attacking a nuclear-armed nation, ally or not.

Regarding a nuclear Iran, McCain has pushed for the strongest possible international sanctions and diplomatic pressure. Obama opposes sanctions.

And, when Russia invaded the former Soviet republic of Georgia, threatening a return to the Cold War, McCain reacted with stern disapprobation: "We must remind Russia's leaders that the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world require their respect for the values, stability and peace of that world."

Obama called for UN action - unaware, apparently, that Russia's Security Council veto would have prevented any.

* Taxes: McCain knows that when government absorbs ever-larger shares of national income, the economy suffers.

High tax rates diminish investment, killing jobs and stunting growth.

And while Obama promises tax cuts for "95 percent" of Americans, what he actually is proposing is some $650 billion in tax-credit-driven hikes in entitlement and other spending, to be paid for with heavier imposts across the board, but especially on investment - like a sharply higher capital-gains tax.

This is bad news for the millions of ordinary Americans who own stocks, either personally or through pension funds or who plan someday to sell their homes or other real property.

McCain, wisely, vows to keep capital-gains taxes at 15 percent and to keep the Bush-era tax cuts in place - understanding that new growth will boost revenue, and promising to make up the rest with spending restraint.

And he's called for a one-year freeze on most discretionary spending and an end to pork-barrel giveaways.

* Trade: "I object when Senator Obama and others preach the false virtues of economic isolationism," says McCain - noting that "globalization is an opportunity" for US workers. He adds that while emerging economies like those of China and India are worrisome, the answer is competition informed by education and innovation - not protectionism.

* Energy: On the economic issue most vexing Americans today - energy prices - McCain is aggressive

He is a strong convert to offshore drilling: "We have trillions of dollars' worth of oil and gas reserves in the US at a time we are exporting hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas to buy energy."

He also strongly backs nuclear power - a carbon-free form of energy that America can produce relatively cheaply.

Obama, meanwhile, hews to the Democratic Party line on energy: no nukes, no drilling and no comprehension of the consequences of such policies.

None of this implies an iota of disrespect toward Obama. It took a formidable candidacy to defeat Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - a candidacy, by the way, which we strongly supported earlier this year.

And the intelligence, the organizational skills and the ability to communicate that Obama demonstrated from the beginning dramatically underscore the history that is being made by the first African-American to head a major-party presidential ticket.

He should be around for a long time, and we hope that he is.

In the end, though, sound security, economic and energy policies - plus allegiance to principle - are critical to keeping America safe and strong.

On all counts, John McCain and Sarah Palin understand this - and that's why we're in their corner to the finish.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/02/iraq.us
foreignpolicy

US hands back control of Anbar to Iraqi forces

· President Bush hails transfer of Sunni province
· Move to watching brief could cut troop numbers

Ian Black, Middle East editor

The Guardian, Tuesday September 2 2008

Article history

Major John Kelly and Anbar governor Mamun Sami Rasheed sign handover documents in Ramadi yesterday. Photograph: Wathiq Khuzaie/Reuters

Iraqi security forces took control of Sunni Anbar province from the US military yesterday, a milestone in moves to wind down the American presence in a key area that was an insurgent stronghold.

Iraqi troops paraded with flags flying at a formal handover ceremony in the provincial capital Ramadi, once a byword for vicious fighting, though underlying political tensions are yet to be resolved.

"This war is not quite over, but it's being won and primarily by the people of Anbar," declared the US commander, Marine Major General John Kelly. "Al-Qaida has not been entirely defeated in Anbar, but their end is near and they know it. What Anbar needs now, what will end this conflict and prevent al-Qaida from ever coming back, is economic development, reconstruction and funds for compensation."

In Washington President George Bush praised the achievement, saying that the province had been "transformed and reclaimed by the Iraqi people".

Anbar, which is mostly desert, extends from the western outskirts of Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It saw some of the bloodiest fighting after the 2003 invasion, including two assaults by US forces on Falluja.

About one third of US fatalities in Iraq, 1,305 troops, have been in Anbar, more than 40% of them by improvised explosive devices.

It is the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces but the first majority Sunni one to be handed over to the Shia-led Baghdad government.

US forces are to remain but in a limited "overwatch" role in which they will cut back on security patrols and focus on training Iraq's army and police. The US has 28,000 soldiers in Anbar, down from 37,000 in February, while the number of Iraqi soldiers and police has grown to 37,000 from 5,000 three years ago.

The handover is expected to help the US cut troop levels in Iraq at a time when there is pressure to boost forces in Afghanistan, where violence is now worse.

"We would not have even imagined this in our wildest dreams three or four years ago," said the Iraqi national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie.

"If we had said we were going to hand over security responsibility from foreign troops to civilian authority people would laugh at us."

The handover had been scheduled for June but was delayed by a row between local leaders and a bomb attack in Ramadi. Anbar was the bastion of al-Qaida in Iraq and its renegade Jordanian leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who used the area as a staging-ground for attacks in Baghdad until he was killed in a 2006 US airstrike. Two years ago a US intelligence report concluded that al-Qaida had made such inroads that the war was lost in Anbar.

The tide began to turn in late 2006, when Sunni tribal leaders alienated by al-Qaida atrocities changed sides, forming US-funded "awakening councils" that became a model for grassroots guard units across the country.

Security progress after the US troop surge has not been matched by internal political reconciliation. The Iraqi parliament has yet to pass a controversial election law that has been delayed by a dispute over the oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk.

Provincial elections - seen by both Washington and Baghdad as a key development - can be held this year only if agreement can be reached in the next two weeks.

http://www.breitbart.com/print.php?id=D92NQMA00&sho
w_article=1&catnum=3

Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence

By RON FOURNIER
Associated Press Writer

DENVER (AP) - The candidate of change went with the status quo.

In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness—inexperience in office and on foreign policy—rather than underscore his strength as a new-generation candidate defying political conventions.

He picked a 35-year veteran of the Senate—the ultimate insider—rather than a candidate from outside Washington, such as Govs. Tim Kaine of Virginia or Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas; or from outside his party, such as Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska; or from outside the mostly white male club of vice presidential candidates. Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't even make his short list.

The picks say something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden pick is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative—a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.

Democratic strategists, fretting over polls that showed McCain erasing Obama's lead this summer, welcomed the move. They, too, worried that Obama needed a more conventional—read: tougher—approach to McCain.

"You've got to hand it to the candidate and the campaign. They have a great sense of timing and tone and appropriateness. Six months ago, people said he wasn't tough enough on Hillary Clinton—he was being too passive—but he got it right at the right time," said Democratic strategist Jim Jordan. "He'll get it right again."

Indeed, Obama has begun to aggressively counter McCain's criticism with negative television ads and sharp retorts from the campaign trail.

A senior Obama adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his boss has expressed impatience with what he calls a "reverence" inside his campaign for his message of change and new politics. In other words, Obama is willing—even eager—to risk what got him this far if it gets him to the White House.

Biden brings a lot to the table. An expert on national security, the Delaware senator voted in 2002 to authorize military intervention in Iraq but has since become a vocal critic of the conflict. He won praise for a plan for peace in Iraq that would divide the country along ethnic lines.

Chief sponsor of a sweeping anti-crime bill that passed in 1994, Biden could help inoculate Obama from GOP criticism that he's soft on crime—a charge his campaign fears will drive a wedge between white voters and the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House.

So the question is whether Biden's depth counters Obama's inexperience—or highlights it?

After all, Biden is anything but a change agent, having been in office longer than half of all Americans have been alive. Longer than McCain.

And he talks too much.

On the same day he announced his second bid for the presidency, Biden found himself explaining why he had described Obama as "clean."

And there's the 2007 ABC interview in which Biden said he would stand by an earlier statement that Obama was not ready to serve as president.

It seems Obama is worried that some voters are starting to agree.

Berg vs. Obama Lawsuit

 

Philip J. Berg, an attorney and self-professed Hillary Clinton supporter who has filed a lawsuit against Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee, and several other parties. Berg contends that Sen. Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen and, therefore, is not constitutionally eligible to run for the office of president.

 

According to Berg, Obama was born in Kenya and then a week later flown back to Hawaii where a certificate of live birth was filed (view certificate). Berg claims the birth record initially posted on the Obama campaign website is a forgery based on his half-sister's certificate. Berg also noted that Obama would have lost any American citizenship status he had when he moved to Indonesia with his mother and was adopted by his step-father.

 

Berg presented other arguments to support his case, but believes the Republican Party has even more evidence and will use it to discredit Obama after he receives the Democratic nomination. Berg said journalist Wayne Madsen published an article about a GOP research team that was sent to Kenya and has located a certificate registering the birth of a boy named "Barack Obama, Jr." to his father, a Kenyan citizen and his mother, a U.S. citizen.

 

 

 

Iraqi militia leader to order followers to lay down their arms

· Mahdi army will become social and political group
· Sadr's forces waged war on US troops for last five year

Wednesday August 6 2008

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Photograph: Wissam al-Okaili/AFP/Getty Images

The leader of one of the most powerful militias in Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr, is to order his followers to disarm and transform themselves into a purely social and political organisation, according to a new strategy document published yesterday.

Such a shift would mark a significant step forward for US and Iraqi government attempts to pacify Iraq.

Sadr's Mahdi army, committed to forcing US troops out of Iraq, has been behind much of the violence since the 2003 invasion. His forces have maintained a ceasefire since May.

According to the document, a copy of which has been obtained by the Wall Street Journal and whose authenticity has been confirmed by a Mahdi army spokesman, Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, the militia will concentrate in future on education, provision of social services and religion.

It tells Sadr's followers that "it is not allowed to use arms at all". Posters have been spotted around Baghdad saying the changes will be announced at Friday prayers.

Sadr's shift comes after a crackdown by Iraqi forces on the Mahdi army in its Baghdad stronghold, Sadr City, as well as Amarrah and Basra in the south earlier this year.

US military and diplomatic sources yesterday welcomed the prospect of the Mahdi army laying down its arms, but expressed strong scepticism, given previous statements by Sadr that were followed by renewed outbursts of violence.

Despite the US caution, the document is consistent with recent statements by Sadr, who was in Iran earlier this year pursuing religious studies. He appears to be readying himself for elections scheduled for October, though the failure of Iraqi parliamentarians to reach a deal yesterday could push that into next year.

The new document is in line with a statement from Sadr last week in which he called for the Iraqi government not to enter into any deals with the US government, which he continued to refer to as "the occupier". But significantly he called for peaceful resistance to the US forces.

The Mahdi army, a predominantly Shia Muslim grouping, and al-Qaida in Iraq have been two of the biggest forces behind much of the violence of the last five years. The Pentagon claims that it has al-Qaida, an almost exclusively Sunni Muslim organisation responsible for some of the worst atrocities, on the run.

There has been a reduction in violence in Iraq over the last year and the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, has hinted he will recommend to President George Bush later this month or early next a reduction in the 156,000 US troops based in Iraq and supply bases in Kuwait.

The Mahdi army spokesman, Obeidi, told the Wall Street Journal that the group would now be guided by spirituality rather than battling US forces. The document says the aim is promoting virtue and preventing vice through words and moral behaviour. But some hardliners in the Mahdi army may ignore Sadr's call, as they have in the past when he called short-lived ceasefires.

Sadr, 34, one of the most influential Shia leaders in Iraq, rose to prominence after the fall of Saddam Hussein. He came from one of the most important religious families in the forefront of resistance to Saddam and which suffered at his hands.

Amid the chaos of post-invasion Iraq, Sadr's militia seized control of Sadr City and other Shia areas and established security as well as a basic welfare network. His forces have since repeatedly engaged US and British troops in open battle.

British forces have been less involved since handing over Basra city to Iraqi forces and holing up at Basra international airport.

The Ministry of Defence denied a report in yesterday's Times that the 4,000 troops had stood by for a week in March while Iraqi and US troops clashed with the Mahdi army because they had a secret deal with Sadr.

The British military and diplomats, while responsible for southern Iraq, did enter into a series of deals in places such as Amarrah, while publicly denying it. They allowed militia groups a degree of control. But the MoD insisted yesterday that British forces in March had provided a "raft of support" to US and Iraqi forces during the March fighting.

In a separate development, Ron Suskind, a US journalist, claimed yesterday that the White House had faked a letter purporting to establish a link between Saddam and al-Qaida in the run-up to the war. The letter, published in the Daily Telegraph, was supposedly written by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, director of Iraqi intelligence, in 2001.

The allegation is made in Suskind's new book, The Way of the World. The then acting head of the CIA, George Tenet, said he had no memory of such a letter.

Hmmm, I wonder if he would’ve ever arrived at this decision had our troop surge that Senator McCain fought for and that provided much needed security in Iraq not ever occurred, or failed to succeed like Senator Obama and other critics predicted that it would….

I think not!

The smart money says that al-Sadr would never have backed down or disarmed his militia if not for the Iraqi military backed up by our forces putting a ton of heat on and defeating his Mahdi army in battle….

 

http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?id=
308&issue=047

Barack Obama`s 10 Point Plan to "Change" The Second Amendment  

 

by Wayne LaPierre

NRA Executive Vice President

For the Brady Campaign, Violence Policy Center, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, U.N. gun-ban extremist Rebecca Peters and her globalist billionaire sugar-daddy George Soros, for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his horde of big-city politicians—in fact, for all those individuals and organizations who would harm or destroy our Second Amendment rights—Barack Obama’s mantra of “change” means their agenda will be harnessed to the total power of an aggressive, activist and radical federal government. 

 

“Change” means gun owners will be under siege like never before.

 Especially for NRA members who fought through the never-ending threats of the Clinton-Gore administration, the understanding of “change” must be the driving force for us to get other gun owners to the polls. This election is critically important. We cannot afford to have any friend of the Second Amendment sit it out, regardless of the reason.

  We all know gun owners who are disillusioned with politics. Those influenced by talk of four years of “progressives” in power coalescing a united conservative movement must be reminded that this November, we are not just electing a president, we are electing an entire government.

  With Obama’s emphasis on grassroots organizing, his administration will be a government redesigned and realigned to stay in power. It will be a government converted into a political machine. And with a so-called “progressive” majority in both houses of Congress, there will be little to stop that power shift.

  When Obama talks about “change,” the gun-banners at the Violence Policy Center and the Brady Campaign know exactly what change they want—inside power. And they’ll likely get it.

 

Michelle Obama, in a politically charged college campaign speech in California, defined her husband’s meaning of “change”:

  “Barack Obama ... is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your division. That you come out of your isolation. That you move out of your comfort zones ... Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual ...”.

  As NRA members, this statement doesn’t bode well for our future. Our “lives as usual” means the daily exercise of our freedom.

  And what of “cynicism”? It is the very basis of Americans’ long history of questioning government power and its abuse. It is the basis of challenging dissembling politicians. Cynicism is the key to seeing through politicians like Obama and Hillary Clinton, who falsely wrap themselves in the Second Amendment while espousing dangerous programs for civil disarmament.

  And “division”? As NRA members, our “division” from the likes of Obama means we stand together and fight every day against those who would destroy the bedrock principles that have made our country the freest in the world. Divisiveness is the basis of our democratic institutions. Division based on principle is a noble thing.

  “Comfort zone”? What about the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence? That is the real “comfort zone” of all Americans. We are the only nation on earth built on the principle of “pursuit of happiness.” That means we do not serve government; it serves us.

  The “change” Obama and his close allies—like George Soros’ Moveon.org —seek is a complete regime change driven by a radical political agenda. For the nation’s gun owners, “change” will take the form of many steps back to the bad old days of the Clinton-Gore years or the Jimmy Carter years, when bureaucrats in a dozen agencies were relentless in their schemes to press a hostile presidential agenda against gun ownership.

  For gun owners, “change” could well mean an erosion of hard-fought reforms and hard-fought protections we have secured over the years. Those reforms represent battles won by gun owners led by NRA since the founding of the Institute for Legislative Action in 1975.

  “Change” means removing the restrictions we secured against the Consumer Product Safety Commission from exercising a bureaucratic ban on firearms or ammunition based on phony “consumer hazard” criteria. This is something the Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center have vainly sought for years.

... we are not just electing a president, we are electing an entire government

“Change” means ignoring the strictures imposed on federal gun-control enforcement by Congress, like preventing “firearms trace data” from being delivered into the hands of big-city lawyers to fuel punitive lawsuits to strangle the lawful firearms industry. This is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s dream, and it is the “change” demanded by his gun-ban axis of urban politicians.

  “Change” means an effort to erase all of the reforms of federal gun laws created when Congress enacted the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986. That law ended a reign of terror by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that, for gun owners and civil libertarians, was the shameful hallmark of the Jimmy Carter presidency.

  “Change” means that federal lawyers from multiple agencies with unlimited taxpayer funding will find “creative” ways to bring elements of the law-abiding firearm industry to court, circumventing the restrictions of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act. As a freshman U.S. senator from Illinois, Obama voted against that law, which was designed to end punitive lawsuits claiming firearm industry liability based on totally unrelated acts of armed, violent criminals.

  For those who don’t remember, in the waning days of the Bill Clinton presidency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), along with the U.S. Department of Justice, used the threat of scores of separate lawsuits in many federal venues by city housing authorities to extort a supposedly “voluntary” gun-control agreement from firearm manufacturers. If Obama becomes president, you can bet the farm that bureaucrats will once again use these threats to obtain strictures that Congress would never enact.

  In fact, among key advisors chosen by Obama to vet possible running mates is Eric Holder, who was Attorney General Janet Reno’s top deputy. Holder, as the Justice Department point man on all gun-control schemes, was among the top officials announcing the Clinton-Gore extortion agreement in 2000.

The “change” Obama and his close allies—like George Soros’ Moveon.org—seek is a complete regime change driven by a radical political agenda.

Among the many requirements of that agreement, a crucial one gave key elements of the gun-ban movement total oversight of the firearm industry and an ability to destroy it by running it out of business. None of this would ever have passed Congress as law, yet this stranglehold was achieved through the bureaucratic back door by Bill Clinton’s executive branch.

  Backdoor bureaucratic gun-control schemes in the waning days of the Clinton administration also included diversion of millions of taxpayer dollars to HUD “gun buybacks” and gun destruction schemes; and development of so-called “smart gun” technologies and “ballistic fingerprinting.”

  The ultimate aim of “smart gun” technology—to prevent a firearm being used by anyone but its registered owner—was spelled out in model legislation first floated in Pennsylvania, which said all handguns that did not possess “smart technology” would become contraband to be collected by police agencies.

  All of this was created and pushed through the efforts of bureaucratic lawyers like Obama advisor Holder. Now the ultimate Washington insider lawyer, Holder is being touted as an Obama Supreme Court appointee. Recent headlines can put Holder’s reappearance on the political scene into sharp context. The Journal of the American Bar Association even asks: “Will Eric Holder Become the Next Attorney General?”

 

“... change” also means using a host of federal government think tanks to create “studies” and white papers intended to spawn new gun-ban laws.

If gun owners don’t vote, that’s likely to happen.

Among the many press briefings Holder ran was the unveiling of the massive Clinton-Gore legislative assault on gun rights in April 1999. At the time, Clinton was pushing for a federally mandated state gun-owner license. That legislative package included a three-day waiting period for the purchase of a handgun; a purchase limit of one handgun a month; and bans on high-capacity magazines.

Thankfully, all of these hostile executive branch threats, including the “voluntary” gun control by extortion, ended abruptly when George W. Bush took office—a fact many people have forgotten. But if Obama captures the White House, the onslaught against our rights will be reopened on many old fronts that have been largely forgotten, as well as in new venues.

 You can bet an Obama administration will make a major effort to bureaucratically centralize lawful sales records created under the National Instant Check System, which would be the basis of a universal gun-owner registration system sought by every anti-Second Amendment advocate, public and private. Additionally, you can bet that there will be a major push to criminalize all now-legal sales between private individuals.

  “Change” means giving the Center for Disease Control power to once again treat private ownership of firearms as a “disease” treatable by gun control—a power denied by Congress thanks to NRA, but which can quickly be changed. That wacky theory—that guns are a virus to “civil society”—is the basis for Rebecca Peters’ international gun-ban activities. During the Clinton administration, the CDC created a massive propaganda arsenal for the gun-ban movement that still feeds the media. Under Obama, the same is likely to occur.

  On that score, “change” also means using a host of federal government think tanks to create “studies” and white papers intended to spawn new gun-ban laws. In the U.S. Justice Department alone, an Obama regime could use the Office of Justice Programs, which includes the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Victims of Crime, the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, to do its anti-gun bidding. During the Clinton-Gore years, these Justice Department entities produced scores of anti-gun “studies,” many still used today to prop up gun-ban groups’ propaganda.

  Further, these agencies and those in other executive departments have millions of dollars in grant-making authority. That is something Obama knows a great deal about. During his tenure as an active member of the Joyce Foundation board, Obama oversaw the distribution of $18 million to gun-ban groups, including major funding for the Violence Policy Center (VPC). Reportedly, Josh Sugarmann’s book, Every Handgun is Aimed at You, which pushed for a national handgun ban, was funded by Obama’s Joyce Foundation board. Before he ran for public office, Obama was considered the prime candidate to lead that deep-pocketed anti-gun money machine.

  “Change” also means using the total lobbying and propaganda power of the White House and multiple federal departments to bring back a version of the Clinton gun ban, or to move an F-Troop Congress on any number of gun-control schemes. The presidency is the nation’s most powerful bully pulpit—especially for someone much of the so-called “mainstream” media worships as “the great orator.”

  Stop a minute and think about the scope of power we hold in our hands as pro-Second Amendment voters. What we do with that power when we vote in November will determine so much for the future.

  The 2008 election will determine who controls:

 U.S. participation in the anti-gun United Nations;  Appointments to the federal courts, including the critical U.S. Supreme Court;  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives;  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which the Brady Campaign now insists should ban firearms in every place of employment in America;  The Department of State, which could give credence and funding to the world gun-ban efforts of Rebecca Peters’ International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA). The State Department could negotiate a U.N. global gun-ban treaty that would violate American sovereignty;  The U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, which could force huge changes on hunters and gun owners;  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which today is being petitioned to ban lead bullets for hunting, even in the ubiquitous .22 rimfire;  The Environmental Protection Agency, which could conceivably close down shooting ranges throughout the country.

  Think about how regulations could be abused through an Obama-led Federal Communications Commission, Federal Election Commission, even Department of Defense, to change the culture of the Second Amendment in America.

  When you talk to those who want to sit out this election and let an Obama administration roll into Washington, just pick any agency that covers any area of those people’s lives that they hold dear and point out how Obama’s idea of “change” could affect them. Remind them that we are not electing just a president and vice president—we are electing officials in the entire executive branch, which can be used either to their good, or used for their harm.

ARLINGTON, VA -- Chief Warrant Officer (4th class) Michael J. Durant (USA Ret.) issued the following statement on Barack Obama's canceled visit to Ramstein and Landstuhl:

 

“Over the last week, Barack Obama made time in his busy schedule to hold a rally with 200,000 Germans in Berlin, hold a press conference with French President Nicholas Sarkozy in Paris, and hold a solo press conference in front of 10 Downing Street in London. The Obama campaign had also scheduled a visit with wounded U.S. troops at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, but this stop was canceled after it became clear that campaign staff, and the traveling press corps, would not be allowed to accompany Senator Obama.

 

I've spent time at Ramstein recovering from wounds received in the service of my country, and I'm sure that Senator Obama could have made no better use of his time than to meet with our men and women in uniform there. That Barack Obama believes otherwise casts serious doubt on his judgment and calls into question his priorities.”

 

Michael Durant, CW4 (Retired), US Army; born July 23, 1961 in Berlin, NH. He entered the United States Army in August 1979. Following basic training he attended the Defense Language Institute, and was then assigned to the 470th Military Intelligence Group, Fort Clayton, Panama as a Spanish voice intercept operator. He then completed helicopter flight training at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Upon appointment to Warrant Officer 1 in November 1983, he completed the UH60 Black Hawk Qualification Course and was assigned to the 377th Medical Evacuation Company, Seoul Korea. His next assignment was with the 101st Aviation Battalion, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where he performed duties as an instructor pilot.

 

Michael joined the 160th Special Operations Group on August 1, 1988. Assigned to D company, he performed duties as Flight Lead and Standardization Instructor Pilot. He participated in combat operations Prime Chance (Persian Gulf in 1989), Just Cause (Panama invasion in 1989), Desert Storm (Liberation of Kuwait in 1991), and Gothic Serpent (Somalia in 1993).

 

On October 3, 1993, while piloting an MH60 Black Hawk in Mogadishu, Somalia, he was shot down and held captive by hostile forces. He was released eleven days later.

The Lord must have decided that he wanted some more skilled & respected news reporters, first adding Tim Russert to his staff, and now former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow.

Like both Colin Powell & Condleezza Rice before him, Tony is one of several people who worked in both Bush Administrations, first as a speech writer for President G.H.W. Bush, and then following the pitiful Scott McClellan as this Administration's WH Press Secretary and providing the prepared, well informed and competent voice for the President & his policies that everyone had been craving from that position before Tony arrived.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,381250,00.html

Tony Snow, Former White House Press Secretary and FOX News Anchor, Dies at 53

Saturday, July 12, 2008

  Tony Snow, the former White House press secretary and conservative pundit who bedeviled the press corps and charmed millions as a FOX News television and radio host, died Saturday after a long bout with cancer. He was 53.

A syndicated columnist, editor, TV anchor, radio show host and musician, Snow worked in nearly every medium in a career that spanned more than 30 years.

• Click here for photos.

"Laura and I are deeply saddened by the death of our dear friend Tony Snow," President Bush said in a written statement. "The Snow family has lost a beloved husband and father. And America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character."

Snow died at 2 a.m. Saturday at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Snow joined FOX in 1996 as the original anchor of "FOX News Sunday" and hosted "Weekend Live" and a radio program, "The Tony Snow Show," before departing in 2006.

"It's a tremendous loss for us who knew him, but it's also a loss for the country," Roger Ailes, chairman of FOX News, said Saturday morning about Snow, calling him a "renaissance man."

• Click here to watch Brit Hume's tribute to Tony Snow.

As a TV pundit and commentator for FOX News, Snow often was critical of Bush before he became the president's third press secretary, following Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan. He was an instant study in the job, mastering the position — and the White House press corps — with apparent ease.

"One of the reasons I took this job is not only to work with the president, but, believe it or not, to work with all of you," Snow told reporters when he stepped into the post in 2006. "These are times that are going to be very challenging."

During a tenure marked by friendly jousting with journalists, Snow often danced around the press corps, occasionally correcting their grammar and speech even as he responded to their questions.

"Tony did his job with more flair than almost any press secretary before him," said William McGurn, Bush's former chief speechwriter. "He loved the give-and-take. But that was possible only because Tony was a man of substance who had real beliefs and principles that he was more than able to defend."

As he announced Snow as his new press secretary in May 2006, Bush praised him as "a man of courage [and] a man of integrity." Snow presided over some of the toughest fights of Bush's presidency, defending the administration during the Iraq war and the CIA leak investigation.

"I felt comfortable enough to interrupt him when he was BSing, and he kind of knew it, and he'd shut up and move on," Snow said.

His tenure at the White House lasted 17 months and was interrupted by his second bout with cancer.

• FOX Facts: Tony Snow's Battle With Cancer

Snow had his colon removed and underwent six months of chemotherapy after he was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2005. In 2007 he announced his cancer had recurred and spread to his liver, and he had a malignant growth removed from his abdominal area.

He resigned from the White House six months later, in September 2007, citing not his health but a need to earn more than the $168,000 a year he was paid in the government post. He was replaced by his deputy, Dana Perino, Bush's current press secretary.

After taking time off to recuperate, Snow joined CNN as a political commentator early this year.

At the White House, Snow brought partisan zeal and the skills of a seasoned performer to the task of explaining and defending the president's policies. During daily briefings he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.

"The White House has lost a great friend and a great colleague," said Perino in a statement released to the media. "We all loved watching him at the podium, but most of all we learned how to love our families and treat each other."

Critics suggested Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation. He was the first press secretary, by his own accounting, to travel the country raising money for Republican candidates.

As a commentator, he had not always been on the president's side. He once called Bush "something of an embarrassment" in conservative circles and criticized what he called Bush's "lackluster" domestic policy.

A sometime fill-in host for Rush Limbaugh, Snow said he loved the intimacy of his radio audience.

"I don't think you ever arrive," he said. "I think anybody who thinks they've arrived or made it, anywhere in the media — they're nuts."

Robert Anthony Snow was born June 1, 1955, in Berea, Ky., the son of a teacher and nurse. He graduated from Davidson College in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, and he taught briefly in Kenya before embarking on his journalism career.

Because of his love for writing, Snow took a job as an editorial writer for the Greensboro Record in North Carolina and went on to run the editorial pages at the Newport News (Virginia) Daily Press, Detroit News and Washington Times. He became a nationally syndicated columnist, and in 1991 he became director of speechwriting for President George H.W. Bush.

"He served people, and we can learn from that. He was kind, and we can learn from that. He was just a good person," the senior Bush told FOX News.

• Remembering Tony Snow

Snow played six instruments — saxophone, trombone, flute, piccolo, accordion and guitar — and was in a D.C. cover band called Beats Workin'. He also was a film buff.

"He was a great musician," Ailes said. "And he loved movies."

More than anything, said Snow's colleagues, he was a joy to work with.

"He was a lot of fun," his former FOX News producer Griff Jenkins said. "This is a loss of a family member."

FOX News Chief Washington Correspondent Jim Angle called Snow a "gentleman."

Snow is survived by his wife, Jill Ellen Walker, whom he married in 1987; their son, Robbie; and daughters, Kendall and Kristi.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The latest Democrat to take a backhanded swipe at Senator McCain’s heroic wartime service was none other than everyone’s favorite draft dodging, pot smoking, intern sexing, pathologically lying, pardon selling former President William Jefferson Clinton. Speaking last week at the Aspen Ideas Festival, he claimed that Nelson Mandela had stated that he struggled to let go of his anger towards his captors, and then this former President and noted Prisoner Of War expert speculated that former POWs were prone to suffer flashbacks at any time.

Having been a Rhodes Scholar in his younger days, Clinton may claim he was only talking about Mandela but when the Presidential nominee from the opposing political party to his is known to have spent 5½ as a captive himself, Bubba knows that most people will connect the dots and come up with a picture of McCain in this case.

Billy is the 3rd Obama supporter to recently attack McCain’s courageous military service in defense of this great Nation, and perhaps the least qualified to do so. The repeated attacks on McCain’s impressive military career & brave conduct in combat illustrate the fact that the Democrats are scared to death of this stark contrast to their own weak, flawed & severely inexperienced Presidential candidate….

 

McCain Brushes off Bill Clinton Claim that Former POWs Can Snap at Any Time

by FOXNews.com

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

 

John McCain on Tuesday questioned Bill Clinton’s credentials to discuss the mental health of prisoners of war after the former president told an audience in Aspen that it’s just a matter of time before a former POW snaps and relives the nightmare of his imprisonment.

McCain spent five and a half years in Hanoi as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.

“I don’t know where he gets his expertise,” the presumptive Republican presidential candidate told FOX News, adding