She was the young Republican hate crimes hoaxer who carved a backwards “B” on her face and tried to blame it on an Obama supporter last fall. I took a lot of crap from from my own commenters for doubting her fishy story straight out of the box.

At least you guys and gals had the intellectual honesty to admit that you were wrong.

The nutball blogger who wrote on September 26, “No Suicide: That’s the one thing we know for certain now in the case of the Kentucky lynching”…

…and who stoked the criminalize-the-conservatives meme with bald and righteous pronouncements about the cause of death (“the murder seems even grislier the more you examine it…”):

…refuses to acknowledge his own role as a rhetorical lynch mob leader. Yes, he has the added nerve to pompously “correct” me and deride my credentials.

What a waste of bandwidth.

Folks in Clay County, Ky. are still steaming from the nutroots-perpetuated smears and the hoax tactics that Sparkman successfully used, including writing the “FED” red herring on his chest Ashley Todd-style:

Many people felt the speculation and coverage of the death played on Appalachian stereotypes and gave Clay County an undeserved black eye.

“Everybody was saying, ‘It’s bad, but why are they saying this without letting the investigation go forward?’ ” said state Sen. Robert Stivers, a Republican who lives in the county.

Many in the media owe the county an apology, Stivers said.

The census suspended some work in Clay County after Sparkman’s death. The agency has been notified of the findings in Sparkman’s death and plans to resume normal operations, Beyer said.

If there had been no writing on his chest and his identification hadn’t been taped to him, police could have concluded more quickly that Sparkman’s death was a suicide, Rudzinski told the Herald-Leader.

Instead, it took considerably more investigation to rule out homicide. Investigators even analyzed the writing on Sparkman’s chest to see how the letters were applied, in order to determine whether he wrote on himself or someone else wrote on him.

Forensic tests showed that the letters were applied from the bottom to the top — not the way an assailant facing Sparkman would write them. Police concluded that Sparkman wrote on himself, Rudzinski said.

Here’s a round-up of reax round-ups at The Other McCain, who unlike High Judge of Journalism Andrew Sullivan, actually went down to Kentucky and reported from the scene in search of the truth.

***

Well, look at that: A Daily Kos diarist shows Andrew Sullivan how to be accountable and express regret:

Many in this community rushed to judgment when we first learned of the death of Bill Sparkman. How quickly we were willing to think the worst of “southern Appalachian anti-government wingnuts”.

Now that the truth is out, I believe we owe an apology to the residents of Clay County, Kentucky and others who were slandered by another example of Hyperventilating Bulls*** on Daily Kos.

I second the diarist’s sympathies for Sparkman’s family and all those around him who have to live with the hoax and its aftermath.

Ace wrote me to suggest I “never link this {naughty word} again”, which is a request I’ll gladly accommodate. I don’t think I ever have linked him and I’m certainly not going to reward such a gauche display of Ted-Sampley-level rumormongering with a link, even in order to laugh at him.

Anyway: you know what this reminds me of? Those two nights in 2004 when both John Kerry and John Edwards made a point to bring up DICK CHENEY’S GAY DAUGHTER during their respective debates–a gratuitous, pointless, dank, greasy, creepy cheapshot that reveals the Left to lack class as well as discernment.

(Edwards smarminess at one minute in.)

I guess it’s different because Dick Cheney’s daughter actually was gay, whereas this is a bizarre fantasy. But in both cases: even if this were true, so what? And as I mentioned below, if it were true, it actually makes Palin look saintly in her devotion to family.

The calculated sneering at Dick Cheney’s kid blew up in the Dems’ face. While I don’t wish any more intrusion into the Palins’ family life, I kind of hope the unhinged Left–among whose ranks the oh-so-cultivated Sullivan is now comfortably perched–keep showing this angry, unhinged, bitter snarl to the American public as they indulge their first instinct: going after the candidate’s mentally challenged infant son and high-school aged daughter.

Boors and barbarians. Is there a decent core to the Left–or at least a politically savvy core to the Left–that is willing to take a stand for decency?

Well, thought I’d ask.

***

MORE:

A commenter at Ann Althouse’s blog tonight, emphasis mine:

“she has a down syndrome baby, we should vote for her” That is the line by the right. She made her baby part of her schtick.

fair game.

And from 2004:

[Kerry] merely brought up Mary Cheney as a lesbian, out of left field, in order to get her name and sexual orientation into an answer where no such citation was expected, called for, or remotely appropriate. His campaign manager let slip the truth when after the debate she told Fox News’s Chris Wallace that Mary Cheney was “fair game.”

________________

Update (MM): I guess the nutroots think this post from an airline passenger who got a picture with then-pregnant Gov. Palin in late April is a Dan Rather-like fabrication.
____________

{Post by See-Dubya. On my own time, of course, and on my own computer, as all of these are.} Delightful cover image lifted and cropped from Jimmie at the Sundries Shack.

There’s no polite way or time to say it: American college and universities have become coddle industries. Big Nanny administrators oversee speech codes, segregrated dorms, politically correct academic departments, and designated “safe spaces” to protect students selectively from hurtful (conservative) opinions—while allowing mob rule for approved leftist positions (textbook case: Columbia University’s anti-Minuteman Project protesters).

Instead of teaching students to defend their beliefs, American educators shield them from vigorous intellectual debate. Instead of encouraging autonomy, our higher institutions of learning stoke passivity and conflict-avoidance.

And as the erosion of intellectual self-defense goes, so goes the erosion of physical self-defense.

As news was breaking about the carnage at Virginia Tech, a reader e-mailed me a news story from last January. State legislators in Virginia had attempted to pass a bill that would have eased handgun restrictions on college campuses. Opposed by outspoken, anti-gun activists and Virginia Tech administrators, that bill failed.

Is it too early to ask: “What if?” What if that bill had passed? What if just one student in one of those classrooms had been in lawful possession of a concealed weapon for the purpose of self-defense?

If it wasn’t too early for Keystone Katie Couric to be jumping all over campus security yesterday for what they woulda/coulda/shoulda done in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, and if it isn’t too early for the New York Times editorial board to be publishing its knee-jerk call for more gun control, it darned well isn’t too early for me to raise questions about how the unrepentant anti-gun lobbying of college officials may have put students at risk.

The back story: Virginia Tech had punished a student for bringing a handgun to class last spring—despite the fact that the student had a valid concealed handgun permit. The bill would have barred public universities from making “rules or regulations limiting or abridging the ability of a student who possesses a valid concealed handgun permit … from lawfully carrying a concealed handgun.” After the proposal died in subcommittee, the school’s governing board reiterated its ban on students or employees carrying guns and prohibiting visitors from bringing them into campus buildings.

Late last summer, a shooting near campus prompted students to clamor again for loosening campus rules against armed self-defense. Virginia Tech officials turned up their noses. In response to student Bradford Wiles’s campus newspaper op-ed piece in support of concealed carry on campus, Virginia Tech associate vice president Larry Hincker scoffed:

“[I]t is absolutely mind-boggling to see the opinions of Bradford Wiles…The editors of this page must have printed this commentary if for no other reason than malicious compliance. Surely, they scratched their heads saying, ‘I can’t believe he really wants to say that.’ Wiles tells us that he didn’t feel safe with the hundreds of highly trained officers armed with high powered rifles encircling the building and protecting him. He even implies that he needed his sidearm to protect himself.”

The nerve!

Hincker continued: “The writer would have us believe that a university campus, with tens of thousands of young people, is safer with everyone packing heat. Imagine the continual fear of students in that scenario. We’ve seen that fear here, and we don’t want to see it again…Guns don’t belong in classrooms. They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same.”

Who’s scratching his head now, Mr. Hincker?

Some high-handed commentators insist it’s premature or unseemly to examine the impact of school rules discouraging students from carrying arms on campus. Pundit Andrew Sullivan complained that it was “creepy” to highlight reader e-mails calling attention to the Virginia Tech’s restrictions on student self-defense—even as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence rushed to capitalize on the massacre to sign up new members and gather e-mail addresses for Million Mom March chapters. “We are outraged by the increase in gun violence in America, especially the recent shooting at Virginia Tech,” reads the online petition. “Add your name to the growing list of people who are saying ‘Enough Is Enough!’”

Enough is enough, indeed. Enough of intellectual disarmament. Enough of physical disarmament. You want a safer campus? It begins with renewing a culture of self-defense—mind, spirit, and body. It begins with two words: Fight back.

***

Update:

The fantasy of gun-free zones
Plus: A lesson in “sensitivity”

Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra, is getting a lot of attention for her documentary about evangelical Christians, which airs tonight in less than an hour on HBO. Allah has video of her appearance last night on Hannity and Colmes here. She joked that evangelicals refer to HBO as “Hell’s Box Office”–a sound-bite-friendly gag line that she has repeated numerous times in media interviews. Indeed, a Google search for the phrase “Hell’s Box Office” turns up some 200 entries–the vast majority of them from news articles about Pelosi’s film.

Bryan Preston, Hot Air’s resident evangelical Christian, explains why:

Never once in my life heard “Hell’s Box Office” before Alexandra Pelosi inflicted it on me in that clip. Not once.

Pelosi’s smear is similar to Andrew Sullivan’s “Christian Reconstructionists” nonsense. There might be 50 of those guys in the whole country, but Sullivan uses them to smear the other 20 to 50 million evangelicals even though we’ve never heard of them and those of us who have heard of them (through Sullivan’s rants) disagree with them. The Hell’s Box Office thing is probably the saying in one church where Pelosi happened to conduct her zoological research. It is certainly not a dominant meme in the hallowed halls of megachurches throughout these United States.

So basically, she’s full of it.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

In his 1908 masterpiece Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton explored the phenomenon of modern theologians who deny the reality of sin. “The strongest saints and the strongest skeptics alike took positive evil as the starting point of their argument,” Chesterton wrote. “If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can make one or two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.”

There are no cats in The Conservative Soul, the new book by Andrew Sullivan. There is, however, tautology, narcissism, and enough moral relativism to light Manhattan for ten years.

You might think my favorite part of it was my fight with Andrew Sullivan and, sure, that was fun, but the highlight has been all the emails from Michelle’s readers. She has some really smart people reading this site, and I loved “meeting” some of them. I also got an email from my old college professor, a long-lost friend and a really cool guy I briefly went to high school with, all because of this week.

But the best has been getting the emails from NY conservatives, amazed to discover there are others like them. I know the feeling. In my past life, before I worked in politics, I too have kept quiet while friends and co-workers had the “how big of an idiot is Bush?” debate or listened to them trash America because they felt it made them sound intellectual. I only became involved in politics after the 2000 election–after I realized I didn’t have a single friend that thought it was Gore trying to steal the election, and not the other way around. It’s been incredible hearing from NY-based conservatives and hearing their stories about being the hated minority in this great city.

I guess if I want to leave any parting words with you all, it’s that conservatism is a movement worth fighting for, and that I would encourage even the smallest involvement within your own communities. Our online community is amazing, and growing all the time, but there needs to be a brick&mortar companion to it to really advance our views and our causes. If you live in NYC, check out my conservative calendar at Rightevents.com, if you live elsewhere, particularly in very blue areas of the country, think about starting a site like it.

And do come visit me over at my regular site, Alarming News. There’s a fun comment section and I frequently use hip-hop and indie rock lyrics for post headlines. What more can you want?

Thanks again, Michelle, I hope you had a relaxing vacation. I look forward to reading you here soon.

The entirety of Sullivan’s argument, in particular his criticism of me, actually makes no sense. He writes:

“I have yet to read any evidence that an attack was “imminent”. All the stories I’ve read have argued that the plot was for a dummy-run. Maybe Karol Sheinin has sources that I haven’t read. If she has, she should provide them, or correct her post. If she has a different understanding of the term “imminent,” then it would be helpful for her to say so.”

Imminent means “about to occur”. From Britain’s Daily Mail, August 11th.:

Terrorists were planning to unleash a series of deadly mid-air explosions on flights between London and America on August 16, it has been revealed today.

Members of the terror group, who were arrested in a series of raids by anti-terror police yesterday, were due to mount a dry run today to check if they could smuggle components for liquid explosives through Britain’s airports.

United Airline tickets dated next Wednesday were found by police at the home of one of the raided addresses.

To me, and please bloggers do correct me if I’m wrong, a terrorist attack within the week is ‘imminent’. Therefore, I am in favor of doing whatever needs to be done to extract that information from those who possess it in order to stop the attack.

But here’s where Sullivan loses the plot:

My point about the use of torture is related to the reliability of the evidence. Torture is renowned for providing faulty information, even in totalitarian states whose techniques some conservatives now endorse. My question is about whether the evidence is indeed faulty. We don’t know. If there’s not much there and the British are forced to release the suspects without charging them, the backlash against Blair will be enormous. And that will make future counter-terrorism harder.

So, Sullivan is against torture because he believes information obtained under those conditions is faulty. Fine, I can understand, though not agree, with that line of thinking. But why is he then questioning my take that the attacks were imminent and why is he asking me to point to evidence that this was so? What difference does it make? If he’s against torture, in all situations, even if attacks are imminent, why waste time shooting down the “imminent” argument?

Sullivan concludes with this:

“I should add I don’t think I can be accused of disbelieving the potential of terrorists to strike again. I have a cover-story in the current New York Magazine premised on exactly that – on a far larger scale than anything alleged recently.”

In case you haven’t read the story, it’s an alternative history of what would have happened if 9/11 had never occured. How is this fiction even remotely relevant to his argument about actual events happening today?

Sullivan used to be one of my favorite writers, even when I disagreed with him. He was the first blogger I ever gave money to, though admittedly it was only 20 bucks. But he’s let his emotion override his critical thinking skills. He can call me “deranged” as much as he’d like, obviously he finds that easier than forming coherent arguments.

Update, 1:50pm: Shoot, I didn’t mean to steal James Taranto’s headline on this very matter from yesterday. Sorry, James, I guess you just get into my head.

Update, 2:07pm: Sullivan is grasping at straws in his response (notice, it’s no longer the “Alleged UK Terror Plot”, it’s now simply “UK Terror Plot”) but ok, fine, let’s go. He quotes an MSNBC piece:

“One senior British official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports. The sources did say, however, that police believe one U.K.-based suspect was ready to conduct a “dry run.” “

Sullivan sees this as proof he was right….I’m not quite sure about what, however:

So we have one Islamist planning a dry-run. We have no evidence that any of the others had even bought airline tickets. Malkin-stand-in Karol Sheinin produces a week-old story from the right-wing tabloid Daily Mail to bolster her view that an actual threat to innocent lives was “imminent”. All I can say is that, since August 11, new data have cast that unsourced information more suspect, and if Sheinin were a little more savvy about the British press, and had absorbed information unveiled within the last week, she’d be a little more skeptical.

Call me crazy, or you know, deranged, but one terrorist is one too many. And, if Sullivan didn’t see one as enough, why is he trusting the word of one “senior British official” merely suggesting what may or may not be true.

But, again, overall, I don’t see Sullivan’s point. Why does it matter to him whether the attack was imminent? If he doesn’t support torture regardless of the risk to innocent people, imminent risk or not, why the obsession with this particular line of argument?

Also, his crack about my lack of British press savvy is funny. My day job is in public relations, I deal with press all the live long day. And, I lived in Britain for a little under three years during college, so I know at least a little about the British media. What’s Andrew’s point?

He then quotes a piece in today’s Guardian:

A security official said: “There was a mastermind, there was a planner, and there were the executioners.” He claimed the al-Qaida link to the alleged plot in Britain had been established and that it had been at the planning stage when it was interrupted in London last week. [My italics].

And adds:

I don’t know about you – but “a planning stage” does not mean “imminent” to me. But tell that to Karol Sheinin. If torture is permissible to get information for plots in the “planning stage,” well you see how the narrow case for torture always expands as soon as it is entertained.

What, now? Isn’t a “planning stage” the stage right before the “blow everyone to smithereens stage”? How does Sullivan know that the planning stage wasn’t in its final day, the dry run was to happen the following day and the actual terrorist attack a mere day or two later? What kind of wacky speculation is this?

Sullivan then adds:

Still, there’s little doubt that there was a serious plot in the works.

Wow, the Sullivan of Thursday should let the Sullivan of Wednesday know, because that guy had more than just a little doubt that there was any such serious plot.

Of course, the fact that he’s hysterically arguing that there was no terror plot out of London makes his charges against me, let’s say slightly less believeable.

UPDATE, 11:06am: And Glenn Reynolds called me a “bellicose woman” yesterday for the same post. Even though I’m a lover, not a fighter, I’m ok with that. Of course, I prefer when Glenn calls me “young and cute”.

UPDATE, 2:58pm: Protein Wisdom suspects Andrew’s beagle is writing his posts. Nah, that would be an intellectual step up. Read Jeff’s whole post where he illustrates the very conspiracy Sullivan describes.

UPDATE, 4:06pm: James Taranto has more on Sullivan, and like everything else James writes, it’s genius.

I didn’t have a TV, so I sat on my bedroom floor, on my computer, watching the towers fall as I refreshed the news page. My boyfriend worked across the street from the World Trade Center, he had walked the 80 or so blocks uptown to his apartment, covered in ash, holding a ripped t-shirt to his face. For weeks afterward I could see the smoke from the smoldering pile where the towers had stood from out my work window.

I’m nowhere near over that day. I knew people that died in the towers, and I knew many people who had barely escaped with their lives. I can’t forget walking around Manhattan and seeing the “Missing” signs posted everywhere. I admit that I’m not ready to see movies about the event; I didn’t see “Flight 93″ and I have no intention of seeing Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center”. I’m not offended by the films, I understand that neither movie trivializes the event, I just can’t watch the guy who played the drunk in “Leaving Las Vegas” play one of the heroes of that day. I can’t watch make-believe 9/11 when the real thing was so close.

But this week’s NY Magazine does trivialize the horror of that day. The picture on the cover is of blue skies with the towers in front. The words across the page: “What if 9/11 never happened?” The feature includes a collection of leftist ‘thinkers’, Andrew Sullivan among them, on how America would be different if 9/11 never happened. Al Gore is president, Saddam Hussein is contained, Osama bin Laden is captured, etc. etc.

Allah writes on Sullivan’s take (read Allah’s whole post):

It gets more annoying as it goes along, beginning with his insinuation that Republicans would have resorted to the same type of reactionary obstructionism and opportunism as Democrats have if it wasn’t our guy who was quarterbacking the war.

Apart from this blatant politicization, it’s just too soon. As I wrote on my own site, a child born to a man that died that day still doesn’t understand what happened to daddy. I realize it’s too much to ask that the media have some grace, and wait another decade, or so, to pretend that this life-changing event had never occured, but the rest of us should always remember what happened and how, and not buy in to the fantasy being peddled to us by those who just want to move on.

Marine Corps officials said on Wednesday their preliminary inquiry will focus on whether Belile broke military law or rules in writing and singing a song with offensive lyrics to an audience of other troops. Another concern, they said, was maintaining “good order and discipline” in the ranks.

The Marines have called the song “clearly inappropriate.”

“I cannot say if there is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice or the law of armed conflict. Lawyers have looked at it and they’re kind of scratching their heads, which is why we’re doing this preliminary inquiry,” said Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a U.S. Marine Corps spokesman at the Pentagon.

Maj. Shawn Haney, spokeswoman at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in North Carolina, said the preliminary inquiry is expected to last a couple of days. The military will then decide whether to move to a more formal investigation that potentially could lead to discipline.

Look at this “fair and balanced” headline from our “friends” at the London Times:

Your mandatory Andrew Sullivan hyperventilation is here. (Note that Sullivan misquotes the lyrics and claims that Cpl. Belile sings about blowing up “little girls.” Wrong. See below. 1036pm EDT update: Sullivan has now crossed out “girls” in his quotation of the lyrics, but still asserts that Cpl. Belile was bragging about killing “two unarmed little girls” instead of the Iraqi woman’s armed brother and father. There aren’t “two unarmed little girls” in the song.)

LGF and Allah keep you updated.

Before I post the full lyrics of “Hadji Girl,” there’s a point about the military musical double standards at play here that no one in the MSM has acknowledged. The apparent crackdown on Cpl. Joshua Belile over his fictitious song blowing off steam jogged my memory about another set of soldiers who made headlines for their war music. Last June, a group of soldiers won lavish praise from the MSM for their rap albums. See here. And here. And here. These soldiers were heralded for their raw, fresh, candid portrayals of war. The 4th 25th garnered positive reviews from critics. Here are the lyrics to one of their songs:

Fuckem

V1
I hear is momma cryin
But I still scream fuckem
Unload my magazine on this buster
That’s how I say fuckem
You know we don’t trust em

Let them all lie dead in a dirt bed
With a bullet in his head
Rest in peace to all my soldiers
Got a lot on my head

Now turn the combinations
To release my thoughts
Im fed up with all this
Save the word talk

Right heres were the fuckem starts
And the piece stops
Fuckem

If he aint got no food
Fuckem

If he aint got no shoes
Cause I
Got everything to live for
He got nothing to lose… fuckem

I know my thoughts are not fair
But im fighting for my country
And I, wonder sometimes
If my country even cares

But fuckem

If he pull that trigger once
Man he’ll do it again
So when he ran out a bullets put the weapon down
He must a thought the violence was gon end

Fuckem

Killem alls what my heart say
So my finger gladly replies
With a 5.56, or a 7.62
Right between his eyes fuckem

5 to 55 (what) my bullets don’t discriminate
so if you think that im wrong
get me outta here
you can gladly take my place fuckem

chorus
this is war round here
when we see um fuckem
everybody on the streets
when we see um fuckem

they callin cease fires
but they keep firin fuckem
I got no love for them
Pussy niggaz here fuckem

They trying to see us all dead over here fuckem
But I aint trying to get bled over here fuckem
They even look like they bout to do something
Lay em down put 50 rounds in they stomach fuckem

V2
Started off kinda professional
But now this shit is personal
Niggaz learn when red crosses
And sirens come to they rescue

And its always getting serious
When hot barrels get pointed at you
Don’t give a fuck about yalls lives
Now that im guarding mine more careful

Treat everyday just the like the first day
Examples can be made out you
And any day could be your last day
And experience wont help you

And I’ll be damned if im scared
Cause me runnin is not an issue
And just think
Somebody at the crib might miss you

Wish your wife and children
Wishin For you stepped they woulda kissed you
When all that be said is daddy died
Bein a damn fool

If you got nothing to lose
Take a chance when convoys ride thru
50 cals and 240’s
like 360’s and quarter miles dude

and its, always getting serious
just thought I would remind you
niggaz thought process delirious
not chancing what the next might do

and I still don’t think yall hearin
even though yall should find time to
you can love us and never hate us
and that’s the bottom line dude

v3
just puttem on the same block with me
im poppin off till all 7
of these magazines is empty
no, they will not get me

though they’ve come close to hittin me
so far they missed me
only managed to piss me off
now I react more quickly

and I will never lay down
nor will anybody with me
keep my boots laced up
tighter than fuck… lets go

till we dead in the street
or its time to come home
yeah we don held down the block
4 mofuckers strong

and we don popped off a few times
new we was dead wrong
wish they’d let god judgem
cause my judgement is off

and though I try not to playem
they hand me his role
so in his image I judgem
fuckem they got to go

no I aint trying to be they jury
but this is all they’ll give me
so in return all I can givem
is a verdict of guilty

and carry out they sentence of death
for they kill me they self
they trying to dance with the devil
but I only dance by myself… fuckem

chorus

Unless I’m mistaken, there has been no uproar over the rappers’ lyrics. No investigation. No apology. No condemnation. In fact, they received promotional help like this: “The sound may be raw, but the lyrics tell a story from Iraq that you don’t often hear—from the soldiers on the streets.” And nice BBC profiles like this:

Now compare: Here are the lyrics of “Hadji Girl” that have the Marine brass bowing and scraping to CAIR (thanks to Jim and Jason and several other readers)…

Hadji Girl
I was out in the sands of Iraq
And we were under attack
And I, well, I didn’t know where to go.
And the first think I could see was
Everybody’s favorite Burger King
So I threw open the door and I hit the floor.
Then suddenly to my surprise
I looked up and I saw her eyes
And I knew it was love at first sight.
And she said

Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
Hadji girl I can’t understand what you’re saying.
And she said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
Hadji girl I love you anyway.

Then she said that she wanted me to see.
She wanted me to meet her family
But I, well, I couldn’t figure out how to say no.
Cause I don’t speak Arabic.
So, she took me down an old dirt trail.
And she pulled up to a side shanty
And she threw open the door and I hit the floor.
Cause her brother and her father shouted

Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They pulled out their AKs so I could see
And they said
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah

So I grabbed her little sister and pulled her in front of me.
As the bullets began to fly
The blood sprayed from between her eyes
And then I laughed maniacally
Then I hid behind the TV
And I locked and loaded my M-16
And I blew those little f***ers to eternity.
And I said

Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They should have known they were f***ing with a Marine

Cpl. Belile is being railroaded. The MSM dupes are playing into CAIR’s hands. And p.c. military leaders are rolling over.

Support Belile and the Sweater Kittenz here. If you are a talent agent and want to support the troops, go contact them now.

Like Jim at Blackfive, I’m disgusted. (And no, I am not “disgusted” by “anyone in any way being offended.” I am disgusted by you CAIR dupes and Haditha hyperventilators trying to run a Marine with a guitar out of the military.) Here’s his letter to a USMC official:

.
Dear Maj. Chapin,

I am concerned by the reaction of the USMC to the clearly humorous video Hadji Girl by CPL Belle. I wonder if anyone there bothered to watch and listen to the lyrics, I don’t think so because they hardly match the lies spread in the media and by CAIR which you appear to have swallowed whole. They are available here and clearly demonstrate none of the reprehensible sentiments claimed. And yet we get this:

“Corps officials responded to the group’s concerns and contacted administrators of the Web site on which it had been anonymously posted to ask that it be removed.”

I am curious why the Marine Corps would ask that any video be removed from a private website. I am curious why the Marine Corps would spend tax dollars harassing a private group about a private individual’s exercise of freedom of speech. I am disgusted by your statement here.

“The video … is clearly inappropriate and contrary to the high standards expected of all Marines,” said Marine Maj. Gabrielle Chapin in a prepared statement. “The video is not reflective of the tremendous sacrifices and dedication demonstrated, on a daily basis, by tens of thousands of Marines who have assisted the Iraqi people in gaining their freedom.”

Are you concerned with his vocal ability, or his guitar playing skills, or his songwriting? I didn’t know the Marine Corps kept track of what troops do in their off time and much less that you graded them on it. The video is reflective of the idea enshrined in the Bill of Rights, that speech is free. I assume you can locate a copy of the document, and perhaps you might spend some time reading it rather than embarrassing the Corps and America by caving in to the jihadi apologists at CAIR.

If the freedoms military folks are fighting and dying to provide for the Iraqis and Afghanis are not available to our own troops then why should they risk their lives? This is a sorry day for the Corps and you owe CPL Belle, all Marines and the US people an explanation as to why the USMC has seen fit to revoke freedom of speech for it’s members.

I am a former US Army Special Forces Weapons Sergeant and have worked in many countries where building rapport with the local populace was vital to the success of our operations. I realize that a satire like this can, and obviously has been, misinterpreted, and that it may be used by those opposed to our efforts in Iraq, and even harm our relations with some Iraqis. Tough crap Major, deal with it, and not by forgetting that the most basic protections of freedom apply to all of us, even if they hurt the delicate feelings of all the chair-warming appeasers in DC or anyone else’s.

Cordially,

Jim Hanson

I repeat LGF’s question again: What is wrong with Marine brass?

Update: John Gibson scolds CAIR via Johnny Dollar.

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Previous:

The Camp Pendleton 8
CAIR’s Haditha publicity grab

The NY Slimes earned the Number 3 spot (thanks to Sanctuary for the photoshop):

Unfortunately, we finished this show before Andrew Sullivan labeled America a “rogue nation” today. Yeah, he did. Someone get him a paper bag. (Hat tip: Allah Pundit)

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Update: Jeff Goldstein takes on Sullivan and the emotionalists.

Instapundit has photos of the pro-Denmark gathering at the Danish Embassy convened by journalist Christopher Hitchens this afternoon. Looks like there was a great turnout.

Lovely photo spread over at Vital Perspective.

Blogger Greg Tinti was also there with camera and reports:

The mood of the event was unbelievably positive and all the signs and banners were nothing but respectful. People came to express their solidarity with Denmark and support free speech and that’s exactly what they did. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and met some great people too.

Greg estimates there were about 200 people and a lot of media. A few of his photos:

Hitchens addressed the rally

Made with LEGOs!

Bill Kristol was there.

Lots more.

Wonkette’s David Lat has more pics…and requisite snark.

Marc G. posts a photo of Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan at Flickr.

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Related:

A letter from Denmark

Of course I would like to take that credit, but it would be absurd to do so.

This blog’s success is a testament to talent, hard work, and determination to get things right. Michelle’s blog is tops in the ecosystem because she’s proven herself great at the medium. Michelle gets it–she knows how to write short-form snark and long-form dissertations, she knows how to dispense the link-love and how to marshall alliances. She’s a dogged reporter and, contrary to her hate mail, she’s genuinely nice. She deserves her success so much that I can’t even muster up any of the customary jealousy against it.

Even if you’re famous, as Michelle was as an author and columnist before starting this blog, success as a blogger isn’t foreordained. The ‘sphere is a real meritocracy for the most part if you don’t count Wonkette’s inexplicable rise. The HuffPo, for instance, is populated by famous people but it’s pretty much unreadable tripe if you don’t count Greg Gutfeld’s posts–which are great mostly because they skewer the HuffPo itself. Famous deep thinker Deepak Chopra can barely carry a single sentence to a coherent conclusion–it’s tough to imagine him running an entire blog to success all by himself. Susan Estrich learned the hard way that you can be a famous talking head, political strategist and columnist and still turn out to be terrible blogger. The Corner is a great blog, but not because of any one writer there. Jonah and Ramesh and K-Lo and the gang play off of each other to make that blog work as well as it does. Conversely, obscure people can become instant celebrities in the blogosphere. Who’d ever heard of Glenn Harlan Reynolds before InstaPundit propelled him to his Heh-driven heights? Andrew Sullivan was famous before blogging, became a famous blogger, and is now becoming a famously failing blogger. He’s barely in the top 20 in the ecosystem these days.

The point of all of this is–congratulations, Michelle! I’ll go back to my obscurity in a day or so, but I’ll be cheering you from afar.

According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, a young Guantanamo Bay detainee identified as “M.C.” claims he was “suspended from hooks in the ceiling for hours at a time with his feet barely missing the floor, and that he was beaten during those sessions.” M.C. also claims he was shackled to the floor, subjected to loud music and lights, and told he would be given access to porn if he cooperated with his interrogators. He also claimed that a special unit known as the Immediate Reaction Force “knocked out one of his teeth” and “an interrogator burned him with a cigarette.”

The allegation that M.C. was beaten while suspended from hooks in the ceiling is more extreme than anything documented by Erik Saar, the al-Qatani logs published by Time magazine, or disclosed in the FBI documents released to the ACLU. If this allegation is true, M.C., who claims he was only 14 years old when captured, was subjected to interrogation that makes Mohammed al-Qatani’s treatment look like a walk in the park.

Gitmo alarmist Andrew Sullivan examines M.C.’s allegations and deems them credible:

I know we’re supposed to treat all detainee affidavits as suspect (and with good reason) but some have corroborating evidence, like this story about a possible minor dragged into Gitmo…. There are simply too many corroborated details in these detainee accounts to let them be dismissed out of hand as enemy propaganda. [Emphasis added.]

Really? Let’s take a careful look at the Times article on which Sullivan’s analysis rests. It says:

Some of M.C.’s descriptions match accounts given not only by other detainees, but also by former guards and interrogators who have been interviewed by The New York Times.

He describes being shackled close to the floor in an interrogation room for hours with music blaring and lights in his face. He also said he was shown a room with pictures of naked women and adult videos and told he could have access if he cooperated. His description fits the account of former guards who described such a room and said it was nicknamed “the love shack.”

That’s the corroboration Sullivan finds so compelling. But read that first sentence again: Some of M.C.’s descriptions match accounts… Not all. Just some.

Also, M.C.’s descriptions “match accounts” given by others. That simply means that some of M.C.’s claims resemble claims of other detainees–a far cry from “corroboration” don’t ya think?

Let’s examine M.C.’s allegations one at a time:

- M.C. says he was “suspended from hooks in the ceiling for hours at a time with his feet barely missing the floor, and that he was beaten during those sessions.” There is no corroboration whatsoever to support this allegation. In fact, there is no evidence that any of the detainees at Gitmo were subjected to such treatment.

- M.C. also said he was shackled to the floor, subjected to loud music and lights, and told he would be given pornography if he cooperated. These interrogation techniques occurred at Gitmo–they are described in Saar’s book and in the al-Qatatni logs and noted by FBI agents–but the Times provides no corroboration whatsoever indicating that M.C. was himself subjected to such methods.

- M.C. claimed that “a special unit known as the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) had knocked out one of his teeth.” Other than the fact that M.C. is missing a tooth, the claim is uncorroborated. I am aware of no claims by former guards or interrogators that IRF units at Gitmo intentionally abused any of the detainees. If Sullivan is aware of such evidence, I invite him to cite it.

- Finally, M.C. claimed that an interrogator burned him with a cigarette. This is “corroborated” only in the sense that M.C. has a burn scar on his skin. There is no corroboration that a cigarette was placed on M.C.’s skin by an interrogator. I am aware of no corroborating evidence that Gitmo interrogators burned any detainee. Again, if Sullivan has credible evidence to the contrary, he should cite it.

M.C.’s allegations don’t add up. The story about being beaten while he was shackled to the ceiling not only is not corroborated, as Sullivan contends, but is obviously fabricated. There is simply no way that interrogators and guards would subject a young boy to harsher treatment than a high-value detainee like al-Qatani whose interrogation methods had to be personally approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It is unlikely that such tactics would escape the notice of former Gitmo soldiers such as Erik Saar and the FBI agents who complained about other interrogation methods.

Sullivan concludes his post by claiming that Gitmo is “becoming the enemy’s propaganda jewel.” The gullible Sullivan, the slippery Times’ reporters, and their Gitmo-bashing ilk are all to eager to provide spit polish.

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See also: Mark Steyn and lots of excellent and thought-provoking related posts at Winds of Change (see here and here).

WofC also points to this handy compare-and-contrast chart at Dr. Sanity. Print and save.

And the latest from Rumsfeld.
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Previous:
The politics of the Gitmo debate
The GOP’s anti-Gitmo squad
W. Stands for Waffle
Gitmo detainees desecrate Koran
The Gitmo round-up
Guantanamo Fog
Letter of the morning: What about Castro’s gulags?
In Defense of Guantanamo Bay
What is it with the Washington Post?
Gitmo’s Emily Latella
Guantanamo Bay: The rest of the story
Once more, into the toilet
Newsweek lied.* People died.
Former Gitmo prisoner: Shot dead.

It’s ice cream. Shaped like dots!

Wait ’til he hears about the new foodstuff known as Pretzel Stix (best with hot fudge topping). They’re pretzels. Shaped like sticks!

The wonders of mall food innovations, eh?