Vox Popoli

Former Navy Secretary John Lehman has no idea where a Silver Star citation displayed on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s campaign Web site came from, he said Friday. The citation appears over Lehman’s signature.

“It is a total mystery to me. I never saw it. I never signed it. I never approved it. And the additional language it contains was not written by me,” he said.

The additional language varied from the two previous citations, signed first by Adm. Elmo Zumwalt and then Adm. John Hyland, which themselves differ. The new material added in the Lehman citation reads in part: “By his brave actions, bold initiative, and unwavering devotion to duty, Lieutenant (jg) Kerry reflected great credit upon himself….”

Asked how the citation could have been executed over his signature without his knowledge, Lehman said: “I have no idea. I can only imagine they were signed by an autopen.” The autopen is a device often used in the routine execution of executive documents in government.

Perhaps a team of “plumbers” snuck into the Pentagon and signed the citation? Kerry just keeps on looking more and more viable, doesn’t he.

Jamie goes out on a limb:

This is it VD. Get ready to rile up White Buffalo. I’m staking my reputation on this being the last time we’ll see these levels for a long time to come. Check out the volume, the resistance lines at this point, the candlestick from yesterday’s trade… you can see how they are black (black positive from open, red negative from open), that means traders tried to push it higher at the open and there was simply no volume there (haven’t seen volume that low since the Christmas holiday period), but it did close higher than the open – a very bad sign for those who were foolish enough to go long. The short little wick at the top on the candlestick means even the small gang of buyers met some small early sellers at the resistance line, and they couldn’t even push back. The big shorters will play their hand now, it appears to me that they’ve decided to wait on the buyers exhausting themselves… not only that, but the oil price hit on support at $42.50, and appears to be heading back up. Ooh, this is going to be good!

This is a top, I’m telling you, I’m calling it this time. This is a top! A top!!!!!!!

I have only one question. What reputation? Regardless of what happens in the markets, you’ll still be Tha Freak From Down Under.

One of two Russian airliners that crashed nearly simultaneously was brought down by a terrorist act, officials said Friday, after finding traces of explosives in the plane’s wreckage. A Web site connected to Islamic militants claimed the action was connected to Russia’s fight against Chechen separatists.

Ah, but the Russians have clearly failed to account for the probability that the traces were placed there previously as part of a dog-sniffing exercise. After all, traces of explosive were found in the wreckage of TWA 800, and we all know that that was just, um, a randomly exploding fuel tank, right?

The White House has drafted executive orders aimed at implementing the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendations for a more powerful intelligence director and a new national counterterrorism center. Bush administration and congressional officials said Thursday drafts of executive orders are circulating among an interagency group for approval. One of the officials said the White House is floating three proposals, and asking for feedback by Friday. The orders would:

– Enhance the powers of the government’s intelligence chief and create a national intelligence director.

– Form a national counterterrorism center, putting that office under the new intelligence director and giving the director the power to decide who runs it.

– Form a national counterterrorism center, putting that office under the new intelligence director and giving the director the power to decide who runs it.

– Improve information sharing with directions aimed at facilitating the exchange information among intelligence agencies.

George Delano, expanding and centralizing the Federal government again. Who would have thunk it? Yes, he’s really the heir to Reagan, isn’t he. I can just hear Ronnie’s voice now: “there you go again….”

I imagine this will sound pretty good to Bane and company, until they think about it and realize that the next Democrat in the White House is going to be using this new and improved and empowered organization against freaks like them. Never give any power to government that you wouldn’t want your worst enemy to wield. Because eventually, he will.

There is only one solution

To a problem you consider

You must always make it bigger

And forget the Constitution.

President Bush yesterday joined forces with Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, to mount legal and legislative challenges to third-party attack ads, including those that question Sen. John Kerry’s Vietnam record.

The move came as new polls by Gallup, the Los Angeles Times and Rasmussen showed Mr. Bush edging ahead of the Massachusetts Democrat in advance of next week’s Republican National Convention. The first two polls attributed the shift to a series of anti-Kerry ads by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But the president wants to stop the ads, along with other spots by third-party groups, known as 527s because of their tax designation. Yesterday, he telephoned Mr. McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, from Air Force One and enlisted him in a planned lawsuit to force the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to quash the ads.

“Since the FEC failed to act, we would now be asking the courts to force the FEC to act to shut down all this activity,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. “There would be a lawsuit. The president said if the court action doesn’t work, then he would be willing to pursue legislative action and work with Senator McCain on that.”

What was that about “Congress shall make no law?” I never believed that George Bush signed the violation of free speech known as “campaign-finance reform” into law hoping that it would be rejected as Constitutional. His marked enthusiasm for curbing free speech, even that which assists him, seems to support my initial skepticism.

I can just hear the Republican media whores now. “Sure, he’s eradicating free speech, but don’t you know there’s a war on!” Yeah, no one’s ever used that excuse before.

Lisa emails:

A Muslim-American, Dr. Imad-ad Dean Ahmad, was invited to appear on Bill O’Reilly’s TV show tonight to take “the anti-Bush stance” against a Muslim-American supporter of Bush. A few hours ago, Dr. Ahmad publicly stated, “I was actually in the car being driven to the show when his deputy called me and informed me that although they would identify me as a Muslim supporter of [Michael] Badnarik, that I was not allowed to mention Michael’s name on the show! I declined to accept those terms and they had the driver bring me back.”

This is the third time since June that Mr. O’Reilly’s “no spin zone” show has done something like this to either Badnarik or a supporter. Mr. O’Reilly seems to be free with mentioning Ralph Nader’s name quite often on his show, but he seems to be terrified to mention either Mr. Badnarik’s name or the Libertarian Party on his show.

A replacement for Dr. Ahmad was found, Khalid Turaani, the founder of Arab-American Republicans Against Bush, but it seems that despite the Factor’s best laid plans, things went agley.

They called him 30 minutes before taping and asked him if he would take the anti-Bush position on the show. He agreed and they rushed him down to the studio. They kept pressing him as to whom he would vote for and he kept dodging the question, saying he would say that on the show. Kerry? No, he said, I’m a conservative, I would never vote for Kerry. At the studio they pressed real hard and he admitted that he planned to vote for Badnarik. When he say the panic in their eyes he realized that despite their “fair and balanced” claims, they were Bush supporters. They tried to dissuade him from mentioning it on air, but by then it was too late to do to him what they did to me. He went on the air and said that a vote against Bush need not be a vote for Kerry and that he would vote for Badnarik, the Libertarian.

Mr Turaani’s actual words were: “I don’t want to cut off my nose to spite my face by not liking Bush and jumping in the lap of Kerry. No – I will vote Libertarian and I think Badnarik is going to be a good choice for people who don’t like Bush.”

Horror of horrors, both the L and the B word were mentioned! But what does Brave Sir William care? After all, he is an independent, right? Or perhaps he’s just another carrier of water for the Big Government Republicans. Keep this in mind when you complain about liberal media bias. It’s not really a liberal vs. conservative thing, it’s more truly a big government vs. freedom thing.

Cindy Adams makes use of the Number of the Beast:

I HATE that Maureen Dowd is maybe the sharpest and — here’s the part I hate most — best-looking columnist in the business. I also hate that her new Putnam book “BushWorld: Enter at Your Own Risk,” with smarmy writing like, how “the black sheep usurps the dutiful brother,” and how “the bag emperor calls me ‘Cobra’ ,” made the best-seller list. I also hate that she’s slim, red-haired and sports industrial-strength mascara.

I grew up in Minnesota, the home away from home of the Scandinavian ice princess. One thing I learned in going to school out East is that the East Coast is not exactly a haven for beautiful women… and I went to a school that had a plethora compared to the others I visited. Check out the picture, and realize that those are supposed to be unusually attractive women. What’s scary is that for their social circle, they probably are. For Pete’s sake, put me in a wig and a dress and I’d be prettier. Come to think of it, White Buffalo probably has the pictures… no, that was Big Chilly.

I’m not ragging on older women either. There are plenty of very attractive older women at the Galleria in Edina, or roaming through the bookstores down in Naples.

And Maureen Dowd isn’t even close to “sharp”. Superficial and consistently clueless would be a far more accurate description. Remember what I said about confusing verbal facility with other, more useful attributes….

Brian Clough, on Arsenal’s breaking his Nottingham Forest team’s record of 42 games without defeat with a 3-0 victory over Blackburn Rovers:

“There is a tinge of sadness on my behalf because nobody likes to see themselves overtaken in the record books. But sadness will soon be replaced with sheer pleasure that it has taken such a brilliant and beautiful team to beat us. What more can I say about Arsenal? Well, even as an old codger, they take me back to my younger days. They caress a football the way I dreamed of caressing Marilyn Monroe. They treat a ball not only with respect but with reverence. They don’t try to knock the leather off it. Everything they do is as if they are trying to do the ball a favour.”

One thing the Premiership definitely has over the NFL is a unique sense of the game’s poetic significance. Then again, there is something endearing about Mike Tice’s guttural “huh huh huh”.

WB wonders:

Dow back to almost 10,200. What happened to the slide to 6,500?

I did say it would take until July 2006 to get there, didn’t I? This should put the recent movements in perspective.

NASDAQ-100 from June 30 (1516) to August 26 (1385)

1 215 1301 30 days

2 090 1391 10 days

This bounce is getting old and has another week left in it at most, from the looks of it. A 50 percent retracement would take us to 1410, before another decline that should run to around 1200 or so. The Elliott Wave experts would no doubt have more precise targets and better reasoning, but I’m no expert.

Jim Boyd of the Star & Sickle gets his head handed to him again:

In “Boydot’s epistemology,” we noted that the cowardly lion of Portland Avenue issued a challenge to our friends over at Fraters Libertas. Reader Richard Jahnke takes it from there.

You quote Jim Boyd of the Star Tribune issuing the following challenge:

“I served for a year with an Army outfit named U.S. Army Field Activities Command in Washington. I’ll give you a week to find ANY mention of it anywhere. I’ll give you two weeks to find out what it really was.” Well here’s a link. See page 52, second paragraph from the bottom.

The link above was the first return on the search “Army Field Activies Command” in Google. Took about 30 seconds, to get Google up, copy the phrase, get the return and click on the page. Most of the week is left. Here’s another link that suggests that the Army Field Activities Command ran Army Intelligence agents overseas.

As to the second part of Boyd’s challenge — what his old outfit really was — it appears, based on the material in the second link, to have been involved in internal security within the military, defense department and affiliated organizations.

Obviously, Boyd is lacking in Internet skills or he wouldn’t have issued this challenge without Googling it first.

You thought I was kidding when I told you how dumb the average paperboy is, didn’t you. And most – not all – of the television talking heads are worse. Never confuse verbal facility with intelligence, the two can coincide but they are not the same.

I assumed that Vicki Gowler of the Pioneer Press were dissembling when they couldn’t find Kerry’s 1971 testimony before Congress. But incredibly, despite my general scorn for their competence, I appear to have overestimated them nonetheless.