Fish in a Barrel

On my previous blog, I loved picking apart Jack Kelley's columns in The Blade. His columns are chock-a-block with deceptions, bad logic and partial truths and yawning lacunae, and lately I just have had the energy to tackle his bullshit. But this week I stumbled across a few articles that completely refute his latest column, so I'll accept this gift of the blogging gods and tear into Saturday's piece.

"Media's Scaremongers" takes one story from the Washington Post and "proves" that the mainstream media is engaged in a full-on attack on President Bush's Iraq policies.

"I just read yet another distorted and grossly exaggerated story from a major news organization about the 'failures' in the war in Iraq," Lt. Col. Tim Ryan, a battalion commander in the First Cavalry Division, wrote in an e-mail to friends.

"Print and video journalists are covering only a small fraction of the events in Iraq, and more often than not, the events they cover are only the bad ones," said Lieutenant Ryan, who is now stationed in Fallujah. "Many of the journalists making public assessments about the progress of the war in Iraq are unqualified to do so, given their training and experience. The inaccurate picture they paint has distorted the world view of the daily realities in Iraq."

The column offers no hard evidence that things in Iraq are just peachy, just the claim that things are fine.

But then, we have this: hard analysis of the government's own statistics by Knight-Ridder:

A Knight Ridder analysis of U.S. government statistics shows that through all the major turning points that raised hopes of peace in Iraq, including the arrest of Saddam Hussein and the handover of sovereignty at the end of June, the insurgency, led mainly by Sunni Muslims, has become deadlier and more effective.

The analysis suggests that unless something dramatic changes - such as a newfound will by Iraqis to reject the insurgency or a large escalation of U.S. troop strength - the United States won't win the war. It's axiomatic among military thinkers that insurgencies are especially hard to defeat because the insurgents' goal isn't to win in a conventional sense but merely to survive until the will of the occupying power is sapped. Recent polls already suggest an erosion of support among Americans for the war.

Fatalities, casualties, attacks and terrorists attacks are all on the rise. Electricity and oil production are below pre-war levels. There is good news, but the trends are not moving in the right direction:

These developments, however, have had little impact on the broader trends that have moved against the United States through all the spikes and lulls in violence.

Most worrisome, the insurgency is getting larger.

At the close of 2003, U.S. commanders put the number of insurgents at 5,000. Earlier this month, Gen. Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani, the director of the Iraqi intelligence service, said there are 200,000 insurgents, including at least 40,000 hard-core fighters. The rest, he said, are part-time fighters and supporters who provide food, shelter, funds and intelligence.

"Many Iraqis respect these gunmen because they are fighting the invaders," said Nabil Mohammed, a Baghdad University political science professor.

The insurgents "are getting smarter all the time. We've seen a lot of changes in their tactics that say, one, they're getting help from outside, and two, they're learning," said Sgt. 1st Class Glenn Aldrich, 35, of Houston, a 16-year Army veteran, after spending an hour recently greeting Iraqis on a foot patrol through a Baghdad neighborhood

Also, here is a cheery story from Juan Cole:

Security is still so bad in Iraq that guerrillas were able to strike a national guard base near the airport with mortar fire Monday. As a result the air traffic controllers at Baghdad airport turned back both of that day's Royal Jordanian Airlines flights. RJA is the only commercial carrier that flies into Baghdad, aside from Iraqi Airlines themselves. Ironically, the inability of the planes to land stranded Iraqi Minister of Defense Hazem Shaalan in Amman. When the Minister of Defense can't even fly to his own country because the area around the airport is in flames, you know that is a bad sign.

And then this from John Robb:

electricity on the national grid began plummeting from a peak of about 5,300 megawatts, or a million watts, in September. By November the number had fallen below the politically sensitive benchmark of4,500 megawatts, the level before American-led forces invaded Iraq, and bottomed out in mid-January at about 3,500 megawatts...  Alsammarae (the minister of electricity) said that, try as he might, he had not been able to stay above his rock-bottom goal of 4,000 megawatts as insurgents hit transmission lines and the fuel lines feeding the generating plants.

"Why should vote for this government when I can't see any of the basic services available?" said an angry Baghdad resident, Muhammed Ali.

Yep, things are going great.

Big Day on Willys Parkway

Today, when Condi Rice is confirmed as Secretary of State, my house becomes famous.

Once she is confirmed, Stephen Hadley becomes National Security Advisor Designate. And Stephen Hadley, born in Toledo, lived in my house for the first three years of of his life -- almost certainly in Gabe's room (this April, Gabe will also mark three years in that room).

I have to admit that I'm hoping Hadley goes out in a blaze of scandal -- otherwise, no one will really care.

Stephen Hadley was born in Toledo Hospital in 1947 and his family initially lived on Willys Parkway in West Toledo. The Hadleys relocated to Hempstead Road in Ottawa Hills, where he attended elementary school and middle school. Before Mr. Hadley began high school, the family moved to South Euclid in the Cleveland suburbs.

No Shame

James Wolcott finds that Dr. Dobson's organization isn't above manufacturing a few biblical truths to sell some books.

While roaming around on Dr. Dob's site, I came across this pecularity, a Post-Abortion Grandparents' Kit devoted to helping parents get over a daughter's abortion, which robs them of a future grandchild. "Your heart still aches for the grandchild you'll only hold in heaven." To ease the heartache, the kit includes a book titled I'll Hold You in Heaven. Every bereaved parent wants to know they'll see their child again. In I'll Hold You in Heaven, renowned Christian leader and pastor, Dr. Jack Hayford, presents not platitudes but solid biblical truth — the truth that babies lost to death wait for us in heaven."

Not hope, mind you, or thrilling speculation, but "the truth."

Admittedly my Biblical scholarship is on the thinnish side, but I don't recall any passages devoted to fetal eschatology. I wonder where they were unearthed. We were told in Catholic school that the souls of the unbaptized were warehoused in what H.L. Mencken called a "Limbus Infantum," but even then we knew this was something cooked up by church theologians in lieu of a real explanation to anything.

And I thought the money-changers in the Temple were bad.

I agree, with this post I am now beating a dead horse.

If He Walks Like a Bigot, and Talks Like a Bigot . . .

If I ever get round to putting up a list on link in the sidebar, Orcinus will be right at the top. It is the only blog I ever came across that I would characterize as indispensable. His post on the Dobson affair is typically thoughtful, well-argued and well-researched. He nails the issue: Dobson's bigotry :

What is happening here, though, is that for some people, "traditional values" are only about respect, fair play, and fundamental human decency for people who are just like themselves. To be fair, this is a "traditional value" of sorts as well, but over our nation's history, it has been responsible for many of our worst atrocities, from slavery to the genocide of Indians to the internment of Japanese Americans.

In this case, religious proscription of homosexuality (scriptural evidence for which is not, incidentally, nearly as abundant as those prohibitions regarding divorce) are being touted as the source of the "traditional values" under attack from the forces of tolerance. This is not terribly surprising. After all, the Scripture has in the past been cited as the source of such "traditional values" as slavery, lynching, and segregation, as well as laws against miscegenation.

(Be sure to read the whole post, there is a lot more good stuff there)

(most of Dobson's defenders are trying to make this about a cartoon character, when it is really about hate)

Neiwert's analysis dovetails with my previous post: that Dobson's position is unChristian, that Dobson knows this and that he does it anyway to keep his constituency. Self-righteous anger is addicting, and Dobson wants to keep his audience coming for more, giving him political clout.

When reading the last post, remember that in the NT, Jesus never mentions homosexuality, even though he grew just a few miles from a fair-sized Hellenistic city. Possibly he never go around to talking about it since he spent so much of his time telling his followers about love and forgiveness. Yes, Paul did condemn homosexuality, but last the name on the door says "Christian", and "Paulist", so I'm going to defer to the big guy on this one.

But Jesus did have a stern message for the callous:

41“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

"Neither do I Condemn Thee"

The Christian Right is a veritable Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade of hypocrisy. And Dr. James Dobson is one of the giant helium balloons leading the way.

"Does anybody here know SpongeBob?" Dr. James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, asked the guests Tuesday night at a black-tie dinner for members of Congress and political allies to celebrate the election results.

SpongeBob needed no introduction. In addition to his popularity among children, who watch his cartoon show, he has become a well-known camp figure among adult gay men, perhaps because he holds hands with his animated sidekick Patrick and likes to watch the imaginary television show "The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy."

Now, Dr. Dobson said, SpongeBob's creators had enlisted him in a "pro-homosexual video," in which he appeared alongside children's television colleagues like Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others. The makers of the video, he said, planned to mail it to thousands of elementary schools to promote a "tolerance pledge" that includes tolerance for differences of "sexual identity."

If you have listened to Dobson often, then you know that there is another "tolerance pledge" he has trouble with:

4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.

9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

The fact is, Dobson is a master of one the easiest ways to temporal power: give people something to be angry about, then keep them on a steady diet of self-righteous anger. Dobson isn't ignorant of the Bible, he just banks on the fact that his followers are.