For listeners of Pundit Review Radio, that name should sound familiar…

USO honors servicemembers for heroism
by Army Sgt. Sara Wood

The United Service Organizations celebrated its 65th anniversary Sept. 28 and honored troops from each branch of the military for heroism.

“We are thankful that we are defended by men and women of character and courage, and we are grateful to all the USO volunteers to work to entertain them,” President George W. Bush said in a video message. “They lift their spirits and express the gratitude and support of the American people.”

The five servicemembers who received USO Servicemember of the Year awards at the gala represent the highest ideals of courage and patriotism, and have demonstrated extraordinary loyalty, bravery and heroism…

Selected from the Army was Leigh Ann Hester, who Matt from Blackfive profiled in a recent edition of Someone You Should Know. According to this story,

Army Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester of the Kentucky National Guard. Sergeant Hester served as a team leader with the 617th Military Police Company at Camp Liberty, Iraq. On March 20, 2005, Sergeant Hester was in one of three escort vehicles providing security for a convoy when the convoy was ambushed by insurgents.

Despite being outnumbered five to one and coming under heavy fire, Sergeant Hester led her soldiers on a counterattack, maneuvering her team into a flanking position and clearing trenches occupied by the insurgents. She is the first woman since World War II to receive the Silver Star for combat action.

To listen to the amazing story of Leigh Ann Hester and her fellow soldiers from Raven 42, here is the link to their edition of Someone You Should Know. Her story is also told in Matt’s GREAT news book, Blog of War: Frontlline Dispatches from Iraq and Afghanistan

Vasko Kohlmayer of FrontPageMagazine.com, one of the best web sites on the Internet has this salient piece which makes a very convincing case for why we need to have aggressive interrogation techniques for enemy terror combatants most notably the technique known as “Waterboarding.”

He quotes John McCain:

Discussing his recent compromise with the White House on detention and interrogation of captured terrorists, John McCain said on the Today show that �??there will be no such thing as waterboarding�?�You will never see that again. We stood up and said that cannot be done.�??

With all due respect to liberal Republicans such as McCain and Powell, they are exceedingly wrong on this issue. Aside from McCain’s liberal positions on just about every issue (McCain-Feingold, opposition to the Bush Tax Cuts, pro-global warming, McCain-Kennedy “scamnesty,” heading the “Gang of 14,” etc…)I also believe that his position on this issue (to extend Geneva Conventions/Article 3 to enemy combatant-terrorists and oppose agressive interrogation techiniques which could be construed as “inhumane,” “degrading,” or “Physically uncomfortable” reveals why he is not ready for “prime time” as Commander and Chief. Waterboarding has been a vital tool which has played a major role in our ability to gather vital terror intel which has thwarted numerous terror attacks which could have killed tens of thousands of innocent Americans. For anybody who knows what “waterboarding” entails and who continues to oppose it, in my mind, makes that person inelligible to be president of the United States of America in this day and age.

Waterboarding, unlike sleep deprivation or exposure to cold (air-conditioning):

…is fleeting in duration with the actual discomfort lasting seldom more than a couple of minutes. And since a man can be safely deprived of oxygen for at least twice as long, there is almost no risk of long-term harm. The possibility of injury is further reduced by the fact that the procedure calls for no direct physical contact between the subject and his interrogators. Not even as much as pushing or chest slapping is required at any time, making waterboarding one of the safest and least confrontational among interrogation methods. Involving the lowest risk of long-term harm and the least amount of cumulative discomfort, it is also the most humane. Most importantly, it is the most effective.

I am glad that the House passed the president’s Terror Detainee Act enabling interrogators to utilize agressive interrogation techniques such as Waterboarding if necessary to elicit valuble terror related intelligence (often actionable) to thwart future attacks. It has been invaluable in the past. It is good to see that the president and other Republicans in the Congress have stood strong on this issue.

Yet another reminder why time after time regardless of the poll, Americans trust Republicans on national security to the “cut and run” appeasement oriented liberal Democrats.

Entire article here

Henry Mark Holzer of FrontPageMagazine.com has this piece today arguing for the government to indict the Times. I agree it is long overdue. “Freedom of the Press” has limitations as the author clearly explains.

The press is not exempt from laws that apply to everyone else. The press is not exempt from laws protecting our national security. The New York Times is not exempt from the Espionage Act, as we shall see in a moment.

With regard to the Times the author cites Title 18, Section 793 of the United States Code (which)

provides that �??(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of . . . any document . . . or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates . . . the same to any person not entitled to receive it . . . (f) . . . [s]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (g) If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions of this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.�?� (Section 794 is inapplicable. It deals with �??gathering or delivering defense information to aid [a] foreign government.�?�)

This definately applies to the NY Times. Indict!!!!!!!!!!!!!

entire article here.

When: Sunday evening, 7-10pm EST
Where: Streaming Live on Boston’s Talk Station WRKO
Contact: Toll free, 877-469-4322

In the 7pm hour we will be discussing the Massachusetts governor’s race with the two leading political blogs covering state politics. From the left side of the aisle, David Kravitz, co-founder of Blue Mass Group; and from right, Matt Margolis, co-founder of Hub Politics.

Both of these sites were profiled in the Boston Globe as the campaign season heated up a few months ago. The Blue Mass Group proifile is here and Hub Politics is here.

I am really looking forward to this discussion, as I am a frequent reader of both sites, which do an excellent job covering the campaign from their differing perspectives.

At 8pm, the first guest we ever had on WRKO, back when we were on a one night, make or break try out. Mr. James Taranto, of the Wall Street Journal editorial board and writer of the popular Best of the Web column on OpinionJournal.com. Much has changed for us since then, going from one hour to three, and hopefullly, improving as on air talkers.:)

At 9pm, Matt Burden, author of the incredible new book Blog of War: Front line dispatches from Iraq and Afghanistan. Matt is also the proprietor of the #1 milblog Blackfive. Each week Matt joins us for our weekly collaboration bringing his series, Someone Your Should Know, to the radio. These portraits tell the inspirational, true stories of the men and women fighting for us around the world.

What is Pundit Review Radio?

Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week Kevin and Gregg give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Hailed as �??Groundbreaking�?� by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 7-10pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston�??s Talk Leader.

Three cheers for MSNBC. Yes, that’s right, I said three cheers for MSNBC, the home of Matthews, Tucker, Imus and Olberman.

Someone over there has decided that the American people might find satisfaction watching stories of the outstanding courage, bravery and valour of the men and women in our armed services.

John Noonan at the outstanding milblog Op-For has the news,

Faces of Courage

MSNBC has decided to run a series of 60 second vignettes honoring America’s military heroes, appropriately titled Faces of Courage. The first bit, dedicated to Medal of Honor recipient Paul Ray Smith, will be shown on MSNBC in the coming days.

Op-For also has the first installment right here.

After watching this, a few thoughts came to mind. First, was that so damn hard? Where has the MSM been all these YEARS!

Second, thank you to Matt Burden for starting Someone You Should Know on Blackfive several years ago. And a double thanks to Matt for sacrificing time out of his busy life, from his work and familiy commitments to bring this inspiring series to Pundit Review Radio every Sunday evening at 9pm EST.

John at Op-For and Matt from Blackfive are urging readers to send a word of thanks for the suits at MSNBC who have made this decision. Let them know we appreciate it by emailing them at heroes@msnbc.com.

A sobering email from our friend Michael Yon that is worth posting in its entirety.

Greetings:

Pajamas Media recently reported that there are only 9 embedded reporters in Iraq. Many are blaming this on the media, and while I can never be called an apologist for mainstream media, I can say with certainty that the United States military is censoring.

It remains unclear if this is a general policy, though there are recent inquiries to the office of the Secretary of Defense. I await response. Or, perhaps, the censorship is merely the policy of LTC Barry Johnson who is responsible for operations involving embeds. Barry Johnson is said to be the most quoted man in Iraq . I’ve learned to trust nothing he says. I do know for a fact that Johnson has been untruthful with the media. If Johnson calls me on this, I’ll take the time to prove it.

While sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers and friends, fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military apparently is preventing journalists from telling the story. They attempt to deflect accusations of censorship by allowing in just enough reporters to appear transparent.

I’ll post updates on the website as the situation unfolds.

Meanwhile, we have several new dispatches on the site from Walt Gaya who traveled to Iraq. Gaya earned two Purple Hearts last year, but LTC Barry Johnson denied his request for an embed despite having direct invitations from the 4th Infantry Division and from Brigadier General Dana Pittard. Walt Gaya entered Iraq without US forces.

My final dispatch from Afghanistan, The Perfect Evil was originally published on National Review Online, picked up by CBS and the Council for Foreign Relations. Part One of the three-part series is posted on the site, with extensive supporting material. At this critical time in Afghanistan it�??s important to keep this mission on the front page because the window for change is closing fast.

Most people know this site runs entirely on support from readers, and sales of books and photos. Accordingly, reader patronage is greatly appreciated and essential. I’ll keep the dispatches coming: Good, bad and ugly.

Very Respectfully,
Michael

Today, Dean Esmay has a strong post about conservatives who are making the claim that Islamic countries can never become democricies. He is calling out Michelle Malkin in particular.

Does the Conscience of a Conservative Still Exist?

This very statement–that Islam is incompatible with democracy–is why I fight so hard with many of my friends on the Right: accepting that statement means we have to declare war on the entire Muslim world if we’re to hope for human freedom to survive.

To me it would be akin to, in World War II, declaring ourselves at war with “Germanic People,” “Latin People,” and “Southeast Asians.” Not Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy and Tojo’s Japan. No, we would have declared that we were at war with anyone of Germanic or Latin descent, and anyone who happened to be short, yellow, and slant-eyed (to put it rudely and crassly).

There are some on the Right who believe this. But I think they’re badly hurting our efforts. I think such people on the Right are hurting the war effort and not helping it.

This is a very similar arguement to the one we recently discussed on the radio show between Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer,

Peters’ Assumption #1: the Islam of moderate Muslims is the genuine Islam, and all they need to do is “recapture” their faith. In fact it is not for Peters or any other non-Muslim to say what genuine Islam consists of, and there is no Pope of Islam to rule on what is Islamic orthodoxy and what isn’t. What we can do is look at the teachings of the various sects and schools of law — which I have done, and have found that all mainstream Sunni and Shi’ite sects and madhahib (schools of jurisprudence) teach that it is the responsibility of the umma to subjugate unbelievers under the rule of Sharia.

and Ralph Peters,

But a rotten core of American extremists is out to make it harder for them.

The most repugnant trend in the American shouting match that passes for a debate on the struggle with Islamist terrorism isn’t the irresponsible nonsense on the left - destructive though that is. The really ugly “domestic insurgency” is among right-wing extremists bent on discrediting honorable conservatism.

How? By insisting that Islam can never reform, that the violent conquest and subjugation of unbelievers is the faith’s primary agenda - and, when you read between the lines, that all Muslims are evil and subhuman.

I sympathize and understand with those who think Islam is simply incompatible with democracy. Just look around. When Islamic radicals slaughter innocents in the name of Allah, there is hardly a word of condemnation. When someone draws a cartoon of Mohammed or the Pope utters a benign statement of advancing religion through dialogue, the Muslim �??street�?� leaps into action, has rallies in their capitals around the world and sets out to intimidate those who even question them.

However, as Dean points out, look at Afghanistan. Listen to what Harmid Karzi said this week. Wanting freedom and autonomy over one�??s live is a basic human desire. Democracy, maybe not as we know it, can work in Iraq, and elsewhere. I believe that. Given my relentless defense of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, count me in with Ralph, and Dean. Your thoughts?

As for that leaked, classified NIE report, the Dems and the NY Times have swung and missed yet again. And how about the hypocrisy of our own Ted Kennedy, from our friends at Powerline,

Ted Kennedy weighed in with the most surreal attack:

“The American people deserve the full story, not those parts of it that the Bush administration selects,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

That would be hilarious, if it were not so contemptible. When Democrats in the bureaucracy illegally leaked misleading portions of the NIE’s “key judgments” in hopes of influencing the election, that was fine with Kennedy. But when the administration declassified the entire “judgments” section so that the American people can read it all and judge for themselves, now Kennedy complains that the voters aren’t getting “the full story.” Absolutely outrageous, but typical of the Democrats’ ever more hysterical campaign.

Captain Ed has a great post on the real news in the NIE,

As the NIE concludes, a victory in Iraq would seriously damage the radical Islamist movement, perhaps even mortally. We have no chance to strike a blow against them by retreating. Democrats have badly misrepresented this report and offer the one solution guaranteed to result in making the problem worse — as the NIE also concludes.

President Bush and Afghanistan’s Harmid Karzi had a press conference yesterday and talked about the terrorist threat in relation to the NIE. Bush went off on the politically motivated leak of the report and the obvious media spin designed to misrepresent the news.It is well worth watching.

More bad news for the cut and run crowd. A letter from the President of Iraq to the American people,

…In order to rid Iraq of the constant threat of violence, we still need your help. As long as we are determent to outlast and outsmart our enemy, we shall reach our common goals.

Iraq is slowly gaining the ability to fight this war with its own soldiers, evidenced recently by the relinquishing of complete control of coalition forces to the Iraqi government. The coalition now employs more soldiers from Iraq than any other nation. Slowly but surely, Iraq will be able to protect itself on its own.

The stakes of Iraq are enormous, world-shifting even. This is why our country should be a point of concern for every democratic country of the world. I can assure you that the immediate departure of coalition forces would only unleash tensions between different communities, the prospect of a safe Iraq wou ld be completely lost, and the previous descriptions of a civil war would seem insufficient and tame compared to the bloodshed of an Iraq that loses its international support.

And although I cannot promise when or how the American presence will completely end in Iraq, I can promise that American soldiers do not fight in vain. We in Iraq recognize that an incredible amount of American resources have been offered to us. And we understand that many Americans are frustrated with the course of the war, and we understand that doubt naturally coincides with difficulty. I realize that many Americans were apprehensive about the decision to go to war. But I ask that you put this behind you in favor of supporting a democratic and free Iraq, and a future for Iraqis that excludes the threat of violence and extremism. I ask that you consider what the terms of failure in Iraq would actually look like, and what they would mean for Iraq, the United States and the international community.

I would venture to say that the interest of Iraq and the United States are one in this matter. The United States carries a heavy responsibility in helping us. As complicated as the relationship may be, America and Iraq are now siblings in the world.

Take a few minutes to read the whole letter.

from James Taranto’s Best of the Web,

Special note: James Taranto will be our guest Sunday evening in the 8pm EST hour on Pundit Review Radio.

Something odd is afoot in America’s elite media–increasingly, journalists are unabashed about admitting their liberal bias. Another example is Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, who talked to radio host Hugh Hewitt yesterday:

Hewitt: What [the Washington Post's Thomas] Edsall admitted, which was so damning, is that the people who drive the news are the reporters, and the reporters are, by 15-25 to 1 leftists.

Alter: OK. All right. Now I’m not sure that ratio is wrong. I mean, I don’t think anybody has a good study of it, but–

Hewitt: But it feels right.

Alter: –it’s overwhelmingly, the question, though, the threshold question that you have to look at is how much does that affect their coverage? Now I think some. I think liberals who say well, that doesn’t affect their coverage at all are wrong. Obviously, people’s worldviews will affect their coverage to a certain extent.

And then there is this, also from Taranto, The Pope is Catholic, the Media is Liberal

Back in June, Linda Greenhouse, Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times, gave a politically charged speech at the Radcliffe Institute. It was standard liberal baby-boomer sanctimony, as we noted in July:

Linda Greenhouse ‘68 went to a Simon and Garfunkel concert soon after the war in Iraq began, and in the middle of the concert she had a crying jag. . . . “Thinking back to my college days in those troubled and tumultuous late 1960s, there were many things that divided my generation. . . . [Yet] we were absolutely united in one conviction: the belief that in future decades, if the world lasted that long, when our turn came to run the country, we wouldn’t make the same mistakes. . . . I cried that night . . . out of the realization that my faith had been misplaced. . . . We were the problem.”

For some reason this speech is getting attention again now, notably a segment on NPR’s “All Things Considered” yesterday titled “Critics Question Reporter’s Airing of Personal Views.” It’s what you’d expect, too, but this passage is telling:

Jack Nelson, former Washington bureau chief for The Los Angeles Times, blanches at hearing of Greenhouse’s remarks, but agrees with her tough critique of the White House.

“If I was the Washington bureau chief and she was my Supreme Court reporter, I might have to answer to the editors in L.A. for that,” Nelson says.

Law creates searchable database of federal contracts, grants

The federal government will establish an easily searchable Internet database of contracts and grants as a result of legislation passed by Congress.

The idea, pushed by both liberal and conservative groups, is to bring more transparency to how the government is spending taxpayers’ money. The federal government awarded more than $380 billion in contracts last year and gave away another $300 billion in grants.

The government’s current contracting database is hard to use and often contains inaccurate or incomplete information. The Office of Management and Budget promised to fix the data problems by January 2008, when the new search engine is scheduled to be launched.

The text of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) is available at thomas.loc.gov

Mary Katherine Ham was there,

My favorite part. He stood up, clapped his hands together and said, “You’re dismissed,” with a big smile. He breezed out of the room, waved to various sections, head-nodded in general directions, and thanked the crowd, but only Ace got the coveted handshake. The end seat served him well. After that, we had a briefing with Clay Johnson of OMB about the nitty-gritty of implementing the bill. I was encouraged to see that there are deadlines in place for making it happen and that OMB is aggressively seeking blogger and public input on what the new site should do.

The whole thing was a thrill for me, a great recognition of what blogging can do, and a move toward making government more transparent and accountable to the public. All around, a very good day.

From Senator Bill Frist,

This morning President Bush will sign into law the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, legislation authored by Senators Coburn and Obama of which I’m a proud co-sponsor. This law creates a single, easily searchable database capable of tracking approximately $1 trillion in federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and loans … a veritable Google for pork.

As I said when this legislation passed the Senate, this law represents a triumph for transparency in government, for fiscal discipline, and for the bipartisan citizen journalism of the blogosphere.

To learn more about Porkbusters, click here.