What, 32 Page Agreement?

Much has been made of the 32 page debate rules agreed to by both the Bush and Kerry campaigns. One provision outlines the placement and use of “timing lights” that indicate to the candidates and the audience when a speaker’s time has expired. Despite the agreement, an angry exchange erupted between the Kerry camp and the Commission on Presidential Debates over their placement.

An angry exchange between representatives of the Kerry campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates took place just hours before the candidates were to meet at the University of Miami for the first of three debates, according to several officials familiar with the meeting.

Kerry’s team threatened to remove the lights when they visit the debate site with the candidate later in the day. “We’ll do what we have to,” Kerry strategist Tad Devine said after his meeting with the commission. Later, after Kerry had toured the debate stage and departed the building, the lights were still in place.

What a bunch of children. Did they not read the signed agreement which reads in part: [timing lights] “shall be placed such that they are visible to the debate audiences and television viewers.”

At least someone within the Kerry camp realizes the their candidate is a bloviating gasbag, who will in all likelyhood, create more flashing red signal lights than the Miami PD during a crack house raid.

UPDATE: Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post offers his advice to Kerry – CHEAT

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This Just In….

Karl Rove’s marching orders….

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Kerry’s Gloves Squeak?

Well… I guess they do.

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Guantanamo Bay? – Let’em rot

“Senior Talaban commander reportedly killed.”

And a Gitmo detainee, AFTER he was released!

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Afghan security forces killed a senior Taliban commander and two of his comrades in a raid in southern Afghanistan, an official said Sunday.

Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, reportedly a former inmate at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, died in a gunbattle Saturday night in Pishi, a village in the southern province of Uruzgan, said Jan Mohammed Khan, governor of Uruzgan.

That’s one less the bleeding hearts won’t be whinning about.

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Newsweek Leads With “It’s Worse Than You Think”

All things considered, the latest Newsweek cover trumpeting “It’s Worse Than You Think,” in describing Iraq, isn’t a major surprise. Page A1 of every major daily in the country echos the same theme. “quagmire,” “disaster,” or “grotesque mistake” as Nancy Pelosi would say.

It’s funny, or sad dependent on your viewpoint, that it takes a reasonably small town newspaper to print a good news story. The Kansas City Star editorial board recently met with five Iraqi journalists participating in a State Department tour of the US. E. Thomas McClanahan asked what they thought of Western media coverage of Iraq and whether it accurately reflected reality as they saw it.

The response was amusing in a way. Perhaps out of tact, our visitors (they asked that we not use their names) said they hadn’t seen much U.S. coverage. Most couldn’t speak English. But coverage by the Arab media, they said through translators, presented a distorted picture.

One member of the group, the only woman, said the pessimistic tone of Arab coverage was making things worse by encouraging terrorists and demoralizing those who supported democracy.

Another journalist, a man in a dark suit, said the insurgents “don’t represent the Iraqi people.”

Arab reporters, said a third, “try to give the impression that it’s hopeless. If you watch the satellite channels from Arab countries you would imagine there’s no rebuilding going on.”

Funny, but that’s the same impression you get from the Western media, which focuses almost exclusively on the violence. True, the security situation is the most pivotal aspect of the Iraq story. But focusing only on violence omits a great deal.

“Same impression” indeed. Why it’s almost like the deeper Kerry sinks in the polls, the media prints more bad news Iraq stories. How – can – that – be?

UPDATE: Here is a peek at the Associated Press’s Standard Operating Manual.

H/T Chrenkoff, who has posted his latest “Good news from Iraq, Part 11“

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Don’t Let Kerry Hear You Say That!

Democratic Senate candidate Barack Obama isn’t acting like a “girlie man.”

U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama suggested Friday that the United States one day might have to launch surgical missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of nuclear bombs. . . .

Obama said that violent Islamic extremists are a vastly different brand of foe than was the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they must be treated differently.

“With the Soviet Union, you did get the sense that they were operating on a model that we could comprehend in terms of, they don’t want to be blown up, we don’t want to be blown up, so you do game theory and calculate ways to contain,” Obama said. “I think there are certain elements within the Islamic world right now that don’t make those same calculations.”

Seems Obama is one Democrat that actually understands what WW4 is about. Think he will give clueless a call to offer some much needed advise?

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I Was Thinking That!

Hardly a day passes without reading of another bombing in Iraq. In the recent past the areas being hit are locations where recruitment of Iraqi police and army is occuring. In a place Kerry surrogates are using the “quagmire” label, while the candidate is creating his own, isn’t it odd the terrorists have found such a target rich enviroment? If Kerry believes the Allawi speech before Congress was a contradiction to reality, what reality is it that drives hundreds of Iraqi’s to line up each day to serve their country. Certainly some are in search of food for the table and a job to provide the means to that end. But wouldn’t it be safer for an Iraqi to join the ranks of hostage brokers, rather than make themselves, a) A stationary target outside a recruitment center, and b) join the army or Iraqi police force and become a long term target?

Cori Dauber @ Ranting Profs via a WaPo article by General Petraeus who is in charge of training Iraqi security forces provides some of the answers and Cori correctly asks: “Where’s the press?“

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