Morrison on Blackwater

In an irrational and emotional piece in today's opinion pages, LAT columnist Patt Morrison attacks Blackwater for, among other things, soliciting work from the office of California's governator. She says she was "stopped cold" when she learned that contractors sometimes do work for governments that she always thought was done by police officers and citizen-soldiers.

It's just guard duty. There have always been privately employed guards. They free soldiers to fight wars and police to pursue and arrest criminals and enforce laws. Liberals are losing it over Blackwater.

LAT: Bush insane

In an editorial today, the LAT argues that the Bush administration should be offering asylum to more Iraqis, and that its failure to do so up to now is insane. The LAT closes with: "If Bush won't end this cynical, heartless and self-defeating U.S. policy of delay, Congress should." This is the LAT's interpretation of Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people."

Eugene Robinson on NewsHour

On tonight's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson offered his interpretation of Justice Clarence Thomas's new autobiography. Mostly by innuendo and insinuation, Robinson suggested, without saying it, that Thomas is a little off balance mentally, a little confused. This, in Robinson's view, explains why Thomas is such a poor fit on the Supreme Court and is such a disaster for blacks generally. But Robinson, too, has a history and his history makes him an inappropriate analyst for Clarence Thomas.

LAT does journalism

Today on page one, column one, the LAT prints a story by reporter Robyn Dixon about a white Zimbabwean farmer who is trying to exist in a country run by a totalitarian socialist dictator named Robert Mugabe. It's a compelling piece written by an obviously talented writer and it's enlightening in two ways. First, it demonstrates what the LAT could be if it would ween itself off publishing left-wing political propaganda and instead were to concentrate on being a first class journalistic enterprise dedicated to impartial enlightenment. Second, it shows what happens when a government strips people of their property rights. Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa, is bankrupt, its money worthless and its people desperate, all because of an English educated African socialist who became Zimbabwe's dictator. There's a lesson there for American socialist in the academy, journalism, environmentalism and politics who believe that they can improve on free market private enterprise capitalism.

Applebaum worries about America's image

Ann Applebaum writes today in the Washington Post expressing concern about other countries and other peoples not liking either Americans or America's government or both. And, she claims it matters because we may need other countries to help us in the event of another war and they may not help us if they don't like us. America isn't liked, she says, because of incompetence, especially in Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She says America isn't liked because people don't like losers.

Unlike most journalists and columnists, she admits that America had a coalition of the willing when it invaded Iraq. She says we couldn't gather such a coalition now.

It's necessary to make a lot of assumptions to go along with her conclusions. First, it must be assumed that America is a loser. Plenty of people in America would take issue with that. Harry Reid would agree but many people would not. America has lost only one war, the war in Vietnam, and isn't losing in Iraq or Afghanistan, despite what Reid might say and has said. Reid is simply wrong.

Then it must be assumed that America is incompetent. This is easier to argue. Mistakes have been made in Iraq, plenty of them. Bush's biggest mistake was in trusting certain generals and a defense secretary too long. But he was smart enough to change course. If you fix your own mistakes are you still incompetent? If you succeed in Iraq, are you still incompetent? Presumably, the jury is still out on the question of competence.

Further, it must be assumed that Applebaum is right in saying that other countries wont help you if they don't like you. But don't other countries do what is in their own interests? Would any country join a losing battle because it liked the losing country, even if it knew it was going to get its butt kicked? Not likely. So Applebaum's assumption is highly doubtful.

Finally, it must be assumed that being liked matters, whatever the reason. The question seems moot because being liked or not liked isn't anything America can control. It shouldn't try.

America, in its history, has done more for the other countries of the world than any other country that ever existed. (World Wars I and II are sufficient proof of that, not to mention the Cold War.) If people still dislike us in spite of that then that is proof of the assertion in the previous paragraph.

Waxman v Blackwater

On the front page of today's LAT, reporter Peter Spiegel writes that investigators working for Congressman Henry Waxman believe that Blackwater has misbehaved in Iraq, threatening or killing Iraqis without justification and then paying off them or their families in order to avoid difficulties with the Iraqi government. The reporter suggests that Waxman's investigators found that the State Department serves as Blackwater's political protector in Iraq.

In a separate LAT article, reporter Alexandra Zavis writes that an Iraqi investigation concluded that Blackwater guards fired without provocation in the September 16th shoot-out that resulted in 11 Iraqi deaths following the explosion of a roadside bomb. But a roadside bomb is a provocation isn't it?

Who are Waxman's investigators and how did they get involved in investigating Blackwater? Isn't that a job for the FBI or the GAO? Who pays Waxman's investigators? Does each congressional committee chairman have a staff of investigators? Isn't the GAO Congress's investigative staff?

LAT equates Petraeus, Swift boat ads

In an editorial today, the LAT claims that Moveon.org's "General Betray Us" ad was no worse than the Swift boat ads during the 2004 presidential election campaign. Here are some differences:

The "General Betray Us" ad denigrated a general, a commander of 160,000 troops fighting a war in a foreign country. The general served in the military for many years, is highly respected and is non-political. And he came home from Iraq to give a Democratic controlled Congress a report they had demanded. No one has provided a fact-based reason why he should not have been received and heard respectfully.

The Swift boat ads concerned a junior officer who served in the Navy only a few months and then denigrated his own service. Many years later, he touted that service in a speech at a political convention with a ridiculous salute and a "reporting for duty" remark. The facts concerning his service are disputed but some aspects are highly suspicious. For example, he received three Purple Heart medals for injuries that occurred in a short time-frame but he was never hospitalized for any of these injuries. This raises questions about the severity of the injuries and the justification for the Purple Heart awards. These three Purple Heart medals got him home early after serving only a minor part of his planned tour of duty in Vietnam. It was hardly a basis for a presidential campaign.