So Mark Steyn was wrong and Osama is still alive: but why make a come back only to deliver such an easily ridiculed message? (hopefully it's the only surprise Al Qaeda will spring this election season).

UNscam: a true story

It's been a long time since I updated concerning the UN Oil for Fraud scandal, so this is not a bad point to take notice of, from a Wall Street Journal editorial:


'Saddam Hussein exploited the program to run the largest bribery scheme in the history of the world.

Yes, we mean that literally'

...

And for the doubters:

'It can't be stressed enough that both the Duelfer and Volcker investigations confirm that this global web of corruption is no mere allegation trumped up by Ahmed Chalabi and "neoconservatives," '

All of which contrasts rather starkly with the rather non-story about the missing explosives which our biased national broadcaster considered fit for their frontpage for several Kerry-pandering days.

Andrew Sullivan: Wrong about the War on Terror, wrong about Iraq, Bush, and gay marriage, and now... wrong about Hitchens endorsing Kerry. Actually, they still disagree, even about this, as Hitch makes clear in the Nation.

The Beatification of William:

Once again I am reminded of the BBC's boundless appetite for romanticising the Democratic challenge to President Bush. There's no doubt it takes two to tango, but the BBC is near contravening obscenity laws in the way it holds aloft the form of Clinton for the world to admire.

Adam Brookes writes that 'He makes good television and he generates copy.' as though that were a judgement beyond the BBC's control. I actually think that if there ever was an instance of an empty suit, Clinton might have been it.

Meanwhile they are running out of respectful terms for Kerry. This time they resort to 'lugubrious' to express the absence of personality in the stiff from Massachusetts.

Kerry, says Brookes, wants to show that he can bring the good times back:

'It was on Bill Clinton's watch, say the Democrats, that America was last in the black.'

Meanwhile Brookes has already coined his own view of the nineties- the 'roaring 90's'- which lends Kerry some extra credibility, and he doesn't take a moment to explain that what Clinton's 'watch' really meant was a passive if not prostrate (ahem) attitude to a growing terrorist threat. Oh well.

Oh well, all that remains is to insult the Repuglicans with some trademark BBC prejudice:

'The Republican Party - many of whose members retain a boundless loathing for Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary - put out a well-crafted sneer as Mr Clinton took to the stump.'

The BBC, you see, constructs articles, and indeed its whole coverage, with a scrupulous attention to fairness; while the Repugnicants spend all their time crafting their slime and sneer campaigns. I hope that's clear to all. Any questions?

Coming Through Loud and Clear

Charles Moore, often the dealer of ambiguous hands, comes up trumps in this article about the upcoming election:

'So who gains if Bush loses? The Labour Left, of course, and the political power of the European Union, the Guardian readers who have been writing magnificently counterproductive anti-Bush letters to the voters of Clark County, Ohio, and every twerp who says with a trembling lip that Mr Bush and Mr Blair have "blood on their hands"; not to mention every corrupt, undemocratic, "pragmatic" government in the Middle East that longs for a return to stasis. '

There's only one group he leaves out amidst some far more serious winners than those quoted above: the BBC. Marc at USS Neverdock has some words to say about them (some of them misspelt, but we all make mistakes- and mine are usually bigger than that!).

On the subject of Charles Moore and the BBC, I took this letter on Steyn's website as delivering a backswipe at the policies pursued by Moore during his time as Telegraph editor. Says George Warburton:

'RESTORE THE TELEGRAPH
My father read the Telegraph for most of his life. I started to read parts of it when I was about 13 years old, having been weened on The Childrens' Newspaper. Since the age of 20 I have read all of it every day (slight exaggeration).

I have enjoyed reading your column and was disgusted that your latest effort was censored. The DT was in the wrong hands for a number years, being at times an apologist for the paedophile tendency of the Roman church (and an enemy of the BBC for that reason, when there were so many other reasons). I had hoped that a change of ownership would bring a change of editorial control and a restoration of the values of the past but it has yet to happen. I live in hope.'


Interesting. I might even agree.

Meanwhile, Steyn himself, who has never been known for self-contradiction or pulling punches, is feeling the need to spell things out again:

'The war against the Islamists and the flu-shot business are really opposite sides of the same coin. I want Bush to win on Election Day because he's committed to this war and, as the novelist and Internet maestro Roger L. Simon says, "the more committed we are to it, the shorter it will be.'' The longer it gets, the harder it will be, because it's a race against time, against lengthening demographic, economic and geopolitical odds. By "demographic," I mean the Muslim world's high birth rate, which by mid-century will give tiny Yemen a higher population than vast empty Russia. By "economic," I mean the perfect storm the Europeans will face within this decade, because their lavish welfare states are unsustainable on their shriveled post-Christian birth rates. By "geopolitical," I mean that, if you think the United Nations and other international organizations are antipathetic to America now, wait a few years and see what kind of support you get from a semi-Islamified Europe.'